This definition brings out neatly the deathwork aspect of pornography. It is a cultural artifact that takes human sexual activity and divorces it from any moral content. We might add that it also divorces it from any larger narrative or historical context. The sex in pornography is presented as an end in itself. Yet sexual activity in a second world has a sacred significance as part of a relationship, as part of a personal history, as something that—given its connection to reproduction—links past to future, and as the necessary precondition for culture.
