Pornography

As pornography use becomes more commonplace in the United States, and increasingly so among younger cohorts, a growing literature is considering its potential connection to key social and cultural institutions. The current study examines the relationship between pornography use and one such institution—marriage. We draw on three-wave longitudinal data from 2006-2014 General Social Survey panel studies to determine whether married Americans' pornography use predicts their likelihood of divorce over time and under what social conditions. We employ a doubly robust strategy that combines entropy balancing with logistic regression models. We find that the probability of divorce roughly doubles for married Americans who begin pornography use between survey waves (N = 2,125; Odds Ratio = 2.20), and that this relationship holds for both women and men. Conversely, discontinuing pornography use between survey waves is associated with a lower probability of divorce, but only for women. Additional analyses also show that the association between beginning pornography use and the probability of divorce is particularly strong among younger Americans, those who are less religious, and those who report greater initial marital happiness. We conclude by discussing data limitations, considering potential intervening mechanisms and the possibility of reverse-causation, and outlining implications for future research.

Art and Pornography presents a series of essays
which investigate the artistic status and aesthetic
dimension of pornographic pictures, films, and
literature, and explores the distinction, if there is
any, between pornography and erotic art. Is there
any overlap between art and pornography, or are
the two mutually exclusive? If they are, why is
that? If they are not, how might we characterize
pornographic art or artistic pornography, and how
might pornographic art be distinguished, if at all,
from erotic art? Can there be aesthetic experience of
pornography? What are some of the psychological,
social, and political consequences of the creation and
appreciation of erotic art or artistic pornography?
Leading scholars from around the world address these
questions, and more, and bring together different
aesthetic perspectives and approaches to this widely
consumed, increasingly visible, yet aesthetically
underexplored cultural domain. The book, the first
of its kind in philosophical aesthetics, will contribute
to a more accurate and subtle understanding of the
many representations that incorporate explicit sexual
imagery and themes, in both high art and demotic
culture, in Western and non-Western contexts. It is
sure to stir debate, and healthy controversy.

Violation by way of the distribution of sexual images or image-based sexual abuse or non-consensual “pornography”, or more colloquially and simply, “revenge porn”, entail the online, at times offline, non-consensual distribution, or sharing, of explicit images of someone else seeking revenge, entertainment or political motive. Although male ex-partners are reported as the main perpetrators, current partners, (ex-)friends of both victims and perpetrators, people known to the victim, people seeking revenge for friends, Internet hackers and trolls, amongst others, may also be involved (Tyler, 2016).

The negative impact it has on victims is significant and profound in terms of physical and psychological health and well-being, as with many other forms of gender and sexual violence and abuse. Victims report a host of negative effects: feelings of humiliation, shame, embarrassment and reputation damage with intimate partners, family, friends, work colleagues and, in public; sexual shame,  sexual problems and body image issues with intimate partners; education and employment disruptions; becoming paranoid and hyper-vigilant, and concerned for their personal safety. For example, some have reported being stalked, harassed and threatened with gang rape because of their personal information was also made public. Some victims have even taken their own lives (Citron & Franks, 2014).

Written for a broad audience and grounded in cutting-edge, contemporary scholarship, this volume addresses some of the key questions asked about pornography today. What is it? For whom is it produced? What sorts of sexualities does it help produce? Why should we study it, and what should be the most urgent issues when we do? What does it mean when we talk about pornography as violence? What could it mean if we discussed pornography through frameworks of consent, self-determination and performance?

This book places the arguments from conservative and radical anti-porn activists against the challenges coming from a new generation of feminist and queer porn performers and educators. Combining sensitive and detailed discussion of case studies with careful attention to the voices of those working in pornography, it provides scholars, activists and those hoping to find new ways of understanding sexuality with the first overview of the histories and futures of pornography

Publisher: Maclean's
Author: Judith Timson
Date: Sep. 26, 2005
http://www.canadiancrc.com/newspaper_articles/Macleans_Girls_gone_raunch_26SEP05.aspx

porn, pornography, porn culture, misogyny, raunch culture, sexual assault, rape, rape culture, sexualization, sex, sexuality

This article draws on a memory-­‐work project on the childhood experiences and memories of pornography in Finland to argue that the autobiographical younger self used in these reminiscences is a creature distinct from the cultural figure of a child at risk, and that the forms of learning connected to pornography are more diverse and complex than those limited to sexual acts alone. The notion of an asexual child susceptible to media effects remains detached from people's accounts of their childhood activities, experiences and competences. By analyzing these, it is possible to critically reexamine the hyperbolic concerns over the pornification and sexualization of culture.

