Synopses & Reviews
From the bestseller lists to teen comedies to Internet hot spots, porn has become ubiquitous and is dramatically affecting men, women, and children in ways we cannot imagine, but should.
Welcome to Porn America. Pornography, once the taboo vice that no one dared to mention, has become part of our daily lives affordable, accessible, anonymous, and, increasingly, acceptable. The all-pornography, all-the-time mentality is everywhere not just in cybersex and Playboy magazine but in mainstream magazines, in Paris Hilton's saleability as a celebrity, in the advice columns of women's magazines, and on the bestseller lists.
But, even more striking, porn has become a big part of the personal lives of many Americans. Critically acclaimed author Pamela Paul argues that as porn has become more pervasive, it has changed our marriages and families as well as our children's ideas of sex and sexuality. In the dozens of interviews and a nationwide Harris poll that she conducted as part of her research for this book, Paul exposes how porn has infiltrated our lives. From a wife agonizing over the late-night hours her husband spends on porn sites to parents stunned to learn that their twelve-year-old son has seen a hardcore porn film, we see the costs and consequences of pornography, as intimacy is replaced by fantasy and emotional isolation.
Pornified is an insightful, shocking, and important investigation that will rekindle the debate on how and where pornography meets the public eye.
Review
"Paul's analysis is wide-ranging....If Paul is far less polemical than, say, Andrea Dworkin, her book reveals a sadness about it all..." Booklist
Review
"Paul fails to prove a national trend, turning what might have been a provocative study into a diatribe....The book's biggest shortcoming is Paul's one-sided examination of the effect of porn on women." Amy Sohn, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Paul] interprets meaning from personal testimony like a prosecutor preparing an indictment. Her analysis implies objectivity while presenting only half a debate." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Shrill and tendentious, Pornified comes across as less a questing investigation than a scattershot polemic. The book communicates its author's outrage effectively. Unfortunately, it does so at the expense of nuanced argument." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Synopsis
Once a taboo vice no one dared to mention, porn has become affordable, accessible, anonymous, and increasingly acceptable. This volume's investigation will further the discussion of how and where porn meets the public eye.
Synopsis
“Strips porn of its culture-war claptrap . . . Pornified may stand as a Kinsey Report for our time.”—San Francisco ChroniclePorn in America is everywhere—not just in cybersex and Playboy but in popular video games, advice columns, and reality television shows, and on the bestseller lists. Even more striking, as porn has become affordable, accessible, and anonymous, it has become increasingly acceptable—and a big part of the personal lives of many men and women.
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 childrens ideas of sex and sexuality. Based on more than one hundred interviews and a nationally representative poll, Pornified exposes how porn has infiltrated our lives, from the wife agonizing over the late-night hours her husband spends on porn Web sites to the parents stunned to learn their twelve-year-old son has seen a hardcore porn film.
Pornified is an insightful, shocking, and important investigation into the costs and consequences of pornography for our families and our culture.
About the Author
Pamela Paul is a contributor to Time magazine and the author of The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony. Formerly a senior editor at American Demographics, she writes for such publications as Psychology Today, Self, Marie Claire, Ladies Home Journal, The Economist, and The New York Times Book Review. She lives in New York.