Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography: The Pornographic Object of Knowledge (9781978820159): Jeffrey Escoffier - BiblioVault

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Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography: The Pornographic Object of Knowledge

by Jeffrey Escoffier

Rutgers University Press, 2021
Cloth: 978-1-9788-2015-9 | Paper: 978-1-9788-2014-2 | eISBN: 978-1-9788-2016-6
Library of Congress Classification HQ16.E73 2021
Dewey Decimal Classification 306.771

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Hardcore pornographic films combine fantasy and real sex to create a unique genre of entertainment. Pornographic films are also historical documents that give us access to the sexual behavior and eroticism of different historical periods. This book shows how the making of pornographic films is a social process that draws on the fantasies, sexual scripts, and sexual identities of performers, writers, directors, and editors to produce sexually exciting videos and movies. Yet hardcore pornographic films have also created a body of knowledge that constitutes, in this digital age, an enormous archive of sexual fantasies that serve as both a form of sex education and self-help guides. Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography focuses on sex and what can be learned about it from pornographic representations.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
JEFFREY ESCOFFIER writes on the history of sexuality, pornography, and LGBTQ issues. He is a research associate at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

REVIEWS

“With Bigger than Life Jeffrey Escoffier had already proved himself the most informative and lively chronicler of the history of gay pornography. Now, against the background of this history, he turns his attention to the making of gay sexual fantasies to convincingly explain how the unfaked realities of sexual acts work to connect with fantasmatic sexual scripts to sell alluring performances.”

— Linda Williams, author of Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the "Frenzy of the Visible"

"Jeffrey Escoffier brilliantly lays bare what really drives pornography: less the pumping bodies than the underlying sexual scripts, which draw on historical conditions to shape individual desires. No scholar has tracked this process so comprehensively, from the labor arrangements of production to the evolving sites of consumption. Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography offers pointed observations on everything from 1970s 'homo-realism' to contemporary gay-for-pay performance, as well as comprehensive theorization that reshapes porn studies."

— Whitney Strub, author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right

"Escoffier returns to the topic of gay pornography that made his previous book Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema From Beefcake To Hardcore so notable. This one examines how the sexual imagination and identifies of the performers, writers, directors and editors have shaped the contours of gay porn."

— DNA Magazine

"The study investigates several aspects of the porn industry, including straight and, later, transgender porn, focusing on pay disparity (men get less than women) the rise and fall of 'narrative' stories in features, the persistence of the fictive 'story' told via sex acts, and even a chapter on 'gay-for-pay' among the likes of Jeff Stryker and Ryan Idol. With a focus primarily on the rise and fall of studio porn and its related scenarios and economics, toward the end, Escoffier touches on other forms of porn; actors' cam-shows, nightclub appearances, strip acts and escorting."

— Bay Area Reporter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Introduction��

Part I. Pornography and the History of Sexuality

1. Pornography, Perversity, and Sexual Revolution

2. Beefcake to Hardcore: Gay Pornography and Sexual Revolution

3. Sex in the Seventies: Gay Porn Cinema as an Archive for the History of Sexuality

4. Porn’s Historical Unconscious: Sex, Identity, and Everyday Life in the Films of Jack Deveau and Joe Gage

Part II. Producing Sex: Sexual Scripts, Work, and the Making of Pornography

5. Scripting the Sex: Fantasy, Narrative, and Sexual Scripts in Pornographic Films

6. Gay-for-Pay: Straight Men and the Making of Gay Pornography

7. The Wages for Wood: Do Female Performers in the Adult Film Industry Earn More Than Male Performers?

8. Porn Star / Stripper / Escort: Economic and Sexual Dynamics in a Sex Work Career

9. Trans Porn, Heterosexuality, and Sexual Identity

Epilogue: From the Secret Museum to the Digital Archives: Constructing the Sexual Imaginary��

Acknowledgments��

Notes��

Index��

About the Author

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Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography: The Pornographic Object of Knowledge

by Jeffrey Escoffier

Rutgers University Press, 2021
Cloth: 978-1-9788-2015-9
Paper: 978-1-9788-2014-2
eISBN: 978-1-9788-2016-6

Hardcore pornographic films combine fantasy and real sex to create a unique genre of entertainment. Pornographic films are also historical documents that give us access to the sexual behavior and eroticism of different historical periods. This book shows how the making of pornographic films is a social process that draws on the fantasies, sexual scripts, and sexual identities of performers, writers, directors, and editors to produce sexually exciting videos and movies. Yet hardcore pornographic films have also created a body of knowledge that constitutes, in this digital age, an enormous archive of sexual fantasies that serve as both a form of sex education and self-help guides. Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography focuses on sex and what can be learned about it from pornographic representations.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
JEFFREY ESCOFFIER writes on the history of sexuality, pornography, and LGBTQ issues. He is a research associate at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

REVIEWS

“With Bigger than Life Jeffrey Escoffier had already proved himself the most informative and lively chronicler of the history of gay pornography. Now, against the background of this history, he turns his attention to the making of gay sexual fantasies to convincingly explain how the unfaked realities of sexual acts work to connect with fantasmatic sexual scripts to sell alluring performances.”

— Linda Williams, author of Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the "Frenzy of the Visible"

"Jeffrey Escoffier brilliantly lays bare what really drives pornography: less the pumping bodies than the underlying sexual scripts, which draw on historical conditions to shape individual desires. No scholar has tracked this process so comprehensively, from the labor arrangements of production to the evolving sites of consumption. Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography offers pointed observations on everything from 1970s 'homo-realism' to contemporary gay-for-pay performance, as well as comprehensive theorization that reshapes porn studies."

— Whitney Strub, author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right

"Escoffier returns to the topic of gay pornography that made his previous book Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema From Beefcake To Hardcore so notable. This one examines how the sexual imagination and identifies of the performers, writers, directors and editors have shaped the contours of gay porn."

— DNA Magazine

"The study investigates several aspects of the porn industry, including straight and, later, transgender porn, focusing on pay disparity (men get less than women) the rise and fall of 'narrative' stories in features, the persistence of the fictive 'story' told via sex acts, and even a chapter on 'gay-for-pay' among the likes of Jeff Stryker and Ryan Idol. With a focus primarily on the rise and fall of studio porn and its related scenarios and economics, toward the end, Escoffier touches on other forms of porn; actors' cam-shows, nightclub appearances, strip acts and escorting."

— Bay Area Reporter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Introduction��

Part I. Pornography and the History of Sexuality

1. Pornography, Perversity, and Sexual Revolution

2. Beefcake to Hardcore: Gay Pornography and Sexual Revolution

3. Sex in the Seventies: Gay Porn Cinema as an Archive for the History of Sexuality

4. Porn’s Historical Unconscious: Sex, Identity, and Everyday Life in the Films of Jack Deveau and Joe Gage

Part II. Producing Sex: Sexual Scripts, Work, and the Making of Pornography

5. Scripting the Sex: Fantasy, Narrative, and Sexual Scripts in Pornographic Films

6. Gay-for-Pay: Straight Men and the Making of Gay Pornography

7. The Wages for Wood: Do Female Performers in the Adult Film Industry Earn More Than Male Performers?

8. Porn Star / Stripper / Escort: Economic and Sexual Dynamics in a Sex Work Career

9. Trans Porn, Heterosexuality, and Sexual Identity

Epilogue: From the Secret Museum to the Digital Archives: Constructing the Sexual Imaginary��

Acknowledgments��

Notes��

Index��

About the Author

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC