Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America - Softcover

Kipnis, Laura

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822323435 ISBN 13: 9780822323433

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 1998

Synopsis

In a book that completely changes the terms of the pornography debate, Laura Kipnis challenges the position that porn perpetuates misogyny and sex crimes. First published in 1996, Bound and Gagged opens with the chilling case of Daniel DePew, a man convicted—in the first computer bulletin board entrapment case—of conspiring to make a snuff film and sentenced to thirty-three years in prison for merely trading kinky fantasies with two undercover cops.
Using this textbook example of social hysteria as a springboard, Kipnis argues that criminalizing fantasy—even perverse and unacceptable fantasy—has dire social consequences. Exploring the entire spectrum of pornography, she declares that porn isn’t just about gender and that fantasy doesn’t necessarily constitute intent. She reveals Larry Flynt’s Hustler to be one of the most politically outspoken and class-antagonistic magazine in the country and shows how fetishes such as fat admiration challenge our aesthetic prejudices and socially sanctioned disgust. Kipnis demonstrates that the porn industry—whose multibillion-dollar annual revenues rival those of the three major television networks combined—know precisely how to tap into our culture’s deepest anxieties and desires, and that this knowledge, more than all the naked bodies, is what guarantees its vast popularity.
Bound and Gagged challenges our most basic assumptions about America’s relationship with pornography and questions what the calls to eliminate it are really attempting to protect.

About this title

Review:

Laura Kipnis, who teaches film at Northwestern University, adopts an unpopular stance: that of speaking for those whose sexual tendencies stray from the acceptable path. As such, she adds a different perspective in the always-raging debate on the role of pornography in America. Among her arguments is that pornography is often overlooked as a class issue, couched instead almost always as a morality matter. Realizing that many of those employed by the sex industry and those who support it are separated by class from those who deem it so unsavory, provides a particular insight into the perspective of those sitting in judgment.

From the Back Cover:

"In "Bound and Gagged," Laura Kipnis demonstrates that she is the Marx and Freud of porn."--Constance Penley, author of" NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America"

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0822323435
• ISBN 13: 9780822323433
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240