The Common Press is proud to host the book launch of Indie Porn by Dr. Zahra Stardust on 5th November from 7 pm - 9 pm in conversation with Dr. Carolina Are.
In Indie Porn, Zahra Stardust explores the motivations of independent porn producers as they navigate censorship, piracy, and discrimination. As a performer herself, Stardust offers intimate insights into this sociopolitical movement, revealing how producers challenge stigma while sometimes reinforcing hierarchies. She documents creative survival tactics like ethical certification and law reform, and highlights how porn stigma intersects with other oppressions. Stardust sees these intersections as opportunities to reshape society’s relationships to sex, labor, and capitalism.
There is no one better positioned to tell the story of the indie porn revolution than porn practitioner and scholar Zahra Stardust. From porn sets to festivals to the online world of search engine optimization and algorithms, Stardust draws on an impressive archive of ethnographic and interview data to illuminate a rapidly changing industry shaped by transnational linkages, regulatory frameworks, political possibilities, and reactionary politics. Deeply researched, beautifully written, and impressive in scope, Indie Porn will have an immediate and lasting impact. - Lynn Comella, author of ― Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure
Join us for this insightful event. The book will be released on 29th October, order your book with us.
- Doors open at 7 pm
- Conversation from 7:30 pm followed by book signing. You can buy your book ahead of time or on the day
About Dr. Zahra Stardust
Dr Zahra Stardust is a rainbow-haired, textile-loving, queer femme artist and scholar. Her book Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance builds on her 15 years as a professional undresser, award-winning stripper, pole dancer and porn star. With an international research portfolio spanning sex worker activism, LGBTQ+ health, sexual rights and sextech, she brings a cultural and media studies approach to sexual health. Her work has been published in books such as Coming Out Like a Porn Star (ed. Jiz Lee), the DIY Porn Handbook (ed. Madison Young) and Queer Sex Work (Routledge) and journals such as Porn Studies, Big Data and Society, and Social Media and Society. She is on the World Association for Sexual Health’s Sexual Justice Initiative and is passionate about somatic sex education, intimacy coordination and maximalist fashion.
About Dr. Carolina Are
Dr Carolina Are has a PhD in content moderation and is currently working as Innovation Fellow at Northumbria University’s Centre for Digital Citizens. Following her own experiences of censorship on Instagram and TikTok, she has been researching on algorithmic bias against nudity and sexuality on social media, and has published the first study on the shadowbanning of pole dance in Feminist Media Studies. Her work has been published in New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, and Porn Studies, and it has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Conversation, the BBC, Wired, the MIT Technology Review. A semi-retired pole dance instructor and still active performer and content creator, Carolina is also behind various petitions, campaigns and studies to fight for more equal moderation of nudity and sexuality on social media. You can follow her everywhere at @bloggeronpole (even if she’s shadowbanned).
“The story of indie porn, as told by one of its brightest stars. Zahra Stardust hails from an international league of erotic artists as a talented performer, passionate advocate, and esteemed scholar. In a world where porn is gawked at by the media, scapegoated by politicians, and shunned by everyone else, Zahra’s nuanced perspective from the inside reveals an honest and enlightened angle that is rare to see unless you've lived it yourself. Indie Porn is the next great book to join the cannons of sex work and adult cinema.”
~Jiz Lee, editor of, Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy