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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Trigger Warning: Pornography, BDSM, sexual violence. This post is NOT for kids.
Quote Spotlight:
“Just as some women practice race play as a mode of processing and pleasuring racial trauma, women use the dildo as a tool for reframing and renegotiating experiences of sexual violence. For example, Minge and Zimmerman argue for an urgent “re¬signification” of the dildo “as a tool of sexual agency” that recognizes its potential as an instrument for “rescripting” the trauma of violent sexual penetration. Dildos are another site where the technologies of pleasure, gender, race, and sexuality intersect.”
Summary
The Color of Kink is about black women’s representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM. Cruz argues that BDSM and pornography can be critical sites to think about how society has connected Black women’s sexuality to violence. In thinking about how Black women can access pleasure through these mediums, she explores how violence becomes a vehicle of pleasure and a mode of accessing and contesting power.
In chapter 1, Cruz explains why many feminists think Black women participating in race play is alwaysproblematic. She quotes famous feminists like Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, who have stated that using violent power over another in the bedroom is an extension of this type of relationship in real life. For those who live in American culture, we live in a society where aggression is socially valued. To praise race play in the bedroom is to assert that it is empowering for people on both ends of the relationship. It reproduces derogatory, stereotypical images of Black women, and they shouldn’t be enjoying it and much less wanting it. Furthermore, Lorde and Walker question whether black women can indeed consent to racialized sexual play. But Black women BDSMers suggest that this consent is not only possible but also pleasurable and effectively empowering.
For some part of the book Cruz focuses in on a subsection of Black women BDSMers who participate in race play. In short, race play is a BDSM practice that explicitly uses race to script power exchange between doms and subs. Through these activities, Cruz argues that Black women can critique heteropatriarchy and its naturalization of gendered hierarchies where men are dominant, and women are submissive. Rather than thinking of race play an escape from racism, it can be a way to parody and make fun of its relationships. Race play for Cruz then is a way to fuck and fuck with racism: a potential parody that demonstrates how we play the race and even how race plays us. She argues that exploring activities like race play allows some Black women to assess the dynamic, sociohistorical, political, and culturally evolving processes of creating racial difference. For many in society, people imagine race as an unchanging, sovereign truth when it is a dynamic and fluid demarcation site and these scenes allow them to explore that.
Note: It is also important to note that Cruz emphasizes that “Kink can be therapeutic, but it isn’t therapy.” Trying to argue that this type of play is therapy asserts that BDSMers need healing and that once you are “cured,” you will stop participating in it. Therefore, in this book, readers will be focusing on how porn producers represent Black women, how Black women experience pleasure, and what we can learn from it.
For the rest of the book, Cruz goes into interviews and more in-depth descriptions of race play scenes to support her theory. I will only go through two that I found interesting and hopefully inspire you to put in on your TBR.
One film Cruz describes comes from the golden-age pornography, the film classic Behind the Green Doormade in 1971. For context, the 1970s was the golden age of pornography because of a Supreme Court ruling, Miller v. California, where the court made it less likely to deem works with “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” obscene. Though Miller restated that the First Amendment did not protect indecent material, it effectively redefined obscenity, which opened loopholes for the production of pornography. Therefore, pornography producers began making feature-length films with developed plots, original musical scores, special effects, and so forth in an attempt to imbue the films with “redeeming social value.”
In Behind the Green Door, Johnny Keyes, a renowned black male performer, and Marilyn Chambers, a white performer, reenact a stereotypical scene where a Black man preys upon a white woman. When commenting on this scene in real life, both performers recognized their scene as highly political. Whereas Chambers seemed to acknowledge and welcome the power of its shock value to both her father and nation, Keyes imagined himself as engaged in some sort of quest for reparations for the institutionalized rape of black women. Keyes imagined white men’s rape of black women to be atoned by another sexual crime: a black man’s ravishment of a white woman.
If you don’t know much about interracial pornography like I did when reading this book, you will come to know that Black male-white female interracial porn is more common than Black female-white male scenes. While this is only one interracial scene out of many, I would like to comment here.
I do not know of ANY Black woman who wants Black men to enact some kind of “revenge porn” on white women for rape that happened during slavery. PLEASE DON’T PUT THAT ON BLACK WOMEN. NO ONE IS ASKING FOR THAT. Even if it’s for a BDSM scene that both partners consent to, please think of another motivation. Furthermore, I questioned whether Keyes’s actual reason to do this film because it also launched him into stardom in the porn scene.
With that said, this dynamic between Black men and white women in pornography is highly influenced by slavery, as shown in the previous scene and others that Cruz describes. Interracial pornography depends on an explicit awareness of racial taboo driven by fear: it is “the fear once generated by white masters to keep white women and black men apart—that gives erotic tension to interracial sex acts.” Cruz also explains that this type of interracial pornography can also be a platform for white men to play out their fantasies of gay Black-white sex. The homoerotic desire is central to these films as we can see when white men are shown in these types of scenes watching and being humiliated. Thus, experiencing the shame white men may experience when they think about desiring Black men.
