Article

What Is Pornography?

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Abstract

The October 1996 issue of Life magazine included, among other things, a photograph of Marilyn Monroe naked.' Most people will agree that had the same picture appeared in the pages of Hustler, it would have been pornographic. Furthermore, the picture was considered pornographic when it originally appeared in a calendar in the late 1940's, and it was banned in two states. But is it pornography in the pages of Life? Should Life have warned its readers that the October 1996 issue was an "adults only" issue, to be sold only from the top shelf of the magazine rack? Perhaps one will say that the difference is that in Hustler and in the calendar in which it originally appeared, but not in Life, the picture would have been treated primarily as a source of sexual arousal. But that can't be the whole story. It is a common joke that generations of American boys have treated the Sears catalog and National Geographic primarily as sources of sexual arousal without thereby making them pornographic. Or perhaps one will say that the difference is that the producers of the calendar and of Hustler but not the producers of Life (or of the Sears catalog and National Geographic) intend for the pictures they publish to be treated primarily as sources of arousal. But, again, this can't be the whole story. A woman who has a sexually explicit photo taken of herself for the private viewing pleasure of her husband can't reasonably be said to be a producer of pornography, despite the fact that she may intend the picture to be treated primarily as a source of arousal. In light of these remarks, it is easy to see why it is often lamented that the definition of 'pornography' is as elusive as the referent is pervasive. Of course, the same lament could be raised with respect to almost every other philosophically interesting term. But in the literature on pornography (as opposed to the literature on knowledge, analysis, identity, art, and so on) the lament often comes as part of an excuse for setting aside the project of offering a definition, or for providing an admittedly inadequate definition and moving on to more important business-such as the question of whether it is morally wrong to produce,

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... Intention of the producer Not all sexual material in the public sphere is considered pornography (Huer 1987;Rea 2001; Senate Environment and Communications References Committee 2016). In order to distinguish pornography from other sexual material, the intention of the producer should be taken into account. ...
... Incorporating 'sensible' and 'reasonable' into a definition does not necessarily aid the identification of pornography because what constitutes good sense and reasonableness is open to interpretation. Perceptions of pornography have been described as contextual and dynamic (Rea 2001); contextual judgement varies according to culture, politics, and geography (Hunt 1993). While acknowledgement of context is important, it does, of course, introduce a potential lack of definitional consensus (Short et al. 2012). ...
... No succinct definition provided; excerpts reveal components of a definition: 'rejects any idea that leads to a closed, textual definition'; 'a genre of art within a larger "art circle"'; 'must be defined contextually'; 'just one necessary condition, sex content, and no sufficient conditions. Sex content in porn does not have a specific formal trigger, nor is it informed by particular intentions in the producer or receiver'; 'asks the pragmatic question, "Is it sensible to classify this work as part of that artistic tradition called 'pornography'?"' (470) Rea (2001) 'Part 1: x is used (or treated) as pornography by a person S = DF (i) x is a token of some sort of communicative material (picture, paragraph, phone call, performance, etc.), (ii) S desires to be sexually aroused or gratified by the communicative content of x, (iii) if S believes that the communicative content of x is intended to foster intimacy between S and the subject(s) of x, that belief is not among S's reasons for attending to x's content, and (iv) if S's desire to be sexually aroused or gratified by the communicative content of x were no longer among S's reasons for attending to that content, S would have at most a weak desire to attend to x's content. Part 2: x is pornography = DF it is reasonable to believe that x will be used (or treated) as pornography by most of the audience for which it was produced.' ...
Article
‘Pornography’ is a protean term, rendered more complex by the digital age. Social science researchers need not only a useful definition but also awareness of how the term is applied (by researchers and research participants) and clarity about the scope of material to be included. As part of our attempts to understand the meaning of ‘pornography’, we thematically analyzed definitions presented in recent and prominent pornography research publications and scholarly articles dedicated to defining pornography. We concluded that a useful definition has three components: content, the intention of the producer, and contextual judgement. We then identified implications for pornography of new technology: expanded opportunities for access and content, the interaction and immersion enabled by virtual reality, ‘pornification’ of culture, and challenges to the meaning of consent presented by self-produced content. We argue that pornography should be distinguished from material produced and distributed without participants’ consent. We propose that researchers incorporate new technologies into measurement tools and suggest that they acknowledge context and practise reflexivity. We present as a working definition of ‘pornography’: ‘Material deemed sexual, given the context, that has the primary intention of sexually arousing the consumer and is produced and distributed with the consent of all persons involved’.
... Artistic vs pornographic nudity The definition of pornography is subjective and can vary greatly among individuals and cultures [15,45]. In this regard, the Oxford dictionary provides the following definition: "The explicit description or exhibition of sexual subjects or activity in literature, painting, films, etc., in a manner intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic feelings" [39], placing the intentionality behind the production of a sexually explicit image as a key element to categorize it as pornographic. ...
Preprint
At a time when the influence of generative Artificial Intelligence on visual arts is a highly debated topic, we raise the attention towards a more subtle phenomenon: the algorithmic censorship of artistic nudity online. We analyze the performance of three "Not-Safe-For-Work'' image classifiers on artistic nudity, and empirically uncover the existence of a gender and a stylistic bias, as well as evident technical limitations, especially when only considering visual information. Hence, we propose a multi-modal zero-shot classification approach that improves artistic nudity classification. From our research, we draw several implications that we hope will inform future research on this topic.
... However, before one can aim to define erotica, it is necessary to establish how erotica is different from pornography. And interestingly, there is general agreement across disciplines that there are difficulties in defining pornography and erotica (Cameron, 2005;Rea, 2001;Slade, 2001;Pope et al., 2007). Although, most politicians, content creators and scholars agree that erotica and pornography are not synonyms. ...
Article
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This article explores the experience of shame and guilt that is associated with producing explicit erotic animated content. By employing the reflective practice journaling method , this autoethnographic essay discusses cultural and psychological challenges that need to be overcome by an animator from the Western cultural sphere in order to be able to produce content with sexual overtones. Findings suggest that to create erotic content, it is necessary first to overcome psychological barriers. But even then, the ability to portray animated sexual rapport requires specific animation skills and aesthetical understanding that are difficult to transfer from previous experience. The article concludes with a discussion on how to approach erotic content and what possible challenges the creative team may face in a project with erotic overtones. ■
... One working definition of pornography is that of Michael S. Rea (2001). His definition has two parts, one stating what it is for something to be treated as pornography and the other part stating what it is for something to be pornography. ...
