Bringing Love to the classroom...

Being in the porn industry for about fourteen years plus, as we learned in her special guest lecture, Sinnamon Love has really done it all...

From personal interviews, Professor Miller-Young reports that:

"Sinnamon Love had been attending nursing school while raising two children as a single mother when she started performing in adult films. She was behind on her bills even though she was working full time at a children's clothing store. Love was stressed that she spent most of her day between work and school and did not have enough time with her children."

(Miller-Young 33)

As Love put it, welfare was not an option for her. She was determined to support herself and her family on her own. And due to the limited opportunities and flexibility in the workplace offered to single mothers, pornography was the best option; "the often inflexible and demanding nature of conventional work that motivates entry into pornography. Porn is appealing because it offers more flexibility and independence," (Sharon A. Abbott 23). One Love started the business however, she was hooked; "Love gave up her plans for nursing school because she realized she could make even more than a nurse if she focused on building a career as a porn actress," (Miller-Young 33).

Many factors contributed to Love's successful career. For one, she entered the business at a time where there weren't as many actresses on the scene, especially those in her market- Love is a beautiful and petite Black woman who is very adventurous sexually. And as she put it, she wouldn't do anything in front of the camera that she wouldn't do in her personal life.

"Like prostitutes, a few [pornstars] make a great deal of money while most make a modest or meager living," (Abbott 20). Love managed to be one of the few by playing her cards right. She works on various projects and in various markets including BDSB fetish, managing new actress, producing films, and running multiple websites herself. By "being her own boss", Love challenges notions that women are just objects in the porn industry.

According to some studies, "'becoming known' is a greater motivating factor to enter the industry than money" (21). Although this may be true for some, Love stresses how she still does not consider herself a "pornstar". Indeed, it was not until rapper Naz recognized her and proved himself to be a huge fan that Love realized what an impact her career has really had.

Mireille Miller-Young, "Hardcore Desire: Black Women Laboring in Porn- Is It Just Another Job?" Colorlines Magazine, Fall 2005, 31-35

Sharon Abbot, "Motivations for Pursuing an Acting Career in Pornography," Sex for Sale, Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry, Ronald Weitzer, ed., New York: Routledge, 2000, 17-34.

Siobhan Brooks, "Dancing Towards Freedom"

In "Dancing Towards Freedom", Siobhan Brooks writes from her perspective about what happened in San Fransisco when her and her co-workers at the peep show, "The Lusty Lady", started to unionize.

The Lusty Lady had some qualities to it that made it ideal for the first sex worker business to unionize. For one, it was a peep show, not a strip club, where girls danced together in a room, separated by glass between themselves and the customers. They were paid hourly, not by tips. The business was said to run like a "family", under better, safer, and cleaner conditions compared to neighboring strip clubs. Further, as Brooks reports, "most of the women at the Lusty Lady are students, artists, or both; they are very intelligent and creative, refuting the stereotype of strippers as brainless sex bunnies," (Brooks 252).

Although it seems as though the Lusty Lady is an ideal place to work for women in the business, the women discovered that it was not all it was worked up to be. Especially for Brooks, a woman of color, she realized that specifically in terms of racism, the Lusty Lady was no exception; "I did not notice the race relations on stage at first because, as with many job settings, the racism is very covert. Now I feel a sense of family and support from the dancers and support staff, while simultaneously being aware of the racism" (252).

Brooks "noticed that I was almost always the only woman of color on stage with the white dancers," (253). Further, white dancers were rude with the few customers of color that did come in; "some of the dancer reacted to customers of color; many were impatient with Asian and Latino customers who could not understand English well, and some dancers were hesitant about dancing for Black customers," (253).

Management also fell into racist ideology. They believed that women of color were not as desirable by customers, and therefore did not schedule these women in the "Private Pleasures Booths" where more money was to be made. Brooks mentioned how "the few Black women (about six out of seventy women) were hardly every performing in the Private Pleasures booth, though we were all available to do it," (253). Management responded to complaints of this discrimination by saying that "white men did not want to pay extra to see Black dancers," (254).

