Using ethnographic and interview methods, I studied how constructions of authenticity are strategically deployed by women who make film and web pornography outside of the mainstream industry. Most of the women participate in pornography out of a sense of activism; they strive to provide sexual education and create better sexual imagery. Authenticity is used to set their work apart from the mainstream and to convey their activist sensibilities. I explore a number of questions: What are the different ways women define authenticity? How are authentic representations determined? What techniques do they employ in striving for authenticity? What are the challenges in trying to create authentic images? What are women who make pornography contributing to our understandings of gender, sexuality, and pleasure? How does a framework of authenticity both help and hinder these contributions? I am not primarily interested in whether or not something is authentic, though I do critique the idea that it can be achieved. I am much more interested in the manufacture of authenticity and what drives the desire for authenticity.

Because they are not simply selling sexual products, authenticity as a strategic frame becomes, in some ways, not only attractive, but necessary. Authenticity hinges on creating a product that showcases "real sex," appeals to women, depicts women's genuine pleasure, features real orgasms, and provides accurate sex education. I focus on three main strategies for constructing authenticity in women-made pornography: (1) Constructing authentic identities—focusing on the gender, sexuality, race, and subcultural membership of the women involved, and who has the authority to represent whom; (2) Featuring real people—the use of autobiographical details to inject "real" aspects of the women's lives into their work, and the use of non-professional actors and real-life couples; and (3) Displaying real bodies—the use of "natural" bodies, bodies that represent identities and real people, and depictions of genuine pleasure and orgasms. Because the visual evidence of pleasure is difficult to portray, other cues to authenticity must be used; in the case of women-made pornography, that means focusing on identities, real people, and real bodies.