Ripping up the paper: women’s pornography and the Brazilian Porn Art Movement

Abstract

This essay focuses on the production of three women artists in the context of the Porn Art Movement (1980-1982): Leila Míccolis, Teresa Jardim and Cynthia Dorneles. These artists embraced sexuality and the body as fundamental themes in their artistic and poetic practices, asserting themselves as desiring subjects and criticizing social structures that repress women. Looking at the work of these artists in relation to pornography – which can be understood as a system of power that has historically subjugated women – I argue that they affirmed their voices as sexual subjects with agency by claiming their right to pleasure and subverting the codes of conventional pornography.