Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Welcome
Session A Session B
Bramley Room Linden Room
Reflecting on Action
Coffee 3.30-3.45
Open assembly:
common ground for research agendas and
intervention
PORN CULTURES:
REGULATION, POLITICAL ECONOMY,
TECHNOLOGY
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Gail Dines
Much of the academic work on pornography, was conducted in the 1980s and
1990s, before the internet became a “domesticated” technology. In the last
ten years or so, the profits of the pornography industry has reached such a
staggering level, that even the pornographers express shock when
interviewed. This increased level of production and profit has had a dramatic
effect on the industry in terms of both organization and products produced.
Much discussion of pornography proceeds without reference to the actual
content of the genre, which dramatically limits the value of debates. Although
pornography is a wide-ranging genre, the market is well-developed, yet, it is
possible to identify the most popular varieties and track trends in content.
Based on recent qualitative studies of the content of mass-marketed
video/DVD heterosexual pornography over the past decade, I will identify
basic themes and describe recent trends in the industry, with special
attention to the way in which the films construct race and gender identity.
Bio
Bio
Just when the number of obscenity prosecutions was falling to an all-time low,
and the written word was thought immune from challenge, the UK is
witnessing a ‘turn to law’. In an apparent attempt to deal with demand, to
challenge the unassailable nature of internet regulation and to establish
ethical guidelines, England & Wales has adopted new measures criminalising
the possession (not just production and distribution) of ‘extreme’
pornography. Scotland is debating similar legislation, though promising to ‘go
further’.
This presentation critiques the new measures, arguing that they represent an
unsatisfactory compromise between the demands of moral-conservatives and
fundamentalist liberals. The polarisation of debate between these two broad
constituencies largely obscured feminist arguments (from all perspectives). In
doing so, a positive opportunity to rethink the regulation of pornography was
lost. Further, the concentration on ‘extreme’ pornography, and excessive
focus on debating possible ‘causal’ links, eclipsed the need for a more
nuanced approach to both the harms of pornography and potential
justifications for legal action. Finally, considering issues of efficacy and
strategy, this ‘turn to law’ is questioned.
Bio
After formal appeals by UK distributors and a Judicial Review, in July 2000 the
British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) produced new Guidelines which
allowed explicit representations of real sex between consenting adults at the
R18 category (restricting the legal sale of such works to licensed sex shops).
In 2001 the BBFC required that cuts be made to 7% of R18 sex works
submitted for classification before they could be legally sold in the UK. By
2007 the number of sex works which were cut before being issued with an
R18 certificate had grown to 27%. In 2008, this statistic was repeated. A
substantial proportion of cuts required to R18 sex works are made in
accordance with the current interpretation of the Obscene Publications Act
1959. In all such cases the material which is removed is judged to have a
tendency to ‘deprave and corrupt’ a significant proportion of those who would
be likely to view it.In the classification of sex works the BBFC does not make a
moral judgement on whether something is likely to ‘deprave and corrupt’.
This is an interpretation which belongs in the hands of a jury. But the BBFC
is obliged not to pass any material which it believes to be in breach of the
criminal law. Whether the significant increase in required cuts is indicative of
more conservative interpretation of the Obscene Publications Act 1959,
reflecting changes in juries attitudes, or to changes to the nature of
pornography can be addressed by looking at the material itself. In the latest
legislation relating to pornography in the UK, the Criminal Justice and
Immigration Act 2008 can into force this year. Under this law it is an offence
to possess of an extreme pornographic image. What constitutes an extreme
pornographic image includes a subset of the material which would fall foul of
the Obscene Publications Act 1959 if published or distributed. Material
classified under the Video Recordings Act 1984 is excluded from prosecution.
It is the aim of this presentation to consider the impact of harm concerns,
both moral and physical; how obscenity legislation affects the classification of
sex works in the UK; and the impact of the latest developments.
Bio
Murray Perkins joined the British Board of Film Classification as a Film and
Video Examiner in May 2000. In 2005 he became the Senior Examiner
responsible for the 18 and R18 categories, which has involved consulting with
the Obscene Publications Unit of the Metropolitan Police and consulting on
new legislation on extreme pornography. Prior to coming to the UK, Murray
worked for the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification.
Given both the global nature of the Internet and the fact that different
countries have very different standards of acceptability when it comes to
sexual imagery, democratic governments which wish to restrict the
availability of online pornography, have found this an extremely difficult task.
