“The Hardest of Hardcore”: Locating Feminist Possibilities in Women’s Extreme Pornography

Abstract

AbstractAmong the sites for examining the politics of pleasure, the production of extreme commercial pornography may be among the most controversial. But precisely because it is so fraught and contested, it is also among the most productive for considering women’s often contradictory roles, perspectives, and positioning in the industry. The received wisdom in the porn industry, and in American society more broadly, is that if women are interested in porn at all—as producers or viewers—then they must prefer the softer side of hardcore: narratives with high production values and the trappings of romance. The women who create extreme porn therefore raise some interesting questions about the gendered (and classed) assumptions surrounding conceptions of women’s porn. Original research, including personal interviews with forty filmmakers, demonstrates how women directors can challenge conventional notions of femininity and broaden understandings of female desire in unexpected ways, by exploring edgy or dangerou...