Porno: Una historia oral (Ensayo nº 48)

by Polly Barton, Melina Márquez (Translator)

El porno es uno de los contenidos más consumidos en Internet y, sin embargo, sigue siendo un tabú del que poco se habla, pese a la relevancia social que tiene.
En este libro, Polly Barton investiga las causas de la ausencia de debate en torno a un tema silenciosamente ubicuo pero muy influyente en nuestro día a día. A lo largo de un año de trabajo, Barton se entrevistó con diecinueve personas de edades, géneros y orientaciones sexuales muy distintas para tratar de entender este fenómeno, charlando con ellas sobre la pornografía y sus hábitos de consumo, emociones y sentimientos (culpa, vergüenza, asco, sorpresa, curiosidad), fantasías y deseos.
Lejos de lo que había imaginado inicialmente, lo que emergió no fue un relato ni un ensayo en el sentido tradicional, sino la descarnada fotografía de aquello que no queremos ver y no solemos decir. Informal, didáctico, desafiante, revelador, este libro es un viaje sin tapujos por los meandros más insospechados de una realidad tan aparentemente sobreexpuesta como en el fondo desconocida.

«Un libro fascinante y oportuno, un testamento del valor de las conversaciones deshinibidas entre adultos. Su honestidad y su humanidad son adictivas, te atrapan». Claire-Louise Bennett, autora de Caja 19

   

 

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Feminism, Sexuality, Sociology, History, Adult

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 16, 2023

About the author

Polly Barton is a writer and Japanese translator based in Bristol. In 2019, she won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and her debut book Fifty Sounds , a personal dictionary of the Japanese language, was published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo Editions in April 2021. In 2022, Fifty Sounds was shortlisted for the 2022 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year.

Her translations have featured in Granta, Catapult, The White Review and Words Without Borders and her full length translations include Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki (Pushkin Press), Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda (Tilted Axis Press/Soft Skull), which was shortlisted for the Ray Bradbury Prize, and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura (Bloomsbury).

Her new book, Porn: An Oral History , will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) in March 2023 and La Nave di Teseo (Italy).

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the title of 'An Oral HIstory' (however punning) is misleading and set up expectations for me that the book doesn't fulfil. This isn't a 'history' at all and doesn't have any intellectual or scholarly underpinning, and doesn't explore the topic of porn historically.

What it is is Barton chatting to a group of people (16, I think) and transcribing their conversations: there's no analysis, no specialist knowledge, no academic contextualisation - this is sort of what you'd get if you collected a group of mates and everyone opened up about their porn habits. Everyone sounds urban, intelligent, sophisticated; there is diversity in terms of genders and sexualities but not obviously so in terms of age or class - and lots of commonalities in how they think of porn: everyone's read the broadsheets, is worried about the lack of representation, the misogyny, the persistence of male fantasising even in porn 'for women'.

This is somewhere between Nancy Friday's 'My Secret Garden' but without the reach of people who contributed to that and Lisa Taddeo's 'Three Women' revealing the secrets of other people's sex lives. Sadly, though, this feels quite repetitive and doesn't say anything that we don't already know.

It's a shame that when there is so much academic interest in issues of 'pornography' and how it exists historically, what cultural work the 'erotic' and 'sexual' is doing both in the past and now, that this book doesn't engage with any of that. There are a couple of mentions of Judith Butler's performative theorising and Audrey Lorde on the erotic - but this is essentially what your bright postgrad mates would say after a few cocktails: interesting but disappointingly uncontextualised, and taking in a fairly narrow group of opinions.

Thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions for an ARC via NetGalley

[Karolina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. A non-fiction book about porn published by Fitzcarraldo Editions? And written by a great literary translator (and a very good writer - I loved her "Fifty Sounds")... I was sure I would be blown away by it.

And then I wasn't. The thing is - there are so many great topics mentioned, but are just skimmed through. It's not an essay collection or a non-fiction book that one could expect; it's basically a transcript of 10+ conversations with anonymous people about porn. And sex. And masturbation. And other random topics that come up.

There is so much to unpack in regards to our attitude towards porn, sex work and sex in general and "Porn: An Oral History" just barely scraped the surface. The conversations are random and chaotic, often they are more about masturbation and sex in general than porn. There is almost no deeper context, nothing that would make me want to explore the topic further. Especially if it's for example a a confession of an anonymous person about their niche fetish or someone's recollections of the first time they saw porn with friends when they were teens.

