"Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography

Although there is a good foundation of feminist research at the intersection of performative labor, pornography, and sexuality, there are few (if any) published studies that examine race in porn content intended for gay men’s consumption. What’s more, existing research samples solely from corporatiz...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Goss, Desmond
Format: Others
Published: ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University 2017
Subjects:
Gay
Online Access:http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_diss/98
http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=sociology_diss
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spelling ndltd-GEORGIA-oai-scholarworks.gsu.edu-sociology_diss-11002017-08-08T15:30:46Z "Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography Goss, Desmond Although there is a good foundation of feminist research at the intersection of performative labor, pornography, and sexuality, there are few (if any) published studies that examine race in porn content intended for gay men’s consumption. What’s more, existing research samples solely from corporatized porn, which is expressly produced, scripted, and directed. Bound by the conventions of the market, however, corporate pornography must abide by a consumer demand that reflects white machinations of black sexuality rather than the self-proclaimed sexual identity of African American men. Instead, I employ an exploratory content analysis of pornographic videos categorized as “ebony” on a popular user-submitted porn database. I am interested in 1) the character of pornographic representations of queer black masculinity and 2) how these representations vary between corporate and non-corporate producers. I find that representations of black men in gay porn rely on stereotypes of black masculinity to arouse consumers, especially those which characterize black men as “missing links” or focus excessively on their “dark phalluses.” Moreover, these depictions consistently separate gay black and white men’s sexuality into bifurcated discursive spaces, thereby essentializing sexual aspects of racial identity. Lastly, though such depictions are less prevalent in user-submitted videos, overall, both user-submitted and corporate content reify stereotypes about black masculinity. 2017-12-15T08:00:00Z text application/pdf http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_diss/98 http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=sociology_diss Sociology Dissertations ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Pornography Race Gay Queer Sexuality Masculinity
collection NDLTD
format Others
sources NDLTD
topic Pornography
Race
Gay
Queer
Sexuality
Masculinity
spellingShingle Pornography
Race
Gay
Queer
Sexuality
Masculinity
Goss, Desmond
"Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography
description Although there is a good foundation of feminist research at the intersection of performative labor, pornography, and sexuality, there are few (if any) published studies that examine race in porn content intended for gay men’s consumption. What’s more, existing research samples solely from corporatized porn, which is expressly produced, scripted, and directed. Bound by the conventions of the market, however, corporate pornography must abide by a consumer demand that reflects white machinations of black sexuality rather than the self-proclaimed sexual identity of African American men. Instead, I employ an exploratory content analysis of pornographic videos categorized as “ebony” on a popular user-submitted porn database. I am interested in 1) the character of pornographic representations of queer black masculinity and 2) how these representations vary between corporate and non-corporate producers. I find that representations of black men in gay porn rely on stereotypes of black masculinity to arouse consumers, especially those which characterize black men as “missing links” or focus excessively on their “dark phalluses.” Moreover, these depictions consistently separate gay black and white men’s sexuality into bifurcated discursive spaces, thereby essentializing sexual aspects of racial identity. Lastly, though such depictions are less prevalent in user-submitted videos, overall, both user-submitted and corporate content reify stereotypes about black masculinity.
author Goss, Desmond
author_facet Goss, Desmond
author_sort Goss, Desmond
title "Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography
title_short "Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography
title_full "Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography
title_fullStr "Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography
title_full_unstemmed "Big Black Beasts": Race and Masculinity in Gay Pornography
title_sort "big black beasts": race and masculinity in gay pornography
publisher ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University
publishDate 2017
url http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_diss/98
http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=sociology_diss
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