Debbie Nathan
Blue moviedom at Bluestockings
Hey New York City! This Saturday, January 26 at 7 p.m. at the feminist Bluestockings bookstore on the Lower East Side. I’m presenting my new book Pornography. It was published late last year by Groundwood, a Canadian children’s press.
Children’s press? Porn for Kids??
Officially, Pornography is part of a “social issues” series for older high school and younger college students, intended as a tool for writing research papers.
But a funny thing happened during writing and post publication: I noticed that seasoned adults, too, were intrigued when I described my research and later passed around my book.
That makes sense. Pornography is an easy, quick read (and it’s quite stashable in purse or pocket since it’s a little paperback). It’s current-eventsy and analytical. It takes up all the old pro- and anti- arguments from the 1960s to 1980s, updating them to the politics, personalities, genres and technology of today’s age of the hyper-commodity and Internet.
These homemaker pals from southern California manufacture and sell “Erotic Pornatas” — take offs on Mexican party pinatas — as a group hobby. I photographed them at an adult-entertainment trade show in Las Vegas in 2005 while researching my book Pornography.
Caveat: No pix in the book. But I did view lots of material for my research. Maybe that’ll save you the time to do other things. Or, if you’re into porn, you can compare your experience with my comments and interpretations.
Come by Bluestockings on Saturday (or just buy the book! Click here). Follow along as MILR (Mother I’d Love to Read) Deb debunks myths and adds nuance to claims such as:
• Porn is growing financially by leaps and bounds.
• Most porn workers were abused as children.
• Porn industry profit makers are all greedy shmucks.
• Porn endangers women, especially the violent shit being mainstreamed nowadays.
• Porn oppresses performers.
• Porn addicts men.
• Porn is liberating.
• Porn is fun.
• Porn is ruining sex for people in the real world.
• Porn pressures everyday women to get Brazilians and boob jobs.
• Gonzo. Bukkake. Gag Factor. Jenna Jameson. Nina Hartley. Twink. Robert Jensen.
• Blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Join the blah and explore why there’s so much of it in the first place! Which may be the real point (also seriously discussed in Pornography).
Here are directions to Bluestockings:
On the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington – 1 block south of Houston and 1st Avenue.
By train: 1 block south of the F train’s 2nd Avenue stop and just 5 blocks from the JMZ-line’s Essex / Delancey Street stop. By car: If you take the Houston exit off of the FDR, then turn left onto Essex (aka Avenue A), then right on Rivington, and finally right on Allen, you will be very, very close.