Peter Alilunas

In Smutty Little Movies: The Creation and Regulation of Adult Video, Peter Alilunas argues, “Pornography was not just part of the story of home video’s early years; it was a crucial part. The move of pornography to private spaces, made possible through the gradually more affordable, easy-to-use, and widespread technology of magnetic tape, permanently transformed the cultural landscape. It also stoked regulatory fires that had been burning for decades but now found new sources of fear and outrage in the form of video” (pg. 3). He continues, “The move of adult film to video brought with it tremendous protection for the consumer and new anxieties for producers and distributors, anxieties rooted in questions of how to get the product to the protected home space” (pg. 23). In terms of academic history, Alilunas discusses challenges in the nature of the archive, writing, “For scholars to write the history of adult film, the notion of the archive itself will have to expand, and conventional archives will have to consider why they have not gathered evidence on the topic” (pg. 29). In his work, he draws “on three theoretical models: (1) the moral panic; (2) the technopanic; and (3) the sex panic” (pg. 32).
Complicating the narrative of home video, Alilunas writes, “Pornography was available on a variety of cassette formats prior to 1977; adult films were a critical part of the formation of the home video rental industry; and, finally, many of the same people (such as [George] Atkinson) who had been credited with building the mainstream home video industry were also veterans of the pornography trade. Ultimately, the history of home video is the history of adult video” (pg. 42). He continues, “If the anxiety surrounding pornography had always been rooted in tensions between public and private enactment of pleasure, then home video fully provided an escape for the industry into the safe space of the home” (pg. 81). Discussing production, Alilunas writes, “Just as the Golden Age had stars, so too would the video era, and the combination of privacy, availability, and technology created an opportunity to rethink the presentation of sexuality that, in some cases, embraced an unabashed celebration of women’s pleasure” (pg. 117). Further, “Familiar adjectives such as tasteful, sensual, erotic, subtle, romantic, narratives, and motivation populate these discourses, as if taken straight from Femme’s marketing materials, and further shore up the longstanding myth that a very particular ‘sensitivity’ is needed in regard to women’s sexuality. More recently, the cycle has turned to the question of whether or not pornography can be ‘empowering’ for women – yet another way in which pleasure for pleasure’s sake alone has become unthinkable” (pg. 155).
Describing the moral panic, Alilunas writes, “Home video technology had made it possible for pornography to enter the home on an unprecedented scale – but, more importantly, it also had allowed it to move into ‘safe’ retail extensions rather than remaining in the quarantined areas typically associated historically with adult material” (pg. 159). He continues, “Throughout the 1980s, response to adult videos followed a predictable pattern that emphasized fear of their encroachment” (pg. 159). Alilunas writes, “This panic was rooted in three intertwined elements: (1) the proliferation of a machine designed for private use and capable of playing sexually explicit content; (2) widespread access to that content via the growth of mainstream rental stores willing to carry it; and (3) the professionalization of the adult film industry, which allowed it to meet growing customer demand” (pg. 162). After discussing the efforts of the Meese Commission and other antipornography activists, Alilunas writes, “the slow pushing of pornography back into the shadows following the rise of adult video came from a wide variety of sources, including the executives of video store chains determined to draw upon family-values mythology for their own bottom lines – while ignoring adults with families who had shown interest in renting the material” (pg. 196).
Alilunas concludes with an examination of areas for future study, writing, “While this book has taken up the most mainstream, financially successful, and publicly visible segments of the adult video industry during its nascent period (which means it has dealt primarily with heterosexual content ostensibly aimed at heterosexual viewers), further work on the history of adult video (in all its periods) will need to take up both queer sexualities and the way that race has operated textually, industrially, and spectatorially in the industry” (pg. 198). Finally, Alilunas argues, “The adult film industry’s quest to gain respectability by invoking discourses of quality simultaneously conveyed deeply gendered ideologies that contained and limited women’s sexuality. Ultimately, such strategies, which superficially seemed to support women’s sexuality in ways absent elsewhere in the culture, ironically aligned with those of pornography’s opponents – who fought vigorously against any effort by the industry to achieve that respectability. Though diametrically opposed, these two positions inadvertently shared one critical feature: both refused to admit that women might obtain sexual pleasure from something other than highly justified behavior” (pg. 199).… (altro)