Article
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In pornography, standard modeling contracts often require a performer to surrender rights over their public image and sexual media in perpetuity and across media. Under these contracts, performers are unable to determine who accesses, for what duration, and under what conditions, their sexual media. As a result, pornography has been described by some performers as a “life sentence”—a phrase which, if true, violates some strong intuitions we share about the importance of autonomy in sexual activity. Using the framework of “affirmative consent,” I argue that these contracts violate performers’ rights to sexual autonomy, and ought therefore to be considered objectionable. Overall, I argue that the legal regimes we create have a strong impact on people's lives, and more important than legislating individual outcomes, the type of infrastructure we build around people's decisions has the potential to radically empower—or disempower—those engaged in sex work.
... Toutefois, des variations temporelles, culturelles et sociales sont observées lorsqu'il s'agit de déterminer ce qui est catégorisé comme pornographie. Ainsi Rea (Rea, 2001) distingue cinq définitions possibles de la pornographie. Serait qualifié de pornographie : • la vente du sexe pour le profit ; ...
Article
Cet article propose un état des lieux critique des connaissances sur les effets de la pornographie dans le but d’envisager les possibilités de la questionner dans les pratiques sexologiques. Après un retour sur les travaux soulignant de possibles effets négatifs, ceux soulignant les répercussions potentiellement positives de la pornographie sont abordés. Dans un second temps, quelques une des limites des travaux actuellement menés sont soulignées : difficulté à définir le concept de pornographie, simplification d’un phénomène complexe, limites liées au design des études. Les liens entre pornographies et éducation sexuelle sont interrogés. Des pistes pour optimiser l’accompagnement et l’alliance thérapeutique sont envisagées, tant concernant la posture à adopter que les dimensions et questions à interroger et se poser. Mots clés : pornographie, pensée critique, revue de littérature, prise en charge, éducation sexuelle Abstract : This article proposes a critical review of the knowledge on the effects of pornography in order to consider the possibilities of questioning it in sexological practices. After a review of the scientific works underlining these possible negative effects, those underlining the potentially positive repercussions of pornography are discussed. Secondly, some of the limitations of the works currently conducted are highlighted: difficulty in defining the concept of pornography, simplification of a complex phenomenon, and limitations related to the design of the studies. The links between pornography and sexual education are questioned. Directions for optimizing the accompaniment and the therapeutic alliance are envisaged, as much concerning the posture to adopt as the dimensions and questions to ask. Keywords: pornography, critical thinking, literature review, care, sex education
... Toutefois, des variations temporelles, culturelles et sociales sont observées lorsqu'il s'agit de déterminer ce qui est catégorisé comme pornographie. Ainsi Rea (Rea, 2001) distingue cinq définitions possibles de la pornographie. Serait qualifié de pornographie : • la vente du sexe pour le profit ; ...
Conference Paper
Intervention lors du webinaire de l’Association Interdisciplinaire post-Universitaire de Sexologie (AIUS) du 12 Janvier 2023. Dans ce travail, nous proposons (i) un retour sur les résultats de la littérature internationale traitant les effets de la pornographie ; (ii) de souligner l’importance de la contextualisation des résultats et des modèles implicites simplificateurs les sous-tendants ; (iii) mettre en évidence la nécessité d’un regard complexe afin de (iv) dégager modalités d’intervention pratiques et cliniques permettant d’aborder la pornographie avec les patient.e.s. Le replay est disponible gratuitement : https://aius.fr/webconferences/pornographie/
... Pornographie ist die am häufigsten benutzte Quelle zur Erhöhung der sexuellen Erregung in der Selbstbefriedigung (Willoughby et al., 2016 (Döring, 2011). Laut Rea (2002) 2) Alltags-Definitionen kommen in der umgangssprachlichen Verwendung des Pornographie-Begriffs zum Ausdruck. Sie unterscheiden sich in dem Sinne von juristischen Definitionen, als dass sie oftmals auch Softcore-Darstellungen der "Pornographie" zurechnen 3) Wertende Definitionen wollen zum Ausdruck bringen, dass es sich bei "Pornographie" grundsätzlich um unästhetische ("geschmacklos", "niveaulos") und vor allem ethisch ("menschenverachtend", "frauenfeindlich") abzulehnende sexuell Der vorliegende Beitrag schließt sich der inhaltlich-funktionalen Definition an und verwendet den Begriff "Pornographie" und "sexuell explizites Material" somit weitgehend synonym. ...
... The term "pornography" encompasses a variety of practices, displays, and aesthetics (Attwood 2002;Pope et al. 2007), and it is often defined as the explicit sexualization of text, in a manner intended to stimulate sexual arousal (Andrews 2012;Rea 2001 and anonymity, which protects porn consumers from the social stigma they previously suffered from (Attwood 2011;Cook 2006). Furthermore, the new tools and practices blur the traditional categories of porn performers, producers, distributors, and consumers (Paasonen 2010;Wood 2015). ...
Article
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Much of the research on the changing landscape of internet pornography (Porn 2.0) has neglected the societal implications of the distribution and consumption of pornography within homosocial male-only online communities. The present study uses in-depth interviews to examine how Israeli men who partake in homosocial pornography exchange on WhatsApp groups of their own creation capitalize on their activity and its uses, and what sort of capital they suppose they are accumulating. The article portrays how the users’ engagement translates into Bourdieuian capital accumulation. Results indicate that participants benefit from such activity on three main levels, which were conceptualized according to Bourdieu’s field theory, as forms of non-economic capital: social, symbolic, and cultural. We argue that pornographic activity on WhatsApp potentially grants participants a desirable aura of heterosexual masculinity. Such premium is of special importance in the machoistic and militaristic Israeli society, which encourages hegemonic masculinity.
... Prior to examining the aforementioned questions, it is critical that a definition of pornography be furnished. Researchers have defined pornography in multitudinous ways (Rea, 2001;Rose, 2013); however, common features may be identified. Many definitions, for example, emphasize that pornography depicts and increases violence against women (DeKeseredy, 2020;Foubert, 2016;Weitzer, 2011), promulgates negative attitudes toward women (Golde et al., 2000), objectifies women's bodies (Brecher, 2015), and is rife with degrading acts (Gorman et al., 2010) as well as racist depictions (Miller-Young, 2014;Zheng, 2017). ...
Article
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A content analysis was conducted to explore sexual indicators of aggression, objectification, exploitation, and agency in 50 “hijab” pornographic videos. Our findings suggest that women were the target of aggressive acts in all videos, with gagging (42%) and spanking (38%) being the most common. Also, in comparison with men, women were more likely to be objectified and exploited, and less likely to possess agency. Limitations of the current study and directions for future research are detailed.
