Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914

by Lisa Z. Sigel

Governing Pleasures is a historical account of the production, distribution, and consumption of pornography in Great Britain from the early nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth. Lisa Z. Sigel examines how pornography changed over time as a cultural and symbolic object in British society, and What was considered pornographic? Who looked at pornography and read it? What sorts of messages did this medium transmit to both men and women? What was its thematic content, who controlled it, and how did these messages affect sexual and social dynamics?In contrast to recent ahistorical feminist assertions that pornography necessarily teaches men how to oppress women, Sigel views the use of pornography through the lens of historical and social change. In a careful analysis, she illustrates the cultural complexities of the medium and links Victorian pornography to other arenas such as language, science, consumerism, and politics. Most importantly, the author asserts that pornography offered a way for people to make sense of sexuality and its relationship to their world.Governing Pleasures is a greatly needed examination of a neglected topic. Access to public and private collections of pornography has enabled the author to provide vivid illustrations to bolster her arguments.

Genres: History, Sexuality, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2002

Reviews

[Margot Note · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and brilliant!

Must reads: Chapter 3: The Pearl before Swine: Fetishism and Consumer Culture and Chapter 4: Filth in the Wrong People's Hands: Postcards and the Expansion of Pornography (previously published in The Journal of Social History, available through JSTOR).

Quotes of note:

“Pornography as source material provides insight into the social imaginary of sexuality….Pornography is not tied to the tangible (what people do with their bodies) but to the imaginable (what they can imagine doing). It acts as a mirror—or, more accurately, a series of broken mirrors—that reflects, refracts, and distorts a picture of sexuality. And like people looking into a mirror, those reflected in pornography might change their bearing in response to what they see. Pornography is caught in an intimate relationship with the broader society, even though it remains tied to the realm of possibilities” (3).

"There remains much work to do because pornography continues to be undervalued as a source and politically suspect as a topic. However, it is the suspect nature of pornography that makes this work important. People can make blanket statements about pornography getting worse as long as there is no historical record. They can raise sex panics as long as there remains a dearth of scholarship. They can bring up bogeymen for us to fear as long as we don't look under the bed. I suggest that under the bed, and more appropriately on it, is exactly the place to look right now" (163).

[Sophie Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving this four stars because it was a university press book -- if it was for the mass market I think I would have been nearer three, because I did not think it was possible for a book about pornography to be such a dull read, but boy was I proven wrong.

It's generally good info but written in very dense and somewhat repetitive academic prose, punctuated with photos and excerpts of pornography to illustrate the author's point. So it makes for a pretty strange read.

Although it lists 1815 as the start date, it didn't have as much on the era I was looking for (Regency) as I would have wanted and have found in another source. I think the largest theme was how class, gender, race, and colonialism fit into pornography. An example: pornographic postcards were very popular, and it was legal to send them if they depicted colonial subjects. Send a picture of a naked white woman or a man, however, and it was illegal.