tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/pornography-424/articlesPornography – The Conversation2024-03-26T16:39:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188032024-03-26T16:39:35Z2024-03-26T16:39:35ZThe Marquis de Sade as feminist icon? Angela Carter’s surprising take on a notorious writer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583279/original/file-20240320-24-3xpkp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/search?q=feminist+classics">feminist classics</a> series, we look at influential books.</em></p>
<p>Social constructs and questions of control are preoccupations the late British writer Angela Carter returns to time and time again. This is especially true of the inflammatory piece of feminist non-fiction Carter published in 1979: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/276751.The_Sadeian_Woman">The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography</a>. </p>
<p>Carter, who died from cancer in 1992, was a true creative trailblazer. A novelist, fabulist, journalist and editor, deeply influenced by the women’s movement of the 1960s, she played with genres from fairy-tales and science fiction to magic realism and radio drama. She is known for works such as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49011.The_Bloody_Chamber_and_Other_Stories?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=OZofvNWv6f&rank=1">The Bloody Chamber</a> (1979) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/721867.Wise_Children?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=vUCU1XbGJP&rank=1">Wise Children</a> (1991). </p>
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<span class="caption">English novelist Angela Carter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Sophie Bassouls Sygma via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Her work is eerily prescient and continues to resonate. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581720.The_Passion_of_New_Eve">The Passion of New Eve</a> (1977), for instance, is a transgressive feminist novel set in a post-apocalyptic United States. Tellingly, Carter <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/4277694">described</a> this novel as an “anti-mythic” work about “the social creation of femininity”.</p>
<p>Two years later, she published her take on the French writer the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). Commissioned by the feminist publishing house, <a href="https://www.virago.co.uk/">Virago</a>, The Sadeian Woman attempts the near impossible, claiming Sade as a proto-feminist author.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-four-waves-of-feminism-and-what-comes-next-224153">What are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?</a>
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<h2>Fact from fiction</h2>
<p>Novelist <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60202.At_Home_with_the_Marquis_de_Sade">Francine du Plessix Gray</a> has described Sade (whose real name was Donatien Alphonse François) as “one of the few men in history whose names have spawned <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sadism">adjectives</a>” and “the only writer who will never lose his capacity to shock us.”</p>
<p>But who was he? Carter’s introductory note to The Sadeian Woman is useful:</p>
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<p>Sade was born in 1740, a great nobleman; and died in 1814, in a lunatic asylum, a poor man. His life spans the entire period of the French Revolution and he died in the same year that Napoleon abdicated and the monarchy was restored to France. He stands on the threshold of the modern period, looking both backward and forwards, at a time when the nature of human nature and of social institutions was debated as freely as it is in our own. </p>
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<p>Yet Carter neglects to mention Sade is one of the most notorious writers in recorded history. </p>
<p>Insane pornographer. Sexual pervert. Woman beater. Child rapist. Murderer. As the professor of French literature <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161610795-justine-or-the-misfortunes-of-virtue-oxford-world-s-classics-by-the-m?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=fO0rsWjSAK&rank=1">John Phillips</a> has observed, these are “some of the more lurid labels” that have been attached – sometimes erroneously – to Sade over the last two centuries.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of The Sadeian Woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Sade is the author of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60200.The_120_Days_of_Sodom_and_Other_Writings?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=N8xnSD1Qb4&rank=2">120 Days of Sodom</a> amongst other works, a novel so repellent that, in the words of the philosopher and pornographer <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135444.Literature_and_Evil">George Bataille</a>, one cannot finish it “without feeling sick”. Two of Sade’s other major novels were Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue (which describes the sexual brutalising of a 12-year-old virgin) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/314240.Juliette">Juliette, or, The Prosperities of Vice</a>, chronicling the adventures of Justine’s libertine older sister.</p>
<p>The shocking nature of Sade’s writing causes problems, especially because readers have difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction when it comes to him. </p>
<p>Sade was responsible for unquestionably <a href="https://theconversation.com/marquis-de-sade-depraved-monster-or-misunderstood-genius-its-complicated-145576#:%7E:text=During%20his%20lifetime%2C%20Sade%20was,the%20aphrodisiac%20%E2%80%9CSpanish%20fly%E2%80%9D">abhorrent criminal behaviour</a> in his personal life, such as when he kidnapped and abused <a href="https://www.artandpopularculture.com/Rose_Keller">Rose Keller</a>, a 36-year-old beggar woman. He was found guilty of rape, sodomy and torture in the case of Keller. Once released, he went on to commit a series of other crimes. For these offences, Sade spent decades in prisons or insane asylums.</p>
<p>Sade started writing while incarcerated. His brutally <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_determinism">deterministic</a> fictional universe is one where, in <a href="https://oxfordworldsclassics.com/display/10.1093/owc/9780199572847.001.0001/isbn-9780199572847#:%7E:text='I%20have%20become%20whore%20through,for%20sexual%20exploitation%20and%20martyrdom.">his own words</a>,</p>
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<p>it is essential that the unfortunate should suffer. Their humiliation and their pain are numbered among the laws of Nature, and their existence is essential to her overall plan, as is that of the prosperity that crushes them. </p>
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<p>Unpalatable as this may be, it is hard to ignore Sade. He has inspired artists and thinkers such as writers Gustave Flaubert, André Breton and Michel Foucault, film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini and the feminist philosopher Simone du Beauvoir. <a href="https://contemporarythinkers.org/simone-de-beauvoir/book/must-we-burn-sade/">The latter reasoned</a> </p>
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<p>Sade drained to the dregs the moment of selfishness, injustice, misery, and he insisted upon its truth. The supreme value of his testimony lies in its ability to disturb us. It forces us to re-examine thoroughly the basic problem which haunts our age in different forms: the true relation between man and man.</p>
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Read more:
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<p>Angela Carter, who knew her Beauvoir, advances a similar argument in The Sadiean Woman. Carter’s interest in Sade dates back to the beginning of the 1970s, when she contemplated writing a PhD entitled “De Sade: Culmination of the Enlightenment”. </p>
<p>Although that project never eventuated, Sade’s influence is evident in Carter’s 1972 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/198483">The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman</a>. This <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picaresque_novel">picaresque</a> novel, in part concerned with abuses of sexual power, quotes from Sade and includes a carnally obsessed character – a “demonic intellectual” called The Count – who behaves like him.</p>
<h2>Identities defined by men</h2>
<p>Carter started The Sadeian Woman soon after she finished with Dr Hoffman. As she states plainly in the introduction: </p>
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<p>Sade’s work concerns the nature of sexual freedom and is of particular significance to women because of his refusal to see female sexuality in relation to its reproductive function, a refusal as unusual in the late eighteenth century as it is now, even if today the function of women as primarily reproductive beings is under question. </p>
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<p>Carter holds that Sade’s pornography raises important questions about “the culturally determined nature of women” in society. Her central argument hinges on readings of two of Sade’s major novels. </p>
<p>Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue was published in 1791. Set in the years before the French Revolution, it tells the story of a 12-year-old female orphan endowed with, in Sade’s phrasing, “a tenderness and a surprising sensitivity.” </p>
<p>Justine has </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a look of the Virgin, big, blue, soulful eyes filled with animation, a dazzling complexion, a shapely and supple figure, a voice to touch the heart, teeth of ivory, and the most beautiful blonde hair.</p>
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<p>An altogether “charming” and innocent heroine, she is also fundamentally decent. Justine’s virtuousness is steadfast. For this, Sade spends hundreds of pages brutalising his protagonist.</p>
<p>Carter highlights this in her reading of the novel: </p>
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<p>Justine is a good woman in a man’s world. She is a good woman according to the rules for women laid down by men and her reward is rape, humiliation and incessant beatings. Her life is that of a woman martyrised by the circumstances of her life as a woman.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of Justine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61686920-justine?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=MlsGh4DWrY&rank=1">Goodreads</a></span>
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<p>Carter is repulsed by the horrors inflicted upon Justine. At the same time, she has mixed feelings about Justine’s martyrdom and her apparent passivity. She thinks Justine “a gratuitous victim. And if there is no virtue in her suffering, then there is none, it turns out, in her virtue itself; it does nobody any good, least of all herself.” </p>
<p>This idea is worth keeping in mind when it comes to Juliette, or, The Prosperities of Vice, which Sade worked on between 1797 and 1801.</p>
<p>Juliette is Justine’s sister. A character “in possession of some wit and aptitude,” Juliette is an unrepentant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertine">libertine</a>. She is, as author <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61195290">Joel Warner</a> has put it, “as depraved as her sister is virtuous.” </p>
<p>Like her ignoble creator, Juliette is really only interested in one thing: the instant gratification of her own desires and demands. Carter understands this. She is alive to the fact that Juliette’s life</p>
<blockquote>
<p>exists in a dialectical relationship to that of her sister. The vision of the inevitable prosperity of vice, as shown in her triumphant career, and the vision of the inevitable misfortunes of virtue that Justine’s life offers do not cancel one another out; rather, they mutually reflect and complement one another, like a pair of mirrors. Each story has the same moral, offered at many levels, which may be summed up as: the comfort of one class depends on the misery of another class. </p>
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<p>Carter’s point about structural inequality is easily grasped. Yet this is the moment when things start to heat up. Consider what Carter says next: </p>
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<p>There is no room in Sade’s impeccable logic for the well-upholstered wishful thinking that would like the poor to have more money if that did not mean we ourselves had less. To be a woman is to be automatically at a disadvantage in a man’s world, just like being poor, but to be a woman is a more easily remedied condition. If she abandons the praxis of femininity, then it is easy enough to enter the class of the rich, the men, provided one enters it on the terms of that class.</p>
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<p>The unabashedly ambitious Juliette is happy to do this. “If Justine is a pawn because she is a woman,” Carter argues, “Juliette transforms herself from pawn to queen in a single move and henceforward goes wherever she pleases on the chess board.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of Juliette" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Joining a secret society titled the Solality of the Friends of Crime, Juliette sets off across Europe. She moves in rarefied social circles and leaves a trail of chaos and destruction in her wake. </p>
<p>Theft. Sexual assault. Infanticide. The list of atrocities she is responsible for is as breathtaking as it is endless.</p>
<p>While their behaviours are different, it is important to recall that Carter sees Justine and Juliette as two sides of the same coin. She underscores that they “are women whose identities have been defined exclusively by men.”</p>
<p>Saying that, it is clear when it comes to the sisters, that Carter is infinitely more interested in Juliette:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The life of Juliette proposes a method of profane mastery of the instruments of power. She is a woman who acts according to the precepts and also the practice of a man’s world and so she does not suffer. Instead, she causes suffering.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Sex without reproduction</h2>
<p>To be clear: Carter does not condone the suffering that Juliette inflicts upon the men, women, and children she encounters. Far from it. And she is highly critical of Juliette’s rapaciousness when it comes to monetary matters. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Carter remains intrigued by the “sheer force” of Juliette’s will. She also writes favourably about the fact that Juliette “is never in less than full control” of her bodily autonomy. </p>
<p>Juliette has no interest in motherhood. In fact, she violently thumbs her nose in the direction of all things maternal. Carter reads this as a defiant and subversive gesture. Juliette, in Carter’s reckoning, chooses “infertility as a way of life.”</p>
<p>This brings us to the crux of Carter’s argument and explains her fondness for Sade. Carter, like Sade, refuses to define female sexuality in terms of reproductive functionality and fertility. She is, moreover, deeply suspicious of those who do.</p>
<p>Expanding the scope of her argument, Carter asserts that the</p>
<blockquote>
<p>theory of maternal superiority is one of the most damaging of all consolatory fictions and women themselves cannot leave it alone, although it springs from the timeless, placeless, fantasy land of archetypes where all the embodiments of biological supremacy live.</p>
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<p>Carter reminds us that times have changed. Contraception and legalised access to abortion “have given women the choice to be sexually active yet intentionally infertile for more of their lives than was possible at any time in history until now.”</p>
<p>But Carter also appreciates that while times change, attitudes rarely keep pace. She grants that the reality of the situation doesn’t </p>
<blockquote>
<p>seem to have lessened the shock of the physical impact of the female body and the fact of child-bearing. It ought to seem self-evident that this body need not necessarily bear children but the trace-effects of several millennia during which this fact was not self-evident at all, since it was continually obscured by enforced pregnancies, have clothed the female body almost inpenetrably with a kind of mystification, of kitschification, that removes it almost from the real or physiological fact. </p>
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<p>This helps us understand a central tenet of Carter’s critique in The Sadeian Woman: the longstanding myths of femininity. </p>
<p>Indeed, as the novelist <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/304317.Angela_Carter">Lorna Sage explains</a>, Carter does not take Sade at face value, rather she appropriates his work in order to explore the plight of women in a world that continues to be “authorised by patriarchy.” </p>
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<h2>Critics and suppporters</h2>
<p>Critics <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-invention-of-angela-carter-9781448137077">were divided</a> by The Sadeian Woman when it hit the shelves. </p>
<p>Reviewing it in the <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-guardian-tsw-review-guardian-1979/112881790/">Guardian</a> alongside the first volume of Foucault’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1875.The_History_of_Sexuality_Volume_1">History of Sexuality</a>, author and anthropologist Francis Huxley expressed gratitude to Carter. He thanked her for demonstrating that men could “free themselves from some habitual tyrannies and become human.”</p>
<p>Critic Richard Gilman didn’t agree. In an article in the <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/27/specials/carter-sadian.html?scp=10&sq=Counterforce&st=Search">New York Times</a>, he not only critiqued the book, but cast aspersions on Carter’s character. While conceding that it contained “a number of shrewd insights,” Gilman maintained that The Sadeian Woman “is in the grip of an iron set of biases and dubious presuppositions.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, for all her “intelligence”, Carter was, for Gilman, nothing more than “a rigid ideologue, fervidly feminist, furiously anti-religious and against transcendence of any kind.”</p>
<p>Ironies abound here. While Gilman was castigating Carter for being too “rigid” in her feminist commitments, she was simultaneously being attacked in certain feminist circles for effectively betraying the women’s movement. </p>
<p>To take a high-profile example, The Sadeian Woman attracted the ire of writer <a href="https://theconversation.com/andrea-dworkins-intercourse-the-raw-radical-critique-of-male-power-resonating-with-gen-z-feminists-today-214377">Andrea Dworkin</a>, who summarily dismissed it as a “pseudofeminist” tract.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/andrea-dworkins-intercourse-the-raw-radical-critique-of-male-power-resonating-with-gen-z-feminists-today-214377">Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse: the raw, radical critique of male power resonating with Gen Z feminists today</a>
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<p>Part of the problem, it seems, had less to do with Sade, and more to do with Carter’s willingness to engage with pornography in broader terms. </p>
<p>Anti-pornography campaigners of Dworkin’s militant ilk were always going to struggle with Carter’s treatise, which suggests, provocatively, that certain forms of pornography might serve a positive political function, “as a critique of current relations between the sexes.”</p>
<p>Still, The Sadeian Woman has had some notable supporters over the years. The novelist <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/lorna-sage/essays-on-the-art-of-angela-carter-flesh-and-the-mirror">Margaret Atwood</a>, for one, praises Carter’s book for its “suavity, wit, no-holds-barred intelligence, panache, bravado, stiletto-like epigrams, and sudden disconcerting pounces.” </p>
<p>Ultimately, it is up to the contemporary reader to decide whether they find Carter’s arguments about Sade, pornography, and the myths of femininity convincing. </p>
<p>In any case, I find myself pondering what Carter, who writes in The Sadeian Woman of living in an “unfree society,” would have made of our present – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-porn-is-created-equal-is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-healthy-pornography-209387">porn-saturated</a> – moment. It is a time when the human rights for which she and other second-wave feminists fought are increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-abortion-be-the-issue-that-swings-the-2024-us-presidential-election-219495">under threat</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>British writer Angela Carter was a creative trailblazer. And in 1979, she published a book attempting the near impossible, claiming Sade –pornographer and literary bad boy – as a proto-feminist.Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2238152024-03-24T11:52:13Z2024-03-24T11:52:13ZAddressing deepfake porn doesn’t require new criminal laws, which can restrict sexual fantasy and promote the prison system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582946/original/file-20240319-28-spiry0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6240%2C4156&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Deepfake pornography plays a role in sexual fantasy and expression.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24050334/x-twitter-taylor-swift-ai-fake-images-trending">deepfake pornography of Taylor Swift went viral</a> on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2024/01/taylor-swift-ai-deepfake-trending-social-media.html">Swifties sprung into action</a>. They organized to report violations of X’s “<a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/manipulated-media">Synthetic and Manipulated Media</a>” policy and flooded the platform with real images of Swift in an attempt to alter X’s algorithm.</p>
<p>The incident <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/26/taylor-swift-deepfake-pornography-sparks-renewed-calls-for-us-legislation">renewed calls for federal legislation</a> regarding deepfake porn. But whether we need to “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/taylor-swift-deepfake-porn-artificial-intelligence-pushback/">defeat</a>” deepfake porn by <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16982046/reddit-deepfakes-ai-celebrity-face-swap-porn-community-ban">censoring</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/27/sharing-deepfake-intimate-images-to-be-criminalised-in-england-and-wales">criminalizing</a> it is up for debate — or at least it should be. </p>
<p>As a criminologist and sexuality studies scholar with expertise in the <a href="https://carleton-ca.academia.edu/LaraKaraian">legal regulation of sex and sexual expression</a>, the push to conflate deepfake porn with misogyny and sexual harm is concerning, as is the call for new criminal laws.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GgSduzVDV08?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">ABC News looks at the circulation of fake explicit images of Taylor Swift on X.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Are deepfakes sexual violence?</h2>
<p>Deepfake refers to the use of artificially intelligent (AI) machine-learning applications to generate original but “fake” audio, images or videos that may appear authentic. Deepfake pornography (DFP) refers to products that are sexually explicit in nature. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.homesecurityheroes.com/state-of-deepfakes/#key-findings">2023 report by cybersecurity firm Home Security Heroes</a>, DFP makes up 98 per cent of all deepfake videos online, and 99 per cent of DFP features women. Notably, 94 per cent of these women work in the entertainment industry. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/10/08/deepfake_report.pdf">earlier study of DFP by Deeptrace Labs</a> found that of those in the entertainment industry, most of the 10 most frequently represented individuals were actresses from western countries, followed by South Korean K-pop singers.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-can-now-create-fake-porn-making-revenge-porn-even-more-complicated-92267">AI can now create fake porn, making revenge porn even more complicated</a>
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<p>Given their gendered, sexual and seemingly “non-consensual” nature, DFP has been widely described as gender-based sexual violence requiring <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/9631/text?s=1&r=79">greater civil and criminal regulation of both AI and deepfake porn producers</a>. </p>
<p>Others, however, suggest that deepfake porn may be <a href="https://cardozolawreview.com/deeply-fake-deeply-disturbing-deeply-constitutional-why-the-first-amendment-likely-protects-the-creation-of-pornographic-deepfakes/">deeply constitutional</a> sexual expression, and that new laws should be put off until more research about the impacts of pornographic deepfakes on those depicted, as well as on internet users, can be conducted. </p>
<p>Deepfake porn raises concerns about false representations — for instance, falsely depicting an individual as sexually active, into a certain type of sex or involved in the porn industry. Whether this constitutes sexual violence — even if a person is distressed by fake videos of them — is not self-evident.</p>
<p>Many valid reasons exist for why deepfake porn may be created and shared, and why it should not be interpreted or criminalized as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-can-now-create-fake-porn-making-revenge-porn-even-more-complicated-92267">image based sexual abuse</a>” or “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/sextortion1-1.pdf">virtual rape</a>.” These reasons include, but are not limited to the social value of sexual fantasy — including seemingly “deviant” fantasies — and the need to resist prison expansionism and the carceral state.</p>
<h2>Need for new laws?</h2>
<p>Deepfakes, as with the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meta-youtube-ai-political-ads/">cheapfakes</a> that preceded them, can be created for malicious purposes including harassment, spreading disinformation and extortion. In instances where the use of one’s image is deeply upsetting to the individual depicted, legal avenues such as civil privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy laws that address “<a href="https://canlii.ca/t/sxjg">false light</a>” (making false or misleading claims about a person that cause harm to them) and take-down orders may help address their concerns. </p>
<p>When it comes to deepfake porn and minors, Canada’s child pornography and its <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-162.1.html">Intimate Images</a> provisions likely apply. And in cases where DFP images and videos are used to harass or extort individuals, laws already exist to address these harms. On or offline, however, there are reasons to resist <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz013">pro-criminalization strategies</a>.</p>
<p>Queer and sex-radical feminists have long established that even though sex and gender are related, theories of gender oppression cannot wholly explain <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1560/chapter/173938/Thinking-SexNotes-for-a-Radical-Theory-of-the">sex and sexual politics</a>. Importantly, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2018.1474827">anti-sexual violence feminists and anti-carceral scholars</a> have pointed out the limits and harms of using criminal law to respond to sexual violence for sexual violence victims, the accused and society more broadly. </p>
