Pornography as a Biopolitical Phenomenon (original) (raw)
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[Tradução de] Sociology of the electronic flesh. Digital culture and the imaginary of the obscene
Contrary to the initial emphasis that was given on aspects related to intelligence and knowledge, we are finding that the web is increasingly becoming a platform welcoming aesthetic and ethic forms marked by senses, emotions and voluptuousness in pleasure as much as in its darker side. Previously, pornography was a hidden, obscure and marginal dimension of collective life. Nowadays, digital culture favors the advent of porn culture, where porn tends to become a symbolic matrix, an ordinary code, an atmosphere. In this visual and sensitive context, the obscene gets closer to the truth and the truth appears as an obscene. What imaginary presides over this mutation at work?
Postmodern Openings
The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the fact that the consumption phenomenon constitutes a characteristic of postmodern culture, in this case played by the process of objectification of the body, under the auspices of pornography. The concept of ‘cultural recycling’ analyzed by Jean Baudrillard brings out not only the undermining of the values of cultural and historical tradition by postmodern culture, but also the establishment of reference systems built around simulation and simulacrum, making possible the capitalization of pornography in the name of advertising and sexual entertainment. With this process of body objectification, especially with the female gender body, pornography becomes the cultural fetish the mass culture needs. ‘Sexual solipsism’, analyzed by Rae Langton, within whose limits this objectification mechanism is being built, is helped by the shift in paradigm produced between soul and body, the body being the one taking the soul’s place and governing the cultural-human existence, through a mechanical deconstruction of sexuality and a technological fetishism, as we see in J. Ballard’s novel, Crash or in the homonymous film directed by David Cronenberg. The manipulative mechanism through which the pornographic device infiltrates mass culture environments makes it present in art, in the form of a presence, through absence for starters, given by what Brian McNair conceptually calls ‘porno-chic’. And then, through ‘pornographic imagination’, analyzed by Susan Sontag, pornography enters postmodern culture and constituted a way of life for the contemporary individual.
From Eroticism to Pornography: the culture of the Obscene
Elsevier
The purpose of this study is – following philosophical, psychoanalytical and literary research of the obscene – to demonstrate the fact that the transition from eroticism to pornography was achieved with the transition from the instinctual (animal) stage to the cultural (civilisation) stage, through transgression of the sexual taboo. This transgressive approach led not only to the undermining of the traditional values imposed by taboos (like the sexual one, Eros, or the death taboo, Thanatos), but also to the creation of new ones, under the sign of the obscene. Within these parameters, pornography is the central element, generated under the mark of pornotopia. Such a metamorphosis of the individual - from the position of the reality principle, characteristic of the profane world of labour, into that of the pleasure principle, characteristic of the sacred world of celebration – was achieved by passing pornography through the initial filter of Renaissance creations, followed by using it as a political weapon during the Age of Enlightenment and Modernity and finishing with current political discourse, and the exhibition of an obscene reality in what we call advertising and show business.
Pornography in Transhumanism – Towards a Sexuality of Singularity
Postmodern Openings, 2017
The principles of extropy, supported by Max More, which are the foundation of transhumanist philosophy, are increasingly more often found in the individual's incidence space, through the effects of the augmentation, technologization and artificialization of sexuality, through pornography. Here, pornography leads to a deterritorialization of the natural regions of sex and to a reterritorialization of artificial and technologized pornography into a simulacrum of sexuality. The general objective follows the operating mechanism, together with the possible effects/benefits of a situation where we are talking about sexuality/pornography within the limits of singularity, starting from Ray Kurzweil's theories. That is where sexuality in pornography transitions from the physiological and natural paradigm, to the artificial paradigm of neural implants or nanobots. The theoretical objective is aimed at analyzing the shift of paradigm (in the sexual field) from the humanist man to the transhumanist individual, involving the Nietzschean argument of the Overman. With the purpose of emphasizing the often-ignored importance of technology's imminence into the life of human nature, resulting in the death of metaphysics and, in this situation, to human sexuality being reduced to functionalism. The methodology used is the argumentation of Friedrich Nietzsche's and René Descartes' philosophy, of Ray Kurzweil's theories, of Gilles Deleuze's deconstruction, together with the principles of Max More's extropianism.
2017
The principles of extropy, supported by Max More, which are the foundation of transhumanist philosophy, are increasingly more often found in the individual's incidence space, through the effects of the augmentation, technologization and artificialization of sexuality, through pornography. Here, pornography leads to a deterritorialization of the natural regions of sex and to a reterritorialization of artificial and technologized pornography into a simulacrum of sexuality. The general objective follows the operating mechanism, together with the possible effects/benefits of a situation where we are talking about sexuality/pornography within the limits of singularity, starting from Ray Kurzweil's theories. That is where sexuality in pornography transitions from the physiological and natural paradigm, to the artificial paradigm of neural implants or nanobots. The theoretical objective is aimed at analyzing the shift of paradigm (in the sexual field) from the humanist man to the transhumanist individual, involving the Nietzschean argument of the Overman. With the purpose of emphasizing the often-ignored importance of technology's imminence into the life of human nature, resulting in the death of metaphysics and, in this situation, to human sexuality being reduced to functionalism. The methodology used is the argumentation of Friedrich Nietzsche's and René Descartes' philosophy, of Ray Kurzweil's theories, of Gilles Deleuze's deconstruction, together with the principles of Max More's extropianism.
2017
The Sexualized Body and the Medical Authority of Pornography Heather Brunskell-Evans This edited collection examines pornography as a material practice that eroticises gender inequality and sexual violence towards women. It addresses the complex relationship between pornography and medicine (in particular, sexology and psychotherapy) whereby medicine has historically, and currently, afforded pornography considerable legitimacy and even authority. Pornography naturalises womens submission and mens dominance as if gendered power is rooted in biology not politics. In contrast to the populist view that medicine is objective and rational, the contributors here demonstrate that medicine has been complicit with the construction of gender difference, and in that construction the relationship with pornography is not incidental but fundamental. A range of theoretical approaches critically engages with this topic in the light, firstly, of radical feminist ideas about patriarchy and the politics of gender, and, secondly, of the rapidly changing conditions of global capitalism and digital-technologies. In its broad approach, the book also engages with the ideas of Michel Foucault, particularly his refutation of the liberal hypothesis that sexuality is a deep biological and psychological human property which is repressed by traditional, patriarchal discourses and which can be freed from authoritarianism, for example by producing and consuming pornography. In taking pornography as a cultural and social phenomenon, the concepts brought to bear by the contributors critically scrutinise not only pornography and medicine, but also current media scholarship. The 21st century has witnessed a growth in (neo-)liberal academic literature which is pro-pornography. This book provides a critical counterpoint to this current academic trend, and demonstrates its lack of engagement with the politics of the multi-billion dollar pornography industry which creates the desire for the product it sells, the individualism of its arguments which analyse pornography as personal fantasy, and the paucity of theoretical analysis. In contrast, this book reopens the feminist debate about pornography for a new generation of critical thinkers in the 21st century. Pornography matters politically and ethically. It matters in the real world as well as in fantasy; it matters to performers as well as to consumers; it matters to adults as well as to children; and it matters to men as well as to women.
Dildos and Cyborgs: Feminist Body-Politics in Porn from the 1970s to Posthumanism
Gender Forum - An Internet Journal for Gender Studies, 2012
The article examines different-and in particular conflicting-feminist positions with respect to pornography which have been developed from the 1970s until today, focusing on the issue of the construction of sexual and gender identities. An analysis is carried out on how these identities in regards to the pornographic body are negotiated or even shifted within these different feminist discourses and practices. Starting with a brief examination of the discourse about pornography in the phase when the sexual revolution ended, subsequently the PorNO-campaign of the German feminist journal Emma-launched in 1987-is discussed more precisely. This campaign represented anti-pornographic feminism which had been criticized by sex-positive feminism developing the so-called post-pornographic approach. The second part of the article looks into the post-porn discourse from the early eighties-Annie Sprinkle-until the queer-feminist-posthumanist intervention in the field of sexuality and pornography by Beatriz Preciado. Finally, the political potential of queer-feminist post-porn in subverting the existing regime of sexuality is considered.
Discourses of pornification: From civil society to “porn society”
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'.