Call For Papers

The Erotica, Sexuality, Pornography, & Kink Area of the National Popular Culture Association (PCA) invites scholars to participate in the PCA’s annual conference. Details of the conference can be found at https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines

In academia, “porn” is often at best ignored and at worst outright shunned because of its association with lowbrow culture, obscenity, and general embarrassment. However, it remains one of the oldest, most diverse, most progressive, and most popular forms of literature and popular culture. Erotica can take many forms: from men’s magazines to steamy romance novels, from to queer cartoons to ancient poetry, from classic art prints to graffiti on bathroom stalls. Pornography may be satirical or transgressive. Erotica may be implied or explicit. It may be used to push cultural boundaries of constructions of gender or sexuality or to allegorically explore social and political forces in news media. It may redefine the concept of high art or simply satisfy base carnal desires. And sometimes, it’s just fun. 

The Erotica, Sexuality, Pornography, & Kink Area requests submissions exploring the erotic culture or the use of the erotic in media.  Papers dealing with any aspect of erotica and pornography, broadly defined, will be considered and  may focus on explicitly erotic media and culture or the implied erotic in otherwise vanilla media. 

Some sample past topics include:

·        Sex with "Friends": True Love and Pornography in the World's Most Popular Sitcom

·      “I don’t need to choose, but you do”: An Examination on Bi-Erasure in Reverse Harem Erotica

·     [In]Tension: The Space Between Rope, Kinbaku, and Pornography

·        BDSM and Authority Exchange Relationships: Real Life Relationships and How They Work

·        Pocket Monsters: Pokephilia and Cuteness in Pokémon Fanfiction

·        Fifty Shades and the Tampon Taboo: Menstruation and the Media Marketplace

·        Between the Fold: “Pornified” Visual Metonymy in Advertising

·        From Hericane to Herogasm: the Enduring XXX Legacy of Penthouse Comix

·       The Birds, the Bees, and the Faeries: Romantasy’s Reimagination of Darwinian Courtship Narratives

·        Curing a Moral Illness: Folk Etiology and Treatment of Addictive Sexuality in Modern Cinema

·        Pornography with Teeth: Examining Transformation and Representations of Queerness in Illustrated  Monster Erotica

·        Polyamory 101 – A Roundtable

Submission requirements: Scholars interested in presenting a paper at the national conference should submit a 200-word abstract and a short introductory bio (2-3 sentences) to the PCA database.  

This call asks for individual paper proposals or submissions for entire panels. If you are submitting a panel, please make sure to note the members of your panel on your abstract.

Papers should be delivered in 15-20 minutes. The PCA limits presenters to one paper given at the conference.

Please send all inquiries to the area chair:

Christopher Maverick

mav@chrismaverick.com

Important Dates to Remember:

• Database opens for Submissions - Sept. 1, 2025
• Early Bird Registration Begins - Sept. 1, 2025
• Deadline for Paper Proposals - Nov. 30, 2025
• Travel Grant Applications Due - Dec. 15, 2025
• Early Bird Registration Ends for Presenters - Dec. 31, 2025
• Regular Registration Begins for Presenters - Jan. 1, 2026 
• Travel Grant Decisions / Notifications - Jan. 31, 2026
• Regular Registration Ends for Presenters - Jan. 31, 2026
• Late Registration Starts for Presenters - Feb. 1, 2026
• Preliminary Program draft available - Feb. 6, 2026

Those Presenters Not Registered by Feb. 15 Will be Dropped from the Program

CONFERENCE IN ATLANTA, GA - April 8-11, 2026