<p>Before we can determine whether sexual violence is the best framework for describing and responding to deepfake porn, we need a better understanding of deepfake porn prosumers — those who produce, consume and share their creations — as well as the importance of sexual fantasy, at the individual and collective levels.</p>
<h2>Deepfake porn prosumers</h2>
<p>It’s becoming increasingly difficult to interview or conduct research with deepfake porn prosumers given how widely they are described as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/30/how-fake-porn-opponents-are-fighting-back/">depraved</a>, as the embodiment of “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2019.1675091">toxic geek masculinity</a>,” and as driven by an interest in <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/nekqmd/deepfake-porn-origins-sexism-reddit-v25n2">owning women’s bodies</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man is silhouetted against a computer screen showing blurred out images" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583169/original/file-20240320-20-zoul2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Given what we know about the demographics of computer programmers and porn consumers, it’s likely that most DFP prosumers are men.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research suggests, however, that many deepfake porn creators are hobbyists who are more interested in contributing “to the development of such technology as <a href="http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1282">solving an intellectual puzzle</a>… rather than as a way to trick or threaten people.” </p>
<p>It’s likely that most deepfake prosumers are men, given what we know about the demographics of <a href="https://datausa.io/profile/soc/computer-programmers">computer programmers</a> and <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/661314/gender-distribution-of-pornhubcom-website-traffic-in-selected-european-countries/">porn consumers</a>.</p>
<p>Insights from clinical practice suggests that when men do create “fake porn” misogyny rarely serves as a key motivator. Clinical psychologist David J. Ley observes that more of these cases are “driven by <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/women-who-stray/201901/the-psychology-behind-fake-porn">feelings of loss, shame, hope, and fantasy</a> than by misogyny and anger.” Similar to Photoshopped “porno collages,” deepfakes serve as a means to explore fantasies that are likely impossible to fulfill.</p>
<p>But is sexual fantasy a valid reason to create and share deepfake porn on public and paid platforms? </p>
<h2>Sexual fantasy and deepfakes</h2>
<p>Sexual fantasy is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607221106667">more complicated</a> and more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.469">important to our sex lives and to our social well-being</a> than people typically realize or acknowledge. For many, sexual fantasy is private and limited to their mind’s eye. </p>
<p>Others, however, see sexual fantasy as something to be <a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol58/iss2/3">manifested as written text, images or digital files, and publicly shared</a> for free or for a fee. </p>
<p>Critical race feminist scholars have demonstrated that <a href="https://doi.org/10.15767/feministstudies.41.2.409">sexual fantasy is both a product of and productive of our complex realities</a>, but that a line can also be drawn between fantasy and reality given the important roles that fantasy plays in our individual and collective lives.</p>
<p>At the individual level, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12734">a study that surveyed 1,516 adult cis men and women about their sexual fantasies</a> found that more than half of the respondents — 51.7 per cent of women and 61.9 per cent of men — fantasized about sex with a celebrity.</p>
<p>Sexual fantasy research has also helped establish that few sexual fantasies are statistically unusual or rare. This includes fantasies which have previously been deemed perverted or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12734">atypical</a>, such as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-11-29/us-federal-laws-fail-to-protect-most-deepfake-pornography-victims">those that involve violence or humiliation</a>. These fantasies are not only common, but are also “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101496">unlikely to be revealing of actual behavior</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="two pairs of women's legs wearing heels in red lighting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583173/original/file-20240320-24-adu4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fantasy plays an important role in individual and collective lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Ley, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/women-who-stray/201901/the-psychology-behind-fake-porn">reasons for publicly sharing sexual fantasies</a> range from seeking approval, demonstrating technical prowess and playing with taboo to bonding with those who share the same interests or to arouse others in the way they are aroused so as to feel less alone for having these interests and desires. </p>
<p>As legal scholar Andrew Gilden writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the actual process of coming to terms with one’s sexual identity often entails extensive fantasizing, experimentation, education, and social interaction. And these processes <a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol58/iss2/3/">are often far less romantic</a>, much less ‘dignified,’ and far less ‘PG’ than envisioned by the evolving legal narratives of sexuality.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Consent and fantasy</h2>
<p>Thinking about deepfake porn through the lens of sexual fantasy also helps us make sense of lack of consent in DFP. Consent does not factor into people’s sexual fantasies in the same ways as it does their physical sexual relations: I don’t need permission to fantasize about someone, but I do need permission to have sex with them. </p>
<p>Consent is a primarily <a href="https://www.leaf.ca/news/the-law-of-consent-in-sexual-assault/">legal term</a>, that, at its most general, means voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. The use of consent language to refer to the creative process of DFP as “image-based sexual abuse” or “virtual rape” shuts down a <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/sex-and-harm-in-the-age-of-consent">nuanced conversation about sexual harm and freedom</a>. </p>
<h2>Expanding definitions</h2>
<p>Ultimately, sexual fantasy cannot fully explain the phenomenon of deepfake porn. But failing to acknowledge the limits of gender-based sexual violence frameworks comes with its own harms, including the ever-growing definition of sex crime and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz013">expansion of the carceral state</a>.</p>
<p>We need to think carefully about the social and cultural motivations and intent of content creators, in addition to the potential effects of their creations. We need to consider whether expanding the scope of criminal law to address emotional harm in virtual spaces will bring about the changes we want to see, including the reduction of sexual violence. We also need to acknowledge that criminal law has largely failed to prevent, and indeed <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520385818/the-feminist-war-on-crime#:%7E:text=In%20their%20quest%20to%20secure,and%20diverting%20resources%20toward%20law">perpetuates, emotional and physical violence at a level that requires great awareness and care</a>. </p>
<p>Concerns about sexual autonomy should inform debates about emerging technologies, but alternative frameworks for making sense of and responding to deepfake porn should be considered before we censor and criminalize deepfake porn producers, consumers and products.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lara Karaian receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Deepfake pornography raises questions about consent, sexuality and representation. The issue is more complicated than online misogyny — new criminal laws are not our best response.Lara Karaian, Associate Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255732024-03-19T19:45:05Z2024-03-19T19:45:05ZBy the time they are 20, more than 4 in 5 men and 2 in 3 women have been exposed to pornography: new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582667/original/file-20240318-18-n6pp1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four in five young men and two in three young women have been exposed to pornography by the time they turn 20, according to the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38508985/">first nationally representative survey</a> on this issue in Australia.</p>
<p>Boys and young men are exposed earlier to pornography than girls and young women, and far more likely to be frequent users.</p>
<p>Among young people who had seen pornography, the average age of first exposure was 13.2 years for males and 14.1 years for females.</p>
<p>Exposure to pornography is likely to shape children’s and young people’s developing sexual and relationship attitudes and behaviours, with potentially significant health consequences.</p>
<p>We summarise the findings here, drawing on the survey among 1,985 young people aged 15-20 conducted by leading violence prevention organisation Our Watch, as well as Maree Crabbe’s interviews with young Australians.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pornography-has-deeply-troubling-effects-on-young-people-but-there-are-ways-we-can-minimise-the-harm-127319">Pornography has deeply troubling effects on young people, but there are ways we can minimise the harm</a>
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<hr>
<h2>Exposure is common</h2>
<p>Most young people aged 15-20 have seen pornography, whether intentionally or accidentally. Over four-fifths (86%) of young men, and over two-thirds (69%) of young women, have encountered pornography.</p>
<p>While the average age of first exposure to pornography among those who have seen it is 13 for boys and 14 for girls, some children’s first exposure is considerably earlier. As Lizzie commented, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was maybe 8 or 9 years old when I first saw porn. I had an older brother and I think one day he left a porn site open, and it just sparked my curiosity after that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><iframe id="noyei" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/noyei/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Young people see pornography two to three years before their first sexual experience with a partner. As Nathan commented, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>there was a group of boys who would spend the entire time at the back of the classroom just having fun, laughing and watching pornography together. And this was well and truly before any of us were sexually active.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/help-ive-just-discovered-my-teen-has-watched-porn-what-should-i-do-215892">Help, I've just discovered my teen has watched porn! What should I do?</a>
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<h2>Deliberate and accidental exposure</h2>
<p>First exposure is about equally likely to be deliberate or accidental. Among young people who had seen pornography, 50.1% of young men and 40.3% of young women reported deliberately seeking pornography the first time they viewed it, while 46.2% of young men and 55.7% of young women reported that their first exposure was unintentional.</p>
<p>Among the children and young people who had deliberately sought out pornography the first time they saw it, the most common motivation was curiosity. Other motivations included looking for sexual stimulation, because friends were watching it, and wanting to learn more about sex.</p>
<p>For young people whose first exposure was unintentional, most had accidentally encountered pornography via an internet pop-up or web search. Other common means included being shown by someone else and coming across it on social media.</p>
<p>Emma’s story is typical: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I accidentally clicked on just one of the many pop-ups that are around and it took me to a porn site.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Mohammad explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even when you’re not looking for it you find it on the internet.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><iframe id="92PYc" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/92PYc/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Young men are frequent users</h2>
<p>There is a strong gender contrast in the frequency of pornography use among young people. Many young men are frequent users, with over half (54.4%) using pornography at least weekly and one in six (16%) doing so daily. On the other hand, only about one in seven young women (14.3%) use pornography weekly and only one in 70 (1.4%) do so daily.</p>
<p>Pornography use is both widespread and normalised among young men, as Crabbe’s interviews corroborate. “It was just assumed that boys our age were watching it,” reports Tash. “Every guy I know uses it, girls not so much”, said Hannah.</p>
<p>One-fifth of young people have not seen pornography, including one-tenth (10.5%) of young men and over one-quarter (28.7%) of young women. Compared to boys and young men, girls and young women are less interested in and more critical of pornography.</p>
<p>Lack of interest was the most common reason for not having seen pornography, reported by 59% of men and 87% of women. Other common reasons included concerns that it is disgusting or gross (20% men, 40% women) and that they would not like its depictions of relationships (10% men, 39% women).</p>
<p><iframe id="I7s2V" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/I7s2V/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Why does it matter if young people are exposed to porn?</h2>
<p>Other studies document that pornography <a href="https://theconversation.com/pornography-has-deeply-troubling-effects-on-young-people-but-there-are-ways-we-can-minimise-the-harm-127319">shapes young people’s sexual understandings, expectations, and experiences</a>, just as it shapes these <a href="https://xyonline.net/sites/xyonline.net/files/2020-07/Hald%2C%20Sexuality%20and%20Pornography%20Ch%202014.pdf">among adults</a>.</p>
<p>Pornography consumption is associated with a range of harms, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X08006587">risky</a> <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996">sexual behaviours</a> such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10410236.2021.1991641">choking</a>, more <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01422.x">sexually objectifying and gender-stereotypical</a> views of women, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ab.20328">rape myth acceptance</a>, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-27678-001">sexual coercion</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ab.20367">aggression</a>, and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/6/1/1">sexual and dating violence victimisation</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hold-pornography-to-account-not-education-programs-for-childrens-harmful-sexual-behaviour-68473">Hold pornography to account – not education programs – for children's harmful sexual behaviour</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lessening the harms</h2>
<p>Four strategies are necessary to mitigate the potential harms of pornography exposure.</p>
<p>First, children and young people across Australia should have access to <a href="https://education.ourwatch.org.au/">respectful relationships education</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X20304560">comprehensive sexuality education</a> in schools. This should provide alternative and age-appropriate content on sexuality, including critical <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15546128.2020.1856744">content on pornography</a>.</p>
<p>Second, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003189787-10/talking-children-pornography-jessica-zurcher">parents</a> should be equipped with <a href="https://itstimewetalked.com/parents/">the tools</a> to talk to their children <a href="https://www.theline.org.au/educators-and-practitioners/pornography/">about pornography</a>, helping them to avoid or reject content that is sexist or celebrates violence that can be found in much pornography.</p>
<p>Third, we need social marketing and communication campaigns intended to undermine the influence of sexist and harmful content in pornography, and instead foster more gender-equitable and inclusive social norms.</p>
<p>Fourth, the federal government should support regulatory strategies to reduce minors’ exposure to pornography, such as <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/consultation-cooperation/age-verification">age verification for adult websites</a>, labelling and warning systems, mandated filtering by internet service providers with options for adult opt-in, and other measures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maree Crabbe has worked as a consultant on this issue and has developed a range of resources including school curricula, professional learning, two documentary films, and the "It's Time We Talked” website.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelsey Adams and Michael Flood do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether deliberately seeking it out or finding it accidentally, most young Australians have seen pornography by the time they are 20, with potentially damaging consequences.Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of TechnologyKelsey Adams, PhD candidate, Queensland University of TechnologyMaree Crabbe, PhD candidate, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2250362024-03-14T17:19:11Z2024-03-14T17:19:11ZIs it ethical to watch AI pornography?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580230/original/file-20240306-30-un3efx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=79%2C88%2C5811%2C3850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mobile-addict-man-using-smartphone-browsing-2391001945">Lysenko Andrii/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re in your 20s and 30s, you probably watch pornography. Millennials and gen Z are <a href="https://www.lelo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/UK-Sex-Census-2023.pdf">watching more</a> pornography than any other age group and are also <a href="https://www.lelo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/UK-Sex-Census-2023.pdf">more likely</a> than any other demographic to experiment with AI pornography. </p>
<p>As technology advances, AI-generated tools and techniques are becoming increasingly sophisticated and accessible. This can lead to unethical content, including deepfakes – videos in which a person’s face is replaced with someone
else’s likeness, without their consent. Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) recently faced a scandal when it became awash with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/31/inside-the-taylor-swift-deepfake-scandal-its-men-telling-a-powerful-woman-to-get-back-in-her-box">deepfakes of Taylor Swift</a>.</p>
<p>But what about other kinds of AI pornographic content? How can consuming it affect you, and how can you make sure that you’re consuming it ethically? I’m a sex and relationship therapist, so I’m interested in helping clients with various sexual issues, including porn consumption problems. I am also curious about the ways AI could be used positively to create pornography that is not only ethical, but educational and sexy at the same time.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our 20s and 30s. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-you-should-know-about-coming-out-as-lgbtq-in-your-20s-and-30s-223910?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">What you should know about coming out as LGBTQ+ in your 20s and 30s</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-problems-with-dating-apps-and-how-they-could-be-fixed-two-relationship-experts-discuss-218401?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">The problems with dating apps and how they could be fixed – two relationship experts discuss</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-might-start-to-hate-the-influencers-you-once-loved-222659?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Why you might start to hate the influencers you once loved</a></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The impact of watching AI porn</h2>
<p>While it’s perfectly normal to be curious about sex, watching a lot of pornography can affect your <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/8/7/914">sexual satisfaction</a> – and AI porn is no different. You might, for example, start comparing your partner to the hyper-realistic, but impossibly perfect, digitally generated actors of AI porn. </p>
<p>Already, <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/5/2/article-p179.xml">research</a> suggests that men who frequently watch online porn may experience erectile dysfunction. This could be due to the idealised unrealistic portrayals in pornography compared to real-life sexual encounters. AI pornography would likely only exacerbate this, with AI porn avatars able to participate in sex acts that wouldn’t be possible, or as accessible, for real people. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young asian woman lying in bed lit by glow of her phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581005/original/file-20240311-20-jwbnkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research has found that watching porn can help some women to overcome shame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/search/woman-phone-bed">TORWAISTUDIO/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among women who watch porn, opinions vary. Some women have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2021.1885532">noted</a> positive changes, including a reduction in the shame associated with sexual pleasure. But others have expressed reservations about the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328265584_Is_Women%27s_Problematic_Pornography_Viewing_Related_to_Body_Image_or_Relationship_Satisfaction">beauty standards</a> in pornography, finding them unattainable. </p>
<p>This stance is very much shared by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539500000777?via=ihub#BIB30">anti-porn campaigners</a>, who claim that porn degrades and objectifies women. They believe it feeds into ideas of male supremacy, potentially leading to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342907785_A_Descriptive_Analysis_of_the_Types_Targets_and_Relative_Frequency_of_Aggression_in_Mainstream_Pornography/link/5f21c47b299bf134049257f8/download">violence against women</a>. </p>
<h2>Regulating AI pornography</h2>
<p>The roles women are given within mainstream pornography often portray a different power imbalance than, for example, gay male porn. For this article, I spoke to porn actor John Thomas. He argued that gay male porn was somewhat more ethical than mainstream straight porn which is [made for men to consume]. “Both roles in a gay scene might be appreciated by the viewer, rather than the pure objectification of the woman in a straight scene.”</p>
<p>One of the many concerns with unregulated AI-generated pornography is that it can distort a viewer’s sense of reality, leading to misinformation, unrealistic expectations around sex and potential harm. However, since the moral landscape surrounding ethical AI porn is a grey area, we are pushed into uncharted territory. As new technology emerges, new challenges arise.</p>
<p>To ensure <a href="https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/3230/323047487009.pdf">responsible</a> innovation within the adult entertainment industry, it’s essential to be aware of AI’s ongoing <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7296407/">integration</a> into our daily lives. For example, risks could be mitigated by training AI systems to recognise deepfakes, violence or child pornography. </p>
<p>For actors in the adult entertainment industry working pre-AI, consent has always been key. I asked John Thomas about best practice in the industry: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When working for a porn studio [as a freelance worker], I sign a contract which typically includes clauses relating to rights to my image – usually I am signing to give the studio the right to use, and alter, my image [from the photos or video created] and distribute it. AI is not specified in any contract I’ve signed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But since AI porn is expected to become more mainstream, the topic of consent becomes more ambiguous. As John Thomas adds: “I think one could interpret the contract to include AI … the contracts are written in such an expansive way that, having signed away the rights to your image, and consent to your image being altered, it could [hypothetically be used in AI].”</p>
<h2>How to be an ethical porn consumer</h2>
<p>Just as there are fair trade brands known for their ethical practices in producing coffee and clothing, there should be a safe space for consumers to explore their sexuality and fantasies. </p>
<p>As a porn viewer, you can be more ethical in your consumption by becoming <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2018.1556238">porn literate</a>, improving your understanding of realistic sexual expectations, gender identities, sexual orientations, relationship styles, kinks and ethical BDSM practices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A gay couple in bed together, looking happily at a phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581293/original/file-20240312-16-wqqfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s good to talk about your porn preferences with your partner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/affectionate-gay-couple-watching-content-online-2233406561">Lomb/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And if you decide you want to watch AI porn and want to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1363460720936475">minimise</a> the risk of consuming unethical content, here are some tips to help enhance your porn literacy skills: </p>
<p>• consider joining online communities where discussions about <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1363460720936475?icid=int.sj-full-text.citing-articles.43">“feminist porn”</a> and sexualised content are open and encouraged</p>
<p>• if you are a fan of a particular porn actor, consider following them on social media. This will provide you with some insights into their performance activities and their preferred ways for you to access their content </p>
<p>• when coming across porn sites, take a moment to assess if they are recognised for ethical production practices. Some <a href="https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/30093">established sites</a> are known for their commitment to ethical pornography. Typically, the ethical emphasis will revolve around aspects such as production standards, consent, representation of diverse body types, genders and races, portrayal of safe sexual practices and prioritising the enjoyment of all involved</p>
<p>• keep in mind the difference between fantasies and real sexual encounters when watching porn. Remember that what you see online may not translate to real life</p>
