When I was 19, I had a summer job supervising a playground. It was a pretty lame job. It paid […]
Gilead: An Antiporn Utopia
In a recent article for Feminist Current, Gail Dines draws parallels between two TV series currently causing a stir: Netflix’s […]
The Spoils of War: A Review of Sex and the Civil War
Many years ago when I was first starting my dissertation research on Civil War disability, I had an opportunity to […]
Sex and the Civil War
The image of Donald Trump signing an order reinstating the global gag rule this February was striking. Surrounded by a […]
Average-looking Married Couples Having Caring, Respectful Sex
A friend of mine recently lamented that when he sat his teenage son down to have “The Talk,” he had […]
Stags, Smokers, and Coochies: Adventures in Old-Timey Porn
By Jacqueline Antonovich
Well it’s the day after Valentine’s Day, faithful Nursing Clio readers, and what better way to nurse our romance hangovers than a good, old-fashioned chat about the history of porn. Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I spent a good deal of this past semester looking at lots and lots and lots of porn. In fact, between September and December of 2012, I probably viewed more “pornographic” images than I have in my entire life. This immersion into “adult entertainment” was not something I ever envisioned as being a part of my graduate school journey, but it’s a funny thing where one finds herself on the way to a PhD. Don’t get me wrong, as a historian of gender and medicine, I have seen my fair share of historical lady parts and man bits – just not quite from this perspective. But you see, when acclaimed cultural anthropologist, Gayle Rubin offers a graduate seminar on the infamous Feminist Sex Wars of the 1970s and 80s, you don’t hesitate to jump right into the porn fire.