1. Black porn is completely patriarchal.
It’s no secret that the American porn industry takes the cue from our largely patriarchal culture and distills and concentrates it until there’s virtually no trace of feminine influence left. Aside from a few smaller female-owned companies with female target audiences, the vast majority of the porn in this country is produced, financed, targeted towards, and consumed by men.
What makes black porn even more male-driven is the fact that while the most popular white porn performers are usually actresses such as Jenna Jameson, Jenna Haze, and Sasha Grey—women who are actual porn stars—the black performers with the most name recognition are usually actors. The porn Q ratings of men like Justin Slayer, Sean Michaels, Brian Pumper, Lexington Steele, and Mr. Marcus surpass that of any black actress.
I’ve been trying to understand why exactly this occurs, and while I don’t have any concrete answers, two theories seem to make more sense than any others.
A) Black actresses generally command much less per scene than their white counterparts. Because of this, they’re not able to amass enough capital to make the types of behind-the-scenes decisions that would enable them to be stars.
B) From my estimation, (most) white porn tends to be centered around the actress’ performance while (most) black porn seems to be more about the actor. Basically, while male consumers of white porn are fantasizing about sleeping with certain actresses, male consumers of black porn are fantasizing about being the actor. Because of this mindset, black actresses are relatively interchangeable and disposable.
Unlike music or television—entertainment industries where the top performers and artists have an active hand in letting the consumer know what’s considered popular or cool—porn is completely consumer based. Basically, if porn consumers decide that they’re willing to pay big bucks to see Australians and Aboriginals getting it on, companies will start producing nothing but movies with titles like “Outback Anal” and “Down Under Dicking.”
I make this point because the vast majority of (straight) black porn is gonzo—male on female or female on female sex with no storyline and/or backdrop. And, since there isn’t much of a black porn market for anything other than gonzo, if you’re trying to find, I don’t know, a black S&M-themed company and/or series, you’ll probably be shit out of luck.
The only real variances with the porn usually produced by black companies are in the look of the actress (white, black, BBW, etc) and whether or not the actors perform one of my least favorite things to watch: male on female anal sex.
For every “tasteful” example of interracial porn you can find—movies and/or scenes where actors and actresses just have regular sex (well, as “regular” as two strangers having sex in a hotel room with five different cameramen can be)—you can probably find five or six examples connected somehow to racial stereotype and/or rape.
From interracial gangbangs and cuckolding to titles such as “My Daughter’s A Nigger Lover” and truly reprehensible tripe like The Ghetto Gaggers (an ongoing porn series where black actresses are “forced” to fellate white actors until they regurgitate), there’s no racial fear and/or fantasy too taboo to touch. Even the actors and actresses themselves get into the act, as it’s not uncommon to hear them refer to each other with racial slurs mid-coitus.
I understand that interracial porn is really no different than intraracial porn in that it’s doing nothing but playing to the audience’s most base fantasies. But, when you remember that some white (and black) actresses refuse to sleep with black actors on camera because it will cheapen them in the eyes of some of their fans—and subsequently lower the demand and/or price for their services—the fantasy starts to get a bit too real.
Many (if not most) porn actors are defined by their “extra-ness.” Extra big boobs, extra long penises, extra-ordinary endurance, etc, and black porn is no different. And, since one of the (mainly true) stereotypes about black men is that we’re generally more attracted to curvier women, it should come as no surprise that there’s a burgeoning black porn market for extra, extra, extra curvy women.
BBW’s (which stands for big, beautiful women)—black, white, and Hispanic porn actresses who (I’m estimating) weigh at least 180 pounds—have become so popular that they’ve surpassed the fetish stage and are now their own niche. In fact, while writing this, a quick glance at one the most popular black porn message boards showed that out of the 25 topics on the front page, nine of them were BBW related.
This feeling is eerily similar to the sentiment held by a sports fan who hasn’t watched an NBA game in years but swears that all the players are thugs. In fact, you can make the argument that there’s a bigger variety of legitimately attractive actresses in black porn than in white.
If you’re a fan of girl-next-door types who look like they could just as easily be seventh grade math teachers, there’s Michelle Tucker, Courtney Devine, and Misty Stone. If you’re into brown-skinned ladies with great smiles and perfectly toned bodies, there’s Bella Moretti, Roxy Reynolds, and Skin Diamond. If darker-skinned women with flawless skin are your thing, there’s Toni Sweets, Imani Rose, and, if you want to dig in the crates, India, Naomi, and Chocolate. If you go gaga over “thick redbones”—lighter-skinned and curvy black women—there’s Mya G, Flame, and Donna Red.