... 5 Anélkül, hogy a pornó definíciójával kapcsolatos mélyebb fejtegetésekbe vagy elméleti vitákba, az eltérő diszciplináris alapokon nyugvó megközelítésekbe belemennénk, ahhoz, hogy a pornóiparral kapcsolatos vizsgálódásokba belefoghassunk, szükséges röviden azt definiálnunk, hogy mit értünk pornográfia alatt. Itt Rea (2001) definícióját tartjuk a legprecízebbnek, aki a befogadó oldala felől építi fel a meghatározását, és az azzal kapcsolatba lépő személy (fogyasztó vagy befogadó) szemszögéből pornográfiának tekint minden olyan kommunikatív tartalommal bíró anyagot, amelyet szexuális izgatás vagy kielégülés, nem pedig a legfelületesebb értelmében vett intimitás elősegítése céljából állítanak elő és használnak, és amelyet a célközönség többsége is pornográfnak tart. reintegrálódott a világgazdaságba, nemcsak azokban az iparágakban azonosítható, amelyeket az eddigi munkák már feltártak, hanem a hazai pornóipar kialakulását övező gazdasági-társadalmi struktúrák dinamikáját elemezve is tetten érhető. ...
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Tanulmányunkban két fő kérdésre keressük a választ. Egyrészt arra, hogy mely előzmények és körülmények befolyásolták a magyarországi pornóipar kiépülését a „hosszú kilencvenes években”. Másrészt arra, hogy e folyamat hogyan képezte részét gazdaságilag és kulturálisan Magyarország 1970-es évektől kezdődő világgazdasági reintegrációjának. A kutatás korabeli sajtóbeszámolók, iparági vagy az iparágra rálátó szereplőkkel folytatott félig strukturált interjúk, egykori iparági szereplők önéletrajzi könyvei alapján, valamint a fellelhető szociológiai, történeti és politikai gazdaságtani szakirodalom integratív újraolvasásával világrendszer-elméleti keretben vizsgálja a szexlapkiadásból és pornófilmgyártásból álló pornóipar mechanizmusait. Magyarország a régió országai közül már az államszocializmus alatt is az egyik legliberálisabb társadalom- és gazdaságpolitikát folytatva, valamint infrastrukturális ellátottságát és a fellelhető technikai szakértelmet tekintve megkönnyítette a nemzetközi tőke beáramlását. A reklámipari szabályozások lazulása révén a szexualizált női testtel való reklámozás bevett volt és a Kádár-kor vizuális kultúrájában a szexualizált női test látványa egyre megszokottabbá vált, a szexuálisan kizsákmányolt nő figurája pedig leválasztásra került a felemás női emancipáció témájáról. A rendszerváltás idején kialakuló egzisztenciális válság és az átörökített, társadalmi osztálypozíciókba sűrűsödő hátrányok nők tömegeit tették kiszolgáltatottá a felfutó pornóipar számára. Ezzel párhuzamosan a pornóról szóló mainstream diskurzusok a pornó jelenlétét a liberális demokrácia indikátoraként, valamint legitim üzleti vállalkozásként tartották számon, jelentősebb ellendiskurzus hiányában pedig ezzel igazolását adták az iparszerű működésnek.
... With the advent of the internet, the variety, accessibility, consumption, and extremity of pornography continue to increase (Pornhub Insights, 2019; Rasmussen & Kohut, 2019;Wallmyr & Welin, 2006). Pornography is best defined as a medium, such as a picture, video, or text, that is intended to be treated as sexually arousing (Rea, 2001). The social implications of pornography are something of a Rorschach test -pornography is framed as an aid for sexual arousal (Parvez, 2006), an issue of free speech (Dixon, 2011), destructive to intimate relationships (Doran & Price, 2014;Stewart & Szymanski, 2012), helpful or neutral to relationships (McKee, 2005;Perry, 2020;Wright & Tokunaga, 2018), or promoting some unsafe sexual practices . ...
Article
Some scholars argue that the existence of pornography is an ongoing assault on women and that it should be banned. However, the existing evidence suggests the connection between pornography consumption and sexism is overstated and may actually run in the opposite direction. Using data from the General Social Survey (2010–2018), the current study investigated if “pornography consumption” and “pornography tolerance” predicted sexism and whether these associations varied by sex. Results indicated that pornography consumption predicted lower levels of sexism, although these effects were rendered nonsignificant with the inclusion of sociodemographic, religious, and sociocultural covariates. When comparing the results of the current study to findings based on data from the 1970s–1990s, it appears that pornography consumption is now irrelevant to sexism rather than promoting egalitarianism. Our analyses focusing on “pornography tolerance” revealed that people who supported regulated pornography were more egalitarian than people who supported a pornography ban. Generally, men were more likely to report sexist attitudes than women, but sex moderated the relationship that pornography variables had with sexism in several of the models. Overall, pornography consumption and pornography tolerance were either irrelevant in predicting sexism or were associated with greater egalitarianism.
... Sin embargo, no todo lo obsceno es pornográfico: un ejemplo de esto es el caso del gesto con el dedo del centro, considerado obsceno en muchas sociedades, mas no por ello pornográfico. Aun así, la supuesta obscenidad de la pornografía radicaría, como lo indica Michael Rea citando a Elliott, en la representación explícita de actos sexuales que ofenden la decencia, sin ninguna justificación estética (Rea, 2001). En todo caso, la fotografía erótica no se enfoca únicamente en la genitalidad como elemento central de la composición fotográfica, como sí lo hace en la pornografía, lo que hace a esta una de las principales características de la pornografía contemporánea (Retana, 2008). ...
Article
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Tradicionalmente, la mujer ha sido el objeto de la fotografía erótica dirigida a un público heterosexual masculino. Sin embargo, en la fotografía gay homoerótica, tanto el público meta como el sujeto fotografiado, están constituidos por hombres homosexuales. La primera sección de este artículo aborda el desnudo en el arte; la siguiente trata sobre la fotografía homoerótica, y la última analiza la mirada gay y la manera en que el cuerpo masculino es moldeado y representadoen la fotografía homoerótica.
... We would like, now, to offer a definition of "porn", in the generic sense. We adapt our definition from Michael Rea's (2001) account of pornography. We happen to think that this is a particularly good account of sexual pornography, but the reader need not share that view. ...
Preprint
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We offer an account of the generic use of the term "porn", as seen in recent usages such as "food porn" and "real estate porn". We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content. We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one's empirical and moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized.
... Similar content may percept differently by the people from a different cultural background. There are a number of definition accepted on pornographic term [14]. A visual content/material intents to produce sexual arousal. ...
... See also Rea (2001) for further discussion of how context may affect whether an object should be described as pornographic. 63 See Raymond (2004Raymond ( , 1163 for discussion of the 'sustainable prostitution paradigm'. ...
Article
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Despite sustained feminist criticism, the production and consumption of pornography does not show signs of waning. Here, I offer a critical review of the existing feminist anti-pornography debate, arguing that it has largely failed to provide suitable grounds for a stable and comprehensive critique, instead often indirectly providing theoretical resources for pornography to reinvent itself. This is a product, in my view, of a misguided focus on the pornographic object. Feminist critics are better served, I argue, by redirecting their critical gaze towards the consumers of pornography, and, in particular, to the attitudes such consumption reflects. To that end, I introduce an alternative, attitudinal approach that enables criticism of pornography as a reflection of sexist attitudes, as well as for its role in concealing these attitudes.
