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A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography
A Taste for Brown Sugar boldly takes on representations of black women's sexuality in the porn industry. It is based on Mireille Miller-Young's extensive archival research and her interviews with dozens of women who have worked in the adult entertainment industry since the 1980s. The women share their thoughts about desire and eroticism, black women's sexuality and representation, and ambition and the need to make ends meet. Miller-Young documents their interventions into the complicated history of black women's sexuality, looking at individual choices, however small—a costume, a gesture, an improvised line—as small acts of resistance, of what she calls "illicit eroticism." Building on the work of other black feminist theorists, and contributing to the field of sex work studies, she seeks to expand discussion of black women's sexuality to include their eroticism and desires, as well as their participation and representation in the adult entertainment industry. Miller-Young wants the voices of black women sex workers heard, and the decisions they make, albeit often within material and industrial constraints, recognized as their own.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
23 people are currently reading
671 people want to read
About the author
Mireille Miller-Young
8 books23 followersMireille Miller-Young is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is author of A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography and coeditor of The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 29, 2017
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of pornography, sex work in general, or black female sexuality. The style is accessible and engaging enough for a non-academic audience, and it is sometimes very funny. For instance, Miller-Young writes about Josephine Baker's legendary side-eye, and she impressively provides a serious and compelling textual analysis of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby's Got Back"! The book is printed on high-quality, low-acid paper, and it includes color images that visually support Miller-Young's argument well.
July 28, 2015
Seriously for any social justice or pornography scholar (or a film scholar in truth), this is a must read! Miller-Young has created a thorough and engaging text. (I will write more later on the substance). Also this might be one of the most beautifully put together academic texts I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
October 13, 2016
I think what is most impressive about Mireille Miller-Young's volume is her steadfast refusal to find an easy narrative and simply ride it out. Working with the simultaneous humanizing (and poignant and funny! she seriously must have a way with interview subjects) stories of black women in pornography, history, the legacies of slavery and colonialism and how they shape sexual politics and importantly *economics.* Especially when Miller-Young refuses for an easy conclusion (i.e. do this one thing all the bad things will go away) but rather looks at the tension between often degrading roles and short shelf life offered by mainstream pornography juxtaposed with artistic/indie/boutique etc. pornography which often doesn't carry a paycheck that is, frankly, why many women transiently enter into this business. Without ever lapsing into uncritical hagiography of the industry or SWERF style tales of exploitation but rather tracing the coexistence of easy money with degrading working conditions in the social and economic conditions of racism and neoliberal capitalism just makes this such a strong piece.
December 12, 2014
I have found titillating things engaging. This work is academic and insightful about the history of for-pay Black women sex actors. The exploitation of Black women and their bodies has build this country however, these sex actors sought to capitalize on the opportunity and turn exploitation into cash money. The legacy of Black women and sex is plagued with stereotype and accessibility no other woman of color has had to endure from all types of men and women. The earlier sex actors utilized their skills in silent films and in derogatory scenes. However, throughout the course of the 20th century Black sex actors have expanded and moved beyond stereotypes to professionals who enjoy their work both in mind and body. The quest for autonomy, respect and empowerment are all hallmarks of what Black women in most every other profession have sought to experience, unfortunately, for Black sex actors this has been a rugged trail plagued with intraracial and sexist notions restricting the movements and job pleasure allowed Black women. Kudos to Professor Miller-Young for tackling this prickly subject with erudition, scholarship and dignity through the voices of contemporary Black sex workers. This work and others that will follow are good reading for mind, body and pocketbook!
June 30, 2024
An amazing analysis of black erotic labour with a truly astonishing scope from 1800s French photography to hip-hop music videos.
The sheer amount of interviews Miller-Young managed to include is remarkable and creates a human, raw, honest atmosphere to a glamorized and, conversely, demeaned industry and some of its most undervalued workers.
The sheer amount of interviews Miller-Young managed to include is remarkable and creates a human, raw, honest atmosphere to a glamorized and, conversely, demeaned industry and some of its most undervalued workers.
December 17, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Всю книгу можно свести к тезису: чёрных американцев притесняли и относились к ним с предубеждением даже в такой сфере как порнография, настаивая на том, что они должны играть строго определённые и стереотипные роли (в порнографических фильмах). Эта идея прослеживается на протяжении всей книги точно так же как стереотипное восприятие белых в отношении чёрных американцев в плане сексуальных практик.
