Pornographic adaptation: Parody, fan fiction and the limits of genre

Despite the outsize presence of pornographic adaptations in the adult movie market (in the form of parodies) and fan fiction (in the form of het and slash), the genre remains largely under-theorized in the field of adaptation studies. This article suggests that such stories and films may expand the field’s boundaries by encouraging scholars to consider the non-hermeneutic effects of adaptations. Drawing on theories of intertextuality, intermediality and interactivity, the article asks how adaptation and pornography function for their audiences, taking up the case of E. L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey – a pornographic adaptation that became a pornographic source text – to offer some provisional answers to that question. The article closes with a call for adaptation scholars to turn from interpretation to the more private pleasures of adaptation.