So, in general most of us ladies aren’t big fans of pedophiles. I feel pretty confident speaking for my gender on that one. As such, we aren’t interested in romantic partners that are pedophiles. However, I assume that when guys are talking to me, since I’m not a young girl, they aren’t pedophiles. I know that isn’t perfect logic but there are a lot of other brands of creepy that I concern myself with before worrying about a potential mate being a pedophile.

This is why I was amused, nay, concerned when I was chatting with a dude that went out of his way to tell me on 3 separate occasions that he isn’t a pedophile. It would go like this:

Ellie: Some totally normal, mundane crap that I say to people. Not regarding pedophiles.
Guy: not a pedo here, trust me.
Ellie: Um, okay good.
Guy: i was just feeling u out. there are a lot of police knowadays looking for pedophiles and the life, and trust me, i’m not one, however, i guess i’m more or less looking for a relationship with a person my age
Ellie: Right. More crap that I say.
Blah
Blah
Blah
Guy: for pedophiles and the like…………………………………………
Ellie: WTF?

Then I blocked him. I think a preoccupation with pedophiles is enough to deter me.

I love the chance to tease someone. When he lets me say exactly what to do, waits on my every word for instructions. I love hearing his ragged breathing as he begs for just one more stroke, one more chance to touch his engorged member.

“No,” I say, “Not yet. I just want you to listen for now.”

He listens to the sounds of me as I stroke my wet pussy. Describing for him in excruciating detail how I am moving my fingers over my wetness, teasing my clit. I remind him frequently that his hands shouldn’t be on his cock right now. Then I relent a bit and give him what he wants.

“Alright, stroke your cock for a moment, but you must stop when I’m done counting to 10.”

He yearns to reach his release before I say 10 but misses it just at the cusp. I hear the disappointment echo in his exhale. I have him frustrated and weak. My pussy drips thinking about the control I am exercising.

I coo in his ear and tell him that I’m about to slide a nice thick toy into my pussy. I let him listen to me fuck myself. As I come, I allow him to touch himself but only with his fingertips. I can almost hear him trying to figure out how he might be able to make himself come with that sort of stimulation.

The play goes on. More 10 second count downs. More near misses. More yearning and begging as I get more turned on by my power.

I bet you’re wondering now if I ever let the poor man come. I guess you’ll have to keep waiting. After all, we’ve established that I’m a tease.

Feeling Domme-y lately

I’m craving the chance to tease the hell out of a grovelling man. Something has gotten into me this evening and I desperately want a slave boy at my feet, staring up at me adoringly, and praying that I will treat him with kindness. I don’t want to treat him with kindness.

I want him bound and beaten. I want him to take my strap on or suck the cock of whatever real man I have sitting around at the moment. I want to tease him with peeks at my stockings, panties, cleavage but not let him touch himself.

I want him to beg me for release and laugh in his face. Give him the chance to smell my skin and then slap him. There is no satisfaction for the weak-willed in my mind tonight.

I’ve been sitting on these pictures for ages, can’t recall why I haven’t published them yet. I’m hoping to take more with this photographer soon.

(more…)

So, I decided on an asian menu: steamed dumplings, edamame, summer rolls, a chicken and eggplant spicy stirfry over noodles, and my special ginger cosmos. As for what happened after dinner, I’m going to do something I don’t normally do and post a chat log. Feel free to ask follow-up questions as I didn’t even begin to cover it all.

