|
|
This came my way today. I can’t wait to read this book! See below, and pass it on.
Call for Submissions: New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law, 2 Volumes
Edited by Lynn Comella, PhD and Shira Tarrant, PhD
Deadline: July 30, 2012
Co-editors Lynn Comella (University of Las Vegas, Nevada) and Shira Tarrant (California State University, Long Beach) are seeking submissions for a two-volume edited collection under contract with Praeger.
Description: New Views on Pornography is a two-volume collection of the most current scholarship on pornography. This edited series presents empirical research on a range of contemporary issues regarding pornography’s politics, psychology, cultural and legal debates, providing a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of the field of porn studies in one convenient location …
Continue reading Call for Submissions: New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law
I recently attended a lecture by Robert Jensen, noted radical feminist, anti-pornography activist, and one of the producers of The Price of Pleasure, an anti-porn film that I’ve written about here and here. I went because I wanted to see what he was like in person. I’ve read some of his work, and I figured it would be useful to check his talk out.
I have quite a lot to say about his lecture. In fact, there’s so much to untangle that this post is split into multiple pages, which is a first for me. But it isn’t until all of the different threads are teased out that the larger pattern becomes apparent. So stick with me and see how it all fits …
Continue reading Untangling the Gordian Knot: An Analysis of a Lecture by Robert Jensen
Utne Reader’s new article about Dirty Girls Ministries is getting a fair amount of notice. DGM is an organization dedicated to“helping women struggling with pornography and sexual addiction, which sounds laudable until you start looking deeper.
Like many sex educators and sexologists, I have a lot of problems with the ways in which “sex addiction” is framed. For example, the issue is usually discussed in the context of how many partners someone has or how often they have sex, rather than looking at the deeper motivations behind their behaviors. It’s also used to attack people whose sexual desires or practices fall outside the “norm”. (As if the “norm” has any meaning besides the strictly statistical.) It’s often based on pseudoscience …
Continue reading Dirty Girls Ministries: This Is What Sexual Shame Looks Like
When I read the post Some laughter with the lovemaking, please: on porn, performance, and deadly seriousness, I was struck by his observation:
If there’s one thing that we see rarely — if at all — in porn, it’s laughter. What strikes me about most pornography is that it’s always so deadly serious. A nervous giggle is permissible in a few instances (such as those ghastly “casting couch” videos that are evidently ubiquitous, in which “innocent newcomers” are interviewed and then fucked for the first time on camera.) But laughter during sex, a shared joyful recognition that getting naked and sweaty and contorted is frequently hilarious? Nope. For too many, porn reinforces the obligation to perform, which creates anxiety, which creates in turn a
…
Continue reading Sex in Porn is a Serious Business
I’ve been really intrigued by the comments on my post last week, Consent and Public Disgrace. Some folks found that it helped them unpack some of the issue of consent. Others pointed out (rightfully, I think) that the question of what forms of sexuality are permitted in public spaces is deeply influenced by privilege. Homophobia, for example, prompts plenty of people to use the “I don’t care what gays do, as long as it’s private” argument, even when male-female couples do many of the same things without any backlash.
Not surprisingly, some people argued that the walking a woman around in public, nude or tied up, or that having a woman on the ground drinking out of a dog bowl isn’t sexual. Personally, …
Continue reading The Nuances of Consent: More Thoughts About Public Disgrace
As anyone who’s been a regular reader of my stuff will know, I’m a big fan of consent. Of course, very few people will come out and say that they’re not. But for me, consent is one of the three supports for sex-positivity, the other two being pleasure and well-being. I firmly believe that the only important measure of a sexual experience or relationship is whether the participants’ consent, pleasure, and well-being are attended to.
I’m also a big fan of sexual fantasy. I think that there’s no such thing as an inherently dangerous or bad fantasy. The kinds of questions that I think are important are: How do you feel about your fantasies? Do they support your sex life? Do they get …
Continue reading Consent and Public Disgrace
Much of the writing about porn rests on the assumption that porn causes harm to the viewer, even though there isn’t actual research to support that claim. A new research project showed up in my in-box and I think it has the potential to finally answer some of the questions about porn.
Porn Research is a new project that wants to find out about people’s relationships with porn and how they feel about it, without assuming anything one way or another. It’s not the first time that someone has tried to find out about how viewers experience porn. For example, David Loftus’ book Watching Sex: How Men Really Respond to Pornography describes what his research came up with and it’s not what you usually hear …
Continue reading Call for Participants: Research on Experiences With Porn
This seems to the the day for me to get requests for research participants. A former student of mine is gearing up for her dissertation and she’s looking for women who watch or read sexually explicit media to take a survey. Here’s the info:
Are You a Woman Who Views, Reads, or Listens to Pornography, Erotica, Romance Novels, and/or any other Sexually Explicit Materials?
If so, please share your experiences!
Complete a Short Survey (30 min or less) and Contribute to a Scholarly Understanding of Women’s Experiences with Sexually Explicit Materials
My name is Kari Hempel and I am a female psychology graduate student who is doing my dissertation research on women’s experiences with sexually explicit materials. For too long women’s real experiences with these …
Continue reading Call for Participants: Research on Women’s Experiences of Porn
This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.
When most people talk about the women in the porn industry, they’re talking about the performers. There’s usually an assumption that all the other people, from the camera crew to the editors to the folks in the offices & warehouses, are men. That’s not the real story, and porn researcher Dr. Chauntelle Anne Tibbals recently published her study Sex Work, Office Work: Women Working Behind the Scenes in the US Adult Film Industry, to offer a look at the experiences of the women behind the scenes in the porn world.
Did you know that only 1200 of the estimated 6000 people who work in southern California’s porn industry are performers? I didn’t, but it …
Continue reading There Are More Women in the Porn Biz Than Show Up on Screen
As a lot of people have heard, Oregon State University dropped Tristan Taormino from the lineup for the Modern Sex conference last week. It’s an unfortunate situation that highlights many of the effects of sexual shame.
The irony of my still being on the schedule while Tristan was removed isn’t lost on me. As Toby Hill-Meyer points out, I also have porn connections. They’re not as direct as Tristan’s, but I work at Good Vibrations and we sell porn. We also make porn, although it’s not like most of what comes out of LA, and I train the GV staff on how to talk with customers about porn. So yes, I definitely have connections to porn. But I think that there’s more …
Continue reading Oregon State’s Decision to Drop Tristan Taormino is About Sexual Shame
|
|
% Category: 
