The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure

PRAISE FOR
THE FEMINIST PORN BOOK

“In terms both jarring and harrowing, women’s bodies became the terrain on which the 2012 election was fought. That the choices, experiences, and consequences of women’s sexual lives became fodder for such poorly informed national ‘conversations’ is evidence of the pressing need for thoughtful, sex-positive scholarship which centers on women’s sexual agency.
The Feminist Porn Book
is just such a contribution, and I predict this volume is going to find its way onto the bedside tables of several generations of American women. It brings together academics, activists, and porn entrepreneurs who have a startling array of interactions with pornography as an experience, a business, and a field of inquiry. These essays are straightforward and informative in ways that are unfortunately rare in the multidecade feminist struggle over porn. It’s also fun and sometimes a bit naughty to read. The authors do not assume that the porn industry as it exists is the one essential and only possible incarnation of porn. Instead, they assume that when feminists engage, intervene in, produce, and study pornography, they can radically alter its formations and meanings. At the core of the book is the question: Can porn coexist with the principles of feminism? No matter how one ultimately adjudicates this question,
The Feminist Porn Book
leaves no doubt about the inherent value in the inquiry itself.”

—Melissa Harris-Perry, host of MSNBC’s
Melissa Harris-Perry

“This thrilling anthology brings together scholars, producers, and fans of feminist pornography to define an emerging movement of gender and sexual visionaries, working at the radically inclusive and egalitarian edges of sexual representation. The authors explore an ever-widening range of body types, and a proliferating variety of images, sensations, and feelings. They examine the conditions of production as well as the politics of representation. They show us the new feminist porn as deep play—challenging, exciting, and important.”

—Lisa Duggan, professor of American studies and gender
and sexuality studies, Department of Social and
Cultural Analysis, New York University

“
The Feminist Porn Book
is a readable and smart must-have for any classroom dealing with sexual representations.”

—Chuck Kleinhans, co-editor of
JUMP CUT:
a review of contemporary media

“
The Feminist Porn Book
finally brings the voices of porn stars and directors into the room so they can speak for themselves. Part academic inquiry, part porn star tell-all, part comprehensive history of the growing influence of women in explicit cinema,
The Feminist Porn Book
is a brainy and fierce antidote to simplistic antiporn arguments, a love letter to feminists who seize the means of pornographic production and the academics who study them.”

—Carol Queen, founding director of the Center for Sex and Culture,
and author of
Real LiveNude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture

“To have writings from so many of the most important creators in feminist porn in one anthology is wonderful. It captures the past, present, and future pioneering of this important film genre.”

—Shine Louise Houston, director and CEO
of Pink and White Productions

“This impressive volume of essays shows that thirty years after the feminist sex wars first erupted, porn is still a hot topic for the women’s movement, and for the scholarly study of gender and sexuality.
The Feminist Porn Book
brings together a potent mix of perspectives from academics, activists, and sex industry workers, while addressing dis/ability, transness, and race/ethnicity.”

—Susan Stryker, director of the Institute for
LGBT Studies, University of Arizona

“Eloquent, smart, passionate, and engaging—each page of
The Feminist Porn Book
offers a timely reminder of the continued importance of feminist interventions into the politics and production of pornography.”

—Carol Stabile, director of the Center for the
Study of Women in Society, University of Oregon

“In this breakthrough collection, scholars, artists, and producers from across a spectrum of identities serve up profound new insights on making, consuming, and studying porn. This book advances my understanding of how porn works, when it doesn’t, and why it matters. The short essay format makes this book ideal for teaching, but it’s essential reading for anyone insterested in sexual politics or contemporary culture.”

—Richard Fung, video artist and professor,
Ontario College of Art and Design

The

FEMINIST

PORN

BOOK

THE POLITICS OF PRODUCING PLEASURE

Edited by

TRISTAN TAORMINO, CELINE PARREÑAS SHIMIZU,
CONSTANCE PENLEY, AND MIREILLE MILLER-YOUNG

Published in 2013 by the Feminist Press

at the City University of New York

The Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406

New York, NY 10016

feministpress.org

Introduction copyright © 2012 by Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young

Selection and compilation copyright © 2012 by Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young

Individual copyrights retained by contributors.

All rights reserved.

A version of “Out of Line: The Sexy Femmegimp Politics of Flaunting It!” copyright 2010 by Loree Erickson first appeared in
Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader,
3rd Ed., eds. Mindy Stombler et al. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010) 135–40.

No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First printing February 2013

Cover design by Herb Thornby,
herbthornby.com

Text design by Drew Stevens

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The feminist porn book : the politics of producing pleasure / edited by Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-55861-819-0

1. Pornography—Political aspects. 2. Feminism. 3. Women—Sexual behavior. 4. Sexual freedom. I. Taormino, Tristan, 1971–

HQ471.F45 2013

306.7—dc23

2012043903

Contents

Introduction: The Politics of Producing Pleasure

Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Mireille Miller-Young, and Tristan Taormino

PART I. MAKING PORN, DEBATING PORN

Porn Wars

Betty Dodson

The Birth of the Blue Movie Critic

Susie Bright

Emotional Truths and Thrilling Slide Shows: The Resurgence of Antiporn Feminism

Clarissa Smith and Feona Attwood

“What’s a Nice Girl Like You . . . ”

Candida Royalle

My Decadent Decade: Ten Years of Making and Debating Porn for Women

Ms. Naughty

From Text to Context: Feminist Porn and the Making of a Market

Lynn Comella

PART II. WATCHING AND BEING WATCHED

A Question of Feminism

Sinnamon Love

Interventions: The Deviant and Defiant Art of Black Women Porn Directors

Mireille Miller-Young

Fucking Feminism

Dylan Ryan

Queer Feminist Pigs: A Spectator’s Manifesta

Jane Ward

“Every time we fuck, we win”: The Public Sphere of Queer, Feminist, and Lesbian Porn as a (Safe) Space for Sexual Empowerment

Ingrid Ryberg

Where The Trans Women Aren’t: The Slow Inclusion of Trans Women in Feminist and Queer Porn

Tobi Hill-Meyer

Imag(in)ing Possibilities: The Psychotherapeutic Potential of Queer Pornography

Keiko Lane

PART III. DOING IT IN SCHOOL

“A Feminist Teaching Pornography? That’s Like Scopes Teaching Evolution!”