Don't shit in my mouth and call it a sundae
7 April 06
Pornography occupies a precarious position in American life. On one hand, social conservatives would just as well do away with it altogether. On the other, social liberals and sex-positive types have profound misgivings about the industry, its practices and its products.
Alt-porn was supposed to get us out of this bind. If its proponents were to be believed, the new sex-positive erotica would undermine the old stereotypes, treat everyone fairly and deliver a product progressives could feel good about. As it turns out, the new porn looks a lot like the old porn plastered over by a clever facade of “cruelty-free” marketing.
I’ve been following the Joannagate controversy closely, in part because I was curious what the pied pipers of alt-porn might have to say about Joanna Angel’s remarks. In her response to Sam Sugar, Tristan Taormino, producer of the video segment in question, was kind enough to quote Joanna verbatim:
She said, “I have never fucked a black guy in my personal life so I thought it would be weird to do it on camera for the first time. So I said, no, I guess I don’t do interracial.” Then, she openly questioned herself in saying, “Does it make me racist if I will let some white stranger come on my face and not a black one?”
While this comment doesn’t exactly endear Joanna to me, I’m not frothing at the mouth over it either. People say silly things all the time, and as much as the a priori fear of the black man implied by Joanna’s remark irks me, I’m willing to write it off as simple naiveté.
Taormino, on the other hand, ought to know better. Not content to simply put the remark in context, she goes on to justify white privilege in the jizz biz (for you feminists out there, think male privilege, except with skin color).
When was the last time you heard someone be so brutally honest, especially about race, in a porn movie?
One wonders whether Taormino has actually seen a pornographic video lately. If “Ghetto Hoochies” and “Me Luv U Long Time” and “Mandingo Meat” aren’t brutally honest about the state of race relations in America, I don’t know what is. Read a few interviews and you’ll find it is common for white starlets to talk about how they don’t do interracial (which is really a coded way of saying they don’t “do” black).
I thought it was bold and brave of Joanna to challenge herself on such a loaded issue. ... She defied the “no interracial” check box on the form and she fucked him. And it was a great scene.
There’s nothing brave or bold at all about expressing one’s reluctance to work with black men. Joanna’s statement might have been bold back in 1974—in 2006 it just makes people wonder what cave she crawled out of.
What is truly appalling here is that the interracial no-black-men check box exists at all, and that its existence goes unchallenged within the alt-porn community. Apologists might argue the check box is merely an “industry standard.” But then so is fucking a woman in the mouth so hard that she vomits on herself. Why then does this Jim Crow era holdover get a pass in the alt-porn world?
Some female performers’ choice not to work with black men may be fueled by racism, but not every woman who makes the choice is automatically racist. That is unfair and reductive.
I can understand two individual performers lacking compatibility. What I do not, cannot, understand is why the decision to cross color lines is equivalent to questioning one’s sexuality (girl-on-girl) or doing something that’s potentially very uncomfortable (anal). This, to me, smacks of racism, not only on the part of the individual performers but enshrined within the industry itself.
One wonders where the “Jews” check box is, and how we might feel about the kind of person who would refuse to check it off.
I hoped that Joanna’s question would be a question to us all, and, along with Mr. Marcus’ commentary in the DVD extras about racism, would spark some much-needed thoughtful dialogue on the subject. Instead, it was used to stir up shit and perpetuate a tired racist/non-racist dichotomy. It’s time we stopped name-calling and elevated the conversation.
Taormino’s closing remark strikes me as disingenuous, not only because this is all about making a buck in a lucrative niche, but because nothing is really being challenged here. The apartheid continues—indeed, Taormino’s given performers a comfortable out under the warm-and-fuzzy blanket of “personal choice.” Her offhand dismissal of the “tired racist/non-racist dichotomy” could have easily issued from a right-wing think-tank (I find it funny how even self-styled progressives fall back on the rhetoric of privilege when their asses are under the microscope).
What is required here is not an elevated conversation but a higher standard. In an industry where scumbags like Max Hardcore run amok, where the abuse of women is all too often the main attraction, where race relations are thirty years behind the mainstream world, some shit is clearly in need of stirring. Just don’t shit in my mouth and call it a sundae.
More: Porn, Racism, Racial Bias, Controversy, Joanna Angel, Tristan Taormino
# Les 7 April 06
Nicely said.
Now, I’m sorry to take up too much space, but I’m hoping this comment is more than just a ramble.
As for the statement, “Some female performers’ choice not to work with black men may be fueled by racism, but not every woman who makes the choice is automatically racist.” Let me see… not working with black men… Hello…discrimination based on race. Isn’t that the very definition of racism?
I was particulary insulted by that.
And with the many shades of brown (and yellow and red and green, etc etc), you obviously also find this discrimination within ethnic groups. What people are doing is really just making their world so tiny.
It reminds me of the old standard I’ve heard before, “No, no, I’m not a racist because you see, one of my good friends is black,” as if they’re really doing their part against racism.
