Which cover do you prefer? The image on the top cover is from Candida Royalle's short film "The Tunnel" on Sensual Escape. I find this image so symbolic for the women's progressive porn movement; women breaking through to claim ownership of their bodies and sex. And to seize the means of representation. To explore and define sex on their terms.
Porn brings up a lot of negative images in our sexualized, pornified culture. But today a growing number of women are radically changing porn to respectfully capture the authentic sexual lives of women and men, empowering and inspiring the viewer to claim her sexuality against a sexualized culture, and creating a real counterweight to pornified media and porn as it’s been known. In these women’s hands porn has become a vehicle for women to explore and define sexuality on their terms, shining the light on how we can all break free from traditional gender roles and shatter erotic conventions.
Tracing the movement from its inception, After Pornfied visualizes this transformed porn to the reader in a way that no other book on porn has done, so that she too can see the power and potential of this new porn by women to free our minds and bodies from the demeaning imageries of our sex in all other porn and pornified media. Porn affects us. Today, women are leading the way to make those effects empowering.
Praise for After Pornified :
Andrew K. Nestingen, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the University of Washington and the author of Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film and Social Change (University of Washington Press, 2008) writes:
Candida Royalle, iconic erotic film pioneer, entrepreneur, and the author of How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do: Sex Advice from a Woman Who Knows (Touchstone, 2006; first ed. Fireside, 2004) writes:Anne G. Sabo’s outstanding book challenges us to rethink presumptions about porn, and to see it as varied and potentially progressive. It will be valuable to anyone who cares about images of women in the media, gender equality, and the role of film and television in our lives.
Anne G. Sabo offers one of the freshest and most articulate voices on the controversial issue of porn since feminists began hotly debating its virtues and consequences back in the eighties. A much-needed contribution to what has become a tired and predictable discussion, Sabo courageously brings new insight to an emotionally charged issue in a voice that is eloquent, reasoned and accessible to all. Her work will surely be respected for the rare understanding she brings to a completely new cultural phenomenon, one that most are unable or unwilling to take on: that of women creating their own unique pornographic vision and its implications and potential benefits to all.Anna Span, Britain’s first female porn director and the author of Shoot Your Own Adult Home Movies (Carleton Books, 2006; first ed. under the title Erotic Home Video: Create Your Own Adult Films, 2003) writes:
At last a book that appreciates female directed porn as the important cultural phenomenon that it is. For decades the media has represented porn as being for men only and that any women involved in the industry are mere dupes. Anne G. Sabo explains why this is not only untrue (and always has been) but also that it is women who are moving the genre forward, both as directors and consumers.
Erika Lust, award-winning writer and erotic film director, and the author of Good Porn: A Woman’s Guide (Seal Press, 2010) writes:
Next to film professor Linda Williams, Anne G. Sabo is the most respected intellectual voice analyzing the new trend of feminist pornography. Actually Sabo’s book demonstrates that it is not only a trend. Sabo shows that we are in front of a revolution of the genre.
Feona Attwood, Ph.D., Professor of Sex, Communication and Culture at Sheffield Hallam University and the author of Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture (I. B. Tauris, 2009) writes:
One of the most remarked upon features of shifting production practices around porn and erotica is the growing participation of women. The presence of women was noted as a “significant trend in the industry” as long ago as 2000. However, there has been strikingly little attention paid in academic or more popular literature to women who make pornography. Books in both areas are very overdue so this book is very welcome. I think After Pornified will be of wide interest to women who already have an interest in the topic and those who know very little about it, and a good starting point for rethinking debates about women’s relationship to porn.Dr. Clarissa Smith, Reader in Sexual Cultures at the University of Sunderland and the author of One for the Girls! The Pleasures and Practices of Reading Women’s Porn (Intellect, 2007) writes:
After Pornified does not cover the well-worn ground of whether or not porn should exist; instead Anne G. Sabo takes a close look at the kinds of sexually explicit material which are marketed as “for women.” An analysis of these films which does not simply seek to criticize or dismiss porn for women by women is long overdue, bringing to the fore the political and personal intentions of a range of directors and producers, as well as the aesthetic and artistic considerations in making sexually arousing imagery. Written in an accessible style for an interested rather than an academic audience, After Pornified brings a much-needed dose of optimism to the debates about pornography, its content and effects.
