Metamoirs: fact and fiction in the construction of the pornographic persona in autobiographical writings

Abstract

The main objective of this doctoral dissertation is to analyze the autobiographical writing of performers of the Californian pornographic industry, focusing on autobiographies and memoirs published between 2004 and 2018. As main objective, I seek to understand how the selfrepresentations of constructed bodies, sexualities and identities distance themselves from standards pre-established by the "male entertainment" universe and act as resistance and rupture with this same universe. Some of these works present an objective, clear, well-defined representation of the narrated subject, while others are interpretations of themselves far from constraints such as concepts of truth, single realities, and regulated discourse. The fictionalization of the pornographic persona of these performers is clearly an elaborated construction process, presenting the public with a personalized version of the industry. Although mainstream pornography insists on placing bodies and sexualities within normative standards, it is possible to understand that the analysis of subjectivity/subjectification in the writing of female performers from a self-reflective perspective has the potential to foster multiple changes and reinvention of spaces and gazes that, until recently, have only objectified performers of this marginalized world.