I wish I had the mental strength to abandon it after few conversations, but somehow I kept hoping there would be *something*, so I kept forcing myself to read further.

This might have worked really well if it was a podcast. Or an online feature in a lifestyle magazine. To sum up - I just don't see the point of this book.

2 stars rounded up.

Thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions for an ARC via NetGalley

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read. Polly Barton interviews nineteen different people about their relationship to porn and looks at the ethics of the industry in relation to feminism and capitalism through the lens of different people. I loved how you really did learn something from each person despite not typically liking the interview style format, I felt as though I really worked in this book. I think calling it ‘a history’ isn’t really accurate as it’s more of a modern discussion on the topic but it taught me a lot about the industry I didn’t know before. I particularly liked the conversation with the 80 year old man and looking at how porn and access to it had changed through the decades. If you want a non-fiction book that’s really different and pushes the boundaries of what’s comfortable, I’d definitely give this a go.

[Till Raether · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's nothing wrong with these conversations, but in total they make for a very haphazard and not very informed book about a super controversial topic. Overall I feel there's much more to be learned from reading "Talking To My Students About Porn" in The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan, or from just talking to your friends about porn yourself.

Somewhat bewildering.

[Michelle]

DNF about halfway through. I'll be honest, a title like "Porn: An Oral History" implied two things about the author to me before I cracked this open or even read the blurb: a cheekiness and sense of humor about the subject and an interest in porn. Alas, neither are to be found here. The blurb is also significantly misleading; this is essentially Barton just talking to her social circle about porn, more or less reflecting back her own hang-ups and misgivings, which is a shame. Because she and her friends and past partners have never talked about porn, she seems to believe no one is talking about it. And yes, there's a lot to dig into on the topic of porn, especially the micro instead of the macro, personal consumption habits and its potential influence on how we perform sex or what we desire, but from what I read this never goes anywhere with it...beyond a pervading sense of shame? particularly from the author? leaving me with the question as to whether I'm a desensitized pervert? (probably.) A strange book, and what a waste of a title.

[Bob Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Polly Barton skilfully has difficult and awkward questions around porn with friends and acquaintances in a way that is refreshing, candid, and never judgemental.

She is an astute interviewer- these feel like genuine conversations, and she is able to challenge, prod and develop answers throughout, carefully avoiding the difficulty faced by many books like this, where often answers can feel repetitive by the end. Instead, it feels as if Barton's own understanding is developing throughout the book, with later interviews feeling like she is able to further a previous conversation.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Brittany (whatbritreads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating 3.5 stars, but rounded down for the sake of Goodreads.

For a nosy girl like myself who loves reading about typically ‘taboo’ topics, especially in non fiction, I enjoyed this a lot. It was very reminiscent of ‘Want’ by Gillian Anderson for me, so if you enjoyed that you’ll definitely enjoy this. I’ve given both books similar ratings, and have quite a lot of overlapping feelings.

I really loved the array of different people we hear from here. They’re all different ages, genders, sexualities, nationalities.. And we also get a glimpse into their relationship status. It was interesting to see how all of these factors played a part in their experiences and perception of the subject matter, but there were some parts where I wished it would dig a bit deeper and get grittier. Some of the subjects interviewed talked about a lot of the same things so it felt a bit repetitive, or it felt like the questions were too open ended and vague. I think the book maybe didn’t have an entirely clear cut focus, so the result was very far reaching and sporadic.

I also loved how Barton herself would insert her contributions to the conversation, so it felt like we were talking to her as an author too and understanding why she wanted to write a book like this and her opinions on things. I think that could’ve been improved upon if only slightly, with some reflections of the conversations or the themes being brought into conversation, backed by some research. I think while I enjoyed reading the transcripts and it did feel like a little podcast, some thoughts between conversations to reflect on what was said would’ve been interesting. Reading transcripts back to back at times felt like I was conducting some sort of academic review, rather than engaging with the topic.

Overall I liked the bizarre nature of some of it, and I genuinely did find the book overall to be really interesting. It opened my eyes to a lot of different things, and made me consider aspects of the subject matter I didn’t even register before. There was just something about it that left me with a feeling of slight disappointment and dissatisfaction when I turned those final pages. Something was missing, but I’m not entirely sure what that was.

[Vartika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Porn equals infamy, and as such is a famously taboo topic of conversation between people (which made it an interesting pick for the book club I attend with my work (!) colleagues). Porn – as an object and a commodity, and more so as an object of pleasure, edification, discomfort, alienation, and dangerous objectification, amongst many, many other things – is ubiquitous in our society, but also so deeply personal and clandestine that it is almost entirely relegated to the realm of tight-lipped silence, to non-discussion (except – and only sometimes – politically, but even then barely so).

