Books

Featured Books

Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked our Sexuality (2011, Beacon Press)
By Gail Dines
This book takes an unflinching look at today’s porn industry: the stories woven into the images, the impact on our culture, the effects on us as men and women, the business machine that creates and markets porn, and the growing legitimacy of porn in mainstream media. Above all, Pornland examines the way porn shapes and limits sexual imaginations and behaviors. Although we are surrounded by pornographic images, many people are not aware of just how cruel and violent the industry is today. Pornland shows how today’s porn is strikingly different from yesterday’s Playboy and Penthouse magazines— how competition in the industry and consumer desensitization have pushed porn toward hard core extremes. And, with the advent of the internet and other digital technologies, users don’t have to wander far to access porn; today, the average age of first viewing is about 11 for boys, and studies reveal that young men, who consume more porn than ever before, have difficulty forming healthy relationships.

The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography (2010, Harper)
By Wendy Maltz and Larry Maltz
A groundbreaking, comprehensive and compassionate resource. The Porn Trap is the first book to address the full range of pornography-related problems, which have skyrocketed since the explosion of the Internet in recent years. Based on interviews and dramatic true stories, this book provides help for everyone from the recreational “dabbler” to the compulsive addict, as well as partners of porn addicts.

Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming our Lives, our Relationships and our Families (2005, Owl Books)
By Pamela Paul
In this controversial and critically acclaimed book, Pamela Paul argues that as porn becomes more pervasive, it is destroying our marriages and families as well as distorting our children's ideas of sex and sexuality. Based on more than one hundred interviews and a nationally representative poll.

Not For Sale (2004, Spinifex Press)
Edited by Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant
Including the latest research on prostitution and pornography, this essay anthology shows how the sex industries harm those within them while undermining the possibilities for gender justice, human equality, and stable sexual relationships. From sex industries survivors to social activists and theorists such as Taylor Lee, Adriene Sere, and Kristen Anderberg, this volume asses from a feminist perspective the racism, poverty, militarism, and corporate capitalism of selling sex through strip clubs, brothels, mail-order brides, and child pornography.

Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry (2012, Spinifex Press)
By Abigail Bray and Melinda Tankard Reist (editors)
Reveals the truths of an industry that trades in violence, crime, and degradation while discussing topics such as racism in gay male porn, the use of animals in porn, and child pornography.

Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (2007, South End Press)
By Robert Jensen
In his most personal and difficult book to date, Robert Jensen launches a powerful critique of mainstream pornography that promises to reignite one of the fiercest debates in contemporary feminism. At once alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough but crucial questions about pornography, manhood, and paths toward genuine social justice.

Selected Books

• Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1975) by Susan Brownmiller; Fawcett Books.
• Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm (1993) by Diana E.H. Russell; Russell Publications.
• The Age of Sex Crime (1987) by Jane Caputi; Women’s Press.
• AntiClimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution (1990) by Sheila Jeffreys; Women’s Press.
• Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues (2006) by Catharine A. MacKinnon; Bellknap Harvard.
• Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (2005) by Sheila Jeffreys; Routledge.
• Breaking the Cycle: Free Yourself from Sex Addiction, Porn Obsession and Shame (2011) by George Collins and Andrew Adleman; New Harbinger.
• Children Who Don't Speak Out: About Children Being Abused in Child Pornography
  (1997) by Carl Goran Svedin, Kristina Back, and Radda Barnen; Taylor & Francis.
• Dangerous Relationships: Pornography, Misogyny, and Rape (1998) by Diana E.H. Russell; Sage Publications.
• The Drug of the New Millennium: The Brain Science Behind Internet Pornography Use (2007) by Mark B. Kastleman; PowerThink.
• Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009) (Chapter on  Porn, "The Illusion of Love") by Chris Hedges; Nation Books.
• The End of Manhood: Parables on Sex and Selfhood (1993) by John Stoltenberg; UCL Press.
• Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (2005) by Ariel Levy; Free Press.
• Female Sexual Slavery (1979) by Kathleen Barry; New York University Press.
• Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (2009) by Michael Kimmel; Harper Perennial.
• How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale (2004) by Jenna Jameson and Neal Strauss; Regan Books.
• The Idea of Prostitution (1997) by Sheila Jeffreys; Spinifex Press.
• In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (1997) by Catharine A. MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin; Harvard University Press.
  Testimony of men and women whose lives were affected by pornography.
• Letters from a War Zone (1988) by Andrea Dworkin; Lawrence Hill Books or Secker & Warburg.
• Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women (1997) by Andrea Dworkin; Free Press.
• The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help (2006) by Jackson Katz; Source Books.
• Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography (1993) edited by Diana E. H. Russell; Teachers College Press.
• Men Confront Pornography (1991) edited by Michael S. Kimmel; Meridian Books, or Crown.
• Only Words (1996) by Catharine MacKinnon; Harvard University Press.
• Ordeal (1980) by Linda Lovelace, with Mike McGrady; Citadel Press.
  The truth behind “Deep Throat”
• Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (1976) by Andrea Dworkin; Harper & Row or Women’s Press.
• Out of Bondage (1986) by Linda Lovelace, with Mike McGrady; Berkley Books.
  The follow-up to Ordeal.
• Out of the Shadows (2001) by Patrick Carnes, Hazelden.
  This book may help demystify a partner's behavior that may be indicative of secretive sexual activity.
• Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking (2007) edited by David E. Guinn and Julie DiCaro; Captive Daughters Media.
• Pornography and Sexual Aggression (1984) edited by Neil M. Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein; Academic Press.
• Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981) by Andrea Dworkin; E P Dutton, or Women’s Press Ltd.
• Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (1998) by Gail Dines, Robert Jensen and Ann Russo; Routledge.
• Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations (1989) edited by Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties (1993) edited by Catherine Itzin; Oxford University Press.
• Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders (2004), by Anna Salter; Basic Books.
• The Price We Pay: The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography (1995) edited by Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado; Hill and Wang. A collection of essays on racist speech, hate propaganda, and pornography, with an emphasis on legal issues.
  Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections (2007) by Melissa Farley; Prostitution Research & Education.
• The Prostitution of Sexuality (1995) by Kathleen Barry; New York University Press.
• Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress (2003) edited by Melissa Farley; Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press.
• Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice (2000) by John Stoltenberg; Routledge.
• The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism (1990) edited by Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G. Raymond; The Athene series, Pergamon Press.
  Among contributors are Catharine MacKinnon, Twiss Butler, Phyllis Chesler, Evelina Giobbe, Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Susan Cole, and Sheila Jeffreys.
• Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (1980) edited by Laura Lederer; William Morrow & Co, or Quill.
  A collection of essays on pornography.
• Transforming a Rape Culture -- revised edition (2005) edited by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela R. Fletcher and Martha Roth; Milkweed Editions.
• What's the Big Deal About Pornography? A Guide for the Internet Generation (2008) by Jill C. Manning; Shadow Mountain.
• Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain (2009) by William M. Struthers; IVP Books.
• Woman Hating (1974) by Andrea Dworkin; E.P. Dutton or Plume.
• Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws (2005) by Catharine A. MacKinnon; Belknap Harvard Press.