They have instead persuaded Internet Service Providers or bodies such as the
Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to act as self-regulators, thus causing them
to be seen by some as self-censors, and/or made it illegal simply to possess
certain kinds of pornographic material (the 'extreme pornography clauses of
the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2009 furnishing a particularly clear
example of the latter course of action). Both strategies raise important
questions. In particular, what sort of authority and legitimacy do bodies such
as ISPs and the IWF possess in this field, to what extent are they accountable
both to Internet users and to the wider polity, and to what extent is
surveillance of Internet users compatible with democratic values?
Bio
JP is Professor of Screen Media and Journalism in the School of Arts at Brunel
University. His most recent books are Censoring the Word, Censoring the
Moving Image (with Philip French), and his next book, Censorship: a
Beginner’s Guide will be published by Oneworld this summer. He is Chair of
the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and a regular contributor
to the Index on Censorship.
Bio
Clare Bale
Bio
Bio
Jenny Barrett is Programme Leader in Film Studies at Edge Hill University. She
is currently researching representations of the dominatrix in the media, with a
chapter forthcoming in Peep Shows: Essays in Cult Visual Erotica (Wallflower,
2009), entitled “‘Let’s Do Something You Won’t Enjoy’: Dominatrix Porn,
Performance and Subjectivity”.
In their recent The Porn Report, McKee, Albury and Lumby present their
analysis of porn consumption in a chapter entitled Dirty? Old? Men? The work
of this chapter is to counter “mainstream” depictions of the porn consumer:
“everybody who reads newspapers”, they write, “knows that the people who
use pornography are sad, dirty, old men.” These kind of hyperbolic claims
about popular culture’s representation of pornography – and those who
consume it - are by no means unique to The Porn Report. However, there is
little careful analysis of specific representations of porn consumers in popular
culture though this is surely an important context in which to understand how
the possibilities for porn consumption are presented to current and future
users. This paper will take on this challenge through an analysis of a range of
media texts aimed at young men, including docu-porn series, best-selling
weekly and monthly magazines and drama/ comedy series.
Bio
Bio
Marcus Breen was born and educated in Australia. After a short career as a
print journalist covering the popular music and film industries he moved into
the research community where he worked as director of the cultural
industries research program at the Centre for International Research on
Communication and Information Technologies in Melbourne. After specializing
in multimedia consulting he moved to an academic position in the US and
continued consulting with governmetns in North America, Mexico, the
Caribbean and with global technology firms. He is currently Associate
Professor in hte Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern
university, Boston. His last book was Rock Dogs: Politicis and the Australian
Music Industry. He is currently working on Uprising: The Internet's Unintended
Consequences.
Bio
Concerns have been raised over the past couple of months regarding young
people and pornography. These concerns often focus on the effect of
pornography on young peoples sexual expectations and behaviour, however
there is growing concern over the phenomenon of 'sexting', that is the
sending of sexually explicit photographs and videos via mobile phones and
webcams. Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 a young person aged under
18 cannot be filmed or photographed in a sexually explicit way. My
presentation will concentrate on research undertaken by practitioners in
Newcastle upon Tyne which highlights the extent to 'sexting' and the impact
that pornography is having on young people’s lives.
Bio
Aylssa Cowell is the Youth Work Service Manager at Streetwise Young Peoples
Project in Newcastle. She has worked in the sexual health field for 7 years
and as part of her role trains professionals in working with young people
around the issue of pornography. She completed her BA in Community and
Youth Work at Durham University in 2003 and is currently studying towards
her Masters in International Politics at Newcastle University. She is also an
editor of Youth & Policy, a journal published quarterly by the National Youth
Agency.
Bio
The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 introduced the new offence of
‘Possession of extreme pornographic images’ (section 63) into English law.
One aspect of the framework that section 63 uses to determine which images
will fall within its orbit is explicitly concerned with questions of morality:
images must be deemed ‘grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an
obscene character’. This paper will examine some of the justifications for,
objections to, and implications of the inclusion of the moral component of
section 63 and situate these arguments within long-standing debates about
the relationship between law, pornography and morality. Returning to the
influential but much critiqued work of Patrick Devlin, I will argue that the
framework that section 63 offers for the moral evaluation of extreme images
is an imperfect but appropriate method for determining the level of social
toleration for the private possession of violent pornographic imagery. In
considering some of the arguments made against the moral framework, and
in favour of a pure harm-based approach, I will argue that the morality
component offers both a practical way of evaluating images in relation to
contemporary standards of obscenity and provides a protective mechanism
for limiting the scope of the law’s application.