“Brown sugar,” this popular imaginary of African American women, saturates popular culture. In songs, films, music videos, and everyday life, the discourse of brown sugar references the supposed essence of black female sexuality. It exposes historical mythologies about the desirable yet deviant sexual nature of black women. Publicly scorned and privately enjoyed, the alluring, transformative, and supposedly perverse sexuality of black women is thoroughly cemented in the popular imaginary. Seen as particularly sexual, black women continue to be fetishized as the very embodiment of excessive or non-normative sexuality.
<…>
Black women’s images in hardcore porn show that the titillation of pornography is inseparable from the racial stories it tells. A central narrative is that black women are both desirable and undesirable objects: desirable for their supposed difference, exoticism, and sexual potency, and undesirable because these very same factors threaten or compromise governing notions of feminine sexuality, heterosexual relations, and racial hierarchy. Pornography did not create these racial stories, these fraught imaginings of black being and taboo interactions across racial difference, but it uses them. What interests me is the work of racial fantasy, particularly fantasy involving black women.
<…>
Historically, enslaved black women were marked as undesirable objects for white men due to their primitive sexuality. These women, as the myth went, were so supersexual that they virtually forced white men into sex they ostensibly did not want to have. Enslaved black women needed their sexual powers because otherwise these unwitting white men would never desire them.
<…>
Films like The Black Bandit (1962) show black men entering white women’s rooms uninvited and forcing sex, sometimes violently. These films expose white male anxiety about being cuckolded by sexually superior black men, whom they fear their wives secretly prefer. The charged fantasy of these interracial films relied upon the knowledge that sex across these specific racial and gender lines was in real life violently guarded.
<…>
Stag films during the 1960s and ’70s consistently prioritized black male sexuality over that of black women because the idea of black men being intimate with white women was so much more taboo. From a number of 1960s and ’70s catalogues for mail- order 8 mm reels, it appears that many more films depicted black male–white female sex than black female–white male or black male–black female sex. For instance, in the Diamond Collection catalogue for films 1–96, 31 of the 96 films include black actors, but only 6 of those 31 feature black women.
Всё же нужно отметить, что сегодня такой подход полностью или по большей части неактуален, ибо отношение в обществе к чёрным американцам давно и радикально изменилось (в позитивную сторону). Так что цитаты выше актуальны только как историческая справка. Другой вопрос заключается в том, что эротизм и порнография с участием чёрных актрис и актёров сегодня может восприниматься как некая экзотика, которая не лишена некоторых мифов на тему сексуальности чёрного населения. Насколько правдив тезис о дискриминации чёрного населения в современной порнографии, мне сказать сложно, но думается мне, что это уже не актуально. В данном случаи я говорю не про мифы, которые сопутствуют представлению многих не чёрных людей о сексуальной жизни и о сексуальных возможностей чёрного населения, а про дискриминацию. К сожалению, автор книги слишком много внимания уделяет этой теме (дискриминация и стереотипное восприятие в отношении чёрных амерканцев) и поэтому в книге почти не остаётся места такой теме как «Black Women in Pornography».
In both capacities they are service workers fulfilling menial labor normalized as “women’s work” and represented historically as “black women’s work.” Their roles as maids or potential whores symbolize their established sexual availability.
Not only are these black women portrayed as apt service workers for the needs and desires of white men, but they want to be so because of their in- satiable desire for white men’s bodies.
<…>
As Lola Lane describes, even though she tried to assert a star persona in her performance, she was quickly informed that she was not there for that. The message: take off the glittery dress and be a ghetto ho. The subgenre of black pornography demands that black women appear unprepossessing, not chic and elegant. The myth that black women are unmarketable to mainstream pornography consumers explains away the systemic privileges and exclusions that define who gains and who loses.
В общем, книга могла бы быть более интересной, если бы автор не потратила все силы лишь на одну тему, т.е. на тему дискриминации.
-------
The entire book can be summarized in one thesis: Black Americans were oppressed and treated with prejudice even in the field of pornography, with insistence that they play strictly defined and stereotypical roles (in pornographic films). This idea runs throughout the book, as does the stereotypical perception of white people towards black Americans in terms of sexual practices.
