1 Chuck Kleinhans, “‘Creative Industries,’ Neoliberal Fantasies, and the Cold, Hard Facts of Global Recession: Some Basic Lessons,” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 53 (2011), www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/kleinhans-creatIndus/text.html.
2 Martha King, “Protecting and Representing Workers in the New Gig Economy: The Case of the Freelancers Union,” in New Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the Future of the Labor Movement, ed. Ruth Milkman and Ed Ott (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 150–170.
3 Tristan Taormino, Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and Mireille Miller-Young, eds., The Feminist Porn Book (New York: Feminist Press, 2013).
4 Interviewees estimate that, whereas a producer could expect to quadruple his or her investment in the late 1990s, one might double an investment today. Transcripts for all interviews cited in this piece are in Heather Berg’s possession. For more on the broader project of which they are a part, see Heather Berg, “Labouring Porn Studies,” Porn Studies 1.1–2 (2014): 75–79. For a recent update on the economics of porn production, see Alexander Poe, “Seven Directors Focus on the Current Condition of Porn,” XBIZ: The Industry Source (August 20, 2014), www.xbiz.com/news/183848.
5 None of the thirty-three female performers interviewed made a living off film work alone.
6 Gay porn performer Christopher Daniels, for example, explained that the “sole reason” he took on porn performing is because he learned that escorts who are also porn performers get more bookings and can charge on average $100 more per hour than their nonperformer counterparts. Christopher Daniels, interview by Heather Berg, Los Angeles, April 9, 2014. Female performers in “straight” porn who pursue escorting or erotic dance can command at least double the earnings of their nonperformer counterparts. Tara Holiday, phone interview by Heather Berg, February 22, 2014.
7 Dominic Ace, interview by Heather Berg, Reseda, CA, November 8, 2013.
8 Raylene, interview by Heather Berg, Reseda, CA, October 29, 2013.
9 Venus Lux, phone interview by Heather Berg, June 30, 2014.
10 Christian Mann, “Christian Mann, General Manager, Evil Angel Productions,” in Distribution Revolution: Conversations about the Digital Future of Film and Television, ed. Michael Curtin, Jennifer Holt, and Kevin Sanson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 121–131.
11 Antiporn feminist writing is rife with constructions of porn workers as passive and un-self-aware. In Catherine MacKinnon’s telling, for example, Linda Lovelace “was pornographed,” Playboy’s consumers masturbate “over the positions taken by the women’s bodies [emphasis mine],” and pornography is “sex forced on real women . . . women’s bodies trussed and maimed and raped and made into things to be hurt and obtained and accessed.” Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 128.
12 See, e.g., Cristina Morini, “The Feminization of Labour in Cognitive Capitalism,” Feminist Review 87.1 (2007): 40–59, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400367. Andrew Ross, Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times (New York: New York University Press, 2009).
13 Sexual Exploitation and Other Abuse of Children: Record Keeping Requirements, 18 U.S.C.A., 2000.
14 See Constance Penley, “Collision in a Courtroom,” in Images, Ethics, and Technology, ed. Sharrona Pearl (New York: Routledge, 2015).
15 See Mireille Miller-Young, “Putting Hypersexuality to Work: Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography,” Sexualities 13.2 (April 2010): 219–235, doi:10.1177/1363460709359229.
16 Prince Yashua, interview by Heather Berg, Canoga Park, CA, February 28, 2014.
17 Conner Habib, Twitter post, October 23, 2013.
18 Though performers have repeatedly sought inclusion in mainstream Hollywood’s Screen Actor’s Guild, their presence has remained unwelcome due to both mainstream’s sex negativity and SAG’s policy of only organizing workers on sets where collective bargaining contracts exist. See Gregor Gall, An Agency of Their Own: Sex Worker Union Organizing (Washington: Zero Books, 2012), 28.
19 Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne, and Peter Pavia, The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, 2nd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 373.
20 Nina Ha®tley’s name is trademarked; this is her preferred spelling.
21 Nina Ha®tley, interview by Heather Berg, Los Angeles, CA, February 17, 2012.
22 Gall, An Agency of Their Own, 31.
23 Nica Noelle, e-mail interview by Heather Berg, October 14, 2013.
24 Gall, An Agency of Their Own, 31.
25 Katrien Jacobs, Marjie Janssen, and Metteo Pasquinelli, “Introduction,” in C’lickme: A Netporn Studies Reader, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Marjie Janssen, and Metteo Pasquinelli (Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2007), 1.
26 They is Trouble’s preferred gender-neutral pronoun, as it is for other gender queer and trans people, including Jiz Lee and Papi Coxxx.
27 Courtney Trouble, interview by Heather Berg, Emeryville, CA, March 18, 2014.
28 Tristan Taormino, “Calling the Shots: Feminist Porn in Theory and Practice,” in The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, ed. Tristan Taormino et al. (New York: Feminist Press, 2013), 261. For a critique of discourses of authenticity in queer and feminist porn, see Heather Berg, “Sex, Work, Queerly: Identity, Authenticity, and Laboured Performance,” in Queer Sex Work, ed. Mary Laing, Katy Pilcher, and Nicola Smith (London: Routledge, 2015).
29 Farrell Timlake, phone interview by Heather Berg, January 23, 2014.
30 Mireille Miller-Young, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Porn (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014).
31 Mireille Miller-Young, “Sexy and Smart: Black Women and the Politics of Self-Authorship in Netporn,” in C’lickme, ed. Jacobs, Janssen, and Pasquinelli, 207.
32 Average rates drawn from performer interviews.
33 See Julie Levin Russo, “‘The Real Thing’: Reframing Queer Pornography for Virtual Spaces,” in C’lickme, ed. Jacobs, Janssen, and Pasquinelli.
