Images of Eroticism

This is the website for Dr. Thomas’ porn studies course at SFSU. This course looks at the history of pornography in relation to our everyday lives. We will think pornography as a genre of film and a historical construct. We will think the pornographic as a way of thinking and living bound up with the era in which we live. We will study feminist theorists of pornography like Linda Williams, Jennifer C. Nash, and Laura Kipnis, read work by theorists like Michel Foucault, Georges Bataille, and Walter Kendrick, and consider a wide range of pornographic forms of expression, particularly as they relate to constructions of gender, race, class, and sexuality.

Top Image: Donald Jay, designs for circular bed and master bedroom for the Playboy Townhouse, 1962.
Bottom Image: Donald Jay, designs for the Playboy Townhouse, 1962. Background image: 3D printed clitoris. Footer image: Music video for "Rub" by Peaches. Directed by Peaches, A.L. Steiner, and Lex Vaughn.