Bio
The negative aspects of the term are present in a number of forms. First, the
word ‘choice’ itself communicates a troubling meaning. The term “erotica” is
historically a legitimate art and literature term. By linking together the words
“child” and “erotica”, we create a phrase which validates the referenced
material. The use of an art and literature term to refer to material which
should be condemned as blatant sexual objectification, even if not legally
obscene, elevates the material to an undeserving and legitimizing level.
Language matters; and we should not legitimize the concept of sexually
objectifying children, by utilizing such a label. Secondly, the term is far too
general. While it suggests a limited reference to artistic or literary material,
courts and the media have morphed the term to reference any material
involving children which is considered sexual but does not meet the definition
of “child pornography.” Consequently, its use merges together a vast array
of images such as blatantly nude and sexual (although not legally obscene)
pictures, alleged “child modeling” images, and materials with legitimate
social utility in other contexts such as educational materials and novels. This
inaccurate label then diminishes the negative reality of the more severe
materials. This mislabeling by courts is manifest in, and could affect the
rulings of, motions to exclude evidence, sentencing hearings, and motions
regarding other activity of defendants. It is also felt in society as a whole
when the media puts forth a phrase suggesting there are limited times in
which adults can acceptably sexually objectify and commoditize children.
This paper proposes to review the history of the terms “erotica” and “child
erotica.” It will then examine the use and misuse of “child erotica” in the
courts and media. The paper then proposes an elimination of the use of the
term “child erotica” and a replacement with more precise and distinct labels
for more narrow and different types of material. Because the material at
issue is legal in some nations and not in others, the paper will examine
repercussions of this action on freedom of expression concerns in both such
arenas.
Bio
The rise in female participation within the pornography industry has resulted
in the supposed entrance of female sexual interests. While past studies have
concluded that female directors depict women in a problematic fashion,
attention has not been directed toward a new genre, feminist pornography.
This current study analyzes the work of three self-proclaimed feminist
pornography directors: Candida Royalle, Tristan Taormino, and Joanna Angel
against the backdrop of feminist history. Three films from each director were
viewed as part of a textual analysis that focused on depictions of pleasure,
violence, and oppression. Unfortunately, these feminist pornographers failed
to depict women as more empowered than generic female pornographers.
This conclusion, coupled with the literature used to review the three waves of
feminism, supports the claim that feminist pornography emerged as a result
of the deconstructed climate of Third Wave feminism. The personalized
adoption of feminism that these female directors employ has a direct
relationship with the philosophy of Third Wave feminists.
Bio
It is recognised both within academic feminism and the popular media that
whilst anti-pornography activism was a key element of radical feminist
movements of the 1970s and 1980s, this declined in the 1990s with the
ascendancy of a more individualistic, liberal feminist discourse of
'empowerment' and 'choice' regarding women's participation in pornography
and the sex industry. This paper examines what appears to be the re-
emergence of a feminist anti-pornography agenda in the context of the
cultural mainstreaming of pornography. It investigates what motivates
feminists involved in anti-pornography actions, the understandings and
analyses of pornography that inform their campaigns, how groups organise
themselves, the nature of anti-porn campaigns and activities, and what the
significance of this activism might be in terms of contemporary feminism. In
particular, the paper focuses on issues of motivation and the impact of
participation in activism on personal biography, in order to problematise
common assumptions about the relationship of young women to feminism
and to illuminate the complexities of how activists develop and maintain a
feminist consciousness in relation to a 'pornified' society.
Bio
Julia Long is a final year doctoral student at London South Bank University,
and a feminist activist involved with Anti-Porn London, Object and the London
Feminist Network. Prior to returning to full-time academic study, she worked
in gender equality policy in the state sector, managed an HIV support
organisation and taught for several years in a sixth form college. Her
academic background is in English Literature and Women's Studies.
This paper will examine public concerns that children are being sexualised for
the adult gaze through the lens of Australian debates. In particular, it will
outline a 2008 controversy surrounding photographs of naked children taken
by artist Bill Henson and explore popular and official discourses triggered by
it. In broader terms, the paper will ask what is at stake in claims that
sexualised images of children are proliferating and put these concerns into a
culturally historical context. The paper will also examine the role of digital
and online media in generating debates about children and sexualization.
