A Black Feminist Reimagining of the Relationship between the Black Body and Hardcore Pornography

• In Event: Making Sex Work: Toward a Resistant Pornographic Imagination

Abstract

Hardcore pornography is so often demonized that it silences women who participate in the production on and off camera. Thus, representations of alternative Black sexualities are frequently limited to heteronormative, vanilla sexual activity. Utilizing Mireille Miller-Young’s conception of the Black feminist pornographic gaze and examining the intricate balance between Black pleasure and pain, I will closely scrutinize pornographic videos to reimagine ideologies of pleasure on the Black female body. Hence, will the Black woman reach a level of freedom where she can enjoy “illicit” sexual activity without it being viewed under the traditional, violent lens on the Black female body?

Presenter

• Teresa Jackson, Indiana University, Bloomington