PODCAST: From academia to pop culture to body hair, porn culture has permeated almost every aspect of our lives

Today, pornography is inescapable. It shapes our self-image, our relationships, our sexualities — even our body hair removal practices. In academia, many media scholars have taken a non-critical approach to porn and third wave feminists have embraced it. If it feels like the pornographers have won, it’s because in many ways they have.

A new book edited by Dr. Heather Brunskell-Evans explores the impacts of the porn industry on critical media studies, popular discourse, and on our bodies and sexualities. Featuring chapters by feminist scholars like Julia Long, Sheila Jeffreys, Gail Dines, and Meagan Tyler, The Sexualized Body and the Medical Authority of Pornography offers a wide-ranging analysis of the various ways the propaganda of the porn industry has shaped our culture and lives.

Heather is a social theorist, philosopher, and Senior Research Fellow at King’s College in London. She is a National Spokesperson for the Women’s Equality Party Policy on Ending Sexual Violence and co-founder of Resist Porn Culture. As a trustee of FiLia, a feminist charity that aims to bring about change for girls and women, Heather is helping to organize this year’s Feminism in London conference, which is taking place on October 14th and 15th.

In this episode, I speak with her about the book as well as about the way discourse around pornography has changed over the years.