“Brown sugar,” this popular imaginary of African American women, saturates popular culture. In songs, films, music videos, and everyday life, the discourse of brown sugar references the supposed essence of black female sexuality. It exposes historical mythologies about the desirable yet deviant sexual nature of black women. Publicly scorned and privately enjoyed, the alluring, transformative, and supposedly perverse sexuality of black women is thoroughly cemented in the popular imaginary. Seen as particularly sexual, black women continue to be fetishized as the very embodiment of excessive or non-normative sexuality.
<…>
Black women’s images in hardcore porn show that the titillation of pornography is inseparable from the racial stories it tells. A central narrative is that black women are both desirable and undesirable objects: desirable for their supposed difference, exoticism, and sexual potency, and undesirable because these very same factors threaten or compromise governing notions of feminine sexuality, heterosexual relations, and racial hierarchy. Pornography did not create these racial stories, these fraught imaginings of black being and taboo interactions across racial difference, but it uses them. What interests me is the work of racial fantasy, particularly fantasy involving black women.
<…>
Historically, enslaved black women were marked as undesirable objects for white men due to their primitive sexuality. These women, as the myth went, were so supersexual that they virtually forced white men into sex they ostensibly did not want to have. Enslaved black women needed their sexual powers because otherwise these unwitting white men would never desire them.
<…>
Films like The Black Bandit (1962) show black men entering white women’s rooms uninvited and forcing sex, sometimes violently. These films expose white male anxiety about being cuckolded by sexually superior black men, whom they fear their wives secretly prefer. The charged fantasy of these interracial films relied upon the knowledge that sex across these specific racial and gender lines was in real life violently guarded.
<…>
Stag films during the 1960s and ’70s consistently prioritized black male sexuality over that of black women because the idea of black men being intimate with white women was so much more taboo. From a number of 1960s and ’70s catalogues for mail- order 8 mm reels, it appears that many more films depicted black male–white female sex than black female–white male or black male–black female sex. For instance, in the Diamond Collection catalogue for films 1–96, 31 of the 96 films include black actors, but only 6 of those 31 feature black women.
However, it should be noted that today this approach is completely or largely irrelevant, as society's attitude towards black Americans has long since changed radically (for the better). So the above quotes are only relevant as historical references. Another issue is that eroticism and pornography featuring black actresses and actors today can be perceived as somewhat exotic, which is not without certain myths about the sexuality of the black population. It is difficult for me to say how true the thesis about discrimination against the black population in modern pornography is, but I think that it is no longer relevant. In this case, I am not talking about the myths that accompany many non-black people's perceptions of the sex life and sexual capabilities of the black population, but about discrimination. Unfortunately, the author of the book devotes too much attention to this topic (discrimination and stereotypical perceptions of Black Americans), leaving almost no room in the book for a topic such as “Black Women in Pornography.”
In both capacities they are service workers fulfilling menial labor normalized as “women’s work” and represented historically as “black women’s work.” Their roles as maids or potential whores symbolize their established sexual availability.
Not only are these black women portrayed as apt service workers for the needs and desires of white men, but they want to be so because of their in- satiable desire for white men’s bodies.
<…>
As Lola Lane describes, even though she tried to assert a star persona in her performance, she was quickly informed that she was not there for that. The message: take off the glittery dress and be a ghetto ho. The subgenre of black pornography demands that black women appear unprepossessing, not chic and elegant. The myth that black women are unmarketable to mainstream pornography consumers explains away the systemic privileges and exclusions that define who gains and who loses.
In general, the book could have been more interesting if the author had not devoted all her energy to just one topic, namely discrimination.
Всю книгу можно свести к тезису: чёрных американцев притесняли и относились к ним с предубеждением даже в такой сфере как порнография, настаивая на том, что они должны играть строго определённые и стереотипные роли (в порнографических фильмах). Эта идея прослеживается на протяжении всей книги точно так же как стереотипное восприятие белых в отношении чёрных американцев в плане сексуальных практик.
“Brown sugar,” this popular imaginary of African American women, saturates popular culture. In songs, films, music videos, and everyday life, the discourse of brown sugar references the supposed essence of black female sexuality. It exposes historical mythologies about the desirable yet deviant sexual nature of black women. Publicly scorned and privately enjoyed, the alluring, transformative, and supposedly perverse sexuality of black women is thoroughly cemented in the popular imaginary. Seen as particularly sexual, black women continue to be fetishized as the very embodiment of excessive or non-normative sexuality.
