An Archive of Pornographies and the Pornography of “The Archive”

This chapter begins with the story of breaking into a storage unit in an undisclosed location and the contents therein: some 2,700 boxes piled over six feet high—all that remained of the formerly legendary library and archives of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. I use the history of this collection and my involvement with it in order to forefront the work of archives and archivists. I review the state of the conversation (i.e. the lack thereof) between porn studies and archival studies—but I also draw from and discuss literature in museum studies, library and information science, cultural heritage preservation, knowledge organization, history of sexuality, and studies of film, media, and porn. Gathering these various scholarly threads together allows a turn to a discussion about the issues that result from humanists’ lack of engagement with GLAMS (galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and special collections) scholarship and practitioners. I conclude by offering some potential directions for future work, which might explore the “intersextions” between porn and archival studies. Appendixed to the chapter is a list of research archives and collections of interest to adult media scholars and porn studies.