“Not Even a Lesbian,” or Roberta Findlay’s Ambivalently Queer/Feminist Hardcore Cinema

This chapter explores the ambivalently feminist and queer potential of Roberta Findlay’s “extreme” hardcore cinema. Prior to the existence of the feminist, queer, or even couples porn subgenres, there was Findlay making violent, disturbing “porn with a woman’s sensibilities.” Perhaps unsurprisingly for a woman working within a distinctly masculinist milieu, there is a notable tension in both her work and her articulated motivations, between what can be described as queer or feminist potential and the lack thereof, sometimes verging on downright misogyny. An exploration of Findlay’s fraught contributions to the adult film canon enables a reconceptualization of “women’s pornography” as a “minor cinema.