The Sex Scene
Space, Place, Industry
Will be published approx. on 30. June 2026
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-1-3995-2001-0 (ISBN)
Description
The Sex Scene Volume 1: Space, Place and History complements The Sex Scene Volume 2: Representation, Performance Industry. The volumes are also intended to work as standalone collections, offering a comprehensive yet accessible starting point for students, scholars and researchers exploring representations of sex on screen and its significance in sexual cultures.
Collectively, the essays consider histories and controversies (screen, legal, censorial, critical), industrial contexts and labour (writing, directing, performing, editing), the mise-en-scene of the sex scene (content, aesthetics, representation) and temporality and approach (in genres, form and style).
Collectively, the essays consider histories and controversies (screen, legal, censorial, critical), industrial contexts and labour (writing, directing, performing, editing), the mise-en-scene of the sex scene (content, aesthetics, representation) and temporality and approach (in genres, form and style).
Reviews / Votes
At a moment when sex scenes are reportedly disappearing from mainstream cinema, editors Darren Kerr and Donna Peberdy bring together a diverse and engaging collection of essays that interrogate what this absence means. Spanning contemporary screen media, this volume offers fresh, timely insights into how sexual content is shaped, regulated and reimagined. * Clarissa Smith, Professor of Media, Northumbria University *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
22 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-2001-0 (9781399520010)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Darren Kerr is Associate Professor of Sexual Cultures and Head of the Bath School of Art, Film and Media at Bath Spa University, UK. His research interests focus on the politics and representation of sexual cultures on screen. His publications largely focus on pornography, perversion and sexual violence, and include Hard to Swallow: Hard-core Pornography on Screen (2012), Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion (2017) and two-volume collection The Sex Scene (2026). He is series editor of?Edinburgh University Press's Screening Sex book series, a member of Routledge's Porn Studies editorial board and co-director of the Screening Sex network. Donna Peberdy?is Associate Professor of Performance, Sex and Gender at Southampton Solent University, UK. Her publications include?Masculinity and Film Performance: Male Angst in Contemporary American Cinema?(2011),?Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion?(2017) and two-volume collection?The Sex Scene?(2026). She is a series editor of?Edinburgh University Press's Screening Sex book series and co-director of the Screening Sex network. Donna is currently writing a book?Screening Sexual Violence, supported by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship.
Content
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Sex seen and unseen: The dialectics of the sex scene
Darren Kerr and Donna Peberdy
Part I. Locations, Boundaries, Histories
1. Goin' up the country: Early adult film production and exhibition in Eugene, Oregon
Peter Alilunas
2. If you're feeling blue: The screening of hardcore pornography on Britain
Oliver Carter
3. Speculative methods for excavating gay industry history: Jack Jackson's leather cowboy scene in San Diego County
Farrah Freibert
4. Open secrets, closed doors and national treasures: Social responsibility and cultural reparation in narratives of child sexual abuse
Darren Kerr
Part II Censorship, Regulation, Legislation
5. The scene and the seen: Discourses in censorship and female pleasure in India
Darshana Sreedhar Mini
6. Pushing the boundaries of screening sex and sexuality in popular Egyptian cinema: The Malatili Bathhouse
Samar Abdel-Rahman
7. 'The sex in them is as ludicrous as anything else': Thinking through sex, shit and the censor with John Waters' Pink Flamingos
Katie Arthur
Part III Technology, Consumption, Commodification
8. From Sex and the City to Grace and Frankie: Changing representations of sex toys and sex tech on Screen
Lynn Comella
9. Stars and seduction in tantai Films: Exploring the sexual logics of contemporary Japan via adult videos
Thomas Baudinette and Alexandra Hambleton
10. The frenzy of the intelligible: AI sex scenes in Her and Blade Runner 2049
Laurence Kent
11. Sex on the very small screen: Data cultures and sexual consent
Rebecca Saunders
Part IV Collectivity, Connections, Affect
12. On crowd sex: Crowd psychology, crowd pornography and Fleapit
Gabriel Ojeda-Sague
13. Watching porn in public: Ann Hirsch's Cuts series at The Pleasure Principle exhibition
Kylie Harris
14. 'We don't have any queer porn in Finland': Ephemerality of a scene
Susanna Paasonen and Daniel Cardoso
Index
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Sex seen and unseen: The dialectics of the sex scene
Darren Kerr and Donna Peberdy
Part I. Locations, Boundaries, Histories
1. Goin' up the country: Early adult film production and exhibition in Eugene, Oregon
Peter Alilunas
2. If you're feeling blue: The screening of hardcore pornography on Britain
Oliver Carter
3. Speculative methods for excavating gay industry history: Jack Jackson's leather cowboy scene in San Diego County
Farrah Freibert
4. Open secrets, closed doors and national treasures: Social responsibility and cultural reparation in narratives of child sexual abuse
Darren Kerr
Part II Censorship, Regulation, Legislation
5. The scene and the seen: Discourses in censorship and female pleasure in India
Darshana Sreedhar Mini
6. Pushing the boundaries of screening sex and sexuality in popular Egyptian cinema: The Malatili Bathhouse
Samar Abdel-Rahman
7. 'The sex in them is as ludicrous as anything else': Thinking through sex, shit and the censor with John Waters' Pink Flamingos
Katie Arthur
Part III Technology, Consumption, Commodification
8. From Sex and the City to Grace and Frankie: Changing representations of sex toys and sex tech on Screen
Lynn Comella
9. Stars and seduction in tantai Films: Exploring the sexual logics of contemporary Japan via adult videos
Thomas Baudinette and Alexandra Hambleton
10. The frenzy of the intelligible: AI sex scenes in Her and Blade Runner 2049
Laurence Kent
11. Sex on the very small screen: Data cultures and sexual consent
Rebecca Saunders
Part IV Collectivity, Connections, Affect
12. On crowd sex: Crowd psychology, crowd pornography and Fleapit
Gabriel Ojeda-Sague
13. Watching porn in public: Ann Hirsch's Cuts series at The Pleasure Principle exhibition
Kylie Harris
14. 'We don't have any queer porn in Finland': Ephemerality of a scene
Susanna Paasonen and Daniel Cardoso
Index