This type of institutionalized racism is extremely harmful to people of color, in this case the dancers and the customers. Brooks reveals how she "internalized the notion that I was not as attractive as the other dancers...I had to fight insecurities about my appearance in the presence of white women, since they are perceived as the ideal beauty standard," (253). Further negative impacts were that women of color then choose to work at other businesses where the working conditions were worse, but they could make better money. We see this pattern of lower quality clubs servicing customers of color, and therefore employing more women of color. Complete race and class segregation and discrimination; "Black women make less money in the business than other women, a fact reflective of the general economy," (253).

Though the Lusty Lady has since successfully unionized, the same race relations persist. Internal tension between the dancers themselves, as well as women of color workers and management continue to push women of color to lower quality work places. As Brooks says, it is true that as a Black woman, her "freedom in the work place is always limited by white supremacy" (255). However, she continues "to fight racist policies, practices, and attitudes, and I know I am not alone," (255). How can you contribute to the fight?

Siobhan Brooks, "Dancing Towards Freedom," Whores and Other Feminists, Jill Nagle, ed., New York: Routledge, 1997, 57-65

Chicks with Dicks!!: Lesbian Pornography

Heather Butler, in her piece "What Do You Call A Lesbian with Long Fingers? The Development of Lesbian and Dyke Pornography", outlines the characteristics of lesbian's depicted in mainstream pornography and how the depiction has changed through time and with the advent of Queer pornography. She carefully reviews "attempts to authenticate lesbian sexuality through representation, as well as to interpellate the potential lesbian viewer," which legitimate Queer identity on screen, and also as active consumers of porn (Heather Butler 167).

The main characteristic of lesbians as shown in mainstream porn is that the two or more women are prepping themselves for "real sex" with a man; "the 'lesbian,' as she is typically represented in heterosexual pornography, is most often used as a warm-up for sex between a man and a woman," (168). This trend started back in stag films where two girls are usually having a good time with themselves, and once it starts to get hot, the man enters. This theme is still present in mainstream porn today, a theme that denies lesbian identity entirely, and shows not a bisexual identity, but rather a "bi-curious", but not so serious, sexuality.

Queer pornographers, and a small handful of mainstream pornographers, have attempted then to change this pattern and represent a sincere lesbian identity, "to represent lesbianism as an actual choice, not contingent on heterosexuality and a lifestyle that remains discrete from the heterosexual imperative," (170). Indeed, a lesbian identity is not fully defined by what one does sexually, but is contingent on an actual Queer lifestyle.

One way that pornographers have sought to represent lesbians, is with the figure of the Butch Dyke. The Butch Dkye is visual evidence of Queer identity and lifestyle. In mainstream pornography, the Butch Dyke may be limited to her gender role, in terms of being the "top", more aggressive partner. However, in Queer porn, the Butch Dkye has enjoyed a more varied sexual role, one that challenges mainstream notions of gender behavior; "with the figure of the butch, the lesbian gains maximum visibility... the butch destabilizes any fixed notions of gender that we might have had concerning masculinity and femininity," (169).

To further play with our notions of gender roles, Queer pornographers have twisted around with the use and power of the phallus; "Lesbian pornography inherently uncloaks the impotence behind the phallus model and proposes alternatives to simply 'taking it' or 'faking it,'" (168). With the use of dildos and strap on, pleasure moves from the body with the phallus, to the body receiving it. In mainstream pornography, the man's pleasure is at focus, he is the one who can produce the "money shot", the visual evidence that sex has taken place, been pleasurable, and is finished. In Queer porn then, the woman's pleasure is at focus, something we hardly see otherwise. Quoting Jackie Strano, Butler writes that the dildo is "a pleasure tool, an extension of my energy, attached to my clit... it exists to make a woman come, to give her pleasure... and does not come out or come down until she says it does according to her orgasmic wax and wane, not mine as a man's basic physiology would dictate" (187).

Indeed, as we saw in the Queer porn, "Sugar High Glitter City", the strap on can be used in a variety of ways to pleasure both partners. The dildo is not just the object of pleasure for the one wearing it, but rather, the pleasure is dictated by the receiver.

