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Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture
Pornification presents an international overview of how pornography - from softcore to hardcore, gay to straight, female to male, black to white - infiltrates and proliferates through our media.Porn is everywhere; from the suggestiveness of music videos to the explicit discussions of popular magazines; from the erotica of advertising to the refashioning of sex acts into art works; from a small garage industry to an internet empire. The media immerses us in the pornographic aesthetic. Now integral to popular culture, porn is part of our everyday lives. Sexual desire is commodified, pornified and the media leads the way. Exploring music videos, alt porn sites, Cosmogirls and Gaydar online forums, H&M's street advertising, retro pin-ups, film and educational sex videos alike, Pornification analyses the transformation of porn in today's media and its impact on our culture.
- GenresFilmNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
First published February 5, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 31, 2018
Has extremely interesting investigations around the pornification of culture although some scholars at times are a bit repetitive in the point they are trying to make. Also I believe that at times they could have discussed certain issues further, deeper.
June 5, 2017
This collection of essays is honestly hit or miss- and in an extreme way. Some of the essays provide research and analysis that lead you to completely rethink sex in media / porn in general. Specifically, the essays on the golden age of porn, portrayals of gay-lesbian-bisexuality, music video, the indirect suppression of minorities in the war against porn etc. There are some really fantastic pieces in here. That being said, littered throughout are extremely boring, simplistic essays that feel very college- first essay, that don't contribute much- other than seriously weighing down the flow of reading the collection.
October 21, 2024
Years ago someone suggested I read this - back when I was still adding things to my ‘to read’ list. It wasn’t that I didn’t plan to read the book - but to be honest I completely forgot about it. Then I noticed it again and found a copy - so, here we are. This is getting a bit old now. Not that I wouldn’t recommend it, it is just this was written at a time when you could still reasonably wonder if porn available on the internet was ever going to take over from VHS tapes. I can’t remember the last time I saw a VHS tape - so, I guess that argument has been settled.
As much as things have changed in the years since this was put together, a lot have stayed the same. Many of the questions here remain relevant and the central conclusion, that porn is not a simple thing and that the real question you need to ask is ‘who has agency?’ remain worth thinking about. The other idea, that I don’t think is covered as well in the book as I was expecting it to be - that porn shapes many other aspects of our social life in ways that we don’t often recognise - is also something worth thinking about. This is actually done quite well in relation to some gay magazines from Britain that are discussed in a chapter here - and in another chapter that mentions the representation of women in street advertisements that also copy porn motifs - but otherwise it wasn’t discussed as much as I expected.
The chapter on gay men was interesting because it said the magazines helped define the available gay personas available, and so, to be gay you needed to either fit one of those categories or stand outside them - which basically also meant being defined by these categories, even if in opposition. It is also clear that only some of these categories are available to you. Many are age related, some depend on you having a particular body type. Desire is not enough, you need to fit other requirements as well.
There was a long discussion on two versions of music videos - one US and the other UK - where the images accompanying the song twisted the meaning of the song from being about female sexual agency to being basically an example of exploitative male gaze. But I’d never seen either video or heard the song - and I haven’t proven curious enough to look up either.
There is an excellent chapter on the meaning of being bisexual and how this is different for men and women. The argument is that in porn land all women are potentially bisexual, where as a bisexual man is generally defined as essentially homosexual. I’d never really thought about this - and this was written before the whole ‘I kissed a girl, and I liked it’ thing. Again, two women having sex can still be straight, if this is done as a way to turn on men, but any hint of homosexual behaviour in men automatically marks the man as gay.
There is also a chapter on a series of videos introducing straight women to anal sex. This was interesting because it was presented as non-exploitative. The author makes the point that often men will bring videos of couples having anal sex as a way to convince their partner that it is an okay thing to do. These videos made sure to show the women got to choose if this was something they wanted to do and that they could decide what they agreed to before and during the process. And that sometimes it simply didn’t work or feel okay and that that was okay too.
Like I said, I had hoped there might be more sociology in this. There was a chapter where they discuss the history of porn - mostly in the sense of the 1970s films as the golden age of porn as a kind of rebellion and then later films that glorify these film makers as freedom fighters - and how this is something of an exaggeration. But I don’t think you could write a book like this today without at least a chapter on pubic hair. Or a chapter on how for many young people pornography is sex. Or a chapter on how pornography works that old capitalist trick of making the viewer feel inadequate. This is mentioned in some chapters, but not in the depth I was expecting. Perfect bodied actors having sex might increase desire, but it also works to increase our feelings of inadequacy. Something so much else in our society also works to do. The go to example, I guess, is the number of women having surgery to make their vaginas resemble those of porn actresses. And the endless advertisements for penis enlargements. Porn plays on our insecurities in ways we can struggle to otherwise notice.
