This is an extract from Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance by Zahra Stardust out now from Duke University Press. Copyright Duke University Press, 2024.

In Indie Porn, Zahra Stardust examines the motivations and interventions of independent porn producers as they navigate criminal laws, risk-averse platforms, discriminatory algorithms, and rampant piracy. Herself a porn performer and participant, Stardust takes readers behind the scenes, offering intimate insights into this socio-political movement. 

Header image: Roberto Duran

I WANT YOU TO OVERCOME YOUR WHOREPHOBIA!

An artwork by Jacq the Stripper looms above us. Sex worker art, indie porn magazines, and erotic books adorn the shelves. The wall is meticulously lined with ball gags, paddles, collars, blindfolds, ear muffs, carabiners, safety scissors, nipple clamps, floggers, and gas masks.

We are in the Kink BnB Hedon House preparing for a saucy threesome. Canes are stashed in the corner like an umbrella stand. Upcycled furniture is equipped with Tarot decks and dried flowers.

We are surrounded by a full beat of nitrile gloves, assorted condoms, lubes, hand sanitizer, dental dams, a sharps (used needles) bin, and alcohol wipes. In case we need it, there’s a spanking horse, bondage chair, suspension ring, and pallet wrap.

I cradle my belly.

We are shooting a film called MotherFuckers, an explicit documentary about porn star parents. I trace the sleeping bump inside my uterus—I am six months pregnant.

Although the space is garnished with a dimly lit stainless steel aesthetic, it is a queer whore family vibe. A group of us are snacking on vegan treats, rifling through our suitcases, and chatting with the handsome resident house boi.

I am shooting with Helen, who had her daughter at nineteen and is about to become a grandmother, and Friedrich Kreuz, whose rainbow kids I have had the pleasure of babysitting.

It’s a family affair.

Zahra Stardust at Hedon House. Image by: Kim Cums.

For me, this scene is a form of birth prep. It’s a chance to stop, honor, and enjoy this precious, once-in-a-lifetime moment.

I have been approaching labor like a marathon, treating my body like an endurance athlete. While pregnant I have done life drawing modeling and erotic photo shoots and have seen a sexological bodyworker to prime my body for this epic event. I have been watching active births on YouTube, reading about orgasmic birth, and dreaming of a waterbirth.

What better way to prepare, I thought, than some wholesome pregnancy porn with my friends?

We sit in the courtyard, among the peeling paint and sprawling succulents, discussing our varied journeys through pregnancy, birth, mother-fucking, and queer parenting. What, who, and how we craved; the changes to our bodies, sensations, desires.

“There’s something about pregnant bodies that just makes me want to worship” says Helen. “The swollen, engorged, fecund body; there’s just something sublime in it. I just want to get on my knees!”

“Just go easy on my nipples,” I say. “My mammary glands are out of control.”

Image by: Elizabeth Anne.

I am nervous about birth but invested in tapping into my best power bottom headspace.

If you can have sex at a play party and orgasm on cue in front of camera crew, my burlesque-performing osteopath friend tells me, you have the skills to tune in for a vaginal birth.

I have a series of toys lined up ready for perineum stretching and birth preparation, ranging from silicone cocks to an epi-no, a vaginal dilator designed to prevent the need for an episiotomy, gifted to me by my stripper friend.

Friedrich is musing about how BDSM is an excellent preparation for birth.

“Getting into that rhythm, building up slowly,” he says, in his pink ACT UP T-shirt, “it mirrors the practice of birth anyway. You start up with small contractions that get bigger and bigger, breathing your way into them.”

I wriggle into the sling, sliding my feet into stirrups, announcing that I can’t lie on my back for too long as the supine position can block oxygen to the baby.

As we talk, Helen and Friedrich massage my feet and belly. We trace my linea nigra all the way from my public bone, up my stomach, and up each breast.

They are breathing love down to my baby, releasing oxytocin and endorphins. It’s impossible not to think about what the future holds for our kids, our future generations of activists.

How will our brave little babes manage to move through this world trusting their bodies, knowing themselves, working together?

Zahra Stardust at Kre8tive Freedom.

I am proud to be a sex working mama who can equip my children with nonjudgmental, shame-free information, and nuanced communication skills that cover bodies, boundaries, touch, desires, health, safety, pleasure and care.

Pornography, says Helen, put her in touch with her own sexuality and helped her heal the hatred she had toward her own body.

Known as the “porno mum” at her kid’s school, she reflects: “For me it was quite transformative, being able to pass on that love of my body that I did not have before sex work to my daughter.”

It’s a tender moment—our apprehension for the future is tempered by the trust we have in our inner whore wisdom and our faith in our incredible kids.

Helen smiles at me: “I just don’t think I would have been as good a mum without sex work.”

Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance by Zahra Stardust (out now through Duke University Press).