Guilty Pleasure

A fascinating and terrifying read about the history of porn - and the unsettling ways it has come to shape our everyday lives and desires, whether we realise it or not. Nilsson’s thorough research illuminates dark corners of the internet, revealing truths that shouldn’t be ignored – Sophia Chetin-Leuner
A brave journey into a dark world, and a remarkable feat of investigative journalism. This is a book everyone should read - especially parents – Johann Hari
From streaming video clips to creators broadcasting themselves for money, pornography pioneered much of what we know and (sometimes) love about the internet today. Patricia Nilsson’s vital volume makes an important argument that we’re living an online life created by porn, even if we’re not all on OnlyFans. Revealing and insightful, this book offers a key to understanding not just digital technology but the way we are all but forced to commodify our selves online – Kyle Chayka
Patricia Nilsson has cracked open an industry most have squeamishly dismissed – and, with a cool incisiveness, convincingly argued how it has laid the rails for the entire online economy. She takes the reader for a wild ride, where her forensic and colourful examination of pornography reveals a chilling truth about the co-optability of our attention and desires. This is a foundational work if you want to understand how capitalism has come for pleasure and how the commodification of the self in the name of intimacy has, in fact, fractured real connection. Nilsson has threaded the needle here with a perspective that is unflinching and which carefully avoids relying on easy, obvious narratives – Sarah Manavis
What she reports is so disturbing but I was compelled to keep going and learn. Brilliant research – Susie Orbach

Patricia Nilsson is a reporter with the Financial Times, where she has covered a broad range of industries such as retail, media, tobacco, cannabis and pornography. Her discovery that the world’s biggest adult company had a secret owner led to a year-long investigation into the business of porn, which culminated in the FT’s first narrative podcast series, Hot Money. Patricia grew up in Sweden but was raised Polish. She has lived and worked in Shanghai, Istanbul and London and now resides in Frankfurt. Guilty Pleasure is her first book.

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