Porn Work, Heather Berg Dissertation Final
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Porn Work: Adult Film at the Point of Production A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Feminist Studies by Heather R. Berg Committee in charge: Professor Leila Rupp, Co-chair Professor Mireille Miller-Young, Co-chair Professor Eileen Boris Professor Constance Penley June 2016 The dissertation of Heather R. Berg is approved _____________________________________________ Eileen Boris _____________________________________________ Constance Penley _____________________________________________ Leila Rupp, Co-Chair _____________________________________________ Mireille Miller-Young, Co-Chair June 2016 Porn Work: Adult Film at the Point of Production Copyright © 2016 by Heather R. Berg iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful for the support and solidarity that have sustained and inspired me throughout this process. Often, when new scholars I meet ask who my mentors are, and I tell them, they exclaim, “you’re so lucky!” It’s true. Warm thanks to Leila Rupp for her generosity of spirit, unflagging support, and bone-dry wit. Guiding me through questions ranging from how to respond to a reader’s report to which shoes to wear to a porn convention, Leila has been here every step of the way. Her remarkable talent for sympathetic reading has changed the way I think and write, all while making space for me to take intellectual risks and embrace unpopular politics. Leila writes with the grace she brings to mentoring, and I hope to tell stories the way she does when I grow up. Mireille Miller-Young has been a steadfast advocate and mentor throughout this process. Her groundbreaking work on porn labor drew me to UCSB, and her commitment to interviewees as “critical knowledge producers” continues to inspire me. Mireille’s commitments to the sex worker communities that animate her work are a model, and I have benefited tremendously both from her example and from the enduring connections she has forged and shared. Our ongoing conversations have transformed my thinking and pushed me to embrace all the wonderfully messy contradictions inherent in this research. Eileen Boris has given tireless support, incisive readings, and intellectual fuel throughout this project. Her interventions on home and work (things she likes to remind us are the same thing) radically shifted my thinking years before we met, and our continued conversations have shaped this project in more ways than I can count. A giant in the field, Eileen has always supported my desire to play with weird theory and dabble in heresy. She is as generous with contacts as she is with ideas, and I have met many of my now-favorite people through her introductions. Constance Penley—the porn professor—is largely responsible for making porn a thing that might be studied, and UCSB the place to do it. I was lucky to navigate years of porn conventions with Connie as my porno fairy godmother, and am forever grateful for the Vegas road trips, generously shared industry contacts, and the vote of confidence being in her orbit lent to my research. Writing together helped me think differently about porn as media, and Connie is always there to remind me to claim space for porn studies in established disciplines and conversations. Many others at UCSB and beyond have contributed to this project. Courses with Lauren Kaminsky and Sinan Antoon at NYU, and Todd Ramlow, Rachel Riedner, and Jennifer Nash at GW ignited my interest in the questions I would go on to explore in this project. At UCSB, courses with Nelson Lichtenstein, Maurizia Boscagli, France Winddance Twine, and Laury Oaks expanded my thinking and shaped the politics and methods that guide this project. UCSB’s New Sexualities Research Focus Group, co-convened by Mireille Miller-Young, Paul Amar, and Jennifer Tyburczy, and Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, directed by Nelson Lichtenstein, provided vital intellectual community. I am grateful to the editors and external reviewers at the journals Signs, Porn Studies, Feminist Studies, and WSQ and of the edited volumes Queer Sex Work and Precarious Creativity for their generous comments and editorial support. Warm thanks to Melinda Chateauvert, Brooke Beloso, Becki Ross, Thomas Adams, Richard Anderson, Matt Stahl, Megan Carney, Karen Hanna, Diana Pozo, Emily Kennedy, Cynthia Blair, Jennifer Brier, and the participants at the Newberry Library Seminar in Labor History for generative iv comments on various parts of this work. I am also grateful to Melissa Gira Grant, Georgina Voss, Lynn Comella, Feona Attwood, and Katherine Turk for their support. Special thanks to Melinda Chateauvert, a treasured co-conspirator on the conference circuit whose work is the perfect reminder that “bad girls like good contracts.” I am deeply thankful for the friendship that has sustained me throughout this project. Annika Speer lent wit, enduring support, a ready partner for chats about workplace sabotage, and a place to stay during LA research visits, even when I turned up in the middle of the night after unexpectedly long days on set. Lauren Clark was a wonderful cohort mate and writing buddy, and I am lucky to have been able to learn with and from her. Thanks to Beatrix McBride for long chats on the merits of autonomism and Dolly Parton. Coffee dates with Kurt Newman always left me invigorated and hopeful, and I am forever inspired by his deep curiosity about the world and incredible knowledge of matters ranging from Lacan to Gene Clark. Carly Thomsen’s incisive edits have transformed the pages that follow. Writing and thinking together at the intersection of labor and queer theory have shaped this project. Carly’s faith in the field and the academy are the perfect anecdote to cynicism, and I am grateful to her for persistent reminders of why we do this. Finally, the Marx reading group has been a core source of comradeship. Thank you for letting this Autonomist into your ranks. My family’s support has meant the world. Margi Waller gave tireless encouragement, perspective, keen edits, and a magical writing outpost in the redwoods. She has taught me a great deal about the theory and practice of resilience; my preoccupation with creative ways of resisting and getting by is the part of my work of which I am most proud, and it comes straight from her. With his fierce pride and her incredible warmth, Herb Berg and Maria Velasquez have been in my corner every step of the way. Thank you also for the straight faces you kept when, while sitting in on my talk, the subject veered toward the workplace hazards of reverse cowgirl. Thanks to Michael Spiegler for his enduring support and for enabling my mischief since its inception. Rochelle Trochtenberg and Susan DiAngelo have been a constant source of inspiration, grounding, and giggles. Margaret Mahoney passed away before this project began, but her legacy has touched it in myriad ways. I think she would have been equal parts proud and scandalized. My partner, Kit Smemo, has been the greatest surprise of graduate school. His love, support, and confidence have sustained me, and even the roughest parts of navigating academia are better when he’s around. Kit’s editorial hand and deep knowledge of labor history have enriched this dissertation in countless ways. He has been there always with vital perspective, reminding me of this project’s stakes for bigger conversations about labor and capital and pointing to the moments in which porn work looks a lot like Progressive-era craft work. He also came along for dozens of road trips so I wouldn’t have to drive alone, patiently waiting with a book at crusty sports bars in the Valley while I did interviews. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research and George Washington University Fellowship in Women’s Public Policy Research ignited my thinking about what paid sick days and the gender wage gap might have to do with sex work. I took these interests to the Department of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and there found the ideal institutional home for this project. I am grateful for the department’s financial support and for the vibrant intellectual community that made this research possible. At USCB, the Dean’s Fellowship, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, and Affiliates Graduate Dissertation Fellowship facilitated months of fieldwork in Los Angeles v and San Francisco. The union leadership at UCSB’s UAW Local 2865 fought for TA contracts that gave us the security necessary to think and write. The Mellon/ American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Completion Fellowship allowed me to devote the final year of my graduate program to writing and was indispensible in making it possible for me to give the stories that animate this dissertation the care and space they deserve. Finally, I am indebted to those who gave their time and voices to this project. They took me into their homes, entrusted me with their stories, invited me to watch them work, and connected me with friends and colleagues. As the pages that follow reveal, they shared not only experiences, but also powerful analyses—their contributions are both the ethnographic and theoretical core of this dissertation. Any one of the workers I interviewed could write the story of their jobs without my intervention. I hope what follows does their stories and ideas justice. In solidarity. Eureka, California, May 2016 vi VITA OF HEATHER R. BERG JUNE 2016 EDUCATION PhD University of California, Santa Barbara, expected 2016 (Feminist Studies) Dissertation: Porn Work: Adult Film at the Point of Production Committee: Leila Rupp, Mireille Miller-Young, Eileen Boris, and Constance Penley MA George Washington University, 2011 (Public Policy and Women’s Studies) Thesis: An Entrepreneur of Herself: Sex Work in the Age of Neoliberalism BA New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, 2008 SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS Refereed Articles Forthcoming “Porn Work, Feminist Critique, and the Market for Authenticity.” Signs [Pleasure and Danger, special issue].