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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 12:11 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Why going back to slave trade and the e ect of slave trade in porn industry
Viewing Vanessa's wish to the whole porn industry From the passage, the most impressive part for me is that Vanessa's parents were asking her what did she want in the sex industry. "we are not saying it is wrong that you do porn. It is not. Just do not let these people fuck you. Do not stay there getting fucked." inspired Vanessa to empower herself as a porn director rather than only being control by the male director. Control of pornography means a complete location, time, and method of lming. A wide avoid of unethical directors and producers of prevention of over- exploitation and an unsafe working environment of black women. This little respect and care are because white men still look down on black women.
The porn industry involves unethical care and respect for the black enslaved population, resulting from class struggles between white and black. Interracial sex is a big problem appearing in the porn industry. It is caused by racism that even white women do not want to have sex with black men, even the money is doubled. At the same time, ethnicities and races re ect class struggles within the porn industry. Meanwhile, interracial sex is misleading. It generally is not applied to scenes between a white woman and, say, an Asian man. "It simply means 'a black person," says Isiah Maxwell, an African-American performer.
I am moving back to history to discover why white men are objectifying black women. This phenomenon can chase it down to the history of the slave trade in the 17th to 18th century. At the same time, many African slaves (including women) were being transported to the European colonies. Women then become a slave for a white family and especially sex slaves for white men. These become the primary reason for black women's objecti cation for white men. Under the e ect of racism brought by the phenomenon of slave trade happened in the golden and silver period of pornography. White women also look down on black men. I cannot believe this kind of class racism is still happening in the 2020s and look down on the transatlantic slave trade history. According to Vanessa's response, it is clear that ethical and unfair treatment is still facing by black sex workers. So I will go ahead with my presentation.
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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 3:42 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author: Miller-Young's concept of illicit eroticism, where black women porn actors and producers turning racial stereotypes on their heads, reminds me of my observations of asian men in the US gay pornography industry, which is the second-largest source of Asian gay porn after Japan.
Orientalism in Porn
Prof. Jacobs introduced me to the lm The World of Suzie Wong in last semester's class, which demonstrated the 'Caucasian gaze' upon Asia and its people as exotic objects of conquest, or a toy in a sense. Similarly, in gay pornography, Asian men are performing a stereotypical 'twink' role: young, shorter in stature, slim, smooth/little body hair, comparatively smaller dick, submissive. Levy Foxx, an Asian-American porn actor representing the typical body image of an Asian twink.
The orientalist expectation bleed over in real life as well. Working in a sex shop, my colleagues and I have witnessed quite a few 'white daddy' and 'Asian twink' pairs, where Caucasian men act as the classy, high- earning role of a master/dominant character, while the Asian is often well-groomed, amboyant yet subservient to his 'daddy'.
Back to gay porn. Asian porn actors seldom get to play the 'top' (insertion-end of penetrative anal sex) role, regardless of the build of their bodies. Most Asian actors are considered 'versatile' at best, and 'bottom' for the most part.
Tristan Tran, a beefy, Asian top who is often requested to act the bottom role
regardless of his body build and preferred sexual position. Cody Seiya, an Asian-American porn actor who is versatile but is often questioned on his ability to be on the insertion end of anal sex.
The submissivity of Asian actors is not only in sexual positions, but also in their expressivity. Compared to European/American bottoms who moan/scream loudly, swear, and otherwise express a range of emotions during penetrative sex, Asian actors often moan softly and reserved, regardless of if they were in great pain or pleasure.
It is also more common for Asian bottoms to not ejaculate in porn, while their Caucasian counterparts almost always cum in the end. While we have been critical on whether ejaculation equates to orgasm, I would still interpret the lack of ejaculation of Asian porn actors as a sign of how the Asian body is viewed as a literal object for the sexual pleasure of its user. Jay Ell (right) is one of such example. His porn performance always puts him in a submissive
role, and he never ejaculates on screen.
Peter Fever, a Production House Trying to Change the Narrative
Perceiving the stereotypical Asian image in gay porn, Peter Le, a Vietnamese-American underwear model started PeterFever.com in 2009 'to introduce sexy, muscular and masculine Asian American men to the world', which initially only included his own strip-teasing and masturbation videos, but slowly developed into an Asian-actor-centric production label that attracts Asian porn actors from across the world. Peter Le, the model who started the biggest Asian-centred gay porn
production label in the US.
