Description
Book SynopsisA collection of contemporary work on pornographic film and video, edited by one of the founders of the field
Trade Review“For more than a decade now, Linda Williams has been taking porn seriously. Her latest—
Porn Studies—does not disappoint. She succeeds, once again, in legitimizing porn as an essential topic for academic study and provides a guide for teaching about it. For all those who want to know more about the place of porn in American culture, this is refreshingly unabashed scholarship.”—-Susie Bright, author of
Mommy's Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn, and Cherry Pie“Thank God for Linda Williams! She is absolutely brilliant. I have learned an enormous amount from her over the years. She boldly goes where few academics dare.
Porn Studies is a smart, much needed, fascinating book, which paves the way and sets the tone for future porn studies. This book boggles and blows my mind.”—Annie Sprinkle, postmodern pornographer and sexologist
"With
Porn Studies, Williams and her contributors have opened a door-they've made it possible for intelligent people to discuss porn in more or less polite company. This accomplishment alone is worth celebrating. I look forward to what comes next in the field." -- Annalee Newitz * Cineaste *
"The anthology's 16 essays . . . deliciously, disturbingly blur the traditionally solid line between the intellectual and the sexual, and that's part of the point. . . . These essays courageously suggest that there is great pleasure in exploring the spaces between polemics and sensationalism." -- Maria Elena Buszek * Bust *
"The tone is sensible, even as some wonderfully sensational material is covered. . . . There are also some excellent histories here. . . . The book will certainly help 'the teacher and student of pornography roll up their sleeves to begin work in this field', mitigating porn's image as mainstream culture's guilty secret" -- Linda Ruth Williams * Sight & Sound *
"This collection of very accessible and fascinating essays links pornography to the avant-garde and modern sex scandals, tracing its roots from early stag films and making a connection between war machinery and the pinup girls of WWII." * Ms. *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Porn Studies: Proliferating Pornographies On/Scene: An Introduction / Linda Williams 1
Part I. Contemporary Pornographies
How to Do Things with the
Starr Report: Pornography, Performance, and the President’s Penis / Maria St. John 27
Sex in the Suburban: Porn, Home Movies, and the Live Action Performance of Love in
Pam and Tommy Lee: Hardcore and Uncensored / Minette Hillyer 50
Office Sluts and Rebel Flowers: The Pleasures of Japanese Pornographic Comics for Women / Deborah Shamoon 77
Going On-line: Consuming Pornography in the Digital Era / Zabet Patterson 104
Part 2. Gay, Lesbian, and Homosocial Pornographies
Homosociality i the Classical American Stag Film: Off-Screen, On-Screen / Thomas Waugh 127
The Cultural-Aesthetic Specificities of All-male Moving-Image Poronography / Rich Cante and Angelo Restivo 142
What Do You Call a Lesbian with Long Fingers? The Development of Lesbian and Dyke Pornography / Heather Butler 167
The Gay Sex Clerk: Chuck Vincent’s Straight Pornography / Jake Gerli 198
Part 3. Pornography, Race, and Class
The Resurrection of Brandon Lee: The Making of a Gay Asian American Porn Star / Nguyen Tan Hoang 223
Skin Flicks on the Racial Border: Pornography, Exploitation, and Interracial Lust / Linda Williams 271
Crackers and Whackers: The White Trashing of Porn / Constance Penley 309
Part 4. Soft Core, Hard Core, and the Pornographic Sublime
Pinup: The American Secret Weapon in World War II / Despina Kakoudaki 335
Gauging a Revolution: 16 mm Film and the Rise of the Pornographic Feature / Eric Shaefer 370
Video Pornography, Visual Pleasure, and the Return of the Sublime / Franklin Melendez 401
Part 5. Pornography and/as Avant-Garde
Andy Warhol’s
Blow Job: Toward a Recognition of a Pornographic Avant-garde / Ara Osterweil, 431
Unbracketing Motion Study: Scott Stark’s NOEMA / Michael Sicinski 461
Suggested Reading: An Annotated Bibliography 479
Pornographic Film and Video: A Select List of Archives and Commercial Sites 491
List of Contributors 495
Index 497
