Pornography research made easy.

Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide (Vol. 1). By Joseph W. Slade. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001, 392 pages. Cloth, $110.00.

As anyone who has ever tried to do any kind of research on pornography knows, it's a trying job. Owing to the marginalized status of the genre, serious study has only begun relatively recently, and that study has tended to focus itself either on highly abstract theoretical research or equally specialized clinical studies. Lacking an established disciplinary territory of their own, many scholars of pornography have seen their work categorized in various fields outside sexology. Thus, interdisciplinary research--increasingly necessary when trying to come to meaningful conclusions about pornography--has been exceptionally difficult, since one may not even know all of the categories under which a pornographic topic might fall.

Piecing together information from across these many disciplines has been made far easier with the publication of Joseph Slade's Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide (Vol. 1). Scheduled to be published in a total of three volumes, this encyclopedic work aims to provide a thoroughgoing research guide for anyone wanting to conduct serious scholarly work in pornography studies. It will doubtless become the primary touchstone in pornography research for years to come, and be an essential resource for all good research libraries, especially those supporting strong programs in sexology, psychology, gender studies, cultural studies, and the myriad of other disciplines that touch upon pornography in its many forms.

One almost hesitates to refer to Pornography and Sexual Representation as merely a book, since it bears little in common with the sort of monographic study to which most of us are accustomed. Its immense scope and clear purpose as a reference work separate it from the usual sort of narrowly focused exegesis on pornography. Indeed, chief among its many virtues is Slade's encyclopedic knowledge of the field, and this book explores virtually every aspect of American pornography.

Volume 1 begins quite practically, with instructions on "How to Use This Guide." A revealing and refreshingly brief introduction offers clues as to the difficulty of pornographic research as well as to Slade's own, ultimately pragmatic point of view. Next is the "Chronology of Important Dates in the History of American Pornography," which--typically for this work--succinctly and clearly sums up its topic. Slade's chronology is by itself an extraordinarily useful research tool because it combines legal, historical, scientific, and cultural events in one unified, chronological summary, making it much easier to observe possible cross-cultural influences, as well as serving as an at-a-glance reference for all those important dates that one cannot remember. It begins in 1656 with a ship's captain sent to the stocks for kissing his wife on a Sunday, and ends in 1999 by noting that the adult film industry produced 10,000 features that year. In between, the reader is treated to a brief and sometimes amusing account of the development of sexual representation across cultural and media boundaries, as well as the censorship that arose in reaction to it. A brief essay, "Thinking About Pornography," serves as Chapter 2, providing something of a continuation of the preface by discussing the slippery definitions of pornography and how closely related it is to the identity of the party doing the defining. Wryly humorous mention is made of the 1986 Meese Commission report on pornography to illustrate this principle (pp. 32-33).

Chapter 3 provides "A Brief History of American Pornography," and it is indeed the finest short summary of this topic published to date. Incorporating social, political, legal, and cultural developments, Slade effectively uses brief anecdotes and contemporaneous voices to enliven his readable history of American porn. His broad-based knowledge comes in handy here as he is able to intertwine various historical developments with observations on the nature and structure of pornography itself.

All this is by way of introduction to the primary focus of this work: a detailed, narrative analysis of the bibliography and methods of pornography studies. Slade organizes the book into clear and logical categories: "Bibliographies and Reference Tools," "Histories of Sexuality and Its Representation," "Theoretical Works on Erotica and Pornography," "Major Research Collections," and "Child Pornography." Each of these long chapters is subdivided into smaller topics, all of which are outlined in the table of contents, making it easy for the researcher to find a section appropriate to his or her interests. For example, the "Bibliographies and Research Tools" chapter includes a section for "Erotic Art" (pp. 115-18) that thoroughly and accurately refers the reader to the most useful and important resources, with brief annotations and commentary. Important exhibitions and performances are also included, crucial in completing exhaustive research.

