Featured
There are two really great subscription-based streaming services with pornography geared specifically towards women: Erika Lust’s “Lust Cinema,” which curates all kinds of pornography from a female perspective, and CrashPadSeries.com, which features lesbian porn made by lesbians for lesbians. These are wonderful sites that, due to their subscription models, makes it more or less impossible for me to teach (it’s important that the media I teach be accessible to all students). I think it is more than worth your time to read the “about” statements for both sites, linked to the left. I have also included links to other work in feminist pornography. For those looking for more directly representational readings about and in relation to pornography, one of the best resources is The Feminist Porn Book.
Thanks to the wonder of the internet, we can now look at how previous generations stigmatized pornography and why. It’s intriguing that both of these films focus on pornography and capitalism, albeit negatively. To the right is the infamous Pages of Death and below (in a pop-up video link) is Perversion for Profit
Soundtracks
This is the bashing scene from Bruce La Bruce’s teenage undead film, which he made because so many young people reported to him that they felt dead inside or shut down. It’s a beautiful film and this scene is set to Antony and the Johnson’s “Atrocities.” Below is an interview on genre porn with La Bruce. And then the trailer for Otto.
Patrick Cowley was an electronic and dance music pioneer. He founded the Electronic Music Lab at City College in the 1970’s where he made a series of recordings, which he later sold for use in porn films. These soundtracks have subsequently been reissued. Read more at the link below and be sure to check out Candida Cosmica, his collaboration with feminist porn pioneer Candida Royale.
JG Ballard’s novel Crash, as well as his Atrocity Exhibition, was taught in this course for many years. To the right is the short 1971 film, “Towards Crash” by Harley Cockliss for the BBC. Below is Ballard’s interesting introduction to the French edition of Crash from 1974.
Featured
Hear are some links to additional content of interest to folks in this class. Mike Stabile’s Smut Capital of America is a great short documentary that focuses on San Francisco as the first site of the porn industry in the U.S. Peaches’ music video for “Rub” is full frontal. You have been warned! “In the Garden of Tin Men” is a wonderful (and sad) remembrance of Bay Area actress Marion Eaton, who starred in Curt McDowell’s Thundercrack!
Videos
in the Fall of 2005, Dr Thomas began teaching Images of Eroticism as a feminist porn studies course. In 2017-18, he developed an online version of the course that was subsequently certified as Quality Learning and Teaching (QLT) by Academic Technology at SFSU. This is one of the most unique and transformative courses Dr. Thomas has ever created.