While the study of pornography is by no means a new field, recent shifts within the production, distribution and consumption of sexually explicit material have revitalized academic interest in porn. These shifts can be attributed to the rise of digital media technologies (notably the Internet) and an increasing investment in “the celebrity,” commodity fetishism and “post-feminist” discourses of “raunch culture.” As a result, while not forgetting the hardcore, this new field of “porn studies” increasingly focusses not on pornographic “texts” but on the integration of porn into mainstream Western culture.

Hall and Bishop's recent edited collection, Pop Porn, is emblematic of this shift in attention and is an investigation of pornography “from within.” Drawing together authors from a diverse range of disciplines (including cultural studies, information studies, psychoanalysis and performance studies) the collection is wide-ranging, touching on the themes of censorship, fashion, grooming, celebrity, class, religion and television – to name just a few. The variety of topics provides for a range of different critical perspectives and opinions to be heard. Yet amidst this diversity, one central argument is maintained – that being the belief that pornography is becoming an inseparable facet of contemporary life in the USA and, by extension, the West.

So it was with a sense of irony that I found myself removing the book's dust jacket when reading the collection of essays during my daily commute. I remember feeling particularly uncomfortable on one train ride home, as I tried to hide the title of the book from the middle-aged mother and teenage daughters who had decided to sit opposite me. Pornography may be infiltrating the mainstream in multifarious ways but “porn” remains a dirty word, one not fit for public consumption (at least that is what the mother's look of contempt seemed to convey when she read the title on the book's spine).

While the collection offers a variety of critical entry points into this overarching argument, occasional blind spots, absences and assumptions make for a slightly uneven and unbalanced read. Occasionally it felt as if some contributors did not wish to “get their hands dirty” and acknowledge porn as a specific cultural phenomenon. At other times the contributors' own opinions of pornography appeared to colour the analyses. While such opinions often strengthen academic arguments, a lack self-reflexivity meant that this unintentional “personalizing” of the methodology served to hamper the discussion. I am, for example, fairly certain that it is possible to interview the parents of schoolgirls about their choice of dress without framing such research around the question “why are you dressing your six-year old like a skank?”; the title of a recent book by Celia Rivenbank, but surely not the only way of interviewing parents who dress their children in “provocative” attire, as suggested by one of the editors.

Criticisms of such oversight and presumption are thrown into relief by those chapters that do offer self-reflexive and critically rigorous analysis of mainstream “porn” culture. In his interrogation of Paris Hilton, for instance, Thomas Fahy's appreciation of the socialite shines through and only adds to the texture of the analysis. His argument – that Hilton's popularity is predicated on issues of class, sexual humiliation and authenticity – is a rich study of celebrity culture, and the role that pornographic discourse and display plays within our consumption of the infamous heiress. Similarly, Susan Cokal's discussion of pubic hair trends balances historical discussion of pornographic imagery with close textual analysis of “feminine” popular culture, taking in Sex and the City, Cosmopolitan and Cathouse. Hannah B. Harvey and Karen Robinson bring a background in performance studies to a discussion of fashion and embodiment on a university campus and highlight the conscious performances of sexualized femininity that female college students engage in during their time at college. And providing an eclectic and wide-ranging chapter that pulls the reader in numerous directions, Judith Roof begins her analysis of the fantasy figure of “The Child” within sexual censorship legislation through the example of “Panda Porn” used by zoo breeding programmes to get captive bears “in the mood.”

In spite of its inconsistencies, then, the editors have succeeded in putting together an insightful and useful collection that offers both postdoctoral scholars and higher-level students a range of approaches, methodologies and critical frameworks for analysing the “pornification” of mainstream culture. Gender studies courses, as well as cultural studies and sexual dissidence programmes, will find this collection a useful addition to their reading lists, and the contemporary examples employed by the contributors provide useful starting points for seminar discussions and self-reflexive analysis in the classroom. Just don't read it on the train …