Performer-Centred Pornography as Sex Worker Rights: Developing Labour Standards in a Criminal Context

Sex workers in Australia are making important interventions into the production practices of pornography. Dissatisfied with working for other producers, sex workers are moving behind the camera and producing their own content in collaboration with other sex workers. Seeking autonomy, independence, and control over their working conditions and representation, sex workers have shifted porn’s focus from the product to the process. These ‘performer-producers’ are resisting government classification and criminal laws that deem certain practices as degrading or offensive. Instead, they are engaging in sex workers’ rights activism through creating performer-centered spaces and pioneering best-practice labour standard