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freshkatsu's review
2.0
Other than the cover, there is nothing original in it.
Wait, I take that back.
Wait, I take that back.
knerd's review
2.0
It is painfully obvious that this book was written by two straight men.
This book tries to cover too broad of a subject while representing far too view viewpoints and research. It bounces back and forth without any focus, often throwing in completely irrelevant paragraphs just so that an additional porn-related subject can be named. Many chapters have no direction or clear unifying factor. Because the authors jump around so much, they do not provide enough detail or examination to prove any of their theories.
There are huge chunks of information that these authors ignored. Throughout the book, there was no mention at all of:
- The sheer existence of WOC. Any time the book discusses women, they are setting white women as the default. This is apparent over and over again in the progressive scale that the authors use when describing the average female porn star’s career: girl/girl, girl/guy, anal, mixed race, etc. They talk about how it is debasing for women to have sex with black men, but they never actually say that it’s only white women is fall into this situation. It is simply assumed that white women are the topic of conversation, that white women are the only porn stars worth looking at.
- The fetishization of WOC. Considering that non-white women are not discussed, it is no surprise that the authors failed to research the role that minority women play on porn. "Spicy" latinas, "Jungle fever," "Yellow fever," "Exotic" women of all backgrounds are going to be placed in their own categories on every porn site. The authors here ignored the tendency of non-white women to so often be seen as hyper-sexed animals who exist solely to please white men
-Slut shaming, virginity and the social stigma of sex. Over and over again, it makes the implication that it is completely acceptable in our society for women to view porn and even participate in it. At one point, they outright say that the average teen girl around the year 2006 would think that the label of “slut” was a compliment, that she wanted to dress that way and be seen that way. There is no discussion of how such a label would haunt her or lead to abuse within her social circle.
- The virgin/whore dichotomy. The book starts to discuss this a little bit during the section on the Olsen twins, but they skirt around the issue without ever explicitly examining it.
- The male gaze. There are only brief and shallow discussions of the power structure in porn where the assumed audience is a straight man. There is no discussion concerning how women will, in turn, look at themselves through the eyes of men. Given the high prevalence of POV porn, this should have been a huge focus of research.
- The sexualizations of lesbians, or the forced bisexuality of many female porn stars. In fact, there is no discussion of queer porn at all. The authors ignore trans individuals, the role of queer performers in porn, or the use of queer sex as a way of appealing to straight male audiences.
To be specific, the author's limited scope and bias was most apparent during their section on Paris Hilton. The authors cite Hilton as one of the leading figures in pornography, listing her as an important figure next to Jenna Jameson. However, there was no mention of the fact that her sex tape was released without her consent or that it wasn’t filmed with the intention of public viewing. There was no acknowledgement that she sued her boyfriend of the time for defamation and recieved no money from the sale of the video. Nor did they discuss the significant age difference between Hilton and her boyfriend, how the power dynamic of pornography and sex may have influenced her decision to approve a video, or how her later publicly actions may have been influenced by having this “slut” label forced upon her.
This book outright says that Paris Hilton did porn for the attention. The authors mention how Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan “exposing their shaved genitals" in public, referring to the paparazzi creepshots that were taken and shared without their consent. All discussions of Paris Hilton assume that she is vapid and explicitly doing these things for attention, without any consideration that she may have experienced abuse (at the hands of Rick Salomon's decision to release the tape without her consent) and how her later over-sexual lifestyle was a fairly common response that many victims go through. Painting Hilton as a literal attention-whore is a disgusting interpretation of her story.
There were a few sections that I was impressed with, such as the analysis of advertising and the “Popping Rosie’s Rivets” chapter on porn and comics, but these parts were few and far between. They were not enough to justify the book’s overall lack of balanced rhetoric. This book desperately needed the input of a strong female editor or contributor - How could they have thought is was a good idea to name a chapter “Women and Porn” and then spend the majority of the time discussing feminist anti-pornography leagues? If anything, this book serves as proof that porn represents a culture that values women and POC far below white men on the social ladder.