<…>
Black women’s images in hardcore porn show that the titillation of pornography is inseparable from the racial stories it tells. A central narrative is that black women are both desirable and undesirable objects: desirable for their supposed difference, exoticism, and sexual potency, and undesirable because these very same factors threaten or compromise governing notions of feminine sexuality, heterosexual relations, and racial hierarchy. Pornography did not create these racial stories, these fraught imaginings of black being and taboo interactions across racial difference, but it uses them. What interests me is the work of racial fantasy, particularly fantasy involving black women.
<…>
Historically, enslaved black women were marked as undesirable objects for white men due to their primitive sexuality. These women, as the myth went, were so supersexual that they virtually forced white men into sex they ostensibly did not want to have. Enslaved black women needed their sexual powers because otherwise these unwitting white men would never desire them.
<…>
Films like The Black Bandit (1962) show black men entering white women’s rooms uninvited and forcing sex, sometimes violently. These films expose white male anxiety about being cuckolded by sexually superior black men, whom they fear their wives secretly prefer. The charged fantasy of these interracial films relied upon the knowledge that sex across these specific racial and gender lines was in real life violently guarded.
<…>
Stag films during the 1960s and ’70s consistently prioritized black male sexuality over that of black women because the idea of black men being intimate with white women was so much more taboo. From a number of 1960s and ’70s catalogues for mail- order 8 mm reels, it appears that many more films depicted black male–white female sex than black female–white male or black male–black female sex. For instance, in the Diamond Collection catalogue for films 1–96, 31 of the 96 films include black actors, but only 6 of those 31 feature black women.
Всё же нужно отметить, что сегодня такой подход полностью или по большей части неактуален, ибо отношение в обществе к чёрным американцам давно и радикально изменилось (в позитивную сторону). Так что цитаты выше актуальны только как историческая справка. Другой вопрос заключается в том, что эротизм и порнография с участием чёрных актрис и актёров сегодня может восприниматься как некая экзотика, которая не лишена некоторых мифов на тему сексуальности чёрного населения. Насколько правдив тезис о дискриминации чёрного населения в современной порнографии, мне сказать сложно, но думается мне, что это уже не актуально. В данном случаи я говорю не про мифы, которые сопутствуют представлению многих не чёрных людей о сексуальной жизни и о сексуальных возможностей чёрного населения, а про дискриминацию. К сожалению, автор книги слишком много внимания уделяет этой теме (дискриминация и стереотипное восприятие в отношении чёрных амерканцев) и поэтому в книге почти не остаётся места такой теме как «Black Women in Pornography».
In both capacities they are service workers fulfilling menial labor normalized as “women’s work” and represented historically as “black women’s work.” Their roles as maids or potential whores symbolize their established sexual availability.
Not only are these black women portrayed as apt service workers for the needs and desires of white men, but they want to be so because of their in- satiable desire for white men’s bodies.
<…>
As Lola Lane describes, even though she tried to assert a star persona in her performance, she was quickly informed that she was not there for that. The message: take off the glittery dress and be a ghetto ho. The subgenre of black pornography demands that black women appear unprepossessing, not chic and elegant. The myth that black women are unmarketable to mainstream pornography consumers explains away the systemic privileges and exclusions that define who gains and who loses.
В общем, книга могла бы быть более интересной, если бы автор не потратила все силы лишь на одну тему, т.е. на тему дискриминации.
-------
The entire book can be summarized in one thesis: Black Americans were oppressed and treated with prejudice even in the field of pornography, with insistence that they play strictly defined and stereotypical roles (in pornographic films). This idea runs throughout the book, as does the stereotypical perception of white people towards black Americans in terms of sexual practices.
“Brown sugar,” this popular imaginary of African American women, saturates popular culture. In songs, films, music videos, and everyday life, the discourse of brown sugar references the supposed essence of black female sexuality. It exposes historical mythologies about the desirable yet deviant sexual nature of black women. Publicly scorned and privately enjoyed, the alluring, transformative, and supposedly perverse sexuality of black women is thoroughly cemented in the popular imaginary. Seen as particularly sexual, black women continue to be fetishized as the very embodiment of excessive or non-normative sexuality.
