Pornography has made increasing nonclandestine appearances on college campuses, thanks to events like Sex Week, which has drawn criticism for spicing up educational offerings workshops with sex-toy raffles and lectures by porn stars. Soon, campus types will also be able ponder the mysteries of sexuality through a less obviously titillating medium: a full-fledged scholarly journal dedicated to pornography.

Porn Studies, to be published by Routledge starting in 2014, is described as “the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts,” with particular attention to “the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, class, age and ability.”

The journal, edited by two British academics, Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith, has already inspired some hearty scholarly endorsements. “We have waited a long time for an academic journal that treats the subject of the representation of human sexuality with the seriousness it deserves,” Julie Peakman, a historian at the University of London and the author of “Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in 18th-Century England,” said in a statement. “I look forward to a lively and disciplined debate across different disciplines.”