O artigo se propõe a discutir a pornografia nos videogames em um cenário de hiper-realidade. Assim, são apresentados casos de imagens produzidas através dos games que alcançaram um patamar mais que real de acordo com o conceito desenvolvido por Jean Baudrillard. Nesse contexto, debater como as representações pornográficas de personagens de videogame migraram para o nosso cotidiano com os quadrinhos pornográficos japoneses através do ahegao. E por fim, apresentar e problematizar o processo de criação comunitária da personagem Bowsette: fanarts, histórias em quadrinhos, cosplay, modificações e produções pornográficas.

The article proposes to discuss pornography in video games in a scenario of  hyper-reality.  Thus,  cases  of  images  produced  through  games  are  presented  that have reached a more than real level according to the concept developed by Jean Baudrillard. In this context, to debate how pornographic representations of video  game  characters  migrated  to  our  daily  lives  with  Japanese  pornographic  comics through ahegao. And finally, to present and problematize the process of community creation of the character Bowsette: fanarts, comics, cosplay, modifi-cations and pornographic productions.

El artículo propone discutir la pornografía en videojuegos en un escena-rio de hiperrealidad. Así, se presentan casos de imágenes producidas a través de juegos que han alcanzado un nivel más que real según el concepto desarrollado por Jean Baudrillard. En este contexto, debatir cómo las representaciones porno-gráficas de personajes de videojuegos migraron a nuestro día a día con los cómics pornográficos japoneses a través de ahegao. Y finalmente, presentar y problema-tizar el proceso de creación comunitaria del personaje Bowsette: fanarts, cómics, cosplay, modificaciones y producciones pornográficas.

El siglo XXI se caracteriza por el desarrollo intensivo de la tecnología, que ha colonizado casi todos los ámbitos. Pero también ha crecido de forma llamativa la distracción que puede facilitar la acedia.
Este artículo acude a los clásicos de la espiritualidad para establecer una relación entre acedia y tecnología y además propone como solución la oración y la templanza.

We may know pornography when we see it, but the business of pornography is a surprisingly elusive subject. Reliable figures about the industry are difficult to come by and widely disputed, but one matter that is hardly debatable is that pornography is a major and ubiquitous enterprise. Porn allegedly accounts for one-third of all internet traffic currently, though the data about actual consumption is unclear. Reports in recent years have suggested that 70 million individuals visit porn sites every week; that among viewers aged 18-24, women watch more porn than men; and that among middle-aged, white-collar workers, three-quarters of men and half of women have admitted to looking at pornography websites while at work.

While debates and emotions around porn can run high, there is a crucial need for reliable information and rational conversation. In this book, Shira Tarrant parses the wide range of statistics that we have on the pornography industry, sorting myth from reality in an objective, fascinating and knowledgeable fashion. She looks at ongoing political controversies around the industry, the feminist porn wars, the views of the religious right, the history of pornography, landmark legal cases, and the latest in medical research. The Pornography Industry also explains the industry basics -who works in porn, why people become performers, how much they earn, and what happens on a porn set. It further delves into important questions such as: how many teenagers watch porn and should we worry about it? What is porn piracy and can it be stopped? What can the industry do about sexist and racist pornography? Does porn cause violence against women? Can people become addicted to porn? Is watching porn the same as infidelity? By presenting competing perspectives in an even-handed way, The Pornography Industry will enable readers to explore these provocative issues and make their own best decisions about the debates.

Las aproximaciones esencialistas y constructivistas a la pornografía suelen concebirse como antagónicas o contrarias. Esto porque, de un lado, se entiende la pornografía desde el contenido de las representaciones y, de otro, desde la emoción y la excitación de quien consume imágenes.
No obstante, pese a esos esfuerzos de diferenciación, este ensayo argumenta que hay un denominador común entre ambas: la pornografía se ubica como imagen, es decir, como objeto (acabado, tiene una forma, es un producto). A través de una investigación etnográfica realizada en una comunidad online, Foro de Costa Rica, el ensayo propone pensar la pornografía como cosa o proceso (inacabado, está siempre tomando forma, en constante producción). Esto pretende alejarse de las visiones dicotómicas entre lo esencial y lo construido. Como cierre e invitación, se destaca la importancia social de considerar un posicionamiento como este.

В статье представлен анализ параметров
успешности и легальности секстинга как разновидности онлайн
коммуникации, под которой следует понимать обмен текстовыми
сообщениями, изображениями, GIF-файлами и видеофайлами в
онлайн пространстве (посредством интернет-приложений или SMS
и MMS) сексуального содержания. Анализ материала позволил
выделить параметр легальности и параметр успешности, в рамках
которых возможен анализ секстинга с точки зрения правового
регулирования и теории коммуникации.
____________________________________________________
The paper considers the legal aspect and the aspect of
success of sexting. Sexting refers to exchanging of sexually explicit
texts, images, GIF-files or videos per Web-based applications or
SMS/MMS installed on cellphone, PC, laptops or tablet with the aim of
sexual gratifying for one or both participants of communication. Having
analyzed the 20 empirical and 23 methodological studies were
highlighted two fields of analyzing sexting as legal and communicative
phenomenon. As the result were listed three criteria of legal aspect and
three criteria of aspect of success of sexting.

This volume contains in-depth essays in English by the ethicist Thomas Schirrmacher, who is known for representing Christian-ethical standards. He is actively engaged in pastoral counseling in German churches and the Third World and in the fight against abortion and pornography. His treatises are not only profound in thought, but propagate practical consequences that are understandable for every Christian.

Included is the well-known section “National Socialism as Religion” with prayers to Hitler and other unknown sources.

Sex work was not a prominent public issue in the USA a generation ago. Law and law enforcement were fairly settled. Over the past two decades, however, a robust campaign has sought to intensify the stigmatization and criminalization of the participants involved in all types of sex work, which are now conflated with human trafficking. These efforts have been remarkably successful in reshaping government policy and legal norms and in enhancing penalties for existing offenses. The article analyzes these developments within the framework of a modernized version of moral crusade theory that includes both instrumental and expressive arguments against sex work.

Exclusivists maintain that art cannot be pornography. In this essay, I examine and reject several promising exclusivist arguments including, Levinson’s attention account, Mag Uidhir’s manner inspecificty account, and Michael Rea’s use account.  I then ask what might motivate one to preserve a fairly firm art/pornography distinction.  One answer appeals to evaluative insights about the harm of pornography.  However, I argue, such insights will not support exclusivism.  Further, I offer an additional source of the moral evaluation of inegalitarian sexualized images of women, be they pornography or not, that does not rely on the harm hypothesis.  On my view, the meaning of this kind of imagery is made incorrigible by the social context in which it is produced and consumed, namely one in which women’s oppression is tied to their being viewed as for the sexual delectation of men.  As a result, such images are deeply morally flawed.  In taking an attitude of sexual delectation toward such imagery one would have to bracket its incorrigible social meaning.  This is something that, in the interest of sympathy and solidarity with women, we ought not do.

This essay examines the censorship trials of Nagai Kafū’s Taishō- period (1912–26) erotic short story ‘Yojōhan fusuma no shitabari’ (What I found in the sliding doors of the four-and-a-half-mat room) in postwar Japan. I consider why this story provoked censorship charges in two instances that span almost a quarter of a century and why it was successfully prosecuted in both instances despite the increasing shift toward a climate of sexual liberation in the interim. By analyzing the lawyers’ and judges’ arguments, I consider how the guilty verdicts were paradoxically also attempts to sanitize the reputation of literary giant Kafū. These censorship trials attempted not only to regulate sexual morality, but also to define the role and responsibilities of art, author and audience in society.

