NDNGirls and Pocahotties: Native American and First Nations representation in settler colonial pornography and erotica

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article argues that Indigenous sexualities in settler colonial states are regulated by an eliminationist logic that requires either the elimination or subjugation of the Native body in pornography. The authors first explore the functioning of such a mechanism in the fetishized and eroticized ‘Pocahottie’ costumes worn by non-Native women, placing this in a wider context of the treatment of Indigenous women in settler colonial North America. We then examine the history of Native American characters and scenarios in hardcore American pornography, and the lack of Native performers in pornography, noting the ways that actual Native performers are insistently placed in inaccurate racial categories such as Asian and Latina. We then explore the iconography of NDNGirls.com, the only company ever to have been devoted to filming female Indigenous performers. Finally, the article considers ways that Indigenous erotica combats eliminationist thinking.