Jacob Knowles-Smith considers whether gender politics have lost their direction and clout through the prism of two recent books Anyone who has even the briefest acquaintance with nightclubs in recent years will have seen girls dressed as Playboy bunnies in almost just their underwear, replete with stockings and suspenders, quite as frequently as one will […]
Chuck Palahniuk – Snuff
Dan Coxon Over the last few years Chuck Palahniuk has revelled in the sordid, the grotesque, and the downright dirty like a particularly literate pig in shit, and for many readers his decision to set a novel within the pornography industry must have seemed like a marriage made in Heaven, or at least the more […]
Bettie Page : The Notorious Bettie Page
James McConalogue Bettie Page Confidential See all books about Bettie Page at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Directed by Mary Hannon and starring Gretchen Mol [Bettie Page], this film celebrates the equally despised and distinguished iconic heroine, in part responsible for the advent of modern pornography. It is a significant problem when a director attempts to chart […]
Diablo Cody : Candy Girl – A Year In The Life Of An Unlikely Stripper
“…I found it to be cathartic, a very weird, twisted form of self-expression. I think I got addicted to just how subversive and how fun it was compared to my every day life…”
Carly Milne – Naked Ambition: Women Who Are Changing Porn
Chris Mitchell A collection of essays from women working in the US porn industry and women consuming porn outside it, Naked Ambition is an intelligent and provocative survey of pro-porn female opinions. There’s little in the way of gushing praise about the industry itself – most of the writers agree that newcomers get eaten alive […]
Annabel Chong : Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
Robin Askew meets porn star Annabel Chong to discuss her infamous DVD documentary Sex: The Annabel Chong Story “Oh my god – this couple just turned around and gave me a dirty look!” Annabel Chong giggles like a schoolgirl. “It’s like, no sex please we’re British.” Perhaps unwisely, she’d stepped outside her film company’s noisy […]
Lawrence O’Toole : Pornocopia : Talking Dirty
Chris Mitchell meets Lawrence O’Toole, author of Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology and Desire It’s a well-worn joke that any dinner-party discussion of the Internet will inevitably include a mention of finding pornography while on- line. As Lawrence O’Toole points out in his book, Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology And Desire, the Internet has been the biggest […]
Julian Murphy : The Singular Art Of Julian Murphy : Hoover Groover
Robin Askew discovers why artist Julian Murphy turns household appliances into fetish objects of desire Bristolian born and bred, 40-year-old Julian Murphy studied Design for Print at Brunel College. His acclaimed fetish art, which he describes as “sciperepics”, transforms everyday household appliances into extraordinary objects of desire. Critics have compared Julian’s work to that of […]
Laurence O’Toole: Pornocopia
Robin Askew "To write, as I have, with an enthusiasm for something so loathed in certain quarters is maybe asking for trouble," acknowledges Independent, New Statesman and Daily Telegraph contributor Laurence O’Toole in his introduction to this excellent survey of "porn, sex, technology and desire". He’s certainly seen enough of the stuff during his three […]
Laura Hird: Nail And Other Stories
Gary Marshall Rebel Inc was started in 1992 with the intention of promoting “a new wave of young urban Scottish writers who were kicking back against the literary mainstream”. Laura Hird first appeared on their “Children Of Albion Rovers” collection and Nail And Other Stories is her first short story collection for the publisher. The […]
Patricia Morrisroe: Robert Mapplethorpe: A Biography
Nick Clapson Robert Mapplethorpe has long been a contentious figure in the art world, with much of this debate focusing on whether or not his erotic/homoerotic photographs trespass the boundaries of pornography. This is a matter which becomes especially prejudiced by the fact that they often deal with the difficult subject of gay sadomasochism. Much […]
