Dildos and Cyborgs: Feminist Body-Politics in Porn from the 1970s to Posthumanism

Abstract

The article examines different – and in particular conflicting – feminist positions with respect to pornography which have been developed from the 1970s until today, focusing on the issue of the construction of sexual and gender identities. An analysis is carried out on how these identities in regards to the pornographic body are negotiated or even shifted within these different feminist discourses and practices. Starting with a brief examination of the discourse about pornography in the phase when the sexual revolution ended, subsequently the PorNO-campaign of the German feminist journal Emma – launched in 1987 – is discussed more precisely. This campaign represented anti-pornographic feminism which had been criticized by sex-positive feminism developing the so-called post-pornographic approach. The second part of the article looks into the post-porn discourse from the early eighties – Annie Sprinkle – until the queer-feminist-posthumanist intervention in the field of sexuality and pornography by Beatriz Preciado. Finally, the political potential of queer-feminist post-porn in subverting the existing regime of sexuality is  considered.