In Indie Porn, Zahra Stardust examines the motivations and interventions of independent porn producers as they navigate criminal laws, risk-averse platforms, discriminatory algorithms, and rampant piracy. Herself a porn performer and participant, Stardust takes readers behind the scenes, offering intimate insights into this sociopolitical movement. She finds politicians who watch porn in parliament, protesters leading face-sitting demonstrations, sex workers making COVID-safe pornography, and artists reverse-engineering porn detection software. Against the backdrop of a global gig economy, Stardust documents the promises of indie porn to democratize content, revolutionize production, and redistribute wealth while outlining the fantasies of regulators, whose illusions of what porn is and does foreclose possibilities for transformation. Inevitably, as these paradigms collide, porn producers engage in creative tactics to hustle for survival and visibility, from ethical certification to law reform, sometimes reproducing hierarchies of stigma themselves. By highlighting how porn stigma is bound up with intersecting oppressions, Stardust identifies these junctions as coalitional opportunities for changing social relationships to sex, work, and capitalism.
Zahra Stardust is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology.
Acknowledgments xi
Cinematic Intimacies 1
Introduction: Democratizing Pornography 7
Part I. Porn Cultures
Porno Camp 31
1. Guerrilla Porn: Motivations and Interventions 34
Getting Our Hands Wet 63
2. Imagining Alternatives: Production Values and Ethics 67
Part II. Regulatory Fantasies
What Happened to Our Squirt? 91
3. Criminal Intimacies: Regulatory Trends and Transgressions 94
Diversity Washing 123
4. #NSFW: Online Privatization, Sanitization, and Gentrification 127
Part III. The Hustle
SuicideGirls 157
5. Manufacturing Authenticity: Expression, Identity, and Labor 160
Green, Organic Porn 184
6. Fair Trade Porn: Marketing, Respectability, and Ethical Consumption 187
Part IV. Tensions
Your Stigma, Your Labor 211
7. Good Porn: Stigma, Respectability, and Diversity Politics 213
COVID-Safe Pornography 237
8. Whore Data: Technology, Design, and Carceral Surveillance 239
Birth Preparation 261
Conclusion: Indie Provocations 263
References 275
Index 297
"As well as providing thought-provoking sex-worker perspectives on recent developments such as the Online Safety Act, introduced in Australia in 2021, in Indie Porn Stardust traces a rich history of local sexual subcultures which continue to thrive despite a comparatively restrictive legislative environment. A product of more than a decade of research, Indie Porn is at once deeply scholarly, unapologetically political, and joyously sex positive." -Zora Simic / Australian Review of Books
“There is no one better positioned to tell the story of the indie porn revolution than porn practitioner and scholar Zahra Stardust. From porn sets to festivals to the online world of search engine optimization and algorithms, Stardust draws on an impressive archive of ethnographic and interview data to illuminate a rapidly changing industry shaped by transnational linkages, regulatory frameworks, political possibilities, and reactionary politics. Deeply researched, beautifully written, and impressive in scope, Indie Porn will have an immediate and lasting impact.”
-Lynn Comella, author of / Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure
“The story of indie porn as told by one of its brightest stars. Zahra Stardust hails from an international league of erotic artists as a talented performer, passionate advocate, and esteemed scholar. In a world where porn is gawked at by the media, scapegoated by politicians, and shunned by everyone else, Zahra’s nuanced perspective from the inside reveals an honest and enlightened angle that is rare to see unless youve lived it yourself. Indie Porn is the next great book to join the canon of writing on sex work and adult cinema.”
-Jiz Lee, editor of / Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy
"Zahra is a beacon of light and a massive inspiration for anyone researching around sex from a sex and sex-worker positive perspective. . . . Aside from appealing to sex workers and people in adjacent fields (sex ed, sextech, etc), Indie Porn is a an extremely insightful read for those who are interested in labour politics and the future of work, for people who care about bodily autonomy and sexual justice, criminalisation and abolition, big tech and surveillance capitalism, indie film and DIY culture. The book will also offer helpful insights and analyses to people who have experienced de-platforming and de-monetisation, and those who are thinking about the relationship between respectability politics and law reform." -Carolina Are / Blogger on Pole
"By pairing personal anecdotes from Stardust’s first-hand industry experience with a wealth of material drawn from in-depth interviews, critical theory and legal and archival scholarship, Indie Porn paints a vibrant and heartily political picture of the international indie porn scene. Stardust demonstrates her ability to be both a rigorous academic and a powerful storyteller." -Samantha Floreani / Overland
"[Stardust] advocates for resistance rather than respectability politics, revolution rather than legal reform, and she exhorts indie porn producers to stand in solidarity with other marginalized groups, ending with a provocation to imagine and create new worlds. This is the greatest contribution of Indie Porn." -Lauren Levitt / Continuum
