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Traces the reception of sexploitation film in the latter half of the 1960s, as pornography and obscenity begin to resonate publicly as national problems. It analyzes varied responses of audiences, critics, countercultural observers and researchers to the sexploitation film in the latter part of the decade, as the “adult film viewer” becomes an object of concern and anxiety, derision and curiosity.

This chapter provides an overview of the Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) related occupational hazards among performers who work in the adult film industry in Los Angeles County. The chapter presents local STD/HIV morbidity data and current industry practices that increase worker risks for disease, including lack of condom use and reliance on testing as a means to control disease. Also described is California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s (Cal/OSHA) involvement in worker health and safety in the industry, models of successful regulations in other jurisdictions, enforcement challenges, legislative efforts and regulatory proposals. The chapter concludes with health and safety recommendations for the industry endorsed by local, state and national public health agencies.

Considers film regulation one of the defining contexts of the sexploitation film, as it developed on the heels of legal decisions in the late 1950s that rendered nudity in film no longer obscene; it traces the ways that the sexploitation film was censored and regulated in the decade, from obscenity cases and state censor boards to less formal and more local modes of regulation.

The first chapter of ‘The Style of Sleaze’ to discuss the sexploitation film and its genesis and history. The argument made is that softcore filmmaking of the 1960s, in particular, has a clear stylistic link to the later ‘hardcore’ period (which most scholars treat as a separate entity). This stylistic evolution is discussed in this chapter and singles out five key films.

Explores the development of a sexploitation gaze and the assertion of a “freedom to look” at nude bodies in the innocuous nudie cutie and the more violent roughie films 1960-1965, examining the figure of the gawker and the peeper that was so central to the definition of sexploitation as a mode.

Takes up the expansion of the “sexploitation gaze” in the latter half of the sixties decade, pursuing the freedom to look as one bestowed on female lust and desire, in films from roughly 1965-1970. Examines film cycles that took up female and “perverse” sexuality, and that dealt with sadism and masochism, lesbianism, sexual “perversions” and with swinging and the counterculture.

In the year 2012, a generation ago in digital technology, the person who generated the most internet searches in India was not a cricketer or a Bollywood star. Nor was it a politician or a religious figure. None of them were close. The person most Indians were curious about that year—as measured by the total number of Google searches—was Canadian-Indian Karenjit Kaur Vohra, a.k.a. Sunny Leone, a former porn star and Penthouse Pet of the Year. It wasn’t the case only in 2012. As hundreds of millions of Indians continued to discover the internet through 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and even 2017, Sunny Leone remained the most-searched-for person in India. People simply couldn’t get enough. (Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it to number two in 2014, the year he was elected, but Leone remained the clear favorite.) Prudish, conservative, family-values India . . . and a porn star? Leone was no longer even performing; she had stopped around 2010 and started her own production company with her husband and manager, Daniel Weber. In 2011, she came to India as a guest on the reality TV show Bigg Boss, a local version of the Big Brother franchise. Leone’s appearance was predictably controversial (by design, of course: it was good for the ratings). Although most Indians hadn’t heard of her, it didn’t take long for word to spread: “A porn star—from America—here in India?” At the time, parliamentarian Anurag Thakur complained to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, arguing that Leone’s presence on a nationally telecast program would “have a negative impact on the mindset of children.” Thakur added: “When children see these porn stars on TV and then do a Google search, it shows a vulgar site. It will have a bad impact in the long run.” There were no laws, however, to stop Leone from appearing on TV. While the production of pornography was officially illegal in India, Leone could justifiably argue she was no longer involved in the industry. She was trying to pivot to general entertainment.