Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained: Obscenity Law and Histories of Queer Distribution and Exhibition

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Farrah Freibert (Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the School of Media Arts, Southern Illinois University)

Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained

Obscenity Law and Histories of Queer Distribution and Exhibition

Farrah Freibert (Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the School of Media Arts, Southern Illinois University)

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English

Edinburgh University Press
30 November 2025

Film theory & criticism; Film movie production: technical skills

Series: Screening Sex

Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained tracks how women and gay male entrepreneurs were central to the production, distribution and exhibition of adult media in and adjacent to Los Angeles County, and how these key players used industrial tactics to introduce new and more explicit forms of cultural production.

The book develops a queer media industry studies approach to analyse how these creative entrepreneurs ventured into the nascent commercial adult film industry by maneuvering around and sometimes colliding with cultural regulatory mechanisms of censorship. Moving beyond representational approaches to censorship, this book's novel examination of production, distribution and exhibition provides insights into the industrial and cultural interworkings of historical adult media industries and how content is related to business developments and constraints.

Through this investigation, the book assesses manifold modes of censorship ranging from bureaucratic restrictions on market availability to law enforcement's stringent policing of exhibition spaces under legal regimes including obscenity.

By: Farrah Freibert (Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the School of Media Arts Southern Illinois University)
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781399537131
ISBN 10: 139953713X
Series: Screening Sex
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 30 November 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Towards a Queer Media Industry Studies 1. “Queer Doings in the Balcony”: the emergence and policing of Continental Theaters, 1961-1969 2. Producing “gay aesthetic red”: audience stakeholders and racial-sexual contracts in the production and exhibition of Song of the Loon 3. Feminist Alchemy: Nancy Lindsey and the policing of distribution and exhibition in 1970s Southern California 4. Documentary real estate: place and property politics in histories of Circus of Books Conclusion: Archival outrage: censoring history through archival destruction Index

Farrah Freibert is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the School of Media Arts at Southern Illinois University. With research that spans media history and industry studies, global media circulations and LGBTQ+ history, she has published widely in peer-reviewed scholarly venues such as Film Criticism, JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, Monstrum, Porn Studies, the Journal of Homosexuality, Spectator, Synoptique, and Flow: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture. Dr. Freibert is coeditor with Alicia Kozma of Refocus: The Films of Doris Wishman (2021).

Reviews for Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained: Obscenity Law and Histories of Queer Distribution and Exhibition

In Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained, Farrah Freibert offers a fresh perspective on how queer visibility and experience were shaped by infrastructures rather than content or identity. By foregrounding distribution and exhibition, the book introduces new critical frameworks for understanding how obscenity law, sexual politics, and media industries intersect. Its emphasis on the 1960s and 1970s - marked by legal flux and emerging queer publics - challenges dominant narratives around deviance, visibility, and the regulation of sexual culture. It’s a timely and necessary intervention that will be valuable to scholars across film and media studies, queer history, and cultural studies more broadly. * Clarissa Smith *