Sex Dream Palaces: Pornographic Spectatorship from Public to Private

The history of film and pornographic representation is fuelled by technological advancement and riddled with censorship, legislation and jurisdiction. It is a story of private and public, convergence and divergence. It circles around the private act of intimacy, that which is unseeable by the naked eye, revealed and captured in flagrante for all to see.

This article, written for Under the Influence magazine's S/S 2016 special on 'Privacy', looks at the shift that took place from pornographic film viewed in semi-public/public spaces to the domestic, private space. It charts the rise and fall of the sex cinema and explores how in their heyday some of these spaces became escapist sex dream palaces, dripping in gold and swathed in velvet.