This Thursday, July 30, at 6pm PST/9pm EST, the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Adult Industry Collective (BIPOC-AIC) is offering a history lesson on Black Women’s Legacy in Porn with Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, BIPOC-AIC announced in a statement released Tuesday. Those interested in attending the history lesson can register on Eventbrite here.
The event is the second of BIPOC-AIC’s “Decolonize Porn” educational series, which “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,” the organization said in its statement.
“This donation-based event benefits the BIPOC-AIC Mutual Aid Fund and Operational Costs,” BIPOC-AIC added in their statement. “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.”
The organization added that 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,” the statement continued. “Many of these women left the industry with little fanfare, disappearing into infamy. The most famous amongst them are still the subject of inquiry by fans who adored them.”
Dr. Miller-Young has dedicated her career to research and chronicle these pioneers of the blue screen. Her first book, A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in Porn, is an account of Black women whose struggles for equity, financial liberation, and sexual freedom still impacts the industry today.
“After the XBIZ 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,” said Sinnamon Love, founder of BIPOC-AIC. “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. 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 said 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 to be distributed September 1.
In its statement, BIPOC-AIC offered six ways to get involved in the effort: Sign up for The BIPOC-AIC newsletter; donate directly to BIPOC-AIC 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; sign BIPOC-AIC’s petition to end racism and wage disparity in adult media and sign Lotus Lain’s petition to Stop Fetishizing & Devaluing Blackness in Porn.
