Winner of the MLA's 2016 Alan
Bray Prize for Best Book in GLBTQ Studies
How
BDSM can be used as a metaphor for black female sexuality. The
Color of Kink explores black women's representations and
performances within American pornography and BDSM (bondage and
discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) from
the 1930s to the present, revealing the ways in which they illustrate
a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power
for black women.
Based
on personal interviews conducted with pornography performers,
producers, and professional dominatrices, visual and textual
analysis, and extensive archival research, Ariane Cruz reveals BDSM
and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative
links between Black female sexuality and violence. She explores how
violence becomes not just a vehicle of pleasure but also a mode of
accessing and contesting power. Drawing on feminist and queer theory,
critical race theory, and media studies, Cruz argues that BDSM is a
productive space from which to consider the complexity and
diverseness of black women's sexual practice and the mutability of
black female sexuality. Illuminating the cross-pollination of black
sexuality and BDSM, The Color of Kink makes a unique
contribution to the growing scholarship on racialized sexuality.