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QSMPC 1 (3) pp. 337–353 Intellect Limited 2016
Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture
Volume 1 Number 3
© 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/qsmpc.1.3.337_1
KEYWORDS
community building
feminism
identity
pornography
queer
resistance
CRYSTAL A. JACKSON
John Jay College–City University of New York
LAURENN MCCUBBIN
Columbus College of Art & Design
The Queer Porn Mafia:
Redefining identity, sex
and feminism through
commodified sexuality
ABSTRACT
This article explores the queering of identity and industry in relation to the self-
labelled Queer Porn Mafia (QPM), a group of US queer and feminist porn produc-
ers and performers. Through in-depth interviews with ten key QPM colleagues, it
explores the meanings of ‘queer’ and ‘feminism’ for queer adult film performers and
producers. It examines ‘queer’ as both an identity and a politics in the business prac-
tices of queer porn and in the relationship between queer porn and the mainstream
porn industry. It then interrogates the relationship between ‘queer’ and ‘feminism’
for queer porn performers and producers, arguing that the Queer Porn Mafia is
evidence that commercial forms of resistance can be effective tools of representa-
tion, visibility and community building. The article concludes with a discussion of
how the Queer Porn Mafia’s critique of heteronormative gender, sex and desire illu-
minates the limitations of feminism as identity and practice for those who queer
gender, sex and activism. It demonstrates how the politics of queer porn challenge
feminist notions of the relationship between sex and the market as well as discon-
certing remnants of gender essentialism in feminist thought.