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. This chapter draws on a research undertook into female experiences in the Australian pornography industry. In modern Western societies, sexuality is commonly understood as a natural force. Before the 1970s, this was also the widely held view within academia. Many anthropologists, psychoanalysts, sociologists and sexologists pointed to the cultural diversity of sexual practices but continued to understand sexuality as a natural force subject to different kinds of social organisation and varying degrees of repression. As a work environment, pornography creates a unique opportunity for performers to experience sexual pleasures disinvested from sexual desire and what they take to be their own sexual identity. The creative elements of pornographic performance place the participants in unlikely sexual situations where they are encouraged to experiment with different sexual personas and characters.
