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Feminist Porn

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.

Anti-Porn Propaganda

Pages of Death (1962)

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

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Soundtracks

The Sound of Porn Music

Tara McGinley has a great little post up on Dangerous Minds about the French music producer known as Drixxxé, who has compiled some amazing porn soundtracks from the 70’s in SexTape 1SexTape 2SexTape 3 and now Sextape 4. Check it out on the Dangerous Minds blog or check out a sample of the music.
Bruce La Bruce's

Otto or, Up With Dead People

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.

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Soundtracks

Patrick Cowley: San Francisco, Porn, and Electronic Music.

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.

nightcrawler by Patrick Cowley
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JG Ballard

Crash

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.

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Links

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!

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