<p>• keep a close eye on your porn consumption. If you sense it’s becoming overwhelming, or impacting your daily life or sexual experiences, don’t be ashamed. Seek support from a professional, such as a sex therapist.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chantal Gautier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People in their 20s and 30s are more likely than any other age group to experiment with AI pornography.Chantal Gautier, Lecturer, Sex and Relationship Therapist, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2158922024-01-14T19:05:46Z2024-01-14T19:05:46ZHelp, I’ve just discovered my teen has watched porn! What should I do?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562600/original/file-20231130-15-eyet8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=122%2C0%2C8057%2C5297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/worried-teenage-girl-sitting-desk-bedroom-2261420967">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unlike in previous generations, you’re unlikely to discover your adolescent’s first exposure to adult sexual content from finding a scrunched-up Playboy magazine under their mattress. </p>
<p>With easy access to the internet and the use of tablets and mobile phones, it’s more likely to be from free, mainstream online porn. And it can be a very shocking introduction to sex.</p>
<p>But it’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.12678">common</a> and has become normalised among young people. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.12678">median age</a> for boys to first view pornography is 13, while for girls it’s 16. </p>
<p>OK, so your child or adolescent has watched a porn video. First, stay calm. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tiktok-has-a-startling-amount-of-sexual-content-and-its-way-too-easy-for-children-to-access-216114">TikTok has a startling amount of sexual content – and it's way too easy for children to access</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Start a discussion about what porn is – and isn’t</h2>
<p>How much detail you go into and what’s appropriate for them to know will depend on their age and level of maturity. </p>
<p>Many parents let their adolescents know porn is not real – it’s a fantasy. But it’s not enough to just say, “that’s not real”. They also need to know what reality is. </p>
<p>Explain that porn is not what sex is like – and what’s wrong with depictions of sex in porn: everyone who’s involved should be enjoying it, not just the man. </p>
<p>In porn, you don’t see all the normal things that happen around sex, like discussions on how to ask about consent, or even the bloopers of sex, such as when people change positions, negotiate, and move around. </p>
<p>Porn is not designed to show sex the way it would be experienced as pleasurable, or show what positive relationships are meant to look like. People don’t tend to ask, “do you want to do that?” And if they do, you won’t see what happens if someone says “no”. The performers aren’t doing it in a way that feels good, but instead focus on what is deemed to “look good”. </p>
<p>Porn doesn’t present sex in a real way, and it can change young people’s ideas and expectations about <a href="https://www.thegist.org.au/topics/how-porn-is-different-from-sex-in-the-real-world/">what sex is</a>. </p>
<h2>How are adolescents accessing porn?</h2>
<p>Adolescents are used to discovering things on their own using the internet and are naturally curious about sex. Their exposure to porn can come from something as simple as googling a term they’ve never heard of before, or their friends <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.12678">sending them a link</a>. </p>
<p>They’re most likely to come across mainstream porn. With lots of flesh, quick movements and closeups, it can be very graphic and can come across as violent to someone seeing it for the first time. </p>
<p>This becomes how adolescents, who don’t have personal experiences of sex, or have the information they need, learn about sex. Just as they go to YouTube to learn how to cook a meal or fix the tap, they are used to watching and following. </p>
<p>And for something private and stigmatised like sex, there are limited good alternatives for them to learn how it really works.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Girl looks at her phone while sitting at her desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562596/original/file-20231130-21-lxi54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are limited alternatives to learn how sex really works.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/worried-teenage-girl-sitting-desk-bedroom-2261420967">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When should we have ‘the talk’?</h2>
<p>An open conversation about safety, sex, consent and relationships and gender roles is important throughout their whole life. Introduce the topic of sex gradually, depending on your child’s age. It doesn’t have to be a big sit down, to have a big talk.</p>
<p>It’s best to bring it up in relevant situations, particularly on seeking ongoing consent, because that applies to all aspects of life. Everyone has the right to make decisions about their own body, and it’s up to them if they <a href="https://www.thegist.org.au/topics/enthusiastic-consent-and-communication">want to be</a> touched, hugged, kissed or have sex. It’s also important to reinforce that women and girls have feelings and needs, and they’re not just there to look pretty. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-teach-a-primary-school-child-about-consent-you-can-start-with-these-books-190063">How do you teach a primary school child about consent? You can start with these books</a>
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<p>If they’re asking questions, then they’re old enough to talk about it. Ideally, you won’t wait for them to ask. You should be having conversations about consent, positive relationships, and sex from an early age. But it’s important to talk about it earlier rather than later, even if you don’t think they’ve watched porn. </p>
<p>Instead of saying “have you heard about porn?”, let them know from a young age they can trust you if they see something online that they don’t like or confuses them. Assure them you can’t believe everything you see online and you’re a safe person to go to with any questions.</p>
<p>Let them know it’s not their fault if they see something they don’t like, make sure they are OK and ask how it made them feel. Remind them to simply close the browser or turn off the screen if they see something that <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/kids/i-want-help-with/i-saw-something-online-i-didn%E2%80%99t-like">upsets them</a> or makes them feel yuck. </p>
<h2>Can I prevent my child accessing porn?</h2>
<p>Your children will <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1326020023010269?via%3Dihub">probably see porn</a> at some point, but the older they are when they first see it, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1326020023010269?via%3Dihub">the better</a>.</p>
<p>Data shows watching porn is <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/16702">associated with</a> poor mental health, riskier sexual behaviours, and attitudes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1417350">supporting violence against women</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike with adolescents where conversations are paramount, restrictions can prevent and protect young children from seeing porn. These include <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/issues-and-advice/parental-controls?gclid=CjwKCAjws9ipBhB1EiwAccEi1HAKM-aKbxzwQ2oY8BM7Jpi4yjP4QPSK1vOk7GIy9d7xLyfEtM9CuBoCI1EQAvD_BwE">parental controls</a> on devices, apps or browsers, or establishing rules about when, where and with whom they can access their phones, computers or tablets. Yes, older teenagers can probably get past them, but younger kids can’t.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-need-to-talk-about-porn-when-we-talk-about-andrew-tate-201059">Why we need to talk about porn when we talk about Andrew Tate</a>
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<p>Be open and honest with your kids about using internet restrictions – don’t spy on them. Let them know why you’re doing it, explaining there are bad things online you need to protect them from – it’s about building trust.</p>
<p>If you find your child showing unusual behaviour or acting out towards other children, or your teen shows signs of addiction (where their viewing activities interfere with their day-to-day lives), <a href="https://www.thegist.org.au/support-services/">seek</a> professional <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/">help</a>. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.thegist.org.au/">The GIST</a> is a great resource for parents and older teens about how to approach difficult topics like this. If you’re a child or adolescent and need support, you can call the <a href="https://kidshelpline.com.au/">Kids Help Line</a> on 1800 55 1800.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Lim receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, VicHealth, Westpac Foundation, and the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. </span></em></p>Chances are, your teenager has already seen online porn. How should you respond if you find out they are watching it? What conversations should you be having with young children to prepare them?Megan Lim, Head of Young People's Health Research, Burnet InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2171822023-11-28T21:53:23Z2023-11-28T21:53:23ZCyberbullying girls with pornographic deepfakes is a form of misogyny<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561919/original/file-20231127-19-5mwcx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C51%2C3840%2C1931&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Much commentary has focussed on the political harms of deepfakes, but we've heard less about how they are specifically being used to degrade girls and women. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/cyberbullying-girls-with-pornographic-deepfakes-is-a-form-of-misogyny" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The BBC recently reported on a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66877718">disturbing new form of cyberbullying that took place at a school</a> in Almendralejo, Spain. </p>
<p>A group of girls were harmed by male classmates who used an app powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to generate “deepfake” pornographic images of the girls, and then distributed those images on social media. </p>
<p>State-of-the-art AI models can generate novel images and backgrounds given three to five photos of a subject, and <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/thanks-to-ai-its-probably-time-to-take-your-photos-off-the-internet">very little technical knowledge</a> is required to use them. While deepfaked images were easier to detect a few years ago, today, amateurs can easily create work rivalling <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/a-history-of-fake-things-on-the-internet-walter-j-scheirer-book-review">expensive CGI effects by professionals</a>. </p>
<p>The harms in this case can be partially explained in terms of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00657-0">consent and privacy violations</a>. But as researchers whose work is concerned with AI and ethics, we see deeper issues as well.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-combat-the-unethical-and-costly-use-of-deepfakes-184722">How to combat the unethical and costly use of deepfakes</a>
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<h2>Deepfake porn cyberbullying</h2>
<p>In the Almendralejo incident, more than 20 girls between 11 and 17 came forward as victims of fake pornographic images. This incident fits into larger trends of how this technology is being used. A 2019 study <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/porn-deepfakes-96-percent-online">found 96 per cent of all deepfake videos online were pornographic</a>, prompting significant commentary about how <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20902215/deepfakes-usage-youtube-2019-deeptrace-research-report">they are being specifically used to degrade women</a>.</p>
<p>The political risks of deepfakes have received high-profile coverage, but as philosophy researchers Regina Rini and Leah Cohen explore, <a href="https://jesp.org/index.php/jesp/article/view/1628">it is also relevant to consider deeper personal harms</a>. </p>
<p>Legal scholars like Danielle Keats Citron note it is clear society “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674659902">has a poor track record addressing harms primarily suffered by women and girls</a>.” By staying quiet and unseen, girls might escape becoming victims of this new and cruel form of cyberbullying.
We think it is likely this technology will create additional barriers for students — especially girls — who may miss out on opportunities due to the fear of calling attention to themselves. </p>
<h2>Used as tool for misogyny</h2>
<p>Philosopher Kate Manne provides a helpful framework for thinking about how deepfake technology can be used as a tool for misogyny. For Manne, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/down-girl-9780190604981">misogyny should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order</a>, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology.”</p>
<p>That is, misogyny polices women and girls, discouraging them from taking traditionally male-dominated roles. This policing can come from others, but it can also be self-imposed.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trolling-and-doxxing-graduate-students-sharing-their-research-online-speak-out-about-hate-210874">Trolling and doxxing: Graduate students sharing their research online speak out about hate</a>
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<p>Manne explains there are punishments for women perceived as resisting gendered norms and expectations. External policing of misogyny involves the disciplining of women through various forms of punishment for deviating from or resisting gendered norms and expectations. </p>
<p>Women can be denied a career opportunity, harassed sexually or harmed physically for not living up to gendered expectations. And now, women can be punished through the use of deepfakes. The patriarchy has another weapon to wield. </p>
<p>When considering Manne’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/608442/entitled-by-kate-manne/9780593287767">notion of male entitlement</a>, we can predict instances of this policing occurring if female students are offered positions male students deem they are entitled to, such as winning the student council elections or receiving academic awards in traditionally male-dominated fields. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young man seen looking at a phone while two women walk past." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561899/original/file-20231127-24-ovh6wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Will cyberbullying via deepfakes be presented as ‘just a joke’?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>A ‘joke’?</h2>
<p>The technology of deepfakes is a very accessible weapon to wield in these cases, and one that can cause a lot of harm. The shame and threat to personal safety are already evident. Cultural misogyny additionally harms by trivializing this experience: he can still say it is just a joke, that she is taking it too seriously and she shouldn’t be hurt by it because it isn’t real.</p>
<p>Self-imposed policing can be reinforced through deepfakes and other image manipulative technology. Knowing that this form of cyberbullying is available can lead to self-censoring. </p>
<p>Students who are visible in public leadership have more likelihood of being deepfaked; these students are known by more people in their school communities and are scrutinized for public roles. </p>
<h2>Will we become more used to them?</h2>
<p>It could be that once these deepfakes become more common, people will be less surprised to see these images and videos, so they will not be as scandalous to others and embarrassing to the victim. </p>
<p>Yet, philosophy scholar Keith Raymond Harris discusses how people can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03379-y">make psychological associations even when they know they are basing these on false content</a>. These associations, even if they may not “rise to the level of belief” can be classified as a harm of deepfakes. </p>
<p>That means that when students make deepfakes of their classmates, it can alter their perception of their targets and cause further real-life mistreatment, harassment and disrespect. </p>
<p>It means that boys are less likely to consider their peers, who are girls, as capable students deserving of opportunities. The use of this technology amongst peers in schools risks damaging girls’ confidence through the sexist education environment that this technology will enforce.</p>
<h2>Another tool for ‘typecasting’ girls</h2>
<p>Manne’s analysis also suggests how even if a girl does not have a deepfake of her made directly, deepfakes can still impact her. As she writes, “women are often treated as interchangeable and representative of a certain type of woman. Because of this, women can be singled out and treated as representative targets, then standing in imaginatively for a large swath of others.” </p>
<p>Girls are often classified into types in this way, from the ‘80s “<a href="https://www.tripletsandus.com/growing-up-in-the-80s/slang-terms-from-the-80s/#:%7E:text=Valley%20Girl%2FVal,%2C%20omygod%2C%20so%20rad!%22">Valley Girl</a>,” the millennial notion of the “<a href="https://www.thecut.com/2014/10/what-do-you-really-mean-by-basic-bitch.html">basic bitch</a>” to Gen Z classifications of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/24/20881656/vsco-girl-meme-what-is-a-vsco-girl">“VSCO-Girl</a>,” (named from a photo editing app) or a <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a42134933/what-is-a-pick-me-girl-definition/">“Pick-Me Girl</a>.” </p>
<p>When these psychological associations made of a particular woman lead to misogynistic associations of all women, misogyny will be further enforced.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="(A girl's face against technological imagery like a fingerprint and a grid." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C431%2C6000%2C3260&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561905/original/file-20231127-28-cgy6zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Deepfakes are the latest technology used to uphold patriarchy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lampooning, shunning, shaming women</h2>
<p>Manne explains that misogyny does not solely manifest through violent acts, but “women [can]… be taken down imaginatively, rather than literally, by vilifying, demonizing, belittling, humiliating, mocking, lampooning, shunning and shaming them.”</p>
<p>In the case of deepfakes, misogyny appears in this non-physically violent form. Still, in Almendralejo, one parent interviewed for the story rightly classified the artificial nude photos of the girls distributed by their classmates “an act of violence.” </p>
<p>We doubt this technology is going away. Understanding how deepfakes can be used as a tool for misogyny is an important first step in considering the harms they will likely cause, and what this may mean for parents, children, youth and schools addressing cyberbullying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Understanding how deepfakes can be used as a tool for misogyny is an important first step in considering the harms they will likely cause, including through school cyberbullying.Amanda Margaret Narvali, PhD Student, Philosophy, University of GuelphJoshua August (Gus) Skorburg, Associate Professor, University of GuelphMaya J. Goldenberg, Professor of Philosophy, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099282023-08-10T12:41:42Z2023-08-10T12:41:42Z‘Uncivil obedience’ becomes an increasingly common form of protest in the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540448/original/file-20230801-25-ykxcyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C5522%2C3119&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in Utah demonstrate against a school district's ban on the Bible for having 'vulgarity and violence' unfit for young children.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BibleBanUtahSchools/10711f2c31de462f899153fe9fd49502/photo">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Utah legislators passed a bill requiring the review and removal of “pornographic or indecent” books in school libraries, they likely did not imagine the law would be used to justify banning the Bible.</p>
<p>Utah’s H.B. 374, which took effect in May 2022, “prohibits certain <a href="https://le.utah.gov/%7E2022/bills/static/HB0374.html">sensitive instructional materials in public schools</a>.” It joins a series of conservative book bans that supporters claim protect children but critics have argued unfairly target <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2023/06/23/lgbtq-titles-targeted-censorship-stand-against-book-banning">LGBTQ+ content</a> and <a href="https://www.goalcast.com/how-book-bans-silence-minority-groups/">minority authors</a>. </p>
<p>But in early June 2023, the bill stirred further controversy when, after receiving a complaint from a parent using the bill’s provisions, a Utah school district <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65794363">removed the Bible</a> from elementary and middle schools because it contains “vulgarity and violence” deemed inappropriate for the age group. </p>
<p>Utah is not the only state that has faced complaints about the age-inappropriate content of the Bible in response to book bans. In June 2023, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maX9IoUo5uc">Florida rabbi, Barry Silver</a>, <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/palm-beach-county/parent-wants-bible-removed-from-palm-beach-county-school-to-make-a-point">compiled a list of Bible verses</a> that he argues contains violence and sex. Although he maintains he is opposed to censorship, he argues the Bible meets the criteria for Florida’s controversial <a href="https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=76545">Parental Rights in Education Act</a> and concludes: “You want to censor books? <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/palm-beach-county/parent-wants-bible-removed-from-palm-beach-county-school-to-make-a-point">Start with the one that you like the best</a>.”</p>
<p>In May 2023, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit promoting the separation of church and state, called for <a href="https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2023-05-17/state-superintendent-ryan-walters-possibly-ripe-for-lawsuit-after-promoting-biblical-instruction">Oklahoma to ban the Bible from schools</a> due to its pornographic content. That move came after state education Superintendent Ryan Walters called for a <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oklahoma-s-head-superintendent-wants-to-ban-lgbtq-books-but-teach-the-bible-in-history-classes/ar-AA1aPjQ9">ban on LGBTQ+ books</a>, while arguing the Bible should be taught in government-funded public schools. Like Silver, foundation leaders say <a href="https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2023/05/20/ryan-walters-oklahoma-banned-books-freedom-from-religion-foundation-letter-bible/70238103007/">they do not support book bans</a> but maintain that if conservative Christians, who have been some of the strongest supporters of recent bans, want to ban books containing sexual references, they cannot ignore the Bible.</p>
<p>Such attempts to ban the Bible based on book ban laws are examples of a protest strategy called “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43387025">uncivil obedience</a>.”</p>
<h2>A different approach to protest</h2>
<p>Uncivil obedience is the opposite of the more commonly known protest strategy of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/">civil disobedience</a>, which entails breaking the law in surprisingly respectful ways. Uncivil obedience, on the other hand, involves following the law but in ways that disregard people’s expectations.</p>
<p>Like civil disobedience, the purpose of uncivil obedience is to change laws, but it does so by “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43387025">mastering the system’s rules</a>.” Protesters may appear to respect authority by carefully following the laws to show what they are doing is legal. But the behavior may be seen as “uncivil” by some because the behavior challenges social expectations, uses laws in ways unintended by their originators, or both.</p>
<p>Uncivil obedience has been used to challenge the practicality and fairness of laws and processes. For example, in the 1990s, protesters challenged low <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-26-me-27445-story.html">speed limits</a> by strictly following them on a busy California freeway, leading to the disruption of traffic. The strategy has also been used to challenge
<a href="https://eu.gainesville.com/story/news/2006/05/02/industries-feel-effect-of-boycott/31482810007/">immigration policies</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/709417">election laws</a>. </p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://www.usd.edu/research-and-faculty/faculty-and-staff/kristina-lee">political and religious rhetoric</a>, I have seen uncivil obedience be embraced by people across the political spectrum as a way to challenge laws – and to specifically use religion as one element of those challenges.</p>
<h2>Conservative Christians step to the plate</h2>
<p>A federal law passed in 1993 called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Religious-Freedom-Restoration-Act">Religious Freedom Restoration Act</a> has often been at the center of religious strategists embracing uncivil obedience. That law, which prohibits the government from creating substantial burdens on citizens’ free exercise of religion, was originally passed by Congress in response to a <a href="https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/364/employment-division-department-of-human-resources-of-oregon-v-smith">1990 Supreme Court</a> case that critics argued restricted the religious freedom of Indigenous people. Over <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/research-central/rfra-info-central/">20 states have passed similar laws</a>.</p>
<p>Although the law was originally designed to protect the rights of practitioners of all religions, <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/do-no-harm-act">particularly ones that are not as prominent</a> in the U.S. as Christianity, conservative Christians have <a href="https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3931/">used its provisions</a> to resist progressive policies including <a href="https://eu.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/02/rfra-discrimination-concerns-really-surprise/70820966/">same-sex marriage</a> and the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-354">Affordable Care Act</a>. A common argument proponents use is that the law protects conservative Christian business owners and employees who view recognizing same-sex marriage or providing contraception as a violation of their religious beliefs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2018/05/bad-faith-how-conservatives-are-weaponizing-religious-liberty-allow-institutions">Opponents view</a> the conservative embrace of the idea of religious freedom as a bizarre interpretation of the law, arguing that they are using it for the purpose of justifying discrimination based on religious beliefs. Defenders of the practice, however, argue that they want <a href="https://eu.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/25/gov-mike-pence-sign-religious-freedom-bill-thursday/70448858/">religion to be free from government intervention</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit stands at a lectern in front of a group of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540446/original/file-20230801-15-o2s08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2015, when he was governor of Indiana, Mike Pence supported a state version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indiana-gov-mike-pence-speaks-during-a-press-conference-news-photo/468209982">Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Progressive groups turn the tables</h2>
