Finished reading A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography, by Mireille Miller-Young.

Exciting and enjoyable all the way through.

Gives a great history on both pornography & Black women's struggles for labor rights.

Also gives a lot of great human stories & insights.

Mireille Miller-Young's 2014 book A Taste for Brown Sugar examines the history of Black women in pornography, mostly film and video, since the late 19th century.

The book contrasts Black actresses' craft with their struggle for equality in the industry.
https://www.dukeupress.edu/A-Taste-for-Brown-Sugar/

Dr. Mireille Miller-Young is an Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

I can't remember how I learned of Dr. Miller-Young's book A Taste for Brown Sugar. But I once I learned of it, I knew I had to read it.
https://www.mireillemilleryoung.com/ 

Dr. Miller-Young recognizes in A Taste for Brown Sugar that "money is the mobilizer of all workers' labor, across industries."

So economic needs are always part of porn actresses' choices.

Or, as porn actress Dee says, it's about "money, sex, and fame, all in that order."

However, as Dr. Miller-Young says in A Taste for Brown Sugar, in addition to money, some Black women chose to get involved with porn because they liked sex & porn.

The actress and rapper India talks about loving sex since youth & going into porn as an adult because of that love.

Additionally, in A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young shows how some Black women wanted to get involved in porn because they wanted to see more Black women in the films.

Women like Jeannie Pepper and Angel Kelly say they became pioneers in porn to inspire other Black women.

And as Dr. Miller-Young shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar, since the 1980s, as video and digital technology allowed more private viewing of porn, a lot more women have become consumers of porn.

Women feel some kind of fulfillment from the sexual expression in porn, just like men.

However, Dr. Miller-Young shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar that there is a disconnect for Black women.

As porn actress and director Vanessa Blue says, "I grew up with an appreciation for smut, and it broke my heart that smut was being made by people who really didn't care."

So in A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young examines this disconnect for Black women between aspiration and reality in porn.

The disconnect comes from pretty blatant racism in the industry -- apparent in the often embarrassingly stereotypical roles written for Black women.

But as Dr. Miller-Young shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar, racism in the porn industry manifests in other ways.

White directors, producers, and stars treat Black actresses like they're disposable.

And Black women stars have often gotten paid only half what white women stars get.

So in A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young examines how racism and porn have intertwined for Black women.

She examines the implicit erotics of the slave trade -- white men taking possession of Black women's and men's bodies, and being aroused by this kind of violation.

But in A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young also looks at the violence enacted against Black women's bodies by so-called scientists trying to prove that Black people were inferior based on their body types.

One horrifying example is Sarah Baartman. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35240987

As Dr. Miller-Young shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar, the historical racist violence against Black women leads to an "illicit erotics" whence white porn directors feel entitled to treat Black women like they're disposable because they're seen as "always-already" morally degraded.

In A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young then examines how Black women, many of whom *wanted* to do porn, navigated the racism of the industry.

First she goes back to the photo and film porn of the 19th/20th century to see what depth Black women added to their paltry roles.

In A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young then looks to the film porn of the 1970s -- where the Sexual Revolution and Civil Rights movement allowed for more depth in performances in films such as Lialeh and Sex World -- whose star, Desiree West, is a legend for many nowadays.

However, in A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young shows how, starting in the 1980s, as video and digital made porn easier to produce, making films for a quick buck took human stories off the table, incentivizing a "commodification of difference" -- especially for Black women.

But Dr. Miller-Young shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar that Black porn actresses navigated all these environments in a number of ways.

First, they always "imagined otherwise" by investing their characters with depth and nuance that the white directors hadn't put there at all.

Dr.Miller-Young also shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar that Black porn actresses navigated the racism of the industry by making demands based on their needs -- demands for better pay, information, & cutting bad scenes.

One great example is the porn star & activist Sinnamon Love.

But Dr. Miller-Young also shows in A Taste for Brown Sugar that Black women navigate the racism of the porn industry by making their own films!

Diana DeVoe, Vanessa Blue, Angel Kelly, & Abiola Abrams aka Venus Hottentot, have all made porn films.

Many sound really interesting!

Ultimately in A Taste for Brown Sugar, Dr. Miller-Young questions asks, "What if pleasure is one of the most radical tools black women can mobilize to intervene in their oppression?"

This viewpoint is still radical -- maybe more so in 2021 than 2014 -- in sex work theory, imo.

Dr. Miller-Young's book A Taste for Brown Sugar is one of the best and most exciting books on erotic labor I've ever read.

I feel this way because the book balances desire and pleasure, economic conditions, and struggles against racism and sexism like no other book in the field.

Dr. Miller-Young's book A Taste for Brown Sugar was ten years in the making. And you can tell.

The book gives a comprehensive context -- of pornography and of racism and sexism.

But it also weaves that context in with personal, human stories so seamlessly and naturally!

There is not a single dull page in Dr. Miller-Young's book A Taste for Brown Sugar.

The book is thought-provoking, emotional, and engaging from start to finish.

I feel this is at least partly because Dr. Miller-Young took so much care in making a book she cared so much about!

My only possible suggestion for Dr. Miller-Young's book A Taste for Brown Sugar is that the epilogue could have been reorganized.

All the stuff about Black women directors could have been made into a preceding chapter -- which itself could have been expanded by about 20 pages.

I absolutely recommend Dr. Mireille Miller-Young's book A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography for anybody interested in sex work and porn history, labor rights, or Black women's rights.

Enjoyable from start to finish.
@DukePress @DrMireille
https://www.dukeupress.edu/A-Taste-for-Brown-Sugar/