Behind a title which is both accurate and ambiguous lies a book whose format and topic are atypical for Fitzcarraldo Editions. They did however publish Polly Barton’s 2021 debut – Fifty Sounds, a list-based paean to the niceties of the Japanese language – and that mixture of personal essay and wider cultural analysis is reprised, to a point, in this collection of interviews on the thorny topic of pornography.
Barton spoke to 19 participants for this project, all anonymised and thus willing to be candid about their sexual history, attitudes to porn, and the twain between those things. Having her name on the cover appears no deterrent to the author in that regard, though, and so matters are invariably conversational and more absorbing for it. Some interviewees are clearly people Barton, who lives in Bristol, knows personally; quite a few are lucid and erudite enough that they could have made a decent fist of writing the book themselves, and in a couple of cases give the impression they’d like to.
Perspectives offered come from a diverse spectrum of sexualities and attendant experiences, which is to Barton’s credit and Porn: An Oral History’s benefit. Excepting a charming octogenarian gentleman who cheerfully recalls a postwar erotica desert where Health & Efficiency was as mucky as it got for the average Joe, nearly everyone is in their twenties or thirties: historically limiting, given the subject. Moreover, stated attitudes can largely be summarised either as “I enjoy porn but feel conflicted about this” or “I dislike/am uninterested in porn but understand why others value it”. These are likely the prevalent stances among the left/liberal sample base tapped up here, but I’d suggest not the extent of the wider population’s. Whether overtly crude or puritanical input would have actually added value to a work that offers considerable food for thought is another matter.
Porn: An Oral History, Polly Barton (Fitzcarraldo)
Price: £13.99. Info: here
words NOEL GARDNER
Want more books?
The latest reviews, interviews, features and more, from Wales and beyond.