I recommend this film for those of you interested in authentic representations of Queer woman sex. Gender roles are fluid, there is a varied representation of bodies as well as racial diversity, and of course, safe sex and communication.

Heather Butler, "What Do You Call a Lesbian With Long Fingers? The Development of Lesbian and Dyke Pornography," Porn Studies, Linda Williams, ed., Durham: Duke, 2004, 167-197.

Safe, communicative, deep, meaningful, sexy sex

In Annie Sprinkle's "Herstory of Porn", Sprinkle goes through the details of her career as a porn star and how she has made a transition from mainstream, to feminist porn. This move was political, as well as spiritual.

In the performance, it is clear that Sprinkle is critiquing mainstream porn. One of the first conflicts happened during the AIDS scare that hit the industry. Sprinkle started a group called Pornographers Promoting Safer Sex. She wanted to use porn as an educational forum to promote and teach people how to have sexy safe sex; " I called on the porn industry to help educate the public. I figured if everyone in porn started using safer sex, people could see exactly how to do it and see that safer sex could be hot sex," (Sprinkle 2001:56). However, Sprinkle was in for a surprise as the porn industry did not share her goal of promoting safe sex. In the narrow confines of what is considered sexy for the industry, safe sex is not included and in some sort of cost benefit analysis, it seemed that the threat of consumers not buying videos where actors practiced safe sex, outweighed the possibility of death and disease; "unfortunately the heterosexual porn industry didn't take the challenge to use safe sex, and continued to use almost all unsafe sex. That's when I realized that for the most part, the porn industry wasn't a community that cared about people, but a business that really only cared about money" (2001: 56).

Someone who knows all too well the challenge of promoting safe sex in the mainstream porn industry is Tistan Taormino. Taormino is a sex educator and writer who has released a series of videos and books that are inspiring and helpful to the formation of people's sexualities and desires.

In Taormino's "Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women," the video starts off with the battle to get the mainstream distributor to take on her project. She had not done a video before and so the "man in charge" was hesitant to support her film. Further, the video was not your standard porn, but an educational aid for those interested in anal sex and play. With her enchanting powers and of course, an in office demonstration, it is agreed to do her film.

Women like Taorimino and Sprinkle are working not to censor porn, but to improve it and have a more diverse range of options to choose from; "I'm trying to change some of the outmoded ideas of pornography, and its limited view of what is sexy," (Sprinkle 1996:85). For Sprinkle, she wanted to move towards more sensual play where love and connection is evident; "I wanted to do a scene that was more sensuous, where the sex was slower and more meditative. Where it wasn't all so genitally focused but more full-bodies. Where the lovers connect with their hearts, and eyes," (2001:54).

It seems then that the old anti-porn "radical" feminists had it all wrong. The answer to the "porn problem" is not its censorship, but the production of more porn that shows a variety of bodies, sexualities, and fetishes as well as promoting safe sex and connection. The moral of the story then ladies is: pick up your camera and get to it!


Annie Sprinkle and Gabrielle Cody, "Anie Sprinkle's Herstory of Pron" Hardcore from the Heart: The Pleasures, Profits and Politics of Sex in Performance, New York: Continum, 2001.

Annie Sprinkle, "The Best is Yet To Come," in Tales from the Clit: A Female Experience of Pornography, Cherie Matrix, ed., San Francisco: AK Press, 1996.

"Hi, I'm here for the gang bang...?"

The story of Annabel Chong is that she is the star of the World's Biggest Gang Bang in which she had sex with 251 men, 5 men at a time.

Chong was known for her contradictions. She was an Asian college feminist porn star who was open to do what was sexually deviant on screen; "Chong achieved fame particularly for her affinity for doing perverse acts while proclaiming herself to be a feminist...she is regarded as a 'thinking' porn star in a kind of eroticization of the model minority stereotype" (Celine Parrenas Shimizu 13). Chong acted her way through college and was not silent about her feminist views. Although she is the Asian model minority in college, she contradicts this stereotype by not being passive and being a porn star, all attributing to her popularity; "her navigation of contradictory words and worlds- wholesome, intelligent student speaking in an educated manner, coexisting with porn stardom- and the specificity of her fame as based on extreme perversity, combine to contribute her appeal" (14).


