Chapter 12: Creative Precarity in the Adult Film Industry

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Page ID: 175231

Heather Berg & Constance Penley
University of California Press

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In this chapter, we examine the conditions of precarity in porn work, situating those conditions in the context of a changing industry and a political economic moment in which uncertainty is the most stable feature. Though we can link precarious conditions to their social contexts, we do not suggest that such conditions are inevitable or historically neutral. As Chuck Kleinhans insists, “Precarity is not a necessary result of [global political economic] changes. Rather, it is a deliberate policy and aspect of neoliberalism in its relation to the labor force.”¹

12.1: Introduction
Overview of the chapter goals: to examine the precarity of labor faced by workers in the porn industry, and the ways in which these workers navigate and resist the precarity they confront.
12.2: Contours of the Industry
Mapping the structures that fall under the umbrella of the porn industry, including those who actively take part in producing adult films, the other industries that aid in film production and distribution, organizations that support or oppose porn, and the satellite industries such as erotic dance and escort that provide additional income streams to the performers.
12.3: Conditions of and Responses to Precarity
Sources of precarity in the adult film industry, including the lack of labor regulations regarding pay, discrimination, and occupational health, performers' status as independent contractors, and the risk of being blacklisted for speaking out. Some of the ways in which performers have confronted this precarity, including diversifying industry streams and developing unconventional means of collective resistance.
12.4: Do-It-Yourself Ethics, Class and Boundary Work
The tension in production dynamics between stable performance work at mainstream studios, and having the freedom to express personal brands and escape degrading stereotypes by self-producing porn at the cost of greater economic precarity.
12.5: Notes