The problem I see with pornography-discourse is that people are unable to point to the problem as anything other than quantitative or binary—the problem is described as it being 'that it exists' rather than what the pornography is *like*. I suspect this is influenced by the discourse of 'objectification' which ignores the content of such works and sees them all as essentially identical. It then deals with them as a logical/linguistic phenomenon rather than something like literature—to be critically analysed by how it looks, what it says, and how it says it. In my view, our inability to grow up and acknowledge the existence of pornography and cultivate better pornographic tastes, stems from the fact that the sexual revolution was an abandoned revolution—more like the 1840s than Red October. I think the sexual revolution faded away and gave way to fragments of liberalism in a sea of prudishness, whether left-coded or right-coded. In my secondary schooling we were not shown images or diagrams of the external female genetalia. We were told to avoid pornography. The former omission is a disgrace born of prudishness and sexism. The latter dictat is a laughably unrealistic folly to preach to a room full of adolescents. Why on earth did they not teach us to look at pornography critically? Because that would acknowledge the existence of pornography. It would be a liberal response—and liberalism is always frightening, especially for a state-fuelled education system. I don't think we should be 'sex-positive' or 'sex-negative' because of the dissonance you describe. Instead, we should be sex-intelligent. We should think about pornography in the same way we think about any artistic production. No doubt the majority of pornographic works will be found wanting by such an analysis. The key is to understand what exactly is wrong about them, and not resort to the crutches of 'obscenity' or of 'objectification'.
Have you read 'How to do things with Pornography' by Nancy Bauer by the way? Peter McLaughlin recommended it to me and if you haven't already I will pass that on. I suspect it's a much better and more insightful account than the one you've reviewed—I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you. What a great comment. You’re right about needing to educate young people on what is out there. Head in the sand is not working! Will look up that book.
The problem I see with pornography-discourse is that people are unable to point to the problem as anything other than quantitative or binary—the problem is described as it being 'that it exists' rather than what the pornography is *like*. I suspect this is influenced by the discourse of 'objectification' which ignores the content of such works and sees them all as essentially identical. It then deals with them as a logical/linguistic phenomenon rather than something like literature—to be critically analysed by how it looks, what it says, and how it says it. In my view, our inability to grow up and acknowledge the existence of pornography and cultivate better pornographic tastes, stems from the fact that the sexual revolution was an abandoned revolution—more like the 1840s than Red October. I think the sexual revolution faded away and gave way to fragments of liberalism in a sea of prudishness, whether left-coded or right-coded. In my secondary schooling we were not shown images or diagrams of the external female genetalia. We were told to avoid pornography. The former omission is a disgrace born of prudishness and sexism. The latter dictat is a laughably unrealistic folly to preach to a room full of adolescents. Why on earth did they not teach us to look at pornography critically? Because that would acknowledge the existence of pornography. It would be a liberal response—and liberalism is always frightening, especially for a state-fuelled education system. I don't think we should be 'sex-positive' or 'sex-negative' because of the dissonance you describe. Instead, we should be sex-intelligent. We should think about pornography in the same way we think about any artistic production. No doubt the majority of pornographic works will be found wanting by such an analysis. The key is to understand what exactly is wrong about them, and not resort to the crutches of 'obscenity' or of 'objectification'.
Have you read 'How to do things with Pornography' by Nancy Bauer by the way? Peter McLaughlin recommended it to me and if you haven't already I will pass that on. I suspect it's a much better and more insightful account than the one you've reviewed—I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you. What a great comment. You’re right about needing to educate young people on what is out there. Head in the sand is not working! Will look up that book.