Feminist Collections A Quarterly of Women’s Studies Resources

Volume 35, Numbers 3–4, Summer–Fall 2014

CONTENTS

From the Editors ii Feminist Visions Breaking Quarantine: Complicating Our Concepts of Pornography 1 by Nora Stone

Feminist Archives The Letters of Anne Whitney: Using Archives in Digital Scholarship 6 by Jenifer Bartle

Book Reviews Is Feminism Really Dead? Or Has It Just Become Too Fast to Catch and Gone Too Gaga to Spot? 10 by Tiffany Lee Inclusive Feminist Activism? Yes, Please! 12 by Lachrista Greco Feminism, “Women’s Magazines,” and The New Yorker 14 by Teresa D. Kemp Sexuality & Africa 16 by Cherod Johnson King vs. Laqueur: Sex and Texts in Ancient and Early Modern Europe 19 by Suzanna Schulert Concepts & Disciplines: A Reference Work on Gender 22 by Nina Clements

E-Sources on Women & Gender 23

Periodical Notes: New & Newly Noted Periodicals 25

Books Recently Received 27

Subscription Form for GWSL Publications 29 Feminist Visions Breaking Quarantine: Complicating Our Concepts of Pornography

by Nora Stone

Anne G. Sabo, AFTER PORNIFIED: HOW WOMEN ARE TRANSFORMING PORNOGRAPHY & WHY IT REALLY MATTERS. Winchester, UK: Zero Books/John Hunt Publishing, 2012. 245p. notes. pap., $22.95, ISBN 978- 1780994802.

Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, & Mireille Miller-Young, eds., THE FEMINIST PORN BOOK: THE POLITICS OF PRODUCING PLEASURE. New York: Feminist Press, 2013. 432p. pap., $22.95, ISBN 978-1558618183.

MUTANTES (PUNK PORN FEMINISM). 91 mins. 2009. Directed by Virginie Despentes. Distributed by Alive Mind Cinema. Purchase: $21.21 for DVD or $9.95 for download at http://alivemindcinema.com.

I LOVE YOUR WORK. 6 hours. 2013. Directed by Jonathan Harris. Streaming online at http://iloveyourwork.net. Purchase: 24-hour pass for $10.00; or three 24-hour passes plus a 13” x 19” limited-edition archival print of I Love Your Work, signed by director Harris, for $300.00. To stage a screening, email concept to [email protected].

With the explosive popularity of raphy remains quarantined in its own make. Anyone with a monolithic con- E. L. James’s erotic novel Fifty Shades space — a radioactive political issue cept of pornography, the pornography of Grey and its follow-ups, along with rather than a genre. The mainstream industry, or the pornography audience excitement about its 2015 film adapta- media generally treats pornography will soon have that idea complicated by tion, mainstream American culture with suspicion, with most of its atten- any one of these works. would seem to be becoming more ac- tion going to the horrors of internet cepting of women consuming sexually porn addiction. Myriad news stories Anne G. Sabo’s After Pornified: explicit media. The numerous think- and articles imply, either implicitly How Women are Transforming Pornog- pieces about the book’s craze, however, or explicitly, that the easy availability raphy and Why It Really Matters is a often pointed out that Fifty Shades was of porn is bad for women because it straightforward study of porn made a Kindle bestseller, the kind of thing infects the brains of their husbands or by women. Sabo’s starting point is that women don’t want to be seen read- scars their children. journalist Pamela Paul’s book Porni- ing. Thus, in many communities, there fied: How Pornography is Damaging is a disjuncture between what we want Pornography remains Our Lives, Our Families, and Our Re- to read or watch and what we want to quarantined in its own lationships (Henry Holt, 2005), which be seen reading or watching. blamed the wide availability of pornog- This ambivalence is even sharper space — a radioactive raphy for numerous social and psycho- with regard to sexually explicit audio- political issue rather than logical problems. Rather than respond visual material — otherwise known a genre. to that blanket accusation, Sabo wants as pornography. Although there is a to back the conversation up to a more wider range of sexual representation on In their own way, each of the basic question about what porn is and television and in film than ever before following materials combats these as- can be. (including on premium cable series sumptions by focusing on the variety Picking up where Linda Williams’s such as Looking and Masters of Sex, and of women who participate in the porn 1989 landmark study, Hard Core: in the French cinema du corps), pornog- industry and the variety of work they Pleasure, Power, and the “Frenzy of the