... Sapolsky and Zillmann (1981) proposed two categories of pornography: (1) soft core -or erotica, where the media has nudity and sexually suggestive scenes and (2) "hard core" -explicit sexual behavior (including penetration), and can be violent or degrading (Russell, 1998). Rea (2001) summarized pornography definitions from the literature into six different categories: ...
Research
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As pornography use increases across the general population, mental health professionals are encountering more patients who present symptoms of sexual addictions and sexual compulsivity (Cooper et al., 2001). Never before have pornographic materials been so accessible to consumers. Viewing pornography is related to many negative consequences for the individual, including impairment of academic and professional functioning, subjective distress, and sexual compulsivity (Cooper et al., 1999a; Manning, 2006). Studies found pornography use by an individual typically leads to a decline in relationship and sexual satisfaction (Bridges, 2008a). Despite the growth in research related to problematic pornography use, to date there have been very few research studies assessing the efficacy of interventions. The current study evaluated a 12-session cognitive-behavioral treatment protocol developed by Bridges and Minarcik (2012) for the reduction of problematic pornography use and related impairments in men who present with “pornography addiction”. Participants (n=12) were randomly assigned to a 1, 2, or 3-week baseline prior to the initiation of treatment. Primary measures assessed daily minutes of pornography use, self-reported addiction to pornography, sexual cognitions, sexual compulsivity, hypersexual behavior, and pornography craving. Secondary measures were sexual cognitions, mood, relationship satisfaction, and OCD symptoms. There were consistent reductions in weekly pornography use, as measured by self-report daily monitoring forms, which supported the first hypothesis. Self-reported reductions in sexual cognitions, hypersexual behavior, sexual compulsivity, and pornography craving from pre- to post-treatment tended to be reliable and clinically significant, supporting the second hypothesis. One exploratory question revealed the cognitive content of the treatment protocol did not add incremental efficacy above and beyond the behavioral treatment content. Another exploratory question demonstrated the treatment show specificity, such that treatment gains were specific to sexual behaviors and not evidence in other measures of psychiatric distress. The last exploratory question supported that baseline pornography use did not relate to treatment outcomes, suggesting this treatment protocol was equally effective for low- and high-frequency pornography users. Overall, this protocol was found to be effective at reducing problematic pornography use. Future directions include conducting long-term follow ups of the treatment efficacy and conducting dismantling studies to enhance understanding of the relative impact of different treatment components.
... It is notoriously difficult to define porn, either as product or as process. See Michael Rea (2001) for a rigorous critique of existing definitions, followed by a valiant attempt to undertake such a definition, as well as Jorn Sonderholm's (2008) critique of Rea's definition. Here I have used a broad, generic, even popular investigating some aspects of suspected criminality, in order to gain more information about the main focus of the research, viz. ...
Chapter
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In this chapter, I aim to examine the implications of the contradiction between the increasing academic visibility and the ostensible acceptance of “porn studies” on the one hand, and the continued social and professional stigmatization of the field, its research and its researchers on the other. I will argue that the contradiction is a consequence of the intersection of multiple lines of resistance.
... Dalam kamus besar bahasa Indonesia, pornografi didefinsikan sebagai usaha penggambaran tingkah laku secara erotis dengan lukisan atau tulisan untuk membangkitkan nafsu birahi 25 . Sedangkan dalam konteks penyajian pornografi di berbagai situs Internet, maka pornografi22 Rea, M. C. (2001). What is pornography? ...
Article
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Internet does not only provide positive information but also depict negative information and images such as radical and pornography. Previous studies found that most of young citizens have accessed online radical and pornography contents. This caused massive impacts on their behaviour and society life. Instead the negative impacts have been addressed in previous studies, little is known how those impacts should be eliminated. Through an intensive literature review approach, this study, therefore, is intended to provide insight on how the impacts of online radicalism and pornography should be prevented or eliminated. The author usd secondary data from various online data sources such as journals, mass media sites, and other relevant sites. The results show that online radical contents can trigger society to be radical and lack tolerant toward social life. Meanwhile, online pornography contents cause young generation to lack sensitive toward their marriage life and cause them to practice abnormal sexual life. This study also found that the impacts can be prevented and eliminated through increasing Muslim leaders and da’i roles in spreading intensive Islamic values into society, increasing government actor roles to monitor and block such contents, and providing training for society to block negative sites on their own. In conclusion, online radical and pornography contents can impact society life regarding increasing violent and intolerant behavior, while online pornography contents can cause lack sexual sensitivity and increase violent toward women. However, such impacts can be prevented and eliminated through increasing da’i roles, increasing government actor roles in monitoring the sites, and improving citizen skills to block the sites.
... Sedangkan erotisme dan pornografi memiliki kaitan erat meskipun keduanya berbeda (Rea, 2001). Pornografi sendiri memiliki beragam definisi yang terus berkembang. ...
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Through analysis of the case of the internet and Salafism in Indonesia, this article argues that the notion of incompatibility between the internet and religion, which is based on the secularization theory that emphasizes on the inherent incompatibility between religion and modernity, is inaccurate and not empirically supported. In fact, the internet provides religion with new opportunities that have been eagerly welcomed, adopted and cultured by religious communities according to their religious purposes and communal interests. This new medium has become a new enabling tool that facilitates religion and religious communities to pursue their goals and advance their views. This positive response to the internet is represented in the ways Salafis in Indonesia are utilizing websites, which can be categorized into four types of usage: ideological, polemical, contextual and communicative uses. The internet is used by Salafis as a new medium for disseminating ideology, engaging in disputes, responding to contemporary issues and building linkage with one another. All this clearly demonstrates that the internet has positively impacted on religion and that religion is able to be part of modernity by adopting and adapting modernity products like the internet.
