Pornographic criticism judged films by whether they aroused the viewer

Evidence

“That movie was so sick I wasn’t even aroused,” one senator had complained of Flaming Creatures. The same logic might explain the hostility directed at Sjöman’s notably sober, naturalistic, politically minded, and somewhat lumbering representation of female desire. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1413

Categorization

• DEFINE: Codifies the era’s criterion for judging sex films: arousal, not aesthetics — a critical frame worth keeping for the gentrification/transgression argument.