Pornography Studies

Aydemir Captures the Issue but just Kisses the Action

by Leanne Pupchek

Encuentros íntimos

by Natalia Velázquez Luna

Ensayo para estética y filosofía del arte en el que se tratan tres categorías estéticas encontradas en la pornografía:... more Ensayo para estética y filosofía del arte en el que se tratan tres categorías estéticas encontradas en la pornografía: lo obsceno, lo erótico y lo decadente.

Bienvenidos a la pornotemática

by Salvador Raggio

Introductory essay to La condición pornográfica
Ficciones iberoamericanas de contenido pernicioso
Editorial El Cuervo, La Paz, Bolivia (2011): 13-24. Print.
Book. ISBN 978-99954-749-9-7

Selftubes: Construction of Identities in Web Porn [Selftubes: konštrukcia identít vo webovom porne]

by Michal Bočák

Bočák, Michal. 2012. "Selftubes: Construction of Identities in Web Porn." Paper presented at conference Media and Text 3, Veľký Šariš (Slovakia), 21st – 22nd October 2010. [Paper in Slovak submitted for review.]

This study presents results of the qualitative analysis of constructions of identities in heterosexual pornographic... more This study presents results of the qualitative analysis of constructions of identities in heterosexual pornographic videos’ titles on pornographic websites (tubes). Conceptualising porn as a contemporary Western androcentric discourse of sexuality, the author argues that if porn ought to appeal to socially determined desires of its consumers, it can’t be done only by shooting the bodies in detail: it has to represent identities as “ready-made”, widely shared social categories – these are what assign the status of imaginable social situation to (otherwise “mechanical”) sex act. Moreover, in a pornographised culture which is accepting a pornographic logic also beyond the pornosphere it can be reasoned that the porn partakes on re-/defining of identities (meaning not only genders and desires) significantly. The analysis of porn videos’ titles clearly confirms an introductory theoretical conceptualisation of the identity/subjectivity as an unstable, situational entity as well as it proves the multiplicity and intersectionality of identity, stated by its present theories. It appears notably in the systematic power structuring of the intersections of gender, racial/ethnic, age and other social categories, which actually are, according to the author of the study, naturalising the central gender asymetry and the androcentric order.

Keywords: pornography – porn – web – subject – identity – construction – video’s title – intersectionality – asymetry – androcentrism

The end of the old flesh: beastly bodily becomings as contemporary parable

by JD Taylor

Presented at "The End of..." Conference, University of Kent, 22 January 2012.

In 1981 Gilles Deleuze read in Francis Bacon's paintings a 'zone of the indiscernible' between man and animal. Bacon's... more In 1981 Gilles Deleuze read in Francis Bacon's paintings a 'zone of the indiscernible' between man and animal. Bacon's figures spasm through their wounded architectures, screams erupting as destabilised bodies attempt to escape their figurations. This paper develops this zone of the indiscernible to explore how human flesh has become a medium for representations of the end. In David Cronenberg's Videodrome [1983], a dark psychological conspiracy places the flesh under suspicion of suggestible media-corruption, as Max Renn transcends to abstracted data by orgiastically abandoning the old flesh.

Against the knowing futurism of Videodrome, this paper compares Charles Burns' Black Hole comic-book series [1995-2005], which uses the grotesque contagious corruption of teenage flesh as a dark analogy for growing up and loss of innocence in the haunted spaces of late 20th century  Americana. Overtly Freudian, the rich contrasts of Burns' work introduces the becoming-monstrous and the eruption of contagion which racks modern American anxieties about the ending of the human, most familiar in recent zombie narratives. Taking a parallel track, in both accounts beastly becomings are played out on the flesh to mark internal turmoil whilst offering two directions for a contemporary bestiary of our culture. Whilst Burns offers a pessimistic Quietism and submission to the mysterious disease, Cronenberg's narrative alternatively calls to end the old flesh and embrace the possibilities of cybertechnology. Baudrillardian pessimism is spliced with 'biopunk' subcultures alongside Eugene Thacker's theoretical forays into life as the 'unthinkable' (2010, 2011) to finally ascertain why anxieties over life, technology and the end continue to play on a corrupted flesh. Does power embody itself through a zombified life, or will the skin continue to subvert and revolt against human (and posthuman) machinations?

In the Flesh: Space and Embodiment in the Pornographic Peep Show Arcade

by Amy Herzog

The Velvet Light Trap 62 (Fall 2008): 29-43.

Projecto de Investigação para «ENTRE CORPOS E ECRÃS – IDENTIDADES E SEXUALIDADES DOS JOVENS NOS NOVOS MEDIA»

by Daniel Cardoso

Projecto de Doutoramento em Ciências da Comunicação arguido com nota de 17 valores.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: juventude, internet, sexualidade, pornografia, sexting, teoria queer



Este... more PALAVRAS-CHAVE: juventude, internet, sexualidade, pornografia, sexting, teoria queer



Este Trabalho Final de Curso tem como objectivo a apresentação de um projecto de investigação para a realização de uma Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Comunicação.

Irei partir de um trabalho de recolha e recensão bibliográfica crítica que permita determinar quais as mais recentes tendências e dados nas várias áreas dos usos sexualizados das novas tecnologias por parte dos jovens e crianças. Por outro lado, um outro objectivo, paralelo, é o de identificar as lacunas existentes na pesquisa actual, e procurar entender de que forma a investigação para esta Tese de Doutoramento poderá contribuir para sanar essa lacuna. Este olhar crítico terá como bases uma visão pós-estruturalista e dos estudos culturais, de abordagem queer, olhando para os mais recentes avanços na concepção e construção de identidades como a juventude ou a sexualidade.

A segunda parte deste Trabalho Final compreenderá a descrição das problemáticas colocadas especificamente pela Tese de Doutoramento pretendida, bem como uma descrição de quais os processos metodológicos que se pretende levar a cabo, de forma a conseguir oferecer resposta às questões levantadas; a acompanhar esta descrição estará um cronograma dos vários passos da investigação.

Neste caso em particular, alguns dos campos a serem revistos bibliograficamente são: a concepção sociológica e filosófica de identidade, sexualidade e orientação sexual, juventude, sujeito e sexo; os significados e debates em torno da pornografia; a noção de autonomia e literacia para os jovens, dentro e fora do contexto da cibercultura; os vários papéis que os jovens podem adoptar enquanto utilizadores, participantes e produtores de conteúdos; a retórica representacional e mediática do pânico moral; o papel específico das crianças e jovens dentro do dispositivo de sexualidade foucauldiano; o desenrolar da constituição de uma cidadania da intimidade e sexual nos jovens; a educação sexual na medida em que congrega questões de mediação escolar, parental e sócio-cultural, para além dos novos media.

As metodologias empregues pretendem, não o estabelecimento de uma amostragem e resultados representativos, mas antes uma mistura entre uma componente quantitativa e uma componente qualitativa, recorrendo inclusivamente aos dados do Projecto EU Kids Online para estabelecer pontes de ligação com um estudo representativo. Esta segunda será a mais preponderante no contexto – o objectivo aqui é o de delinear uma pesquisa longitudinal, que esteja capacitada para abarcar conceptualmente o processo, precisamente por causa da importância do processo e da necessidade de encontrar a reflexividade dentro da investigação e através dela. A análise crítica do discurso, análise de conteúdo – com cruzamentos entre teoria foucauldiana, teorias feministas, grounded theory, análise narrativa – e um constante trabalho de reflexão com os participantes da investigação serão ferramentas indispensáveis para tratar o material obtido através das várias rondas de entrevistas planeadas.

Por fim, tomando a abordagem da investigação académica como uma prática politicamente engajada e apreciando o lugar de privilégio que a academia é e constitui, haverá uma preocupação fundamental com a procura de pontes entre os resultados obtidos e a sua divulgação junto de stakeholders e responsáveis por políticas públicas.

Algunas notas sobre pornografía y sexualidad lesbiana

by Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso

How French are French sex-shops ?

by Baptiste Coulmont

Communication, « Sex/Life/Politics » Conference, Loughborough University, september 2007

Space is socially constructed : here I will focus on the legal construction of sexual spaces implied by the the logic... more Space is socially constructed : here I will focus on the legal construction of sexual spaces implied by the the logic of specific French sex-shops zoning laws. Sex-zoning laws are value-laden : they bluntly express what legislators consider to be paramount sexual good. But they also are strongly prescriptive : some spaces become forbidden spaces.
Compared to various U.S. cities, there is no coherent sex « zoning » in France per se. But there are zoning tentations and multi-zoning inspirations : bars can’t be too close to schools or hospitals, historical monuments’ surroundings are protected, and sex-shops too have been the subject of legal imagination.
I will follow the creation of a specific zoning law geared toward adult bookstores and the implementation of this law. I will describe a historical movement : isolating the store from the street, separating the store from the « children ». This history will emphasize a shift of values : During the seventies, the eighties and the nineties moral arguments are being replaced by urbanistic, non moralistic, arguments. « Moral crusaders » find new way to collectively express their claims. Being outside of morals is presented by the crusaders as being neutral, as the embodiment of a national-liberal citizenship.

A Glimpse Behind the Screen: Tijuana Bibles and the pornographic re-imagining of Hollywood.

by Phillip Smith

Scandal in Culture Conference, Wroclaw University, 7th November 2011

Co-authoured with Ellen Wright (UEA)

A Glimpse Behind the Screen: Tijuana Bibles and the pornographic re-imagining of Hollywood.

Hollywood’s... more A Glimpse Behind the Screen: Tijuana Bibles and the pornographic re-imagining of Hollywood.

Hollywood’s early star system relied on a fine balance of carefully controlled star personas and a fan culture of scandal and rumour; while the studios were increasingly required to present and defend a near puritanical image for all their stars, they were simultaneously sex symbols, and audiences craved insights into the private lives they imagined for their chosen stars. Into this world came the ‘Tijuana bibles’.
Illicit, explicit and illegal, the ‘8 pagers’ - comic art pornography of the 20’s - 50’s - revelled in frequently portraying graphic sex acts with little narrative justification, able to feature images, subjects and language impossible in the age of the Hayes Office, while engaging openly with the narratives of scandal and rumour of the time. Miscegenation, bestiality, homosexuality; from Orphan Annie to Donald Duck, Mae West to Clark Gable, these poorly printed booklets were a mafia controlled mass medium which flourished in America throughout the depression and beyond.
These film star Tijuana narratives unhampered by an official studio ‘line’, the worry of litigation, or any notion of taste or decency; put a perverse spin on celebrity identities, delivering on what Hollywood could only hint at, offering their readers a furtive peep behind the curtains of celebrity and the cinema screen, reflect a public obsession with celebrity and Hollywood scandal – the dirtier the better.

Bumper Stickers and Boobs: Why the Free Speech Argument for Pornography Fails

by J.K. Miles

This is published in the popular anthology Porn: Philosophy for Everyone

http://www.amazon.com/Porn-Philosophy-Everyone-Think-Kink/dp/1405199628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320268392&sr=8-1

However I'm working on turning the main idea into an article.

Fetish or Feminist: Recontextualizing Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

by Anne Purcell

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) occupies an unprecedented position in American popular cinema. Somewhere between... more Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) occupies an unprecedented position in American popular cinema. Somewhere between the studio-produced rock and roll vanity blockbusters of the 1950s and 60s, and the more thematically complex artist biopics of the 70s and 80s, lies this little known and even less appreciated film by America’s most titillating independent filmmaker, Russ Meyer. Many critics dismiss Beyond the Valley of the Dolls as an exploitation film, but as this essay will demonstrate, the film’s categorization is much more complex. Straddling the lines between melodrama, exploitation, musical and ‘women’s film,’ Beyond the Valley of the Dolls occupies a uniquely forward-thinking position in terms of its feminist aspects that warrants attention. This paper examines these aspects, arguing that, although Beyond the Valley of the Dolls does show women in sexually objectified ways, it also emphasizes female power, sexuality and ruthlessness in a manner that foreshadows post-second wave feminist film scholarship.

The Beauty (and Darkness- No Need for Bias Here) of Language

by Poppy Valentine

This thought paper walks through some positive and negative aspects of language- verbal, written & symbolic-... more This thought paper walks through some positive and negative aspects of language- verbal, written & symbolic- depending on their employment & interpretation. This paper also provides advise on how one can become a more effective practitioner of language.

"It’s Gotta Be That New Wave Music": Music in New Wave Hookers Carries the Joke

by Laura Wiebe

Published in Earogenous Zones: Sound, Sexuality and Cinema. Ed. Bruce Johnson. London: Equinox, 2010. 140-157.

Children, pornography and sex

by Jeff Klooger

The Hegelian Implications of the Museum of Sex; or, Does MoSex Mean No Sex?

by Kelly Dennis

ART JOURNAL, VOL. 65 (2006)

Muller, Nadine, ‘Not My Mother’s Daughter: Matrilinealism, Third-Wave Feminism and Neo-Victorian Fiction’, Neo-Victorian Studies, 2:2 (Winter 2009/10), pp.109-136

by Nadine Muller

The plot of Sarah Waters’ third novel, Fingersmith (2002), is based on a complex web of matrilineal narratives, which... more The plot of Sarah Waters’ third novel, Fingersmith (2002), is based on a complex web of matrilineal narratives, which eventually are uncovered as fictions. This essay will analyse these matrilineal fictions in terms of their influences on the novel’s protagonists Sue and Maud, as well as considering the novel’s matrilinealism first as a feminist metaphor for third-wave feminism and secondly as a metafictional device commenting on neo-Victorian fiction’s relationship to the past. Finally, it will highlight the genre’s similarities to third-wave feminism in terms of their shared concern for and treatment of the relationship between past and present.

Realms of Men’s Pleasures: Straight Porn and Gay Porn as Places of Construction of Masculinities and Male Sexualities [Ríše mužských slastí: heterosexuálne porno a gay porno ako priestory konštrukcie maskulinít a mužských sexualít]

by Michal Bočák

Bočák, Michal. 2011. "Realms of Men’s Pleasures: Straight Porn and Gay Porn as Places of Construction of Masculinities and Male Sexualities." Paper presented at interdisciplinary conference Construction of Masculine Identity in Past and Present, Olomouc (Czech Republic), 10th June 2011. [Paper in Slovak submitted for review.]

Porn as a popular discourse of sexuality, after adopting of significant status in Western culture, has acquired the... more Porn as a popular discourse of sexuality, after adopting of significant status in Western culture, has acquired the power to re-/define practices and identities of sex, gender, and desire to a considerable extent. In each video, there exist a variety of discursive elements and strategies, through which the meanings of represented sexual practices, performing subjects and their identities are being framed. Mainstream straight and gay porn, despite numerous shared discursive characteristics, are perceived as specific discourses in this study. Straight porn makes the male body symbolically invisible, while gay porn glorifies it. However, both types of pornography operate as noticeable articulations of masculinity, although with varying degree of explicitness. The analytic part of the study discusses selected analogies and differences in the construction of masculinities and male sexualities. As an example of analogies between the analysed pornographic discourses, the gangbang genre is examined thoroughly. In these videos, socially interlinked group of men shares a common sexual object and the collective celebration of masculinity and male homosocial bonds appears to be more important than the object itself (regardless of its sex/gender). As an example of differences, the representation of male anality is being interpreted. While in the gay porn the male anality is presented as a possible means of achieving pleasure, in the straight porn its potential is significantly repressed (e.g. visual tabooisation of male anus), or the anality is ostentatiously employed for representing a perverse pleasure and/or masculine dominance.

Keywords: gay porn – straight porn – masculinity – male desire – gangbang – homosociality – anality – pleasure – power

Sexy and smart: Black women and the politics of self-authorship in netporn

by Mireille Miller-Young

Hip-hop honeys and da hustlaz: Black sexualities in the new hip-hop pornography

by Mireille Miller-Young