ABSTRACT

Within the media, as well as in the academy and in feminist debates, one image looms large as a powerful symbol of victimisation or agency: the female porn performer. Three decades after the ‘porn wars’ began, the victim/agent divide persists as the dominant framework within which the discussion of pornography takes place. Too often female porn performers are either described as having been forced by male pimps into a life of sexual degradation and abuse or regarded as sexual freedom fighters, empowered by their transgression of outdated social norms and paving the way to a future of authentically female sexual agency (Corsianos, 2007; Coy and Garner, 2010; Dworkin, 1981; Hardy, 1998). A focus on the female performer as either victim or agent has limited how performers and their work are represented (Smith, 2012) and impeded research into other aspects of their lives as sex workers.