‘It's a really great tool’: feminist pornography and the promotion of sexual subjectivity

Abstract

Drawing from a critical cultural studies-based study that included interviews with producers and performers, and focus groups with consumers, the following paper seeks to demystify meaning-making processes among women that consume feminist pornography. Rather than focus on either production practices or consumer patterns, this study engages with both in an attempt to uncover discursive formations and reception. The following paper describes how feminist pornography audiences arrive at this genre, based on both distaste for mainstream depictions of female sexuality and an interest in diversifying their pornography diet; these orientations have led them to develop a ‘taste’ for ethically produced, or ‘feminist’, pornography content. In addition, data suggest that consumers engage with negotiated readings patterns and normative viewing practices. Drawing on these findings, this paper argues that feminist pornography offers a unique ‘heterotopia’ for a particular population of female, feminist-identified consumers to actively explore sexual practices and develop sexual subjectivity.

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