[11:18] lumpesse: squeeeee!
[11:19] vinnietesla: The Chinese Menu was a success, huh?
[11:19] lumpesse: yeah yeah yeah
[11:19] lumpesse: holy crap, I have no idea how to write about this
[11:20] lumpesse: this is the reason that I haven’t written about the threesomes yet
[11:20] lumpesse: they sound like logistical impossibilities
[11:22] vinnietesla: And yet!
[11:22] lumpesse: like if I read porn that described the stuff we were doing last night, I’d be like, “bullshit, genitals don’t line up that way”
[11:22] vinnietesla: Ooh!
[11:23] vinnietesla: Wow!
[11:23] vinnietesla: Now you’re being a tease!
[11:23] lumpesse: haha
[11:23] lumpesse: okay, want the story from the top?
[11:23] lumpesse: (jay says, “I’m not sure we’d know who was the top”)
[11:24] lumpesse: So, they came over, we ate, I’m an excellent cook, blah blah blah
[11:24] lumpesse: we sit around after dinner having wine and ginger cosmos, I get pretty tipsy
[11:24] lumpesse: I think everyone is except jay who doesn’t drink
[11:25] lumpesse: we’ve been talking about sex for awhile, it gets quiet and I finally go, “so, who wants to play spin the bottle?”
[11:25] vinnietesla: Okay.
[11:25] vinnietesla: Hee!
[11:25] lumpesse: no one even says much, everyone just scoots their chairs back and jacob grabs the empty wine bottle from the bar
[11:25] lumpesse: and we all march into the bedroom, giggling
[11:26] lumpesse: I’m apparently spilling my drink during this process
[11:26] vinnietesla: You don’t recall, huh?
[11:26] lumpesse: No, I do
[11:26] lumpesse: but someone had to point out to me that I was spilling
[11:26] lumpesse: and I was all, ‘oh, so I am, oops’
[11:27] lumpesse: luckily I stopped drinking then
[11:27] vinnietesla: Okay.
[11:28] lumpesse: so spin the bottle
[11:28] lumpesse: we started with traditional rules until everyone had made out a few times
[11:28] lumpesse: (when I was a kid it was just a kiss but times they are a-changin’)
[11:29] lumpesse: then we decided to up the ante and the person that spun got to remove an article of clothing from the person they landed on while making out with them
[11:29] vinnietesla: Okay.
[11:29] lumpesse: boys making out is fun to watch, fyi
[11:29] lumpesse: anyway
[11:30] lumpesse: once everyone was naked, the game lost its utility and we all got on the bed
[11:30] lumpesse: (I don’t know how)
[11:30] lumpesse: and then fucked in a plethora of bizarre combinations for like, 2 hours
[11:30] lumpesse: that is where my narrative breaks down
[11:31] lumpesse: notable firsts included me and sylvia both being DPed for the first time
[11:31] lumpesse: me eating her out
[11:31] lumpesse: watching boys go at it
[11:31] lumpesse: jacob had never sucked cock before, etc
[11:32] vinnietesla: Oh wow!
[11:32] lumpesse: lol
[11:32] vinnietesla: That’s a nice lineup of firsts.
[11:32] lumpesse: have I actually impressed you?
[11:33] vinnietesla: You’ve done a bunch of stuff I hain’t.
[11:33] lumpesse: I like to imagine you as someone that has done everything I have a million times before.
[11:33] lumpesse: it worked so well, too
[11:33] vinnietesla: Not so hardly.
[11:33] vinnietesla: The foursome or the imaginary vinnie?
[11:33] lumpesse: the foursome
[11:34] vinnietesla: I’m curious how the DP was.
[11:34] lumpesse: the sexiest thing was probably jacob fingering me while he fucked sylvia and she was sucking jay’s cock
[11:34] lumpesse: and her and I were kissing on occasion
[11:35] lumpesse: I feel like I need a stick figure drawing to demonstrate this stuff
[11:35] lumpesse: the DP was interesting.
[11:35] lumpesse: I think that sylvia liked hers more than I liked mine
[11:35] lumpesse: I was basically over-stimulated by that time
[11:35] lumpesse: it was pretty hot, though
[11:36] lumpesse: I’d want to try it again for sure
[11:36] vinnietesla: Cool.
[11:36] vinnietesla: What size bed do you have?
[11:36] lumpesse: omg, I only have a full
[11:36] lumpesse: I can’t believe it operated
[11:37] lumpesse: someone was basically off the bed at most times in terms of doing something from the sides
[11:37] lumpesse: but still
[11:37] lumpesse: actually, right in the beginning we had basically just swapped partners and were all on the bed next to each other
[11:38] lumpesse: I think I’m just going to publish this IM convo instead of trying to write about this
[11:38] vinnietesla: I think that’s a great approach–
[11:38] lumpesse: So, ask any more questions that you have ;)
[11:38] vinnietesla: My father taught me a wonderfully dumb trick for breaking through a writing roadblock:
[11:39] vinnietesla: You just write “So what I’m trying to say is…” and go from there.
[11:39] vinnietesla: And then go back later and erase the preface.
[11:39] lumpesse: very true
[11:39] vinnietesla: Had you played with a chick before?
[11:39] lumpesse: I’d only kissed girls
[11:39] vinnietesla: Was it at all uncomfortable watching jay with another woman?
[11:40] lumpesse: no, it was hot
[11:40] lumpesse: Actually, one of the sexiest things I saw was her being DPed
[11:40] lumpesse: because I was pretty exhausted at that point and just watched
