Pornography, the Theory

Pornography, the Theory
Author: Frances Ferguson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2004-04-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0226243206

Pornography first developed in western Europe during the late eighteenth century in tandem with the rise of utilitarianism, the philosophical position that stresses the importance of something's usefulness over its essence. Through incisive readings of Sade, Flaubert, Lawrence, and Bret Easton Ellis, Frances Ferguson here shows how pornography—like utilitarian social structures—diverts our attention from individual identities to actions and renders more clearly the social value of such actions through concrete literary representations.

The Feminist Porn Book

The Feminist Porn Book
Author: Tristan Taormino
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2013-02-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 155861818X

The Feminist Porn Book celebrates the power of desire, turning the spotlight on an industry where feminism is thriving.

How to Do Things with Pornography

How to Do Things with Pornography
Author: Nancy Bauer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2015-04-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674286499

Feminist philosophers have made important strides in altering the overwhelmingly male-centric discipline of philosophy. Yet, in Nancy Bauer’s view, most are still content to work within theoretical frameworks that are fundamentally false to human beings’ everyday experiences. This is particularly intolerable for a species of philosophy whose central aspiration is to make the world a less sexist place. How to Do Things with Pornography models a new way to write philosophically about pornography, women’s self-objectification, hook-up culture, and other contemporary phenomena. Unafraid to ask what philosophy contributes to our lives, Bauer argues that the profession’s lack of interest in this question threatens to make its enterprise irrelevant. Bauer criticizes two paradigmatic models of Western philosophizing: the Great Man model, according to which philosophy is the product of rare genius; and the scientistic model, according to which a community of researchers works together to discover once-and-for-all truths. The philosopher’s job is neither to perpetuate the inevitably sexist trope of the philosopher-genius nor to “get things right.” Rather, it is to compete with the Zeitgeist and attract people to the endeavor of reflecting on their settled ways of perceiving and understanding the world. How to Do Things with Pornography boldly enlists J. L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words, showing that it should be read not as a theory of speech acts but as a revolutionary conception of what philosophers can do in the world with their words.

Pornography

Pornography
Author: Daniel Linz
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 87
Release: 1993-03-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0803944810

Pornography has fascinated and divided researchers, policymakers, and the public for years. Does it have harmful effects on individuals? What effects in particular? Does pornography influence everyone or just some people? How should society deal with the results of this influence? In Pornography, Linz and Malamuth sort through these and other questions by placing their topic within the broader context of fundamental human nature theories. Their approach reveals a systematic interweaving of social science, morality, and law through three different perspectives: conservative-moralistic, liberal, and feminist. The fifth volume in the innovative Communication Concepts series, this book is an invaluable addition to current research on pornography and obscenity. Students and professionals in communication studies as well as research methods and the social sciences in general will find Pornography to be an illuminating and compelling study.

The Pornography of Meat

The Pornography of Meat
Author: Carol J. Adams
Publisher: Lantern Books
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2014-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1590565118

How does someone become a piece of meat? Carol J. Adams answers this question in this provocative book—her most controversial since The Sexual Politics of Meat—by finding insidious, hidden meanings in the culture around us. With 200 illustrations, this courageous book establishes why Adams's slide show, upon which The Pornography of Meat is based is so popular on campuses and is reviled by the groups she takes on with insight and passion.

Debating Pornography

Debating Pornography
Author: Andrew Altman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2019
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0199358702

Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, debates over pornography have raged, and the explosive spread in recent years of sexually explicit images across the Internet has only added more urgency to these disagreements. Politicians, judges, clergy, citizen activists, and academics have weighed in on the issues for decades, complicating notions about what precisely is at stake, and who stands to benefit or be harmed by pornography. This volume takes an unusual but radical approach by analyzing pornography philosophically. Philosophers Andrew Altman and Lori Watson recalibrate debates by viewing pornography from distinctly ethical platforms -- namely, does a person's right to produce and consume pornography supersede a person's right to protect herself from something often violent and deeply misogynistic? In a for-and-against format, Altman first argues that there is an individual right to create and view pornographic images, rooted in a basic right to sexual autonomy. Watson counteracts Altman's position by arguing that pornography inherently undermines women's equal status. Central to their disagreement is the question of whether pornography truly harms women enough to justify laws aimed at restricting the production and circulation of such material. Through this debate, the authors address key questions that have dogged both those who support and oppose pornography: What is pornography? What is the difference between the material widely perceived as objectionable and material that is merely erotic or suggestive? Do people have a right to sexual arousal? Does pornography, or some types of it, cause violence against women? How should rights be weighed against consequentialist considerations in deciding what laws and policies ought to be adopted? Bolstered by insights from philosophy and law, the two authors engage in a reasoned examination of questions that cannot be ignored by anyone who takes seriously the values of freedom and equality.

Sexual Solipsism

Sexual Solipsism
Author: Rae Langton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2009-01-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199247064

Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking and contentious work on pornography and objectification. She shows how women come to be objectified and she argues for the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and women have rights against pornography.

Carnal Resonance

Carnal Resonance
Author: Susanna Paasonen
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2011-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0262016311

An exploration of the modalities, affective intensities, and disturbing qualities of online pornography. Digital production tools and online networks have dramatically increased the general visibility, accessibility, and diversity of pornography. Porn can be accessed for free, anonymously, and in a seemingly endless range of niches, styles, and formats. In Carnal Resonance, Susanna Paasonen moves beyond the usual debates over the legal, political, and moral aspects of pornography to address online porn in a media historical framework, investigating its modalities, its affect, and its visceral and disturbing qualities. Countering theorizations of pornography as emotionless, affectless, detached, and cold, Paasonen addresses experiences of porn largely through the notion of affect as gut reactions, intensities of experience, bodily sensations, resonances, and ambiguous feelings. She links these investigations to considerations of methodology (ways of theorizing and analyzing online porn and affect), questions of materiality (bodies, technologies, and inscriptions), and the evolution of online pornography. Paasonen dicusses the development of online porn, focusing on the figure of the porn consumer, and considers user-generated content and amateur porn. She maps out the modality of online porn as hyperbolic, excessive, stylized, and repetitive, arguing that literal readings of the genre misunderstand its dynamics and appeal. And she analyzes viral videos and extreme and shock pornogaphy, arguing for the centrality of disgust and shame in the affective dynamics of porn. Paasonen's analysis makes clear the crucial role of media technologies—digital production tools and networked communications in particular—in the forms that porn takes, the resonances it stirs, and the experiences it makes possible.

The Pornographic Age

The Pornographic Age
Author: Alain Badiou
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2020-01-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 135001480X

Offering a piercing indictment of what we have let ourselves become, this short, critical work is a damning critique of the current age and of the democratic systems that characterize it. Alain Badiou argues that any truly radical politics must begin with dismantling the obscene (or pornographic) qualities of neoliberal capitalism. In The Pornographic Age he asks us to hold up a mirror to ourselves and confront the debasement of the political realities in which we live, the shock of which must galvanize us into action. It is only through this realization, this crucial confrontation with the perversity with which we conduct our daily lives that we can prompt true revolution. Including an afterword from international Badiou scholars A. J. Bartlett and Justin Clemens and a commentary by William Watkin, this book is a philosophical call to arms: Badiou's radical indictment of the current age is an exciting, no-holds-barred exploration of both how we live and how we might live.