Title:
Porn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism
Author:
Heather Berg
Release Date:
January 1, 2021
Format:
Trade Paperback
Genre:
Non-Fiction
Sub-Genre:
Sex Work, Economics
Rating:
Read-A-Likes:
Summary: Every porn scene is a record of people at work. But on-camera labor is only the beginning of the story. Part labor history, part ethnography illuminating the lives of the performers who work in the medium, Porn Work takes readers behind the scenes to explore what porn performers think of their work and how they intervene to hack it. It tells a story of crafty workers, faltering managers, and shifting solidarities.
Blending extensive fieldwork with feminist and antiwork theorizing, Porn Work details entrepreneurial labor on the boundaries between pleasure and tedium. Rejecting any notion that sex work is an aberration from straight work, it reveals porn workers’ creative strategies as prophetic of a working landscape in crisis. In the end, it looks at what porn has to tell us about what’s wrong with work, and what it might look like to build something better.-From The StoryGraph
What I Liked: I often struggle reading non-fiction books if they’re written like a textbook so I loved that this book taught me something without making it boring. You can tell that Berg appreciated the time people in the industry took to share their thoughts about their work and respected the multiple viewpoints that were presented. She didn’t judge anyone while still being able to shine a light on some of the more unscrupulous practices in the industry. I found the pay scale information particularly interesting and I liked that she didn’t shy away from the racism that exists in the industry.
What I Didn’t Like: I would have to nitpick to find something I didn’t like about this book.
Who Should Read It: Anyone with an interest in learning about capitalism in an atypical way will want to pick this book up. This is also a great book for those interested in workers rights.
Review Wrap Up: Whether or not you have an interest in the porn industry or not, this book was an interesting look at workers rights and how we as a society view labor. I liked that it dispelled some of the myths surrounding porn while also showing that sex work IS work. This was a fascinating read.
Favorite Quote (s):
“Where the porn workers in this book point to the terrible parts, their demand is for better conditions, not pity, rescue, or a return to the same straight jobs they left for porn.”
“As Elizabeth Bernstein notes in the context of escort clients’ interest in the ‘girlfriend experience,’ this is not unique to sex work-service work in general demands that the ‘market basis of the exchange be ‘temporarily subordinated to the client’s fantasy of authentic interpersonal connection.”
“Porn is just one of the many late-capitalist workplaces in which the exhortation ‘just be yourself!’ functions as a managerial tool.”
The Spinster Librarian 