[11:41] lumpesse: Oh and after I came the first time I needed a breather
[11:41] lumpesse: so I got up and grabbed my new crop and walked around giving everyone swats with it
[11:41] lumpesse: and handed her my paddle so she could do some hitting too
[11:42] vinnietesla: Sounds like the atmosphere was largely sensual rather than BDSM-y, though.
[11:42] vinnietesla: New toys notwithstanding.
[11:42] lumpesse: yeah, definitely
[11:43] lumpesse: everyone was doing some biting and hitting but it was going in almost every direction
[11:43] lumpesse: more indicative of our collective tastes in someone rough sex than anything else
[11:44] vinnietesla: Yeah.
[11:44] lumpesse: jacob is sort of alpha male and I did find myself pretty overcome with the urge to top him a bit
[11:44] vinnietesla: How did decision-making flow–
[11:44] lumpesse: I got the crop out with his ass in mind
[11:44] vinnietesla: like, when you got DP’ed, was that your project?
[11:44] vinnietesla: Cute!
[11:44] vinnietesla: I sympathize with that impulse to top the toppy.’
[11:45] lumpesse: I think jacob brought it up – just something like “so, ellie and sylvia both have a fantasy that requires two cocks, who is up first?”
[11:45] vinnietesla: Hee!
[11:45] lumpesse: It was sylvia’s first group sex with multiple guys
[11:45] vinnietesla: In general, was there a ‘plan’ like that, or did you just all take care of yourselves.
[11:45] lumpesse: previously it had been other girls
[11:45] vinnietesla: Uh huh–
[11:45] lumpesse: everyone just sort of did stuff
[11:46] vinnietesla: It appears to be MMF week for some reason.
[11:46] lumpesse: jacob was sort of on fantasy patrol, making suggestions
[11:46] vinnietesla: Converstaions are turning that way all the time.
[11:46] lumpesse: it was really hot this time since the guys were touching each other and there was another girl
[11:46] vinnietesla: How much bisexual experience did they have?
[11:47] lumpesse: I felt a little less overwhelmed than when it was just two guys
[11:47] lumpesse: she had a lot and he had a little
[11:47] lumpesse: whereas for jay and I it is switched
[11:47] lumpesse: so that worked out well
[11:48] vinnietesla: I’m confused–
[11:48] vinnietesla: jay had been with other guys before?
[11:48] lumpesse: yeah, he had boyfriends for ages, he identified as ‘gay’ for a long time
[11:48] lumpesse: but it has been almost 10 years
[11:49] lumpesse: he was considering himself straight for awhile but since we’ve met he has revised to bisexual
[11:49] vinnietesla: I didn’t know that!
[11:49] lumpesse: now you do!
[11:49] vinnietesla: True dat.
[11:49] lumpesse: (I love your exclamation points, they let me know I’ve done well)
[11:50] vinnietesla: So do you see this staying essentially sexual, or is there potential for romantic involvement.
[11:50] vinnietesla: Why thank you.
[11:50] lumpesse: I’m really not sure.
[11:50] vinnietesla: Aren’t they impressively errect?
[11:50] lumpesse: I see it remaining as a sexual friendship for sure.
[11:51] lumpesse: I’m not even sure how romantic involvement would work for a group.
[11:51] lumpesse: I guess I’m still old fashioned in thinking of it as something that happens between pairs even if there is overlap in the pairs
[11:52] vinnietesla: well, there’s truth to that.
[11:53] lumpesse: But I could see myself becoming romantically interested in either of them or both
[11:53] vinnietesla: After all, any group involvement is composed of a set of pairs,
[11:53] lumpesse: right
[11:53] vinnietesla: when e and b and i were getting entangled for a couple weeks,
[11:53] vinnietesla: when e soured on b that was the end of that.
[11:53] vinnietesla: weakest link and all that.
[11:53] lumpesse: I can see that
[11:54] lumpesse: I’d think in our case the strong links would be in the two established couples
[11:54] lumpesse: obviously
[11:54] vinnietesla: Of course.
[11:54] lumpesse: if either of those came into jeopardy the whole thing would sour pretty badly
[11:54] vinnietesla: I had some interesting conversations on a message board with a guy in a double marriage.
[11:54] vinnietesla: He refers to his wife, his girlfriend, and his boyfriend,
[11:54] vinnietesla: You can extrapolate from there.
[11:55] lumpesse: okay, that makes sense
[11:55] lumpesse: I could conceptualize two parallel committed relationships where everyone is sort of dipping into the other track from time to time
[11:56] lumpesse: it that makes sense
[11:56] lumpesse: but for now, all I know is that they can come over for dinner whenever they want
[11:56] lumpesse: ;)
[11:59] vinnietesla: Hee!
[12:00] vinnietesla: “More dinner parties like that one please!”
[12:00] lumpesse: seriously
[12:00] vinnietesla: You’ve had a pretty eventful year or so.
[12:00] lumpesse: insanely
[12:01] lumpesse: I’ve gone from one sex partner to seven during this calendar year
[12:02] vinnietesla: As in lifetime record?
[12:02] lumpesse: right
[12:03] vinnietesla: Impressive!
[12:03] vinnietesla: I think six new partners a year was the criterion S gave me to keep my slut license current.