Chapter
This Chapter “Models of rational love” presents realistic and pragmatic models of love, which are opposites of romantic models. They have been common in real life of people throughout centuries. The modern scholarship has elaborated several specific rational models, which consider love in light of such characteristics as investment, social, and economic exchange. The communal and equitable models of love are juxtaposed here—they are rational, yet different from others in the group. This chapter also describes such psychologically disengaged love, which can be labeled as role-play, gamified, and ludus models of love. They came under the umbrella term of performing models because they are the exhibiting and demonstrative ways of love, rather than really experiencing ones. Their joy is the joy of an actor and gambler.KeywordsRational loveRealistic lovePragmatic loveIdeal loveChoice in loveIdealistic perception in loveRealistic perception in loveLove as actionLove through doingLove as exchangeMobility in loveLove as investmentEmotional investment in loveCommunal loveEquitable loveEquity in loveEquality in loveLove as a playLove as a gameLove as performanceFlirting in lovePlayful loveMating gameSexual gameRelationship gameLudus loveLove as manipulationLove as conquering
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Intuitively, many people seem to hold that engaging in acts of virtual murder in videogames is morally permissible, whereas engaging in acts of virtual child molestation is morally impermissible. The Gamer’s Dilemma (Luck in Ethics Inf Technol 11:31–36, 2009) challenges these intuitions by arguing that it is unclear whether there is a morally relevant difference between these two types of virtual actions. There are two main responses in the literature to this dilemma. First, attempts to resolve the dilemma by defending an account of the relevant moral differences between virtual murder and virtual child molestation. Second, attempts to dissolve the dilemma by undermining the intuitions that ground it. In this paper, we argue that a narrow version of the Gamer’s Dilemma seems to survive attempts to resolve or dissolve it away entirely, since neither approach seems to be able to solve the dilemma for all cases. We thus provide a contextually sensitive version of the dilemma that more accurately tracks onto the intuitions of gamers. However, we also argue that the intuitions that ground the narrow version of the Dilemma may not have a moral foundation, and we put forward alternative non-moral normative foundations that seem to better account for the remaining intuitive difference between the two types of virtual actions. We also respond to proposed solutions to the Gamer’s Dilemma in novel ways and set out areas for future empirical work in this area.
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Enticing food photography which stimulates its viewers’ cravings, often given a dismissive label “food porn,” is one of the most popular contents in contemporary digital media. In this paper, I argue that the label disguises different ways in which a viewer can engage with it. In particular, food porn enables us to engage in cross-modal gustatory imaginings of a specific kind and an image’s capacity to afford such imaginings can contribute to its artistic merit.
Article
On 23 April 1957, photographer Joseph Aleksandrovich Schneider was arrested by the Latvian SSR KGB for anti-Soviet activities. In searching his studio and apartment, KGB officers uncovered a series of erotic photographs Schneider had taken. This article examines how the KGB and Soviet prosecutors handled criminal charges related to the production and distribution of pornography through the lens of Schneider’s case. Schneider’s KGB file reveals the limitations and inconsistencies in enforcing anti-pornography legislation, as well as the interpretive shift in regarding pornography as a moral, rather than strictly criminal, transgression.
Conference Paper
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RESUMEN El consumo de pornografía y sus posibles consecuencias sigue siendo objeto de debate en el ámbito científico. Diversos estudios muestran que puede producir consecuencias perjudiciales en la personas como: facilitar las conductas agresivas en el ámbito sexual, favorecer los estereotipos de género y roles sexuales, tratar a la mujer como un objeto, fomentar la promiscuidad, generar problemas familiares y en el matrimonio y/o producir disfunciones sexuales. En contraposición, existen estudios que indican posibles efectos positivos del consumo de pornografía, como inducir la cercanía en la pareja o aumentar la autoestima sexual. Además, investigaciones recientes, proponen que la pornografía por sí sola no sería suficiente para generar una conducta problemática, sino que serían necesarias otras variables como la presencia de síntomas depresivos o de ansiedad, la baja autoestima, emociones como aburrimiento o susceptibilidad, las necesidades psicológicas básicas no cubiertas, los estilos de apego, las características de personalidad o la incomodidad respecto a la pornografía, lo que explicarían dichas consecuencias. Debido a los resultados inconcluyentes en el ámbito clínico a este respecto se revisan las diversas investigaciones publicadas hasta la fecha y se proponen ámbitos de crecimiento para mejorar el abordaje y comprensión de este fenómeno en la realidad clínica.
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تحتل الخصوصية الجنسية ذُرْوة سَنام الخصوصية، الأمر الذي يجعلها جديرة بتعزيز حمايتها الجنائية، بما يتناسب مع أهمية المصلحة المحمية. ويعد الثأر الإباحي أحد أخطر الظواهر الإجرامية التي أفرزها العصر الرقمي، والتي تشكل انتهاكًا جسيمًا للحق في الخصوصية الجنسية، ولذلك وصف الثأر الإباحي - بشكل مجازي- بأنه نوع من "الاغتصاب السيبراني". ويتمثل الثأر الإباحي في مشاركة الصور الجنسية الخاصة على الإنترنت دون موافقة الشخص الظاهر في الصورة، غالبًا بهدف الانتقام. ولقد تصديت لهذا الموضوع المهم نظرًا لتفاقم معدلات انتشار هذه الظاهرة، والتي تنطوي على خطورة بالغة وآثار مدمرة، سواء على مستوى الفرد أو المجتمع ككل. ولقد أدرك المشرع الجنائي في معظم دول العالم، على اختلاف النظم القانونية التي تنتمي إليها، سواء الأنجلوأمريكية أو اللاتينية، خلال السنوات القليلة الماضية، خطورة هذه الظاهرة، واتجه بالفعل إلى تجريم الثأر الإباحي بنصوص مستقلة تتلاءم مع أهمية المصلحة المحمية. هذا في حين غفل المشرع المصري عن مواكبة الحركة التشريعية العالمية في هذا الشأن، ولم يجرِّم الثأر الإباحي- حتى الآن- بنص مستقل يتضمن عقوبات رادعة للحد من هذه الظاهرة الخطيرة. ومن هذا المنطلق، فإننا نسعى من خلال هذا البحث إلى تقديم دراسة وافية حول ظاهرة الثأر الإباحي، للتعريف بماهيتها وأبعاد خطورتها، وتحليل الاتجاهات التشريعية المختلفة في معالجتها، بُغْيَة مساعدة المشرع المصري في اختيار النموذج القانوني الأمثل لتجريم الثأر الإباحي.
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ICT is information and communication technology. These technology are telephony, CD ROM, audio or video clips,radio, television, broadcasting, computer, and internet. The most common technology used by people is computer and internet. Internet has an important role in our life. We can find everything using an internet connection. The internet has two effects for students: positive and negative. This paper only focuses on negative effectsbecause it is very dangerous. One of the negative effectsusing internets is pornography. Pornography is very dangerous for studentssince it can decrease students’ morality. For this condition, teachers become an important person who have significant roles in avoiding the pornography affects the students. The teachers have authority tocontrol and monitors students’ activity, at least at school, where students spend most of their time.Oneof effective waysto avoid pornography isthrough givinga sex education to the studentsin which they will get information about what are they have to do and not.
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DISSERTATION ABSTRACT This dissertation examines electronic and electroacoustic music written after 1950 with a focus on works composers attribute with erotic connotations. It explores the ways in which music presents eroticism, how composers envision a musically erotic subject as well as what listeners find aurally stimulating or provocative about music. Compositions by Pierre Schaeffer, Luc Ferrari, Robert Normandeau, Annea Lockwood, Alice Shields, Barry Truax, Pauline Oliveros, Juliana Hodkinson, and Niels Rønsholdt, exhibit common musical idioms, such as the drive to climax, use of the female voice, and visual or textual imagery. But beyond these commonalities, the dissertation’s framing theoretical, critical, and philosophical analyses prove each work exhibits erotic qualities particular to its social, historical, and music-compositional climate. Early works aspire toward a Husserlian essence of the erotic, paralleling the scientific objectivity of the 1950s; in the 1980s and ’90s, many erotic works deemphasize male sexual pleasure to mirror second-wave feminist critiques of pornography; and, on the heels of this corrective, composers at the turn of the twenty-first century use digital processing to reorient gender and sexual markers. Reacting to electronic music’s historical disregard for gender and sexual difference, this dissertation exposes the philosophical, psychological, socio-cultural, and historical relevance of eroticism in electronic and electroacoustic works. Key words: new musicology, music theory, cultural musicology, female voice, music and sexuality, gender, electronic music, electroacoustic music, computer music, analysis of electroacoustic music, erotic art, representation, philosophy, pornography, digital signal processing, Pierre Schaeffer, Luc Ferrari, Robert Normandeau, Annea Lockwood, Alice Shields, Barry Truax, Pauline Oliveros, Juliana Hodkinson, Niels Rønsholdt *** “Sexus erklingt: Erotische Strömungen in der elektronischen Musik” von Danielle Sofer BA MMus MA DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Diese Dissertation untersucht elektronische und elektroakustische Musikstücke, die nach 1950 komponiert wurden, und denen ihre Komponistinnen und Komponisten erotische Konnotationen zugeschrieben haben. Es wird erforscht, wie die Erotik in der Musik dargestellt ist, wie sich Komponistinnen und Komponisten das musikalisch-erotische Sujet vorgestellt haben, und was Zuhörer als stimulierend oder provokativ in dieser Musik empfinden. Kompositionen von Pierre Schaeffer, Luc Ferrari, Robert Normandeau, Annea Lockwood, Alice Shields, Barry Truax, Pauline Oliveros, Juliana Hodkinson, sowie Niels Rønsholdt weisen gemeinsame musikalische Idiome auf, die in der Regel benutzt werden, um Erotik in der Musik zu evozieren, wie beispielsweise das Höhepunktsstreben, der Einsatz der Frauenstimme, und visuelle oder textuelle Bildsprache. Über diese Gemeinsamkeiten hinaus weist die theoretische, kritische und philosophische Analyse dieser Dissertation zudem nach, dass jedes Werk über spezielle erotische Qualitäten verfügt, die spezifisch für sein soziales, historisches und kompositorisches Umfeld sind. Frühe Kompositionen streben nach einem Husserlschen Wesen der Erotik, parallel zur wissenschaftlichen Objektivität der 1950er Jahre. Viele erotische Musikstücke der 1980er und 1990er Jahre schwächen die Merkmale der männlichen Lust am Sex ab, um dadurch die feministische Pornografiekritik der zweiten Welle der Frauenbewegung widerzuspiegeln. Kurz nach diesem Korrektiv, an der Schwelle zum 21. Jahrhundert, haben Komponistinnen und Komponisten digitale Verarbeitungsmethoden benutzt, um Gender- und Sexualitätsverhältnisse neu auszurichten. Als Reaktion auf die historische Gleichgültigkeit bezüglich Gender- und Sexualitätsdifferenz im Bereich der elektronischen Musik zeigt diese Dissertation die philosophische, psychologische, sozio-kulturelle und historische Relevanz der Erotik in elektronischen und elektroakustischen Musikstücken auf.
Article
Pornography use has become widespread and mainstream in American society, with estimates that 60% of men and 35% of women have viewed pornography at some time in the last year. Pornography use has been associated with both positive and negative outcomes depending on the user, and some of these conflicting results may stem from problematic measurement. Using a newly validated measure that assesses frequency, duration, arousal, and deliberate or accidental exposure to seven common types of pornography, we sought to understand whether the motivations to view pornography differed depending on biological sex of the user and the type of use they engaged in. With an MTurk.com sample of 312 participants, we used a variable selection to explore the most consistent predictors of pornography use. Results found that sexually based motivations were consistent motivations to use pornography for both males and females. Educationally based motivations reliably predicted accidental exposure to pornography, while emotions like sadness and tiredness reliably predicted longer durations of pornography use. These results indicate that motivations to view pornography are similar for males and females and that sexually based reasons and emotions are primary in an individual’s decision to use pornography.
Chapter
US, is one country, which started the evolution of the Internet and also the first to be affected and the first to retaliate to the ugly side of the Internet, the cyber crimes. US saw a sea of growth in the cyber crimes against women and created new laws to mitigate such crime and prevent future victimization. In this chapter, we discuss about various laws developed by the US to prevent cyber victimization of women as well as conventional laws that were applied to protect women in cyber space. Regulation of crimes in cyber space such as cyber bullying, cyber stalking are examined in detail. The issue of privacy in cyber space vis-à-vis the laws related to that are identified and analyzed.
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This chapter gives an overview of laws related to cyber crimes against in general and women in particular. Though there are no specific laws that were developed to mitigate crimes against women in cyber space, Canadian laws of physical space govern the cyber space crimes well. The various issues that are discussed in this chapter are: Cyber nonsexual offences against women and regulating laws in Canada, Online Stalking and related offences, Online harassment through modification of digital contents and misusing the same, Offensive communication against women, Cyber defamatory libel against women, Cyber hate propaganda against women and legal situation, Responsibilities of the ISPs, Cyber privacy and related offences against women, Regulating cyber sexual offences for women in Canada, and the problem of Obscenity and regulating laws.
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Chapter OverviewThis chapter gives an overview of laws related to cyber crimes against in general and women in particular. Though there are no specific laws that were developed to mitigate crimes against women in cyber space, Canadian laws of physical space govern the cyber space crimes well. The various issues that are discussed in this chapter are: Cyber nonsexual offences against women and regulating laws in Canada, Online Stalking and related offences, Online harassment through modification of digital contents and misusing the same, Offensive communication against women, Cyber defamatory libel against women, Cyber hate propaganda against women and legal situation, Responsibilities of the ISPs, Cyber privacy and related offences against women, Regulating cyber sexual offences for women in Canada, and the problem of Obscenity and regulating laws.
Chapter
Chapter OverviewUS, is one country, which started the evolution of the Internet and also the first to be affected and the first to retaliate to the ugly side of the Internet, the cyber crimes. US saw a sea of growth in the cyber crimes against women and created new laws to mitigate such crime and prevent future victimization. In this chapter, we discuss about various laws developed by the US to prevent cyber victimization of women as well as conventional laws that were applied to protect women in cyber space. Regulation of crimes in cyber space such as cyber bullying, cyber stalking are examined in detail. The issue of privacy in cyber space vis-à-vis the laws related to that are identified and analyzed.
