Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America

Blurb

Bound And Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America is a 1996 book by Laura Kipnis. It attempts to approach pornography in a new way, focusing not on whether pornography is a serious social ill, but rather on its nature and what its function and meaning might be in the lives of its audience as well as the lives of those who seek to ban or suppress it.
The book is divided into five sections, each of which can stand more or less independently as individual essays:
"Fantasy In America: The United States v. Daniel Thomas DePew" presents an account of the first computer bulletin board entrapment case, in which Daniel DePew is convicted of conspiring to make a snuff film and sentenced to thirty-three years in prison even though there was little evidence that his "plans" were anything other than kinky sexual fantasy.
"Clothes Make The Man" is a look at transvestite pornography, specifically the self-portrait personal advertistements, comparing them to the more "respectable" work of photographer Cindy Sherman.
"Life In The Fat Lane" is about fat fetish pornography and contemporary American culture's anxiety and hypocrisy about fat and desire.