Living up to his claim, Peter Le recruited numerous Asian porn actors, rst from the US, and later from Mainland China, Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries as well. The label showcases men of di erent builds, from slim and lean to muscular and beefy. Asian actors are also not con ned to the bottom role, where the label also recruit Caucasian models to act as the receiving end of penetrative sex.
Damian Dragon (left) penetrating Sir Jet (bottom) in Peter Fever's
"Gayvengers" series.
To be critical, though, while porn produced by Peter Fever subverts Asian's role in pornography, it is also perpetrating the stereotypical image of stronger tops against slimmer bottoms, where Asian actors who perform the penetrating role are visibly more muscular than actors that are more on the bottoming side.
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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 8:08 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Sexualised Racism and Racialised Sexism
In Miller-Young’s ar cle, she men oned that there are s ll sexualised racism and racialised sexism in sex industry. The (White) male gaze treats exo c bodies as ero c; there are misrepresenta on, exploita on and coercion especially when it comes to inter-racial pornographies. Thus, there has been influence from Black feminism in porn industry, to reclaim the sexual capital and power of Black female bodies; and there have been more ethical Black feminist porn producers/actresses.
I think there has indeed been improvement in racial equality in media, one of the examples is that there are more diverse and comprehensive representa on of Black people in mainstream/commercial film industry, such as Black Panther and Little. However, I think that the stereotypes and inequality are s ll present. And the advocacy from feminism has to have stable financial ground to prac ce the theories, par cularly in sex industry. The ar cle reminds me of a book I read before, What’s Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic, the author did her ethnographic research on local sex workers and European (White) clients. In her book, the author men oned that White clients could enjoy exo c sexual service with a rela vely low price in Dominican Republic, yet female sex workers there believed in the “opportunity myth” that someday a “rich” European client would fall in love with them to support their lives or to bring them to Europe so that they could start their new lives. The power dynamics between local female sex workers and privileged European clients were obvious. The author also pointed out that even though the female sex workers formed strong bonds with each other and had powerful rela onships, there was no emerge of any feminism thoughts or prac ce. I think similar situa on is happening in other “sex paradises” (for instance, Thailand and Cambodia) in under-developed countries, where sex tourism is one of the most important incomes for the places.
In Hong Kong, some people also have stereotypical and discriminatory opinions towards female sex workers of different ethnici es. For example, blonde White sex workers are preferred than local/Chinese workers than Philippine/Thai ones, yet Black sex workers are excluded/invisible in Hong Kong sex scape. I think the hierarchy of different ethnici es is resulted from the historical background of colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. [Prices of sexual services in red-light district in Hong Kong (mainly in Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei), the prices of foreign girls (in the first picture it says Russian, but we can't really know, I think they can be White girls from any countries) are much higher than local girls or Mainland Chinese ones, and Malay/Philippine female sex workers (those with darker skin colours) are with lowest prices]
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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 11:08 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
It is just all about variety After reading this article, I want to know if that "Black people are stereotyped as gangster" is really so common and mainstream, so I immediately logged into pornhub and searched with "gang" as a keyword, but the results were those actors who played the gangster role have very diverse races, including white skin, dark skin, and yellow skin.
On the Internet, we often see various criticisms about racial discrimination against pornography. They say that it portrays blacks as big penises, overpowering sexual desire, and disrespect for women. The video would receive many attacks immediately forced to be removed if it is a mainstream TV episode or advertisement. But I think this situation is not good. In fact, descriptions such as big penis, strong sexual desire, and disrespect for women are common themes in pornography. Actors of di erent races will play such roles. We are so sensitive, and constantly complaining about pornography is just due to historical reasons. That is, a long time ago, people believed that blacks were like orangutans, that they had huge sexual organs, strong sexual desires, and rude behaviors, and used this as an argument to prevent them from entering civil society. But now, history has passed. Large sex organs, strong sexual desire, and rough behavior are only some popular role settings in pornography. Those pornography that are criticized may simply because their actors are black. Even those videos with "black gangsters" in the title, what's the problem with it? It is ok that people who are particularly fond of a certain race have such a sexual desire. Do we have to complain about the current lm and television programs, where their actors are often beautiful and handsome, discriminating against ugly people? Certainly not. Anyway, what Vanessa Blue did, as this article mentioned, has a positive impact on the porn industry. She lmed blacks as the main actors, with di erent kinds of themes, including lonely middle-class married women and cute young hip-hop girls, and sexual abuse themes, increasing the variety of pornographic videos. To solve the problem of racial discrimination in pornographic videos, what we have to do is not to prevent the production of certain types of pornographic videos but to increase the types of porn. So that there will be no longer "a certain race be stereotyped as a certain image."
