A search for feminist porn books may well turn up a lot of anti-porn perspectives. This list aims to offer a selection of good quality feminist porn books that take a more positive – or at least neutral – stance to the issues surrounding pornography. This list includes both academic and sex worker perspectives and includes wider discussions of sex work, porn history and the ethics of porn.
Released in 2013, this groundbreaking collection of essays dared to reframe the feminist discussion of pornography away from the usual anti-porn stance. This time the viewpoints of porn performers, directors and audiences were given space alongside the work of academics who have studied porn as media or from a neutral political perspective. The book offers personal anecdotes, critical analysis and discussions of sex work, authenticity, race, disability, intersectionality and more. There are also some great chapters about the history of porn made by women and queers. Editor Tristan Taormino had previously made a career from directing and starring in feminist porn productions. Her fellow editors are well-known academics who have made a career from studying pornography. The book includes contributions by Susie Bright, Candida Royalle, Betty Dodson, Nina Hartley, Buck Angel, Lynn Comella, Jiz Lee, Lorelei Lee and more.
“This must-read collection is accessible to all readers, and the topic inherently makes it engaging and fun.” – Publisher’s Weekly
Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy by Jiz Lee (Editor)
Genderqueer porn star Jiz Lee set out to discuss the stigma surrounding sex work and has gathered an extremely readable collection of essays by sex workers, porn stars and those who work within the porn industry. The authors tell their own stories of coming out about their sex work to family, friends and strangers. They talk about the worry that comes with whether or not to reveal their line of work when the inevitable question of “what do you do?” comes up in conversation. There’s also more philosophical essays on the wider issues of how stigma impacts people’s lives and what political options are available to reduce the discrimination against sex work and the porn industry. This book is a fantastic opportunity to step into the shoes of adult performers and understand the difficulties that emerge simply because they decided to do sex work. A must for anyone interested in collecting feminist porn books. With contributions from Annie Sprinkle, Betty Blac, Nina Hartley, Candida Royalle, Conner Habib, Dale Cooper, Christopher Zeischegg, Ms. Naughty, Drew DeVeaux, Erika Lust, Gala Vanting, Lorelei Lee, Stoya and many others.
“This revealing, moving, and often surprising collection lets you go deep inside the lives of generations of porn stars and explicit performers. It’s an absolute must-read for anyone interested in sex industry politics, sex-positive culture, and porn studies––and for anyone whose friend, lover, or family member has taken their pants off in front of a camera.” – Carol Queen, PhD, Director of the Center for Sex and Culture
A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography by Mireille Miller-Young
Dr. Mireille Miller-Young is one of the editors of The Feminist Porn Book. Here, she expands on her own area of expertise to offer an incredibly important perspective on women, race and porn.
From Amazon: A Taste for Brown Sugar boldly takes on representations of black women’s sexuality in the porn industry. It is based on Mireille Miller-Young’s extensive archival research and her interviews with dozens of women who have worked in the adult entertainment industry since the 1980s. The women share their thoughts about desire and eroticism, black women’s sexuality and representation, and ambition and the need to make ends meet. Miller-Young documents their interventions into the complicated history of black women’s sexuality, looking at individual choices, however small—a costume, a gesture, an improvised line—as small acts of resistance, of what she calls “illicit eroticism.” Building on the work of other black feminist theorists, and contributing to the field of sex work studies, she seeks to expand discussion of black women’s sexuality to include their eroticism and desires, as well as their participation and representation in the adult entertainment industry. Miller-Young wants the voices of black women sex workers heard, and the decisions they make, albeit often within material and industrial constraints, recognized as their own.
“A Taste for Brown Sugar is a game changer, a courageous and bold book that shifts the discourse on the contested history of race and porn. Mireille Miller-Young’s rigorous historical and ethnographic research disrupts the ‘good versus bad’ binary that has dogged debates about pornography for decades.” – E. Patrick Johnson, author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity
After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters by Anne G. Sabo
Released in 2012, Anne Sabo’s book captures the emerging wave of feminist porn, drawing on interviews with dozens of female filmmakers and performers. It’s an important listing in any collection of feminist porn books.
From Amazon: Porn brings up a lot of negative images in our sexualized, pornified culture. But today a growing number of women are radically changing porn to respectfully capture the authentic sexual lives of women and men, empowering and inspiring the viewer to claim her sexuality against a sexualized culture, and creating a real counterweight to pornified media and porn as it’s been known. In these women’s hands porn has become a vehicle for women to explore and define sexuality on their terms, shining the light on how we can all break free from traditional gender roles and shatter erotic conventions.
Tracing the movement from its inception, After Pornfied visualizes this transformed porn to the reader in a way that no other book on porn has done, so that she too can see the power and potential of this new porn by women to free our minds and bodies from the demeaning imageries of our sex in all other porn and pornified media.
Porn affects us. Today, women are leading the way to make those effects empowering.
“Anne G. Sabo’s outstanding book challenges us to rethink presumptions about porn, and to see it as varied and potentially progressive. It will be valuable to anyone who cares about images of women in the media.” – Andrew K. Nestingen, Ph.D., author of Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film and Social Change (University of Washington Press)
Ethical Porn for Dicks: A Man’s Guide to Responsible Viewing Pleasure by David J. Ley, PhD
Psychologist Dr. David Ley has become well-known for his fact-filled takedowns of the concept of “porn addiction” (see also The Myth Of Sex Addiction). In this book he offers positive suggestions for male lovers of porn to guide them to make better choices about what pornography they watch. This book recommends many feminist porn directors, films and sites.
From Amazon: Our media is filled with confusing, polarizing messages about the dangers of porn, while at the same time sexually explicit images are pronounced in advertising and entertainment. Using a natural question/answer format for people feeling fear and shame about porn use, this accessible, funny, and well-informed book is the first one to offer men a nonjudgmental way to discover how to view and use pornography responsibly.
Watching Porn: And Other Confessions of an Adult Entertainment Journalist by Lynsey G
Lynsey G won a Feminist Porn Award in 2013 for her documentary “Consent: Society” and has documented many aspects of porn and feminism through her writing. This book is her personal account of working in the porn industry as a reviewer and writer.
From Amazon: One feminist’s candid account of her unexpected adventure in the world of porn journalism―and her behind-the-scenes discovery of an industry that is more nuanced than she ever imagined.
Lynsey G. never imagined that she would ever work in porn, but with a degree in English literature and an empty bank account, the twenty-four-year-old was desperate to launch her writing career in New York City. So when her friend put her up for a unique opportunity―screening and reviewing pornos for an adult entertainment magazine―she jumped at the prospect. One review later and it was official: She was a porn journalist.
Over time, what was supposed to be a temporary gig transformed into nearly a decade of reportage on the various aspects of the adult entertainment industry. As she delved deeper into the prolific and controversial world of porn, even co-founding WHACK! Magazine to further examine the many subtleties of the industry, Lynsey learned that one of the most diverse and nebulous―and profitable―industries on the planet isn’t quite as different from the rest of the world as she thought.
Tantalizing, eye-opening, and witty, Watching Porn is a provocative book about an average girl’s foray into the porn industry and the people who make it what it is, both in front of and behind the camera. Watching Porn is a wildly entertaining and surprisingly relatable memoir that will spark conversation about the intersectionality of pornography, sex, relationships, consumerism, and what it means to be a feminist today.
Winner of the gold medal IPPY Award in sexuality/relationships
Pornography Feminism: As Powerful as She Wants to Be by Rich Moreland
AVN journalist Rich Moreland offers a fascinating history of Club 90 – the group of adult female performers who got together for support and ended up creating some of the first feminist porn. Club 90 included Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, Veronica Hart, Gloria Leonard and Veronica Vera.
From Amazon: During the sex wars of the 1980s, sex-positive feminism entered the adult film industry with a performer support group known as Club 90. Over the next three decades feminism found a home among an influential group of women in pornography. Pornography Feminism: As Powerful as She Wants to Be is a popular history of this unfolding saga told largely through personal interviews along with scholarly works, previous popular histories, and film reviews.
Vibrator Nation:
How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure by Lynn Comella
Associate professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Nevada, Lynn Comella has a long background researching the adult industry. Here she focuses on the groudbreaking work of Joani Blank, Susie Bright, Carol Queen and others who were the first to create female-friendly sex stores. These became fertile spaces for the birth of feminist porn.
From Amazon: In the 1970s a group of pioneering feminist entrepreneurs launched a movement that ultimately changed the way sex was talked about, had, and enjoyed. Boldly reimagining who sex shops were for and the kinds of spaces they could be, these entrepreneurs opened sex-toy stores like Eve’s Garden, Good Vibrations, and Babeland not just as commercial enterprises, but to provide educational and community resources as well. In Vibrator Nation Lynn Comella tells the fascinating history of how these stores raised sexual consciousness, redefined the adult industry, and changed women’s lives. Comella describes a world where sex-positive retailers double as social activists, where products are framed as tools of liberation, and where consumers are willing to pay for the promise of better living—one conversation, vibrator, and orgasm at a time.
New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law by Lynn Comella and Shira Tarrant
Prior to Vibrator Nation, Lynn Comella edited this collection of essays that aims to take a neutral approach to porn. While not specifically about feminist porn, the book covers similar topics. It has a more academic perspective.
From Amazon: Why do people use pornography? Is porn addiction a fact or myth? What is revenge porn and is it illegal? Can pornography be more diverse? This interdisciplinary collection presents well-researched facts and up-to-date data that encourage informed discussion about controversial and relevant issues in contemporary society. Chapters address topics such as the history and cultural trends of pornography, labor and production practices in creating porn, the effects of technology, current issues in obscenity law, and myths and facts about the effects of pornography.
New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law challenges assumptions about this popular yet controversial industry. Contributors include top scholars from media studies, sociology, psychology, gender studies, criminology, politics, and the law. This book provides a comprehensive overview of pornography that will help students, educators, and general readers deepen their understanding of this provocative subject.
“Significantly advancing the field of Porn Studies, New Views On Pornography gathers some of the most exciting scholars, practitioner-theorists, and legal minds to explore the vast complexities of porn. Bold, innovative and rich in scope, this collection will keep us productively thinking sex for some time to come.” -Bobby Noble, Sexuality Studies, York University
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work by Melissa Gira Grant
Melissa Gira Grant has long been a voice of reason in online discussions about sex work and in the 2018 fight against FOSTA/SESTA she emerged as one of the strong voices for sex worker rights and change. This is her extensive discussion of sex work.
From Amazon: Recent years have seen a panic over “online red-light districts,” which supposedly seduce vulnerable young women into a life of degradation, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s live tweeting of a Cambodian brothel raid. But rarely do these fearful, salacious dispatches come from sex workers themselves, and rarely do they deviate from the position that sex workers must be rescued from their condition, and the industry simply abolished — a position common among feminists and conservatives alike.
In Playing the Whore, journalist Melissa Gira Grant turns these pieties on their head, arguing for an overhaul in the way we think about sex work. Based on ten years of writing and reporting on the sex trade, and grounded in her experience as an organizer, advocate, and former sex worker, Playing the Whore dismantles pervasive myths about sex work, criticizes both conditions within the sex industry and its criminalization, and argues that separating sex work from the “legitimate” economy only harms those who perform sexual labor. In Playing the Whore, sex workers’ demands, too long relegated to the margins, take center stage: sex work iswork, and sex workers’ rights are human rights.
“Gira Grant is one of the most interesting policy thinkers in the country when it comes to sex work, and this short book introduces and outlines her thinking on the matter.” –Mike Konczal, Washington Post.
X: A Woman’s Guide to Good Porn by Erika Lust
Erika Lust has become one of the better-known feminist porn directors. In 2011 she released this book with the aim to encourage shy women to enjoy porn.
From Amazon: This is a book for all women who love porn, but still don’t know they do! It looks at pornography from a female perspective, showing how feminism has a positive role to play in improving the product for both educational and entertainment purposes. XA” provides a manifesto for new adult films for grown-up women: Women’s voices, Men’s porn, Women, feminism & pornography, History of porn, Horror movies, comedies and porn, Erotic shopping, New wave porn, Adult films for her, Adult films for grown-up women.
XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography by Wendy McElroy
This book from 1997 offered a welcome alternative to the standard anti-porn feminist arguments of the time. Wendy McElroy went out and spoke to performers, directors and producers within the adult industry to acertain a more nuanced view of pornography. Her book makes a case for freedom of speech and asserts that porn can be a positive thing for the women within the industry. An early addition to the canon of feminist porn books.
From Amazon: An unconventional argument for the preservation of pornography asserts that pornography can serve to benefit the feminist movement and promote sexual freedom for women, and explores the historical relationship between women and pornography.
See also: Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Nadine Strossen