During the 20th century, state agents not only censored, eradicated, and tried to prevent the circulation of obscenity, but they also paradoxically engaged in preservation initiatives that have left us with an extensive queer pornographic archive. Javier Fernández Galeano takes us into that archive and shows us how the contradictions of the Primo de Rivera and Franco dictatorships manifested in the regulation of erotic material cultures. Authorities destroyed heterosexual pornography while preserving queer erotica. While reproductions of masterpieces by Tintoretto, Michelangelo, and Botticelli were burned to prevent their "deviant" effects, judicial authorities could repeatedly attend the screening of an amateur film showing a gay threesome without recognizing the irony: their concern was not that obscene material was consumed, but who consumed it. Focused on amateur pornographers and their confiscated and censored erotica, this book is an essential contribution to the history and theory of pornography, demonstrating that surveillance depends entirely on the documentation of intimacy and, paradoxically, that surveillance preserves transgression. This book sheds light on the production, consumption, and circulation of pornography and erotica in the Spanish State throughout the 20th century, establishing connections between queer intimate desires, preservation, and censorship.
