On sex tapes, shower rods, and reality porn’s racial politics

While the slut-shamers and moral police have a field day, the only thing Mimi Faust is really guilty of is further trivializing the popular image of black women in the media

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  • screenshot/Vivid
  • Mimi and Nikko star in the most talked-about shower scene since Psycho.



If you’ve been following the “Love and Hip Hop Atlanta” sex tape drama, God bless you, first and foremost. Over the past five days, reality show cast member Mimi Faust has gone from baby’s mom to NSFW meme. And her “leaked” sex tape trailer with struggle-R&B singer Nikko has spawned a TMZ-reported shortage of industrial-strength shower rods at Home Depot due to the popularity of their graphic shower scene, an unending stream of #mimishowerrod tweets, ridiculous spoofs, the X-rated song “Shower Rod”, newly released by her partner-in-porn Nikko to capitalize off of the hype, and a slew of think pieces on the racial politics of sex tapes.

The only response from Faust, the 44-year-old single mother of her daughter with LHHATL castmate and producer Stevie J, has been an Instagram pic suggesting folks mind their own business if they don’t pay her bills.

But it hasn’t had the desired effect. There haven’t been this many memes and think pieces concerning black women’s sexual agency, or supposed lack thereof, since Beyonce added surfboarding to the Kama Sutra. Inquiring minds want to know: Is Mimi the next sexually empowered Kim K on the come-up or another desperate housewife on the downfall?

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The point of contention is best summarized in the title of Hillary Crosley’s Jezebel piece, “If You’re a Black Woman on TV, a Sex Tape is Never Just a Sex Tape.” She lays out the public critique as it’s played out on social media, where the finger-wagging includes speculation over the repercussions this will have on Mimi’s toddler daughter. Crosley then points out the double-standard: The baby’s father Stevie J also has a sex tape in his past with rapper Eve and no one’s whining about that.

Sexual indiscretion may have propped Kim Kardashian onto a pedestal she parlayed into legit branding success, celebrity marriages, and the recent cover of Vogue with her hubby Kanye, but black women still bear too much baggage, she concludes: “While other skin colors can often be free with their sexuality, sans explanation, the sexual freedom enjoyed by black women is met with judgment and, in turn, leaves us feeling obligated to justify our own sexuality.”

TheRoot.com’s Luvvie puts it more bluntly: “The Kim Kardashian Model won’t work for you if you’re a black woman. It just will not. We are not afforded the same expansive boundaries of sexual expression.”

Of course, Kardashian’s sex tape with R&B-wannabe Ray J was also pretty tame in comparison. No set changes from the bedroom to the bathroom. No shower-rod stunts. Kardashian’s also didn’t appear to be premeditated porn, if you will, featuring the kind of high-quality production techniques (lighting, multiple camera angles) that make it hard to feign innocence afterward.

The full-length porn featuring Mimi and Nikko will be released later this month by porn distributor Vivid, which “acquired” the rights. It’s titled Scandal in Atlanta and it should hit the web just in time for the premiere of LHHATL season three, which means Mimi’s celebrity shelf-life has been extended by at least six months for what it’s worth. While it’s kicked off another round of slut shaming and moral policing, the only thing Mimi Faust is really guilty of is further trivializing the popular image of black women in the media. In a sense, that makes it everybody’s business but hers.