This seems to be the issue that writer and translator Polly Barton is tackling in this book, whose subtitle serves at once as a sneaky pun and a brief rejoinder about what you may reasonably expect to find within. This book is an oral history in the sense that it strives to gather information and perspectives not available in written sources by interviewing nineteen people – acquaintances, spanning a diverse range of ages, genders, and sexualities – about their viewing habits, emotions, and associations (of guilt, shame, desire, and fantasy) with regards to pornography. It is not an intellectual or scholarly history, nor does it ever claim to be one, but all that being said I do see why some people may find its premise somewhat misleading.

In essence, this book is a series of transcriptions from what the author refers to as “porn chats” – the interviews she conducted as part of a personal project, one that – as we find out in due course – stemmed from her own anxieties regarding her potential partners, particularly the pointed fear of not knowing – because porn can rarely be spoken about at ease, even with those we are most intimate with – if they were privately misogynistic in their porn-viewing habits while posturing as feminists to her and the rest of the world. Thus, Barton here is an equal participant rather than a detached interviewer, and we get to know as much about her – the only person in the book whose identity is disclosed in full – as her anonymous interviewees. The anonymity is ostensibly what lends her interlocutors their candour (although one of them, a woman in her early twenties, does express a lack of objection to having her name printed), and allows this book its richness of subjective insights.

A huge chunk of what we find here are the interviewees’ personal histories with porn – how they first came to it, which ranges from secretly looking it up on the family computer to watching it with friends on VHS, over a serving of fish and chips; to how they’ve come to use it – as stimulus, foreplay, instruction, distraction, kink-fulfillment, and even as a reward for keeping off other addictions. One of the interviewees is a straight man in his eighties, several are queer women and enbies at various stages in their lives and relationships, and another, a man, professes to once have watched porn for 24 hours straight ‘for research purposes’ (Barton seems to call bullshit on that one). There is a good degree of discussion on what may constitute ‘ethical’ porn (though we find no definitive answers), and some ostensibly off-beat visual pornography projects – such as Beautiful Agony, a paid-subscription erotic website that features people having orgasms, but only shows them from the neck-up.

For me, one of the most riveting bits of these 'porn chats' were the respondents’ discussion of the utilitarian nature of watching or reading porn, the need for/ lack of a narrative, and the immediate reactions of rejection, guilt, and disgust that follow, more often than not, after achieving climax from using it as an aid. The relationship between violence, misogyny, pornography, and algorithms is also examined in most interviews, and a thread that I enjoyed tracing between the various chapters was the tension and juxtaposition between the idea of porn as something people watch to expunge and externalise their worst fantasies without causing actual harm versus the idea of watching porn as a way to access desires that they do want to act out. I, personally, also found some relief in how these conversations grey the idea of porn as unilaterally harmful (per Andrea Dworkin and the hypocrisy of right-wing politicians), but was let down by the fact that the political economy of pornographic production and sex work (exploitation, trafficking, abuse, coercion, as well as agency – or whatever of it is possible in our particular, systemic present) was interrogated and expounded upon far too rarely in these interviews than expected.

The one aspect of this book that I disliked and feel inclined to critique is the very last and glibly essayistic chapter where the author presents an ill-formed link between Audre Lorde’s ideas (on the erotic and on acting intentionally) and the limitations of her own work, especially with regards to engaging with porn as part of a capitalist socioeconomic complex that achieves its goals and keeps up its walls by instilling passivity. It felt, to me, like a bit of a cop-out for failing to discuss several systemic issues more adequately with her participants – and one that wouldn’t draw attention or caused confusion had it not here been approached in the ways it has (because this book is, after all, a back-and-forth of anecdotes and confessions).

Overall, though, I am glad to have read this book – taboo and all, it still made for a long, varied, and enjoyable (read: not awkward) book club discussion. I liked the heterogeneity of perspectives presented here (though, of course, class diversity in a project like this was a hard ask), and found its self-consciousness quite amusing: one of the last interviews ends with a (male) respondent talking about how this book will “probably only attract men who like to think they are emancipated.” I, for one, do think a solid section of the book’s target readership will be so-called ‘woke’ men who like to read on the tube (and part of that has got to do with the intellectual currency palpable in the look of a Fitzcarraldo paperback). Even so, it’s a start, and I give it a precious 3.5 stars for that.

[Zak · Rating 1 out of 5]

200 pages later, and I've tapped out. The transcripts of many conversations Barton has had with friends, acquaintances, are all centred on their take on porn.

These people's opinions on Porn have something in common... They're all boring as the porn they watch.

It is repetitive and as insightful as listening to people's bold and affirmative statements to make themselves feel bigger than the topic at hand, that or something we have all overheard too often in certain sectors in society. It's all politics and agenda and dull.

It's not an oral history. For me, it is just Polly wanting validation for her weird relationship with Porn and her conflicted feelings to the larger discussions that can be had.

Waste of time, paper and money.

[Kat]

the overwhelming urge to read this book in public >>

[michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

structured as a series of interviews with anonymous friends of the author on their experiences and thoughts on porn — which of course, leads into the topics of sex, fetishes, kinks, relationships, and sociocultural dynamics.

i'm (famously, amongst my friends) an avid conversationalist on the topic of sex, so this book was an immediate buy for me (and who can resist the aesthetic of the fitzcarraldo edition?). there's 19 interviews; they probably could have cropped it down to 10. not to say that any of the interviews were less "valuable" or insightful to the specific experiences of that person.... but i did find that after 200-ish pages of the topic, i wasn't *as* interested in continuing on. polly barton is very aware of this in her afterword, saying something about feeling insecure about not writing something more essay/crit-like on the subject, what's the use of these interviews, etc — but then ending on a note of Well, maybe starting the conversation is worthwhile enough. and i agree!

if anything, this is an intriguing starter point to get the noggin rumbling. while i wish the interview subjects were a bit more diversified (race/gender/sexuality were very diverse, but it did feel like there was a bit of confirmation bias in just interviewing the author's friends, who were all pretty liberal; i'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of folks who aren't so PC, so to say), i still very much enjoyed each one.

[Bridget Bonaparte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores a random sampling of peoples experiences and relationships with porn, and the conversations they have about it, from an entirely unresearched position-- ostensibly to maintain the everyday-ness and everyman-ness of our interactions with porn.

I thought the premise for this book was quite interesting as put forth in the introduction. However, I found myself almost constantly wishing that this book was put together by someone else. Not necessarily someone more knowledgeable, because that's part of the project, but rather someone less...basic and cringe? Polly Barton is a god awful interlocutor for this project-- her own opinions come up so much and steer the conversations so completely. When someone is expressing a quite different opinion that hers, the mode shifts, palpably, into the interoggotive rather than conversational. I think she would have made a great interviewee but her presence was overwhelming and there are only so many times I want to hear variations of, "I feel weird about porn, and I have judged others quite harshly about it in the past. Essentially, I think its mostly bad. Do you guys think that's bad??" Maybe she could have just spoken to a therapist. Or, I think this could have been an amazing blog, with one interview a week as an ongoing project and commitment to continuous investigation.

That being said, there were a few standout interviews that presented really interesting perspectives and opinions on the subject and really I do think this could have been a wonderful book-- if only we could excise the author. Good thing she knows interesting people, otherwise this would have been a 2 star for me.

[Michael Beattie · Rating 3 out of 5]

i like the self-reflection at the start on the reasons for writing. we love a clear methodology

the methodology is pretty unique too - it’s a necessarily subjective collection of conversations, collected because of the author’s dissatisfaction with the conversations about porn they have had, and recognition that this dissatisfaction isn’t unique to her. it promises to satiate a desire for conversation among those who haven’t had it by following Barton on her journey to satiate that desire.

Unique yes, but more cathartic than groundbreaking for me, although it was kind of remarkable to have it brought into focus just how little porn is talked about given how big a role it plays in our lives and just how much shame I (still) carry around it. reviews of this book will necessarily be steeped in subjectivity

the one non-meta insight which I thought was interesting/useful was the continual revisiting of the theme of a gulf between men and women, between porn consumers and non-porn consumers, perhaps even between any two given consumers. I think the text made a decent case - just by demonstrating the catharsis of talking - that talking will be the first step to bridging that gulf

the pure aversion which Barton and seemingly every interviewee had to cum on their face was weird. personally, i kind of like it

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading these frank conversations about desire, porn and sex was both a liberating and deeply uncomfortable experience.

porn is a topic that I am very interested in yet (still) can't really articulate how I feel about it. but some of these conversations genuinely changed how I thought, which is a feeling I think we don't get enough.

my favourite thing about this book are the conversations it prompted with patrick, friends and even family lol.

now I just need to read some Maggie nelson so she can tell me what to think about porn.

best chapters: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14

[Alice Watkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF at 266 pages. Enjoyed the book but was way too bored with the format at that point to properly take in the rest.

[Sylvie19 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cocente delusione perché avevo alte aspettative.
Ci ho messo una vita a finirlo, una noia mortale.
Il peccato è che i contenuti c’erano, molte riflessioni erano anche interessanti e puntuali ma la forma scelta, diciannove interviste una dopo l’altra senza nessuna coerenza tematica o editing, è stata fallimentare: per forza di cose molti concetti si ripetevano fino allo sfinimento perché detto da persone diverse e dall’autrice più e più volte.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. Feel like a more apt title would be more like Porn: personal histories, I was expecting something like DJAT6 but with porn instead what I got were feelings and rants and i just lost focus.

Did get some funny looks on the tube for reading this.

[hajin yoo · Rating 2 out of 5]

i should’ve focused on finishing kierkegaard instead

[Siâny D · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️ I was really intrigued to find a book about such a taboo topic that I find really interesting & have a lot of opinions about. I liked that instead of pushing a certain narrative on the topic this book just presented 17 (I think) different people’s opinions & thoughts & relationships with porn- because it’s such a taboo subject it was fascinating to hear so many different viewpoints & experiences. Naturally, some conversations were more interesting than others and I particularly enjoyed hearing the older people’s experiences and the stories about Japan. I found the opening few convos a bit repetitive and overly “woke” and overall felt that the pool of interviewees should’ve been wider. There was a diversity in terms of gender/ sexuality but not much else. Most of the people had fairly similar overall opinions and it was disappointing that the only portrayal of a religious POV was predictably focused on shame and repression. I think having some wider experiences there & also some people who haven’t engaged with porn would’ve been more truthful and interesting. I think she claims that she couldn’t find any but probably should’ve looked a bit harder lol. I also agree with criticisms that the title is misleading; it’s not a history at all but an exploration of people’s perspectives. Overall, interesting but not a wide or thorough enough range of people for it to be sufficient as an exploration of perspectives imo.

[Millie Barrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

** Trigger warning (mention of sexual violence) **

I gobbled this book up WHOLE! As someone who’s always seen themselves as confident when talking about sex and porn, this book was FASCINATING to read and opened my eyes in new ways. It sparked new conversations amongst my friends and relationships and made me do a lot of internal reflection in my own relationship with sex. What do I actually enjoy about sex? Why do I maybe put on a facade at times?

It’s definitely got me thinking about the subject in ways I wouldn’t have ( or I’d have avoided). For example, it really helped me reflect on my experience of sexual violence and how that has impacted my relationship with sex. I come across as confident and keen to talk about sex, when actually I’m quite vanilla? Is that to try take control of my body, my desires? ITS FASCINATING!

Anyway, I encourage everyone to read this book as it will spark fascinating and much needed conversations amongst your friends and loved ones. And if you need someone to practice talking to, I AM HERE!

[Birta Birgisdóttir · Rating 3 out of 5]

hefði getað verið pistill eða 10 min youtube myndband. fílaði ekki hversu fræðilegt þetta var en samt var ekki verið að segja neitt fræðilegt?? vil annað hvort fræðilegt og kenningar eða juicy gossip sögur ekkert inni a milli plz það er bara tilgerðarlegt. hun sagði að þetta yrði bara viðtöl við vini en hun a greinilega bara tilgerðarlega vini lol. mæli kannski með þessari bok ef þið þurfið eitthvað að lesa a meðan þið biðið eftir tannsa eða eh en ekkert must read

[Jakub Szestowicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Niestety wali konserwą tak, że przydusza.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

It definitely changed the way I think about the way we talk about porn. A very interesting read, if a bit repetitive at points.

[Bri · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating is going up to 5 stars because I’m still thinking about it & asking my friends (and mum, and mum’s friends, and mum’s mum) lots of inappropriately timed questions about their porn consumption.

———

I adored the interview structure and took something unique from each conversation, whether that be a new idea, new perspective, or a reinforcement of my beliefs and complete disagreement with the interviewee. Speaking of new perspectives, the 80 year old man was my absolute favourite interviewee. I agree that the best way to start a conversation on such a deeply private topic is to literally just have a conversation with people you know (easier said than done).

The author’s self awareness of, and reflection on, her contradictory beliefs, ambiguity, and counterintuitive feelings was refreshing and fun to watch unfold across the interviews.

The depth of discussion around a lot of important factors (sexuality/gender/race/religion/disability) was sometimes shallow and potentially problematic. But, these interviews were with Everyday People™, so they serve only as a reflection of the diversity of human perspectives and experiences, not some ultimate ‘truth’. Besides, to unpack the intersection of all those elements with porn would be a ridiculously large task, and besides, it wasn’t the point of this book so IDC.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s good - it has lots of interesting avenues about the topic. But as many other reviewers have said, it’s definitely an echo chamber (everyone reads as middle class, very university educated, left wing and painfully pop-culturally aware). There’s a certain type of person who partakes in a freeform anonymous interview but performs as if it will be printed with their name on. And somehow this author found at least 15 of them.

Also - a lot of the interviewees thought their views on this topic are shared by all or most members of their gender and/or sexuality. I used to think this too, but believe me - that’s not true. The author could have challenged or questioned this in the interviews, but didn’t. Or they could have found other interviewees with those dissenting views (and these voices are plentiful but they don’t shout the loudest) but didn’t.

I really wanted to love it. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. 4, 7, 10, 17 were the most interesting interviewees to me.

[Anya · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite disappointing. I usually love Polly Barton's work and translations, but the blurb was extremely misleading. It's just interviews of a small group of people. There isn't much history or anything in there.

I was really expecting something else from how it was marketed.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Jack Rowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting book of informal interviews about pornography and the thoughts of nineteen people (plus author) on their attitudes, habits, and experiences with the adult content industry. It's definitely worth a read - lots to think about - but I think maybe serves a reader better as a companion piece to some more meaty theory on the topic. Perhaps read it alongside some contemporary feminist work discussing the subject - Barton describes her experience reading Audre Lorde's essay on pornography and the erotic at the end, and I think interweaving these ideas directly might have done the book some favours. As it stands, Porn: An Oral History has little value to a reader not already familiar with discussions around the porn industry and pornography's wider sociological ramifications. Barton's interviewees, while of various genders and sexualities, are similar enough ideologically and culturally that their perspectives can bleed into each other. There is merit here, and the discussions are frequently thoughtful and valuable, but it's definitely enhanced through its relationships to other texts and ideas. Give it a read if you're interested in particular sociological perspectives around pornography - but for context and theory I would say go elsewhere.

[kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

ugh this was EXCELLENT. i need everyone i know to read it now 🤩

glad that i read some reviews beforehand so i knew to expect the interview format. i’ve never read a book with this kind of format and i’m kind of obsessed with it, especially when it veered more conversation over interview. conversations 7 & 8 were standouts for me, and i loved whenever the people barton was interviewing would push back against her.

definietly some limitations but i think barton addresses them quite well in the introduction and sets out exactly what she’s trying to do. i also think that the fact she runs in quite intellectual circles was a big bonus for the book bc you’d have people quoting maggie nelson and judith butler. and that she was interviewing people she was closer with as opposed to a random sample because the initial closeness elided potential awkwardness and also i lovedddd when she could reflect with the people she was interviewing on both of their growth in perspective towards porn.

overall though this was just excellent. i loveddddddddddd the way these felt like conversations among friends and the recurring motifs and how sometimes people would agree and sometimes they would vehemently disagree. i loved that porn was the jumping off point and the conversations would turn to gender and sexuality and sex work and race and the intersection of all of these!!!!! ugh it was EXCELLLENTTTTTT

[Silvia Sorrentino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il libro è un pezzo di saggistica che ricorda, nelle modalità in cui è scritto, un romanzo epistolare. L'autrice racconta di diciannove conversazioni sul porno avute con diverse individualità: tra persone in una relazione o single, cis-etero e queer, soggetti vanilla o kinky. Polly Barton, andando contro le tesi focaultiane della Volontà di Sapere, sottolinea la necessità di mettere in discorso l'indicibile: il porno e le fantasie sessuali. L'opera ci costringe a confrontarci con le nostre stesse abitudini di consumo di pornografia, viaggiando tra diversi concetti: la masturbazione, l'etica, il desiderio di violenza e la libertà sessuale. Il porno, quello stesso argomento che crea profonda divisione tra il femminismo abolizionista, quello sex-positive, e lo spettro che si trova nel mezzo, viene raccontato in tutte le sue sfaccettature e controversie.

[Caroline]

polly barton is a career japanese translator and her other book Fifty Sounds is one of my all-time favorites so after years of wanting to read this i finally ordered it and it rocks. i want everyone to read this!