Originally written for an academic journal, If you look at it long enough...is primarily a personal account of Paul Hallam's recollections of "self-abuse" through the consumption of porn over several decades. Challenging the familiar form of an "academic essay," this autobiographical narrative raises several questions in relation to our contemporary morals related to sex in general, and more specifically, to gay pornography. Unapologetic about the author's fascination with porn, and the intimate pleasures attained therefrom, If you look at it long enough...cuts through the veneer of social hypocrisy by indirectly, but insistently, reminding us that conventional models of happiness are to be challenged without fear, both in our personal lives and in the world-at-large. Now edited for the first time as a book with an introduction by Gary Wickham and a new short essay by the author, reflecting his shifting feelings on pornography since its original publication, this often witty, moving, and profound essay should now reach a wider readership.
"Hallam's almost Proustian account of the role of pornography in stimulating personal and historical memory is an important and original perspective." -- Jeffrey Escoffier, Author of American Homo: Community and Perversity; Editor of Sexual Revolution