Sinnamon Love is a veteran adult film star who launched a collective in efforts of supporting the safety and sustainability of BIPOC sex workers.
Love launched the BIPOC Adult Industry Collective with a mission to be “a resource for education and support services to make the adult entertainment industry a safer space for BIPOC.” Her 20 years in the industry make her the perfect candidate for creating a new safe space for marginalized groups within the adult entertainment industry, as noted by Prism Reports.
“As a Black woman in this space, we are largely paid less money than our white counterparts,” she explained when speaking of the barriers Black people in the industry face. “We’re not given the same opportunities to advance our careers. Agents are less likely to take on Black and brown people in general, and if they do they tend to be more ethnically ambiguous. Some of that has changed, but generally speaking, the closer your proximity to whiteness in the business, the more likely you are to get the bigger jobs.”
After noting how much less the budgets are for adult films with primarily Black casts, Love noted the blatant discrimination that lives in the industry. “The racial bias is evident, not just [in] talent booking, but also in the way that projects are marketed,” she said.
We are raising money for our mutual aid fund and operating costs. Your donations will help us put money directly into the hands of community members for their expertise, work, as well as those experiencing financial need.
https://t.co/mpDzfIAg7W #bipocaic pic.twitter.com/pZgw8umYkl
— BIPOC Collective (@BIPOC_AIC) July 26, 2020
According to Love, “slurs” of racism seeped into the adult film industry that she’s been a part of for two decades. But it all helped to make her “a very shrewd businesswoman.” With her BIPOC Adult Industry Collective, Love is set to aid Black sex workers by offering support and services to better ensure their safety and industry opportunities.
Some of the services the collective offers include a mutual aid program, a microgrant program that gave out $6,500 last year, and stress management support groups. Members also have the option to take part in free weekly restorative yoga classes.
“We’ve been able to offer workshops on everything from cybersecurity to managing contracts, to content development and social media management and navigating gender and sexuality [in a] heteronormative industry,” Love said. “We decided from the very beginning that we would always source sex workers first. Our mission is to put money into the pockets of sex workers. Everyone, from the yoga instructors that we use, the therapists who facilitate our support group, our social media manager—every single person that helps run the collective is also a sex worker. We try to stay within the community first, and then go elsewhere.”
Despite the assumptions many people have toward the adult entertainment industry, Love takes it all in stride and focuses on providing a better and safer tomorrow. “If we can continue to take the compassion that we would want for ourselves, and extend that out to the rest of the world in a very meta way [so] that the work in general becomes easier, whether it’s sex work or otherwise,” she said.