After Pornified
by Anne G. Sabo

After Pornified: where female pornmakers lead the way, empowering women to claim their bodies and sex against a pornified culture.

Porn brings up a lot of negative images in our sexualized, pornified culture. But today a growing number of women are radically changing porn to authentically capture with respect and realism the sexual lives of women and men, empowering and inspiring the viewer to claim her sexuality against a pornified culture, and creating a real counterweight to pornified media and porn as it’s been known. Porn affects us. Today, women are leading the way to make those effects positive. After Pornified lets you see how.

Reviews:
Anne G. Sabo's After Pornified: How Women are Transforming Pornography and Why It Really Matters is a straightforward study of pron made by women... In a world where porn often circulates in small clips that are divorced from their origins, with no indication of financing or mode of production, After Pornified is a helpful resource for those looking to study women-made porn. ~ Nora Stone, Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources - Volume 35

Want to know what distinguishes good, feminist porn from pornography that denigrates women and presents unhealthy images of female bodies? ... Sabo writes about sex-positive pornography and provides enough details in each synopsis to deliver a solid guide for selecting feminist films you may want to watch alone or with a lover. ~ Lorraine Berry, Bitch Magazine

Sabo lays out a useful collection of what the genre consists in, and how it came into being. These are figures who are for many still hidden beneath the bedsheets: consider buying this book, girls and boys both, if only for the Appendix of titles. ~ Hannah Gregory, The Quietus

A well-researched and multifaceted exploration of what I hope will be a historic moment in the history of cinema ... this book is unique. I’m pleased to see a serious academic making a strong case for the revolutionary potential of progressive pornography. ~ Jennifer Lyon Bell, blue artichoke films

After pornified offers a well researched study of a movement that is evidently close to the author’s heart. She writes passionately about the subject and discusses it in depth. She is an expert in the field, with over a decade’s experience in research of female pornography behind her. ~ Sarah McDonald, Weekly Worker

One of the points that excited me the most was Sabo’s emphasis on how feminist re-visioned porn could play a positive role in sex education and couples therapy ... that we could see a way to work towards porn as a means for self development. ~ Bradley Tuck, One + One Filmmakers Journal

At last, a sane academic voice for the positive and good effects that porn can have. ... Seeing empowering images can help women and men learn more about their bodies, about what they like. Seeing actors that are genuinely adoring, loving and passionate with each other can inspire and open ways of communication. ~ Suemari du Plessis, Reviews and Discussions on Sexuality

It’s fantastic ... a much-needed discussion of the growth of alternative, feminist, female-driven porn, sans the usual hysteria ... actually look[s] at porn in a nuanced and intelligent way ... a refreshing take. ~ , Ms Naughty's Porn For Women

A pleasant tip-toe through the pleasant-smelling tulips that are sticking their heads up above the standard, porny mud. ~ , For The Girls

A few years ago, my interviews with the now retired feminist performer and director Bobbi Starr (whose collective work is wrapped around BDSM, rough gangbangs, and anal scenes) reveal that gonzo flavors her cinematic taste. Starr understands that shooting sex her way can be pilloried as male-identified, though for her it’s a Teflon criticism and hardly a personal concern. Queer feminist performers Dylan Ryan and Madison Young (who sits in director’s chair on occasion) also relish the submissive role and are no strangers to bondage, anal scenes and facials. So, what does this tell us today about feminist re-visioned porn? Are women directors succumbing to an ensconced filming that appeals to a male fan base? Or have women, mainly through their indie companies, seized ownership of the very thing that anti-porn feminists insist is their source of oppression? Sabo introduces this question and for that alone, After Pornified is worth a read.

Sex-positive feminist filmmakers are making a difference in how a “pornified” society looks at the modern adult genre. Of course, anti-porn critics will continue to fire salvos at pornography as intrusive on society and debasing to women. Give them their due and move on. Take porn, re-vision it, and in the process pay close attention to Anne G. Sabo’s message.

Anne G. Sabo’s newest study is a welcome addition to the debate … an educational primer … pay close attention to Anne G. Sabo’s newest book. ~ Rich Moreland, 3hattergrindhouse

All written with intelligence and aplomb … Ms. Sabo has done her research and it shows in this illuminating and detailed treatise on the re-visioned/feminist porn movement … a goldmine for all sex-positive women and men. ~ Lady Cheeky, Evolved World

Thoughtful and thought-provoking ... both scholarly and passionate, and thus a valuable contribution to the ongoing conversation about pornography's place in our culture -- both what it is and what it should or could be. ~ Anna J. Cook, the feminist librarian

Candid, well-informed personal story of how a good girl became involved in porn. ~ , USP

At last a book that appreciates female directed porn as the important cultural phenomenon that it is. For decades the media has represented porn as being for men only and that any women involved in the industry are mere dupes. Anne G. Sabo explains why this is not only untrue (and always has been) but also that it is women who are moving the genre forward, both as directors and consumers. ~ Anna Span, Britain's first female porn director and the author of Shoot Your Own Erotic Adult Home Movies (Carleton Books)

Next to film professor Linda Williams, Anne G. Sabo is the most respected intellectual voice analyzing the new trend of feminist pornography. Actually Sabo's book demonstrates that it is not only a trend. Sabo shows that we are in front of a revolution of the genre. ~ Erika Lust, award-winning writer and erotic film director, and the author of Good Porn: A Woman's Guide (Seal Press)

After Pornified does not cover the well-worn ground of whether or not porn should exist; instead Anne G. Sabo takes a close look at the kinds of sexually explicit material which are marketed as "for women." An analysis of these films which does not simply seek to criticize or dismiss porn for women by women is long overdue, bringing to the fore the political and personal intentions of a range of directors and producers, as well as the aesthetic and artistic considerations in making sexually arousing imagery. Written in an accessible style for an interested rather than an academic audience, After Pornified brings a much-needed dose of optimism to the debates about pornography, its content and effects. ~ Dr. Clarissa Smith, Reader in Sexual Cultures and the author of One for the Girls! The Pleasures and Practices of Reading Women's Porn (Intellect)

Anne G. Sabo's outstanding book challenges us to rethink presumptions about porn, and to see it as varied and potentially progressive. It will be valuable to anyone who cares about images of women in the media, gender equality, and the role of film and television in our lives. ~ Andrew K. Nestingen, Ph.D., Associate Professor and the author of Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film and Social Change (UW Press)

Anne G. Sabo offers one of the freshest and most articulate voices on the controversial issue of porn since feminists began hotly debating its virtues and consequences back in the eighties. A much-needed contribution to what has become a tired and predictable discussion, Sabo courageously brings new insight to an emotionally charged issue in a voice that is eloquent, reasoned and accessible to all. Her work will surely be respected for the rare understanding she brings to a completely new cultural phenomenon, one that most are unable or unwilling to take on: that of women creating their own unique pornographic vision and its implications and potential benefits to all. ~ Candida Royalle, iconic erotic film pioneer and the author of How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do: Sex Advice from a Woman Who Knows (Fireside)

One of the most remarked upon features of shifting production practices around porn and erotica is the growing participation of women. The presence of women was noted as a "significant trend in the industry" as long ago as 2000. However, there has been strikingly little attention paid in academic or more popular literature to women who make pornography. Books in both areas are very overdue so this book is very welcome. I think After Pornified will be of wide interest to women who already have an interest in the topic and those who know very little about it, and a good starting point for rethinking debates about women's relationship to porn. ~ Feona Attwood, Ph.D., Professor of Sex and Communication, and the author of Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture (I. B. Tauris)