S and I always have so much to talk about that we tend to chat for an hour before we get down to ‘business. The phone calls usually feature a moment where one of us says, “So, um, what are you wearing?” or some other ridiculous line. Before we know it, someone is barking orders and someone is whimpering responses as their fingers slide over a slick cunt.

This time when I spoke to S, the chatter was especially significant (and prophetic.) Being a seasoned polyamorist himself, S loves to hear about my novice forays into sluttery. As per usual, I had more whining to do about the state of my “game” than any exciting tales of hedonism and release. S cooed and sympathized with my stories of online duds until I finally burst out with, “Why the can’t I just fuck people I already know?” S couldn’t see the reason I shouldn’t but I already knew the answer. I felt too weird outing myself as an aspiring whore to people I sit next to in graduate seminars.

Furthermore, being in a relationship knocks me straight off of most people’s radar. I can hardly wear a t-shirt that says, “Yes, I have a boyfriend but I still might sleep with you.” We finished that portion of the conversation with me feeling condemned to put up with nonsense on personals sites if I ever hoped to achieve my dream of a threesome. Despite my needy whining (always a turn on), S was still in the mood. Perhaps it was all that talk (however bleak) of threesomes that managed to keep us both frisky.

He began giving me a detailed description of taking me over his knee and spanking me. Just then an idea occured to me but it seemed a bit far-fetched. As S and I continued, I couldn’t shake it from my head and before I knew it I had blurted my idea out. “Would you like to hear me really being spanked?”

There was a beat wherein I was certain that my idea was being dismissed as preposterous. Then he replied, “Do you think you could pull that off?”

I snapped to attention, “Oh yes, I think there is someone around here that might be willing to help!”

I scampered to the other room where J was playing a video game. I stood in the door behind him and said, “Um?”

He turned to view me leaning against the doorframe in my panties, still clutching the phone in my hand. “Is S done with you already?”

