There is a memorable scene in this year’s film MaXXXine in which a stranger stalks the main character through an alleyway. The alley predictably leads to a dead end. But the scene leads somewhere less expected: he never gets his hands on her.

Maxine, an adult film actor played by Mia Goth, defends herself with the handgun she has stashed in her purse. She forces her attacker to strip naked and, in an obvious reversal of her role as a porn star, tells him to lie down on the pavement “face down, ass up.”

The scene ends on an extended shot seemingly intended to make male viewers squirm — and to subvert the typical imagery used to depict sex workers like Maxine on screen. She crushes one of his testicles with her stiletto heel.