The Golden Age

This chapter explores the storied golden age of porn, a period from roughly 1972 to 1984, when hardcore porn took a form similar to that of Hollywood film: feature length, narrative and character driven, screened in theaters, and reviewed in mainstream publications. This era took shape due to a confluence of technological, cultural, and legal factors—factors that also contributed to the era’s disappearance. The golden age, a fleeting historical chapter in porn, remains a nostalgic touchstone for understandings of the sexual revolution, American cinema, and the porn industry. This status leaves the golden age in a peculiar, almost mythological position, symbolic of a range of concerns related to art, sex, censorship, spectatorship, and categories of art and pornography that risks glossing over the period’s complexity.