<…>
Black women’s images in hardcore porn show that the titillation of pornography is inseparable from the racial stories it tells. A central narrative is that black women are both desirable and undesirable objects: desirable for their supposed difference, exoticism, and sexual potency, and undesirable because these very same factors threaten or compromise governing notions of feminine sexuality, heterosexual relations, and racial hierarchy. Pornography did not create these racial stories, these fraught imaginings of black being and taboo interactions across racial difference, but it uses them. What interests me is the work of racial fantasy, particularly fantasy involving black women.
<…>
Historically, enslaved black women were marked as undesirable objects for white men due to their primitive sexuality. These women, as the myth went, were so supersexual that they virtually forced white men into sex they ostensibly did not want to have. Enslaved black women needed their sexual powers because otherwise these unwitting white men would never desire them.
<…>
Films like The Black Bandit (1962) show black men entering white women’s rooms uninvited and forcing sex, sometimes violently. These films expose white male anxiety about being cuckolded by sexually superior black men, whom they fear their wives secretly prefer. The charged fantasy of these interracial films relied upon the knowledge that sex across these specific racial and gender lines was in real life violently guarded.
<…>
Stag films during the 1960s and ’70s consistently prioritized black male sexuality over that of black women because the idea of black men being intimate with white women was so much more taboo. From a number of 1960s and ’70s catalogues for mail- order 8 mm reels, it appears that many more films depicted black male–white female sex than black female–white male or black male–black female sex. For instance, in the Diamond Collection catalogue for films 1–96, 31 of the 96 films include black actors, but only 6 of those 31 feature black women.
However, it should be noted that today this approach is completely or largely irrelevant, as society's attitude towards black Americans has long since changed radically (for the better). So the above quotes are only relevant as historical references. Another issue is that eroticism and pornography featuring black actresses and actors today can be perceived as somewhat exotic, which is not without certain myths about the sexuality of the black population. It is difficult for me to say how true the thesis about discrimination against the black population in modern pornography is, but I think that it is no longer relevant. In this case, I am not talking about the myths that accompany many non-black people's perceptions of the sex life and sexual capabilities of the black population, but about discrimination. Unfortunately, the author of the book devotes too much attention to this topic (discrimination and stereotypical perceptions of Black Americans), leaving almost no room in the book for a topic such as “Black Women in Pornography.”
In both capacities they are service workers fulfilling menial labor normalized as “women’s work” and represented historically as “black women’s work.” Their roles as maids or potential whores symbolize their established sexual availability.
Not only are these black women portrayed as apt service workers for the needs and desires of white men, but they want to be so because of their in- satiable desire for white men’s bodies.
<…>
As Lola Lane describes, even though she tried to assert a star persona in her performance, she was quickly informed that she was not there for that. The message: take off the glittery dress and be a ghetto ho. The subgenre of black pornography demands that black women appear unprepossessing, not chic and elegant. The myth that black women are unmarketable to mainstream pornography consumers explains away the systemic privileges and exclusions that define who gains and who loses.
In general, the book could have been more interesting if the author had not devoted all her energy to just one topic, namely discrimination.
June 24, 2016
In her detailed account of Black women's representation in the pornographic moving image, Mireille Miller-Young argues that pornography reveals the unequal and unjust labor market available for Black women in society. In an effective and illuminating metaphor, Young compares Black women's sexual labor in society (and in pornography) as sharing an indexical relationship to brown sugar:
"Brown sugar, as a trope, illuminates circuits of domination over Black omen's bodies and exposes Black women's often ignored contributions of the economy, politics, and social life. Like sugar that has dissolved without a trace, but has nonetheless sweetened a cup of tea, Black women's labor and the mechanisms that manage and produce it are invisible but nonetheless there… The lewdness and raw quality associated with brown sugar in popular discourse today thus shows how ideas about Black women as naturally savage, super-sexual beings have labored popular tastes even as they have driven a global appetite" (Young 2014, 4-5).
This passage really dictates the nuance critique that Young takes with Black women's relationship to pornography. While arguing that pornography, as a film genre, is problematic, Young never patronizes women who participate and in fact argues that pornography bears the potential for illicit erotics that are rooted in the political discourse of Black women's bodies. Moreover, Young's argument is effective because she sees the problematic representation of Black women's sexuality as deriving from chattel slavery, which viewed created the stereotype of the Black woman as being sexually deviant and wanton. Young argues that this representation has carried on today, as Black women's sexual labor is overlooked, underpaid, exploited, and disrespected. While this is clearly a must read for anyone interested in porn studies, I believe this is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of Black women's sexuality in society.