“No, actually we were wondering if you could help us with something.”

. . .

“Will you come spank me while he listens?”

What happens next is really just a bunch of salacious details, you can skip over them if you wish to advance the narrative more rapidly.

S ordered me onto my hands and knees on the bed. This gave J a nice view of my upturned ass from the edge of the bed. As S continued his filthy monologue, J layed a hard smack on my behind and I let out a squeal. S growled in approval.

Around this time, I slipped my hand between my legs and began touching my slick pussy. The excitement, and fear, and newness of it all had made me incredibly wet. As I strummed my clit, I didn’t know which sensations to focus on. I realized I could check into one or another and really concentrate or I could float dreamily among them, accepting stray twinges of sensation to latch onto and enjoy. A sexy voice in my ear, a hard spanking, my own squealing, and my fingers flicking my wet clit.

J’s gift is having one perfect, insanely hot line whenever we get rough. This time was no different. As S verbally coaxed me to explode, J laid an especially hard smack on my ass and collapsed against me as I shrieked. His mouth just a hair from my ear he roughly whispered, “You better fucking come for him.”

I groaned my acceptance of his command, mashed my fingers into my pussy and did as I had been told. S murmured his approval and gently praised me for being such a pretty, dirty slut. I caught my breath and slid my hand over my newly reddened tushy to test the heat it was giving off.

J later told me that he has never spanked me that hard before. There is something to be said for divided attention.

I mentioned this paper several months ago when I wrote it. I’m working on it again and decided to publish it here in its present form. I’ve noticed a lot of great discussions on interracial porn appearing around the blogs (Audacia and Laughing Man, I’m looking at you) and thought I would jump into the fray.

***

For many open-minded Westerners, the fear of racial mixing was dismissed long ago. Still, it remains a spectre on race relations and the associated taboos constitute a frightening series of questions and problems. Liberal beliefs in equality and color-blindness often fall by the wayside at the moment that the question of erotic desire and racial mixing is introduced into the equation. In this way, deeply seated anxieties about racial contamination and power remain an element of sexuality around the world, making work on colonial sexuality continually vital. Frantz Fanon dedicates a significant portion of Black Skin, White Masks to describing interracial sexual relationships between the colonizer and the colonized. His chapters on the woman of color and the white man and the man of color and the white woman present two sides of the same coin; sexual power dynamics that fluctuate based upon sex, race, and political position.

In both situations the woman in question is the site of colonization – in the case of the woman of color, she is rendered as a symbol of the colonization of her nation. Fanon also expresses some clear resentment towards women of color as he describes their desire to always pursue the lightest men possible, to deny their nationality via their chosen sexual partners. Clearly, though, they are often the chosen. The conquest of these women by white men is an additional manifestation of the conquest of their nation. However, in the example of Mayotte, Fanon demonstrates a woman of Martinique that is bent on class ascension via racial means, “every woman in the Antilles, whether in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair, is determined to select the least black of the men.” (47) Fanon predicts that this racial self-loathing is re-projected onto the the youths of the next generation, either through the family structure or through the classroom or other social institutions. The message that will be passed on is of presumed inadequacy, one is only as “white as one is rich, as one is beautiful, as one is intelligent.” (51-52) These desired characteristics are ingrained as markers of whiteness. However, while attaining whiteness means attaining these characteristics, it is not clear that the converse is true. The colored person of the Antilles, in Fanon’s description, simply does not have true access to wealth, beauty, and intelligence because even having these qualities in abundance does not make them more white.

