In Radical History Review‘s “Queering Archives” issue, Caitlin McKinney explores the digitization and classification of unprocessed pornographic photography in her article “Body, Sex, Interface.” From Miller v. California to Reno v. ACLU, both the production/distribution of “obscene” materials and our conceptions/definitions of “obscenity” are regulated. How have these precedents intersected with archival work? How have non-queer Anglo-American male archivists – their positionalities, their biases – shaped the “archival canon?” How does porn (and other nontraditional material) get processed in archives?

The Leather Archives would not exist were it not for a massive shift in public narratives about sex and sexualities. Yet the Lesbian Herstory Archives (the world’s largest collection of lesbian-related materials) finds itself packing away boxes of unprocessed pornographic photography. McKinney argues that the amateurism, banality, “indecency” and ambiguity of materials like (pornographic) “vernacular photography” make it difficult to label/categorize. “Photographs are not yet mediated by a database form that attempts to pin down the stories they capture” (115).

McKinney concludes that digitization must be “improvisational, open to revision and critique, and willfully imperfect in its management of considerations such as metadata” (117). Searching for “sexuality” might yield no results; searching for “porn” might produce images of sex wars protests; searching for “erotica” might generate images of sex with a “specious aura of antiquity” (125). Archival classification and the definition of “what is pornographic and what is fit for public consumption” goes beyond issues of presentism (125-6). Archives determine access, draw connections, and define borders. The act of processing – naming and arranging – shapes censorship policies, and will shape the ubiquity of sexual imagery.

And what about the ethics of processing with respect to pornography? Issues of provenance, consent, publicity/privacy, access restrictions, and confidentiality must be negotiated.