The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (54 page)

In telling his experiences at boot camp in the British Army, Styles again narrates a racialized story of manhood. He was the “only Asian guy in the platoon and the small dick jokes came fast.” His racialization, as a weak man who must be tested and bullied even by those who hold official authority over him, resonates with recent cases in the US military. Indicating the circulation of social meaning regarding Asian American men in the national imaginary, Private Danny Chen faced relentless racial bullying in the military that led to his death.
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In Keni Styles’s case, a drill sergeant tormented him with particular attention and special tortures every morning. The sergeant “punished him with intensive training, running in place with high knees; push ups; sit-ups; squats; and burpees.” Styles transformed his physical experience into a test of mental endurance. He built his threshold of pain by using what he called “mental preparation” and “body control” that helped him tolerate pain longer and longer every time. He enacts bodily exercises as mental exercises: to breathe against his “stomach’s churning,” to focus on preventing vomiting, and to keep going despite his “lungs on fire.” The coming together of mind and body composed what he calls a “victory [that] changed my life.” He says “body control” essentially transforms to “manhood control” when honing one’s ability to focus.

This triumph of mental exercise is a turning into oneself that is gauged through the entirely social phenomenon of recognition from another. When the sergeant saw that “he could not break me,” their relations changed. A “new feeling” and a “new confidence” strengthened and changed Styles. No longer caught by the inability to control his own body, he achieves a neutral state, one of masterful control, as that which “cracks the code to porn star stamina.”

Keni Styles thus uses his racialization as an Asian man to show his triumph in a realm where rarely an Asian heterosexual man is found: pornography and even stardom. In
Superman Stamina,
the mental preparation and the physical strength came together to create a technique he
wishes to sell. In an American context, he uses the positioning of Asian men in the racial hierarchy of sex to say it’s possible to achieve what is most unexpected: porn stardom.

Mobilizing the established discourse of Asian American male sexual failure, Keni Styles animates his Superman Stamina program. Subsequently, his discussions of sexual success are not racialized but gendered. Successful manhood is achieved by sexual prowess. He begins by satisfying the needs of one woman. In trying out different positions with more women, he tests his self-control, and discovers his ability to “last even longer,” thirty to forty-five minutes rather than the initial seven minutes. Moreover, he was “the one deciding when” to cum thereby mastering his own body rather than being mastered by it. The woman’s pleasure is not so much about the proof of his skills, but an acknowledgment of his power when “giving it to a girl” and in return hearing her “screaming [his] name and squirting all over [his] cock.”

The intimate site in which he succeeds establishes a new presence in the social world. He not only meets more women but palpably feels their desire for him as “the one guy in the room who could rock them in the bedroom.” He asserts his identity as a “stallion” and how “women sense it.” And how he enjoys that women “love to talk” so that others hear about his “superman stamina” and want to “find out for themselves.” The ultimate form of recognition for him, however, is when the most desirable, super hot and “drop-dead gorgeous” woman validates his sexual and thus social power. If we assert the Asian American context of the desexualized Asian man coming into sexual power, we can see that it is the desirable woman’s gaze that affirms and validates him so much that he can profit from it—in the form of packaging a solution to manhood problems. In this way, the penis becomes an agent for the phallus, for a more traditional, constricted definition of manhood that emphasizes sexual prowess over legions of women as conquest, and heroism in the eyes of men, as we will see in the next example.

Styles’s new swagger gains the notice of his best friend Nolan, who complains about having to take his girlfriend out to a nice dinner and buy her a present in exchange for sex. Using the Superman Stamina techniques, Nolan’s usual thirty seconds of foreplay lead to his girlfriend’s eyes “opened wide with mouth frozen like she’s seen a ghost, [and] then cries, convulsing and screaming and shaking for five minutes.” To Nolan’s shock, she declares that she’s just had her “first orgasm [ever]!” So, the triumph becomes a gaining of power for men, enabling women to achieve pleasure. Nolan no longer has to bribe his girlfriend for sex, she’s “begging” for it, and without “fancy presents.” Styles takes credit for
“saving their relationship!” and establishing a gender order that liberates women into the realm of heteroexual pleasure. In this new post-Superman Stamina-powered world, we can map a gender order for men as possessing the phallus that women worship as a gift.

