The Business of Resistance: Feminist Pornography and the Limits of Leisure Industries as Sites of Political Resistance

Abstract

Using a deviant leisure perspective (Smith and Raymen, Theoretical Criminology 22: 63–82, 2016) to analyze original data collected from in-depth interviews with award-winning pornography producers and performers and a range of sexual culture, this chapter critiques feminist pornography—sexual culture, explicitly labeled as feminist, that is made and sold in the name of feminist praxis—and highlights the limits of leisure industries as sites of political resistance. In order to accomplish that, the analysis and findings are discussed in the context of three main concepts. First, feminist pornography as a form of resistance is covered in relation to the idea of incorporation, followed by a brief critique of the utility of that concept for understanding cultural resistance. Next, using examples from the production process, feminist pornography is situated within the notion of precorporation (Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, 2009). Finally, the concept of hypercorporation is introduced, and feminist pornography, as political praxis, is addressed in relation to it.