<p>Now, progressive groups are increasingly using religious freedom arguments, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to justify exemptions from conservative policies.</p>
<p>Most recently, progressive Christian clergy members, Jews, Muslims, Satanists and other religious plaintiffs have begun to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/21/legal-strategy-that-could-topple-abortion-bans-00102468">file lawsuits</a> in states challenging strict abortion bans. These lawsuits claim their religions allow reproductive health care and abortions, and that bans violate their religious freedom.</p>
<p><a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us">The Satanic Temple</a>, one of the religious organizations that embrace opposing injustices as part of its mission, has also used other religious freedom cases to demand the same rights as Christians. For example, the group uses the ruling of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-2036.ZO.html">Good News Club v. Milford Central Schools</a>, which determined schools cannot prohibit religious clubs from meeting on school ground after hours, to argue that schools also must allow <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/after-school-satan">Satanist clubs</a>. Satanists argue that they are just <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-after-school-clubs-became-a-new-battleground-in-the-satanic-temples-push-to-preserve-separation-of-church-and-state-209579">demanding the same rights that Christians</a> have won in court.</p>
<p>Progressive advocates claim they are championing religious freedom and equality. Their opponents, however, argued that plaintiffs are just engaging in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/21/legal-strategy-that-could-topple-abortion-bans-00102468">political stunts</a>,” not advocating for <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20230118184008/Individual-Members-v.-Anonymous-Planitiff-Amicus-Brief.pdf">sincere religious beliefs</a>.</p>
<p>When uncivil obedience is used, its critics can frame such behavior as unprecedented, dangerous and insincere. Advocates, however, can argue that they are simply trying to follow the law and ask others to do the same. In religious freedom debates, these disputes are at the heart of a crucial question: where to establish the legal limits of religious freedom.</p>
<h2>Even failure can become a victory</h2>
<p>If uncivil obedience advocates are not successful, they can use their experiences to identify double standards in laws and policies, which can stir public anger over perceived biases regarding religious freedom. </p>
<p>When conservatives lose religious freedom cases, they <a href="https://www.moodymedia.org/articles/demise-religious-freedom-america/">can claim</a> such losses reflect bias against conservative Christian religious beliefs.</p>
<p>When minority religions or progressive Christians lose their religious freedom cases, <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/legal-action">they can point to the success</a> of conservative Christians in similar cases to highlight the courts’ protection of conservative religious principles.</p>
<p>Using uncivil obedience is a relatively safe protest strategy – at least legally speaking – because, unlike civil disobedience, those who use it do not risk being arrested. Yet it still allows people to draw attention to social issues in unprecedented ways that can spark public discussion.</p>
<p>There is risk, though. Uncivil obedience tactics can draw immense criticism from the public, who may view such tactics as manipulative or disingenuous. Additionally, although uncivil obedience can draw attention to double standards in societies, those standards can remain obstacles for those wanting social change. This can result in legal challenges that can be long and expensive to pursue but in which there is no guarantee of success.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/21/utah-bible-school-libraries-ban-reversed">Utah</a>, while the Bible was initially banned, public pressure caused the school board to quickly reverse the decision.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/education/bible-wont-be-banned-in-palm-beach-county-public-schools">Florida</a> and <a href="https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2023/05/20/ryan-walters-oklahoma-banned-books-freedom-from-religion-foundation-letter-bible/70238103007/">Oklahoma</a>, challenges to the Bible so far have been dismissed, with the holy book’s supporters arguing that the proposals should not be taken seriously. </p>
<p>Both Rabbi Silver and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have maintained they will continue the fight until attempts to censor books in schools cease, or all books are judged by the same standards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristina M. Lee is on the board of the Secular Student Alliance.</span></em></p>Distinct from civil disobedience, this legal strategy demands complete compliance with the law – even when there are loopholes that the laws’ creators didn’t intend.Kristina M. Lee, Assistant Professor, University of South DakotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2109682023-08-08T18:43:14Z2023-08-08T18:43:14ZIgnore the politics – many parents want to work with schools on sexuality education<p>Relationship and sexuality education has, yet again, become a political talking point ahead of this year’s election. </p>
<p>National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis recently <a href="https://www.thenews.co.nz/news/national-leaders-hold-public-meeting/">told a public meeting</a> that sex education was a job for her and her husband, “based on our values and our views of the world […] I want my education system focused on teaching my children how to read, how to write and how to do maths”.</p>
<p>While Willis may have had a receptive audience, interviews with parents of children between the ages of 11 and 14 show she may be in the minority. As contentious as the topic can be, many parents want to work with schools to educate their children about relationships and sexuality. </p>
<p><a href="https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/items/4c2d8c40-a845-449f-bf17-fffd0cb61158">My research</a> offers a glimpse into just how complicated, yet important, the topic of sexuality education can be – and why it it so vital we ensure all young people have access to quality relationships and sexuality education.</p>
<h2>From sex to sexuality education</h2>
<p>For much of the 20th century, sex education in New Zealand centred on population control and Christian moral norms. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until 1985 that sex education became part of the school curriculum. But parents were able to pull their children out of the classes, pointing to a general acceptance that sex education was a controversial topic. With the scare of HIV/AIDS, classes focused on physical aspects of sex and how to practice safe sex. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-important-things-you-should-have-learned-in-sex-ed-but-probably-didnt-202177">Five important things you should have learned in sex ed – but probably didn't</a>
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</em>
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<p>In 1999, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/sexualities/page-3">sex education became sexuality education</a>. The shift was meant to introduce a more holistic view of the topic, which includes physical, social, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects. This was much broader than sex education, which related only to the physical aspects of sexual and reproductive knowledge. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nzshs.org/recommended-research-publications/212-sexuality-education-guide-2015/file">A 2015 guide</a> from the Ministry of Education said sexuality education should take a “positive view of sexual development as a natural part of growing up”. This frames sexuality first and foremost as a source of human potential and pleasure.</p>
<p>Since then, the curriculum has evolved and broadened further – with sexuality education becoming <a href="https://parents.education.govt.nz/primary-school/learning-at-school/sexuality-education/">relationships and sexuality education</a> (RSE). </p>
<p>Introduced in 2020, RSE starts from year one and includes learning to be a good friend, sense of identity, how we care for other people, and consent. Older students develop knowledge and skills to negotiate positive intimate relationships and to critique media messages harmful to wellbeing. </p>
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<h2>The contested ground of sexuality education</h2>
<p>My research examined the complicated and evolving role of the parent as sexuality educator – particularly in the digital age. But I also looked at how parents felt about the role of schools in teaching children about sexuality. </p>
<p>International research has found that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340977935_Sexualities_Education">teachers overestimate parental opposition</a> to
sexuality education. </p>
<p>In New Zealand, conservative and religious lobby groups, as well as some media, frame <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/love-sex/88351652/leave-sex-education-to-parents-no-thanks">parents and schools in opposition to each other</a> over who is the “best” provider of sexuality education. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-always-get-horny-am-i-not-normal-teenage-girls-often-feel-shame-about-pleasure-sex-education-needs-to-address-this-159543">'I always get horny ... am I not normal?': teenage girls often feel shame about pleasure. Sex education needs to address this</a>
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<p>But the parents who participated in my small group interviews were, in fact, supportive of relationship and sexuality education in schools. As one parent said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a role for schools to play in the sexual education of children, but there’s also a role that parents play. And it’s defining where and how the two work together.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another parent commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve always seen teachers as an extension of parenting, personally. So if my child can come and ask me something I’d like to believe that they could go and ask a teacher the same.</p>
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<p>A third parent highlighted the importance of the classroom setting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I actually think it’s really good for kids to be sitting in a room with kids their own age […] all hearing the same thing and talking about it to each other and just demystifying it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These parents also understood how important it was to ensure young people have multiple sources of sexuality education – both at home and in the classroom.</p>
<p>One parent discussed just how lacking her own sex education had been harmful: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Talking about the good stuff would have really helped me with those bad decisions. It would have been like, “Yeah, actually this isn’t supposed to hurt. This is supposed to be nice.” Because I didn’t talk about it with anyone, so I didn’t have anyone telling me, actually it’s not supposed to be like that. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While supportive of sexuality education in schools, parents wanted schools to consult more so parents could understand what was being taught. </p>
<p>A 2018 <a href="https://ero.govt.nz/our-research/promoting-wellbeing-through-sexuality-education">Education Review Office report</a> found only 25% of schools were rated “good” at connecting with their communities on the relationships and sexuality curriculum. The majority of schools tended to use surveys with low response rates from parents.</p>
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<h2>What young people want</h2>
<p>During separate research I did for the the new app <a href="https://www.beyondthebirdsandbees.co.nz/">Te Puāwaitanga: Beyond the Birds and the Bees</a>, young people told us they wanted a safe, reliable platform to access information and open up conversations about sexual health, relationships, gender and sexuality. </p>
<p>In the absence of open discussions at home on relationships and sexuality, friends or pornography become the default sex educator. <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2020-12/Classification%20Office-4.pdf">Research from the Classification Office</a> found one in four New Zealanders first see porn
by age 12, and most are not seeking it out when they first see it. A majority of
young people (75%) have seen porn by age 17.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/schools-urgently-need-to-tackle-rape-culture-by-educating-pupils-about-online-world-158159">Schools urgently need to tackle rape culture by educating pupils about online world</a>
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<p>Many of the young people we spoke with said they have limited opportunities to talk to their parents about sexuality and so school becomes a safe space. School is also a place for them to hear a range of views about relationships, sex and diverse sexualities.</p>
<p>As one student said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I trust my parents to tell me what they think, but school allows us to hear what other people think.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a complex world, relationships and sexuality education aims to give young people the critical skills to navigate the uncertainty around them. It needs to be a combination deal with parents and schools working together. </p>
<p>But this can only happen after listening to the voices of young people. After all, isn’t education about relationships and sexuality meant for them in the first place?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracy Clelland received a Lotteries Grant to undertake research for Te Puāwaitanaga: Beyond the Birds and Bees.</span></em></p>A vocal minority is calling for sexuality education to be pulled from schools. But my research shows many parents and young people want and need safe places to discuss relationships and sex.Tracy Clelland, Lecturer in Health Education, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2093872023-07-27T20:10:48Z2023-07-27T20:10:48ZNot all porn is created equal - is there such a thing as a healthy pornography?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539681/original/file-20230727-27-wlegry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C3%2C2389%2C1591&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deon Black/ Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We recently saw yet another controversy about sexual representation in Australia. Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes’ book <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-w-has-withdrawn-welcome-to-sex-from-its-stores-to-protect-staff-but-teen-sex-education-can-keep-young-people-safe-209979">Welcome to Sex was attacked</a> by the conservative group Australian Women’s Forum, leading to the book being removed from the shelves of Big W – and shooting to the top of the Amazon sales charts. </p>
<p>As a researcher on pornography, I was particularly interested to see that Stynes defended our need for sex education books <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/22/man-charged-for-alleged-harassment-of-author-yumi-stynes-over-sex-education-book">by saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Many of the discussions around … the putrid effects of porn on real-world sex … come back to teaching about sex and consent and starting that teaching young”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is interesting because the book’s critics also feel the same way - <a href="https://www.womensforumaustralia.org/pornography">Women’s Forum Australia says</a> that it is “deeply concerned about the damaging impact of pornography on women, as well as on men, children and society”. </p>
<p>It seems that wherever you sit politically, there is consensus that pornography is unhealthy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/big-w-has-withdrawn-welcome-to-sex-from-its-stores-to-protect-staff-but-teen-sex-education-can-keep-young-people-safe-209979">Big W has withdrawn Welcome to Sex from its stores to protect staff – but teen sex education can keep young people safe</a>
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<h2>Modern pornography</h2>
<p>But not all pornography is the same. Digital production and distribution has lowered the barriers to entry, whereas previously the “means of production” (as Marx would put it) required producers to be able to afford expensive cameras, lights, editing equipment, the ability to reproduce material, the ability to advertise it and stock it to adult stores or a mail order business.</p>
<p>Nowadays literally anybody with a phone has the ability to create and distribute sexually explicit material. That’s resulted in an explosion in the variety of pornography you can consume. There still exists – although less – expensive glossy mainstream pornography. Alongside it sits a huge range catering to niche sexual interests – people who are interested in feet, balloons, clowns, or in baths full of baked beans. </p>
<p>There is a continuum now of how interactive sexually explicit material can be - from the traditional archives of videos and photographs (nowadays often accessed through “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-porn-industry-is-being-ripped-apart-by-tube-site-litigation-2012-7">tube sites</a>” like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/16/pornhub-untold-damage-pain">Pornhub</a>) through to <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/21559/camming#:%7E:text=Camming%20is%20when%20someone%20is,girl%2C%20cam%20model%2C%20cam%20site">fully interactive “camming”</a>, with media like OnlyFans sitting somewhere in the middle. </p>
<p>In this new world of digital pornography, how might we work out what’s healthy?</p>
<p>To answer this question I worked with a team, including Welcome to Sex author Melissa Kang, to establish an expert panel of sexual health experts, adolescent health experts, sex educators, pornography researchers and pornography producers. </p>
<p>We asked them to give us some examples of pornography they thought could support healthy sexual development – and then to reflect on the criteria they had used as they came up with these suggestions. This research was published in full <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19317611.2022.2161030">in the International Journal of Sexual Health.</a></p>
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<h2>A different kind of pornography</h2>
<p>The experts identified four explicit websites that potentially supported healthy sexual development, all of which feature a slightly different kind of pornography. </p>
<p><a href="https://pinklabel.tv/on-demand/">PinkLabel.TV</a> favours queer indie materials which are often slightly punk in their orientation, with a range of different sexualities, genders and body types, presenting their sex in unashamed ways.</p>
<p><a href="https://sexschoolhub.com">Sex School</a> distributes pornography with a stated educational aim, naming videos with instructional titles, and providing sexually explicit materials that show viewers how to have sex, and provide information about topics such as “consent” and Squirting. </p>
<p><a href="https://lustcinema.com/">Lust Cinema</a> takes a feminist approach to pornography, paying explicit attention to women’s pleasure and sometimes drawing on the aesthetics of groundbreaking feminist pornographers such as Candida Royalle, with high-quality lighting, better acting, more focus on story, and attractive male actors. </p>
<p><a href="https://makelovenotporn.tv/">MakeLoveNotPorn</a> favours an amateur aesthetic, with people who are not professional porn actors, often with bodies that would be considered more ordinary than professional pornography performers, presenting a relaxed and ordinary performance of sexuality, often with their own partners in their own homes.</p>
<p>In terms of the criteria the experts used to identify these examples, six of them had broad agreement. It is important, they said, to know pornography is ethically produced. The experts also agreed on the importance of showing a variety of body types, abilities, genders, races and ethnicities.</p>
<p>Both of these points match well with non-expert critiques of pornography. </p>
<h2>Diversity and realism</h2>
<p>There was also strong agreement among the group that pornography that showed a variety of sexual practices and pleasures – not just penis-in-vagina sex – had the potential to be healthy. This is an interesting finding because unlike the first two it doesn’t match up so well with non-expert critiques. </p>
<p>A lot of discussions about “porn literacy” at the moment critique pornography for being “unrealistic” – and when you dig down into the details often they mean pornography shows too much variety in sex – group sex, anal sex, kinky sex – rather than vanilla, monogamous loving sex. </p>
<p>The experts here are disagreeing with popular narratives about what should count as healthy sexuality.</p>
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<h2>Negotiation of consent</h2>
<p>A fourth criterion on which the experts agreed was the value of showing the negotiation of consent on screen. </p>
<p>This is also an interesting one because most pornography doesn’t show the negotiation of consent. That’s not to say it’s non-consensual – the only pornography you can find on the internet (as opposed to the dark web) is consensually produced. However it doesn’t often show negotiation of consent – pornography is set in a world of fantasy where everybody enjoys everything they do sexually, all the time.</p>
<p>This means most pornography is not a great place to learn how to negotiate consent – that’s simply not what it’s designed for. Ironically the one genre of porn that often does show consent negotiation is BDSM – a form of porn that popular narratives about porn rejects as being particularly unhealthy. </p>
<p>Experts also noted pornography that focused on pleasure for all participants could contribute to healthy sexual development – important when we live in patriarchies that focus on men’s pleasure more than women’s. </p>
<h2>Navigating pornography</h2>
<p>In this world where so many different kinds of people are producing different kinds of pornography, don’t assume it’s all the same. If you want to find healthy pornography - or you want to advise young adults in your life about how to find healthy pornography - then here are some of the questions you should be asking. </p>
<p>Does it show a variety of body types, genders and sexual acts? Does it pay attention to the sexual pleasure of everyone involved? And does it show consent? If you pay attention to these issues, you can be more comfortable the pornography you’re consuming is helping you to have a happy and healthy sex life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan McKee has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Society of Australian Sexologists. He is an expert on entertainment and healthy sexual development. His new book (with Paul Byron, Katerina Litsou and Roger Ingham) - called What Do We Know About the Effects of Pornography After Fifty Years of Academic Research? – emerges from an Australian Research Council Discovery grant entitled ‘Pornography’s effects on audiences: explaining contradictory research data’. He also worked on an ARC Linkage grant with True (previously Family Planning Queensland) to investigate the use of vulgar comedy to reach young men with information about healthy sexual development. He was co-editor of the Girlfriend Guide to Life and co-author of Objectification: on the difference between sex and sexism (2020). He has published on healthy sexual development, and entertainment education for healthy sexuality in journals including the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the International Journal of Sexual Health, the Journal of Sex Research and Sex Education. </span></em></p>OnlyFans, Pornhub and cams: in this new world of digital pornography, how do we work out what’s healthy?Alan McKee, Head of School of Art, Communication and English, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099442023-07-24T12:15:09Z2023-07-24T12:15:09ZMassachusetts is updating its sex education guidelines for the first time in 24 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537922/original/file-20230717-232909-qmmoii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5472%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A dozen U.S. states still do not mandate sex education in schools.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/happy-young-group-of-multiracial-students-hanging-royalty-free-image/1415841874?phrase=high+school+classroom+students&adppopup=true">Xavier Lorenzo/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June 2023, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shared with the public a draft of a new framework that will guide <a href="https://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/healthframework/">how elementary, middle and high schools in the state approach sex education</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/health/1999/1099.pdf">last time Massachusetts issued guidelines</a> that specify expectations for what Massachusetts students learn about sex in schools was 24 years ago, when most U.S. homes were not yet internet-connected. </p>
<p>The new guidelines are part of a larger framework that addresses many aspects of health, including physical education, nutrition and hygiene. They include important improvements over the 1999 version, including standards that pertain to the well-being of gender and sexual minority populations. That’s noteworthy, given that other U.S. states have recently <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/19/florida-bans-teaching-gender-identity-sexuality-through-12-th-grade/11695779002/">prohibited classroom education about gender identity and sexual orientation</a>.</p>
<p>The draft Massachusetts framework has been in development since 2018 but is not yet final. After a public comment period, which is open until Aug. 28, the framework is subject to approval by the commonwealth’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and could be adopted as early as the fall of 2023.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A teenager lies on his bed while looking at his laptop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">For information about sex, young people turn to online pornography more often than talking to friends or parents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-boy-in-his-bedroom-using-a-laptop-royalty-free-image/1097875056?phrase=high+school+students+watching+disturbing+images+online&adppopup=true">Richard Bailey/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>I’m a public health researcher who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BgjSYDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">focuses on sex education and healthy relationships</a>. I have co-developed and tested a new sex education module for high school students in Massachusetts with funding from the National Institutes of Health, so I read the part of the framework that deals with sex education with great interest. </p>