From this example, you may be wondering where are Black women in pornography. To learn about that, we have to go back to the 1930s. During this time, the stag era was prevalent, where porn producers made films secretly. They were brief (about 12 minutes at most), were silent, depicted explicit or graphic sexual behavior intended to appeal to all-male audiences; observers exchanged sexual banter and could achieve sexual arousal. Even though interracial dating, marriage, intercourse, etc., was illegal during this time, Black women played out sexual stereotypes that reinforced ideas that Black women were edible, excessively sexual, and accessible for the white man’s appetite. These tropes remain today, even outside pornography and much of the book also acknowledges that while Black women can experience pleasure in BDSM, they are still excessively stereotyped. However, Cruz gives us some hope by also describing porn made by a Black queer woman, Shine Louise Houston, showing the possibilities for Black women outside of stereotypical tropes.
Thoughts After Finishing
This book was a rollercoaster to say the least. I know this can be an uncomfortable subject, but it is crazy to think about how many white people consume Black people for sexual entertainment but do little else for Black people’s liberation. It reminds me of how Black people, like myself, are viewed in pieces, people taking what they like, discarding the rest.
On another train of thought, I was interested in the book because I have only heard negative things about race play. I am honestly unconcerned in this book review about exploring white people’s motivations to participate in the activity and more interested in Cruz’s exploration of why Black women do it. I find it refreshing how Cruz resisted policing or marginalizing Black women BDSMers and even exploring why they may find it pleasurable. Cruz’s explanations was fascinating for me because white people are usually freely able to explore their sexuality without bearing the weight of their whole race on their shoulders. Cruz didn’t want to push “good” representations of Black women to make them more palatable for her readers but rather showed them as they are and didn’t pass any moral judgments. Reading about Black women in this way made me happy. It gave me hope in broader society that we can just let Black women exist and experience pleasure without any expectations for the wider community.
In conclusion, don’t let the academic language intimidate you. Cruz exposes her readers to a world of BDSM that is usually dismissed but can grant you a deeper understanding of some Black women’s experiences. Happy reading!!!
Quote Spotlight:
“Just as some women practice race play as a mode of processing and pleasuring racial trauma, women use the dildo as a tool for reframing and renegotiating experiences of sexual violence. For example, Minge and Zimmerman argue for an urgent “re¬signification” of the dildo “as a tool of sexual agency” that recognizes its potential as an instrument for “rescripting” the trauma of violent sexual penetration. Dildos are another site where the technologies of pleasure, gender, race, and sexuality intersect.”
Summary
The Color of Kink is about black women’s representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM. Cruz argues that BDSM and pornography can be critical sites to think about how society has connected Black women’s sexuality to violence. In thinking about how Black women can access pleasure through these mediums, she explores how violence becomes a vehicle of pleasure and a mode of accessing and contesting power.
In chapter 1, Cruz explains why many feminists think Black women participating in race play is alwaysproblematic. She quotes famous feminists like Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, who have stated that using violent power over another in the bedroom is an extension of this type of relationship in real life. For those who live in American culture, we live in a society where aggression is socially valued. To praise race play in the bedroom is to assert that it is empowering for people on both ends of the relationship. It reproduces derogatory, stereotypical images of Black women, and they shouldn’t be enjoying it and much less wanting it. Furthermore, Lorde and Walker question whether black women can indeed consent to racialized sexual play. But Black women BDSMers suggest that this consent is not only possible but also pleasurable and effectively empowering.
For some part of the book Cruz focuses in on a subsection of Black women BDSMers who participate in race play. In short, race play is a BDSM practice that explicitly uses race to script power exchange between doms and subs. Through these activities, Cruz argues that Black women can critique heteropatriarchy and its naturalization of gendered hierarchies where men are dominant, and women are submissive. Rather than thinking of race play an escape from racism, it can be a way to parody and make fun of its relationships. Race play for Cruz then is a way to fuck and fuck with racism: a potential parody that demonstrates how we play the race and even how race plays us. She argues that exploring activities like race play allows some Black women to assess the dynamic, sociohistorical, political, and culturally evolving processes of creating racial difference. For many in society, people imagine race as an unchanging, sovereign truth when it is a dynamic and fluid demarcation site and these scenes allow them to explore that.
Note: It is also important to note that Cruz emphasizes that “Kink can be therapeutic, but it isn’t therapy.” Trying to argue that this type of play is therapy asserts that BDSMers need healing and that once you are “cured,” you will stop participating in it. Therefore, in this book, readers will be focusing on how porn producers represent Black women, how Black women experience pleasure, and what we can learn from it.
For the rest of the book, Cruz goes into interviews and more in-depth descriptions of race play scenes to support her theory. I will only go through two that I found interesting and hopefully inspire you to put in on your TBR.