Further, she contradicts what it is to be an Asian woman porn star. She is anything but passive and her physical appearance is not typical of other Asian women porn stars before her; "the smaller, shorter, and darker (more visibly Asian and less racially ambiguous) Chong fulfills the extremely perverse expectations for racialized sexuality in order to offer a radical critique of commodification and stardom," (14). Her fame and assertiveness challenges the idea of the passive and objectified Asian woman porn star.

Although Chong is assertive in her feminism and sexual desire, she may have been playing the fool to some extent. In doing the gang bang film, she wanted "to prove that women can work as 'studs,' not 'sluts'" (14). She is "a porn star that enjoys seeing herself sexually represented as a feminist claim to power" (15). However, we can't ignore that factors within the production of the video that exploited her. For example, the overall tone of the men working on the film to her is that she is the star, but still just an object. It is the male actors who receive a "pep talk" on being able to take breaks, eat, and making sure that they are pleasured because that is what they came there for. Chong does not get the same talk and no one is counting her orgasms. In addition, we only see her receiving oral pleasure at the start of the gang bang.

What further complicated her feminist stand is that she wasn't even paid for the project! "It is clear that she's been totally commodified in their minds- Bowen (director) doesn't even pay her for the gang bang video that he himself calls the best-selling video in porn history," (14). It seems true then that "her economic exploitation somewhat silences her powerful intellectual critique" (16). And, after her completion of this video, she is seen as used goods that can no longer be profitable in the business; "once her record of 251 guys is eclipsed, she's dismissed as 'all washed up,'" (14).

The question then is what has Annabel Chong really done for feminism? For women in the porn industry? For Asian women? It is difficult to tell. For myself, I am still having trouble equating what I saw on the screen as pleasurable. But those thoughts are part of the hegemonic view that women are degraded in porn and that that type of sex is not pleasurable at all. I suggest a personal investigation, as I still reconcile my own.

Celine Parrenas Shimizu, "Sex for Sale: Queens of Anal, Double, Triple, and the Gang Bang: Producing Asian/American Feminism in Pornography," Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 18: 235, 2006.

Zabet Patterson looks at porn online

I'm on my way to college, away from home and the restrictions of my parents. No more rules, no more curfews, and lots of partying! Freshman year is going to be the best!

I'm so excited about my first laptop! It was my parents' graduation present to me. And the craziest thing happened last night. This really cute guy on my floor came over to copy my history notes. As I was printing them from my computer, he sat at the desk and told me he wanted to show me something. He down-loaded some file sharing software that everyone has been using in the dorms and then downloaded this video he said was shot in our dorms years before. I was totally excited to see a movie shot right here on campus!

But, what started off to be Sorority Initiations turned into a full on lesbian porn! I couldn't believe it! That with my laptop I could have direct and free access to porn videos. I don't know what it was, maybe a combination of being turned on and super nervous around the cute boy, but what I did know was that I wanted him out of the chair and my room so I could venture into the world of Internet porn on my own ["It is an anxiety concerning the possible lack of control and autonomy of that body when confronted with technology" (Patterson 104)].

It's been a week now and I've downloaded over 50 videos. Some are short and poor quality. Some are longer well-made home videos. Some are funny and strange with fetishes I didn't even know existed. Friday night the cute boy invited me to go out with him and his friends. They got pretty drunk and when we got back to his dorm, we started making out. But it was sloppy and he had bad breath and all I could think about was getting back to my laptop to watch more porn. Saturday night, I stayed in ["The 'body' of the computer clearly replaces the body of another human," (105)].

Ugh! My computer has been acting so slow lately. It even just shut off during a download and I had to start all over again! Yesterday I was waiting for a video to finish before I had class. 40 minutes had passed and it still hadn't finished. I had to leave to class without getting to see it ["from the perspective of the average viewer, a primary experience of looking for, and eventually at, cyberporn is precisely one of frustration and waiting," (109)].

So while I'm waiting for videos to download, I've been looking through actual porn websites, trying to find free access ones that have video previews and photo galleries. It's just so annoying to have to join certain sites and make up stupid names for myself. They should just have open access on all the sites so you can see things without logging in or waiting ["The promise of cyberporn is one of immediate gratification, yet the technological systems of the Internet, as well as the interfaces of cyberporn sites, necessitate delay: the delay of logging on, the delay of finding a site... the delay of waiting for the selected image, sequence of images, or video segment to appear," (109)]. But it's weird, even though I hate waiting, the obstacles make the final viewing even more exciting and rewarding as if I have cheated the system ["One might see this delay as intensifying the pleasure of the eventual visibility of the object by causing the object to acquire an illusory inaccessibility. But it makes more sense to see the satisfaction as taking place in the deferral satisfaction itself," (109)].

The Internet is making me crazy! Every time I think I have found the most sexy best ever video, I get a new one that blows my mind! It's like an addiction, a game to find the perfect video to get off ["To imagine the goal, then, is to project into a moment of perfect satisfaction- and the obtaining of a perfect image, one completely adequate to the subject's desire. But in comparison to this imagined perfect image, every image will always remain inadequate, and so the 'search' continues," (109)].

It just keeps getting better, and I will just keep on searching.....

Zabet Patterson, "Going On-Line: Consuming Pornography in the Digital Era," Porn Studies, Linda Williams, ed., Durham: Duke, 2004, 104-123.

http://www.i-k-u.com/

Shu Lea Cheang, a Japanese adult film maker, has revolutionized porn with her Sci-Fi erotic film, I.K.U. The premise of the film is that the GENOM Corporation, in the business of digital desire, has produced a variety of products to enhance the XXX Generation.

The biggest project of the Corporation is Reiko. Reiko is an I.K.U. Runner. Her job is not to love people, but to have sex with them. Upon orgasm, Reiko collects the data of the individuals' pleasure to return to I.K.U. Coders who put the information into Chips for sale to the sex consumer. In this sense, the women aren't human, therefore it is not sex work, but merely an administered, corporate research devise.

In a 2001 interview, Cheang comments on how I.K.U. makes reference to the future of sex and desire where technology aids us in "de-coding chemistry." She refers to one such device already in existence, the Nokia Sex Tracer. The Sex Tracer has your profile information and beeps you if someone with your similar interests is within close range. Though this is not exactly to the extent of orgasms in pill form as Cheang presents, we are on our way. Characters in the film take these orgasmic pills, displacing the body from pleasure. However, in a sort of resistant commentary, Cheang rejects this idea as the characters make it clear that the real deal is better, and actually needed to form the memories that will power their pill popping orgasm.

Cheang is also in an interesting bind because of Japanese obscenity law. Cheang creates and edits her film in sly and artistic ways to show sex without showing everything. To the point of almost being nauseating, Cheang's crazy camera angle, graphics, and jolting movement is a visual obstacle course.

However, Cheang also reveals how her camera work is a deliberate attempt "to reclaim the body, and the body parts of women." She shot a lot of genitals, particularly women's, "at angles that force you to look at them."

Although Cheang is clearly coming from a feminist standpoint, she has still been criticized by other feminists who have said "there were too many penis 'symbols' in the film." This leads to the next interesting factor of the film; when the I.K.U. runner retrieves data from her partner, she does so by inserting her fist and arm, which conveniently turn in to a phallic penis type of machine, into the vagina of the female, or anus of the male partner. Thus, critics have said that the penis/phallus is still the focus of the film, as in mainstream pornography.

But is that the case? What does it mean to give the woman the phallus in this sense? With some discussion, it is evident that the women cyborgs in this film are empowered and take on the phallus with new meaning. Cheang retorts that "the film is actually trying to deconstruct 'the big dick'... while claiming the pussy to be the center of the matrix." Indeed, once the information is stored, it is retrieved through the Runner's "pussy."

Libidoc and Dr. Jacobs, "Interview with Shu Lea Cheang," Libi-doc: Journeys in the Performance of Sex Art, Ljubljana, Maska, 2005, 37-54.