There are quite a few very popular black adult performers today; women who aren’t quite porn stars, but have dozens of NSFW videos floating around the internet and have grown so popular that they actually make paid nightclub and radio appearances across the country.
Some, like Cubana Lust, Lastarya, and Maliah Michel, are strippers who’ve managed to make themselves relevant through YouTube videos of themselves performing half-nude on stage, in soapy bathtubs, and in kitchens. (Yes. Kitchens.)
Maliah’s talents caught the attention of uber-popular rapper Drake, who dropped her name in a song and then began “dating” her shortly thereafter.
From “Miss Me” (Featuring Lil Wayne)
“…yeah, I’m in the city of the purple sprite
someone tell Maliah I’m on fire she should work tonight
call up King of Diamonds and tell China it’d be worth the flight”
Others, like Victoria “Vickie 6″ Taylor and Tiara 4Ever are a bit more artsy and tasteful with their nude performances. (Well, in Vickie 6′s case, about as artsy and tasteful as a six minute video featuring a woman masturbating with a hairbrush can possibly be.)
Also, a select few popular actresses such as Pinky and Roxy Reynolds have capitalized on the whole “no sex” thing as well; using their popularity to command thousands of dollars to appear at conventions, strip clubs, and groundbreakings. (Yes. Groundbreakings.) In Pinky’s case, she’s even managed to trick, er, persuade a few relevant rap producers and performers to help her create an album.
Speaking of rappers, strippers, and porn stars…
8. The lines between rapper, stripper, and porn star get blurrier and blurrier by the minute.
There are few people on Earth who consistently induce the types of conflicting emotions from anyone that the subject of Brian Pumper manages to emit from black porn connoisseurs. Some laud him for his marketing acumen and his ability to consistently inject his series with new and attractive talent. Others—including other porn stars—think he’s a fucking weirdo whose blatant narcissism makes any scene he’s featured in completely unwatchable. Seriously, Pumper could release a DVD featuring the porn debuts of Beyonce, Gabrielle Union, and Jennifer Lopez, and some people—me included—wouldn’t watch just because he happened to be in it.
But, while Pumper’s production style truly grates—each of his movies include several 2 to 4 minute long videos of him rapping—he’s proven to be ahead of the curve. Between adult stars and strippers, er, “urban models” such as Pinky and Lola Monroe recording albums and the fact that maybe 196% of the rap videos produced nowadays take place in strip clubs and feature adult entertainers, rappers (well, primarily southern rappers), strippers, and porn stars seem to be creating one big happy (and Valtrex dependant) conglomerate.
For years, black porn has always held a bit of a “porn moral” high ground over mainstream porn. While the white actresses may have been glossier and more popular, fans of black porn could always cite the fact that the majority of black actresses were real. (Real in this sense meant silicone free.)
Now, this sentiment wasn’t completely true. I can name several old-school black actresses with surgically enhanced breasts. Even then, fake boobs weren’t nearly as prevalent as they were with white porn.
But, the past few years has seen a phenomenon that takes the idea of the curvy “extra” to an entirely different plane, as many black adult performers—porn actresses and strippers—have begun to get silicone injections in their behinds. Some, such as Roxy Reynolds and Lacey Duvalle, were already very curvy and have now made the leap to cartoonishly curvy. Whether you consider this a “problem” or not depends on your personal tastes, I guess.
Basically, despite how post-racial(ha!) we’ve become, we still haven’t reached the day where an African-American woman can have a widely seen sex tape and become more famous and more marketable because of said sex tape. (And no, Karrine “Supahead” Steffans doesn’t count because she became famous through her book, not because she used to be a porn starlet.)
It’s no secret that the American porn industry takes the cue from our largely patriarchal culture and distills and concentrates it until there’s virtually no trace of feminine influence left. Aside from a few smaller female-owned companies with female target audiences, the vast majority of the porn in this country is produced, financed, targeted towards, and consumed by men.
What makes black porn even more male-driven is the fact that while the most popular white porn performers are usually actresses such as Jenna Jameson, Jenna Haze, and Sasha Grey—women who are actual porn stars—the black performers with the most name recognition are usually actors. The porn Q ratings of men like Justin Slayer, Sean Michaels, Brian Pumper, Lexington Steele, and Mr. Marcus surpass that of any black actress.
