BIPOC-AIC Launches Fundraiser for Mutual Aid Fund with Decolonize Porn Education Series

UNITED STATES (July 28, 2020) – On July 30, 2020, The BIPOC-AIC Offers a History Lesson on Black Women’s Legacy in Porn with Dr. Mireille Miller-Young.

 “If we do not learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it.”

The BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) Adult Industry Collective offers a unique insight into Black women’s erotic labor in porn with Dr. Mireille Miller-Young. The event is the second of BIPOC-AIC’s “Decolonize Porn” educational series. The series centers Black & Brown sex workers, content creators, and academics offering radical topics with the mission of dismantling harmful approaches to sex & sex workers based on learned biases in porn. This donation-based event benefits the BIPOC-AIC Mutual Aid Fund and Operational Costs. The BIPOC-AIC honors, celebrates, and empowers Black, Brown, Indigenous, and non-white People of Color working in NSFW Adult media to achieve financial liberation through political education, skillshare, and transformational justice.

 For the last 50 years, Black women have graced the covers of adult magazines and movies, garnering household name status yet never quite earning the same pay nor respect of the industry, which made them famous. Much like their mainstream Hollywood counterparts, many of these women have played domestic servants, unsophisticated characters or, only supporting roles. Many of these women left the industry with little fan-fare, disappearing into infamy. The most famous amongst them are still the subject of inquiry by fans who adored them. Sex Scholar and Historian, Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, has dedicated her career to research and chronicle these pioneers of the blue screen. Dr. Miller-Young’s first book, “A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in Porn,” is a necessary account of Black women whose struggles for equity, financial liberation, and sexual freedom still impacts the industry today.

“After the X-Biz Town Hall, it became apparent that many younger performers are not aware of the long history of Black performers, directors, producers, and company owners that came before them. To prevent erasure of Black people in the industry, we decided to offer insight into this important archive through one of our first educational events,” says Sinnamon Love, founder of BIPOC-AIC. “Before we can ask people to stop working for companies who produce racist content, we have to put money in folks’ pockets. People need to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads.”

The BIPOC-AIC intends to do precisely that through a series of initiatives to help marginalized performers in need through mediation services with licensed clinicians, weekly virtual wellness classes with sex-positive, sex-worker friendly coaches, and virtual Peer-to-Peer skillshare workshops. The BIPOC-AIC’s Mutual Aid Fund aims to provide monthly grants to BIPOC community members impacted by COVID-19 or any reason. Applications open August 1 with the first grants beginning September 1.

6 Ways to Get Involved 

Sign up for The BIPOC-AIC newsletter.

Donate directly via GoFundMe.

Purchase a “Legends of Black Erotica” T-Shirt.

Register for BIPOC-AIC’s donation-based special event, “The History of Black Women in Porn” with Dr. Mireille Miller-Young on July 30, 2020, at 6p PST / 9p EST.

Sign BIPOC-AIC’s petition to end racism and wage disparity in Adult media.

Sign Lotus Lain’s petition to Stop Fetishizing & Devaluing Blackness in Porn.

Signed,

BIPOC Adult Industry Collective

https://www.bipoc-collective.org

IG: http://instagram.com/bipoccollective

Twitter: http://twitter.com/bipoc_aic

About the BIPOC Adult Industry Collective:

The BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color) Adult Industry Collective was formed to answer the call to address the adult entertainment industry’s issues with racism, including wage disparity based on ethnicity, and to develop, advise, and implement strategies to correct these issues. The BIPOC-AIC believes all marginalized communities must be included in all discussions when making decisions surrounding repairing harm against impacted communities. We are a group of performers, directors, and producers, spanning a range of jobs within the consensual, commercial sex trade, dedicated to working towards bringing about changes needed to make the adult industry a safe space for all to work, explore, and thrive, regardless of ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. For more information, including news, updates, schedules of events, and more, visit https://www.bipoc-collective.org. 

About The People’s Interpreting Project (ASL):

The People’s Interpreting Project (ASL) is a collaborative that centers the needs of the richness and diversity of the Deaf community. PIP ASL was born from the interpreters who stepped up to volunteer at the Black Lives Matter protests for Deaf,

DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing (D/DB/HH) community members who are often left out of crucial civic engagement activities, such as protests, rallies, and demonstrations. Find The People’s Interpreting Project (ASL) at https://www.instagram.com/peoplesinterpretingproject/.

About Mireille Miller-Young:

Mireille Miller-Young, PhD, is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, and the 2019–20 Advancing Equity Through Research Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. She researches and teaches about race, gender, and sexuality in US history, popular and film cultures, and the sex industries. 

Dr. Miller-Young’s book, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography (Duke University Press, 2014) was awarded the Sara A. Whaley Prize for Best Book on Women and Labor by the National Women’s Studies Association and the John Hope Franklin Prize for Best Book by the American Studies Association. Along with Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and Tristan Taormino, Miller-Young is an editor of The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of

Producing Pleasure. She is also lead editor and contributor to the recent

volume Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a

Culture of Capital. https://www.mireillemilleryoung.com.

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Media Contact:

Kamilah Rouse, p/k/a Sinnamon Love

Founder, BIPOC Adult Industry Collective

Fellow, Sex Worker Giving Circle (Third Wave Fund)

[email protected]