Uncouth Reflections

Fenster writes:

Rebecca Sullivan is director of the Institute for Gender Research at the University of Calgary.  Here’s her article in Canada’s Globe and Mail arguing for the academic study of porn.

On the face of it, it’s just an academic matter: things should be studied since they should be studied.

Quite simply, there is no other aspect of our media that is as poorly understood as pornography. Where is it produced and how is it marketed? What are the working conditions for those both in front and behind the camera? Who is accessing it, and how? What are the differences between various forms of pornography and how they represent sex and sexuality?

Lurking under the surface though there is a distinct POV, maybe an ax to grind.  Maybe even more than one ax?

The ambiguous nature of the motivation for inquiry gets clearer as you wade through the article.

On the one hand, the Puritan strain one associates with a Yankee past is in there.

Once we find answers to these questions, we may be able to ask better ones about how we discriminate against people based on their sexual identity and sex practices. . . . Some pornographies practically serve as manuals for the oppression of women and sexually marginalized peoples.

But wait!  On the other hand:

Others are challenging gender norms and body images, giving voice to diverse sexual experiences that are otherwise repressed in our society. . . . there is nothing intrinsically shameful about watching or creating sexually explicit media. Once we remove that veneer of societal disgust – and judging by pornography’s ubiquity in Canada, it is merely a veneer – we can begin to talk about sexual expression as a human right that should always be self-determining, authentic, and empowering of ourselves and others. That’s how we create a truly decent society.