The first time I read this book, I failed to give it a proper chance. I was frustrated that it wasn’t a history book. It seemed that most people in it had casual interests in porn when I like to think I have an academic and slightly competitive interest in porn.
When I reread it, I was able to view it with much kinder eyes. I could take it for what it was – a sweet book where people have some of their first conversations about porn, and get to talk about things they’ve never had a chance to before.
ELEVEN: “The first time I saw good-quality hard porn was with a group of guys from my work. It was in the early eighties, so I was in my forties by that time. I was invited to come over and have fish and chips on a Friday night, and watch porn.”
Page 217
Polly Barton is a writer and Japanese translator, with no background in journalism nor porn. In some ways, that makes her the perfect person to collect and share peoples’ casual opinions on porn, however at times it resulted with her seeming to be the main character. She was both the interviewer and one of the interviewees. She asked the questions, and then respond to other answers with her opinions and memories. I was shocked when during her final thoughts she wrote:
“I haven’t even proposed any of my own thoughts on porn”
As I felt that her opinions came up frequently. The impression I got was that she was on the fence without being neutral, which meant the book was drawn to similar places and discussions repeatedly.
POLLY BARTON: “Queasy is a good word for what I feel. Then I am troubled that it feels like such a good word because I don’t want to be a prude and I want to be sex positive.”
Page 84
Every interviewee offered a unique talking point on the part porn played in their lives. One woman attends a virtual strip club with her roommates, somebody has a niche fetish they find morally complex, and someone else talks about what it was like watching porn for the first time at age 37.
For this book, Barton emailed her acquaintances to find subjects, but unfortunately her pond is only so deep and so wide. Multiple people had similar opinions, so at times the final product can feel a little shallow. Many of them shared the opinion that porn has the potential to be liberating, beautiful, diverse & queer but that most porn is racist, misogynistic, violent & can be harmful to the way people think about sex, and women especially.
FIFTEEN: “It’s interesting though: In fetish stuff, the boundaries of pain and pleasure are blurred, whereas in the mainstream pornography I’ve seen, that pain is constantly there, and that’s interpreted as pleasure. It’s not seen as painful. Do you know what I mean? It’s not really identifiably S and M is it? It’s just part of the accepted sexual practice.”
Page 277
There were definitely some fascinating interviews, but sometimes I found it difficult to see that with the amount of overlap between different peoples opinions. Sometimes, the Venn diagram seemed to be an almost perfect circle. Additionally, as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about, reading and talking about sex & porn, parts of this book were frustrating to read. The interviewees generally weren’t informed about the topic beyond their everyday use, though thankfully most of them had some knowledge from engaging with relevant media such as a podcast episode. Great conversations come from differing levels of knowledge and experience, but the group seemed to have similar levels of experience to each other and Barton, with only one interviewee mentioning having done sex work before. Had Barton been more knowledgeable, or interviewed professionals and academics then I think this book would be all the better for it.
POLLY BARTON: “Most people I’m friends with are sex positive and body positive and so keen to register that they’re down with anything and supportive of everyone. That, for me, is a positive thing but I often sense that when we’re talking about things that are hard to talk about initially, such as sex and porn and intimacy […] that need to be ‘cool’ can present a barrier. There’s an echo of the way people worry about political correctness in this pressure to be pro everything.”
Page 121
I felt it’d be helpful to know the demographics of the people interviewed, so I gathered statistics of the group myself based off of participant intros. Unfortunately, these were written inconsistently, so some people didn’t mention their sexuality or relationship status.
Out of 19 participants, 9 identified as gay or queer whilst 9 either identified themselves as straight, or were in straight passing relationships and didn’t clarify.
The even sexuality divide really surprised me. Age however, was not as evenly distributed. This isn’t too surprising – once again, limited pond. Barton was 39, so it makes sense that most of her acquaintances would be of a similar age. I’m so glad there was an outlier in their 80s though – this book would be far less interesting without him.
A few times, the conversation moved to racism in porn and how that reflects onto the real world. I felt that these sensitive topics were treated with respect and thought from both parties. Topics like how porn can affect our interpretation of attractiveness and desirability, and how real-world minorities are treated as a consequence were discussed. Sometimes I wasn’t sure whether it was Japanese people offering their opinions on Japanese porn, or non-Japanese people who’ve lived in Japan – That makes quite a bit of difference. After all, porn reflects our culture, and whilst it’s okay to criticise from either inside or outside, they’re wildly different viewpoints.
TWELVE: I don’t know what came first: my understanding that Asian women were fetishized, or being aware of porn. It’s always been in my brain. I don’t know when I learned about it, but I think I’ve always known that they’re tied together. For me, one of the main things going on was being compared to a geisha. That, in combination with the misguided belief that geishas are prostitutes. Comparing me to a geisha in their head meant comparing me to a prostitute.
POLLY BARTON: In what kind of context were people doing that?
TWELVE: Probably in the playground at primary school. Then on the street with random men, which started while I was at primary school too and carried on.
Page 230
The book does include an interview with a trans man, but there’s an uncomfortable exchange about trans women far earlier in the book. An interviewee talks about a Japanese porn video he purchased featuring trans women. They both refer to the performers using a problematic Japanese term, and Barton misgenders them.
TWO: “The other one was a ‘new half’ porno. What would be the proper way to say that in English? A trans woman with a penis, basically. But the new halves were the dominant ones in that situation.”
POLLY BARTON: “A new half with another man?”
TWO: “It was a group of new halves with one man.”[…] “Maybe I felt turned on by his reaction rather than the situation. The situation was just -”
POLLY BARTON: “It sounds nuts.”
Page 59
Not liking how it sounded, I asked the opinion of my friend, a trans woman who used to work in Japan – here were her thoughts on the term:
“a transfemme twist on the word “transvestite” – not a word you use now to talk about trans people, but quite a common one for trans people historically. Calling someone “an oriental” might have a similar vibe – used to be kinda fine, now it’s racist – but new half is still kinda fine (in some contexts).”
Despite the cultural knowledge of my wise friend, I continue to struggle with the use of the word. Many websites translate it as a slur, and Barton had the time to add a footnote about it. At the very least, the misgendering should’ve been removed during editing.
Looking at this quote from another angle, contemplate: “It sounds nuts.” The kind of judgement that she displays here comes up on occasion throughout the book. Having not had many of these conversations before, she lacks the non-judgemental attitude of somebody working around sex professionally, whether that’s a regular therapist or a dominatrix.
It’s a lovely book of candid conversations about porn, and works wonderfully as that. However, it misrepresented itself on both the front and back cover. Of course the cover is not the book, but it is there to give you an idea of what to expect, and they failed in this case. I was expecting a lot more history from Porn: An Oral History, though I can clearly see the spirit of Nell Dunn they used to advertise. As for the blurb on the back cover, they ask rhetorical how & why questions, as if they’ll be able to answer them by the time you’re done. But the book wasn’t designed to answer these questions, only to theorise and discuss between people who don’t really know either. I felt misled, and wasn’t alone in this. Pre-release, publishing magazine The Bookseller clearly mistook the title too, announcing “Fitzcarraldo snaps up Barton’s ‘gripping’ history of pornography”. Reading reviews brought up many other people who were confused as well. I agreed with this review:
“I think the title of ‘An Oral HIstory’ (however punning) is misleading and set up expectations for me that the book doesn’t fulfil. This isn’t a ‘history’ at all and doesn’t have any intellectual or scholarly underpinning, and doesn’t explore the topic of porn historically.” [link]
The pun simply wasn’t worth the readers it misled, who purchased one book expecting another, and I’ll be careful about trusting a book published by Fitzcarraldo Editions at first glance again. The title was one mistake, but I actually think the blurb is deceptive. I’m somewhat shocked that it was all approved throughout the publishing chain.
I hoped the closing chapter would neatly round up everything we’d heard previously, and leave us with some parting thoughts. Instead, after the interviews there’s a bizarre tone shift where on a recommendation from a friend she read Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Suddenly, a book of casual conversations becomes an essay and it becomes difficult to read. The words become grand, and the audience is transported from their sofas to an imaginary lecture theatre. It’s totally out of place, unexpected and unnecessary. The essay clearly had a strong effect on Barton, and I think she perhaps wrote her closing sentiments too soon after reading it. It’s a completely different writing style, like a brand new essay rather than part of the book. Thankfully, I didn’t really need a closing chapter anyway, as I found the value in this book lies in the amount of people she asked about this uncommon topic.
It’s difficult for me to sum this book up, having hated it once and enjoyed it the next time. I had a lot to complain about. But if you take away the cover, back cover, introduction and final chapter – I did love the bulk of the book. I loved the bravery with which both the author and the participants showed, putting themselves into a spotlight they weren’t sure they were right or ready for. I enjoyed hearing about people’s first experiences with porn, especially with the formats which seem so old fashioned these days – JPGs painstakingly downloaded over dial up, magazines stolen from the train platform kiosk, mystery film subscription via post… These things just aren’t likely to happen anymore, and it makes me feel nostalgic for old formats and the unique experiences they brought people. I recommend this book, because I have learnt new things and found it interesting. I continue to share stories and reference media I’ve found within its pages. I enjoyed it enough to spend hours writing about it. Barton’s starring role frustrated me, but it doesn’t take away from the great subjects contained within.
One day, I hope I’m able to read (or write!) a book which really is a history of porn, covering the past and present I know, as I could only enjoy this book once I accepted it couldn’t give me that. For now, I’ll try to start with Lisa Z. Sigel’s The People’s Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America, H. Montgomery Hyde’s History of Pornography followed by Robert Rosen’s Beaver Street: A History of Modern Pornography. I’ll just have to hope not much happened in the years between them, and that nothing has happened since!