This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers the insistent heterosexuality of most contemporary pornographic citation, exploring a range of texts and films, and taking in the female perspective on the male and the male perspective on the female. It discusses the work of Guillaume Dustan and Erik Remes, whose explicit representations of sexual activity intervene into debates about the place of gay and queer identities in contemporary France, particularly with reference to sexual practice in the light of the AIDS epidemic. The book also considers the possibilities for revolution and reform that have traditionally informed the high-art appropriations of the pornographic and trace their irrevocable collapse in contemporary art. It addresses two female authors whose spectacular success is inseparable from their use of sexually explicit material: Catherine Millet and Virginie Despentes.