Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography (original) (raw)
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The changing cultural role, visibility and meaning of pornography, particularly its increased accessibility and the sociocultural reverberations that this is seen to hold, have been lively topics of public debate in most Western countries throughout the new millennium. Concerns are routinely yet passionately voiced especially over the ubiquity of sexual representations flirting with the codes of pornography in different fields of popular media and children's exposure to hardcore materials that are seen to grow increasingly extreme and violent. At the same time, the production, distribution and consumption have undergone notable transformations with the ubiquity of digital cameras and online platforms. Not only is pornography accessible in unprecedented scales but it is also available in more diverse shapes and forms than ever to date. All this has given rise to journalistic and academic diagnoses on the pornification and sexualisation of culture which, despite their notable mutual differences, aim to conceptualize transformations in the visibility of sexually explicit media content and its broader socio-cultural resonances.
Introduction: audiences and consumers of porn
Porn Studies, 2015
Who are pornography consumers? If we are to believe the widespread media coverage, typically authored by journalists who are purportedly not themselves porn users, audiences are made up largely of men, young people and, increasingly, children (Belfast Telegraph Online 2014; Saul 2014), who are routinely watching ever more 'extreme' pornography depicting acts such as rape and bestiality or featuring underage performers (Cadwalladr 2013). What this media coverage tells us time and time again is that audiences are being 'warped' by what they see, their brain chemistry fundamentally altered by these 'addictive' scenes (Porn on the Brain 2013), their ideas of 'healthy' sex and relationships irrevocably corrupted and sullied by porn (Daubney 2013). According to this formulation, pornography is responsible for many perceived social ills. In a sexual education vacuum, children in the playground are googling 'porn' on their smartphones and, in only a click or two, viewing pornography featuring surgically altered, coerced women performing 'unthinkable' acts, and assuming that this is what 'normal' sex looks like (Combi 2012; Purves 2013). Young and teenage men are then demanding and manipulating female sexual partners into activities lifted from their favourite porn scenes; acts such as anal sex and facial ejaculation that, naturally, no respectable heterosexual woman or girl would want to participate in (Saul 2014). Women are getting breast implants, removing their body hair, bleaching their anuses and undergoing genital cosmetic surgery, all in pursuit of the 'perfect' porn star image (Combi 2012). Similarly, with so many varieties of 'porn' available online, viewers are easily invited into homoerotic activity, or (even worse) into acts of bestiality, bodily scarification, sadism or other forms of erotic violence. But when, why and how did it become 'common sense' to claim, first, that these practices are commonplace and/or problematic and, second, that porn is wholly and uncomplicatedly responsible for them? Indeed, these arguments build on a particularly entrenched form of 'common sense', loosely based upon anecdotal evidence and partially researched statistics, while drawing on hegemonic assumptions of sexual 'purity' (and the purity of sexual subjects). The trope of the innocent journalist or researcher putting various search terms into Google and, to their horror, stumbling almost immediately across the most outrageous, shocking and depraved scenes has become wearingly predictable. The naivety of some of the claims made in these articles would be laughable (see Daubney 2013; Coslett 2014) if the attitudes about consumers underpinning such claims were not so taken for granted, and so influential. The logical leap that the writer must take from viewing this material, often for the first time, to holding
SEXUALLY EXPLICIT IMAGES: EXAMINING THE LAWFUL AND UNLAWFUL NEW FORMS OF SEXUAL ENGAGEMENT
Growing recognition surrounds the change that the internet has provided in relation to sexual behaviour. Not only is sexually explicit material abundantly available on every device, but people are increasingly engaging in creating pornographic materials using information communication technology. Against this background, technology has provided a medium that enables new forms of sexual engagement, but also unlawful behaviours, including revenge porn, that is, the non-consensual distribution of sexually explicit images of an intimate partner, which has become known as a weapon for disgruntled partners. Countless interactive pornographic websites have been created for the purpose of enabling the sharing of sexually explicit images for the sole purpose of revenge by publicly shaming and humiliating the depicted person. Once images are uploaded they can end up anywhere on the internet. Furthermore, emerging sexually abusive behaviours include 'catfishing' and 'sextortion' are behaviours
International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 2019
Distribution of nude, intimate and sexualized images of individuals without consent and against the wishes of those individuals whose image has been captured, is of growing concern across the world. Moving from the conceptualization of 'revenge porn' in the early 2000's, through to our more sophisticated understanding of the issues of "image-based abuse" and "non-consensual pornography" this paper considers the broad context of these crimes. The paper draws on the concepts of online misogyny, gender-based victimization, and "toxic masculinity". The progress towards criminalization of such online abuse, with reference to the recent introduction of new laws in England & Wales and Australia is examined. This shift from voluntary to statutory regulation, and from civil to criminal law remedies has been coupled with new crime prevention and control initiatives that seek to encourage reporting leading to prosecution and educate users and empower victims. As countries successively tackle image-based abuse through their own criminal justice systems and stakeholder engagement, there is a need to learn from and critique what has already been established. Summarizing the approaches undertaken in England & Wales and Australia we draw important conclusions that are based on the experiences of early responders, bringing together several best practices for the prevention and response to image-based abuse. ________________________________________________________________________