Fanon opens his chapter on the man of color and the white woman with the following confession:

Out of the blackest part of my soul, across the zebra striping of my mind, surges this desire to be suddenly white.
I wish to be acknowledged not as black but as white.
Now – and this is a form of recognition that Hegel had not envisaged – who but a white woman can do this for me? By loving me she proves that I am worthy of white love. I am loved like a white man.
I am a white man.
Her love takes me into the noble road that leads to total realization. . .
I marry white culture, white beauty, white whiteness.
When my restless hands caress those white breasts, they grasp white civilization and dignity and make them mine. (63)

Fanon’s rhetoric in this poetic moment emphasizes the interaction between desire and identification. He desires a white woman because he desires to be a white man and if not a white man, then just like a white man. The white woman’s body, her breasts are the symbol of dignities that are refused Fanon as a black man. This mythical white woman is deeply objectified, a mere marker for her race and civilization. A less than human symbol and battleground for resistance. Jonathan Dollimore, in a chapter on bisexuality, writes, “Do we ever simply desire the person we love, or is our desire not also partly an identification with him or her? Simply put, the ‘I want you’ of desire is complicated by the ‘I want to be you’ of identification.” (27) While Dollimore refers to gender difference, the argument is clearly manifested in Fanon’s desire for racial difference and identification. Fanon describes these urges as coming from the “darkest part” of his soul but from the “zebra stripping” of his mind. The desire to be white comes from the part of him that is fully and darkly black, the soul and only “across” the part of him that is already conspicuously colonized by whiteness, his mind. In this way, Fanon seems to imply that the desire for whiteness or more generally the desire for identification and assimilation is intrinsic to him, separate from his experience with colonization. More importantly, this experience of identification may be just as commonly experienced by a white person as it is by him.

Can Fanon’s troubling portrayal of racial mixing be used to describe the impetus behind contemporary examples of miscegenation? Certainly, a change in setting effects the validity of this claim. Furthermore, Fanon does not regularly acknowledge the actual human relationships and emotions that are in play as the result of a given marriage. His psycholanalysis is societal instead of individuated and therefore makes sweeping generalizations about the motivations of all interracial relationships. It discounts any instances of true cross-racial compatibility or couplings that are motivated by non-political factors (love or passion spring to mind although neither are fully outside of politics.) For this reason, his work is inadequate to explain actual interracial relationships. At the very least it must be acknowledged that his condemnation or critical approach to them is over-arching.

However, there is something very useful about Fanon’s theories as they can be received by a contemporary, multi-racial American audience. It is clear that they can go a long way to explain the production and broad appeal of interracial pornography. The epidermalization of desire is reflected in contemporary interracial pornography. We need to look at not just how but also why interracial pornography portrays its characters in this way.

As an opening caveat, it should be clear that I approach this question by considering these erotic materials as texts. While much ink has been shed by anti-pornography feminists, I do not wish to enter the fray on the question of censorship. Therefore, I have refrained from making normative claims about the existence of such work or its legitimacy in the community. While it is easy to see why many find it distasteful, my purpose is to interrogate the psychology behind its creation and message, not the psychological effects of its existence or consumption.

Of course it is never fully possible to bracket this question and I hope to dismantle one particular underpinning of the anti-pornography argument. Most of the arguments to censor pornography rest on Catherine MacKinnon’s position that pornography is a form of harmful hate speech, the speech is an action in itself and has harmful effects. The effects described usually are in the form of unrealistic attitudes towards women and sexuality. However, I will argue that the adult industry does not create these myths as an invidious attempt to corrupt the psychic and sexual health of the pornography consumer. Rather, the pornography industry (perhaps more than any other group of businesses I can imagine) creates their product based upon demand. Being affiliated with “the oldest profession” means that pornography makes a business of selling sex, one of the most basic of human drives. While a gadget manufacturer is also in the business of manufacturing desire for their product (humans are not born with a drive to own a mandolin slicer) the adult industry caters to a market that is always already there. Their productions do not exist in a social vacuum, rather they are based upon the desires and fantasies of their audience. This is not to say that pornographers cannot be exploitative. But it is to say that their marketing techniques and product development are almost necessarily some of the least invasive of any type of business that exists. This is not because of particular benevolence but because of the nature of the product, they sell something that is built into humans to want and desire. They also sell the manifestations of often unspoken fantasies.

