Putting Hypersexuality to Work: Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography

Abstract

This article focuses on the labor marginalization of black female performers within the pornography industry. Their representations and experiences as sex workers are shaped by a racialized and gendered sexual commerce where stereotypes, structural inequalities, and social biases are the norm. Black women are devalued as hyperaccessible and superdisposable in an industry that simultaneously invests in and ghettoizes fantasies about black sexuality. In light of feminist arguments against the victimization of women by pornography, I have attempted to show that black sex workers, while facing multiple axes of discrimination and harm, also employ hypersexuality and illicit eroticism to achieve mobility, erotic autonomy, and self-care.

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