NEW PUBLICATION – Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained: Obscenity Law and Histories of Queer Distribution and Exhibition by Farrah Freibert

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Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained: Obscenity Law and Histories of Queer Distribution and Exhibition by Farrah Freibert

We are delighted that our Edinburgh University Press Screening Sex book series is kicking off Farrah Freibert’s brilliant Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained: Obscenity Law and Histories of Queer Distribution and Exhibition.

This groundbreaking book:
🔲 Unearths the hidden histories of overlooked figures in Los Angeles’s adult media industries of the 1960s and 1970s
🔲 Introduces a fresh, integrative approach to adult media historiography – blending queer, feminist and legal perspectives
🔲 Draws on rich primary research from LGBTQ+ archives, legal records and periodical databases
🔲 Explores the industrial and production histories of early popular gay independent cinema
🔲 Reframes censorship as a struggle over distribution, not just representation

Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained shows how women and gay male entrepreneurs shaped the adult media landscape, navigating censorship and legal constraints to create new forms of cultural production.

Why it matters:
This book offers a timely intervention for scholars in film and media studies, queer history and cultural studies – foregrounding infrastructures of visibility and the intersections of obscenity law, sexual politics and media industries.

Use the code NEW30 for a 30% discount for a limited time.
https://lnkd.in/eDP9btXh

“In Nothing Censored, Nothing Gained, Farrah Freibert offers a fresh perspective on how queer visibility and experience were shaped by infrastructures rather than content or identity. By foregrounding distribution and exhibition, the book introduces new critical frameworks for understanding how obscenity law, sexual politics, and media industries intersect. Its emphasis on the 1960s and 1970s – marked by legal flux and emerging queer publics – challenges dominant narratives around deviance, visibility, and the regulation of sexual culture. It’s a timely and necessary intervention that will be valuable to scholars across film and media studies, queer history, and cultural studies more broadly” – Clarissa Smith

For more information about the Screening Sex Edinburgh University Press book series and details of how to propose a title for the series, head here.

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Published by screeningsex

Screening Sex is a research initiative led by Darren Kerr (Bath Spa University, UK) and Donna Peberdy (Southampton Solent University, UK). Screening Sex aims to call attention to the critical and cultural significance of sex, stimulate debate on marginalised matters and amplify the diverse and important research being carried out in this vibrant and multi-disciplinary area.