Free The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure by Tristan Taormino, Constance Penley, Celine Parrenas Shimizu, Mireille Miller-Young

first eighteen years of my career. Moving forward, would I consider myself and my work to be feminist? Absolutely. Today, I make decisions based on socially conscious thought rather than the fantasy of sexual exploration and the reality of economics. I am far more selective than I was at nineteen in the type of work I choose. I learned to diversify my income streams, which makes it easier to decline work that I feel goes against my core values and political beliefs. I no longer accept work that represents African Americans or black culture in a derogatory light. I am not willing to accept work for less pay merely because another performer is willing to perform for less.
    Having spent the last nineteen years—my entire adult life—in the adult film industry, I have learned that my sexual interests are vast and that my intellectual curiosity often seeps into my sensual desires. My personal life has been greatly influenced by my work. The people I’ve met, the news articles I read, the stories that warm or break my heart come from a place of understanding the struggle of sex workers around the world. I find that my political interests include supporting and advocating for sex worker rights based on my own experiences and those of others I’ve encountered. Because I’m a parent, I advocate for comprehensive sex education in schools, particularly in black and brown communities, as I have come to realize that sex education is greatly lacking except for information about the risks of disease and pregnancy. I have come to realize the extreme need for specialized sex education for developmentally delayed teens and adults, as these people have sexual desires that often go overlooked.
    I suppose, if I were to label who I am today, I would call myself a black feminist pornographer. Instead of accepting work merely to insure the bills get paid, I purposefully work for directors and companies that portray black female sexuality in ways that I feel are expansive, progressive, and interesting. In my own productions, I strive to show more positive images of black men and women in sexual situations that don’t requirestereotypes to get the point across. I would love to see more pornography without stereotypes about black people, and that instead displays more complexity in the characters and fantasies presented. Every thug in a movie doesn’t have to have a forty ounce bottle of beer in hand. Every curvaceous woman doesn’t have to have booty shorts and bounce her ass as if she’s in a music video. Every black man doesn’t have to refer to himself using the N-word while having sex with a white woman on film. Black and interracial porn movies ignore the diversity in black culture. For some, stereotypical and fetishistic images of black people are part of the fantasy, but I still believe that the porn industry is neglecting a huge marketplace. Where is black porn for black women?
    I hate labels. But in trying to answer the question of my own feminism I find myself needing to define my personal truth. I am certainly a sex-positive feminist. My work with sex worker rights advocacy and education, my interest in the decriminalization of prostitution, and my belief that pornography and BDSM are not inherently wrong, come from my own understanding of the importance of women’s ability to claim their sexuality as their own. Yet my sex-positive feminism is not separate from my black feminism. For me it is about agency. My black feminism is about helping women like me to be able to claim their sexuality in the face of decades of mis-education of African American women who were made to believe that they must choose between education, marriage, and family, or sexual freedom. I have come to realize in this phase of my life and career, that I have unknowingly dedicated my experience in social media to showing men and women of color that these are false choices, and that they can be sexual beings, wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers. I want to