Lesbian Porn Magazines and the Sex Wars re-examines the heated debates about the politics of sexuality known as the sex wars, investigating how they were fundamentally engaged in the complex intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality.
Groeneveld presents an accessible and fascinating framing of lesbian sex magazines as activist media texts engaged in education, community building, and dialogue, amplifying theories or writers and artists across the intersectional spectrum. Making use of archival material and a cohort of lesbian radical porn magazines, the book posits that collectively these magazines helped create and circulate new ideas about sex, power, and identity. The chapters cover lesbian public culture, trans self-representation, AIDS activism, and issues of consent.
This is an essential intervention into sexuality studies and is suitable for students and scholars in gender and sexuality studies, sociology, media studies, literature, and cultural studies.
Lesbian Porn Magazines and the Sex Wars: Reimagining Sex, Power and Identity is the 2021 winner of the NWSA Routledge Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures Prize.
Author(s): Elizabeth Groeneveld
Series: Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 229
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Preface
Notes
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Sex Wars
Studying Lesbian Sex Magazines
An Overview of Lesbian Sex Magazines
Defining Lesbian Porn
Chapter Overview
Notes
Chapter 1: Letters to the Editor as Frictional Space
Letters to the Editor Sections as Frictional Space
The Racialized Discourse of Anti-Pornography Feminism
BDSM and the Sex Wars
Rethinking Lesbian Identity
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 2: Micro-Theorizing, Pedagogies of Pleasure, and the Sexual Imperative in Lesbian Sex Advice Columns
Overview: Advice Columns in Lesbian Sex Magazines
Pedagogies of Pleasure and Pleasure Activism
Cultivating Community and Collaborative Knowledge-Building Practices
The Sexual Imperative: The Changing Terrain of Sex-Positive Feminism
Micro-Theorizing Lesbian/Queer Identities
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 3: “The Possibility of Freedom”: Black Feminist Sex Radical Theorizing
Some Race Trouble with the Sex Wars
Navigating Hypersexualization
Code Switching, Allyship, and Coalition
The Possibility of Slavery/the Possibility of Freedom
“Playing in the Slime”: Fantasies of Racial Revenge
Playing with Fear
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 4: Small Activisms: Trans Self-Representation in Lesbian Sex Magazines
Reading Trans and Lesbian Histories
Small Activism, Big Impact
Gender Fucking
The Emergence of Trans Discourse
Transsexual Nudes
The Emergence of Transfeminism
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 5: Making Lesbian/Trans Lifeworlds in Fiction and in Fact
Dreaming Trans Lifeworlds into Being
Imagining Lesbian Public Cultures through Fantasy
Creating Nationalized Lesbian Sex Publics
The International Reach of Lesbian Sex Magazines
Bookstores as Lesbian Infrastructure
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 6: AIDS Information Activism and Networks of Care
AIDS Information Activism in Lesbian Sex Magazines
Pedagogies of Pleasure
Networks of Care
Redefining Lesbian Identity
Information vs. Practice
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 7: Consent and Lesbian Porn Magazines
Consent and the Sex Wars
Outrageous Women ’s Consent Statement
Framing Non-Consent in Lesbian Pornographic Fiction
When Consent Doesn't Matter, I: The Case of “Wunna My Fantasies”
When Consent Doesn’t Matter, II: The On Our Backs Digitization Debate
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion: The Afterlife of Lesbian Porn
Notes
Bibliography
Index
