An up-close look at how porn permeates our culture
Pictures of half-naked girls and women can seem to litter almost every screen, billboard, and advertisement in America. Pole-dancing studios keep women fit. Men airdrop their dick pics to female passengers on planes and trains. To top it off, the last American President has bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy.”
This pornification of our society is what Bernadette Barton calls “raunch culture.” Barton explores what raunch culture is, why it matters, and how it is ruining America. She exposes how internet porn drives trends in programming, advertising, and social media, and makes its way onto our phones, into our fashion choices, and into our sex lives. From twerking and breast implants, to fake nails and push-up bras, she explores just how much we encounter raunch culture on a daily basis—porn is the new normal.
Drawing on interviews, television shows, movies, and social media, Barton argues that raunch culture matters not because it is sexy, but because it is sexist. She shows how young women are encouraged to be sexy like porn stars, and to be grateful for getting cat-called or receiving unsolicited dick pics. As politicians vote to restrict women’s access to birth control and abortion, The Pornification of America exposes the double standard we attach to women’s sexuality.

"Zippy and well illustrated, this book persuasively argues that 'equating hypersexualization with sex positivity is a form of Orwellian doublespeak.'" - New York Times Book Review

"Barton, a professor of sociology and gender studies at Morehead State University, assembles her case against porn and pornification through a blend of pop-culture analysis and interviews (mostly with young women in their 20s)...The Pornification of America is a solid update of the traditional feminist case against porn." - The Washington Post

"Barton argues that something counterintuitive and grave is happening: as our culture becomes increasingly sexualized, it is actually becoming less sex-positive ... Barton is insightful too about the shortcomings of a culture that upholds consent as the best (and too often only) way for girls and everyone else to articulate their feelings about sex, sexual desire, and sexual attention." - Boston Review

"A valuable contribution to works about sex, the pornication of culture, feminism and the objectication of women. Undoubtedly, the book has a place in every Gender and Women’s Studies class taught in college, but discussions brought up in the book should start earlier than that, with High School students and between parents/caregivers and children." - Metapsychology