Porn, pantomime and protest: the politics of bawdiness as feminine style

Abstract

This article explores the significance of the recent 'Face-Sitting' protest that took place outside of Westminster in 2014. A carefully staged response to changes to pornography legislation that criminalized particular sexual practices pertinent to women's pleasure, this porn-panto protest put the spectacle of the 'kinky' woman and her desires centre stage. The activists' unique use of fetish dress, class and humour is explored in relation to the protest by brothel keeper and campaigner Cynthia Payne in the 1970s/80s. Payne deployed bawdy humour and a particular high camp use of 'kinky' dress and English etiquette to undermine contemporary sexual norms. The 2014 protest also clearly reclaimed two traditional roles within English pantomime: the Dame and the Principal Boy. These examples will be used to examine the political function of humour in relation to cross-dressing and the 'woman-on-top'. Ultimately, this study argues that 'bawdiness' is a politics that offers us potential promise but not without critical limitations established through media representations.

Laughing in the Face of the Law: Humour as a Thermostat Activating Social Change for Porn Workers

“…The Audiovisual Media Services Regulations prohibits acts claimed to be practiced especially outside heteronormative sexual encounters and within 'female dominant pornography', such as female ejaculation (but not men's) and face sitting. 117 The law does not foresee the possibility that people may consent to the prohibited sexual practices and fails to give workers guidelines as to the threshold required to make sexual acts harmful to the extent to which they are prohibited under the new law. [118][119] Juries themselves have struggled to draw the line regarding where the portrayal of BDSM sexual encounters are acceptable, showing that BDSM practitioners are at the lowest end of the hierarchy of tolerable sexual acts.…”

“…144 Willson argues that during the face-sitting protest, female porn workers adopted the role of the pantomime Dame, who triggers laughter out of her inept femininity and incapability of fitting the lady-like social role expected of her by performing as an upperclass lady. 145 The British pantomime that was originally known for giving voice to the popular consciousness of the 'anarchic insubordinate revelry and ancient traditions of misrule' threatened by the urbanization of England, is certainly referenced. 146 Porn worker dominatrixes acted out face-sitting sexual encounters dressed in English upperclass lady like equestrian costume, speaking with a 'cut-glass' English accent and 'drinking a cup of tea' while sitting on top of male protestors (Fig.…”