Title:

Author/Artist: Cherie Matrix (Ed)

Publisher: AK Press

Media: Book

Reviewer: Pan

Sub-titled 'A Female Experience of Pornography', this collection of pieces from Feminists Against Censorship features a wide range of women writing about their experiences of porn. That these experiences are as diverse as the contributors should be no surprise, what is a surprise is just how positive some of those experiences are. Reading Avedon Carol writing about how she came to terms with her, er, cunt, by looking at other women's bodies in porn mags is a revelation. Fuck it, she makes looking at porn sound sickeningly healthy.

Not at the experiences are as positive, or written with as much humour as Avedon Carol's piece. Annie Sprinkle, for example, is less than enthusiastic about porn, but even she comes out strongly against censorship. Not that this collection is all heavy about politics. People like Nettie Pollard, of Liberty, make valid political points but for the most part this book is women talking about porn: what turns them on, what turns them off, how they discovered porn, the lies they discovered about porn etc.

The anti-porn feminist is a thing of the past. However, like Daily Mail readers, born again zealots and conservative politicians they've got a knack of hanging on to power. The intellectual arguments of the pro-censorship feminists have been blown to smithereens but they're still the ones presented as the real face of feminism, even though they've got more in common with misogynist religious nutters than anyone.

This is a book worth reading, especially for those people who remain convinced that porn is still a boys thing.