Another important caveat is regarding the appropriateness of comparing contemporary racism in the United States with the post-colonial condition of racism. Certainly the diaspora of Africans has unique impact based upon their geographical location. My argument is that these representations in pornography constitute a colonizing mindset that has never fully diminished in the American psyche. This helps one to get away from the argument that particular pornography producers are racist and hateful (although some certainly might be) and allows for the more fruitful line of thinking that the demand for this sort of material makes a very real statement about the society that produces it. The presence of this fantasy of colonization and subordination blur erotic lines to make a political statement.

It is appropriate to begin with a description of the state of contemporary interracial pornography. What happens in these films? How are they marketed? And what are the racial tropes circulating within them? One popular weblogger and adult industry insider, Sam Sugar, described interracial pornography in the following way:

I am a black man
Your name: People will want to name you something that get’s across that you have a big, black cock. The porn industry knows that black guys with small dicks do not exist. They know you have a cock like a cruise missile covered in radar absorbing paint. [...]
Your movies: You will be offered roles in movies with the words black, gang, ballin’, ass, jungle, and chocolate in the title. When you are asked to perform with white women they will be referred to using the words little, tiny, innocent, stretched and meat. E.g. “Big Black Beef Stretches Little Pink Meat”. I’m sad to say that’s a real movie.
Your press: Every mention of your name will be followed by the imagined length of your cock in inches. People will refer to the ’soul’ you put into your performances and the ‘rhythm’ of your love tenderizing.

I’m a black woman
Your name: Anything you like – bonus points for making it extra ghetto. Shaniqwa Debonair is an excellent choice.
Your movies: It’s all about being a chocolate sister. People will be unable to look at you without wanting to put your ‘phat ghetto booty’ in a video with some guys from The Digital Underground. The people doing this will be white. Regardless of the size of your butt it will be referred to as ‘two fine hams’. Expect to get spanked a lot.
Your press: The world needs to know that you have a lot of junk in the trunk. Your ass will get more coverage than your medical degree. If you ever get upset about anything you will be called an uppity high maintenance bitch.

While meant to elicit a laugh, his analysis is a grippingly honest description of the racialized discourse of sex and pornography. He makes few apologies for these realities and instead describes them plainly. These descriptions are difficult to stomach at times and seem as if they must be exaggerations. They are not, and while graphic, the honesty of these complaints is compelling. It is probably not shocking to know that Sugar’s descriptions of the treatment of black men and women is sandwiched among other groups of people that are fetishized in pornography including Latinos, Asians, and physically different people. Especially useful is description of how these films are marketed. The titles that are chosen and the words and descriptions that appear on box covers are the essence of the pornography producer’s pitch to their client. They are meant to appeal to their audience instantly and stand out amongst a plethora of other options. Why do these titles have such a broad appeal? The easy answer is that only racists buy such materials but the broad demand and the mainstream nature of them seems to undermine that option.

At face value, it is simple to dismiss these representations as repugnant, however there is a deeper ambivalence to this genre. Some argue that by depicting interracial sex, a traditionally taboo subject in American culture, that this pornography can lead to breaking the taboos that exist and allow for greater acceptance of interracial relationships.(Williams, 274) The counterpoint, of course, exists that the extreme caricatures are more damaging than they can ever be fruitful. Because the focus of these films is on the interracial aspect, the performers are distilled to cultural and sexual stereotypes and are not individuated outside of that. Pornography is rarely interracial in an incidental way. The question of race is constantly brought to the fore in the titles of pieces as well as the dialogue that occurs between characters.

The market for these films is varied. Some are meant to appeal to white men while others
are intended to have a broader appeal. This begs the question, if the audience of interracial pornography is, itself, interracial what is the message of it? Clearly, the message is different for each individual viewer just as their motivations for watching may be individual. The BDSM fetish community has a motto: Safe, Sane, Consensual. Practitioners of bondage, domination, and sadism maintain that as long as an activity between two adults meets that three-pronged test, it is acceptable. While not all people within the community may find it arousing and some may even find it repugnant, if it passes this test BDSM practitioners will not practice judgment. “Safe, Sane, and Consensual” is used to eroticize and create safe spaces for acceptance of many fringe forms of sexual play and the role playing of extreme situations such as rape, bestiality, and incest. If these acts are accepted by a sexual community can educated people make the same allowances for what we find distasteful in interracial pornography? One thing that BDSM play and pornography clearly have in common is the element of performance and the desire to segment desires in such a way that they have multiple interpretations. If pornography is nothing else, it is rhetorical, and its reception is entirely dependent upon the desires of the viewing audience.

