Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century [Hardcover]

Robert J. Stoller M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 1991

Bill, Merlin, Happy and Kay are among the porn-film performers and producers who tell their stories to Dr. Robert J. Stoller in this psychodynamic ethnography of adult heterosexual pornography. Their accounts reveal not only the inner workings of "the Industry" and the fantasies and motivations of its participants but also the relation between this most denigrated of occupations and "normal" human erotic behaviour and attitudes. Nonjudgmental about the material he presents, Dr. Stoller nevertheless draws provocative conclusions about porn, its practitioners and its effects on society. Everyone at work on a porn production, he says, uses it as a vehicle for unloading his or her rage against something - mores, institutions, laws, parents, females or males. Accdording to Dr. Stoller, pornography does not exist only to degrade women, there is no reliable evidence that it increases the frequency of rape, and (with the exception of child porn) it does little harm. Pornography, say Dr. Stoller, seems more the result of our changing society than a cause of change; it reflects, more than influences, our values and mores.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stoller's self-styled "ethnographic" study of heterosexual pornography consists of reprinting transcripts of his interviews with porn actresses, actors, directors and producers. Much of the material has the aura of a hardcore flesh magazine. Affecting a nonjudgmental attitude, he writes in a short concluding chapter that most porn scripts are not "simply anti-female . . . these stories are often full of freedom--women depicted having a marvelous time." Most pornography "does little good and little harm" except for child porn, he avers. A UCLA professor of psychiatry, Stoller qualifies his position in his summary analysis, stating that anger or rebellion against one's parents and society underlies most pornography, that it exploits men as well as women and that a desire to degrade or be degraded is an element of pornography.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (October 23, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300050925
• ISBN-13: 978-0300050929
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,338,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pornographic Ethnography, February 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

If porn is our publicly consumed sexual fantasy, what will we discover by examining the creators and performers of that fantsy world? In a series of minimally edited interviews Stoller explores the realities and fantasies of workers in the heterosexual "porn" industry. The interviews are great. Stoller is a little too apologetic about his not being an anthropologist, but his input as a psychoanalyst sheds a lot of light into an area of study which needs it badly.