ABSTRACT
David Andrews (2007: 51) has observed that within the blossoming fi eld of porn studies soft-core is understudied, undertheorized, and routinely belittled. Given that the academic study of porn, despite the wealth of material available and the ‘complex discourses’ thrown up by domestically produced porn fi lms, is yet to take off in Brazil, it should come as no surprise that the country’s home-grown soft-core sex fi lms, the so-called pornochanchadas, were and continue to be summarily dismissed (although never completely ignored) by critics and most cultural commentators.