There was an article in the paper today on the growing trend in child on child sexual assault. I didn’t read it, but I guess it is hardly surprising. Like I said, there are a lot of interesting ideas in this book - but there is probably a more recent book that would help bring this one up to date.
As much as things have changed in the years since this was put together, a lot have stayed the same. Many of the questions here remain relevant and the central conclusion, that porn is not a simple thing and that the real question you need to ask is ‘who has agency?’ remain worth thinking about. The other idea, that I don’t think is covered as well in the book as I was expecting it to be - that porn shapes many other aspects of our social life in ways that we don’t often recognise - is also something worth thinking about. This is actually done quite well in relation to some gay magazines from Britain that are discussed in a chapter here - and in another chapter that mentions the representation of women in street advertisements that also copy porn motifs - but otherwise it wasn’t discussed as much as I expected.
The chapter on gay men was interesting because it said the magazines helped define the available gay personas available, and so, to be gay you needed to either fit one of those categories or stand outside them - which basically also meant being defined by these categories, even if in opposition. It is also clear that only some of these categories are available to you. Many are age related, some depend on you having a particular body type. Desire is not enough, you need to fit other requirements as well.
There was a long discussion on two versions of music videos - one US and the other UK - where the images accompanying the song twisted the meaning of the song from being about female sexual agency to being basically an example of exploitative male gaze. But I’d never seen either video or heard the song - and I haven’t proven curious enough to look up either.
There is an excellent chapter on the meaning of being bisexual and how this is different for men and women. The argument is that in porn land all women are potentially bisexual, where as a bisexual man is generally defined as essentially homosexual. I’d never really thought about this - and this was written before the whole ‘I kissed a girl, and I liked it’ thing. Again, two women having sex can still be straight, if this is done as a way to turn on men, but any hint of homosexual behaviour in men automatically marks the man as gay.
There is also a chapter on a series of videos introducing straight women to anal sex. This was interesting because it was presented as non-exploitative. The author makes the point that often men will bring videos of couples having anal sex as a way to convince their partner that it is an okay thing to do. These videos made sure to show the women got to choose if this was something they wanted to do and that they could decide what they agreed to before and during the process. And that sometimes it simply didn’t work or feel okay and that that was okay too.
Like I said, I had hoped there might be more sociology in this. There was a chapter where they discuss the history of porn - mostly in the sense of the 1970s films as the golden age of porn as a kind of rebellion and then later films that glorify these film makers as freedom fighters - and how this is something of an exaggeration. But I don’t think you could write a book like this today without at least a chapter on pubic hair. Or a chapter on how for many young people pornography is sex. Or a chapter on how pornography works that old capitalist trick of making the viewer feel inadequate. This is mentioned in some chapters, but not in the depth I was expecting. Perfect bodied actors having sex might increase desire, but it also works to increase our feelings of inadequacy. Something so much else in our society also works to do. The go to example, I guess, is the number of women having surgery to make their vaginas resemble those of porn actresses. And the endless advertisements for penis enlargements. Porn plays on our insecurities in ways we can struggle to otherwise notice.
There was an article in the paper today on the growing trend in child on child sexual assault. I didn’t read it, but I guess it is hardly surprising. Like I said, there are a lot of interesting ideas in this book - but there is probably a more recent book that would help bring this one up to date.
September 19, 2022
Os porn studies, ou melhor, os estudos acadêmico científicos sobre a pornografia ainda são pouco visados, muito por causa do tabu que existe sobre a sexualidade humana e também porque a pornografia sofre perseguição desde que surgiu no mundo. Entretanto, estes estudos são mais do que necessários porque os materias pornográficos vêm sendo cada vez mais consumidos no mundo, principalmente depois da streamização do mundo. Este livro é anterior a esta tecnologia ter sido popularizada. Contudo o livro tem textos muito interessantes para os dias atuais, principalmente o material introdutório e a parte que trata da história da pornografia (heterosexual) em home vídeo. Mas a pornografia gay não fica de fora, com um artigo sensacional de como ela afeta o cotidiano das pessoas homossexuais. A última parte do livro trata sobre a aproximação da pornografia com a mídia, por exemplo em outdoors, na publicidade, em videoclipes, na educação sexual e nas revistas impressas. Dessa forma, Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture, como uma antologia, tem seus altos e baixos em diversos artigos, mas é uma publicação importante para a consolidação dos porn studies.
March 26, 2021
The Thought Police has changed clothes. From puritans in the pulpit, now they are part of Academia and, like Marxism, they are now ”science”. Same foaming at the mouth, same pitchforks, same need to rule other people's life, and always *for your own good*. At least, in the old form the puritans had to hold a honest job. The new generation is more entitled, and doesn't have to work to collect tax money.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews