So I was tooling around the internet searching for "sissy porn" -- as I'm apt to do -- when I stumbled upon BlacksOnBoys.com, whose hook-phrase -- "Black thugs breaking down sissy whiteboys" -- pointed me there via Google. I had quite a time censoring the photo above, but I thought it was important to cite because of the language used in marketing the porn. For one, it's clear who has the masculinity (Black "men") and who doesn't (white "boys"). There's also the "Who's the slave now, beeotch?" strewn across the top of the image. Wowzer.
I'm reminded here of a friend who visited North Carolina when I was in college from the Netherlands. He said he was out to find the butchest guy in town to hookup with one night. But when I found out who he hooked up with -- the nelliest of the nelliest guys on campus, a cutie for sure -- I was perplexed. I asked him the next day about it, since he had made clear that hotness for him was about uber-masculinity. It turns out that his nelly hookup's black skin was enough to mark his masculinity -- flaming mannerisms didn't much matter. I haven't paid for or seen the videos on "BlacksOnBoys," but I wonder how gender gets performed here. Are the white boys really so femme? Are the black men really so butch? Or does race do all the signifying necessary?
I presume the predominate consumers of this kind of racialized porn are white men, but I can't help but think that some Black guys find it pretty steamy as well. Not sure that there's an easy way to access that kind of information, but it's interesting food for thought.
Curiously, BoB are owned by a company called "DogFart Productions" (perhaps the nastiest name for a company, ever) which owns twelve interracial porn sites -- all of them hetero porn, except for BoB.
That's really interesting - I just stumbled across this studio in my own, decidedly non-research travels through "TGP" sites on the web. Having watched some of the sample clips it's really clear the central dynamic is conflict enacted sexually between white Gay and black Male.
I'm never gonna get around to blogging on my own blog if I spend the days commenting here, but alas...
I've always wondered who gets a kick out of sites like these. Is it black gay men hyped up on some bizarre revenge scheme of slavery, like you said, or white men who fetishized being dominated by the Black Brute.
Either way the general theme just comes across as a really perverse to me, and I've seen some pretty perverse stuff. Maybe because it is making skin color sexual, beyond the conventional "black is beautiful".
It also seemingly dehumanizes sex, as the respective partner's become a replaceable product rather than, well, "partners". Whether it is the Black Brute that 'attacks' the fragile White "boy" like an animal, or the White man that indulges in his fantasy of being dominated.
And of course, I'm upset, because I'm not like those images that portray me on the basis of my skin color alone to be this Brute.
I've always wondered what the pornstars that engage in this genre think of their work?
Daniel: "TGP" sites?
J: Well, I think a lot of porn dehumanizes sex -- be it interracial or not. This was one of the central feminist critiques against porn back in the 1980s. I suppose the allusion to slavery / revenge has a special tinge to it, but I think you can analyze most porn through the lens of violence / subjugation / dehumanization.
I'm not sure "Black is beautiful" has been conventional since 1976.
Does it matter who is consuming the porn? I think somehow we would be more outraged if the site is driven by white consumers, versus if it were driven by Black consumers. I actually think think the effects would be equally perverse.
What social factors are okay to sexualize? Which ones are not? Why? That's I guess the central question here for considering the ethics of porn production / consumption. If it is not okay to sexualize race in pornography, why? What about dick size? Age? Masculinity?
I guess as a white boy looking for sissy representation in porn, I'm left unsatisfied by the clear equation of whiteness with femininity here. There's no real meaty portrayal of sexy sissyhood -- just racial difference masquerading as femininity. Sigh. My quest for sissy porn continues.
I think I have one of the first videos done by blacksonboys. The vid opens with a cameraman talking to a "sissy" white boy about his black man "fetish" (read: dehumanizing).
The cameraman is actually pretty funny and cracks jokes about the boy coming from and really teases out the boy's uncomfortability. Clearly this guy is not acting and for some reason agreed to have his first experience with a black man filmed and distributed on the internet.
This porn clip is the most awkward thing to watch, which makes its content even more intriguing. The first 8 minutes is this one-on-one naturally stilted conversation between the boy and the camera. Basically the boy wants a black man because of the "mythical black cock".
Enter the black man.
Then the black guy and the cameraman (who is white) deride this kid and make jokes, which are funny in that awkward "Meet the Parents" kind of way.
Then they fuck. I have seen many a porn and this was definitely not staged.
The developers definitely have a sense of humor, and they use this to an erotic extent.
I don't know you, Trevor, but from what I have read on your blog, I think you would be interested in this particular clip. I looked for it on their Web site but couldn't find it. I find the clip to be interesting to watch - in a purely academic way. (I'm not into white guys).
Hey Darrin -- thanks for the comments. Sounds like an interesting clip! The removal of the "fourth wall" in porn has taken over -- the cameraman is now as much a part of a lot of porn as the actors. There seems to be two kinds of cameramen emerging:
1) The authoritative cameraman who tells the actors what to do. I think Sean Cody does this, if I remember correctly.
2) The funnyman, like you say, who cracks jokes at the actor's expense. Usually the younger / twinkier guy in the scene, in particular.
I'm not sure what this means for the viewing experience. It certainly destroys any idea that you're watching "real" sex and admits the construction of itself as pornography. I'd have to think about what that means for the way we consume it.