<p>I’ll provide some more detail on the Massachusetts framework below, but first it is important to understand the state of sex education in the U.S.</p>
<h2>Sex education and pornography</h2>
<p>Many young people in the U.S are not getting the sex education that they need. Currently, only 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia mandate any kind of sex education. As a result, it isn’t surprising that <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/adolescents-teens-receipt-sex-education-united-states">fewer than half</a> of U.S. adolescents say that they have received information about where to get birth control before having heterosexual intercourse for the first time. And the racial disparities are concerning: Black and Hispanic teens are less likely than white teens to receive education about prevention of sexually transmitted infections or HIV, or <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.08.027">where to get birth control</a>. </p>
<p>So where do teenagers and young adults go to get information about sex, in the absence of comprehensive sex education at school? </p>
<p>According to a nationally representative <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01877-7">study that my team published in 2021</a>, young adults in the U.S. are more likely to turn to pornography than to their friends, parents, doctors or any other source. That’s a problem, because pornography isn’t designed to relay medically accurate or helpful information about sex — it’s designed to get clicks or likes, make money and entertain the viewer.</p>
<p>Massachusetts is not one of the states that mandates sex education. However, <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXII/Chapter71/Section1">state law does require</a> all public schools to teach health education. As a local control state, Massachusetts issues frameworks and guidance and allows local school districts boards to decide how to implement them. This approach will continue with the new framework once adopted.</p>
<p>Importantly, the new Massachusetts framework recognizes the prevalence of pornography, and it addresses other critical sex education topics for the modern world. </p>
<p>For example, the framework specifies that in grades 6 to 8, adolescents should learn about laws related to sexual digital imagery. This is important because otherwise they may not realize that possessing or sending nude digital photos of people younger than 18 years old is a crime even if the sender is also a minor. </p>
<p>The framework also suggests that adolescents should be able to analyze similarities and differences between friendships, romantic relationships and sexual relationships, and discuss various ways to show affection within each. It expects them to be able to define sexual consent and describe factors, such as drug and alcohol use, that can influence capacity to give consent. It recommends teaching strategies to help students recognize when someone is grooming or recruiting a young person for possible commercial sexual exploitation like human trafficking.</p>
<p>While these points are strong, I would like to see a recommendation that schools tell youth that mainstream online pornography is not a good source of information about sexual behavior.</p>
<h2>A series of online games</h2>
<p>Our research team, which includes <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sph/profile/kimberly-nelson/">Kimberly Nelson of Boston University,</a>, <a href="https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/julia-campbell/">Ph.D student Julia Campbell of the University of North Carolina</a> and BU <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeka-frieson/">masters student Tomeka Frieson</a>, has been working on new sex education teaching materials for Massachusetts high schools for <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/2sD11hHbEka-FPXly3o0yw/project-details/10406366">the past two years</a>. As researchers, we endeavored to create an online sex education module that reflected the best available evidence and feedback that we got from young people. </p>
<p>Our teaching materials are in the form of short, online games that students engage with on their own time, and then come back to the classroom to discuss. One of the games has students order the effectiveness of 11 different contraceptive methods. Another provides them with information about ways pornography can provide unhelpful expectations about sex and sexuality. A third game invites students to act as an advice columnist to solve relationship problems for peers. </p>
<p>When we tested the materials with 54 teens ages 14-18 years old in Massachusetts in 2022, we found a statistically significant positive impact on a range of outcomes, from increased condom use to fewer experiences of abuse by a dating partner. We will partner with a number of Massachusetts high schools in the next several years to continue testing the impact of our module. </p>
<h2>Reading the framework</h2>
<p>In reading the new Massachusetts guidelines, our team noted several strengths of its approach. </p>
<p>First, the framework is evidence-based. In other words, the recommendations reflect the latest and best available research about how adolescents develop, learn and behave with regard to sex and sexuality. </p>
<p>Second, the guidance is developmentally and age-appropriate, with different recommendations for different grade levels, and with careful attention to diverse perspectives, cultural differences, and the importance of delivering material in a way that would not traumatize students.</p>
<p>Third, the framework encourages youths’ critical thinking, reasoning, decision-making and problem-solving. </p>
<p>It is my hope that Massachusetts will strengthen the guidance on pornography. If it does, the new framework will be well positioned to serve as a national model.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Rothman receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>Twelve states do not require sex education of any kind.Emily Rothman, Professor and Chair, Occupational Therapy; and Professor of Community Health Sciences, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099792023-07-18T22:53:35Z2023-07-18T22:53:35ZBig W has withdrawn Welcome to Sex from its stores to protect staff – but teen sex education can keep young people safe<p>Teaching young people about gender, sex and sexuality has long been controversial. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538047/original/file-20230718-25-h2oe2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The most recent debate is over Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes’ <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-sex-by-melissa-kang/9781760509538">Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out</a>, which has been withdrawn from sale at <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/teens/anger-intensifies-over-welcome-to-sex-book-in-big-w-and-target/news-story/8d87194408908c18b2cccd14c73ac4db">Big W</a> stores this week, after “multiple incidents of abuse” of its staff by angry critics of the book. However, Big W “stands by” Welcome to Sex, which it calls “educational, age-appropriate and inclusive”. The department store will continue to sell it online.</p>
<p>Two sides to the debate are playing out. </p>
<p>One side <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/disgusting-big-w-blasted-for-selling-sick-sexual-book-written-for-children-by-melissa-kang-and-abcs-yumi-stynes/news-story/4f609491783ea9c788a1e62e7c7e1798">argues</a> the book is a graphic sex guide that’s “teaching sex” to young children. Critics have taken particular issue with small sections of the book that address inclusive sexual practices beyond penetrative sex, including “fingering”, “oral sex”, “scissoring”, and “anal sex”.</p>
<p>They are also critical of the inclusion of what they term “<a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_86-1#Bib1">gender ideology</a>”. Others are accusing the authors of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/grooming-an-expert-explains-what-it-is-and-how-to-identify-it-181573">grooming</a>” children – a term that is <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/may/11/why-its-not-grooming-what-research-says-about-gend/">increasingly misused</a>.</p>
<p>The other side is celebrating Welcome to Sex for providing comprehensive and inclusive sex education. Many are <a href="https://twitter.com/AdeleKThomas/status/1681093744291098625">saying</a> they wish they had access to this kind of book growing up. </p>
<p>The book describes itself as a “frank, age-appropriate introductory guide to sex and sexuality for teens of all genders […] inclusive, reassuring and all about keeping sex fun, real, and shame-free”.</p>
<p>I am a researcher on texts for young people that deal with issues around sex, sexuality and gender. With my colleague, Dr Paul Venzo, we have been examining the rise of (and demand for) books that provide an inclusive, safe and engaging way to discuss the essential topic of sex for young people. </p>
<h2>Sex education books aren’t new</h2>
<p>Sex education books for young people aren’t new. Non-fiction picture books from the 1970s like Peter Mayle’s <a href="https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/where-did-i-come-from-by-peter-mayle-and-arthur-robins-9780330273442">Where Did I Come From?</a> (1973) and <a href="https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/whats-happening-to-me-by-peter-mayle-and-arthur-robins-9780330273435">What’s Happening to Me?</a> (1975) began the trend of introducing young people to sex in direct and detailed ways. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003131434-4/tingly-feeling-paul-venzo">Paul Venzo’s research</a> shows there are now more than a thousand sex education books for young people, in English alone. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Peter Mayle’s Where Did I Come From? started the trend of child-centred sex education books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AbeBooks</span></span>
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<p>While books like Where Did I Come From? present sex and gender in binary and heterornomative ways, sex education books have expanded to include diverse sexualities and genders – with a greater focus on race, disability, culture, and religion. </p>
<p>Many books now include discussions of consent and are careful to not only focus on the “risks” of sex, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, but also on pleasure, safety and communication. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-havent-been-taught-about-sex-teens-talk-about-how-to-fix-school-sex-education-206001">'We haven't been taught about sex': teens talk about how to fix school sex education</a>
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<h2>Sex education for young people is valuable</h2>
<p>Sex education books can be used by parents and caregivers to guide tricky conversations about puberty, sex, gender and sexuality.</p>
<p>At what age should young people learn about sex? It’s difficult to say. Context and nuance is important. It depends on the identity and life experience of the young person, their education and maturity levels, their religious, geographical or cultural background, and the wishes of their parents or caregivers. So we should be careful about making generalisations. </p>
<p>However, the basics of sex education, such as bodily autonomy and consent, can be taught to primary-school aged children – and younger. </p>
<p>Yumi Stynes is quoted saying she’d “be happy with a mature eight-year-old having a flick through”. Many critics are using this to say the book is targeted at readers as young as eight. </p>
<p>But while a parent might make an informed decision about whether to make the book available to their younger child, Welcome to Sex is clearly targeted to a teen audience. This is evident in the length, design, complexity, marketing, language and age of the teen contributors inside the book (the youngest is 17).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Welcome to Sex is clearly targeted to a teen audience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karolina Grabowska/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Some critics are arguing the book teaches young people how to perform sex acts. But we know young people are not ignorant about sex. Whether it’s through the internet, media, or friends, young people access sexually explicit material from a young age, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-020-09771-z">with many learning about sex from pornography</a> in harmful ways. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/research/commissioned-reports/teenagers-and-sex">2019 research report</a> from the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows that 53% of boys in the study and 14% of girls intentionally viewed pornography before the age of 16. <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/research/research-reports/effects-pornography-children-and-young-people">A UK study</a> reported that 53% of 11–16 year olds had watched pornography, most before the age of 14.</p>
<p>Comprehensive and inclusive sex education <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X20304560">that begins at a young age</a> can prevent child sex abuse, decrease rates of domestic violence and intimate partner violence, and reduce homophobic bullying.</p>
<p>Sex education texts play a vital role. They can be given to young people to navigate with a parent or caregiver, or as an individual resource. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-teach-a-primary-school-child-about-consent-you-can-start-with-these-books-190063">How do you teach a primary school child about consent? You can start with these books</a>
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<hr>
<h2>So, what’s in Welcome to Sex?</h2>
<p>Welcome to Sex is the latest in the “Welcome” series by former Dolly Doctor Melissa Kang and broadcaster and mother Yumi Stynes. The series also includes <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-your-period-by-yumi-stynes/9781760503512">Welcome to Your Period</a>, <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-consent-by-yumi-stynes/9781760507497">Welcome to Consent</a> and <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-your-boobs-by-melissa-kang/9781760507503">Welcome to Your Boobs</a>. </p>
<p>The book’s introduction states, “Welcome to a book about sex and being a teen!” Its two key sections are teen-centered, leading with questions and reflections from young people. Despite claims the book is a “sex manual”, most of it is centered around the tricky emotions, concerns and questions young people might have about sex.</p>
<p>In the first section, teens are introduced to “safe learning”. Chapters cover definitions (of both sex and body parts), communication, relationships, sexual and gender diversity, myths about sex, and reasons to not have sex. </p>
<p>The second section explores getting intimate with someone. Importantly, though, it tells teens: “It’s totally OK if you’re not ready for any of that.” This section focuses on things like consent, pleasure, intimacy, cheating, safety, and different ways people might have sex.</p>
<p>Welcome to Sex treats teenagers seriously and meets them where they are. It intersperses sex education with young people’s reflections, questions for the “doctor” and facts from experts. It uses clear language and inclusive imagery.</p>
<p>The important thing for concerned parents to remember is that sex is an important topic we can’t ignore. Sex education books combat misinformation – and empower young people with essential information to keep them informed and safe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Whatman is affiliated with The Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research (ACLAR) and The Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA).</span></em></p>Yumi Stynes and Melissa Kang’s sex education guide for teens is a topic of hot debate for its frankness. It also provides comprehensive, inclusive sex education that combats misinformation.Emma Whatman, Subject Coordinator in Gender Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1896882023-05-09T20:05:49Z2023-05-09T20:05:49ZLolita: why this ‘vivid, illicit’ portrait of a pervert matters at a time of endless commodification of young girls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523976/original/file-20230503-16-ulz43x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5168%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In an occasional series, our authors make the case for or against controversial books.</em></p>
<p>In his afterword “On a Book Entitled Lolita”, Vladimir Nabokov never mentions the word paedophile. He never mentions the word rape either. </p>
<p>In his mind, Lolita is not about a man sexually and mentally abusing a 12-year-old girl. The novel is about him getting at America. Which is about as damning an assessment of a culture as you’re ever going to get. </p>
<p>Nabokov explains that having “invented” Europe and his native Russia in many critically acclaimed books, he turned an outsider’s eye on the Land of the Free. In effect – though he says he didn’t mean to – he ripped it to shreds. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503533/original/file-20230109-14-bu5i59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of the first edition of Lolita.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some might find Nabokov’s self assessment deliberately evasive. We sense in his elegant desperation the desire not to have his masterwork reduced to a scandalous headline – to “the psychological urges of a pervert” – and thus to the very thing that drove the masses toward it. This is a sleight of hand that today would be advised by a shiny PR team and a coterie of lawyers wringing their hands (but not written nearly as well).</p>
<p>When Nabokov was writing Lolita, he and his wife Vera were crisscrossing the United States butterfly hunting. The specimens they collected, pinned and captured under cut glass are preserved in museums all over the country like a trail of breadcrumbs. </p>
<p>Nabokov wants you to see the novel as he does: as points on a map, literal and figurative. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>And when I thus think of Lolita, I seem always to pick out for special delectation such images as Mr Taxovich, or that class list of Ramsdale school, or Charlotte saying “waterproof”, or Lolita in slow motion advancing toward Humbert’s gifts, or the pictures decorating the stylised garret of Gaston Godin, or the Kasbeam barber (who cost me a month of work), or Lolita playing tennis, or the hospital at Elphinstone, or pale pregnant, beloved, irretrievable Dolly Schiller dying in Gray Star […] or the tinkling sound of the valley town coming up the mountain trail […] these are the nerves of the novel. These are the secret points, the subliminal coordinates by means of which the book is plotted.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503528/original/file-20230109-18-qx6px8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vladimir Nabokov.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Giuseppe Pino/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His assessment rings true, though in my mind the sensations land differently. For Nabokov, the “hollows” and “byroads” of Lolita glow “like a pilot light somewhere in the basement”; the novel “throbs” in his “own private thermostat” as a constant comforting presence. For me, Lolita cracks open the mercury. </p>
<p>I have read Lolita every decade since I was a teenager. And in the roll call of memory the book unfurls in a cinematic wave: vivid, illicit, frightening. I too see Lolita advancing in slow motion toward Humbert’s gifts – and a shiver of recognition runs through me. </p>
<p>As a teenager, I wanted to be Lolita – just as so many good girls in the West in the late 20th century were effectively trained to do. I coveted the false power of the ingenue in secret. I imagined myself in the car with Humbert in the dead of night on those long empty highways, as he drives Lolita away from safety to those functional motels – the “clean, neat, safe nooks” where “they could make it up gently”. </p>
<p>Humbert’s male gaze is like a living thing, visible, hanging like a seductive shroud over everything, a terrible forcefield capable of creating a ruinous edge of competition and jealousy between mother and daughter and drawing Lolita closer and closer to him. </p>
<p>In my twenties, I wanted to save Lolita because, as Humbert observes, she has “nowhere else to go”. </p>
<p>In my thirties, I wanted to be Nabokov instead. The recognition of what he was able to conjure on the page ignited a wholly different sense of shock and awe. </p>
<p>In my forties, my only aim was not to get too political about it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523979/original/file-20230503-16-zlj6f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Lolita (1962).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The problem with censorship</h2>
<p>Reconsidering Lolita in the 21st century raises interesting questions about the relation of literature to censorship, book banning, and the contemporary equivalent of expressive erasure, cancel culture. </p>
<p>The manuscript of Lolita was initially rejected by every American publisher who considered it. It was eventually published in France in 1955 by the notoriously fearless Maurice Girodias, who also published English language versions of books censored in Britain and America, including works by Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs, among others. </p>
<p>After its publication, Lolita was not officially banned by the US government, but it was banned by various local jurisdictions, schools and outlets. It was also banned as obscene for periods of time in France, England, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina and South Africa. In Australia – recognised by many literary researchers as one of the harshest regulators in the world – readers were denied access until 1965. </p>
<p>These bans were designed to protect morality and uphold national order. Researcher Nicole Moore suggests that, in the new millennium, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The idea of there being a nation state that can draw a border around itself to say, “we are like this, our reading public is like this, and different to this other reading public”, that is just a notion that has gone with the wind. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not so. Nation states don’t censor as much as they used to, if at all, but the machinations of censorship continue in arbitrary ways. In April 2022, PEN America released an <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMBtNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit#gid=1171606318">Index of School Book Bans</a> – the first time the organisation has conducted a formal count of this kind. It was compiled as a response to “rapidly expanding scope of censorship over the last ten months”, during which 98% of titles were deemed to have been banned in certain jurisdictions without due process (though what that process might be, exactly, remains unclear). </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503529/original/file-20230109-15-o9t9r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lolita features on the list only once. According to today’s arbiters of morality, the most dangerous books in American schools are not Lolita or the Marquis de Sade’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_(de_Sade_novel)">Justine</a> or Pauline Réage’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/story-of-o-9780552089302">Story of O</a>. In fact, risqué literary classics feature only rarely. </p>
<p>The index reads instead like a sad denial of contemporary adolescent identity, particularly in relation to race and sexuality. The majority are Young Adult titles which position LGBTQIA+ and multicultural characters front and centre. </p>
<p>George M. Johnson’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/all-boys-arent-blue-9780241515037">All Boys Aren’t Blue</a>, a book of essays about growing up Black and queer, is banned in over 29 jurisdictions. <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Gender-Queer-A-Memoir/Maia-Kobabe/9781549304002">Gender Queer</a>, a graphic memoir written and illustrated by Maia Kobabe and celebrated for its coming of age exploration of non-binary identity, is banned in over 40 – from New York to Florida, Washington, Virginia and Texas. </p>
<p>This deliberate erasure of queer voices and stories highlights the problem with censorship of any kind. Which books get to go through to the keeper cannot depend on who is drawing the lines in the sand, yet this is ultimately how all censorship works. </p>
<p>If the power to ban an artwork on ideological grounds exists, then the capacity to do so cannot be limited. We cannot decry the banning of books in one arena yet cancel them in another – this is intellectually confused. No less importantly, the impulse to suppress challenging or disturbing art transfers the burden of reality onto the art rather than onto ourselves. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marguerite-duras-called-the-lover-a-load-of-shit-but-her-novel-about-her-affair-as-a-15-year-old-stuns-with-its-emotional-force-185779">Marguerite Duras called The Lover 'a load of shit', but her novel about her affair as a 15-year-old stuns with its emotional force</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The afterlife of Lolita</h2>
<p>In 2021, Jenny Minton Quigley, the daughter of Walter J. Minton, who first published Lolita in America in 1958, edited a collection of essays titled <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/lolita-in-the-afterlife-9781984898838">Lolita in the Afterlife</a>. A fierce advocate of unfiltered artistic expression, just as her father had been, Quigley grew up in “the house that Lolita built”. She wanted to test the enduring power of Lolita in the glare of the #MeToo movement and the fraught political climate of Trump’s America. </p>
<p>In Lolita in the Afterlife, Nabokov is critiqued and celebrated. The writers pick apart Lolita’s rendering in film, her appropriation by the fashion industry as a “paean to white femininity”, the limits and capacity of the empathetic imagination, and the ugly beauty of Nabokov’s prose. Roxane Gay describes him as a “tricky bastard”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523963/original/file-20230503-14-oc0x2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
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<p>The volume also considers the experiences of reading Lolita in trigger-happy colleges, in the oppressive gloom of lockdown, and in Iraq, where “pleasure marriages” between men and girls as young as nine are still culturally sanctioned. </p>
<p>But it is the final essay, “I Cannot Get Out Said the Starling” by Mary Gaitskill, that best captures the distinction between reading a work of art and holding the work or the writer responsible for the real trespasses operating outside of its imaginative orbit. </p>
<p>Moral outrage over a book is a convenient deflection and does nothing to stem the tide of abhorrent behaviours. In fact, it fuels appetite for the works in question. Lolita has sold over 50 million copies worldwide. </p>
