A valuable contribution to works about sex, the pornication of culture, feminism and the objectication of women. Undoubtedly, the book has a place in every Gender and Women’s Studies class taught in college, but discussions brought up in the book should start earlier than that, with High School students and between parents/caregivers and children.
Barton argues that something counterintuitive and grave is happening: as our culture becomes increasingly sexualized, it is actually becoming less sex-positive ... Barton is insightful too about the shortcomings of a culture that upholds consent as the best (and too often only) way for girls and everyone else to articulate their feelings about sex, sexual desire, and sexual attention.
Kristen Barber, author of Styling Masculinity: Gender, Class, and Inequality in the Men's Grooming Industry:
The Pornification of America is an excellent book for considering how sexism shapes popular culture and consequently public vernacular and social relationships. This is a great read for students or for any reader curious about the politics of raunch culture.
Kathleen A. Bogle, author of Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus:
In her timely book, Bernadette Barton shows us how raunch culture has invaded every aspect of our lives—personally, professionally and politically. This book should be used on college campuses across the country to stimulate debate on how we got here, why it matters and what we can do to change it.
Lynn Chancer, author of After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism: Taking Back a Revolution:
In The Pornification of America, Bernadette Barton offers a multi-faceted examination of what she calls 'raunch culture' in American society. She has a sophisticated awareness of feminist debates that are attuned to both protecting women's right to bodily self-determination—and our right to do what we please with our bodies—while simultaneously remaining critical of sexist and racialized cultural commodifications that can have insidious effects on women's sense of feminist freedoms.
Shira Tarrant, author of The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs to Know:
Feel anger, rage, or hope. It is impossible to read The Pornification of America without feeling something about the thorny issues of mediated sexual desire in the 21st century. Bernadette Barton writes about the relentless capitalist commodification of female sexiness and the people who participate in it. From incels to pastors to politicians, nobody is exempt from the objectified and self-objectified raunch culture that Barton portrays. This book aims to deprogram readers’ subconscious conditioning and create the mental space to imagine a sex-positive revolution, not merely sexist shadows of that goal.
Lisa Wade, author of American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus:
Once dismissed as a teenage phase, raunch culture is now a path to the presidency. Barton inspires us to take America back. Deftly teasing apart notions of sex positivity, sexual liberation, and radical feminism, she exposes raunch culture's pernicious lie: that pornification is empowerment. And not a moment too soon.
Barton, a professor of sociology and gender studies at Morehead State University, assembles her case against porn and pornification through a blend of pop-culture analysis and interviews (mostly with young women in their 20s)...The Pornification of America is a solid update of the traditional feminist case against porn.
Zippy and well illustrated, this book persuasively argues that 'equating hypersexualization with sex positivity is a form of Orwellian doublespeak.'
