A lot of time is spent on this podcast defending the multitude of roles that pornography plays in people’s lives. We say, it’s not a moral scourge, it’s not an enemy of feminism, it’s not corrupting young minds any more than any other media form. The academic study of pornography was established in a defensive mode, against second-wave anti-porn feminists, against the lies perpetuated by the church, against the forces fighting sex-worker rights. And because of this defensive posture, it’s...

I think it’s fair to say that most academics are guilty of using particular words on their essays and books that are generally understood by all, yet we rarely take the time to flesh out the definition of that word beyond a sentence or two because we’re too eager to make a bigger and flashier point. And when it comes to pornography studies, words and abbreviations like the “money shot,” “BDSM,” “gay-for-pay,” and “bareback” have been a part of the popular vernacular around the genre for so...

This episode is a testament to the generosity and the collaborative nature of the pornography studies community. When I was browsing Twitter one day, I saw that a previous guest on the show, Madita Oeming, was going to be at the Berlin Porn Film Festival hosting a live interview with pornography start extraordinaire Jiz Lee! I messaged her immediately and asked if she would be kind enough to record the interview for the podcast, and she agreed to do so. I’ve personally never been to the...

In this special addition of the Porno Cultures Podcast, we’re proud to feature an episode of the Films(trips) podcast about the porn-adjacent film Cruising. The Films(trips) podcast features extended discussions about sorely underrated or under-watched films and finally gives them their proper due by hosts Dave Babbitt and Andrew Kannegeisser. The boys were kind enough to invite me on the show to discuss William Friedkin’s highly controversial and misunderstood film Cruising. Cruising is...

Pornography is often talked about as this abstract alien “thing” that has no connection to the real-world experience of any “decent” or “good” person. The thinking goes that since pornography is this anti-feminist and morally damaging abstraction, it must originate from a dark place consumed with hate and misogyny. But what if I told you that, in fact, there’s a whole spectrum of pornography dedicated to paying homage to the most cherished children’s stories and beloved horror classics like...

In this episode we explore the wild world of pornographic magazines. Believe it or not, before the popularization of the internet, a great many people had their first and most lasting encounters with pornography via magazines. Magazines were an essential part of pornographic creation and circulation for many decades, and now that they’ve fallen victim to the digital revolution, they’ve only recently been considered as an archival object suited for academic study. In this episode we tackle...

When we think about the rhetoric around sex workers it’s often easier to hear or read opinions advocating for the abolishment of sex work coming from politicians or “concerned citizens” who are not sex workers, or have never bothered to speak to a sex worker. The degree to which the voices of sex workers are suppressed in mainstream outlets throughout the West speaks to how dangerous their voices are considered. What on earth can sex workers be saying that so many people feel the need to...

In this episode we delve into the seedy and exciting world of sexploitation cinema! Oftentimes, pornography studies is so busy working to legitimate hard core texts that we sometimes forget about the wide-world of soft core cinema. Just before the “Golden Age” of theatrically released pornography in the late 1960s, there was almost a decade of sexploitation cinema single-handedly keeping alive a dying studio system that had lost its dominance in light of losing its profits from owning...

Pat Rocco is a figure that doesn’t fit easily into pornography’s history. Pat started making films featuring nude male characters in soft core situations just before 1971’s Boys in the Sand, and he continued to purposefully occupy a unique middle ground where his work showcasing tame, but explicit, gay nudity coexisted alongside other films documenting the emerging gay rights movement, wholesome gay romance, and queer sexual politics. Pat used his camera as a form of activism highlighting gay...

In this episode, we’re joined one of the most prolific and accomplished scholars in the field of pornography studies, Susanna Paasonen. She is a professor of media studies at the University of Turku in Finland and has written and edited over eight books covering pornography, sex, internet studies, feminism, and affect. Her newest book is Many Splendored Things: Thinking Sex and Play (MIT Press, 2018), where she explores sex, bodily capacities, appetites, orientations, and connections in terms...

Believe it or not, Canada might be the most important country determining what porn you’re watching today! I say that because the most popular porn sites in the world were created, and continue to operate, in Canada. PornHub, YouPorn, RedTube, and Brazzers just to name a few. While Canada has an extensive porn history and shapes the ways in which we consume and distribute porn today, oftentimes it’s overlooked in favor of its flashier cousin in the south known as the San Fernando Valley. This...

In this episode we’re trying something different! This is our first “roundtable” episode featuring four guests. And instead of talking with established scholars in the field, we’re actually talking with four up-and-coming graduate students who will soon be making their mark within pornography studies. As pornography studies grows within academe, it is becoming increasingly possible to build a support network of fellow students that share your interests. And considering how much resistance...