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We offer an account of the generic use of the term “porn”, as seen in recent usages such as “food porn” and “real estate porn”. We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic pornwhen it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content.We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one’s empirical beliefs and one’s moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized.
Chapter
This chapter will argue that the dominant tendency to focus on ‘pornography’ as primarily a representational phenomenon is insufficient even to understand it as a representational phenomenon. It will argue that the representational field that is generally focused on as constituting the field of pornography, must be understood as a material product of material forces and investments. It will argue that this representational field is governed and shaped, not just by the rules and imperatives of discourse and semiotics, but by the material dynamics of their production, distribution and consumption. To this end, it will attempt to briefly delineate the relations between the economies of desire – as these are registered within the field of representation – and the commercial economies – as these manifest in a host of formal and informal, institutional and organizational mechanisms and apparatuses in the transnational pornography industry. Specifically, it will focus on: 1) analytically disaggregating the various constituents (e.g., actors, producers, distributors, consumers, etc., but also classifications of genres and methods, etc.) and enterprises of this industry; 2) briefly identifying and analyzing its architectures of power and agency; 3) identifying and analyzing the dynamics of inclusion/exclusion and the significance and function of the production process. In the process one will register the varied and specific contexts within which pornography gets produced and the implications of that for an understanding of pornography. The intent here is to generate a theoretical and analytical framework that can produce historicized and substantiated understandings of pornography – as idea, discursive complex, as well as representational, industrial and technological practices, across media and industries. Chapter 25 in SAGE Handbook of Global Sexualities, ISBN: 9781526424129
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Pornography can be considered as an “illegitimate” object both in research spaces and in public spaces, being affected by forms of normative relegation, linked in particular to certain representations, gender issues or exploitation phenomena. This chapter provides a very brief overview of the scientific literature on pornography before presenting certain problems and research questions on the basis of a socio‐economic approach and, proposing to deploy them in analyzing the sexcam sector, a particular component of pornography markets and industries. In the digital context, some of the literature has sought to describe the presence and contributions of amateurs in creation and production, as well as in new modes of content distribution. The identification of the pornography market and industry players should make it possible to map their respective positions and offers, as well as the articulation between them and the networks they can form.
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Post-Apartheid South Africa has been characterized by fractious relationships between the races that compose this society and also between the rulers and the ruled. Society has devised many strategies to cope with, understand, resist, and oppose this, but also to bring about change. One of these strategies is the expression of personal viewpoints through elections, social media, protests and humour. This paper is concerned with the deployment of near-pornographic satirical humour in South African politics, satire created to challenge the powerful. Using critical discourse analysis of paintings, citizens’ comments and news media reports, this paper questions the use of ‘genital art’ and offers different readings of these images in the broader context of South African identity politics. Race seems to be the most dominant lens through which the paintings that are the foci of this paper are read. In a racially charged South Africa race is not a funny subject. The paper concludes that the refusal to see humour in South African race relations might be due to the shocking manner of aesthetic representations in these paintings. That the artworks capture the grave levels of the socio-political and economic situation is indisputable but what remains contested could be the modes of representing these situations. All this seems to interplay with race politics and South Africa’s problematic Apartheid past.
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This paper begins by exploring the feminist anti-pornography argument proposed by Rae Langton. This argument employs J. L. Austin’s speech act theory to maintain that pornography does not merely harm women (the traditional feminist anti-pornography argument), pornography constitutes harm itself. One outcome of this argument, if successful, would be that feminist porn would not be possible and that the phrase ‘feminist porn’ would be nonsensical. But, I argue, Langton’s argument is problematic and ought to be rejected. This opens up the possibility of feminist porn. Employing philosophical arguments on social construction and what Ian Hacking has called “looping effects,” as well as some writings by people who identify themselves as feminist pornographers, I indicate what such porn looks like and how it represents sexuality in ways that feminists should find less problematic than typical, heterosexual, mainstream porn. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Article
In a recent interview, pornographer Paul Morris claimed his studio, Treasure Island Media, is a ‘laboratory exploring the vital sexual symbiosis of human and viral DNA’. Departing from that claim, I examine his porn text Viral Loads to explore its implications for thinking future-orientated masculinities and community formations. I claim that Viral Loads forces us to rethink modern ideals of individual autonomy and bodily integrity, and alludes to alternative community formations enacted not by holding something in common but by relentlessly giving and exchanging foreign matter. By depicting ‘loads’ circulating between bodies posited as interfaces, Viral Loads gives us a porous and impure form of masculinity. In so doing, it breeds a queer future in which community ethics becomes an ethics of CUMmunion, a ‘cummoning’ with strangers that is offered as an alternative to the politics of self and other.
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New technologies allow us to act in new ways. We therefore often need to extend an existing policy to govern that new behaviour or create a new policy to do so. However, this is not always a straightforward matter, because technological developments often give rise to ‘conceptual muddles’: the concepts at the very heart of existing policies either do not clearly apply or have to be redefined. New technologies for producing, storing and viewing child pornography have given rise to many policy vacuums, which the law has tried to fill. However, these technological developments have also given rise to many conceptual muddles that have not received enough attention. In this paper, I address the ways in which technology has affected our understanding of three concepts at the heart of the category of child pornography: (i) what it means to be an image; (ii) what it means to be an image of a child; and (iii) what it means to be a sexual image of a child. I demonstrate that we need to radically reconceive these concepts and I point to some policy implications of doing so.
Article
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Women often expect to encounter negative, problematic content when they consume pornography, yet many women use and enjoy pornography anyway. Some research has centered content type (e.g., sexist/violent vs. nonsexist/women-focused) as a key determinant of women’s pornography experiences, but this precludes the notion that women are active, engaged consumers of pornography and minimizes women’s role in shaping their own experiences. In the present study, we explored how a sample of sexually diverse women in the U.S. (aged 18–64; N = 73) worked toward positive experiences with pornography via active negotiation with negative content, using a secondary analysis of focus group data on women’s sexual pleasure. We found that, although women often experienced pornography as risky, many women used it anyway and actively employed strategies to increase the likelihood of having a positive experience. Women’s strategies were similar across sexual identity and age groups, but the heteronormative, youth-oriented portrayals of sexuality in mainstream pornography presented unique concerns for heterosexual, queer, and older women. Results have implications for how women can be conceptualized as active, rather than passive, consumers of pornography as well as for how women’s agency might influence women’s arousal responses to sexually explicit stimuli in research.