Superman Stamina
is sold as a way to gain “unfair advantage over other” men, for it enables “staying hard as long as you want; [having] sex wherever and as many times, and more than one time per night.” This ability presumably enables men to “pick up confidence” in a social world that values manhood as the ability to provide sexual pleasure for and preside with sexual power over women, who are having “multiple orgasms,” as a method of control by men.

According to Keni Styles, other male porn stars will get mad at him for “releasing their secrets.” A long way away from the racialization of weak Asian men that began his story, Styles suddenly raises the specter of that “young guy in Thailand” who is like “lots of other guys” who wish to “give women the most intense toe-curling orgasms” by offering his “tell-all course.” His project is to transform a weak Asian man into one who is strong. He professes to help others “eliminate premature ejaculation in days” with the “closely guarded secrets of porn stars! Crack the code, learn in minutes and use tonight” the ways of endurance and time that essentially beat “size” and “tricks.” He promises you’ll “last fifteen minutes or it’s free!” Finally, in returning to marketing the racialization of Asian male sexuality, Styles counts on the narrative of overcoming weakness as the one that can sell and make convincing his
Superman Stamina.

In this mediated self-representation, or the use of one’s otherness to sell a self that wields power that can be made accessible to others, an alternative manhood emerges in popular culture. Indeed, he forms a kind of macho sex that is itself very giving, especially to one’s partner. In
Full Metal Jacket
(1987), when Vietnamese prostitute Papillon Soo Soo uttered the lines “Me love you long time!,” she promised a sexual experience that prioritized serving the white man, while also threatening an attachment with no end, like the self-sacrificing Asian woman who does not know how to stop loving him.
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The endurance Keni Styles’s
Superman Stamina
aspires to is the possibility of gaining access to a manhood that pleases women in order to gain male power but also to offer new possibilities for male relations with women. His story of disprized manhood leads to a liberation from this position, through sexual expertise that enables new relations. He formulates both a conscientious and aggressive sexuality that attends to the pleasures of women and the opening of new racialized manhoods through generosity in sex.

Keni Styles in Feminist Porn: Tristan Taormino’s
Rough Sex 3: Adrianna’s Dangerous Mind
(2011)

In Tristan Taormino’s series Rough Sex, each sex scene starts with an interview with the actors before their performances. While the interview format is standard to gonzo porn, Tristan Taormino is unique in her ability to center the subject position of the female actor within a feminist frame. That is, unlike gonzo porn where filmmakers like Ed Powers use the interview as part of the sex scene,
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Tristan Taormino truly breaks down the fourth wall, with actors who provide their own interpretations. Essentially, she asks each actor to theorize their understanding of power in the sex act, specifically in terms of “rough sex.” In doing so, we engage the meanings of power, strength, and consciousness around the consent of the other, especially gendered power relations.

Foremost in the interviews is the woman as the center of reference, in terms of articulating her desires, fantasies, and imaginings. The actors discuss their relationship to her and especially their role in fulfilling her wishes for pleasure. The star Adrianna’s female partners also address sex and gender themes, such as what it means for a woman to participate in rough sex with another. Indeed, the thematic that speaks to Taormino’s commitment to an ethical feminist filmmaking is the exploration of gendered power relations in the sex act. We see how women experience pleasure from scenes that may look like degradation but are actually enactments that explore precisely what it means to confront power and power relations.

In Rough Sex, consent is crucial in the production of these scenes. Beyond consent, the filmmaker fashions an ethical and responsible relationship to her actors. The filmmaker carefully listens to her subjects, especially the female performer, for it is she who determines the parameters of the scenes. The star articulates her desire for acts that may be considered perverse and taboo and Taormino attends to the concrete structure for enacting these female fantasies without judging what composes it. Instead, she respects the actor so as to free her to articulate what she desires. The ultimate ethical moment is Taormino’s commitment to what Michel Foucault distinguishes as the importance of highlighting the freedom of sexual choices, rather than the freedom of sexual acts.
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The sex acts in Taormino’s films are consensual, which is literally acknowledged in her opening credits. There is no mystery to this agreement between the actors, filmmakers, and thus, the spectators.

