Sex Scene

In 1968 researchers at the National Sex Forum said it was time to say yes to sex. Decades later, researchers in Sex Scene say it is time to say yes to the study of sex media. Finally! The strikingly original essays in this wide-ranging collection boldly argue that the sexual revolution needs to be understood as the mass mediated affair that gave rise to our current debates about privacy, policy, and technology. The books, magazines, newspapers, movies, TV programs, and Broadway shows of 1968, and even Lyndon Johnson's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, took such a prurient interest in sex that they gave prurience a good name, inciting that cultural move-from sex in the bedroom to sex in public-known as the sexual revolution. Sex Scene will make us all a lot smarter on the complex and controversial relation of sex and media as we teach, debate, and legislate it. -- Constance Penley, author of NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America Focusing on a wide range of topics and media, Eric Schaefer's anthology Sex Scene offers a complex and comprehensive history of the sexual revolution. The collection is a massive contribution to the study of sexual representation in the 1960s and 1970s. -- Jon Lewis, author of Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle over censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry [Schaefer has] assembled a stellar lineup of academic authors who know their stuff. That their stuff includes everything from MPAA ratings flaps and 'party records' to the (ahem) rise of porn chic and how TV's The Love Boat struggled to hint at cabin couplings, means the book is like a class you wish existed, just so you could audit the entire semester. Collectively, the text is the smartest person at the party without also being the snobbish dick at said soiree... -- Rod Lott Bookgasm An important contribution to late 20th century history and will be of interest to scholars in media and cultural studies as well to historians. European Journal of Communication [A] remarkable collection of essays about the ways in which media disrupted and recalibrated assumptions about sex and sexuality in the US during the late 1960s and early 1970s... An important collection for anyone interested in media history, sexual regulation, and political activism/social change. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. -- T. E. Adams Choice The text is a strong contribution to the field of pop and media culture and is a great resource for those whose research interests explore the intersections of politics, media, and sex during the tumultuous period of the 1960s and 70s. But the book is also written in an accessible manner, engaging in thoughtful criticism without becoming bloated with jargon. For those who are a cineaste or have an interest in the provocateurs whose works have changed the landscape of film, Sex Scene is a great read. -- Rebecca Lynn Gavrila The Journal of Popular Culture