Article
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Online pornography, hypersexuality, sexual compulsivity or impulsivity as well as preoccupation of sexual thoughts and behaviors are measured using diverse psychometric scales. The construct validity and applicability vary vastly among these scales. This paper introduces, therefore, a new index for measuring individual pornographic interests and underpins the literature of pornography. It also defines the necessary procedures required for compiling a dynamic lexicon of pornography, based on linguistic, cognitive and ontological facets, to allow for the development and evaluation of an Individual Pornographic Index (IPI). Such an index is ushered to replace the fidelity of a speaker (patient/applicant) by the fidelity of the spoken/written discourse (e.g., tweets and posts). WordNet and FrameNet are used to introduce all the semantically-related content words; boosting the selectional restrictions. Web-based exploration of online writings and database is also enabled to fetch the pertinent colloquial and slang pornographic lexical entries. Having compiling such a set of data, a working definition of ‘pornography’ is suggested. Results suggest that computational linguistics can be useful in measuring pornographic indices of individual written discourses. Moreover, WordNet’s definition of pornography needs to be revisited and so do its ontolexical relations. Interoperability between Web, WordNet and FrameNet is fruitful in enriching the ontolexical seeds of this introduced lexicon and in suggesting several missing frames in FrameNet. More important, the proposed IPI can interestingly help psychiatrists assess the (hyper)sexuality status of individuals through their free writings.
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This book is not a diatribe against eroticism or a moral crusade to stamp out sex. Rather, it is an attack on the international industry in pornography which, in abusing and degrading women desensitizes people to the routine discrimination and violence that its opponents claim it engenders. Including contributions by Catherine A. Mackinnon, Michael Moorcock, Andrea Dworkin, and Ray Wyre, these challenging, uncompromising, and passionate essays examine such topics as the different types of pornographic material, the possible links between pornography and rape, child abuse, and discrimination, the ineffectiveness of the Obscene Publications Act, and the need for legislation against pornography without censorship: to enable victims of pornography-related harm to seek redress and for an equivalent to the Race Relations Act to permit the prosecution of cases of incitement to sexual hatred and violence. Contributors: Peter Baker, Deborah Cameron, James V. P. Check, Andrea Dworkin, Michele Elliott, Aminatta Forna, Elizabeth Frazer, H. Patricia Hynes, I-Spy Productions, Catherine Itzin, Susanne Kappeler, Liz Kelly, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Michael Moorcock, Janice Raymond, Diana E. H. Russell, John Stoltenberg, Corinne Sweet, Tim Tate, James Weaver, and Ray Wyre.
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Article
Most people are familiar with Justice Stewart's now classic statement that while he cannot describe pornography, he certainly knows it when he sees it. We instantly identify with Justice Stewart. Pornography is not difficult to recognize, but it does elude description. This is because traditional attempts at description are attempts that seek to explain at either an abstract or empirical level rather than at the level that accounts for experience in its totality. Justice Stewart's lament represents the need to understand the subjective experience of pornography and cease trying to explain it in purely objective terms. Much feminist literature in general and Catharine MacKinnon's work in particular seeks to do just this. MacKinnon argues that pornography should not be explained in familiar First Amendment freedom-of-expression terms, but rather in terms of the actual sexual abuse it constitutes in experience. Then, and only then, are we able to select the appropriate legal remedy. This essay suggests that MacKinnon's position not only needs the support of a non-traditional philosophical approach, but has one readily available in the phenomenology of philosopher Edmund Husserl.
Article
Soulevant le probleme de la constitution materielle a travers l'exemple de la statue de bronze, l'A. propose une solution a la question de l'identite qui se distingue de celle apportee par M. Burke, d'une part, et qui repond a l'objection des especes dominantes, d'autre part. Comparant les proprietes essentielles de la statue et du bloc de bronze, l'A. montre que les deux objets, bien qu'occupant la meme region, ne sont ni identiques, ni distincts.
Article
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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This chapter is reprinted from Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, by Susan Brownmiller (1975). Krafft-Ebing, Freud, Adler, Jung, Deutsch, Horney, Marx, and Engels were mostly silent on the topic of rape as a social reality. So it remained for the latter-day feminists, free at last from the strictures that forbade us to look at male sexuality, to discover the truth and meaning in our own victimization. Critical to our study is the recognition that rape has a history, and that through the tools of historical analysis we may learn what we need to know about our current condition. The subject of rape has not been, for zoologists, an important scientific question. No zoologist has ever observed that animals rape in their natural habitat, the wild. But we do know that human beings are different. Man's structural capacity to rape and woman's corresponding structural vulnerability are as basic to the physiology of both our sexes as the primal act of sex itself. Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. Rape's critical function is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. A reflective comment, by Claire M. Renzetti, on this chapter appears at the end of the chapter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Pornographic speech harms women by playing a key role in sustaining the social conditions through which women's liberty and equality are undercut. Though there is a principled moral and constitutional basis for pursuing a legal strategy in fighting pornography, we should not overestimate the effectiveness of the law or underestimate its potential dangers. The struggle against pornography must be waged through education, expressive exploration, and protest, not through the law.
Article
I have taken a Kantian approach to the issue of pornography and degradation. My thesis is that by perpetuating derogatory myths about womankind, for the sake of financial gain, the pornography industry treats the class of women as a means only, and not as composed of individuals who are ends in themselves. It thus de-grades all women, as members of this class, imputing to them less than full human status.
Pornography: The Harm it Does?
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Beis, R. H. 1987. “Pornography: The Harm it Does?” International Journal of Moral and Social Studies 2: 81–92
Dirty Books Can Stay 144 NOÛS rVadas, MelindaA First Look at the Pornography0Civil Rights OrdinanceThe Case for Pornography is the Case for Censorship and Vice Versa
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Pornography, Defamation, and the Endorsement of Degradation Pornography: Marxism, Feminism, and the Future of Sexuality
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Soble, Alan. 1985. “Pornography, Defamation, and the Endorsement of Degradation.” Social Theory and Practice 11: 61–87. Reprinted in Baird & Rosenbaum 1991. _. 1986. Pornography: Marxism, Feminism, and the Future of Sexuality. New Haven: Yale University Press
Sex Offenders: An Analysis of Types What Is Pornography? 143 rGould, JamesWhy Pornography is Valuable
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Pornography: A Feminist Survey
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Smith, Margaret & Barbara Waisberg, Pornography: A Feminist Survey. Boudicca Books, Toronto 1985.
Pornography, Defamation, and the Endorsement of Degradation
  • Alan Soble
Soble, Alan. 1985. " Pornography, Defamation, and the Endorsement of Degradation. " Social Theory and Practice 11: 61–87. Reprinted in Baird & Rosenbaum 1991.
Pornography and the Sex Crisis
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Cole, Susan G. 1989. Pornography and the Sex Crisis. Toronto: Amanatia Enterprises.
An Apology for Pornography
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Michelson, Peter. 1966. " An Apology for Pornography. " Reprinted in Hughes 1970, pp. 61–71.
The Pornographic Imagination
  • Susan Sontag
Sontag, Susan. 1966. " The Pornographic Imagination. " Reprinted in Hughes 1970, pp. 131–169.
Sourcebook on Pornography
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