Constructing the Pornographic Object of Knowledge

By Whitney Strub 20th and 21st Century United States, Author Interviews, 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, Author Interviews

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, Author Interviews

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, Author Interviews

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

A Red Hot Cold War

By Emily Lobenstein Modern Europe

The 1990 Soviet edition of Playboy reveals the persistent tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: A Roundtable on the Politics of Sexual Representations in the 1970s – Part 3

By notcheseditor 20th and 21st Century United States

1970s pornography included far more than Deep Throat (1972).