‘Straight sex in porn is anything but just straight’: Exploring queer heteroporn

Abstract

Several ideas across pornography studies and queer theory have gestured towards the potential queerness of heteroporn, and this article synthesises this body of scholarship by considering its logics, merits, and implications. It explores the ways in which heteroporn may not be as ‘straight’ as often thought, and identifies queer practices, glimmers, flourishes, residues, creations, and forms of spectatorship that infiltrate the genre. The findings suggest that most ‘queer heteroporn’ occupies a ‘kinda hegemonic, kinda subversive’ space, wherein while this type of pornography contain queer elements, it nevertheless reifies central attributes of heteronormativity via its privileging of sexism and the penetrative economy of sex. Against this backdrop, the article considers the opportunities that these queer interventions might make, and speculates whether these queer traces are inefficacious, or alternatively, worth lingering upon to imagine and build a queer/er future. The overall findings suggest that ‘queer heteroporn’ should be viewed cautiously as a site with which to build further resistance; it may be that certain types of queer heteroporn offer a route through which straight subjects can challenge heteronormativity and embrace a queer/er world. Anchored throughout this contribution is a discussion about the meanings, possibilities, and ethics of queer.