"Brown sugar, as a trope, illuminates circuits of domination over Black omen's bodies and exposes Black women's often ignored contributions of the economy, politics, and social life. Like sugar that has dissolved without a trace, but has nonetheless sweetened a cup of tea, Black women's labor and the mechanisms that manage and produce it are invisible but nonetheless there… The lewdness and raw quality associated with brown sugar in popular discourse today thus shows how ideas about Black women as naturally savage, super-sexual beings have labored popular tastes even as they have driven a global appetite" (Young 2014, 4-5).
This passage really dictates the nuance critique that Young takes with Black women's relationship to pornography. While arguing that pornography, as a film genre, is problematic, Young never patronizes women who participate and in fact argues that pornography bears the potential for illicit erotics that are rooted in the political discourse of Black women's bodies. Moreover, Young's argument is effective because she sees the problematic representation of Black women's sexuality as deriving from chattel slavery, which viewed created the stereotype of the Black woman as being sexually deviant and wanton. Young argues that this representation has carried on today, as Black women's sexual labor is overlooked, underpaid, exploited, and disrespected. While this is clearly a must read for anyone interested in porn studies, I believe this is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of Black women's sexuality in society.
October 12, 2016
Well written and researched, Miller-Young crafted a skillful narrative.
June 2, 2025
Laminated cover
Mỹ god. This book is amazing. It’s a deep dive into how America has historically seen black women: as threatening, as sexually exploitable, as cheap labor, and as undesirable. It then walks us through the history of black women in the porn industry and how they’ve been historically exploited for financial gain by pornographers and rappers that benefit from their sexuality and beauty. At the same time, they get paid a fraction of what their white counterparts parts make and đó not get promoted the same way as white women. It really talks about why women join this business, their feelings about it, and their voice when they talk about their life stories. It’s a really good read. Maybe Don’t read it in public since the author uses tamer pornographic images to make her case.
Mỹ god. This book is amazing. It’s a deep dive into how America has historically seen black women: as threatening, as sexually exploitable, as cheap labor, and as undesirable. It then walks us through the history of black women in the porn industry and how they’ve been historically exploited for financial gain by pornographers and rappers that benefit from their sexuality and beauty. At the same time, they get paid a fraction of what their white counterparts parts make and đó not get promoted the same way as white women. It really talks about why women join this business, their feelings about it, and their voice when they talk about their life stories. It’s a really good read. Maybe Don’t read it in public since the author uses tamer pornographic images to make her case.
July 2, 2025
critical reading for everyone even if it is overly academic
A insightful and powerful book. The subject matter has been overlooked for far too long and the author finally lends voices to a segment of workers that for far too long has been ignored. And finally nuanced and powerful observations from an academic research view.
Unfortunately it reads more like a doctorate dissertation than a book, with unnecessary dense language, use of words that only appears once. For all the editorial help the author had, they did her no favors. And that’s a true shame given that this book should be read by everyone.
A insightful and powerful book. The subject matter has been overlooked for far too long and the author finally lends voices to a segment of workers that for far too long has been ignored. And finally nuanced and powerful observations from an academic research view.
Unfortunately it reads more like a doctorate dissertation than a book, with unnecessary dense language, use of words that only appears once. For all the editorial help the author had, they did her no favors. And that’s a true shame given that this book should be read by everyone.
December 6, 2025
It was not an easy read for me especially the first chapters where early content is discussed. I would have appreciated more visuals than already is in there. I liked the author’s perspective that acknowledges the space for agency but also is aware of the sexist racist structural dynamics and their constraints. Overall, it is one of the best books I have read on pornography but I would suggest the readers to not get lost in descriptions of the analyzed material but focus on the analysis.
November 20, 2021
Possibly written as a PhD paper this shares the contents of each chapter in the introduction. In the beginning women's bodies were evaluated for potential production! When film became available this was the reason for watching.
With VHS production there is more access but eventually more abuse, costs and expenses shared and some women are marginalized. Insightful, images, some swearing.
With VHS production there is more access but eventually more abuse, costs and expenses shared and some women are marginalized. Insightful, images, some swearing.
February 1, 2025
Incredibly valuable and thorough research. The writing is academic but if you can get past that this is a must have for any cinephiles bookshelf.
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September 2, 2016791.43653 M6528 2014
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews