Laura Helen Marks | Tulane University (original) (raw)

Papers by Laura Helen Marks

Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: American Sexual Representation in the 1970s

Neo-Victorian Cities: Reassessing Urban Politics and Poetics

This chapter explores the neo-Victorian pornographic film adaptation, Jekyll & Hyde (1999), writt... more This chapter explores the neo-Victorian pornographic film adaptation, Jekyll & Hyde (1999), written by Raven Touchstone and directed by Paul Thomas, a big budget Vivid Video production that, this chapter argues, re-centres the women marginalised in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella. In doing so, the film posits what crisis a female Jekyll of the late-Victorian era might experience, and what gendered and classed differences might occur for this dual being in the metropolitan interiors and exteriors on which her transgressions are mapped out. Through its nineteenth-century urban setting, Jekyll & Hyde (1999) suggests that women of a new fin-de-siècle a century later have many of the same concerns regarding transgression, shame, navigation of gendered and classed urban space, and social travel.

Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead

Sexualities, Jan 2014

This essay argues that the frequency and consistency of Victorian-set or Victorianinfluenced porn... more This essay argues that the frequency and consistency of Victorian-set or Victorianinfluenced pornographic films highlight hardcore's reliance on class-and gender-related spatial transgression for erotic appeal: boundaries of public and private that the films specifically associate with Victorian social structures. This essay illuminates a self-reflexive pornographic heritage and demonstrates the peculiar tension between sexual repression and sexual perversity evidenced in cultural understandings of both the 19th-century and modern day pornography. I argue that in such films as A Scent of Heather (1980), Memoirs of a Chambermaid (1987), and Victorian Love Letters (2010), 19th-century material culture and technology, including written text, clothing, furniture, and domestic space, are eroticized in pornographic film specifically in connection with gender and class. In so doing, Victorian sexuality is represented in pornography as simultaneously regressive and perverse, as well as intimately tied to the transgression of strict class boundaries; boundaries that, the films seem to suggest, are no longer present in enlightened modern culture.

Period Porn: On/Scene and Off/Scene Bodily Fluids

While much has been written on semen in pornographic film and literature*, very little has been w... more While much has been written on semen in pornographic film and literature*, very little has been written on the copious other bodily fluids that are staples of sexually explicit, unsimulated media. Semen and other abject fluids such as urine, saliva, and vaginal excretions are often argued to be evidence of pornography’s transgressive instinct; indulgence in the grotesque and base held as evidence of pornography’s socially disruptive nature. While much of this is true, there are many social taboos that remain undisrupted, and even perpetuated, by pornography. An analysis of the absence (and removal via editing) of menstrual blood from pornography can illuminate those areas of society that pornography resists representing, and aids in sanitizing for the presumed heterosexual, male viewer.

A bodily fluid hierarchy can be delineated from industry and fan discourses, as well as film rhetoric. For example, while there are many requests online for visible vaginal secretions, and genres devoted to enemas, faeces, urine, and vomit, there is a conspicuous absence of discourse about menstrual blood. Tellingly, on popular fan website Adult DVD Talk, there are active threads on every conceivable bodily fluid that the site allows, yet when a fan, bi_girl, asked for “period porn” she was immediately accused of trolling, and worse for taking pornographic obscenity too far. Her desire for pornography that depicts menstrual blood was considered beyond the bounds of “normal” pornographic desire. Indeed, bi_girl astutely responded,

'I'm not joking :(. Is it that unfathomable that someone might be turned on by a woman who is on her period? Has no chick ever had an orgasm while they were on their period, masturbating, having sex, [or] otherwise? I see it as no more bizarre than a double anal creampie snowballing, painful anal, "dirty ass to mouth," or even incest fetish, all of which I've seen on this forum. So please, don't be so judgmental. I asked an honest question.'

Two feminist porn sites exist that depict menstruating women: Erotic Red and Bloody Trixie. The webmistress of Erotic Red frames her intent in these terms:

'I built Erotic Red because I think period play is fun, and it's just mind-numbing to read about how most pornographers find menstruation "the lowest of the low" and "crossing the line". It's bizarre to see people nod their heads at any amount of violence and degradation that can be hurled at women, but a little red pussy sends them decrying the foulness of it all. Half of why I built this site was to stick my tongue out at such idiocy, half was to show off healthy ladyblood as being sexy and worthy of awe.'

Through an analysis of a variety of discourses and texts including videos, fan discourse, and behind-the-scenes footage, my paper interrogates questions such as: What is the role of abject bodily waste and bodily fluids in an erotic and pornographic context? Who secretes, ejaculates, receives, and consumes these fluids, and what are the gendered and sexed meanings of these roles? What does it mean that this one gendered bodily fluid is obscene within pornographic discourse? Is menstrual porn a transgressive, feminist gesture? What does the stigma surrounding menstrual porn mean through a feminist lens? What does an interest in menstrual porn mean through a feminist lens?

*Most notably, Linda Williams’s chapter, “Fetishism and Hard Core: Marx, Freud, and the “Money Shot,” in her book, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible” (93-119). A more recent analysis, one that is in many ways more applicable to recent developments in pornographic genre and representation, is Lisa Jean Moore’s chapter, “Overcome: The Money Shot in Pornography and Prostitution” from her book, Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid (71-91) in which she argues that the excessive sperm obsession of recent pornography stems from post-HIV/AIDS male anxiety concerning this bodily fluid.

Podcasts by Laura Helen Marks

The Rialto Report 36: Sharon Kane: "History Should Be Remembered For As Long As It's Needed."

The Rialto Report 26: Jeff Stryker: Porn's Enigmatic Star

The Rialto Report 22: Eric Edwards: Twilight of a Shy Porn Star

The Rialto Report 15: Barbara Broadcast: A Podcast in Four Courses

The Rialto Report 9: The Naughty Victorians (1975)

Interviews and Media by Laura Helen Marks

Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: American Sexual Representation in the 1970s

Neo-Victorian Cities: Reassessing Urban Politics and Poetics

This chapter explores the neo-Victorian pornographic film adaptation, Jekyll & Hyde (1999), writt... more This chapter explores the neo-Victorian pornographic film adaptation, Jekyll & Hyde (1999), written by Raven Touchstone and directed by Paul Thomas, a big budget Vivid Video production that, this chapter argues, re-centres the women marginalised in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella. In doing so, the film posits what crisis a female Jekyll of the late-Victorian era might experience, and what gendered and classed differences might occur for this dual being in the metropolitan interiors and exteriors on which her transgressions are mapped out. Through its nineteenth-century urban setting, Jekyll & Hyde (1999) suggests that women of a new fin-de-siècle a century later have many of the same concerns regarding transgression, shame, navigation of gendered and classed urban space, and social travel.

Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead

Sexualities, Jan 2014

This essay argues that the frequency and consistency of Victorian-set or Victorianinfluenced porn... more This essay argues that the frequency and consistency of Victorian-set or Victorianinfluenced pornographic films highlight hardcore's reliance on class-and gender-related spatial transgression for erotic appeal: boundaries of public and private that the films specifically associate with Victorian social structures. This essay illuminates a self-reflexive pornographic heritage and demonstrates the peculiar tension between sexual repression and sexual perversity evidenced in cultural understandings of both the 19th-century and modern day pornography. I argue that in such films as A Scent of Heather (1980), Memoirs of a Chambermaid (1987), and Victorian Love Letters (2010), 19th-century material culture and technology, including written text, clothing, furniture, and domestic space, are eroticized in pornographic film specifically in connection with gender and class. In so doing, Victorian sexuality is represented in pornography as simultaneously regressive and perverse, as well as intimately tied to the transgression of strict class boundaries; boundaries that, the films seem to suggest, are no longer present in enlightened modern culture.

Period Porn: On/Scene and Off/Scene Bodily Fluids

While much has been written on semen in pornographic film and literature*, very little has been w... more While much has been written on semen in pornographic film and literature*, very little has been written on the copious other bodily fluids that are staples of sexually explicit, unsimulated media. Semen and other abject fluids such as urine, saliva, and vaginal excretions are often argued to be evidence of pornography’s transgressive instinct; indulgence in the grotesque and base held as evidence of pornography’s socially disruptive nature. While much of this is true, there are many social taboos that remain undisrupted, and even perpetuated, by pornography. An analysis of the absence (and removal via editing) of menstrual blood from pornography can illuminate those areas of society that pornography resists representing, and aids in sanitizing for the presumed heterosexual, male viewer.

A bodily fluid hierarchy can be delineated from industry and fan discourses, as well as film rhetoric. For example, while there are many requests online for visible vaginal secretions, and genres devoted to enemas, faeces, urine, and vomit, there is a conspicuous absence of discourse about menstrual blood. Tellingly, on popular fan website Adult DVD Talk, there are active threads on every conceivable bodily fluid that the site allows, yet when a fan, bi_girl, asked for “period porn” she was immediately accused of trolling, and worse for taking pornographic obscenity too far. Her desire for pornography that depicts menstrual blood was considered beyond the bounds of “normal” pornographic desire. Indeed, bi_girl astutely responded,

'I'm not joking :(. Is it that unfathomable that someone might be turned on by a woman who is on her period? Has no chick ever had an orgasm while they were on their period, masturbating, having sex, [or] otherwise? I see it as no more bizarre than a double anal creampie snowballing, painful anal, "dirty ass to mouth," or even incest fetish, all of which I've seen on this forum. So please, don't be so judgmental. I asked an honest question.'

Two feminist porn sites exist that depict menstruating women: Erotic Red and Bloody Trixie. The webmistress of Erotic Red frames her intent in these terms:

'I built Erotic Red because I think period play is fun, and it's just mind-numbing to read about how most pornographers find menstruation "the lowest of the low" and "crossing the line". It's bizarre to see people nod their heads at any amount of violence and degradation that can be hurled at women, but a little red pussy sends them decrying the foulness of it all. Half of why I built this site was to stick my tongue out at such idiocy, half was to show off healthy ladyblood as being sexy and worthy of awe.'

Through an analysis of a variety of discourses and texts including videos, fan discourse, and behind-the-scenes footage, my paper interrogates questions such as: What is the role of abject bodily waste and bodily fluids in an erotic and pornographic context? Who secretes, ejaculates, receives, and consumes these fluids, and what are the gendered and sexed meanings of these roles? What does it mean that this one gendered bodily fluid is obscene within pornographic discourse? Is menstrual porn a transgressive, feminist gesture? What does the stigma surrounding menstrual porn mean through a feminist lens? What does an interest in menstrual porn mean through a feminist lens?

*Most notably, Linda Williams’s chapter, “Fetishism and Hard Core: Marx, Freud, and the “Money Shot,” in her book, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible” (93-119). A more recent analysis, one that is in many ways more applicable to recent developments in pornographic genre and representation, is Lisa Jean Moore’s chapter, “Overcome: The Money Shot in Pornography and Prostitution” from her book, Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid (71-91) in which she argues that the excessive sperm obsession of recent pornography stems from post-HIV/AIDS male anxiety concerning this bodily fluid.

The Rialto Report 36: Sharon Kane: "History Should Be Remembered For As Long As It's Needed."

The Rialto Report 26: Jeff Stryker: Porn's Enigmatic Star

The Rialto Report 22: Eric Edwards: Twilight of a Shy Porn Star

The Rialto Report 15: Barbara Broadcast: A Podcast in Four Courses

The Rialto Report 9: The Naughty Victorians (1975)

Pornography is often talked about as this abstract alien “thing” that has no connection to the re... more Pornography is often talked about as this abstract alien “thing” that has no connection to the real-world experience of any “decent” or “good” person. The thinking goes that since pornography is this anti-feminist and morally damaging abstraction, it must originate from a dark place consumed with hate and misogyny. But what if I told you that, in fact, there’s a whole spectrum of pornography dedicated to paying homage to the most cherished children’s stories and beloved horror classics like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1965), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde (1886), and Dracula (1897)? And how would your opinions of pornographers change if you knew that they loved these books as much as you do? Well, that’s part of the story being told by professor Laura Helen Marks in her book: Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic.