Carnal fantasizing: embodied spectatorship of queer, feminist and lesbian pornography

A reinvigorated transnational queer, feminist and lesbian porn film culture has emerged during the last decade. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article discusses spectatorship in this film culture in the contexts of Pornfilmfestival Berlin, the Club LASH in Stockholm and the production of the feminist porn film collection Dirty Diaries (Engberg, Sweden, 2009). Analyzing research subjects’ accounts of film experiences in terms of embodied spectatorship (Sobchack), habituation (Williams) and fantasy (de Lauretis), I propose an understanding of porn spectatorship as an embodied and psychic engagement shaped, but importantly also continuously reshaped, by personal histories and social contexts. I argue that viewer engagement in porn is not limited to identification with certain characters or roles and that desire and fantasy are not coherent or always consistent with political views or identities. Nevertheless, social identities and/or personal experiences and practices may have impacts on different subjects' engagements in porn scenarios.