A Taste for Brown Sugar
Miller-Young boldly takes on representations of black women's sexuality in the porn industry.
A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography (Duke University Press, 2014) is based on Mireille Miller-Young's extensive archival research and her interviews with dozens of women who have worked in the adult entertainment industry since the 1980s. The women share their thoughts about desire and eroticism, black women's sexuality and representation, and ambition and the need to make ends meet. Miller-Young documents their interventions into the complicated history of black women's sexuality, looking at individual choices, however small—a costume, a gesture, an improvised line—as small acts of resistance, of what she calls "illicit eroticism." Building on the work of other black feminist theorists, and contributing to the field of sex work studies, she seeks to expand discussion of black women's sexuality to include their eroticism and desires, as well as their participation and representation in the adult entertainment industry. Miller-Young wants the voices of black women sex workers heard, and the decisions they make, albeit often within material and industrial constraints, recognized as their own.
You can read the introduction for free here.
John Hope Franklin Book Prize for Best Book, 2015
Presented by the American Studies Association
Sara A. Whaley Prize for Best Book on Women and Labor, 2015
Presented by the National Women’s Studies Association
Praise
"Through meticulous research and a masterly melding of the best of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical work in black women’s sexuality, A Taste for Brown Sugar analyzes African American women’s agency within the adult entertainment industry.... If A Taste for Brown Sugar can produce a solid analysis of such a difficult, controversial topic, Miller-Young has set a high bar for similar projects that study oppositional knowledge." — Patricia Hill Collins, The Journal of American History
"A Taste for Brown Sugar is a game changer, a courageous and bold book that shifts the discourse on the contested history of race and porn. Mireille Miller-Young's rigorous historical and ethnographic research disrupts the 'good versus bad' binary that has dogged debates about pornography for decades." — E. Patrick Johnson, author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity
"By centering labor, Miller-Young deftly side-steps debates about whether pornography can be feminist and instead shows us that economies of desire are mutable and can be manipulated to find spaces of survival and even pleasure. This perspective is an important addition to black feminist sexuality studies. Audiences interested in American studies, labor history, the history of pornography, black feminism, and sexuality studies should take note of this important book." — Amber Jamilla Musser, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
“This much-needed volume reminds scholars of the need to deepen porn studies and strengthen its interdisciplinary possibilities through various theoretical lenses and critical approaches. Supporting her book with abundant images, Miller-Young thoughtfully exposes readers to concepts both visually and intellectually. … A necessary volume for academics as well as those interested in popular culture studies that have a dialogue with race and/or women. Essential. Graduate students/faculty.” — M. Martinez, Choice
“Reading A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography on a New York subway train will earn you some very interesting looks. Adorned with a cover photo featuring the beautiful porn star Jeannie Pepper topless in a white fur like something out of Superfly, and the customary wall of text that comes with academic books on the back, it brings out New York's best double takes. … A Taste for Brown Sugar offers fine scholarship, done with the utmost respect of the subject and the workers chronicled.” — Sydette Harry, Make/Shift
"[E]ssential reading for anyone seeking to understand new work on feminism, critical race studies, pornography, and film history." — Svati P. Shah, Women's Review of Books
"A Taste for Brown Sugar is a necessary, long overdue text that should interest scholars and students of various fields and backgrounds, particularly those interested in feminist theory, media studies, histories of black women, sex work, and of course porn studies.... The book is impressive, cultivating a rich and diverse tapestry of urgent voices and images, revealing the complicated interplay between labor and representation." — Laura Helen Marks, Feminist Media Studies
"In a field so dominated by the visual, it is Miller-Young’s insistence that we hear, as well as see, black women in porn that makes her book so textured, colorful, brash, and critically engrossing. Divided into six well-written and informative chapters, this ambitious scholarly tour de force offers an ethnographic account of black women’s labor in the porn industry, as well as a historicist cultural appraisal of blackness in pornography from the early twentieth century into our present era." — L. H. Stallings, Black Camera
"All those who are interested in porn, African American, film, cultural or queer studies would benefit from reading this multifaceted, nuanced, decidedly non-white interpretation of the porn industry." — Angela Mika Holton, Sexuality & Culture
"A Taste for Brown Sugar has raised the bar for porn studies." — Whitney Strub, Journal of the History of Sexuality
Photo by Daisy Ducati