My Life As a Pornographer & Other Indecent Acts [Paperback]

John Preston (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Writer, editor, health educator, and author of the S/M cult classic Mr. Benson ( not reviewed in LJ ), Preston here collects 30 years' worth of essays and lectures on a wide variety of topics with one common theme: sex. The work offered here runs the gamut from the essential and enlightening to the downright silly, with "A Modest Proposal for the Support of the Pornographic Arts" definitely falling into the later category. Preston's sex-positive stand on safer-sex education as the only truly effective AIDS-prevention strategy will certainly not win him any conservative converts, but AIDS activists will be shouting their assent. As the title suggests, Preston celebrates a time when homosexuality was defined in more purely sexual terms, which gives some of the work an oddly nostalgic quality. Despite some contradictions that weaken a few of the more conceptual arguments, Preston's book is a bridge from the sexually liberated 1970s to the more cautious 1990s, and Preston has walked much of that way as a standard-bearer to the cause for equal rights. Recommended for special collections and larger libraries where the topic will be of interest.
- Jeffery Ingram, Newport P.L., Ore.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

An absorbing and witty work. -- Pat Califia

Essential and enlightening. -- Library Journal

Preston has made such insightful excursions into the underground of erotica that he has redefined pornography into a genuine art form. -- Larry Townsend

Preston has never shied away from a vision of the redemptive potential of the erotic drive. Better than perhaps anyone in our community, Preston knows how physical joy can bridge differences and make us well. -- Lambda Book Report

Product Details

• Paperback: 266 pages
• Publisher: Masquerade Books (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563331357
• ISBN-13: 978-1563331350
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,387,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collection of Preston's essays is a Must, September 22, 2002

By 

TammyJo Eckhart "TammyJo Eckhart" (Bloomington, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Life As a Pornographer & Other Indecent Acts (Paperback)

Who knows if this collection will ever see the light of day again but I do know that from time to time some of the 15 essays, an interview with Preston and an set of 4 interviews by Preston, will be printed in more current works about BDSM, pornography, and writing. For Preston pornography seems to be anything that includes sexuality where one of the goals is sexual arousal; a definition you may not personally agree with but it took guts in the late 1980s and very early 1990s to say that. Preston didn't just write pornography but just like today that would not have kept him alive because it pays either so poorly for quality or you create a lot of junk just to pay the bills. In a way, some of these essays could almost be classified as a manifesto for writers, especiallythose of us who use sexuality to communicate, entertain, and investigate humanity. If you aren't interested in the political, the social, and the controversial in gay porn from one of the "masters" of that field, don't buy this book. If you are interested in all of those things or love Preston's work, you have to have this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Philosopher of Art(s), January 6, 2003

By 

Atar Hadari (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Life As a Pornographer & Other Indecent Acts (Paperback)

This book contains, in one of the 4 interviews Preston conducts with people in the extended porn industry, and the many astute and honest remarks about a life spent in the not inconsiderable task of making permanent art out of fleeting desire - it contains the single most perceptive remark I've come across about the dilemma of art versus commerce. The interviewee observed of a series of his activities that in each case, "In the beginning you think, This is going to make me..hard! And that's the greatest rush I've ever had, ..finding something new and different to make me..hard beats them all." Then follows, inevitably, the stage when he asks, "Can I eat doing this? Can I make a living at it? Because, if I can, then I'll be in heaven. I'll have made it to the place I want to be."But, he observes, "It doesn't work that way..It doesn't work that way because, eventually, the second part of the equation takes over and, no matter what you're doing, you're doing it for the business of it and the concerns about making a living are the same, no matter what the job is."

This is a well written, thoughtful collection of essays about the concerns of any artist. It is also refreshingly free of the usual pretension that accompanies such musings when engaged in by poet, painters etc. Pornographers are more fun between the sheets, as well as between the sheets.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Memoir written by Preston (yet strangley not pornographic), December 25, 2005

By 

Julia Starkey (Medford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Life As a Pornographer & Other Indecent Acts (Paperback)

FYI, this book is not pornographic. It's a collection of autobiographical essays that deal with Preston's life. He mixes stories about writing porn with his sexual experiences with stories about interacting with people who read his smut. This is an interesting and enjoyable book that would be of interest to people who haven't read his smut.