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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 11:03 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Ana Foxxx as an example of devalued black actress in the porn I definitely agreed with what was mentioned in the reading: “women of color are specially devalued within a tiered system of racialized erotic capital”, while within these colored women, black bodies were the most degraded one. Such phenomenon still continue and can be easily seen in nowadays porn industry, for instance, the black porn star Ana Foxxx claimed that being an colored actress, she would be offered less money than other white actress, also it was difficult for black porn actress to reached the top position of this industry——only 3 to 5 black actress completed for top roles. She even experienced the removal of her footage during the AVN Awards (someone called it the Oscar of porn) in 2017 and she was told that things that were political had to be cut. This is another example that illustrate the racism existed in the porn industry, the black labors in this industry are still suffering in a situation that black workers are being exploited though this issue have been noticed and discussed for such a long time until now.
Not just Black and White, there is also a “Black Hierarchy” The above was about the labor of black actress, showing how they are being degraded and exploited. Undeniably there is still a gap between the representation of white bodies and black bodies, there is also a “black hierarchy” going on. This is a hierarchy of beauty exists in the group of black skin porn stars, women with lighter black skin will be represented as more desirable and pretty while women with darker black skin will be represented as less beautiful and desirable. Black women with darker skin color might be acting in the gonzo porn with lower budget more often and are playing the role of some characters considered as lower class in the society, like the prostitute. “Ebony Sex Workers” and “Black Girls Working the Streets” will be some good examples of it. So, the racism in porn might not just be some black and white matter, but also include some pure black matter, which actually is also related to white as lighter dark color were considered more beautiful. Such issue, just like what was mentioned in the article, this was something that related to racial histories that informed our contemporary fantasies and sexual economics. Still, white might be the most beautiful color in the eyes of many people, also for this industry.
(Beyonce’s example of whitewashing) Finally, this leads me to a question: Many people will consider porn as a tool for sexual education, but if it is still a racist business going on, how will it construct people, especially youths’ understanding or view towards race︖ (Post is Read)
Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 11:09 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
The uprising of ethnic pornography- is it good or is it bad?
When ethnic pornography has gained popularity, and ethnicity has become a category of desire, it arguably provides an alternative source of income for ethnic minorities. Being a porn star is no doubt one way of earning an income, especially for the underprivileged with minor exposure of education and social status. It actually reminds me of the Net ix series ‘Hot Girls Wanted’. In the documentary, some porn stars are living a better life lming porn, even when they are being exploited. By conforming to the sexual desire of the audience, ethnic minorities stand a chance of a ording themselves. Besides, it is also arguable that interracial sex normalizes interracial relationship by showing them on screen, increasing the perceived closeness between the two races.
However, I believe the mainstream ethnic pornography is actually toxic, in a sense that it promotes racial stereotypes and portray them as inferior to the Whites. Ethnic minorities are exoti ed and sexualized and are de ned based on their racial identities. For example, black women are associated with having big buttocks and Asians are associated with submissiveness. It generalizes stereotypes to all members of an ethnicity, devaluing their individualities. This does not promote the integration of di erent ethnicities, but rather reinforcing the di erences in them. In fact, there is often more sexual aggression in interracial sex scenes, and the protagonists are seldom portrayed as couples, with a lack of intimacy depicted. Although producers like Vanessa Blue tries to kick back at this discrimination by producing her own porn with Black women being portrayed in di erent roles non-stereotypically, many ethnic minorities are still willing to participate in stereotypical or abusive roles for an income, especially when they are more likely to live in poverty. Therefore, I think it is very hard to overthrow the existing destructive manners of ethnic pornography, although e orts should be put in.
