Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-274) and index.
Contents:
Preface : pornography in the library -- Introduction : pornography without sex -- Genital parts : detachable properties in the eighteenth century -- Feminist speculations : penetration and protest in pornographic fiction -- The Victorian eighteenth century : publishing an erotics of inequity -- Uncoupling : pornography and feminism in the countercultural era -- Coda : a mindful pornography.
Summary:
"What Pornography Knows offers a new history of pornography based on forgotten bawdy fiction of the eighteenth century, its nineteenth-century republication, and its appearance in 1960s paperbacks. Through close textual study, Lubey shows how these texts were edited across time to become what we think pornography is--a genre focused primarily on sex. Originally, they were far more variable, joining speculative philosophy and feminist theory to sexual description. Lubey's readings show that pornography always had a social consciousness--that it knew, long before anti-pornography feminists said it, that women and nonbinary people are disadvantaged by a society that grants sexual privilege to men. Rather than glorify this inequity, Lubey argues, the genre's central task has historically been to expose its artifice and envision social reform. Centering women's bodies, pornography refuses to divert its focus from genital action, forcing readers to connect sex with its social outcomes. At times inventing their own sexual anatomy and gender identity, at times having their bodies claimed and used by others, pornographic figures bring genitals to the fore, insisting they be justly treated rather than coldly transacted. Lubey offers a surprising take on a deeply misunderstood cultural form: pornography transforms sexual description into feminist commentary, she argues, revealing the genre's deep knowledge of how social inequities are perpetuated as well as plans for how to rectify them"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.