The Study of Porn
Feminist accounts of what is pornography are also essential to my self-definition of porn, as the porn debate among types of feminisms has deeply influenced porn culture itself. In the 1980s pro-porn, anti-censorship feminists engaged anti-pornography feminists in an ongoing debate referred to as the “Sex Wars” whose rhetoric highlights the fluidity and personal nature of what defines porn. Where some conservative feminist definitions of pornography characterize it as sadomasochistic and a form of upholding constructions of sex that inherently oppresses women (Warner 2016), others describe porn as a way to challenge dominant ideologies of identity through sexually explicit imagery. Pornography, specifically including feminist pornography, disrupts conventional definitions of sex and understandings of power sustained through cis-heterosexist capitalist patriarchy that raises questions of power, desire, agency, and pleasure (McElroy 1995, Taormino, et al., 2013).
The term “pornification” is used to weaponize the normalization of sexually explicit themes and imagery in mainstream culture, arguing that society is becoming hypersexualized due to pornography’s influence. The term has an imprecise definition that shifts alongside culture, as Clarissa Smith demonstrates in Pornographication: A Discourse for All Seasons. Smith calls for a need to question the boundaries of pornification similar to our pursuit of what defines porn in the first place. Calling back to Gayle Rubin’s, Misguided, Dangerous and Wrong: An Analysis of AntiPornography Politics, Smith reiterates Rubin’s observation that the stigma associated with sexually explicit materials is reinforced by the way words such as “obscene” and “pornographic” are used to signify horror or repulsion in non-sexual situations (Rubin, 1993 & Smith, 2010). For example, the term “Trauma Porn” comes to mind as one way that folks describe the perversity of watching horrific violence cast onto others, such as police body camera footage of Black people being murdered in the United States that has routinely circulated on social media throughout 2020 and 2021. Identifying something as pornographic or as being pornified is to say it is obcene, violent, difficult to watch, traumatizing, and so on. This is illustrates the negative, violent connotation that porn has despite pornography being a broad category to describe media intended to ellicit pleasure, titillation, and a positive embodied response.
In addition to being a stand in-term for something explicit and/or offensive, porn is also conflated with aspects of culture such as the marketing of children’s toys like Bratz dolls, pole dancing, men’s magazines, push-up bras for teenagers, breast enlargement and reduction, Viagra, sexting, anime, burlesque, Cosmopolitan magazine, and others through accusations of society’s pornification (Voss, 2015 and Smith 106, 2010). Some also argue that there has been a pornification of SNS like TikTok where sex work has become more normalized and to some extent, romanticized and glorified. On TikTok it is not uncommon to see “accountants of TikTok” showing rubberbands full of cash from hustling with comments ranging celebration, curiosity, jealousy, disgust, and concern. When sex workers on TikTok speak highly of their jobs and the autonomy sex work grants them people often respond saying they are glorifying sex work. When sex workers complain about their jobs online, comments surge with whorephobia, and describe sex work as universally abusive or as human trafficking. On social media it is common for posts and ensuing threads of comments to lack nuance, and this is especially true with topics as controversial as sex workers rights.
Sex workers and pop sex educators on TikTok are framed as indoctrinating children with pornographic topics and imagery, a distorted view of what they are on the app to do. Sex workers use TikTok to share tips with one another about staying safe at work, about financial literacy, and to normalize and destigmatize sex work as a form of harm reduction. Sex educators use the app to provide young people tools to stay safe when they inevitably engage in situations of intimacy, sexuality, and risk as they grow up. Both groups are interested in creating safer and more liberatory practices as it pertains to sex and sexuality online and IRL. Advocates for inclusive sex education including myself are not arguing that children should watch porn, but rather that they will watch porn, so when they do, what tools will they have to navigate potential risk. Free online porn frequently perpetuates harmful narratives about race, class, sex, and power that young people should not have to navigate alone. Sex education is an intervention in the harm that can occur when people internalize scripts presented in what is often call mainstream porn, but really what is being talked about is free online porn that can be stumbled upon online without being kept behind a paywall. While there is feminist pornography being created to inspire pleasure for women, queer and trans people, and others whose desires have been neglected in the dominant porn scene, most of the porn that is available for free online is media made by and for an audience cisgender, heterosexual men. It does not guarantee that the performers are being paid fairly for their work, or that they are being treated well on set. Nor does it always consider if people are aware of and consent to their content being used for a sexually explicit purpose. Providing porn literacy in sex education is a harm reduction tool for minors navigating our complicated digital landscape and contributes to creating a safer culture for sex workers by providing less traffic to free online porn sites and directing adults to ethical media sources.