Bio
Professor Catharine Lumby is the Director of the Journalism and Media
Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She is the author and
co-author of six books, including The Porn Report (Melbourne University Press,
2008) which was based on a comprehensive study of the consumption and
production of pornography in Australia. Her recent research has focused on
youth media consumption and debates around regulation, education and
media literacy in a digital and online era.
Bio
Bio
Bio
This paper considers how pornography and other forms of commercial sex
function within the 3D virtual world of Second Life. Set against an historical
account of the porn industry in relation to technological change, I aim to
distinguish the virtual world from other forms of online porn. I will focus in
particular, on the way in which boundaries of production andconsumption in
Second Life are blurred, thinking through modes ofparticipation and identity.
As sexuality per se becomes wholly commodified (players can "purchase"
designer genitalia and sex positions or acts) whatis the function of
recognisably commercial "professional" sex (prostitution,pornography,
stripping)? In conclusion, this paper will consider how ananalysis of the
possibilities for "amateur" participation in commercial sexraises broader
implications for the regulation of virtual worlds.
Bio
The democratization of Internet resources has pushed the porn lexicons and
imageries to the center of the mainstream western culture. The proliferation
of new domestic technologies reinvented the apparatus of bodies’
sexualization, thus facilitating the expression of non-normative sexualities
and alternative politics of desire. However, regardless of the innovative and
subversive potential of cybernetics, a significant segment of cyberporn
industry continues to convey a monolithic regime of representation where
“sex”, “gender” and “race” play a major role. The range of recurrent “sexual”
categories offered by most of the Internet porn sites suggests a biopolitical
map of interdependent dominant discourses on bodily aesthetics and
performativities: 18th century’s biomedical invention of sexualities (e.g. ‘anal’,
‘oral’), John Money’s gender reassignment theory of the 1950’ (e.g. ‘big dick’,
‘big tits’), and the colonialist construction of a hyper-sexuality of the “other”
(e.g. ‘Asian’, ‘interracial’). Drawing on a poststructuralist queer perspective,
we aim to reflect on how mainstream porn Web pages tend to operate as
sites of heteronormative and racial power intersections. In particular, by
deconstructing the semiotic arrangement of three top-rated porn sites with
the use foucaultian discourse analysis, we will discuss how they
simultaneously function as biotechnologies of gender and of “othering”.
Bio
Pedro Pinto was born in Lisbon, where and he has first graduated in
Anthropology. Nowadays, he is working at University of Minho, currently
dedicated to his PhD project on the emergence of new sex markets in
Portugal and their politics of bodies’ representation. Pedro is an anti-anti porn
feminist.
Public Sex, public choice and public policy: sexist advertising under
scrutiny
In this paper I will examine two media products – outdoor advertising and
late-night television advertisements – examining the highly sexualised
content of each and highlighting the discrepancies that exist in public policy
as related to each product. Outdoor advertising is a medium where, despite
the often highly sexualised content, images are displayed to an
indiscriminate audience who cannot avoid their exposure. A double-standard
exists with outdoor advertising where the kind of images that would be
inappropriate inside workplaces (due to sexual harassment legislation) are
freely displayed in public space. This paper will undertake a comparison
between the images displayed in outdoor advertising and those contained in
late-night television advertising where a similar sexualisation of women
occurs. Television is a medium that is comparatively more highly regulated
than outdoor advertising but unlike outdoor advertising is often exonerated
for sexist content because of the choice that exists for audiences to “turn
off”. While those offended can turn off, the burden of having to do this
because of content concerns can prove socially exclusionary for a women, in
a manner very similar to the social exclusion witnessed in public spaces
saturated by highly sexualised outdoor advertisements.
Bio
Thanks to the illuminating writing of scholars such as Diane Negra and Angela
McRobbie, we are beginning to understand the prevalence of postfeminist
address in the media, part of which is a mainstreaming of pornography.
Although we might suppose that contemporary art provides a complementary
site of critique that challenges popular representations of women, in fact
postfeminist expressions have acquired a rather celebrated and ‘glamorous’
position within recent art practice and a substantial body of this work
involves various appropriations of pornographic images in art by women.
Bio
Ksusha’s Story
Sue will talk about how this film came to be made and her work with the
International Organisation for Migration in Moscow. They have set up the first
ever Safe House for the rehabilitation of victims of sex trafficking and after
two research trips to Russia, Sue made this film, Ksusha’s Story.