The field of audience studies has undergone something of a change in the last twenty years. From considering film and television viewers to be passive consumers, scholars now recognise the active role that audiences play in the construction and reception of texts. This work has been fuelled by the development of fan studies, with academics like Henry Jenkins, Matt Hills and Jonathan Gray arguing that fans not only read a text in different ways depending on their social, political and cultural backgrounds, but actively work with the text and change its meaning through the creation of fanfiction, fan videos and fan art. Much work on porn, however, has retained the image of the porn viewer as a mere consumer: Zabet Patterson notes that the ‘cyberporn addict’ is a recent figure in contemporary accounts of porn audiences, while Feona Attwood writes that “Actual porn consumers are absent from public debate and are represented by figures which stand for consumption and sexuality” (2004).

This paper problematises the notion of the passive consumer of porn adopting Ritzer and Jurgenson's 2010 concept of productive consumption, or ‘prosumption’. Ritzer and Jurgenson suggest that prosumption is the simultaneous role of being a producer of what one consumes, and argue that Web 2.0 facilitates its implosion. I suggest that prosumption is a useful means by which we can understand the dual role of porn audiences as producers and consumers, and draw on fan studies to analyse this. I examine fanfiction written by viewers of porn as well as the fan communities that have risen around the porn star James Deen. I argue that both these fanfic writers and 'Deenagers' are engaged in more fannish activities than previously recognised in porn viewership, and that each are engaged in practices that complicate current understandings of porn audiences.

The advent of the internet has brought tremendous new possibilities and problems for contemporary society. Specifically, the church has struggled to confront the accessibility of pornography on the web. Because radical technological development has made this unique temptation possible, preexistent theological frameworks are difficult to utilize when making a case for its immorality. This paper focuses on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose theory of the passions exposes the inner workings of lust. I systematically analyze the various faculties of the soul involved in the choice to click a link to pornography by tracing the origin of temptation from the passive potencies (sense powers) to its culmination in the sensitive appetite. I conclude that when reason alone cannot curb appetitive passions, moral virtue must be imbued in the sensitive appetite through the formation of ethical (virtuous) habits that direct one's soul towards the ultimate good of eternal life.

Männer machen, gucken und konsumieren Pornos-soweit das Vorurteil. Tatsächlich ist die Branche vom männlichen Blick und männlichen Strukturen geprägt. Aber Pornos von und für Frauen, in denen die Frau mehr als nur Lustobjekt ist, werden immer bedeutender.

Las prácticas culturales en su conjunto están enmarcadas en y atravesadas por un contexto informacional que traza el camino por el que transita el siglo XXI. Pero ¿cuál es la entidad de este ser al que llamamos información? ¿Bajo qué rostros se muestra? Pensar la información hoy es pensar en las tecnologías digitales y el lugar que ocupan en la organización de las sociedades actuales, pero también es pensar en el sentido común que la asocia a las noticias, transmitidas diariamente por los medios de comunicación, e incluso en las implicancias que se desprenden de su propio nombre: in-formación, proceso que in-forma o que da forma.
Nosotros comenzaremos con el que creemos el primer aporte teórico/práctico de peso para comprender la sociedad de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, lo que se conoce como la Teoría Cibernética de la Información. Weiner y Shannon constituyen los primeros investigadores que elaboran un plan en el que el ser humano funciona como una variable regulatoria de los medios de información y comunicación, y no como el actor de peso en el espectro mediático. El filósofo Marshall McLuhan tomará la posta y construirá, a su manera ecléctica, la primera Teoría Auténtica de los Medios de Vinculación de Masas.
Aquí, en este punto de partida, se abren una gran cantidad de sendas por donde recorrer el devenir mediático de la sociedad postmoderna (la llamamos postmoderna, pero podríamos denominarla de diferentes maneras: tardocapitalista, postdisciplinaria, postfordista o postindustrial, de la comunicación, de la información, líquida, etcétera). Nosotros elegimos la que creemos central, porque su “objeto” había sido el Objeto privilegiado del siglo XX: el sexo y la sexualidad. La liberación de la representación de la sexualidad —que no es lo mismo que la liberación del sexo: más bien podría interpretarse como la inauguración de un nuevo tipo de sexualidad, y con él de un nuevo tipo de ser humano, de un ser post o transhumano— da cuenta de la transformación social y política radical que estaba viviendo en esos años. Nosotros consideramos a todas estas transformaciones o liberaciones como signos de un acontecimiento incluso más importante. Hace más de un siglo Friedrich Nietzsche sentenciaba en una famosa fórmula “la muerte de dios”. Para nosotros el fin de la era metafísica, que él también anunció y tantos otros tomaron la antorcha, recién se concretó con el traspaso del código de registro analógico al digital. El siglo XX fue el siglo del programa de desmontaje no sólo de la metafísica sino de la sociedad y la estructura mental que la metafísica traía consigo. La trampa reside en que todavía debemos recurrir a esa estructura para poder reflexionar sobre las condiciones de existencia en la sociedad de masas postmetafísica.
Con el fin de la metafísica termina una era demasiada humana de por lo menos dos mil quinientos años, pero no termina el régimen capitalista. Termina una estructura mental cuyo medio hegemónico era el libro, pero no termina ni la producción masiva de libros (más bien ésta se multiplica exponencialmente) ni las condiciones económicas y sociales que la producción de libros en particular, y la producción de cualquier mercancía en general, implican. Sólo que esas condiciones de producción, circulación y consumo también cambian. A este estadio del capitalismo nosotros le damos el nombre de Capitalismo Afectivo, porque hace del afecto la última mercancía a producirse masivamente. La afectación del capital toma formas diversas, siendo la mediación audiovisual uno de los modos más efectivos de pregnancia. Si bien la lógica de lo audio-visual está atravesada de pantallas, no es sólo el sentido de la vista el que se afecta ni la percepción visual la que se trastoca; también el entorno sonoro y la percepción auditiva entran hoy en manifiesto disloque: desde el sonido móvil de los reproductores portátiles hasta la ubicuidad del uso de la música como fondo de un sinfín de actividades cotidianas, el escenario info-comunicacional forja un nuevo mapa de la cultura sonora, re-estructurando el sentido -del oído en particular y del cuerpo en general.
El Capitalismo Afectivo o postmetafísico, cuyo modo de vincularse es a través de alguna modalidad del código digital, conoce un despliegue de vinculación y registro sólo limitado por la capacidad tecnológica, es decir ninguna ética ni ninguna intencionalidad humana parecen jugar algún rol más o menos relevante a la hora de decidir el destino de la deriva tecnológica. En este sentido habría que considerar al ser humano una plataforma de despegue o de aceleración de la vinculación mediática que se está llevando adelante. Ésta es la hipótesis que de algún modo el presente Seminario tratará de poner a prueba y someter a discusión.

In a recent paper Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin (2017) present a feminist critique of sexiness and point to two problems in particular. The first is that women are considered sexy in accordance with an externally dictated conception of sexiness. The second problem is that women are considered sexy in accordance with an unduly narrow conception of sexiness, one that focuses predominantly on the body and thus equates sexiness with objecthood. I offer a critical examination of these claims and consider the role of pornography in steering our sexual desires and influencing our conceptions of sexiness.

This book is the first to establish the relevance of same-sex desires, pleasures and anxieties in the cinema of post-war Italy. It explores cinematic representations of homosexuality and their significance in a wider cultural struggle in Italy involving society, cinema, and sexuality between the 1940s and 1970s. Besides tracing the evolution of representations through both art and popular films, this book also analyses connections with consumer culture, film criticism and politics. It uncovers how complicated negotiations between challenges to and valorization of dominant forms of knowledge of homosexuality shaped representations and argues that they were not always the outcome of hatred but also sought to convey unmentionable pleasures and complicities. Through archival research and a survey of more than 600 films, the author enriches our understanding of thirty years of Italian film and cultural history.