Or the other standard, “I don’t see color,” as if actually acknowledging that color exists is a bad thing. Refusing to acknowledge the existence of something only further implies that the very thing itself is bad. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with color. It’s not that we’re not different, it’s that it’s okay to be different and appreciate the beauty in those differences. Why can’t some people just get that?
# chelsea girl 8 April 06
Ok, my favorite part? It’s when Joanna Angel says in her defense, “I have never fucked a black guy in my personal life so I thought it would be weird to do it on camera for the first time. So I said, no, I guess I don’t do interracial.”
Ummm…ok, so you’ve probably never fucked certain individuals on film first in your personal life. Or done various acts on film first in your personal life. Or perhaps fucked in front of a film crew first in your personal life. But fucking a black guy, woah, that would be weird.
I mean, what the bloody hell? Where do you draw the line? At black men? Not at the rest of it?
That, my dear, is racism.
# chelsea girl 9 April 06
I’m sorry for being so very loquacious here, but I have been thinking about checking the “inter-racial porn” box.
See, I wouldn’t check it, were I an aspiring porn actress, but not because I haven’t fucked a black man (I have. Several. Each was his own man and each was very much like fucking any other man, just as fucking a man who is any color tends to be). I wouldn’t check it because “inter-racial” porn tends to be so invested with such crappy stereotypes and power structures, so heavily invested with reinforcing the fear of/desire for a black planet, that I couldn’t support it with my involvement.
Had Joanna Angel said, I didn’t check the “inter-racial” box because I disagree with the message of inter-racial porn, I’d be waving the big foam Joanna Angel finger (even if it upset the sweet cherry bomb).
But she didn’t. Instead, she said something that was, well, hella thoughtless.
It’s sad, really.
# ebogjonson 9 April 06
laughing dude, I just posted much the same comment as your post in the relevant entry Sam Sugar’s blog. Do I, like, know you?
Seriously, though, Taormino’s comments are disgusting par-for-the-course re: white folks in the entire “alt” landscape. I worked at the Village Voice for many years, and you don’t know how many moral midgets I encountered with there who posited a literal white right to any old form of blatant racism on the theory that it was true to their “complexity.” Taormino’s notion of “brutal honesty” is a literally fetish commodity, which is fine, but instead of getting all high and mighty with the “that’s reductive” yack she should acknowledge that there is something at play in her discourse about race and power and privilige that black people might find off-putting. She’ll never do that, though, because that would put her potentially at odds with segments her (white) audience and what sex positive, feel-good business person wants that?
If I forced rape fantasy porn on someone who has been sexually assaulted, most people would agree I was being at the very least an ass, and yet every day in the alt world, white people DEMAND the right to force “brutal racial honesty” on black people as if it’s some kind of social antibiotic. Whatever, Tristan; it’s typical bullshit and laughing dude is right – you are riding it all the way to the bank.
# jackedup 29 July 06
I don’t have any ill will towards Angel. Susie Bright’s take on the issue made sense. There are plenty of people in the U.S. who seem to live under a rock. Racial segregation is still prominent in America. From a town whose only brush with a minority is someone making a stop whilst passing through; to one not knowing there was a black family living three blocks away.
I don’t think that Angel is racist, which speaks of a deep seated delusion; she’s just ignorant. Ignorance being the root cause of racism.
Luckily, ignorance (or racism) is not an incurable disease. I think it’s refreshing to see that Angel faced her deficiency and took measures to correct it. After the interview, she took the time to get to know Mr. Marcus and Tristan said they had great chemistry. Good for her. One less ignoramus the better.
# S.I.D.S. 19 August 06
Lots of interracial porn movies nowadays are directed by black directors. White women are always depicted as submissive whores/sluts/bitches in scenes that resemble forcible rapes. Racial slurs on box covers and even on screen are the norm rather than the exception.
When the same people produce an all-black flick, the (black) women are treated far better than their white counterparts. No portrayal of worthless whores but of elegant girls.
Does nobody see this double standards?
What about Jake Steed’s verbal onslaughts against whites?
What about Justin Slayer who would never allow a white man along with a black woman but claims white sluts (sic) for himself?
What about all those porn sites where whites are openly referred to as crackers?
Not racist at all, right?
But a white woman who doesn’t want to be portrayed as the black-owned white whore is the target of criticism.
# CJ 29 March 07
What it comes down is that people have the right to choose who they want to fuck. And it’s almost always based on irrational qualms. Isn’t it just as bizarre for someone to say they wouldn’t want to fuck a hairy guy? Or how guys say they like red heads or blondes? Does someone have any more control over these qualities then they do over the color of their skin? And if someone didn’t have these types of strange preferences do you think they’d be celebrated as a great social progressive? I think they’d be called the world’s biggest slut (granted in this industy that title may carry some prestige) Shit next they’ll be saying homosexuals are sexists and people that do geriatric porn are ageist. Sex is not an equal opportunity proposition. Get over it.