Interracial pornography requires a performance of race by the actors involved. The dialog in these films is always self-aware and referential to the racial difference between the actors. The contrast between their bodies is emphasized continually. A black actress is playing a different role in an interracial film than she might be in a film that emphasizes the size of her breasts or a particular sexual act. She is always a black actress but her blackness becomes the commodity that is traded. While it may be hard to believe, it is plausible that the actress in question derives just as much sexual satisfaction from racialized sexual play as the white male that may be watching her performance. Likewise, a submissive in a BDSM context is just as sexually invested in their own humiliation as the person that does the humiliating. It is easy to revert to the argument that such sexual desires stem from some manifestation of self-loathing or insecurity but that explanation is dangerously paternalistic. Acceptance of such lifestyle choices does not necessarily imply advocacy of them or agreement with them. However, exiting personal preferences for a moment in order to fathom difference is a crucial step in the obliteration of oppressive taboos, including those against racial mixing.

Just as Fanon interprets negrophobia as a form of white sexual anxiety, the politically
fearful dismissal of interracial pornography stems from deeply held taboos about race. The performance of stereotypes, while distasteful can have a positive effect,

Stereotypes are important objects of study not because we can better learn to eliminate them from our thinking, but because they cannot be eliminated. Stereotypes persist, and perhaps even thrive on, the protestations against them; the louder the protest, the more they thrive. [...] To forbid all utterance or depiction of the stereotype of the originally phobic image of the large black penis is to grant it a timelessness and immortality that it does not really possess. (Williams, 284)

So, it is because of the fetishistic nature of the stereotypes, as they are already uttered, that the compulsion to repeat their utterance can actually have a positive effect. This is not a blanket suggestion to toss around slurs and half-truths but instead a way to implore people to see them for what they are – archaic but deeply held beliefs to be questions. The sooner a move is made away from holding them as sacred, the sooner we can mock and demystify these stereotypes, the more likely it is that interracial sexual relationships will lose their stigma. However, I want to be perfectly clear that these arguments are merely a way to accept and interpret interracial pornography in a useful way – to find a space where these celebrations of difference can be transmuted into an understanding of the powerful erotic desires that ground contemporary race relations. Are the stereotypes exploited in interracial pornography liberatory in and of themselves? Are the actors involved always intentionally problematizing race or experiencing sexual satisfaction from their performances of racial stereotypes? Of course not, the producer’s only intrinsic intention is to make money on their product, making it neutral at best. Many actors are exploited or at least not particularly invested in the racial tone of the product they are producing. But recognizing the adult choices that go into the production of such material and accepting fantasies without judgments can contribute greatly in stripping the stigma from interracial sexuality.

Works Referenced

Dollimore, Jonathan. Sex, Literature, and Censorship. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Volume 1. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

MacKinnon, Catharine A. Only Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Penley, Constance. “Crackers and Whackers: The White Trashing of Porn.” Porn Studies. Ed. Linda Williams. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.
Sugar, Sam. “Porn and Prejudice.” Sugarbank. 23 June 2005. 14 Nov. 2005 .

Williams, Linda. “Skin Flicks on the Racial Border: Pornography, Exploitation, and Interracial Lust.” Porn Studies. Ed. Linda Williams. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.

J (aka, Eternal Apprentice) has posted about a recent encounter between the two of us that involved some rope. He has furnished pictures. Here is another from the same afternoon – I haven’t been in this corset in ages, it was fun (if your idea of fun is the inability to draw a full breath into your lungs.)

Oh, and for the record, I am wearing Hello Kitty panties in both of these pictures. Who says that BDSM has to be gothy?