Aesthetics vs Ethics: Expanding Definitions of Feminist Porn

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In May 2019, SWARM hosted a three day festival to celebrate ten years of organising. This included panel discussions across a wide range of topics that impact on sex workers, and which connect and intersect with sex worker rights organising as well as broader struggles for justice. The conversations and discussions from that festival lay the groundwork for the Decriminalised Futures project.

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Aesthetics vs Ethics: Expanding Definitions of Feminist Porn (May 2019)

‘Feminist Porn’ is by now an almost over-familiar buzz phrase; but is the ‘feminist’ bit happening in the script, in consumer habits, or on film sets? In this panel, performers from across the breadth of the porn industry –from mainstream to independent– discussed the way the term ‘Feminist Porn’ has come to be understood, and how this definition might be expanded and redefined in a sex-worker led discourse. The conversation also touched on industry hierarchies, labour practices, #MeToo representation and intersectional identities within porn.

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Speakers: Juno Mac, Hello Rooster, Misha Mayfair, and Lina Bembe

Credits: composition and mix by Sherry Ostapovitch, edit by Tamara Schreiber and Radio Ava, recording by Hollis Robin.

Aesthetics vs Ethics: Expanding Definitions of Feminist Porn is the 11th panel discussion of the SWARM 2019 Festival of Resistance.

The topics included:

  • Imagining Feminist Futures

  • Radical Transfeminist Activism

  • Cops Don’t Keep Us Safe: When Survival Is Made Criminal

  • Sex Work and Migration in Europe

  • The Impact of Austerity

  • Sex Workers of Colour Roundtable

  • (Resisting) Systems of Violence

  • Sex Workers on the Nordic Model

  • Artists Talk Bodies, Visibility, and Violence

  • Radical Histories: Exploring the Archives

  • Aesthetics vs Ethics: Expanding Definitions of Feminist Porn

  • How Do Disability and Sex Work Intersect in the UK Today

  • The Future of Work

  • Technology, Surveillance and the State: How We Resist

  • Examining Anti-trafficking Measures: Academic Perspectives

  • Researching Sex Work

  • Strength, Resilience, and Healthcare

  • A Decriminalised Future

Year: 2019
Type: panel discussion
Series: swarm festival of resistance
Subject(s): porn ethics labour rights class feminism sexual violence