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Erotic Transgressions: Pornographic Uses of the Victorian Laura Helen Marks Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected]

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Erotic Transgressions: Pornographic Uses of the Victorian Laura Helen Marks Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Lmarks2@Tigers.Lsu.Edu Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2013 Erotic Transgressions: Pornographic Uses of the Victorian Laura Helen Marks Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Marks, Laura Helen, "Erotic Transgressions: Pornographic Uses of the Victorian" (2013). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3730. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3730 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. EROTIC TRANSGRESSIONS: PORNOGRAPHIC USES OF THE VICTORIAN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Laura Helen Marks B.A., University of Wales, Swansea, 2004 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2012 May 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A project such as this requires the input of many different kinds of people: filmmakers, archivists, academics, friends and family, and anonymous fans of the genre willing to impart their years of wisdom to me via email. I want to thank each and every person I have met or spoken with via the internet over the years, including those who were hostile or otherwise prompted me to ask difficult questions of my research, and of myself. Thanks to Redish, Gregory Armstrong, R. Gelling, Pringles, Savoy, Jason, and Daniel Metcalf, and the others who remain unnamed; you all provided me with much provocative conversation and support over the years. To my very special friend Christine, your unfailing belief in me got me through some tough times. To my friends and colleagues in the English department and Women’s and Gender Studies, particularly Laura J. Faulk, Kristopher Mecholsky, Wendy Braun, Conor Picken, Susan Kirby Smith, and Casey Kayser, and Cara Jones. A very special thank you to Emily Beasley, my accountability buddy, who kept me motivated and positive, and became my dear friend in the process. Special thanks to my undergraduate institution, the University of Wales, Swansea, especially Marie-Luise Kohlke. I thought after deciding to pursue porn studies that we had grown apart academically, only to discover that we serendipitously dovetailed back in contact through the rich field of neo-Victorian studies. Thanks also to the many wonderful professors at LSU whose classes I had the pleasure of taking, most especially Sharon Aronofsky Weltman. If I had not taken Dr. Weltman’s class on Dickens, I might very well never have considered taking my research in this direction. It is no exaggeration to describe that class as life-changing. ii During the course of this research, I have been lucky enough to interact with the generous and enthusiastic talent behind the films I analyze. My utmost thanks to the energy, optimism, and support I routinely received from Nica Noelle, Eric Edwards, Shaun Costello, and Penny Antine. Furthermore, the archivists and distributors of adult film who championed my work every step of the way and assisted in any way they could. A very warm and heartfelt thank you to Steven Morowitz of Distribpix Inc., and in particular to Joe Rubin. I knew I could not cut any corners in this virgin territory of the study of porn as long as Joe was around. He is an intimidating wealth of knowledge, and I am grateful that you keep me on my toes. I am also fortunate to have had a wonderful dissertation committee who have been generous with their time, wisdom, and wealth of knowledge. Many thanks to my co- directors Patrick McGee and Michelle A. Massé, who guided and challenged me at every turn, as well as committee members Rachel Hall and Dana Berkowitz. Thanks to my family, especially Patsy who made sacrifices and provided support through childhood and adulthood. To my mum and dad, this project would never have materialized had you not supported my education and free thinking from birth through to adulthood. You are both incredible parents and continue to inspire me. Finally, I sincerely do not think I would have been able to finish this project without the unwavering support, friendship, patience, and love of Jeremie. My best friend, confidante, and intellectual match. This is for you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………………………………..ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...v INTRODUCTION: SKIN FLICKS………………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER ONE: BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: SOCIAL TABOO AND SPATIAL TRANSGRESSION IN NEO-VICTORIAN ADULT FILM……………………………………………………….47 CHAPTER TWO: “IT’S MY OWN INVENTION”: SEXUAL SUBJECTIVITY, AUTHORSHIP, AND FEMININITY IN PORNOGRAPHIC ADAPTATIONS OF LEWIS CARROLL’S ALICE BOOKS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..91 CHAPTER THREE: “HE WAS WILD WHEN HE WAS YOUNG”: GENDER FLUIDITY AND QUEER SEXUALITY IN PORNOGRAPHIC ADAPTATIONS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON’S STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.........................................................136 CHAPTER FOUR: “STRANGE LEGACIES OF THOUGHT AND PASSION”: SEXUAL IDENTITY AND TECHNOLOGIES OF DESIRE IN PORNOGRAPHIC ADAPTATIONS OF OSCAR WILDE’S THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY..................................................................................180 CHAPTER FIVE: I WANT TO SUCK YOUR…: GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND THE ECONOMY OF BODILY FLUIDS IN PORNOGRAPHIC ADAPTATIONS OF BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA...218 CONCLUSION: IT’S JUST PORN: THE DESIRE FOR MEANINGLESSNESS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF PEDAGOGY………………………………………………………………………………………265 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….281 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..301 iv ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that while pornographic film asserts itself as the rebellious cousin to the literary and cinematic canon, it nonetheless relies on a particular Victorianness, transgressing and drawing on its perceived repressions and perversions for pornography’s own ostensible subversiveness. Through an analysis of pornographic adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, this project shows that the rupture and rearticulation of social and corporeal propriety constitutes pornography’s persistent appeal. These predominantly American pornographic texts, spanning 1974— 2012, appropriate canonical British icons as a way of refuting the old world (framed as sexually repressed yet hypocritical) and establishing a postmodern American sexual identity (framed as sexually liberated and culturally savvy). Hardcore pornography is distinct in its unsimulated representation of sex, and its peculiar position at the intersection of legal, cultural, and spatial categorization and control. “Erotic Transgressions” shows the way pornography highlights postmodern culture’s interest in Victorian sexuality as a way of navigating our own fractured sexual identities. An analysis of these neo-Victorian texts reveals the intersections between public/private and desire/disgust in pornographic eroticism, and exposes the complicated ways in which consumers use pornography as a paradoxically disruptive and regulating medium. v INTRODUCTION SKIN FLICKS Skin houses the body and it is figured in Gothic as the ultimate boundary, the material that divides the inside from the outside….Slowly but surely the outside become the inside and the hide no longer conceals or contains, it offers itself up as text, as body, as monster. The Gothic text, whether novel or film, plays out an elaborate skin show. – Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows, p. 7 “Pornography’s favorite terrain is the tender spots where the individual psyche collides with the historical process of molding social subjects” – Laura Kipnis, Bound and Gagged, p.167. The terrain of pornography, the “tender spots” of the cultural psyche, is the primary focus of this project; another focus is the ways in which the Victorian era serves as a primary tender spot for pornography in postmodern culture. “Pornography’s ultimate desire,” Kipnis argues, “is exactly to engage our deepest embarrassments, to mock us for the anxious psychic balancing acts we daily perform, straddling between the anarchy of sexual desires and the straitjacket of social responsibilities” (167). When Kipnis speaks of pornography’s delight in transgressing and violating social mores, however, she resists turning the same lens of interrogation back on to pornography itself. In this project, I ask, what of pornography’s own delicate balancing acts? In speaking the unspoken, what does pornography itself leave unsaid? What, in its careful construction of sex and sexuality, does pornography (and its consumers) anxiously straddle? When people speak of “pornography,” typically they mean a specific, recent, visual pornography, likely moving image pornography. Much of this perception has to do with the shifting definitions and meanings of pornography which, as Walter Kendrick demonstrated in his 1987 book The Secret Museum, is an unstable category 1 impacted by cultural context, legal definitions, and technology. What was considered “pornography” decades
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