What Franco’s Archives Accidentally Preserved About Queer Life in Spain

By Javier Fernandez Galeano NOTCHES on the Bookshelf

The archive was a technology of power that paradoxically ended up preserving the very traces of queer life it set out to eradicate.

The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers

By Jared Stearns 20th and 21st Century United States

A revealing new biography sheds light on X-rated star Marilyn Chambers’ extraordinary career and explores her status as an unsung gay icon.

Constructing the Pornographic Object of Knowledge

By Whitney Strub 20th and 21st Century United States, NOTCHES on the Bookshelf, Sexual Labour

Contemporary pornography has become a massive archive of sexual scripts. To some extent pornography has replaced sexology, psychoanalysis and sex manuals as a form of knowledge about sexuality.

The People’s Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America

By Lisa Z. Sigel 20th and 21st Century United States, NOTCHES on the Bookshelf

The People’s Porn provides the first large-scale history of American handmade and homemade pornography.

Sex in the Archives: Writing American Sexual Histories

By Barry Reay 20th and 21st Century United States, NOTCHES on the Bookshelf

Sex in the Archives is an experiment in writing an American sexual history that refuses the confines of identity in sexuality studies.

Screening Swedish Sex in the United States, Language of Love (1969)

By Saniya Ghanoui Modern Europe

Whether Language of Love is pornographic or educational may still be up for debate, but the film was at the forefront of this conversation.

Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock

By Amy Werbel 20th and 21st Century United States, NOTCHES on the Bookshelf

Lust on Trial chronicles intensive efforts to purify American sexuality (1873-1915), and their epic failure.