This book tries to cover too broad of a subject while representing far too view viewpoints and research. It bounces back and forth without any focus, often throwing in completely irrelevant paragraphs just so that an additional porn-related subject can be named. Many chapters have no direction or clear unifying factor. Because the authors jump around so much, they do not provide enough detail or examination to prove any of their theories.
There are huge chunks of information that these authors ignored. Throughout the book, there was no mention at all of:
- The sheer existence of WOC. Any time the book discusses women, they are setting white women as the default. This is apparent over and over again in the progressive scale that the authors use when describing the average female porn star’s career: girl/girl, girl/guy, anal, mixed race, etc. They talk about how it is debasing for women to have sex with black men, but they never actually say that it’s only white women is fall into this situation. It is simply assumed that white women are the topic of conversation, that white women are the only porn stars worth looking at.
- The fetishization of WOC. Considering that non-white women are not discussed, it is no surprise that the authors failed to research the role that minority women play on porn. "Spicy" latinas, "Jungle fever," "Yellow fever," "Exotic" women of all backgrounds are going to be placed in their own categories on every porn site. The authors here ignored the tendency of non-white women to so often be seen as hyper-sexed animals who exist solely to please white men
-Slut shaming, virginity and the social stigma of sex. Over and over again, it makes the implication that it is completely acceptable in our society for women to view porn and even participate in it. At one point, they outright say that the average teen girl around the year 2006 would think that the label of “slut” was a compliment, that she wanted to dress that way and be seen that way. There is no discussion of how such a label would haunt her or lead to abuse within her social circle.
- The virgin/whore dichotomy. The book starts to discuss this a little bit during the section on the Olsen twins, but they skirt around the issue without ever explicitly examining it.
- The male gaze. There are only brief and shallow discussions of the power structure in porn where the assumed audience is a straight man. There is no discussion concerning how women will, in turn, look at themselves through the eyes of men. Given the high prevalence of POV porn, this should have been a huge focus of research.
- The sexualizations of lesbians, or the forced bisexuality of many female porn stars. In fact, there is no discussion of queer porn at all. The authors ignore trans individuals, the role of queer performers in porn, or the use of queer sex as a way of appealing to straight male audiences.
To be specific, the author's limited scope and bias was most apparent during their section on Paris Hilton. The authors cite Hilton as one of the leading figures in pornography, listing her as an important figure next to Jenna Jameson. However, there was no mention of the fact that her sex tape was released without her consent or that it wasn’t filmed with the intention of public viewing. There was no acknowledgement that she sued her boyfriend of the time for defamation and recieved no money from the sale of the video. Nor did they discuss the significant age difference between Hilton and her boyfriend, how the power dynamic of pornography and sex may have influenced her decision to approve a video, or how her later publicly actions may have been influenced by having this “slut” label forced upon her.
This book outright says that Paris Hilton did porn for the attention. The authors mention how Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan “exposing their shaved genitals" in public, referring to the paparazzi creepshots that were taken and shared without their consent. All discussions of Paris Hilton assume that she is vapid and explicitly doing these things for attention, without any consideration that she may have experienced abuse (at the hands of Rick Salomon's decision to release the tape without her consent) and how her later over-sexual lifestyle was a fairly common response that many victims go through. Painting Hilton as a literal attention-whore is a disgusting interpretation of her story.
There were a few sections that I was impressed with, such as the analysis of advertising and the “Popping Rosie’s Rivets” chapter on porn and comics, but these parts were few and far between. They were not enough to justify the book’s overall lack of balanced rhetoric. This book desperately needed the input of a strong female editor or contributor - How could they have thought is was a good idea to name a chapter “Women and Porn” and then spend the majority of the time discussing feminist anti-pornography leagues? If anything, this book serves as proof that porn represents a culture that values women and POC far below white men on the social ladder.
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