For Your Viewing Pleasure

The title of Polly Barton’s second book, Porn: An Oral History, is a touch misleading. Rather than write a history of the porn industry with reference to its producers and performers, Barton has compiled a series of conversations she had with nineteen friends and acquaintances during the coronavirus lockdowns about their personal histories as porn consumers. The resulting work offers the considerable pleasure of an intelligent discussion on an inherently interesting subject – a pleasure complicated by limitations arising from the format.