(Under interracial sex category, sex is pretty aggressive- look at the titles)
(titles are much less aggressive than interracial porn when the keyword is 'blonde')
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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 11:15 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
The Humanity of Sex in Pornography
Turning from performer to producer, Vanessa try to nd a way to oppose the traditional porn production industry by making her own porn from her own point of view. She was described as an activist in the porn industry. Being a black women, she had to overcome many unnecessary obstacle during her production. It is not surprise that she have to to sleep with several insider in the industry so to get more information, but it is sad that she need to do so much to try to alter the current unfair situation. Respect. And indeed her production had bring in fresh blood to the industry.
When Vanessa describes the xed procedure and plot in porn production, she reminded me of the industrial nature of porn-entertainment production. The standardized pornography degraded porn from kind of creation (and not to mention art) to commercial product. It was like the anit-sex dystopia depicted in novel “1984”, in which the porn are generated by machine. Those smut are tedious and repetitive. They can only ful ll the minimum need of people’s sexual desire. Not much emotional content and not even self- authorship. Our creative industry DO need more humanized creation of porn. We can’t let the industry become more and more commercial and strangled the humanity re ected through sex.
Vanessa also brought up another problem caused by the industrialization of porn production, that is the degrading of performers. In traditional production, performers were told to perform sex according to the ow designed by the director which was standardized to t the general taste of audience. The performers were treated like living sex dolls that can be “discarded and replaced”. Vanessa’s production turned performers to creator, giving them more agency in performing sex. There is a minor point in the article that surprised me, that Vanessa well prepare the bed for the performers, which was seldom noticed by producer in traditional porn production. I had been ignoring the bed and venue in the porn. Never had I think of the pleasure and comfort of shooting environment to the performers. Most porn were shot on beds with white sheets, white covers, and no one really care if there were pillow or not. However, we all know having a pleasant bed gives more pleasant experience to both performers and audience, most of us just ignored it.
Human enjoys sexual pleasure in a more complex way then animal. Therefore, what we need in pornography is way more diverse. These non-standardized production by lm makers like Vanessa worth more attention and more support as they bring the emotional arousal and furthermore the color of humanity back to the half dead standardized porn industry.
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Thread: Posted Date: March 15, 2021 11:49 PM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Get Rid of The Commercial Mindset of The Pornography Industry
Throughout the course we have discussed pornography as a commercial product and as an art. This is crucial in discussing whether or not standardisation of mainstream pornography is good. As suggested by Mireille, the standardisation is justified when pornography is considered as a commercial product. Mainstream pornography is classified as mainstream because they are produced in a way that they can satisfy as many customers as possible with a cost as low as possible. Balancing cost and benefit, it is a successful commercial decision indeed.
However, most of us and Mireille think it is not ideal. It is due to the fact that we treat pornography not as a commercial product but an art. As an art, it has to show innovation, bravery, and diversity, qualities that standardised mainstream pornography fail to own. Hence, mainstream pornography is a failure when being seen as an art. I noticed that Vanessa, who was interviewed by Mireille, said “I wanted” for multiple times. She wanted to act, control, and produce pornography, but she didn’t say she wanted to earn a lot. The cost-and-benefit consideration wasn’t in her mind but she really care about how to provide innovation, bravery, and diversity, qualities that the pornography industry was lacking. What I personally think the pornography industry truly lacks is passionate director like Vanessa who treat pornography as an art. The industry is huge nowadays as many producers entered the industry wanted to be benefited by its commercial value. Standardised production as well as substandard working environment are primarily due to the cost-and-benefit consideration, which a revenue-obsessed director will have. If we have more pornography directors without a revenue-obsessed mindset, the industry will be more open-minded and diversified.
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Thread: Posted Date: March 16, 2021 2:57 AM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Unshakeable stereotype : The sexual image and projection of black people in Asian society
Miller-Young's article has mentioned about black women’s symbolic sexuality in pornography industry. Given that there are always some racial stereotypes towards black people in di erent social perspectives. I would like to gure out the reason behind in the sexuality eld and how this is a ecting by the community general values.
In Asian community, having sexual relationship with black people often being criticised. Especially towards black men. Black male, due to genetic and biological factors, they usually have larger sizes of reproductive organ. Therefore, women who have sexual relationship with black men would easily projected to higher pleasant and enjoyment through sexual activities with black men who are with larger penis. Thus, depicted a more obscene image of those women.
Black men sex even be a speci c theme in Asian adult video. Explicitly highlighting the di erence and contrast of the body sizes and positioning between Asian women and black men, performed a signi cantly dominative role play during the sexual activities.
Ethnicity is one of the main factors, also preference for people to choose pornography which could stimulate them with sexual arousal. Over my peer, seldom of my girl friends would like to watch pornography in black men theme. It may because black men porn often presented a really aggressive sex. It is questionable that why sexual activities involve black men must proceed in such a way.
Since then, it can be seen that stereotype is not just shown in sexuality or erotic aspects, but far before the image and perceptions constructed towards black people and its community, which highly possibly would be racial discrimination and ethically misunderstood.
Sex industry or Sex culture industry is always more than sex itself or obscene. It is a cultural performance of community values. Rooted discrimination and misunderstanding in race and ethnicity could be shown in a relatively vulgar way but still would be a good medium to study about discrimination value in Asian society. Attachment: IMG_0017.PNG (5.143 MB)
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Thread: Posted Date: March 16, 2021 4:13 AM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Racialized sex in the porn industry
As the threshold of porn produc on has lowered, both porn produc on and consump on could be observed on the internet. It is observed that more racial categories could be found on porn sites.
Such trend seems to be providing more choices and opportuni es to pornstars and audiences in terms of porn categories. Pornstars of ethnic minori es could have more opportuni es to earn income when such racial categories gain popularity, providing more equality in terms of job opportunity in the porn industry.
However, we cannot turn a blind eye to the hidden effects of the racialized sex when it becomes a gimmick or tool for porn producers to earn more money in an unethical way. Porn producers in the industry take advantage of racialized sex and in fact exposed the racial inequality in porn scenes.
First of all, rape scenes are more o en associated with the ethnic minori es/black popula on. While more rape pornographies are produced with raced porn actors to enhance the authen city and to sa sfy the fantasy of the audience, the problem of rape in society has been further worsen as it might indirectly naturalize such ac on and enough crimes, making the ethnic minori es and black women in society more vulnerable and threatening their safety.
In addi on, interracial sex reflects the racial inequality which one race dominates over the other. In a physical sense, black men are stereotyped as dominant and physically stronger with high performance. On the other hand, Asian women are stereotyped as submissive and weak. Under such context, interracial porn o en portray scenes that women are longing for black men for sex, while black men are being abusive and aggressive on the female subject. Such portrayal further strengthens the racial inequality and racial stereotype in society, further marginalizing the ethnic minori es and disempowering them.
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Thread: Posted Date: March 16, 2021 7:43 AM Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Status: Published Post: RE: Wk10 Re ections on Mireille Miller-Young Author:
Erotization of race
The physical di erences of race are usually embedded into stereotypes which are then erotized. For instance, in porn industry, black men are expected to have a big penis (BBC). Black women are expected to be hypersexual, have big tits and butt. However, erotization of race includes much more than physical di erences. Race, in the erotization, always operate with some kinds of racial image and hierarchy. Stereotypes are important elements for building the image and social meaning of race. The stereotypes of a race usually involve with the race’s racial hierarchy, socio-economic status, cultural status or even nationality. These stereotypes are given meanings and values which are erotized and brought into sexes. For instance, because Korean national image is deeply related to masculinity, the existence of United States Forces Korea somethings hurt the masculine image of Korean men. To compensate this psychological imbalance, they will have the sex service from white female sex workers. They call “penetrating a white woman” as “the Korean Flagpole”. Here, erotization of white as a race is more than physical appearance. Instead, the higher global status of the west and white people’s higher position in racial hierarchy play signi cant roles to constitute the power relation which is highly erotic. In the case of porn industry, di erent races will be given di erent meanings. Because of di erent meanings each race has, each gender of each race has di erent positions and uses in the porn industry. For instance, porn about white or black man dominating an Asian or southeast Asian woman are common, but porn about Asian or southeast Asian man dominating white or black woman are rare. Because Asian and southeast Asian are considered submissive. Vanessa Blue’s works, by not following these stereotypes and racial hierarchy, liberate the meanings and image put on black female. Black female performers, by lming di erent kinds of porn they want, may be able to jump out this objectivation which reduce the perform to objects with no subjective emotions and preference but only imply di erent power relations and social meanings of race.
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