I’ve been trying to understand why exactly this occurs, and while I don’t have any concrete answers, two theories seem to make more sense than any others.
A) Black actresses generally command much less per scene than their white counterparts. Because of this, they’re not able to amass enough capital to make the types of behind-the-scenes decisions that would enable them to be stars.
B) From my estimation, (most) white porn tends to be centered around the actress’ performance while (most) black porn seems to be more about the actor. Basically, while male consumers of white porn are fantasizing about sleeping with certain actresses, male consumers of black porn are fantasizing about being the actor. Because of this mindset, black actresses are relatively interchangeable and disposable.
♦◊♦
2. The vast majority of black porn is gonzo.Unlike music or television—entertainment industries where the top performers and artists have an active hand in letting the consumer know what’s considered popular or cool—porn is completely consumer based. Basically, if porn consumers decide that they’re willing to pay big bucks to see Australians and Aboriginals getting it on, companies will start producing nothing but movies with titles like “Outback Anal” and “Down Under Dicking.”
I make this point because the vast majority of (straight) black porn is gonzo—male on female or female on female sex with no storyline and/or backdrop. And, since there isn’t much of a black porn market for anything other than gonzo, if you’re trying to find, I don’t know, a black S&M-themed company and/or series, you’ll probably be shit out of luck.
The only real variances with the porn usually produced by black companies are in the look of the actress (white, black, BBW, etc) and whether or not the actors perform one of my least favorite things to watch: male on female anal sex.
♦◊♦
3. Interracial (BW/WM or BM/WW) porn might be the only popular industry left where it’s perfectly kosher to be completely and unabashedly racist.For every “tasteful” example of interracial porn you can find—movies and/or scenes where actors and actresses just have regular sex (well, as “regular” as two strangers having sex in a hotel room with five different cameramen can be)—you can probably find five or six examples connected somehow to racial stereotype and/or rape.
From interracial gangbangs and cuckolding to titles such as “My Daughter’s A Nigger Lover” and truly reprehensible tripe like The Ghetto Gaggers (an ongoing porn series where black actresses are “forced” to fellate white actors until they regurgitate), there’s no racial fear and/or fantasy too taboo to touch. Even the actors and actresses themselves get into the act, as it’s not uncommon to hear them refer to each other with racial slurs mid-coitus.
I understand that interracial porn is really no different than intraracial porn in that it’s doing nothing but playing to the audience’s most base fantasies. But, when you remember that some white (and black) actresses refuse to sleep with black actors on camera because it will cheapen them in the eyes of some of their fans—and subsequently lower the demand and/or price for their services—the fantasy starts to get a bit too real.
♦◊♦
4. BBW’s are big, beautiful business.Many (if not most) porn actors are defined by their “extra-ness.” Extra big boobs, extra long penises, extra-ordinary endurance, etc, and black porn is no different. And, since one of the (mainly true) stereotypes about black men is that we’re generally more attracted to curvier women, it should come as no surprise that there’s a burgeoning black porn market for extra, extra, extra curvy women.
BBW’s (which stands for big, beautiful women)—black, white, and Hispanic porn actresses who (I’m estimating) weigh at least 180 pounds—have become so popular that they’ve surpassed the fetish stage and are now their own niche. In fact, while writing this, a quick glance at one the most popular black porn message boards showed that out of the 25 topics on the front page, nine of them were BBW related.
♦◊♦
5. The prevailing stereotype about black porn actresses—that most of them look like they used every branch of the ugly tree to help them escape from Alcatraz—is false.This feeling is eerily similar to the sentiment held by a sports fan who hasn’t watched an NBA game in years but swears that all the players are thugs. In fact, you can make the argument that there’s a bigger variety of legitimately attractive actresses in black porn than in white.
If you’re a fan of girl-next-door types who look like they could just as easily be seventh grade math teachers, there’s Michelle Tucker, Courtney Devine, and Misty Stone. If you’re into brown-skinned ladies with great smiles and perfectly toned bodies, there’s Bella Moretti, Roxy Reynolds, and Skin Diamond. If darker-skinned women with flawless skin are your thing, there’s Toni Sweets, Imani Rose, and, if you want to dig in the crates, India, Naomi, and Chocolate. If you go gaga over “thick redbones”—lighter-skinned and curvy black women—there’s Mya G, Flame, and Donna Red.
