Pornography in the service of lesbians: The case of Wicked Women and Slit magazines

This article analyses the Australian lesbian sex magazines, Wicked Women (1988–1996) and Slit (2002–) to examine the nature and shape of Australian lesbian pornography magazines, and hence to explore the ways in which these publications put pornography in the service of lesbians. I outline the conditions of these magazines’ emergence, and then discuss the representational strategies of each, including imagery, layout, tropes and narratives. These magazines, and their changing modes of making lesbian porn, show the development of a lesbian porn aesthetic. Further, they offer a unique sight of the discursive construction of lesbian identities and communities across more than three decades, and reveal another facet of the troubled relationship between feminism and lesbians.