1. A Taste For Brown Sugar
Black women, sex work and
pornography (Micro lesson)

2. A Taste For Brown Sugar constructs a
dialogue that focuses on how WOC activate
and recover their sexualities as participants
and workers in the sex industry.

3. Question 1) what is the driving theme behind Miller-Young’s work?
what were her theory and method backings? how does this text
address WOC
The driving theme behind Miller-Young's work, is addressing the gaps in
research on sexuality, race, and film and the media. Miller-Young’s text
specifically addresses WOC by including WOC in the her case study and
addressing how race, gender, class, and sexuality, exposes pornographyʼs
relationship to historical and social relations in the U.S. Miller-Young's text
examines how pornography has borrowed from, and contributed to, a
prevailing iconography of black womenʼs bodies in visual culture and social
life.

4. WOC narratives in Pornography
WOC are both seen as desirable and
undesirable in pornograhy; desirable for their
supposed difference, being exotic and sexual
potency, and undesirable because these
factors also threaten dominant notions of
heterosexuality and feminine sexuality.

5. Question 2: List three examples from the text that examine the themes of
agency, racism, gendered control of ones own body and institutional
power/ violence
In chapter 6, page 325 Miller-Young examines the institutional power and
violence that WOC face in the porn industry by describing a scene she
witnessed.
“ I was struck by how black women were constantly disparaged, disciplined,
and made vulnerable to the kinds of verbal and symbolic violence that I
witnessed that day. This multidimensional, regulatory violence is something
that I’ve charted as integral to black women’s representation and labor in
pornography since its modern development, and that impacts all black female
performers to one degree or another.” pg 325

6. Question 2 continued: List three examples from the text that examine the
themes of agency, racism, gendered control of ones own body and
institutional power/ violence
In chapter 6, Navigating Power, page 355 Lola Lane (former porn actress)
discusses issues of race and racism within the porn industry.
“We are all the same,” asserted Lola Lane, “I’m black and you’re white, but
we are still women.”59 Lola critiques how racial discrimination structures the
adult industry and functions to undermine women’s potential alliances across
race towards a labor agenda for all sex workers. According to Lola’s
formulation, and that of many others like her, pornography, as an industry
and perhaps as a cultural force too, is big enough to respect diversity and
every worker’s economic, social, and even erotic value. It is incumbent on
the industry to respond to the needs and demands of its subjected workers.”

7. Question 2 continued: List three examples from the text that examine the
themes of agency, racism, gendered control of ones own body and
institutional power/ violence
The conclusion on page 360 in chapter 6 discusses how WOC in the sex
industry are actively reclaiming their agency by constantly pushing towards
better working conditions, demanding respect and the right to be properly
recognized. MIller-Young discusses how by having WOC reclaim their rights as
WOC they are not only speaking out for the agency and respect of WOC i the
sex industry, but for WOC overall.
“ African American adult actresses are situated in one of the least advantageous positions. Given
their place at the bottom of this hierarchy, and their experience of a host of exploitations and
traumas linked to the specific diminishment of black female sexuality, these women’s desires for
more just treatment and more privileged access provide a profound ethical analysis of the sex
industry itself. This ethical framework represents black porn performers’ earnest aspirations for
recognition and respect not just for themselves, but I believe, for all women and people of color.”