"Theoretical Works on Erotica and Pornography" includes a far more wide-ranging array of information than one might suspect exists from the limited range of much recent, self-styled "theoretical" writing. Slade includes here not only the standard feminist pornography debates and related theorizing of the male gaze, but also other political aspects of pornography, pornography as folklore, and esthetic concerns. This broad range of important ideas is distilled into a series of succinct and clearly stated essays, often summing up ideas far better than the original authors could.

Chapter 7, "Major Research Collections," is of immense practical use for the researcher, especially for someone just beginning to venture into the world of pornography studies. Not only does Slade cover all the most famous libraries and archives of erotica and pornography, but he also gives advice as to the various collections' strengths and weaknesses, pointing a scholar in the right direction to avoid wasting time chasing dead ends. He even considers issues of censorship and the conservation of pornographic materials in collections.

Slade's lucid and balanced treatment of "Child Pornography" in Chapter 8, although brief, goes a long way toward clearing the air on this highly emotional and controversial issue. One rarely finds an account that so successfully avoids polemics while simultaneously being so informative. His concluding paragraph is illustrative of his straightforward and rational approach:

   To sum up, no responsible critic would deny that child pornography is
   reprehensible and in some circumstances threatening, but those most
   genuinely concerned know that inflammatory and misleading statements will
   never engage the syndrome in any significant way. At base, the problem is
   that psychiatrists do not really understand pedophilia ... Few issues have
   demonstrated so much potential for folklore or for so much moral and
   intellectual corruption of law enforcement agencies. Scholars should be
   wary. (p. 358)

Note the simple, direct exhortation to "be wary" rather than clouding the issue with extended rhetoric. This is typical here; in fact, one of the wonderful qualities of Slade's book is his smooth and readable prose style. It is difficult to imagine a reader being thoroughly drawn into what is basically a scholarly annotated bibliography, but Slade does just that through his frank, clear, and straightforward writing. Even when dealing with highly complex theoretical subjects such as feminist or Freudian theory, Slade has a gift for breaking down the abstract language of sometimes self-indulgent theorists into simple, understandable prose. He frequently structures his narrative in the form of a sort of debate, presenting arguments pro and con in a classically Hegelian synthesis. This comes in handy particularly in contentious areas such as feminist views on pornography and the political struggles surrounding pornography's suppression.

His gift for creating an enjoyable read gives rise to frequent and pleasant serendipitous discoveries of new resources: for instance, who would have suspected that the library of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has "set aside a collection of erotica and scholarly texts" (p. 334)? Crucial pop cultural materials are made easier to access by Slade's thorough and easy-to-read cataloging and description of adult industry magazines (pp. 122-127). Similarly, it is hard not to be entertained by his wry account of the notorious Meese Commission report of the 1980s (pp. 32-33, 205-208), even though it takes the form of a narrative bibliographic essay.

Among the minor flaws in Slade's work--and they are very few--is the relatively small number of foreign language resources. Certainly he does include major references, particularly in German. However, Europeans have offered significant contributions to the study of pornography, and their representation here is relatively meager. This is certainly due to Slade's clearly-stated and reasonable focus on American pornography, but one wishes that he had been able to broaden his focus to include Europe, if only because he does such an excellent job of analyzing the genre. Another minor problem is that the index will not be forthcoming until volume three. Since individual volumes can easily be used on their own, separate, smaller indices might be useful.

However, these issues are really just hairsplitting; it is difficult to find fault with such a magisterial work simply because the author did not cast an already broad net even wider. Slade's work is a major contribution to the study of pornography, and it marks the arrival of pornography studies as a legitimate field of scholarship. There is simply nothing else like it, and Slade's book is bound to provide a benchmark for all subsequent research, as well as making that research itself far easier.

Reviewed by Joe A. Thomas, Ph.D., Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Department of Art, 840 Wood Street, Clarion, PA 16214; e-mail: [e-mail]. ldren is soci tal homophobi