Polly Barton (UK)
ABOUT THE SHOW
Are we all kinky and ashamed?
Ever-present yet rarely discussed, porn is shielded in silence as though we have all made a pact to turn our heads from acknowledging it. It was exactly this silence and discomfort that inspired Polly Barton to spend a year initiating intimate conversations with 19 acquaintances about everything related to porn: Watching habits. Camera Angles. Fetishes. For Polly, both a writer and literary translator, porn was a source of nebulous worry and discomfort. It was exactly this silence and discomfort.
These conversations, documented in her second book Porn: An Oral History, touch on everything that occurring behind closed doors. The 19 subjects with which she shared these intimate conversations span a breadth of different sexual orientations, ages, genders and of course: experiences. For the most part, however, they revolve around questions of interpersonal dynamics – shame, embarrassment, jealousy – and, of course, ethics.
“‘Is porn good or bad?’ is not even a coherent question, let alone an answerable one. It would be like asking ‘Is sex good or bad?’” muses Polly.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Polly Barton is a writer and Japanese translator based in Bristol. In 2019, she won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and her debut book Fifty Sounds , a personal dictionary of the Japanese language, was published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo Editions in April 2021. In 2022, Fifty Sounds was shortlisted for the 2022 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year.
How do we talk about porn? Why it is that when we do talk about porn, we tend to retreat into the abstract? How do we have meaningful conversations about it with those closest to us? In Porn: An Oral History, her extraordinary second book, Polly Barton interrogates the absence of discussion around a topic that is ubiquitous and influences our daily lives.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Suitable for ages 18+
Contains adult themes
Contains coarse language
Contains sexual references