Prior to the “jock” sex scene in
Rough Sex #3
featuring Keni Styles, Adrianna appears for an interview set in the actual locker room where
her sexual fantasy of group “sex in the co-ed shower . . . with hot guys who go to the gym” occurs. Intercut with Adrianna, Keni Styles acknowledges the anonymity of the sex as constructed in the scene. Discussing his character, he is conscious of the factor of never seeing his sex partner again. Then Adrianna describes Nat, her first partner, as one with a “beautiful face, smile, and eyes”—and whom she really likes. We then cut to Nat, with the beautiful face, smile, and eyes, who says he “likes fucking her because she like[s] to fuck.” It is notable that in the pre-scene interviews, no one mentions the meanings and roles of any racial differences in the sex scene they perform, though the “jock” scene is composed of the blonde white woman Adrianna, the larger black man named Nat, one smaller white man named Danny, a smaller Asian man Keni, and another large man, Evan, who is white. Instead, the actors describe each other’s personalities and individual features in a kind of color-blind telling that eschews racial difference as a factor that charges the group sex scene.

What are the implications of not discussing racial difference in the construction of the sex scenes, whether positively in its ability to arouse and excite, or negatively in terms of ascriptions of perversity? Would part of the titillation involve racial difference as it is portrayed in the white woman’s fantasy of having sex with uniformly fit but racially different men? Can desire involve seeing difference and exploring interest in each other’s differences? Evan shares that what is unique about Adrianna is how she “enjoys what she’s doing, so it’s easy work there.” He describes how she “looks at you and engages you the whole time.” I argue that the look functions to address the continuing struggles of race and sexuality as they are confronted, though left unspoken, in the scene.

Adrianna introduces Keni Styles this way: “Oh, he’s a nice man,” while he describes her with much more specificity. In his cool style and calm demeanor, Keni articulates how, “She loves sex and makes you feel like you possess the last cock in the world and she is the luckiest woman to get it.” Next to him, Danny nods his head in approval. Keni’s charming and spirited speech is short but important. We note that he is British though Asian, and even this difference is unmentioned though surely part of his appeal. We then move to Evan whom Adrianna calls her “porn boyfriend.” He describes how she “has fun with sex, as someone in tune with her body.” Even though no mention of racial difference arises, even to mention that this is a truly interesting and a very currently new configuration of a multiracial cast, the actors register as conscious of the gendered dynamics of sex and power, but also clearly consenting to the sexual activity as worth shooting and seeing.

The politics of consent, especially in terms of gendered differences in physical strength, clearly emerges in the rich discussions between the porn actors. With a gleam in her eyes, Adrianna shares how she likes when “guys get rough with me,” for “it’s like fireworks!” All of the men describe how they do not initiate their sexual encounters with roughness—Keni, for example, says he likes to react and follow her lead, as if to measure what she prefers. All three other actors respond similarly when they say: “I don’t initiate [rough sex], unless the girl likes it,” or as Nat says, “It’s not what I will initiate, but if she asks for it, I enjoy it.” Danny Wylde says he does not “want to inflict harm or damage someone’s skin.” He describes possessing a “consciousness” about pain. “When it comes to rough sex,” he says, he prefers it as “part of the sex and not an activity to do outside of it.” In the thematic addressed in this conversation, acknowledgment of gender arises much more clearly than racial difference.

I offer a racial reading, however, for it is clearly part of the action, specifically in what transpires between them in the “face-to-face.” Using Emmanuel Levinas and his conception of the face as a site of “infinity” or a mystery that can never be solved even as we gain knowledge of its nuances, I identify the agency of the face so as to point to the relationality between the sexual partners. All the actors except Keni Styles establish a face-to-face connection with Adrianna. This difference, I argue, illustrates the burden of representation he shoulders in representing Asian men and also successfully shows that racial otherness persists for Asians in pornography, even in feminist porn. Because he is caught in what I call a bind of expectation as an Asian straight male porn star, his possibilities are limited. A challenge emerges: while the subjectivity of the woman is centered, the differences between men arise to remind us of the multiple complexities of power in sexual scenes where race is a dynamic struggle of subjectivities still in process.