Tales from the clit: a female experience of pornography, ed. by Cherie Matrix for Feminists Against Censorship

Tales from the clit: a female experience of pornography, ed. by Cherie Matrix for Feminists Against Censorship.

This book from the organization Feminists Against Censorship presents a set of essays by women about their personal experiences with pornography, as readers, as publishers, as teachers, and in other contexts. The subtext of this book is far more about censorship and state power than about pornography. The juxtaposition of these two issues from an overall feminist perspective makes for interesting reading.

The perspectives in this collection may be new to American readers for whom the issue of censorship is bound up with the Constitutional right to free speech. Almost all of the writers are based in Britain, where there is no First Amendment. To promulgate anti-pornography laws in the U.S. is paradoxically an option even for those who don't believe in censorship, since any censorship implied in the law can be expected to be limited by First Amendment rights. To promulgate anti-pornography laws elsewhere may be an entirely different matter. For this reason, the question of whether feminists should promote, accept or seek to ban pornography becomes quite a different issue when there is...