Feminist Collections (v. 35, nos. 3–4, Summer–Fall 2014) Page 1 Feminist Visions

Visible,” left off, Sabo posits that fe- porn, giving a fair assessment of the Jennifer, an independently produced male directors and producers have the landscape. The list of resources at the feature film about feminist vigilantes. power to radically revise the dynam- back of the book is handy, collecting These clips set out two different poles ics of porn, thereby affecting viewers the web addresses of women making of sex-positive feminist media — punk positively rather than negatively. Sabo’s porn and the names of festivals that art pieces made in Europe, on the one show their work. hand, and more mainstream female- In a world where porn often cir- empowerment porn and feature films Sabo wants to back the culates in small clips that are divorced on the other. conversation up to a more from their origins, with no indication basic question about what of financing or mode of production, Mutantes surveys diverse modes porn is and can be. After Pornified is a helpful resource for of sexual expression and political those looking to study women-made engagement, via film clips, news foot- porn. But although she offers a good age, and interviews with female porn criteria for this re-vision of porn are starting point, Sabo does not inter- producers, feminist sex workers, and twofold: high cinematic production feminist media scholars in the United values and progressive sexual-political States and France. The film begins with commitment. Enfolded within those the origin stories of some of the most two criteria are a number of normal- famed American porn revolutionaries: izing ideas about what makes a film Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, Nor- good — realistic settings and costume, ma Jean Almodovar, Scarlot Harlot, flattering lighting, legible character de- and others. Almost all of these women velopment. Most interesting, though, speak about doing sex work without is the focus on narrative as an essential censorship or victimization. Despentes part of a woman’s desired experience of later brings in scholars Linda Williams porn, which contrasts starkly with ear- and B. Ruby Rich, who have not per- lier feminist film theorists’ refutation of formed sex work but have documented narrative film generally. it and theorized about it. Each woman is strikingly articu- Sabo’s second criterion, progres- late about her decision to embrace sex sive sexual-political commitment, is work, and each speaks with purpose clearer: equality of pleasure at least, if about combating oppression through not the woman taking control of the her work. A number of the interview- sexual encounter; equality of repre- ees consider producing porn to be a sentation, meaning the camera is not major site of resistance and revolution, lingering solely on the female body and while others look behind the history genitalia or looking down at the female of prostitution itself at the values that from the male point of view; and no rogate assumptions about what makes enforce a sharp divide between accept- coercion or violence unless it is explic- porn good or what arouses women. She able, chaste womanhood and unaccept- itly part of a character’s fantasy. avoids dealing with these issues because able, sexually active womanhood. In order to highlight examples of her book is explicitly about porn made One subject to which the film this preferred sort of porn, Sabo gives by women, not necessarily “feminist” devotes little attention is the intersec- concise histories of three of the most porn. After Pornified is a clearly written tion of sex-positive feminism and race. pioneering filmmakers in the pornog- primer, not a definitive historical or Sociologist Siobhan Brooks points out raphy industry: Candida Royalle in the theoretical work. United States, Lene Børglun in Den- The same issues affect Mutantes: One subject to which mark, and Anna Span in Great Britain. Punk Porn Feminism, a documentary Mutantes devotes little Sabo offers interviews with each, as made by French pornographer Vir- well as descriptions of their most fa- ginie Despentes. It opens with footage attention is the intersection mous films, and then examines a num- from Images d’Ouverture, a French of sex-positive feminism ber of different genres of women-made performance piece, and from A Gun for and race.

Page 2 Feminist Collections (v. 35, nos. 3–4, Summer–Fall 2014) Feminist Visions

that women of color generally work life” of nine different women, each of ing choices. I Love Your Work lives on in the most dangerous parts of the sex whom is involved in making lesbian a website to which a visitor can buy a industry, such as street prostitution pornography. Rather than focusing on ten-dollar pass to explore for 24 hours. (rather than call-girl work), and often their careers in adult film, Harris folds Once admitted into the website (which make less money than white sex work- their performances and reflections on allows only ten visitors per day), a ers. This is a significant topic that de- making porn into the texture of their viewer can browse the footage in dif- serves further attention, but Mutantes daily lives. The camera accords as much ferent ways. In “Timeline,” the ten- allows for little to no deviation from attention to performer Dylan Ryan second clips are arranged in chrono- its celebration of feminist sex workers lugging a suitcase down a city street as logical order according to which day of and sex-positivism. Instructors could it does to Ela Darling masturbating in the week Harris followed each woman use this as a teaching moment for their a film studio surrounded by stylists, through her life. The “Tapestry” page classes, to see if any students pick up makeup artists, camera operators, grips, is also chronological, but it does not on the lack of attention to the experi- and producers. In fact, director Har- identify the subject or time of day, al- ences of American women of color. ris is so devoted to the idea of wide- lowing for more random discovery as ranging, cinema verité portraiture that the viewer dips in and out of a photo- The weakest part of the film is he deliberately captured video in ten- mosaic of screenshots. In addition to the final third, in which Despentes second clips throughout his day with the video footage, each of the partici- leaves the United States to investigate each woman. He did not even extend pants is profiled on the “Talent” page, the post-porn movement in Spain and his directorial authority by highlighting so a visitor can get acquainted with her France. Punk aesthetics come to the the most dramatic or salacious mo- in a more conventional manner, via a fore in post-porn work, which con- ments; thus, a sense of randomness and brief biography. trasts with somewhat more convention- verisimilitude pervades the film and al porn made by women in the U.S. increases the viewer’s intimacy with Both form and delivery method However, neither the film’s voiceover the subjects, who are shown engaging are explicitly meant to imitate the nor its talking heads offer enough in such mundane activities as watch- ways many users engage with internet information about this art movement ing TV in a hotel room, chatting with pornography, from browsing videos to make it comprehensible to the lay- by performer, to ten- person. Because American students second previews that (and their professors) will likely be less In classes on feminist media or the genre of entice the viewer to familiar with the cultural context for personal documentary, Harris’s film could click to watch more, to European punk porn, the lack of clear the ability to move the be used as an example of new possibilities of video playhead forward explanation handicaps the film. digital documentary form and distribution Rather than offering an in-depth to more interesting study, Mutantes offers glimpses of that are attentive to subject matter and parts. Applying this other worlds and voices that students audience behavior. form to a cinema verité may have encountered only in read- documentary makes for ings. Showing part of the film in class a fascinating film and a would be an excellent way to encour- humanizing experience. age students to learn more about the friends outside a bar, and taking a pet Although the initial temptation might movement to decriminalize prostitu- to the hospital. There is no one way be to skip ahead to the explicitly erotic tion, the growing number of female to watch this film, however, and no sections, it is easy to be mesmerized porn entrepreneurs, how race and class reason why every visitor would feel the by the rhythm of each person’s life, to intersect with sex-positive feminism, need to watch the more banal parts of enjoy the puzzle of what went on be- and the history of feminism in Western these women’s lives. tween clips, having to work out what nations. is going on without recourse to any Harris ended up with about six extradiegetic material like captions or I Love Your Work is a survey of hours of footage from nine days of voiceover narration. another magnitude altogether. In this shooting, and his method of delivering innovative film project, director Jona- this footage is just as daring as his film- than Harris documented “a day in the

Feminist Collections (v. 35, nos. 3–4, Summer–Fall 2014) Page 3 Feminist Visions

A fascinating film, I Love Your Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller- tions about authorship, spectatorship, Work functions better as a digital Young are upfront about their purpose, representation, race, space, and educa- media project than as a teaching tool as well as about their definition of tion. or research resource. In classes on feminist porn: “Feminist porn creates The introduction and the first few feminist media or the genre of personal essays lay out the history of feminist documentary, it could be used as an These diverse essays are written pornography, as well as the opposing example of new possibilities of digital in language likely to be tradition of anti-porn feminism, but documentary form and distribution the rest of the essays move beyond the that are attentive to subject matter and accessible to undergraduates basics to more specific issues. Many of audience behavior. It certainly fits the in women’s studies classes or them are written in the first person, current mode of internet porn con- feminist film classes. but are no less incisive and useful for sumption better than a linear narrative that. A number of them address the or essay film would, but at times the alternative images and develops its own place of women of color, women of ten-second-clip gimmick gets in the aesthetics and iconography to expand size, and trans* women in pornogra- way, particularly during interviews. established sexual norms and discours- phy, offering both testimonies to self- Often the subject speaks directly to the es… Feminist porn makers emphasize empowerment through performance in camera, in the manner of a conversa- the importance of their labor practices” porn and sharp critiques of minority tion with the director/camera operator, (p. 10). In brief, feminist porn is both representation in current porn. and discusses personal feelings about a filmmaking genre and a political In “A Queer Feminist Pig’s Mani- porn, monogamy, or personal history, project. This focused definition allows festa,” professor of women’s studies but the viewer only gets tantalizing for contributors to interrogate assump- Jane Ward struggles with a conun- clips of these revealing mo- drum: being aroused by ments. mainstream porn — the po- Lesbian porn star litically incorrect variety that Dylan Ryan of I Love Your many are trying to combat. Work also features in the She wonders, “Can we watch most indispensable of the sexist porn and still have four resources reviewed feminist orgasms?” (p. 132). here: The Feminist Porn This honest confession of in- Book: The Politics of Produc- dividual spectator preferences ing Pleasure. The editors of leads her to advocate for a set this volume have brought of self-aware viewing practices together essays by feminist based on Buddhist principles. porn producers and femi- Other essays are attentive to nist porn scholars in a sin- pornography in specific spac- gle volume, resulting in a es, such as the classroom and conversation that speaks to the therapist’s couch. Con- the complexities of the por- stance Penley reflects on her nography industry and the years teaching a class about uses of pornography once pornography at the University it is made. The essays ex- of California, Santa Barbara, pand from a singular focus while Keiko Lane discusses on the process of making using pornography in her feminist pornography to a work as a psychotherapist for nuanced view of its circula- numerous queer, genderqueer, tion through the world. and minority clients. In the introduction One particularly nice to The Feminist Porn Book, pairing demonstrates the editors Tristan Taormino, value of an edited collection Celine Parreñas Shimizu, such as The Feminist Porn

Page 4 Feminist Collections (v. 35, nos. 3–4, Summer–Fall 2014) Feminist Visions

Book: in a personal essay, Nina Hartley depth of those reviewed here. Its di- have been actively involved in the writes about her reasons for becoming verse essays are written in language creation and consumption of porn. As a porn star and sex educator, making likely to be accessible to undergradu- the recent oral history of HBO’s pio- such videos as Adam and Eve’s Guide ates in women’s studies classes or neering Real Sex series demonstrates,1 to Better Cunnilingus, Guide to Anal women are not docile drones in service Sex, and multi-part Guide to Sensual Feminist porn is both a to a singular, patriarchal pornography Domination. In the following essay, — they shape their own representation film scholar Kevin Heffernan traces the filmmaking genre and a on-screen in myriad ways, and they history of educational sex films, from political project. put porn to use in their own lives and independently produced exploitation careers. films marketed as “educational” during the era of Hollywood self-censorship feminist film classes. The authors’ Note (1920s–1960s), to more recent incar- numerous perspectives — performer, 1. Molly Langmuir, “Masturbation, nations distributed on home video by producer, educator, scholar, activist, Nudists, and Street Interviews: An Adam and Eve and Vivid Video. Hef- therapist — make a well-rounded case Oral History of HBO’s Real Sex,” fernan connects the censorship of sex for the importance of sexual represen- Vulture, July 30, 2013. http://www. education materials to broader social tation and expression to feminism, and vulture.com/2013/07/hbo-real-sex- forces, including the medicalization of vice versa. oral-history-masturbation-nudists- women’s health and childbirth at the street-interviews.html turn of the century and concern over If mainstream media and culture the social effects of moving images fol- paint a monolithic portrait of pornog- [Nora Stone is a Ph.D. candidate in the lowing WWI. This synoptic history, raphy, they also paint a depressingly film area of the Department of Com- and Heffernan’s thoughtful descrip- uniform portrait of women as the vic- munication Arts at the University of tions of educational sex films, provides tims of pornography’s increasing avail- Wisconsin–Madison. She was named necessary context to Hartley’s personal ability. Each of these books and films 2013 Jarchow Fellow in the Wisconsin exploration and message: “[S]ex is good in its own way expands the possible Center for Film and Theater Research, for you and the more you know about ways that women can relate to sexually which resulted in a digital exhibit on the it, the better it’s likely to be” (p. 236). explicit audiovisual material. Whether Center’s papers of Emile de Antonio. She For these reasons, The Feminist personal essay or survey film, historical teaches digital media production and Porn Book comes out on top as the research or day-in-the-life documenta- worked as production designer on a 2013 resource with the most breadth and tion, these resources show how women independent feature film,Sabbatical .]

Miriam Greenwald

Feminist Collections (v. 35, nos. 3–4, Summer–Fall 2014) Page 5