One film Cruz describes comes from the golden-age pornography, the film classic Behind the Green Doormade in 1971. For context, the 1970s was the golden age of pornography because of a Supreme Court ruling, Miller v. California, where the court made it less likely to deem works with “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” obscene. Though Miller restated that the First Amendment did not protect indecent material, it effectively redefined obscenity, which opened loopholes for the production of pornography. Therefore, pornography producers began making feature-length films with developed plots, original musical scores, special effects, and so forth in an attempt to imbue the films with “redeeming social value.”
In Behind the Green Door, Johnny Keyes, a renowned black male performer, and Marilyn Chambers, a white performer, reenact a stereotypical scene where a Black man preys upon a white woman. When commenting on this scene in real life, both performers recognized their scene as highly political. Whereas Chambers seemed to acknowledge and welcome the power of its shock value to both her father and nation, Keyes imagined himself as engaged in some sort of quest for reparations for the institutionalized rape of black women. Keyes imagined white men’s rape of black women to be atoned by another sexual crime: a black man’s ravishment of a white woman.
If you don’t know much about interracial pornography like I did when reading this book, you will come to know that Black male-white female interracial porn is more common than Black female-white male scenes. While this is only one interracial scene out of many, I would like to comment here.
I do not know of ANY Black woman who wants Black men to enact some kind of “revenge porn” on white women for rape that happened during slavery. PLEASE DON’T PUT THAT ON BLACK WOMEN. NO ONE IS ASKING FOR THAT. Even if it’s for a BDSM scene that both partners consent to, please think of another motivation. Furthermore, I questioned whether Keyes’s actual reason to do this film because it also launched him into stardom in the porn scene.
With that said, this dynamic between Black men and white women in pornography is highly influenced by slavery, as shown in the previous scene and others that Cruz describes. Interracial pornography depends on an explicit awareness of racial taboo driven by fear: it is “the fear once generated by white masters to keep white women and black men apart—that gives erotic tension to interracial sex acts.” Cruz also explains that this type of interracial pornography can also be a platform for white men to play out their fantasies of gay Black-white sex. The homoerotic desire is central to these films as we can see when white men are shown in these types of scenes watching and being humiliated. Thus, experiencing the shame white men may experience when they think about desiring Black men.
From this example, you may be wondering where are Black women in pornography. To learn about that, we have to go back to the 1930s. During this time, the stag era was prevalent, where porn producers made films secretly. They were brief (about 12 minutes at most), were silent, depicted explicit or graphic sexual behavior intended to appeal to all-male audiences; observers exchanged sexual banter and could achieve sexual arousal. Even though interracial dating, marriage, intercourse, etc., was illegal during this time, Black women played out sexual stereotypes that reinforced ideas that Black women were edible, excessively sexual, and accessible for the white man’s appetite. These tropes remain today, even outside pornography and much of the book also acknowledges that while Black women can experience pleasure in BDSM, they are still excessively stereotyped. However, Cruz gives us some hope by also describing porn made by a Black queer woman, Shine Louise Houston, showing the possibilities for Black women outside of stereotypical tropes.
Thoughts After Finishing
This book was a rollercoaster to say the least. I know this can be an uncomfortable subject, but it is crazy to think about how many white people consume Black people for sexual entertainment but do little else for Black people’s liberation. It reminds me of how Black people, like myself, are viewed in pieces, people taking what they like, discarding the rest.
On another train of thought, I was interested in the book because I have only heard negative things about race play. I am honestly unconcerned in this book review about exploring white people’s motivations to participate in the activity and more interested in Cruz’s exploration of why Black women do it. I find it refreshing how Cruz resisted policing or marginalizing Black women BDSMers and even exploring why they may find it pleasurable. Cruz’s explanations was fascinating for me because white people are usually freely able to explore their sexuality without bearing the weight of their whole race on their shoulders. Cruz didn’t want to push “good” representations of Black women to make them more palatable for her readers but rather showed them as they are and didn’t pass any moral judgments. Reading about Black women in this way made me happy. It gave me hope in broader society that we can just let Black women exist and experience pleasure without any expectations for the wider community.
In conclusion, don’t let the academic language intimidate you. Cruz exposes her readers to a world of BDSM that is usually dismissed but can grant you a deeper understanding of some Black women’s experiences. Happy reading!!!
Hard to find a copy and reading such a dense book from a downloaded pdf was unenjoyable. I will try again when I find a legible copy.
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
Feminist critiques of dildos genuinely made me so sad.
This is heavy on raceplay and chattel slavery. The author is also very proud of her vocabulary.
Probably too dense for my level of knowledge on these subjects. I'm not sure how I agree with certain ideas, such as the implicit positioning of sexual queerness as particularly radical, and I was more interested in the first third of the book, but I respect the approach Cruz took in trying to analyze these topics with a nonjudgmental but still critical lens. Though for a book about Black women and sexuality and very explicitly about including them in the discourse, it felt like its scope wandered away from them for significant portions that didn't really pay off.
This book is too complex for me. I have to reread the sentences because I don't understand then on a semantic level, and when I (think I) do understand them, I am appalled by the lack of nuance and the seeming irresponsibility of the author when it comes to such sensitive and delicate practices as race play and rape play.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape