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Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate
Over the past twenty years debates about pornography have raged within feminism and beyond. Throughout the 1970s feminists increasingly addressed the problem of men's sexual violence against women, and many women reduced the politics of men's power to questions about sexuality. By the 1980s these questions had become more and more focused on the issue of pornography--now a metaphor for the menace of male power. Collapsing feminist politics into sexuality and sexuality into pornography has not only caused some of the deepest splits between feminists, but made it harder to think clearly about either sexuality or pornography--indeed, about feminist politics more generally. This provocative collection, by well-known feminists, surveys these arguments, and in particular asks why recent feminist debates about sexuality keep reducing to questions of pornography.
334 pages, Paperback
First published May 14, 1992
About the author
Lynne Segal
18 books39 followersLynne Segal is an Australian-born, British-based socialist feminist academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 28, 2021
My opinion on these texts ranges from "brilliant" to "not very convincing" but overall definitely an interesting and informative collection of essays on pornography.
Favourites include:
- Gonad the Barbarian and the Venus Flytrap: Portraying the female and male orgasm (Anne McClintock)
- Delightful visions: From anti-porn to eroticizing safer sex (Robin Gorna)
- Pornographies on/scene, or diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks (Linda Williams)
- 'A little bit spicy, but not too raw': Mae West, pornography and popular culture (Marybeth Hamilton)
Favourites include:
- Gonad the Barbarian and the Venus Flytrap: Portraying the female and male orgasm (Anne McClintock)
- Delightful visions: From anti-porn to eroticizing safer sex (Robin Gorna)
- Pornographies on/scene, or diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks (Linda Williams)
- 'A little bit spicy, but not too raw': Mae West, pornography and popular culture (Marybeth Hamilton)
August 27, 2011
I am pleased that the 'Good Reads' star system uses the word 'liked' rather than 'enjoyed' - because there is not a lot to enjoy in this collection of excellent papers from the early 1990s exploring feminist approaches to, understandings of and reactions to pornography. The range of analyses is impressive and includes some of the big names in feminist and gender analysis unpacking the complex set of relations between gender, pornography and sexuality. The key thing is that the collection has barely dated in the last twenty years, mainly because we have moved backwards so much as pornography with its reactionary gender politics has become more acceptable, more pervasive, and more mainstream.
April 6, 2026
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2.5 Stars
Feelings about the book:
- Is it bad that this didn’t really do much for me in terms of the wider sexuality and pornography debate? I liked the book, even with its 2.5 star rating, which is a tad harsh.
Premise/Plot:
- The editors amass a number of academics, writers, journalists, to address why pornography and sexuality is so polarising within feminism and wider culture.
Themes:
- Power, autonomy, censorship, the psychology and politics around porn and sex, morals, pleasure, British Common Law, nudity and porn as art and more.
Pros:
- The chapter: From Minneapolis to Westminster by Mandy Merck was a good, short essay showcasing how pornography and obscenity laws and movements differ between the US and UK. It was interesting to see just how far Dworkin’s reach was too.
- Sweet sorrows, painful pleasures: Pornography and the perils of heterosexual desire by Lynne Segal was another excellent chapter.
- I appreciated the thoughtfulness the contributors had towards the subject. There wasn't any misandry, shaming or anything like that.
- The writing in all the essays were accessible.
Cons:
- I don’t think I like anthologies that don’t have the bibliography after every chapter. This is probably my most snobbish literary take I have lol.
- The first half of the book was a lot stronger than the second half. The quality of the essays were better overall, and a lot more engaging.
- The bibliography section was on the lighter side – although I did add a few books to my TBR.
- Most of the chapters are analytical rather than empirical in nature.
Quotes:
‘Feminists object not to the sexual explicitness in pornography but to the sexism: to its characteristic reduction of women to passive, perpetually desiring bodies – or bits of bodies – eternally available for servicing men.’
‘In psychological experiments the majority of men react with distress to pornographic violence.’
‘In the great majority of sociological studies, variations in rates of sex crime do not correlate with the availability of pornography: Japan, for example, has an extremely low sex crime rate despite the existence of extensive and extremely violent pornography.’
‘However complex our attitudes to sex workers may be, it is clear that feminists face problems in choosing which women’s voices to privilege.’
‘If, as research has suggested, some convicted sex offenders have described how they were turned on by images of women knitting, are any images of women safe?’
‘The anti-porn campaigns constitute a form of secular fundamentalism.’
‘With lovers like men,’ Susanne Kappeler asks, ‘who needs torturers?’
‘Feminists who criticise pornography today mostly see themselves as rejecting the heritage of the sexual revolution.’
‘The greater sexual permissiveness of the sixties is seen by these feminists only as assisting men to exploit women. MacKinnon even sees abortion reform as removing women’s last protection from men’s pressure for sex.’
‘What role does ‘race’ play in the discourse of anti-pornography which has come mainly from white women?’
‘In apparent contradiction, though, the term ‘liberal’ has often been associated with ‘reformism’ – an orthodox approach to social change through democratic processes and legislation.’
‘In observing the mote in our opponent’s eye, we may have become blind to the beam in our own.’
‘If feminism succeeded in critiquing masculine phallic sexuality, it did so at the price of demonising it as a perverse ‘other’ whose eternal victims were women.’
‘As Jeffrey Weeks has commented, pornography became for the moral crusaders of the 1970s what prostitution had been for the social puritans of the 1880s – a symbol of decay and social breakdown.’
2.5 Stars
Feelings about the book:
- Is it bad that this didn’t really do much for me in terms of the wider sexuality and pornography debate? I liked the book, even with its 2.5 star rating, which is a tad harsh.
Premise/Plot:
- The editors amass a number of academics, writers, journalists, to address why pornography and sexuality is so polarising within feminism and wider culture.
Themes:
- Power, autonomy, censorship, the psychology and politics around porn and sex, morals, pleasure, British Common Law, nudity and porn as art and more.
Pros:
- The chapter: From Minneapolis to Westminster by Mandy Merck was a good, short essay showcasing how pornography and obscenity laws and movements differ between the US and UK. It was interesting to see just how far Dworkin’s reach was too.
- Sweet sorrows, painful pleasures: Pornography and the perils of heterosexual desire by Lynne Segal was another excellent chapter.
- I appreciated the thoughtfulness the contributors had towards the subject. There wasn't any misandry, shaming or anything like that.
- The writing in all the essays were accessible.
Cons:
- I don’t think I like anthologies that don’t have the bibliography after every chapter. This is probably my most snobbish literary take I have lol.
- The first half of the book was a lot stronger than the second half. The quality of the essays were better overall, and a lot more engaging.
- The bibliography section was on the lighter side – although I did add a few books to my TBR.
- Most of the chapters are analytical rather than empirical in nature.
Quotes:
‘Feminists object not to the sexual explicitness in pornography but to the sexism: to its characteristic reduction of women to passive, perpetually desiring bodies – or bits of bodies – eternally available for servicing men.’
‘In psychological experiments the majority of men react with distress to pornographic violence.’
‘In the great majority of sociological studies, variations in rates of sex crime do not correlate with the availability of pornography: Japan, for example, has an extremely low sex crime rate despite the existence of extensive and extremely violent pornography.’
‘However complex our attitudes to sex workers may be, it is clear that feminists face problems in choosing which women’s voices to privilege.’
‘If, as research has suggested, some convicted sex offenders have described how they were turned on by images of women knitting, are any images of women safe?’
‘The anti-porn campaigns constitute a form of secular fundamentalism.’
‘With lovers like men,’ Susanne Kappeler asks, ‘who needs torturers?’
‘Feminists who criticise pornography today mostly see themselves as rejecting the heritage of the sexual revolution.’
‘The greater sexual permissiveness of the sixties is seen by these feminists only as assisting men to exploit women. MacKinnon even sees abortion reform as removing women’s last protection from men’s pressure for sex.’
‘What role does ‘race’ play in the discourse of anti-pornography which has come mainly from white women?’
‘In apparent contradiction, though, the term ‘liberal’ has often been associated with ‘reformism’ – an orthodox approach to social change through democratic processes and legislation.’
‘In observing the mote in our opponent’s eye, we may have become blind to the beam in our own.’
‘If feminism succeeded in critiquing masculine phallic sexuality, it did so at the price of demonising it as a perverse ‘other’ whose eternal victims were women.’
‘As Jeffrey Weeks has commented, pornography became for the moral crusaders of the 1970s what prostitution had been for the social puritans of the 1880s – a symbol of decay and social breakdown.’
December 19, 2018
Fantastic series of essays that anyone interested in feminism, porn, gender, or sexuality must read. Truly unique perspectives offered by important thinkers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews