Desirae Embree is the recipient of the Yale LGBT Studies Fellowship . Desirae obtained her B.A. in Philosophy and French, with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, from Texas A&M University, where she is currently working toward her Ph.D. in the Department of English. Her research interests center around issues in the representation of sex and sexuality in entertainment media, with a specific focus on film. Her dissertation, titled “Private Pleasures, Public Provocations: Dyke Porn in the Late 20th Century,” is a study of an under-examined moment in both lesbian history and the history of pornography in which queer women capitalized on both existing queer media cultures and new media technologies in order to create sexual entertainment for lesbians and other queer women. Spanning a variety of media technologies and practices including live performance, print, video, phone hotlines, voicemail, letter-writing, photography, and more, this project seeks to counter narratives of lesbian history that emphasize the political over the erotic, arguing that lesbian sexual desire and practice was the engine for unprecedented lesbian cultural productivity and entrepreneurship.