Mark Lockwood is a porn scholar, sexual freedom advocate, resource mobilizer, and pleasure-centered harm reductionist who earned his PhD in American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Broadly, he writes, teaches, and researches about race and pornography, gay porn history, sexual cultures, harm reduction, and the sex industries. He is currently writing a book project tentatively titled Black Inches: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Erotic Resistance in the ‘Blatino Porn’ Era. This book is the first to provide a rich analysis on the history, biographies, material production, and sexual representations Black and Latino (“blatino”) pornographers in the “blatino porn” era. This project explores how blatino pornographers created pornographic content for themselves, by themselves at a moment in gay porn history when men of color were largely excluded from mainstream pornographic media industries. Using personal interviews, extensive archival research, historiography, and film analyses, he explores how blatino pornographers pursued entrepreneurial efforts to gain control over the means of production; worked within, against, and around a porn industry that commodified their sexualities; and challenged, and sometimes subverted, stereotypical depictions of their representations in the pornographic. He has two forthcoming articles published in Porn Studies.

Mark has worked across multi-sectoral agencies and has a wealth of expertise in strategic grantmaking, capacity building, technical assistance, and community-based research at the intersections of sex workers’ rights, harm reduction, and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, he was a community organizer with DECRIMNOWDC, a collective of Black and Brown sex workers, organizers, and allies, where he helped develop and strategize around sex worker rights and harm reduction policy at the local level in Washington, D.C.

Mark is truly committed to mobilizing the health, dignity, and rights of people in the sex trades. He is actively involved with the Red Umbrella Fund, the first & only global fund dedicated to supporting the rights of sex workers; the European Sex Work Research Network (ESWORN); and on the Steering Committee for the Sex Workers Donor Collaborative, a network of funders that convene to increase funding to support sex workers’ rights.

In his spare time, he enjoys Xtreme Hip-Hop Step Aerobics, traveling, rollercoasters, and solo movie dates. He’s currently based in Dallas with his partner, Jared, and their miniature schnauzer, Sir— though he reps Miami (his hometown) through and through.