♦◊♦
6. Many of the most popular black female adult stars have never actually had sex on camera. There are quite a few very popular black adult performers today; women who aren’t quite porn stars, but have dozens of NSFW videos floating around the internet and have grown so popular that they actually make paid nightclub and radio appearances across the country.
Some, like Cubana Lust, Lastarya, and Maliah Michel, are strippers who’ve managed to make themselves relevant through YouTube videos of themselves performing half-nude on stage, in soapy bathtubs, and in kitchens. (Yes. Kitchens.)
Maliah’s talents caught the attention of uber-popular rapper Drake, who dropped her name in a song and then began “dating” her shortly thereafter.
From “Miss Me” (Featuring Lil Wayne)
“…yeah, I’m in the city of the purple sprite
someone tell Maliah I’m on fire she should work tonight
call up King of Diamonds and tell China it’d be worth the flight”
Others, like Victoria “Vickie 6″ Taylor and Tiara 4Ever are a bit more artsy and tasteful with their nude performances. (Well, in Vickie 6′s case, about as artsy and tasteful as a six minute video featuring a woman masturbating with a hairbrush can possibly be.)
Also, a select few popular actresses such as Pinky and Roxy Reynolds have capitalized on the whole “no sex” thing as well; using their popularity to command thousands of dollars to appear at conventions, strip clubs, and groundbreakings. (Yes. Groundbreakings.) In Pinky’s case, she’s even managed to trick, er, persuade a few relevant rap producers and performers to help her create an album.
Speaking of rappers, strippers, and porn stars…
♦◊♦
7. Brian Pumper is the black porn P. Diddy.8. The lines between rapper, stripper, and porn star get blurrier and blurrier by the minute.
There are few people on Earth who consistently induce the types of conflicting emotions from anyone that the subject of Brian Pumper manages to emit from black porn connoisseurs. Some laud him for his marketing acumen and his ability to consistently inject his series with new and attractive talent. Others—including other porn stars—think he’s a fucking weirdo whose blatant narcissism makes any scene he’s featured in completely unwatchable. Seriously, Pumper could release a DVD featuring the porn debuts of Beyonce, Gabrielle Union, and Jennifer Lopez, and some people—me included—wouldn’t watch just because he happened to be in it.
But, while Pumper’s production style truly grates—each of his movies include several 2 to 4 minute long videos of him rapping—he’s proven to be ahead of the curve. Between adult stars and strippers, er, “urban models” such as Pinky and Lola Monroe recording albums and the fact that maybe 196% of the rap videos produced nowadays take place in strip clubs and feature adult entertainers, rappers (well, primarily southern rappers), strippers, and porn stars seem to be creating one big happy (and Valtrex dependant) conglomerate.
♦◊♦
9. Black porn has a burgeoning silicone problem.For years, black porn has always held a bit of a “porn moral” high ground over mainstream porn. While the white actresses may have been glossier and more popular, fans of black porn could always cite the fact that the majority of black actresses were real. (Real in this sense meant silicone free.)
Now, this sentiment wasn’t completely true. I can name several old-school black actresses with surgically enhanced breasts. Even then, fake boobs weren’t nearly as prevalent as they were with white porn.
But, the past few years has seen a phenomenon that takes the idea of the curvy “extra” to an entirely different plane, as many black adult performers—porn actresses and strippers—have begun to get silicone injections in their behinds. Some, such as Roxy Reynolds and Lacey Duvalle, were already very curvy and have now made the leap to cartoonishly curvy. Whether you consider this a “problem” or not depends on your personal tastes, I guess.
♦◊♦
10. We’ll probably see a black female president before we see a black Jenna Jameson (And, by “Jenna Jameson” I mean “Kim Kardashian.” And, by “Kim Kardashian” I mean “Paris Hilton.” And by “Paris Hilton” I mean “Pamela Anderson”).Basically, despite how post-racial(ha!) we’ve become, we still haven’t reached the day where an African-American woman can have a widely seen sex tape and become more famous and more marketable because of said sex tape. (And no, Karrine “Supahead” Steffans doesn’t count because she became famous through her book, not because she used to be a porn starlet.)
Maybe this is proof of how much further we need to go. And, well, maybe that’s okay. Maybe we don’t need to go there at all. Some yardsticks might need to stay too long to reach.
1 comment:
Very interesting reading.
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