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2020
For decades, scholars and public health officials have been concerned with the depictions of sexual aggression in pornography, especially when acts of aggression are depicted with no consequences. Social cognitive theory suggests behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to be learned by consumers while those punished are less likely to be learned. To date, however, there has not been a large-scale content analysis to provide researchers with the baseline knowledge of the amount of sexual aggression in online pornography nor have previous content analyses examined the reactions of the targets of sexual aggression. This study of 4009 heterosexual scenes from two major free pornographic tube sites (Pornhub and Xvideos) sought to provide this baseline. Overall, 45% of Pornhub scenes included at least one act of physical aggression, while 35% of scenes from Xvideos contained aggression. Spanking, gagging, slapping, hair pulling, and choking were the five most common forms of physical aggression. Women were the target of the aggression in 97% of the scenes, and their response to aggression was either neutral or positive and rarely negative. Men were the perpetrators of aggression against women in 76% of scenes. Finally, examining the 10 most populous categories, the Amateur and Teen categories in Xvideos and the Amateur category in Pornhub had significantly less aggression, while the Xvideos Hardcore category had significantly more physical aggression against women. This study suggests aggression is common against women in online pornography, while repercussions to this aggression are rarely portrayed.
Striking a balance : arguments for the criminal regulation of extreme pornography
Discusses the Government proposals, set out in its 2005 consultation paper, regarding the criminalisation of possession of extreme pornographic material. Highlights the murder case which helped spur the Government into action, the types of material identified in the proposals and what they aim to achieve. Explores the responses received to the consultation, noting areas of agreement and dissention between respondent groups. Argues in favour of a categories based approach to regulating pornography which focuses on "harm to women" rather than on a tendency to "deprave and corrupt". (2007) Criminal Law Review 677-690
Sexual violence in three pornographic media: Toward a sociological explanation
Journal of Sex Research, 2000
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Possessing Extreme Pornography: Policing, Prosecutions and the Need for Reform
The Journal of Criminal Law, 2019
The law criminalising the possession of extreme pornography, first enacted in 2008 and amended to include rape pornography in 2015, continues to generate considerable controversy and calls for reform. In order to inform these ongoing discussions, we undertook a study to find out information about who is being charged with extreme pornography offences and their characteristics in terms of gender, age and ethnicity, as well as data on the specific type of pornography forming the subject-matter of those charges. Utilising freedom of information requests, our study provides valuable new information to help inform debates over the policing of extreme pornography across England and Wales. Overall, we found that the vast majority of those charged were white men across all age groups; that bestiality images formed the most common basis for charging and that, in respect of the data provided, the majority of charges were brought together with other sexual offences.
Interpreting the Data: Assessing Competing Claims in Pornography Research (2015)
New Views on Pornography, 2015
Much of what has been written about pornography, and commercial sex generally, is grounded in a perspective that depicts all types of sex work as exploitative, violent, and perpetuating gender inequality. This "oppression paradigm" insists that exploitation and violence are not just variables but instead are central to the very essence of pornography, prostitution, and stripping. 1 I have argued that those who adopt the oppression paradigm substitute ideology for rigorous empirical analysis and that their one-dimensional arguments are contradicted by a wealth of social science data that shows sex work to be much more variegated structurally and experientially. 2 And the oppression paradigm is not just an arcane academic notion; it has been manifested in public policy and law enforcement regarding pornography, prostitution, and commercial stripping in many societies. Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney advocated fitting all new computers with a filter that would block Internet pornography, and there have been other recent abolitionist efforts worldwide. In February 2013, a parliamentary proposal in liberal Iceland sought to ban Internet pornography from the island; the measure failed but may be reintroduced (Iceland banned strip clubs in 2010 on the grounds that they violated women's rights). In March 2013, a resolution introduced in the European Parliament would have banned "all forms of pornography" from the Internet and required Internet service providers to police their customers. Introduced by a Dutch socialist party parliamentarian, this measure also failed. Efforts such as these show that, despite the ubiquity of porn on the Internet, the war over pornography is far from over.