Black Body in Ecstasy- Introduction - Kim The

In the Introduction of the Black Body in Ecstasy, Jennifer Nash critiques and intervenes on Black feminism’s over focus on injury and woundedness in racialized pornography and argues for reading and looking for ecstasy at the intersections of race, gender, and pleasure. She close reading of racialized pornography that is embedded in a larger social context She develops the racial iconography methodology, which means reading for ecstasy with attention to power and systems rather than just on how racialized pornography creates injury to Black people. In addition, she also includes pornographic images as a methodology so that readers can hold her accountable to her interpretations and her methodologies. She acknowledges the messy and multiplicity inherent to her work on racialized pornography. Nash describes the many ways we can read for ecstasy within a larger social context, which includes but is not limited to “reading pornography with the grain” rather than against the grain and using refusal to not give viewers what they expected based while they are still watching pornography and experiencing the ecstasy associated with it.

            This applies to disability studies because there is a line of research and activism in disability related to cripping spaces in addition to disability and sexuality. Crip is a reclaimed term that comes from the word “cripple.” This could be done in many different ways ranging from showing disability, making disability more visible in spaces, and finding other ways to reclaim disability. The ways in which disabled people crip spaces seem similar, however with differences, to the ways that Nash envisions discussing and enacting ecstasy. In regards to disability and sexuality, people with disabilities’ sexuality is often erased with people more likely to regard them as innocent or childlike. Much of the work around disability and sexuality involves making both disability and sexuality more visible. Oftentimes, disability culture performance pieces involve disabled people who want to demonstrate their sexuality through performance or other media, maybe even striving toward a similar idea of ecstasy that Nash describes.

On a more broad level, I think that her work also provides insight on how to work within the system within a line of study that is loaded with difficult tensions and a long and deep Black Feminist history around issues of pornography. Her methodology section is well written and helps form the basis for her critiques and analyses. Because of her methodologies, she arrives at different conclusions than I feel others would, even though the methods she uses seem to have been used extensively in her field as well as across other fields.

Discussion Questions:

1) How do you distinguish between and tow the seemingly fine line between objectification and ecstasy? What are the potential pitfalls that could happen as a result?

2) Nash utilizes images in order to allow readers to hold her accountable to her methodologies. How well do you think she is able to incorporate her methodologies into the paper? In what ways is she able to do this well? Where do you think she falls short?

3) Does consent play in determining when and how to read for ecstasy? If so, how?