Does Mainstream Porn Have a Race Problem?
These stereotypes have become such a standard part of porn-viewing that they aren’t just catering to taste—they might be creating it. Mickey Mod, who calls himself “the person that talks about race too much in the porn industry,” can’t help but wonder: “This is a chicken-and-egg sort of conversation. Does porn have issues regarding race because America has issues regarding race, or is porn taking something and magnifying it to the point of caricature?” If it’s the latter, it’s to the detriment of both the people of color (POC) working in the industry and those masturbating to its products.
It’s worth pointing out, as Mireille Miller-Young does, that racial labeling in porn is gross, but “Pornography may be…where our most privately held societal views about race are most revealed. It’s certainly more honest than Hollywood.” And, she adds, “Seeing race as a sexual fantasy onscreen—whether hyperbolic or not—can also be empowering for viewers. What would it mean not to ever see someone who looks like you represented sexually?”
Still, racialized terminology has real downsides for the workers involved in making porn. Performers get funneled into niches, with little opportunity to find roles elsewhere. “For the majority of POC [in porn], the roles that are available…are these stereotypical kind of caricature roles,” Mod says. Since “ethnic” content is treated as a divergence from the mainstream, “There’s just no variety of work for POC.”
Less variety also means fewer roles, period. While there are dozens or more black female performers active in porn at any given time, Ana Foxxx says that there are only “three to five” who compete for top roles. “There’s different categories of black,” she tells Glamour. “There’s the light skin, there’s the dark skin, there’s the thick girl. But out of each category, there’s one. One dark-skinned girl—that’s me. There’s Misty [Stone]. There’s Chanell [Heart]…It’s always been that way.”
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And, with so many women of color vying for so few available spots at the top, some producers see an opportunity to offer them lower pay. Foxxx says that when she’s offered less money than another actress, “I usually say no. But I know other girls say yes, and therefore they get lower rates. And the problem with going high on your rates,” she continues, “is that there’s always going to be another girl that needs the money. So there’s always going to be someone that takes that lower rate that I would say no to.” This pattern effectively drives down rates for women of color across the board.
“According to my research,” says Miller-Young, “women of color are paid half of what white actresses in porn are paid.”
Male actors in straight porn reportedly earn similar rates across racial lines, but there’s a twist when it comes to interracial (IR) scenes. Although the word “interracial” in most contexts could apply to scenarios involving people of any races, in mainstream pornography it means, quite specifically, white women paired with black men. The taboo surrounding this sexual pairing can be traced back into America’s deeply racist past, and though many of us would like to think the act is no longer sensational, the fact that IR porn is still a category at all is telling.
