Despite the suggestive title, this collection of well-argued essays
on some of the socially constructive roles in which pornography can
be cast would be more at home at an MLA conference than in an adult
bookstore. Pornography "distill[s] our most pivotal cultural
preoccupations," says Kipnis (Northwestern Univ.; Ecstasy
Unlimited, not reviewed). She asserts that when it comes to porn
and what it tells us about ourselves as individuals and as a
society, we would do best to take a long, hard look, since the porn
industry (whose profits, she says, rival those of ABC, CBS, and NBC
combined) is not going away anytime soon. Kipnis takes issue with
both anti-porn feminists and conservatives, and argues for the
politically and personally transgressive potential of fantasy as
expressed through porn's forbidden images. She contrasts porn with
what she sees as more genuine social evils like classism,
deprivation, hypocrisy, repression, and conformity. She begins with
a discussion of Daniel DePew, a gay man into S&M who was sent
to prison for discussing - though never acting on - a plan (devised
by undercover cops) to make a snuff film; for Kipnis, this case
demonstrates what pornographic fantasies are not about (actual
violence and crime). The author then focuses on what they might
really be (a mirror of society's deepest desires and fears). She
maintains that the more publicly reviled something or someone is,
the more fertile a site for intellectual inquiry. Then,
concentrating on printed material, she surveys transgender porn,
"fetish" subcultures, and class-conscious porn (specifically
Hustler magazine). While she is not likely to dent the armor of
anti-porn crusaders or to inspire the dawning of a new era of
pornography studies, the author provides a succinct, thoughtful,
and lively case for porn as a significant contemporary cultural
form. (Kirkus Reviews)
In a book that completely changes the terms of the pornography
debate, Laura Kipnis challenges the position that porn perpetuates
misogyny and sex crimes. First published in 1996, Bound and Gagged
opens with the chilling case of Daniel DePew, a man convicted-in
the first computer bulletin board entrapment case-of conspiring to
make a snuff film and sentenced to thirty-three years in prison for
merely trading kinky fantasies with two undercover cops. Using this
textbook example of social hysteria as a springboard, Kipnis argues
that criminalizing fantasy-even perverse and unacceptable
fantasy-has dire social consequences. Exploring the entire spectrum
of pornography, she declares that porn isn't just about gender and
that fantasy doesn't necessarily constitute intent. She reveals
Larry Flynt's Hustler to be one of the most politically outspoken
and class-antagonistic magazine in the country and shows how
fetishes such as fat admiration challenge our aesthetic prejudices
and socially sanctioned disgust. Kipnis demonstrates that the porn
industry-whose multibillion-dollar annual revenues rival those of
the three major television networks combined-know precisely how to
tap into our culture's deepest anxieties and desires, and that this
knowledge, more than all the naked bodies, is what guarantees its
vast popularity. Bound and Gagged challenges our most basic
assumptions about America's relationship with pornography and
questions what the calls to eliminate it are really attempting to
protect.
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