Beyond the Entrepreneurial Voyeur? Sex, Porn and Cultural Politics

Porn Studies, 2017

Thirty years of academic and critical scholarship on the subject of gay porn have born witness to significant changes not only in the kinds of porn produced for, and watched by, gay men, but in the modes of production and distribution of that porn, and the legal, economic and social contexts in which it has been made, sold/shared, and watched. Those thirty years have also seen a huge shift in the cultural and political position of gay men, especially in the US and UK, and other apparently 'advanced' democracies: we have moved from pariah status in the late eighties, at the low point of the AIDS crisis in the global 'north', to celebrated symbols of the apparent 'civilization' and social liberalism of the neoconservative and neoliberal governments of that same 'north' in 2015. In the context of these changes, the meanings of gay porn have necessarily also changed; I don't intend to do justice to the full scope of those changes here. But, mindful of John D'Emilio's assertion that lesbians and gay men 'are a product of history…their emergence is associated with the relations of capitalism' (1983, 468), my aim is to consider the current conditions in which porn consumption in gay cultures produces particular kinds of subjectivity. As I shall demonstrate, thirty years of scholarship on the topic of gay porn has produced one striking consensus, which is that gay cultures are especially 'pornified'. Given the wider consensus about the apparent sexualization and pornographication of culture generally (see amongst others: Maddison

I Confess! Constructing the Sexual Self in the Internet Age, 2019

Anti-pornography campaigners have frequently claimed that porn studies need to take the economics of pornography seriously, yet often this amounts to little more than the idea that pornography is a capitalist product. This article brings together J.K Gibson-Graham's work on post-capitalism and Eve Sedgwick's notion of 'paranoid' and 'repara-tive' reading in order to think about the performative effects of the narratives we use to talk about the pornography industry. It proposes a move away from a capitalocentric understanding of online pornography towards a 'diverse economies' approach: one that demonstrates the multitude of ways in which pornography exists outside of the rubric of capitalism. This helps to avoid the affective state of paranoia and helplessness that narratives of the all-powerful global porn industry so often create, whilst also allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the legal regulation of pornography. The article concludes with some thoughts as to how a diverse economies approach might better enable us to assess recent attempts to regulate online pornography within Britain, noting attempts at regulation may have an adverse effect on not-for-profit, amateur, or peer-to-peer pornography, whilst benefiting mainstream corporate pornography producers. While Web 2.0 has been argued to have changed the entire media landscape, its impacts appear to have been particularly pronounced in the realms of pornography , with new platforms blurring the boundaries of producer/consumer and

Continuum, 2025

The diversity of women’s sexualities and desires remains contested terrain among feminists. Moreover, we want to argue, these are still in nascent stages of critical feminist explorations, explorations held back by persistent dichotomies, a stalemate between so called ‘anti-porn’ and ‘sex positive’ feminisms. Again and again, theorists and activists representing various schools of feminist thought try to come up with a hegemonic definition of “authentic” female sexuality, the ways it is (or should be) experienced and its acceptable representations. These are old debates but as even the current conference demonstrates, they have continuing relevance today although terminology has shifted. We don’t hear about the “sex wars” anymore but new terms, like for instance “sexualisation” and “pornification”, especially of childhood, have entered public discourse. Our concern in this paper is to outline and critique the persistent anti-porn position among UK feminist groups; to offer a critique of dominant sex-positive attitudes as lacking a racialised class analysis; and to offer some thoughts toward a more useful and relevant perspective on women’s diverse sexualities, a perspective that moves beyond a binary. Our point of departure is the conviction that an anti-porn feminist politics has in several instances hijacked the name of ‘feminism’ in the UK in recent years. For instance the ‘London Feminist Network’, a name indicating a broad, inclusive feminist politics, takes a specific anti-porn position, authorising it as the only valid feminist stance. Moreover, a specific anti-porn feminism influenced government policy under New Labour, partly by New Labour feminists themselves including Government Equalities Office Minister Maria Eagle , and is currently influential to government policy on so-called ‘sexualisation.’ As Gayle Rubin wrote some twenty seven years ago, “The anti-pornography movement and its avatars have claimed to speak for all of feminism. Fortunately, they do not” (29). We welcome the fact that because the word “feminism” is not a trademark and “anti-porn feminism” is not the only collocation permitted, in 2011 some women come up (the horror!) with concepts such as “feminist porn awards”. However, our main criticism of so-called ‘sex-positive’ feminism is that it often is uncritical of capitalist frameworks, as well as of the concept of choice, and can advocate an untenable libertarian entrepreneurialism as a solution to emancipating women’s sexual desire.

Queer studies in media & popular culture, 2016

This article explores the queering of identity and industry in relation to the selflabelled Queer Porn Mafia (QPM), a group of US queer and feminist porn producers and performers. Through in-depth interviews with ten key QPM colleagues, it explores the meanings of 'queer' and 'feminism' for queer adult film performers and producers. It examines 'queer' as both an identity and a politics in the business practices of queer porn and in the relationship between queer porn and the mainstream porn industry. It then interrogates the relationship between 'queer' and 'feminism' for queer porn performers and producers, arguing that the Queer Porn Mafia is evidence that commercial forms of resistance can be effective tools of representation, visibility and community building. The article concludes with a discussion of how the Queer Porn Mafia's critique of heteronormative gender, sex and desire illuminates the limitations of feminism as identity and practice for those who queer gender, sex and activism. It demonstrates how the politics of queer porn challenge feminist notions of the relationship between sex and the market as well as disconcerting remnants of gender essentialism in feminist thought.

Pornography: Structures, agency and performance, 2015

Written for a broad audience and grounded in cutting-edge, contemporary scholarship, this volume addresses some of the key questions asked about pornography today. What is it? For whom is it produced? What sorts of sexualities does it help produce? Why should we study it, and what should be the most urgent issues when we do? What does it mean when we talk about pornography as violence? What could it mean if we discussed pornography through frameworks of consent, self-determination and performance? This book places the arguments from conservative and radical anti-porn activists against the challenges coming from a new generation of feminist and queer porn performers and educators. Combining sensitive and detailed discussion of case studies with careful attention to the voices of those working in pornography, it provides scholars, activists and those hoping to find new ways of understanding sexuality with the first overview of the histories and futures of pornography

Pornography is among the most controversial socioeconomic global developments of modern history and has been a source of concern for governments, non-governmental groups, conservatives and feminists groups alike. It is a systematised global network that sustains on the transnational linkages between patriarchies, and on transnational patriarchies, and has always been a highly contested zone of cultural and commercial production. This paper will critically explicate the idea of the sexual economy and homosocial patriarchy in its analysis of the porn industry

This paper examines how the concept of civil society relates to the porn/sex industry as well as to individual internet users who actively participate in e-moves aiming at exchanging pornography content and information/views on commercial sex. By describing the porn portal bourdela.com, and presenting evidence from a conducted discourse analysis on the reviews/evaluations which the commentators post, there will be an effort to apply the concept of pornification to the everyday use of on-line communities. Hence, it will be suggested that this leads to the formation of a certain kind of civil society which one can call 'porn society'.