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jessthanthree's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Misogyny, Ableism, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Racism
Minor: Abortion
andipants's review
4.0
Excellent and mostly very accessible collection of essays. A few of them veer into pretty dry or heady academic territory, but those are well balanced by several very direct and personal pieces. The book does a good job of digging into complex issues from several points of view, and raises many essential points for discussion without appearing to harp on any one specific conclusion. The essays are also mostly short, averaging around 8-12 pages, meaning it's easy to pick up and read two or three at a time without feeling overwhelmed or zoning out and missing bits. I would absolutely recommend this collection to anyone with a serious interest in the world of feminist porn.
intarga's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
There are some good essays in here, but they’re buried in others that just feel like self congratulatory filler
babytloves2read's review
4.0
used this book as a reference for my final project on ethical porn for my human sexuality class this past semester. sparked a lot of ideas and critical thinking; overall very interesting, but not something i would’ve picked up if it weren’t for my project
katrinky's review
3.0
Jane Ward for president.
Nina Hartley : if we didn't have porn, someone would make it as art. there could never not be porn, even if it didn't exist, and had never existed, as of today.
did not like the essay about ftm bodies, presented as always already incoherent sexual beings.
Nina Hartley : if we didn't have porn, someone would make it as art. there could never not be porn, even if it didn't exist, and had never existed, as of today.
did not like the essay about ftm bodies, presented as always already incoherent sexual beings.
annsantori's review
5.0
A mix of hard academic analysis and personal essays that together spark enormous insight into a range of feminist porn topics. Each small glimpse makes you want to learn more about the sub-topic covered. The final essay, by Loree Erickson, on disability and sexuality, was a personal favorite.
jeffreyp's review
5.0
Working my way through it. Love it.
More here: http://feministallies.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Feminist%20Porn%20Book
More here: http://feministallies.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Feminist%20Porn%20Book
garberdog's review
3.0
A real mixed bag. This anthology of feminist scholarship and writing by academics, pornographers, porn performers, and others contributes an important body of knowledge and perspectives, but ultimately is limited by a "pro-sex" or apologist framework. My favorite pieces were those which were most academic, critical, and unapologetically feminist/political. Too many of the pieces felt like marketing blubs for the respective authors' films, and while I understand that feminist pornography often exists within a commodity framework, this anthology didn't sufficiently account for this; there was not enough of a distance/critical stance. That said, when the pieces were good, they were REALLY good. The book is worth a read if you can get your hands on it, and it's an important first foray into a more complex discourse on pornography within feminist scholarship. However, I am concerned by the separation of pornography from other forms of sex work enacted by this text.
One final thought: it seems to me that some of the most compelling pieces overcame some of the false dichotomies of the "sex war" paradigm not by repudiating the "sex as painful/traumatic" framework (versus the "sex as pleasure/liberation" framework), but by hopelessly spilling the former into the latter. I think this recognition that sex (at least under the conditions of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy) is always going to be (at least somewhat) traumatic (for at least some people), that it can never pure clean fun, is a necessary recognition for the future of queer feminist sexual politics. The failure of this recognition contributed the only real moment in the book the book that I thought was profoundly anti-feminist. (Not so) surprisingly, this was in Betty Dodson's chapter, where she states that she kicked a woman out of her Bodysex workshop for speaking about sexual trauma. This to me is an appalling failure of feminist politics. This is why we need the framework of theorists like Lynne Huffer (Are the Lips a Grave?), who attempt to theorize a queer feminism.
Summary:
Read it for the critical/academic/feminist political pieces, be prepared to roll your eyes at endless references to "authenticity" and "choice," and be thankful that there's finally an emerging (if still extremely limited) discourse on pornography in feminist that's moving beyond the good/bad binary
One final thought: it seems to me that some of the most compelling pieces overcame some of the false dichotomies of the "sex war" paradigm not by repudiating the "sex as painful/traumatic" framework (versus the "sex as pleasure/liberation" framework), but by hopelessly spilling the former into the latter. I think this recognition that sex (at least under the conditions of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy) is always going to be (at least somewhat) traumatic (for at least some people), that it can never pure clean fun, is a necessary recognition for the future of queer feminist sexual politics. The failure of this recognition contributed the only real moment in the book the book that I thought was profoundly anti-feminist. (Not so) surprisingly, this was in Betty Dodson's chapter, where she states that she kicked a woman out of her Bodysex workshop for speaking about sexual trauma. This to me is an appalling failure of feminist politics. This is why we need the framework of theorists like Lynne Huffer (Are the Lips a Grave?), who attempt to theorize a queer feminism.
Summary:
Read it for the critical/academic/feminist political pieces, be prepared to roll your eyes at endless references to "authenticity" and "choice," and be thankful that there's finally an emerging (if still extremely limited) discourse on pornography in feminist that's moving beyond the good/bad binary