‘Bonne excitation, Orgasme Assuré’. The representation of Lesbianism in contemporary French pornography

Abstract

This essay is a Lesbian radical feminist analysis of the representation of Lesbians in contemporary popular French pornography. It is an intervention in the pornography debate which shifts the ground in significant ways. Pornography is defined from a practical marketing standpoint as consumer product. The writer is not concerned with sensational, or overtly violent porn, but with the most widely sold, banal magazines. Curiously, Lesbianism emerges as the dominant fantasy produced for heterosexual men. But it is a particular version of Lesbianism, confined and contained within familial relations. The implications of the way in which Lesbianism is presented as part of the heterosexual continuum are examined and contrasted over against Lesbian pornography and the political perspectives of Lesbian radical feminism.