All in all, this collection of essays succeeds in providing in-depth investigations of rich cultural texts, which often speak to one another and build an engaging nexus of ideas and approaches for the study of sex acts in contemporary visual culture. The case study approach makes sense since it is often the case that intense debates are activated around the controversy caused by a particular example of popular culture.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio, & Television

Long overdue, this brilliant anthology asks exactly how and why we are seeing explicit sex acts, not in pornography, but throughout visual culture. Like a previous era’s attention to censorship and the Production Code, Intercourse in Television and Film offers rich historical, material, and cultural frameworks for its close-ups of sex scenes and provocative analyses of their meanings. Beautifully written and rigorously theorized, these essays comprise a bold and important new overview of a phenomenon that demands interpretation.

Linda Mizejewski, The Ohio State University