Bio
Bio
Bio
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Meagan Tyler recently completed her PhD in the School of Social and Political
Sciences at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Her thesis was titled
‘Active Service: The pornographic and sexological construction of women’s
sexuality in the West.’ She has published work in Women’s Studies
International Forum and Women & Therapy.
From Jekyll to Hyde: How the Porn Industry Grooms Male Consumers
Some such grooming techniques have long been the focus of feminist
analysis: for instance, gradual desensitization and portraying the women in
pornography as craving pain and humiliation. After reviewing these more
familiar points, this presentation will focus primarily not on how pornography
encourages male consumers to see women, but on how it encourages them
to see themselves. Prominent techniques for breaking down and overriding
consumers’ ethical boundaries include male-bonding appeals, humor and
joking, catering to anxious masculinity, and encouraging self-fragmentation.
As a result of such efforts on the part of pornography producers and
distributors, the male porn user becomes both abuser and abused, both
consumer and consumed.
Bio
This symposium brings together papers that seek to pause and reflect – in
different ways – on the assumption that we are seeing a ‘pornification’ or
‘sexualisation’ of culture, and what the implications of any shifts might be.
This paper examines some of the new sexually explicit representations that
have emerged online, for example in altporn, subcultural and countercultural
erotica, and contemporary pinup sites. It asks to what extent these can be
seen as forms of pornified mainstream culture, and to what extent they
represent new forms of pornography. How can we understand them in relation
of the traditional divisions between restricted and mainstream forms of
cultural production? How do they complicate our understanding of ‘porn
cultures’ and the processes of cultural sexualization?
Debates about the sexualisation of culture have picked apart the complex
processes involved in the increasing visibility and ‘mainstreaming’ of
pornography in the popular media (McNair, 1996; Attwood, 2006). Part of this
apparent ‘democratisation’ (McNair, 1996) of sexually explicit culture is the
wider availability and consumption of materials and information about sex.
Sex ‘self help’ is a fast growing industry, in which the ‘science’ of sex (Tyler,
2008) is disseminated to individuals in order to help them construct the ‘best’
sexual selves within a neoliberal discourse of ‘self-improvement and
entrepreneurialism’ (Tyler, 2004).
This paper will examine the role of the expert in normalising discourses of
‘great sex’. Who is entitled to have ‘great sex’? How do power dynamics of
class, ethnicity, disability, gender role, age and sexuality play out in the ‘soft
porn’ of The Sex Inspectors? What does it mean for a sexual subject if they
fail to achieve the perfect, pornified (Levy, 2005) performance for the all-
seeing, all-knowing sexperts?
This paper argues that the notion of the 'sexualization of culture' is too
general to be a useful conceptual tool. The article has two main objectives.
First, it seeks to interrogate the notion of 'sexualization' as a way of
understanding the proliferation of sexually explicit imagery within
contemporary advertising. Rather than taking up a position 'for' or 'against'
'sexualization' (in the familiar way), it seeks to open up the notion in order to
explore the diverse practices which are commonly grouped together under
this heading. Using advertising as an example, it argues that 'sexualization'
is far from being a singular or homogenous process, that different people are
'sexualized' in different ways and with different meanings -- and indeed that
many remain excluded from what has been called the 'democratization of
desire' operating in visual culture. Secondly, the paper develops a feminist
intersectional analysis to critically read some of the different ways in which
advertising might be said to be sexualised. It looks at three different and
contrasting, but easily recognizable 'figures' within contemporary advertising:
the good-looking male 'sixpack', the sexually agentic heterosexual 'midriff'
and the 'hot lesbian', usually intertwined with her beautiful double or Other.
The aim is to highlight the point that sexualization does not operate outside
of processes of gendering, racialisation and classing, and works within a
visual economy that remains profoundly ageist and heteronormative. The
paper argues that an attention to differences is crucial to understanding the
phenomena, practices and scopic regimes that are often lumped together
under the heading 'sexualisation of culture'.
Bios
Sara Bragg is Research Fellow in Child and Youth Studies, at the Open
University, and co-author with David Buckingham of ‘Young People Sex and
the Media: the facts of life?’ (2004).
Laura Harvey is a doctoral student at the Open University. Her work examines
the relationship between sexual behaviours, attitudes and media
representations.