Fear of an All-Black Porn Scene

Interracial is Great but How About Some All-Black Content?

As usual, I feel compelled to begin this blog with a disclaimer. Because it features adults having sex, I enjoy interracial porn. Of course, what that means is unclear to me. What makes a scene interracial? I see the term used mostly to refer to black-on-white porn scenes, although sometimes it expands to include Latinas or Asian women, usually with white men. The presence of a white person appears essential to the whole interracial concept, regardless of what other ethnicities may be represented.

To some extent, this makes sense. Darker skin contrasted with lighter skin can be quite dramatic, erotic, artful, and visually compelling from a purely aesthetic point of view. But pornography is about more than just pretty pictures that turn us on. There’s nearly always a taboo element. These are fantasies brought voyeuristically to life, after all. Even the most vanilla sex scene is taboo merely because of the existence of the camera and the audience behind it.

Given the shameful history of race relations on this planet, pairing light and dark-skinned people in a sex scene can quickly become about more than just sex between two or more pretty people. We’ve politized melanin so much over the centuries that it’s hard to have a pure erotic response regardless of the color of our skin. For many of us, the titillation of the forbidden spices up the action and makes us feel daring for watching it and perhaps even wishing we could join it.

There was a time when white female performers who worked with black performers received vile threats and slurs. I’m not sure if that still happens. Given the condition of the world we live in, I suspect it does. But I think we’ve seen a greater acceptance of “interracial” porn as we’ve seen a greater acceptance of “interracial” relationships in society at large. This does not mean society at large knows how to treat people involved in such arrangements or any offspring that result, but at least fewer white folks are running darker-skinned folks out of town by sunset.

But why is there so little content exclusively featuring black performers and, when possible, directors? It can’t be a lack of talent because the world is filled with beautiful Women of Color that I and many other people would be delighted to see shed their clothing and get their freak on, however, they like to freak. And there are camera wranglers who tell me they’d love to capture and release photos of these dusky dreams sharing some quality time with their ebony brothers. So, why is there so little of it?

Is it an audience preference issue? I am opining out of my heart-shaped ass at this point because I don’t have any demographic numbers, but I wonder if most consumers of hardcore erotic entertainment are white straight cis males. This is not to say there aren’t plenty of people of other types who appreciate a good sex romp but are they subscribing? I don’t know the answer to that question. Is it true that mainstream porn remains viewed through the eyes of white straight men?

Obviously I, as a white woman, have no idea what it’s like to be a black performer, director, grip, editor, or anything that isn’t an alabaster tone. I have noticed, however, that the same white people who star in interracial footage usually also get gigs working with other white people. I don’t see so much of that with performers of color. So, I asked my webmaster and adult business consultant friend Pax Negro if he has any thoughts on the subject. He does.

“The reason for so little black-on-black media in mainstream porn is,” he explains, “because 1) The companies shooting them shoot in low quality and pay the talent less, 2) They don’t have a passion for it. The market and desire for it are there; black consumers want black-on-black content instead of being just a prop in interracial porn.”

It’s not a very flattering perspective, but if it’s true, what can or should be done about it? As an industry, adult entertainment is attacked for being stupid, abusive, guilty of perpetuating myths, and a poor substitute for adequate sex education. I absolutely agree about the value of genuine sex ed, but the fact is a lot of people look to porn to fill in the canyon-sized gaps in what should be common knowledge.

This includes cultural cues, which is another area where the industry takes it on the chin from both friend and foe. We’re damned if we do, and we’re damned if we do. It just depends on who we want to be damned by. If we maintain our exclusive white eye for the black guy stance, we earn our place as a target for People of Color and their allies. If we make a concerted effort to create a stronger self-directed presence for People of Color, we put a different target on our chest, this time for supposedly engaging in social engineering, among other excuses. Like mythologizing the size of a black man’s penis isn’t a form of social engineering.

What can be easy to forget as this industry expands and becomes more representative of those who enjoy it, is that People of Color are part of who “we” are.

When Pax says that “It’s time for black industry professionals to show the range through their own eyes,” he’s not talking about breaking up with interracial porn or condemning those who enjoy it. He’s talking about further expanding the franchise, improving the industry zeitgeist, boosting the status of its performers, and increasing the overall quality of the end product. It seems like a big win/win to me.