Professor Lynn Comella joins us to talk about her books New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law (co-edited with Shira Tarrant, 2015) and Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure (2017). The reach of Vibrator Nation’s readership has extended beyond the typical academic circles and has resonated with a mainstream audience due to its easy reading style, and because it details a history of feminist sex shops that the public was obviously...

While porn studies delve into history and theory books in order to legitimize its position within academia, scholars can often times lose track of the most essential voices that offer us an important perspective on the industry, those of the porn performers themselves! In this episode, I talk with gay porn performer Chris Harder. Harder’s journey through the industry is an interesting one mostly due to the fact that he comes from a theater background. He studied theater and queer theory while...

While porn studies delve into history and theory books in order to legitimize its position within academia, scholars can often times lose track of the most essential voices that offer us an important perspective on the industry, those of the porn performers themselves! In this episode, I talk with gay porn performer Chris Harder. Harder’s journey through the industry is an interesting one mostly due to the fact that he comes from a theater background. He studied theater and queer theory while...

Zachary Sire is the editor of the essential gay porn blog Str8UpGayPorn. Str8UpGayPorn is the primary news and gossip site of the gay porn industry. If you’re a porn star and you’ve done something naughty, it’s likely to become a headline on the site sooner rather than later. Zachary started out as a features writer for magazines like Unzipped, Men and Freshmen before becoming a blogger for TheSword in 2010. It’s during his tenure at TheSword where he made a name for himself and became...

Zachary Sire is the editor of the essential gay porn blog Str8UpGayPorn. Str8UpGayPorn is the primary news and gossip site of the gay porn industry. If you’re a porn star and you’ve done something naughty, it’s likely to become a headline on the site sooner rather than later. Zachary started out as a features writer for magazines like Unzipped, Men and Freshmen before becoming a blogger for TheSword in 2010. It’s during his tenure at TheSword where he made a name for himself and became...

Ashley West is the host of the most successful porn podcast of them all, The Rialto Report. The Rialto Report explores the history of the “golden age” of porn in the 1960s, 70s & 80s by interviewing the actors, directors, producers, and distributors from that era. The most remarkable aspect of the show is his amazing ability to find these long-lost people, some of whom haven’t spoken publicly in over 40 years! He gets them to not only talk about their time in the industry, but their...

Ashley West is the host of the most successful porn podcast of them all, The Rialto Report. The Rialto Report explores the history of the “golden age” of porn in the 1960s, 70s & 80s by interviewing the actors, directors, producers, and distributors from that era. The most remarkable aspect of the show is his amazing ability to find these long-lost people, some of whom haven’t spoken publicly in over 40 years! He gets them to not only talk about their time in the industry, but their...

Professor Rebecca Sullivan joins us to talk about her role as the chair of the steering committee for the Sexuality Studies Association of Canada, and her book on the infamous second-wave feminist anti-porn documentary Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography (1982). The film is directed by Bonnie Sherr Klein, a feminist filmmaker who was an important part of the National Film Board’s Studio D, a project focused on providing female directors the chance to make their own documentaries. The...

Professor Rebecca Sullivan joins us to talk about her role as the chair of the steering committee for the Sexuality Studies Association of Canada, and her book on the infamous second-wave feminist anti-porn documentary Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography (1982). The film is directed by Bonnie Sherr Klein, a feminist filmmaker who was an important part of the National Film Board’s Studio D, a project focused on providing female directors the chance to make their own documentaries. The...

Professor David Church joins us to talk about his newest book Disposable Passions: Vintage Pornography and the Material Legacies of Adult Cinema (2016). His approach to pornography produced in the age when moving image technology was just emerging to the beginning of the “porno chic” era, is unique in the sense that he writes about how these older texts are consumed, admired, and fetishized within our contemporary mediascape. He does this by analyzing the affective resonance that these texts...

Professor David Church joins us to talk about his newest book Disposable Passions: Vintage Pornography and the Material Legacies of Adult Cinema (2016). His approach to pornography produced in the age when moving image technology was just emerging to the beginning of the “porno chic” era, is unique in the sense that he writes about how these older texts are consumed, admired, and fetishized within our contemporary mediascape. He does this by analyzing the affective resonance that these texts...

Preservationist and co-founder of the company Vinegar Syndrome Joe Rubin joins us to talk about his restorations of classic sex films. Vinegar Syndrome can be thought of as the “Criterion Collection for porn!” And the quality of their restorations have garnered compliments from their peers who say that their work is better than what has been done on Paramount’s Hitchcock restorations! Joe also has encyclopedic knowledge about of the Golden Age of porn. This is what lead the Quad Cinema in New...