ABSTRACT
After a fallow period in the mid-1990s to early 2000s, the academic study of pornography has experienced something of a revival. For many, this new work represents an important re-focusing after the divisive ‘sex wars’ of the 1980s and early 1990s. In her introduction to Porn Studies, for instance, Linda Williams writes:
The porn studies of this volume diverge markedly from the kind of agonizing over sexual politics that characterized an earlier era of the study of pornography. Where once it seemed necessary to argue vehemently against pro-censorship, anti-pornography feminism for the value and importance of studying pornography … today porn studies addresses a veritable explosion of sexually explicit materials that cry out for better understanding. Feminist debates about whether pornography should exist at all have paled before the simple fact that still and moving-image pornographies have become fully recognizable fixtures of popular culture.