<p>Gaitskill gets this. Like Nabokov, she is a writer unafraid to commit to the page what others dare not say. In her short story collection <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/bad-behavior-9780241383100">Bad Behaviour</a>, she digs around remorselessly in the grey areas of human psyche and interaction. She turns a nonjudgmental eye on Lolita: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Truly, the darkness – the cruelty – of the story is not obscured but <em>heightened</em> by the beauty of the language through the force of artistic contrast, and that contrast is stunning, making the reader feel the wild, often terrible incongruity of human life on earth. This incongruity – the natural coexistence of beauty and destruction, goodness and predatory devouring, cruelty and tenderness, a world in which countless torturer’s horses scratch their “innocent behinds on countless trees” – is a core mystery of life. And that mystery is the true heart of Lolita.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What emerges in Lolita in the Afterlife is a recognition that outrage misdirected at the book or the writer does nothing to negate the realities aligned to it. </p>
<p>Despite all the noise and the banning, Nabokov’s novel still stands. It stands next to pornographic spin-offs and Lolita lollipops and the seemingly endless commodification and exploitation of young girls and women. It stands in the middle of a global rise in human sex trafficking in the 21st century, with American men as the biggest consumers.</p>
<p>It stands alongside alarmingly high rates of the abuse of children. A <a href="https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=186230">Child Maltreatment Study</a> recently released by the Queensland University of Technology suggests that 65% of Australians have experienced some form of abuse as minors. The monster is still in the room. </p>
<p>Almost 70 years since it was first published, Lolita continues to be read from Tokyo to Tibet to Tehran. Because it needs to be. Because books like Lolita are a reckoning. For Nabokov, Lolita wasn’t the butterfly – she was the pin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Breen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The outrage misdirected at Lolita – and its author – does nothing to negate the realities it reflects. Reading Nabokov’s novel now raises questions about censorship, book banning and human nature.Sally Breen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2010592023-04-28T12:26:13Z2023-04-28T12:26:13ZWhy we need to talk about porn when we talk about Andrew Tate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522772/original/file-20230425-2136-ld8wy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">AB WBT</span> </figcaption></figure><p>For decades, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40239168">many feminists</a> have highlighted the <a href="https://www.culturereframed.org/the-porn-crisis/">harms</a> of pornography. They have argued that pornography incarnates male supremacy, and it not only constitutes male violence against women but it also constitutes <a href="https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Andrea-DWORKIN-Pornography-Men-Possessing-Women-1981.pdf">the main conduit</a> for such violence.</p>
<p>Experts have long shown the <a href="https://www.appg-cse.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Inquiry-on-pornography.pdf">links</a> between pornography, misogyny and sexual violence against women. Research <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/217360/1/__qut.edu.au_Documents_StaffHome_StaffGroupR%24_rogersjm_Desktop_Flood%2C%2BThe%2Bharms%2Bof%2Bpornography%2Bexposure%2B09.pdf">has found</a> that exposure to both violent pornography and non-violent pornography – depicting consensual sexual activity between adults – fosters attitudes supportive of sexual aggression and rape. And that in <a href="https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=dignity">normalising</a> sexual violence, pornography also fuels it. </p>
<p>Recently, Lucy Emmerson, the director of the Sex Education Forum has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/02/impact-porn-not-taught-schools-england-survey?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other">warned</a> that “seeing violent sexual acts in pornography is having a knock-on effect on [young people’s] behaviour”. Research has found <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/217360/1/__qut.edu.au_Documents_StaffHome_StaffGroupR%24_rogersjm_Desktop_Flood%2C%2BThe%2Bharms%2Bof%2Bpornography%2Bexposure%2B09.pdf">a correlation</a> among underage boys between frequent consumption of porn and the idea that forcing someone to have sex is ok. </p>
<p>Despite this, porn is only sporadically discussed in connection with violence against women, online and offline. A case in point is <a href="https://theconversation.com/andrew-tate-research-has-long-shown-how-feminist-progress-is-always-followed-by-a-misogynistic-backlash-197433?notice=Article+has+been+updated.">Andrew Tate</a>. </p>
<p>Tate was arrested in December 2022 on suspicion of human trafficking and rape and subsequently moved to house arrest in March 2023. The house arrest <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65351270">has been extended</a> as public prosecutors reportedly continue to investigate him and his brother, Tristan, for crimes including sexually exploiting women and, in the case of Tristan Tate, <a href="https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/romanian-prosecutors-add-charge-against-105022461.html">inciting others</a> to violence. </p>
<p>This has seen the influencer receive an incredible amount of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001jg1t/the-dangerous-rise-of-andrew-tate">media coverage</a>. This has revolved, primarily, around his “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/06/andrew-tate-violent-misogynistic-world-of-tiktok-new-star">deviant</a>” personality, while <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64125045">ignoring</a> the cultural context he operates in: a patriarchal society in which <a href="https://files.libcom.org/files/Theorizing%20Patriarchy%20-%20Sylvia%20Walby.pdf">misogynistic violence</a> is routinely encouraged by mainstream pornography. While Tate arguably promotes the same violence, the two are rarely connected in popular discourse.</p>
<p>Tate’s case it not unique. My research <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/9783031093524">shows</a> how representations of perpetrators of sexual violence, from <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-28243-1?source=shoppingads&amp;locale=en-gb&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA0oagBhDHARIsAI-Bbgf5WKRSOcRQe6eFiisBta-5clzT-jJaT0vjHXs31BskQ_sKl3nPVB0aAv2zEALw_wcB">Harvey Weinstein to Jimmy Saville</a>, routinely focus on individual “deviancy”. They fail to make the connection between misogyny and wider social problems, like pornography. The “villain” is typically identified and singled out as an abnormal man. The details of his abuse are discussed ad nauseam in public discourse and every attempt is made to purge society of his presence and move on.</p>
<p>This is a problem. In ignoring the broader socio-cultural factors at play, this narrative fails to connect what appear to be the <a href="https://www.politybooks.com/search?s=surviving%20sexual%20violence">most severe</a> instances of misogyny with more “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077801221996453">mundane</a>” forms, which have been normalised or appear less harmful. As a result, these are allowed to continue undisturbed.</p>
<h2>The mundane misogyny of social media</h2>
<p>It is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447345">no secret</a> that social media platforms are littered with “mundane” misogyny, from rape apologists to neo-sexist videos which promote the idea that women have achieved equality with men and that men are the “real” victims now.</p>
<p>Men’s podcasts such as <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@freshandfit_clips?lang=en">Fresh and Fit</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@moa.podcast">Men of Action</a> (MOA), <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theviralwaypodcast">The Viral Way</a>, for example, are unfiltered repositories of sexism and misogyny. Yet, they are nowhere to be found in mainstream discussions on the topic. The recent, sustained focus on the “extreme” misogyny of Tate has effectively shielded other providers of “mundane” misogyny from media scrutiny.</p>
<p>This kind of tunnel-vision narrative also leaves out of the picture the ordinary misogyny of normalised, yet no less harmful, social practices like pornography. Pornographic websites like PornHub, RedTube, and YouPorn, which have been shown to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077801210382866?casa_token=7Jj-2itHNkQAAAAA:UOvzyEIm5IFBZfD9d6fZns9xd3cjlbMEKqMk8T5AQj1E87Rbrnw5GM8Vr8ancmoe8sMVq78m-XQ">promote violent and misogynistic content</a>, are accessible to anyone, everywhere. Until March 2023, these online platforms were all owned by the same company, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/pornhub-owner-mindgeek-sold-canadas-ethical-capital-2023-03-16/">MindGeek</a>, and, in 2020, together they reportedly had approximately <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/20/the-fight-to-hold-pornhub-accountable">4.5 billion monthly visits</a> – that’s almost double that of Google and Facebook combined.</p>
<p>In the UK, the most prolific users of these porn sites are <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/220414/online-nation-2021-report.pdf">young adults aged 18-24</a>. News reports have highlighted that children <a href="https://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-us/news/children-see-pornography-as-young-as-seven-new-report-finds">as young as seven</a> have been exposed to their content.</p>
<p>Compared to even a generation ago, mobile technology has made pornography widely available and easily accessible. This has caused a major <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Pornland-P891.aspx">cultural shift</a> whose consequences have not been fully explored or understood yet. Today anyone can watch violent porn with the same ease they can watch cat videos and we don’t fully know what this is doing to us.</p>
<p>If we look at the language of pornography, it is not fundamentally different from the language of Tate. Think, for example, of the similarities between Tate’s obsession with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/06/andrew-tate-violent-misogynistic-world-of-tiktok-new-star">grabbing women by the neck</a> and the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32661813/">popularity</a> of strangulation in online pornography.</p>
<p>Yet, while every second, online pornography broadcasts the same ideas expressed by Tate to millions of people, including children and teenagers, it does not generate the same level of public outrage. On the contrary, pornography is often defended as a <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a40616209/sex-education-porn/">sex positive practice</a> and accepted as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/08/porn-not-real-sex-positive-educators-influencers-breaking-taboos">work of fiction</a>. </p>
<p>Its role in the spread of misogyny is notably absent from most mainstream discussions of violence against women, including those about Tate. Society is wondering <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/talk-children-andrew-tate-misogyny-online-safety-b1053749.html">how to talk to children about Tate</a>, yet pornography is still largely absent from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/02/impact-porn-not-taught-schools-england-survey?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other">sex education</a>.</p>
<h2>It’s about the money</h2>
<p>The question then is why Tate has been branded an <a href="https://hopenothate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Andrew-Tate-Briefing-Final.pdf">extreme misogynist</a> but pornography is defended as a “sex-positive” practice. Why do we find it abhorrent for Tate to talk about violence against women, but believe that watching it is fine? </p>
<p>The answer lies largely in two factors: money and the patriarchy. </p>
<p>On the one hand, tunnel-vision narratives function as a patriarchal tool that distracts the attention from broader social factors like pornography and protects “ordinary” men. Hashtags such as <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-15213-0_18">#himtoo or #notallmen</a> speak precisely to this idea that violence against women is only perpetrated by a tiny minority of men. Most other men are simply being unfairly accused.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the focus on specific individuals distracts the attention from those who profit from pornography. Pornography is an <a href="https://qz.com/1309527/porn-could-have-a-bigger-economic-influence-on-the-us-than-netflix">extremely lucrative business</a>. The silence that surrounds it allows it to continue undisturbed. It makes it easier for individuals and companies to escape accountability and avoid public scrutiny. Many of us know, by now, what Andrew Tate looks like. Comparatively few, if any, will know exactly who owns Pornhub.</p>
<p>Pornography constitutes the socio-cultural context within which men like Tate operate. While it is important that we educate young people about Tate, it is also crucial to place his success within the patriarchal context in which his actions and words are normalised.</p>
<p>Any analysis of Tate, or whoever came before him or will come after him, that does not consider the broader pornification of society will never be complete. To join the dots between “mundane” and “extreme” misogyny and move away from the “tunnel-vision”, we need to talk about porn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessia Tranchese does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In focussing on individual “deviancy”, we fail to make the connection between misogyny and wider social problems, like pornography.Alessia Tranchese, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Applied Linguistics, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1985762023-03-06T13:35:30Z2023-03-06T13:35:30ZWhat parents and educators need to know about teens’ pornography and sexting experiences at school<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512713/original/file-20230228-2960-yiwjos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C64%2C8634%2C5691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pornography presents persistent risks for adolescents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenager-boy-is-using-smartphone-at-home-in-bed-royalty-free-image/1353071585?phrase=teens%20iphones%20school&adppopup=true">EMS-FORSTER-PRODUCTIONS via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Three out of four teenagers have seen online pornography – often before they even became a teenager. That’s according to a new report from Common Sense Media that examines the <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-pornography">role pornography plays</a> in the lives of today’s youth.</p>
<p>Some teens do more than just watch pornography. By way of “sexting,” teenagers are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.10.026">creating and sending their own images and videos</a> of themselves in the nude.</p>
<p>For the most part, it’s not the job of school staff to worry about what kids are looking at on the internet or sending over their phones. However, as an expert on human development – and as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=TZgnU_QAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">one who studies adolescent sexuality</a> – I believe parents and educators should be prepared to address potential issues that might arise as a result of students’ engagement with pornography and sexting. This sort of preparedness is especially pertinent today because smartphones enable kids to look at porn and to sext during school hours.</p>
<p>Here are five things that parents and educators should know as pornography use and sexting become more commonplace among students:</p>
<h2>1. Pornography is not what it used to be</h2>
<p>Fifty-two percent of teens have <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-pornography">seen violent pornography</a>. This includes acts such as choking, slapping, gagging, hitting and crying. This is because the internet changed the way pornography is distributed. There used to be <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1004/obscenity-and-pornography">more regulations</a> on violent content and age verification to adhere to pay-per-view standards in hotel rooms and DVD sales. Now, self-produced and distributed content reigns on “tube-site” platforms that function similarly to YouTube.</p>
<p>Tube sites like PornHub allow for users to freely view and upload their own content. At its inception, many users assumed it was primarily “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2016.1184477">amateur content</a>” or homemade and consensual content. However, one <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/61/5/1243/6208896">study</a> showed that 1 in 8 titles of videos on the website described sexual violence. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55333403">An investigation</a> by the BBC and New York Times was prompted by victims who learned that video footage of their sexual assaults was being freely viewed on the website. The investigation uncovered millions of videos of suspected abuse and coercion, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/19/pornhub-abuse-videos-new-york-times-mastercard-visa">causing credit card companies to cut ties</a>. </p>
<p>OnlyFans, another tube-site platform composed of user-uploaded content, also facilitates camming, or live sexual interaction, with content creators for a fee. Although there does not appear to be peer-reviewed research on adolescents’ use of OnlyFans, there are <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/05/27/children-are-selling-explicit-content-on-onlyfans-report/">some reports</a> that minors are bypassing age verification and selling their own sexually explicit images on the platform.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five teenagers sit on the floor of a high school hallway with their backs to the wall as they look at their cell phones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512719/original/file-20230228-18-nu9abs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teens can access cellphones during the school day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/students-killing-time-in-corridor-between-classes-royalty-free-image/1411412809?phrase=teens%20iphones%20school&adppopup=true">Rafa Fernandez Torres via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Pornography is a source of sex education for teens</h2>
<p>Without widespread <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.036">comprehensive sex education in the U.S.</a>, young adults have identified pornography as a primary <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01877-7">source of sex education</a>. However, the pornography that teens have the easiest access to – tube-site pornography – <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/61/5/1243/6208896">tends to portray</a> more sexual aggression, degradation of women and people of color and lack of sexual consent.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1991641">choking or strangulation during sex has been increasing in porn</a>. This is concerning to violence researchers, neurologists and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2021.1985025">mental health professionals</a> because recent reports indicate that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02347-y">1 in 3 women were choked</a> during their last sexual experience. Although the majority of women reported feelings of euphoria, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02347-y">strangulation during sex</a> carries the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/neu.2022.0146">same risk for brain damage due</a> to loss of oxygen as being strangled in other contexts.</p>
<p>What’s also concerning is that male adolescents exposed to violent pornography are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1887980">more likely</a> to be higher in sexual aggression and are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1435-4">two to three times more likely</a> to have pressured a partner to engage in sexual activity the partner did not want to engage in than male adolescents who view less violent pornography or less pornography overall. For teen girls, their violent pornography exposure is associated with nonviolent risk behaviors, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/105984051456">substance use, buying or selling sex, and sexual victimization</a>. </p>
<h2>3. Although it is not wise, sexting is not always harmful</h2>
<p>Although many adults cringe when they learn about teens sharing nudes with each other – <a href="https://cyberbullying.org/sexting-laws">many states</a> still define sexting among teens as the distribution of child sexual abuse material – consensual sexting can be a normal and healthy part of adolescent sexuality. Some teens are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09952-y">motivated to use sexting</a> to explore their sexuality by expressing their feelings and desires while practicing trust and vulnerability with intimate images. However, if sexting is coercive, or the sexts are shared outside of the couple without permission, it can be considered by law enforcement and violence researchers a form of sexual harassment or <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351135153">image-based sexual abuse</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A girl with glasses is underneath a bedcover as the green glare of an iPhone illuminates her surprised and bespectacled face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512716/original/file-20230228-691-q9katl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three out of four teens have viewed online pornography.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cute-girl-watching-video-on-phone-with-shocked-royalty-free-image/1390528082?phrase=teens%20iphones&adppopup=true">Alihan Usullu via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s important to note that, as with many issues related to teenage development, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71882-8_4">potential harms or benefits of sexting</a> are dependent on factors such as maturity, the nature of the relationship between the individuals involved and gender. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-022-00775-y">one study</a> found that boys were more likely than girls to disseminate sexts to peers without the consent of those in the picture. </p>
<h2>4. Sending other people’s sexual content is often harmful and illegal</h2>
<p>Once an image or video is shared, it can be difficult to control how it is used or distributed, which can lead to feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment for the original sender. The sending of others’ sexual content can take many forms, such as sharing a nude image via small groups or posting an image more publicly to a website. Such images and videos can be shared widely or even secretly among private social media accounts and group email lists known as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/jocks-and-frat-boys-more-likely-than-other-men-in-college-to-visit-slut-pages-and-post-nude-images-without-consent-156365">slut pages</a>.” </p>
<p>Slut pages have the ability to <a href="https://www.wbur.org/npr/467959873/teen-girls-and-social-media-a-story-of-secret-lives-and-misogyny">shape a school’s culture on sexual violence</a>, as they are intended to make nonconsensual pornography seem amusing. This can encourage peers and even adults to minimize the emotional trauma a person may experience when they learn that their images are posted on a slut page.</p>
<h2>5. Schools can be liable for online sexual misconduct under Title IX</h2>
<p><a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/title-ix-rights-201104.html">Title IX</a>, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities that receive federal funding, can potentially be used to address nonconsensual pornography in high schools. When school administrators know or reasonably should know about nonconsensual pornography, Title IX requires them to take prompt and effective steps to end the harassment, prevent its recurrence and address its effects. This can include conducting investigations, taking disciplinary action against the individuals involved and providing support and resources for affected students.</p>
<p>However, a <a href="https://www.knowyourix.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Know-Your-IX-2021-Report-Final-Copy.pdf">study</a> conducted by Advocates for Youth showed that school staff tended to minimize sexual harassment as a typical right of passage. Without staff training that targets this bias, the victims of nonconsensual pornography can feel uncomfortable going to staff <a href="https://www.knowyourix.org/">because victim blaming can be so prevalent</a>. For example, in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15546128.2022.2076757">our experiences training</a> school staff, a common response to the distribution of a student’s nude images is often, “Why did she send him that picture in the first place?” which is understandable. Educators could also consider asking, “Why did he share that picture with the whole school?”</p>
<h2>Is there anything that can be done?</h2>
<p>In our study, we found that public school administrators, staff and educators <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15546128.2022.2076757">overwhelmingly agree</a> that education for school staff, parents and students needs to happen to improve the social lives of today’s digital natives. We found that when school staff received education that included facts about how teens engage with pornography and sexting and some examples of how to respond when problems occur, they were more confident and less embarrassed discussing these topics if they were to arise at school. </p>
<p>We also think if schools’ sexual misconduct policies address digital behavior, that could also play a major role in determining how schools both prevent and respond to nonconsensual sexting and pornography among students. We are currently researching which schools do this well to provide an example that other schools can follow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan K. Maas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert on adolescent sexuality weighs in on how technology has changed the amount and type of pornography that teens can consume – and what that means when it happens at school.Megan K. Maas, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1891392022-12-08T19:24:09Z2022-12-08T19:24:09ZFriday essay: a sex-positive feminist takes up the ‘unfinished revolution’ her mother began – but it’s complicated<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496669/original/file-20221122-26-j8utbt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C17%2C3976%2C1958&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The main photo is author Nora Willis Aronowitz, with her mother Ellen Willis pictured, in black & white, on right. (Left image is from Unsplash/Gabriel Nune.)</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Bad Sex – like <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/roxane-gay/bad-feminist">Bad Feminist</a> (the title of the essay collection that launched Roxane Gay to literary stardom back in 2014) – is an enticing title for a book. Who hasn’t had bad sex at some time or other, including those of us who identify as feminists? </p>
<p>Bad sex, variously defined and experienced, continues to be depressingly common, even though sex “has never been more normalised, feminism has never been more popular” and “romantic love has never been more malleable”. </p>
<p>Or, so argues Nona Willis Aronowitz, in her genre-defying first book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/639587/bad-sex-by-nona-willis-aronowitz/">Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure and the Unfinished Revolution</a>. </p>
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<p><em>Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure and an Unfinished Revolution – Nona Willis Aronowitz (Plume).</em></p>
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<p>Aronowitz’s regular writing gigs include a love and sex advice column for Teen Vogue. But in taking “bad sex” as her subject, she’s less concerned with offering remedies than in the “broader question of what cultural forces interfere with our pleasure, desire and relationship satisfaction”. </p>
<h2>What has changed, what remains</h2>
<p>In her cleverly constructed investigation, Aronowitz makes this a personal and historical question, as well as a feminist dilemma. Across 11 chapters, she blends memoir, social history, feminist analysis and cultural commentary in a highly readable, often insightful – and occasionally self-indulgent – fashion. </p>
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<p>Hers is a very US-centric story: the backdrop to her investigations is the election of Donald Trump and his term in office, which heightened the chaos of her personal world, and her feminist framework is almost exclusively US-based. But Bad Sex has wider resonance and appeal.</p>
<p>The starting point is Aronowitz’s own compulsion to understand and move beyond the “bad sex” that eroded her otherwise satisfying (though ultimately short-lived) marriage. Through her “zig zag pursuit of sexual liberation”, Aronowitz ranges across the contemporary sexual landscape – dating apps, ethical non-monogamy, sexual and gender fluidity – while also looking back to feminist and gender history to contemplate what has changed, and what perennials remain. </p>
<p>These include the murky edges of consent (a conversation, she reminds us, that started well before #MeToo), everyday forms of sexual coercion, and the “woke misogynist” – a contemporary type with antecedents like “men’s libbers”. </p>
<p>Yet despite what the title might suggest, sexual harm is not her main concern and Bad Sex is not a #MeToo book. Aronowitz wants to bring both pleasure and nuance back to the centre of feminist sexual politics, including by way of telling the truth about how difficult it can be for women to pursue (or even identify) their desires in an enduringly patriarchal world. </p>
<p>Sometimes this involves poking gentle fun at herself and the whole concept of “feminist sex”. (“I wanted my hook-ups to be both fulfilling and morally sound”.) But there’s no doubting her commitment to the task – which includes knowing her history.</p>
<h2>Feminist sexual revolutions and sex wars</h2>
<p>The “unfinished revolution” of the subtitle is the explicitly feminist sexual revolution launched by women’s liberationists like Anne Koedt, whose essay <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26221179-the-myth-of-the-vaginal-orgasm">The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm</a> was first published in 1968. </p>
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<p>By harking back to it, Aronowitz offers an updated telling of the heady and horny history of early radical feminism – as captured in Jane Gerhard’s <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/desiring-revolution/9780231112055">Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of Twentieth-Century American Thought, 1920 to 1982</a> (2001), and before that, <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/daring-to-be-bad-1">Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975</a> (1989) by Alice Echols. </p>
<p>In this century, “radical feminism” has ossified into a catch-all for what many see as the most negative and obstinate manifestations of feminism – among them transphobia, anti-porn and anti-sex work, gender essentialism, and an agenda dominated by white, middle-class women. </p>
<p>But Gerhard and Echols, among many others, have recuperated a vibrant and multi-faceted lineage of radical feminism in which good sex was integral to liberatory feminist politics. </p>
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<p>The points at which those earlier histories conclude are significant. Echols stops in 1975. She says that’s when “cultural feminism” became the dominant strain of feminism in the US, marked by separatism and a female counterculture that alienated many heterosexual and bisexual women – not to mention lesbians who were turned off by what they saw as the policing of their sexual desires. </p>
<p>Gerhard continues to 1982, the year of the historic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Barnard_Conference_on_Sexuality">Scholar and the Feminist Conference</a> at Barnard College. Entitled “Towards a Politics of Sexuality”, the conference was convened by feminists eager to return to (and extend) feminism’s earlier focus on sexual pleasure – much to the consternation of anti-porn feminists. They protested outside, wearing T-shirts with “For a Feminist Sexuality” on one side, and “Against S/M” on the other. </p>
<p>The Barnard Conference did not launch the “Feminist Sex Wars” – with “pro-sex” feminists on one side and the so-called “anti-sex” feminists on the other. It certainly galvanised them, though. And it has been heavily dissected and narrated ever since, including by those who were there. </p>
<p>Anthropologist Gayle S. Rubin, part of the West Coast lesbian sadomasochism scene, was still a graduate student when she presented an early version of her since much-anthologised essay, <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1560/chapter-abstract/173938/Thinking-SexNotes-for-a-Radical-Theory-of-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext">“Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”</a>, at the conference. </p>
<p>In her essay, Rubin lamented the “temporary hegemony” of the anti-pornography movement, defended pro-sex feminism as part of a longer tradition of sex radicalism, and provocatively challenged the “assumption that feminism is or should be the privileged site of a theory of sexuality”. This last point partly accounts for why Rubin’s essay is as canonical to queer theory as it is to feminist thought.</p>
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<span class="caption">Amia Srinivisan.</span>
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<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWjqeAarm2I&t=1762s">lecture</a> delivered earlier this year, Rubin noted a resurgence of interest in the Feminist Sex Wars, post-#MeToo. It’s evident in a surge of books released in 2021. There were two dedicated revisionist histories: Lorna Bracewell’s <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/why-we-lost-the-sex-wars">Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #MeToo Era </a> and Brenda Croswell’s <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479802708/the-new-sex-wars/">The New Sex Wars: Sexual Harm in the #MeToo Era</a>. </p>
<p>And those Feminist Sex Wars were part of philosopher Amia Srinivisan’s lauded essay collection <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/right-to-sex-9781526612533/">The Right to Sex</a>. Srinivisan also wrote <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/who-lost-the-sex-wars">an essay for The New Yorker</a> on the Sex Wars, extending its preoccupations to the British context.</p>
<p>Each of these books is markedly different in its emphasis. Bracewell spotlights the participation of queer women of colour. Croswell contemplates the limits of the law for addressing sexual assault. And Srinivisan re-evaluates anti-porn feminism in light of contemporary concerns. All three, however – like Aronowitz – see the feminist politics of sex as unfinished business, with the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1980s offering both guidance and a cautionary tale.</p>
<p>For Rubin, however, the new literature on the Sex Wars – some of it tainted with errors of fact – is not so much history as a reiteration of myths and recycled narratives. These books reflect what she sees as a “growing tendency to pontificate on these earlier conflicts without actually knowing what was going on in them”, nor the context in which they unfolded (notably – the Reagan administration, the rise of the Christian right and the onset of the AIDS crisis). </p>
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<p>Rubin recalls the Sex Wars as traumatic for many reasons, including because they eclipsed an earlier, more wide-ranging and libidinous feminist sexual agenda. Early radical feminists and women’s liberationists, says Rubin, were “incredibly concerned with sex, sexuality, women’s sexual pleasure, along with violence, rape and battery, and a whole lot of other things”. </p>
<p>One of the most prominent was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/arts/10willis.html">Ellen Willis</a>, author of “Towards a Feminist Sexual Revolution” (published in 1982), among other key essays. Two years later, her daughter (with activist and scholar <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/stanley-aronowitz-dead.html">Stanley Aronowitz</a>) was born: Nona Willis Aronowitz.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-metoo-era-a-reckoning-a-revolution-or-something-else-176565">Is the #MeToo era a reckoning, a revolution, or something else?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Like mother, like daughter?</h2>
<p>Like many millennial women, Aronowitz came of age with “pro-sex” feminism on the ascent. But though she was literally raised by one of the recognised progenitors of that feminism, she says while she was growing up, her mother “didn’t pry or even offer” counsel on puberty or sex. </p>
<p>Willis died in 2006, when Aronowitz was in her early 20s. It’s primarily through her mother’s writings that she’s absorbed her views on sex and relationships, including as editor of the posthumous collection <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-essential-ellen-willis">The Essential Ellen Willis</a> (2014). </p>
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<span class="caption">Ellen Willis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Minnesota University Press</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In Bad Sex she digs deeper, reading through her mother’s letters and personal papers to piece together her sexual experiences and past relationships – including with Aronowitz’s father. Some of what she finds is confronting (especially about her dad’s first marriage). But there’s also solace, wisdom and solidarity to be found in her mother’s life and writing, and those of others like her, who have made (or continue to make) “good sex” central to their feminism.</p>
<p>Willis began her writing career as a rock critic. She was initially wary of the version of women’s liberation she found in <a href="https://repository.duke.edu/dc/wlmpc/wlmms01037">Notes from the First Year</a> (1968), a collection of writings from New York radical women. </p>
<p>“Sexuality,” writes Aronowitz, “was all over Notes” – including Koedt’s advocacy for the clitoris and call to “redefine our sexuality”, and Shulamith Firestone’s transcription of one of the group’s meetings on sex, a somewhat damning indictment of the sexual revolution. </p>
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<p>Willis wrote at the time that “the tone strikes me as frighteningly bitter” – but within months of meeting the New York women, she was a total convert. She formed the breakaway group <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstockings">Redstockings</a> with Firestone, who went on to write the feminist classic <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/1853-the-dialectic-of-sex">The Dialectic of Sex</a> (1970). Willis also re-evaluated her relationship with her boyfriend in the light of what consciousness-raising had exposed, and went on to spend much of her thirties single. </p>
<p>By the end of the 1970s, Willis was an eloquent critic of the then-emerging anti-pornography feminism. She warned in a landmark 1979 essay that if </p>
<blockquote>
<p>feminists define pornography, per se, as the enemy, the result will be to make a lot of women afraid of their sexual feelings and afraid to be honest about them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the same essay, Willis shared that “over the years I’ve enjoyed various pieces of pornography […] and so have most women I know”. A couple of years later, in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/minnesota-scholarship-online/book/14252/chapter-abstract/168135486">“Lust Horizons: Is the Women’s Movement Pro-Sex?”</a> (1981), Willis surveyed the flashpoints. </p>
<p>She concluded that both “self-proclaimed arbiters of feminist morals” and “sexual libertarians who often evade honest discussion by refusing to make judgements at all” were obstacles to “a feminist understanding of sex”. By her lights, that involved recognising that “our sexual desires are never just arbitrary tastes”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shulamith-firestone-why-the-radical-feminist-who-wanted-to-abolish-pregnancy-remains-relevant-115730">Shulamith Firestone: why the radical feminist who wanted to abolish pregnancy remains relevant</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>A candid narrator</h2>
<p>Aronowitz is clearly indebted to her mother’s style of feminism. Her description of Willis’s particular niche (in the introduction to The Essential Ellen Willis) could well describe her own. She was intellectual, but not academic. She was a journalist, but not primarily an “objective” reporter; she “poached from her life and detailed her thought processes”. </p>
<p>Like her mother, Aronowitz is alert to the grey areas between utopian feminist visions of sexual liberation and the tricky realities of heterosexuality – or in Aronowitz’s case, heteroflexibility. “Reconciling personal desire with political conviction,” she writes, “is frankly, a tall order,” but nevertheless “essential”.</p>
<p>Yet while Willis stopped short of memoir, Aronowitz – reared on social media as much as feminism – is a candid narrator. It’s hard not to bristle with sympathy for her now ex-husband Aaron when she describes their sex towards the end as “metastasizing in the worst way”, or her own experience of it as “some putrid combination of bored, irritable, and disassociated”. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, Aronowitz describes her sexual encounters when her marriage is opened up, while she’s separated and as she moves into a new relationship – in enough detail to possibly tip over into too-much-information territory for some readers.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smiling woman with curly hair in front of a painted red brick wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496356/original/file-20221121-12-el1m9f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nona Willis Aronowitz is a ‘candid’ narrator, but Bad Sex doesn’t descend into ‘an extended confessional’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Emily Shechtman</span></span>
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<p>What stops Bad Sex from descending into an extended confessional is that her truth-telling (which is different to tell-all) is not a solipsistic exercise. Aronowitz knows the limits of extrapolating from one’s own experience – especially if, like her, you’re a white, middle-class feminist with a big platform – and that the best way to do it is to be honest and to share the stage. </p>
<p>She reveals she enjoyed the social capital accrued from getting married and was terrified of being thirtysomething and single. And how she violated the rules of ethical non-monogamy (crossing over into a far less progressive “affair”), and largely went through the motions of queer experimentation. </p>
<p>Aronowitz indicts herself as much as she does her own generation of so-proclaimed sexual renegades. But hers is not a satirical gaze; her quest to understand what makes sex “good” or “bad” – and why it matters – is genuine.</p>
<p>Aronowitz typically launches each chapter with a personal experience: either her own, or from someone who offers a different perspective. Like her friend Lulu, a Black, queer woman, whose personal and family histories preface a larger discussion of the distinctive trajectories of black feminist sexual thought. </p>
<p>Readers with prior knowledge will be familiar with some of the key works and figures Aronowitz showcases (for instance, Audre Lorde’s classic 1978 essay <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50683.Uses_of_the_Erotic">“Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”</a>). She weaves these classics together with contemporary literature and activism (like adrienne moore browne’s 2019 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40549668-pleasure-activism">Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good</a>). And so, she provides entry points for different potential audiences: readers seeking a historical primer, and readers who are after an update. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496112/original/file-20221118-15-61dji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Audre Lorde.</span>
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<p>The gap between theory and practice – or the challenge of what Sara Ahmed calls living a feminist life – is of special interest to Aronowitz. She manages to both capture the power of polemic in feminist history and to get behind the scenes. </p>
<p>For instance, Aronowitz reminds us, even Emma Goldman, the defiant anarchist who inspired women’s liberationists with her proclamations of free love, was hardly immune to romantic despair.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, she revisits essays by radical feminists <a href="https://www.greenlion.com/dana.html">Dana Densmore</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne_Dunbar-Ortiz">Roxanne Dunbar</a> on celibacy and asexuality as essential and invigorating aspects of second-wave feminist sexual thought. </p>
<p>When Densmore later tells her there wasn’t anyone in their militant group, Cell 16, who was actually celibate, Aronowitz isn’t surprised or judgemental. Instead, she heeds what Densmore saw as the most important sentence of her essay – one Aronowitz had originally overlooked: </p>
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<p>This is not a call for celibacy but for an acceptance of celibacy as an honourable alternative, one preferable to the degradation of most male-female sexual relationships. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sex, Densmore tells her, was “really bad in 1968”. In the early phase of the sexual revolution, when feminism had yet to happen, “it felt important to tell women they could walk away from bad relationships.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-with-men-i-feel-like-a-very-sharp-glittering-blade-when-5-liberated-women-spoke-the-truth-191496">Friday essay: 'with men I feel like a very sharp, glittering blade' – when 5 liberated women spoke the truth</a>
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<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>Over 50 years later, Aronowitz has a lot to share with readers about sex. But her book is no polemic. In thinking about sex – her own and in general – feminism has clearly been an enormous and generative influence, but Aronowitz also acknowledges its limits and shares her frustrations. “I felt grateful”, she writes, “for the radical feminism that encouraged shame-free sexual exploration but I resented its high bar too.”</p>
<p>Crucially, however, Aronowitz does not disavow feminism or make grand claims about what sex should or should not be. That phase, Aronowitz suggests, was necessary once, but is now over. </p>
<p>This sets Bad Sex productively apart from other recent books, such as Louise Perry’s <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/The+Case+Against+the+Sexual+Revolution-p-9781509550005">The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century</a> (2022). Perry’s somewhat unrelenting diatribe against sex-positive feminism concludes with motherly advice to her readers, including “don’t use dating apps” and “only have sex with a man if you think he would make a good father to your children”. </p>
<p>For Aronowitz, ultimately the “unsteady conclusions of liberationists” – including those of her mother – were more inspirational “than any righteous slogan”. Bad Sex offers a rich compendium of these teachings, but its value is more elusive and greater than this. </p>
<p>In sharing her doubts, reflections and vulnerabilities, Aronowitz pushes feminist sexual politics beyond the binaries it is sometimes reduced to: pleasure/danger, positive/negative, pro/anti. Instead, she pushes it towards the complex engagement that Ellen Willis, among others, had encouraged all along.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zora Simic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nona Willis Aronowitz, daughter of a second-wave feminist, ranges across the contemporary sexual landscape – and looks back at the history of feminism – in a ‘zig zag pursuit of sexual liberation’.Zora Simic, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917312022-11-17T13:27:40Z2022-11-17T13:27:40ZWhy the re-release of iconic porn film ‘Deep Throat’ fizzled<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495448/original/file-20221115-23-7wrxw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C8%2C1745%2C1127&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Linda Lovelace starred in 1972's 'Deep Throat,' which kicked off porn's golden age.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/deep-throat-poster-us-poster-art-linda-lovelace-1972-news-photo/1137256251?phrase=deep throat&adppopup=true">LMPC/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1972, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068468/">Deep Throat</a>,” a feature-length porn film directed by Gerard Damiano, was hailed for moving pornography into the mainstream and beginning a golden age of theatrical porn. </p>
<p>To mark the 50th anniversary of its release, <a href="https://damianofilms.com/deepthroat50/4k-restoration">a restored high-resolution version</a> was released earlier this year. Yet outside of a few screenings in New York City, <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/deep-throat-still-hard-to-swallow-on-50th-anniversary/">most U.S. theaters expressed little interest in showing the film</a>.</p>
<p>As the editor of the essay collection “<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/pornography/9780813538716">Pornography: Film and Culture</a>,” I’m not surprised by the relatively muted fanfare to the re-release. </p>
<p>To me, it’s a sign of how much pornography has changed during the past 50 years.</p>
<h2>‘Stag’ shorts in ‘smokers’</h2>
<p>Film pornography <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520219434/hard-core">has a long underground history</a>, going back to “stag” shorts in the silent film era, which for decades were screened in “smokers” – named after the all-male audience that gathered to watch the films together and smoke cigars.</p>
<p>In the late 1960s, pornography moved into theaters in porn districts in cities like New York, and these places remained male-dominated settings. The films initially were feature length and while they lacked traditional narratives, many of them had various forms of narrative structure. The 1970 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178315/">Sexual Freedom in Denmark</a>,” for example, used educating the public about Denmark’s liberal censorship laws and red light districts as a pretext to screen explicit scenes featuring hardcore sex.</p>
<p>Films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315949/">He & She</a>,” also released in 1970, featured a young, attractive heterosexual couple. Similarly, this film fashioned itself as instructive <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704912">in the tradition of marriage manual books</a> but used erotic hardcore pornography to teach the ins and outs of various sexual techniques. </p>
<p>Many other films with now-forgotten titles from the 1970s featured different couples simply having sex. But even those productions often had a loose narrative structure. </p>
<h2>The rise of ‘porno chic’</h2>
<p>“Deep Throat,” which stars pornographic actress Linda Lovelace, tells the story of a woman whose clitoris is in her throat. Because it was a feature film centered on female sexual pleasure, porn started being seen as somewhat respectable. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A billboard advertises 'Deep Throat' as a can't miss theatrical release." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Deep Throat’ brought porn into the mainstream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/theater-marquee-advertises-the-film-deep-throat-starring-news-photo/2884111?phrase=deep%20throat&adppopup=true">Arnie Sachs/CNP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>When “Deep Throat” premiered in New York in 1972, the response was enthusiastic, giving rise to the term “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jun/10/deep-throat-at-50-linda-lovelace-porn-mainstream">porno chic</a>.” Movie stars, theater directors and composers embraced the film. Critic Roger Ebert, though he panned the film, <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deep-throat-1973">called it</a> “the first stag film to see with a date.”</p>
<p>The norm in pornography had been for viewers to simply enter and leave the theater whenever they wished. Starting times were not even listed in newspapers. With “Deep Throat,” however, couples stood in line waiting for the next showing to start. This was, for many couples, their first foray into porn theater districts. </p>
<p>The film is said to have ushered in porn’s golden age, and classics such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068260/">Behind the Green Door</a>” (1972), “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075018/">The Opening of Misty Beethoven</a>” (1976) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075018/">Barbara Broadcast</a>” (1977) soon followed. These films had comparatively big budgets and told stories with central characters. The production values were high, with good lighting, composition and editing. </p>
<h2>The home viewing experience</h2>
<p>But by early 1980s, theatrical porn had fallen by the wayside, and home video porn took off. </p>
<p>Homes created comfortable viewing environments for women who felt alienated from – and threatened by – the so-called theater “raincoat crowd” that one female porn film performer <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dszzbk">described as</a> “isolated men masturbating under their coats.” Now women – and men who were also turned off by the movie theater atmosphere – could watch those same movies from the comfort of their living rooms.</p>
<p>The rise of digital, streaming porn further upended the industry. Feature-length films were replaced by low-budget, comparatively short videos, with no narrative. They often centered on kinks or simple sexual fantasies – feet fetish videos or skimpy narrative premises such as sex between realtors and their clients. </p>
<p>Sometimes longer versions are available for pay, but these often simply feature extended sex scenes rather than plot or character development. Streaming porn on the internet effectively ended the production and exhibition of features. Porn theaters and video stores – where customers could watch porn films in private viewing booths – have become relics of a bygone era.</p>
<h2>The re-release lands with a thud</h2>
<p>The response to the re-release of “Deep Throat” was so muted that very few people probably even know that 2022 is the 50th anniversary of the film’s initial release. Movie theaters didn’t show it and most of the media didn’t cover it. A high-resolution restored DVD is unavailable, nor is it streaming.</p>
<p>Although he acknowledged today’s appetite for digital porn, the son of director Gerard Damiano, Gerard Jr., seemed to pin the blame on Americans’ puritanical approach to sex. </p>
<p>Americans are “very skittish about talking about anything that has to do with sex,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jun/10/deep-throat-at-50-linda-lovelace-porn-mainstream">he told The Guardian</a>. “People today are so afraid of anything sexual because they don’t know what to do… There’s not a lot of sex positivity and we’re hoping to reintroduce that with this film.”</p>
<p><a href="https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/deep-throat-still-hard-to-swallow-on-50th-anniversary/">In a separate interview</a> with the New York Post, he noted, “Europe is much more receptive to us. We couldn’t find a U.S. venue that was comfortable showing the film.”</p>
<p>But in my view, saying Americans are skittish about sex doesn’t explain the box office failure of the re-release of “Deep Throat.” The current porn industry was neither built on skittishness nor fear of sex. A quick visit to Pornhub disabuses that notion. </p>
<p>Pornography is a genre much like others with a complex and changing history. It is not one fixed thing: It is not always dangerous, evil trash; nor does watching porn make people sexual perverts or worse. <a href="https://nbc-2.com/news/2021/01/12/heres-how-your-porn-habit-could-be-helping-human-sex-traffickers/amp/">While such serious issues</a> as sex trafficking and sexual abuse have arisen in the porn industry, similar problems have also plagued Hollywood involving high-profile figures such as <a href="https://people.com/tv/kevin-spacey-controversy-timeline/">Kevin Spacey,</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41594672">Harvey Weinstein</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/60-women-accused-bill-cosby-his-conviction-had-been-considered-n1272864">Bill Cosby</a>. </p>
<p>The re-release of “Deep Throat” may have ultimately collided with the #MeToo movement. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-by-Linda-Lovelace-1980-01-03/dp/B01FKWZ9QC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1BXQCWJI87IFB&keywords=Linda+Lovelace&qid=1668567351&s=books&sprefix=linda+lovelace%2Cstripbooks%2C170&sr=1-5">In her highly publicized memoir</a>, lead actress Linda Lovelace described being physically abused at home by her husband, who worked as a production manager on the film. She also wrote about feeling coerced on set while shooting the sex scenes. </p>
<p>That aspect of the film’s legacy – more than any sort of squeamishness towards sex – could have also contributed to the reluctance of theaters to screen it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Lehman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The son of the director has argued that Americans are still too squeamish about sex to fully appreciate the film. A porn scholar disagrees.Peter Lehman, Emeritus Professor, Film and Media Studies in English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910042022-10-16T19:02:17Z2022-10-16T19:02:17ZClive Hamilton’s activism memoir wars with neoliberals, the ‘naive’ left and China<p>Clive Hamilton personifies the Australian progressive “public intellectual”. He’s a prolific author of opinion articles and books, concerned “to make a difference in the world” by persuading people to engage with “powerful ideas”. </p>
<p>His memoir describes almost 40 years of activism. The tone is often confessional: he admits to an introvert’s terror at electioneering and a white progressive’s anxiety about what to say to Indigenous people. Despite this, <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/provocateur-by-clive-hamilton/9781743798577">Provocateur</a> is most of all a narrative of “ideas in action”, embodied by one individual.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Provocateur: A life of ideas in action – Clive Hamilton (Hardie Grant)</em></p>
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<p>Hamilton’s fame is closely linked to <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/">The Australia Institute</a>, which he founded in 1994. Since then it has come to dominate the progressive think-tank landscape. His narrative offers much guidance for think-tank progressives: a relentless focus on media relations and public impact, and most of all, an ability to discern the mood of progressive opinion. Hamilton may be aligned with the Greens, but he has little time for the amateurism and self-absorption that were once Greens traditions. </p>
<h2>Appealing to the unconverted</h2>
<p>Progressives, Hamilton argues, should initially talk among themselves – but then move on to appealing to the unconverted. He is an enthusiast for focus groups and opinion polling. In the battle for media attention, Hamilton is aware of the power of provocation and outrage. He admits he sometimes deliberately overstates his certainty, aiming to generate opposition. He has little interest in understanding the motives of his opponents, who include “postmodern” academics, Chinese nationalists, pornography consumers and affluent suburbanites. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: Provocateur by Clive Hamilton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489685/original/file-20221013-12-isqtqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Hamilton’s narrative expresses a religious sympathy; he is deeply critical of the secular, rationalist denial of the sacred. At one point he takes pride in a description of himself as a cleric without the cloth. But he’s not attracted to the Christian virtue of forgiveness. </p>
<p>This is a very Protestant book; the sentiment is that of a 19th-century liberal, free-trade nonconformist doing battle for the Lord and His earthly causes. His style is solitary; Hamilton is not a committee man, and in The Australia Institute’s legal battles, he is often frustrated by his more cautious colleagues.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ive-seriously-tried-to-believe-capitalism-and-the-planet-can-coexist-but-ive-lost-faith-131288">I've seriously tried to believe capitalism and the planet can coexist, but I've lost faith</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Wars with consumerism and ‘affluenza’</h2>
<p>The first two-thirds of the book are mostly about the campaigns of The Australia Institute. The cases speak to Hamilton’s preferred themes and his eye for the zeitgeist. His imagined audience is less the organised left than a broader milieu, anxious about excessive individualism and greed: small “c” conservatives who know something is deeply wrong with the world in ways the champions of progress ignore. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover: Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489687/original/file-20221013-15-z1vhte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Hamilton’s (and The Australia Institute’s) war with consumerism and affluenza, as covered in his 2003 book <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Clive-Hamilton-Growth-Fetish-9781741140781">Growth Fetish</a>, appealed to those traumatised by John Howard’s materialist ascendancy. Two chapters cover Hamilton’s battle with the retailer David Jones – a war sparked by a 2006 <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/corporate-paedophilia-sexualisation-of-children-in-australia">Australia Institute report</a> that accused the retailer of “corporate paedophilia”, on the grounds that its advertising material sexualised children. David Jones sued The Australia Institute, and Hamilton as executive director, for “misleading and deceptive conduct” under the Trade Practices Act. They withdrew their action (first threatened in October 2006) in April 2008, after nearly 18 months of engagement. </p>
<p>This was the archetypal Australia Institute campaign: a bold offensive for the moral high ground, followed by grim defence against a cashed-up opponent. The narrative reveals a lot about the ability of the wealthy to use the legal system against their opponents. It also shows Hamilton at war with much of the self-identified left. His “sex-positive” critics, such as <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-porn-report-paperback-softback">Catherine Lumby</a> or <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/panic">David Marr</a>, are cast as shallow libertarians –acquiescent to capitalist individualism and indifferent to the social decay of modern society. </p>
<p>Throughout the book, Hamilton accuses the “left” of capitulating to identity politics and libertarianism. Here, he swims with the tide of much contemporary Australian opinion: <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/liberalism-is-alive-and-its-killing-us-why-postliberalism-is-the-answer-20140903-108v50.html">left</a> and <a href="https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/LIBERAL-SHOCK-The-Conservative-Comeback--William-Dawes-Editor_p_292.html">right</a>. He offers a “post-liberal” dismissal of liberalism as selfish, atomistic individualism. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-hidden-hand-exposing-how-the-chinese-communist-party-is-reshaping-the-world-142058">Book Review: Hidden Hand – Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Climate politics and China</h2>
<p>Climate politics, above all, is central to the first part of the book. The story here is familiar and depressing: the “greenhouse mafia”, the duplicities of “moderate” Liberals, and the failures of former prime minister Kevin Rudd. The result, as Hamilton sees it, is a looming climate catastrophe. He doesn’t share the optimistic view of Rudd’s former climate advisor Ross Garnaut that <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/superpower">rational policy will eventually triumph</a>.</p>
<p>Hamilton’s work with The Australia Institute often reflected an optimistic sensibility: the belief people were ready to embrace alternatives to neoliberal individualism – and that some had already begun to move in this direction (for example, by “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-suburbs-are-the-spiritual-home-of-overconsumption-but-they-also-hold-the-key-to-a-better-future-108496">downshifting</a>”). The climate crisis challenged Hamilton’s optimism and left him adrift and exhausted. </p>
<p>Despair at the failure of climate activism drove his shift to warning against the threat of China – more specifically, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/chinese-communist-party-2614">Chinese Communist Party</a>. It’s the focus of the final third of the book. This section is hard to judge.</p>
<p>In part, it combines a principled critique of Australian foreign policy with a reasoned condemnation of the actions of the Chinese government and its supporters – and a depressing account of the unwillingness of publishers to challenge a great power. Hamilton’s first China book, <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-clive-hamiltons-silent-invasion-chinas-influence-in-australia-93650">Silent Invasion</a>, was abandoned by two major publishers – <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/free-speech-fears-after-book-critical-of-china-is-pulled-from-publication-20171112-gzjiyr.html">Allen & Unwin</a> and then <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/controversial-china-book-may-get-parliamentary-protection-20180205-p4yzfy.html">Melbourne University Publishing</a> – due to fear of legal action (and for Allen & Unwin, fear of reprisal from China too).</p>
<p>Behind the book lurks the old trope of left disillusionment: the complaint that “the left” has betrayed its values. Most of all, it recalls <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/mission-0">Noel Pearson</a> or <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-politics-of-suffering-paperback-softback">Phillip Sutton</a> complaining “the left” was indifferent to the dysfunctional reality of many Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>Hamilton rails against what he sees as the naivety of the left – but also the hidden hand of China, whose agents (and unwitting agents) he perceives everywhere: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-paul-keating-transformed-the-economy-and-the-nation-131562">Paul Keating</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/bob-carrs-diary-reveals-a-true-satirist-a-self-made-grotesque-25453">Bob Carr</a>, Tasmanian Liberal and Labor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-if-growing-us-china-rivalry-leads-to-the-worst-war-ever-what-should-australia-do-185294">Hugh White</a>, Geraldine Doogue. He even sees them within Daniel Andrews’ staff. <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-manne-how-we-came-to-be-so-cruel-to-asylum-seekers-67542">Robert Manne</a> launched Hamilton’s unsuccessful Greens candidacy in the 2009 Higgins by-election, but Hamilton accepts the breakdown of relations between them over the China issue.</p>
<p>Hamilton seems to view some on the right more favourably. He appears on the Bolt Report – not because of any sympathy for Andrew Bolt, but in the hope of appealing to some of Bolt’s audience (just as he sought conservative support in his campaign against “corporate paedophilia”). Hamilton talks to security intellectuals, and credits former US president Donald Trump for recognising the China threat, in contrast with the naivety of his predecessor Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Despite this, Hamilton’s story is not a neoconservative one. His unhappiness with much of the left does not impel him to forgive old enemies, such as The Australian newspaper. He would never follow the example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrisons-gilmore-candidate-is-the-man-whos-been-everywhere-110300">Warren Mundine</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/unleashed-latham-too-opinionated-even-for-an-increasingly-opinionated-sky-75415">Mark Latham</a>. He remains a strong critic of modern materialism and growth mania, and an advocate of radical climate action. Most of all, he is still a seeker in search of meaning.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/final-2022-election-results-coalition-routed-in-cities-and-in-western-australia-can-they-recover-in-2025-184755">2022 federal election</a> provides a real-world coda to Provocateur. Hamilton has had a long association with the Greens. But his sensibility seems a poor fit for Adam Bandt’s social democracy. </p>
<p>In many aspects, this book speaks more to <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-the-end-of-the-two-party-system-in-australia-the-greens-teals-and-others-shock-the-major-parties-182672">the “teals”</a>. Not to their Turnbullite MPs, but to the army who impelled them to victory: the moral middle-class, Boomer and millennial, precariat and retired, rich and poor. Provocateur will need a sequel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donated to the campaign of a Labor candidate in the 2022 federal election. </span></em></p>Clive Hamilton’s memoir of 40 years in activism is most of all a narrative of ideas in action. He argues for the power of provocation – and against the left, the right and China.Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1853592022-09-02T12:22:39Z2022-09-02T12:22:39ZWhy is ‘Blonde’ – Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe biopic – rated NC-17 instead of TV-MA?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482316/original/file-20220901-4885-xoq2gz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=283%2C7%2C1939%2C1285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The film reportedly includes a graphic rape scene.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/marilyn-monroe-biopic-blonde-coming-to-netflix-in-september-2022.webp">Netflix</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The NC-17 rating has <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-xpm-2013-oct-25-la-et-ct-blue-is-the-warmest-color-nc17-20131023-story.html">historically</a> been a film certification that’s bad for business due to its adults-only label and pornographic stigma.</p>
<p>Yet Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe biopic, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655389/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Blonde</a>,” will carry the rating – a first for the company. On Sept. 28, 2022, it will debut on its streaming platform, following a Venice Film Festival premiere. </p>
<p>Based on Joyce Carol Oates’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/joyce-carol-oatess-blonde-is-the-definitive-study-of-american-celebrity">2000 book</a> and starring <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2022/02/blonde-nc-17-ratings-rumor-untrue-ana-de-armas-1234698562">Ana de Armas</a>, the film reportedly includes a <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2022/02/blonde-nc-17-ratings-rumor-untrue-ana-de-armas-1234698562/">graphic rape scene</a> and a <a href="https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/marilyn-monroe-movie-blonde-create-controversy-says-ana-de-armas-exclusive">vaginal point-of-view shot</a> in its treatment of the Hollywood icon’s life and career. </p>
<p><a href="https://search.asu.edu/profile/1250151">I study the rating system</a> and am the author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Truth-Hollywood-Doesnt-X-rated/dp/0813540895">The Naked Truth: Why Hollywood Doesn’t Make X-Rated Movies</a>.” </p>
<p>Movies carrying the NC-17 rating were often difficult to screen and promote, as they were locked out of some movie theater chains and traditional advertising. The critically acclaimed, sexually graphic “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-xpm-2013-oct-25-la-et-ct-blue-is-the-warmest-color-nc17-20131023-story.html">Blue is the Warmest Color</a>” in 2013 was the last serious film released with the rating. Despite making over $2.2 million on 142 screens, its relative success as an NC-17 film didn’t fuel the production of any more movies like it.</p>
<p>So why would Netflix resurrect a rarely used, contentious, and restrictive NC-17 for “Blonde”? Netflix’s 2020 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9196192/">Cuties</a>,” which caused <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/11/21431174/cancel-netflix-cuties-movie-maimouna-doucoure-backlash-petition">a PR crisis</a> over the perceived hypersexualization of young girls, now has a “TV-MA” rating on the streaming service. Why wouldn’t the company simply use the same rating for “Blonde”?</p>
<h2>From ‘X’ to ‘NC-17’</h2>
<p>The NC-17 is one of five ratings – the others are G, PG, PG-13 and R – that the <a href="https://www.motionpictures.org/film-ratings/">Classification and Rating Administration</a>, a division of the <a href="https://www.motionpictures.org/">Motion Picture Association</a>, assigns to films submitted for certification.</p>
<p>NC-17 means “No one 17 and under admitted.” This classification prevents children from purchasing a ticket or entering a theater, even if accompanied by an adult. It replaced the X rating in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/27/movies/a-no-children-category-to-replace-the-x-rating.html">1990</a>, which had been the adults-only marker since Motion Picture Association of America President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/movies/27valenti.html">Jack Valenti created the rating system in 1968</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Yellow 'Deep Throat' movie poster with woman in various poses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482341/original/file-20220901-809-tyxg2s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Even though the ‘X’ rating could simply acknowledge excessive violence or drug use, it came to be largely associated with pornographic films.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://picryl.com/media/deep-throat-poster-2-b7e0cd">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>However, Valenti’s failure to copyright the X made it possible for any film to carry the adults-only rating without its distributor having to officially pay the Classification and Rating Administration for certification. This allowed filmmakers to slap it on pornographic films like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068468/">Deep Throat</a>” to attract viewers and to gain access to the legitimate marketplace. </p>
<p>While the X rating could be also assigned for representations of nudity, violence, language, drug use or overall “tone,” this association with hardcore sexual content stigmatized the category’s use by serious filmmakers for years.</p>
<p>Valenti hoped renaming the X rating as NC-17 would spur the adults-only rating’s use by the film industry. For the most part, it didn’t, with a few notable exceptions like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114436/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Showgirls</a>” (1995), “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275491/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_5">Bad Education</a>” (2004) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723811/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Shame</a>” (2011).</p>
<p>Instead, practically all distributors whose films were initially awarded an NC-17 by the Classification and Rating Administration chose one of three options: to re-edit their films down to an R rating, to release an R-rated and unrated version for home video or DVD, or simply to surrender the rating altogether and release the film theatrically without one.</p>
<p>It was commonly believed that an unrated film would encounter <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1350195#metadata_info_tab_contents">fewer barriers</a> to exhibition in the U.S. marketplace than an NC-17 one.</p>
<h2>An eye toward awards season</h2>
<p>Netflix, though, is not a movie theater. It is a streaming service that requires no admittance in the traditional sense, has no employees patrolling its screenings for underage viewers, and shifts the responsibility of denying access to its content to subscribers themselves. Netflix offers <a href="https://help.netflix.com/en/node/264">parental controls</a> so users can restrict access to certain content for each profile in their accounts.</p>
<p>Significantly, many Netflix films with mature content carry a “TV-MA” rating. The <a href="http://www.tvguidelines.org/">TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board</a> developed the designation, meaning “For mature audiences. May not be suitable for ages 17 and under.” It’s recognizable to viewers of television series like AMC’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3032476/">Better Call Saul</a>,” FX’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15892444/">American Horror Story</a>” or even Netflix’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5071412/">Ozark</a>.”</p>
<p>So why wouldn’t Netflix apply a maturity rating from television to “Blonde”?</p>
<p>The answer is simple: Netflix likely sees the film as an Oscar contender. </p>
<p>Per the <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/oscars-2023-theatrical-release-other-rule-changes-1235149530/">Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ rules</a>, to qualify for the Academy Awards, “Blonde” must have a theatrical run, even if that run is extremely short. <a href="https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/netflix-mpaa-1203114133/">In 2019</a>, Netflix joined the Motion Picture Association – the first and only streaming service to do so. So if it decides to release its films theatrically, Netflix must do so with a rating, just like the legacy member companies: Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros.</p>
<p>With its TV-MA-rated “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80195049">Ibiza: Love Drunk</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9196192/">Cuties</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10886166/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">365 Days</a>,” Netflix never carried a Motion Picture Association rating because these films bypassed theatrical exhibition altogether in the United States.</p>
<h2>Making the media rounds</h2>
<p>Netflix undoubtedly is also using the NC-17 for “Blonde” as a marketing ploy – what film scholar Justin Wyatt has called “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Hollywood-Cinema/NEALE-Smith/p/book/9780415170109">marketing controversy</a>,” a technique used in the past to sell films that received an X or NC-17.</p>
<p>Netflix has remained mum on the subject. Instead, “Blonde” director Andrew Dominik and star de Armas have dropped hints to the media about the film’s provocative and sensationalist aspects, while, at the same time, expressing incredulity at the film’s NC-17 rating.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man in sunglasses smoking cigarette buttons suit jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482344/original/file-20220901-4639-moo0s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Blonde’ director Andrew Dominik.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/director-andrew-dominik-attends-the-65-cannes-film-festival-news-photo/145011596?adppopup=true">Danny Martindale/FilmMagic via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>“I was surprised,” Dominik <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/andrew-dominik-on-blonde-and-filming-nick-caves-grief.html">told Vulture</a>. “I thought we’d colored inside the lines.” De Armas said largely the same in an interview for French fashion magazine <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/ana-de-armas-movies-marilyn-monroe-blonde-netflix">L’Officiel</a>. “I didn’t understand why [the rating] happened.”</p>
<p>Nearly in the same proverbial breath, both director and star have also teased the salaciousness of the subject matter. </p>
<p>“It’s an NC-17 movie about Marilyn Monroe, it’s kind of what you want, right?” <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/andrew-dominik-on-blonde-and-filming-nick-caves-grief.html?utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=vulture&utm_medium=s1">Dominik told Screen Daily</a>. “I want to go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story.” </p>
<p>De Armas, meanwhile, supports Dominik’s unfiltered look at Monroe’s life, <a href="https://netflixqueue.com/blonde-first-look">declaring it</a> “the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen.”</p>
<h2>‘A little steam to keep the stream’</h2>
<p>I wonder, though: Is “Blonde’s” NC-17 really much of a selling point, given what viewers are regularly exposed to in their living rooms? </p>
<p>In a streaming landscape littered with sexually explicit TV-MA television series like HBO’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8772296/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1">Euphoria</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11198330/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">House of the Dragon</a>,” Hulu’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-prosthetic-penises-in-shows-like-hbos-minx-reinforce-existing-stereotypes-and-taboos-179084">Minx</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13659418/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1">Pam & Tommy</a>,” and even Netflix’s own “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10839422/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Sex/Life</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21030224/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">How to Build a Sex Room</a>,” it shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>Dominik indirectly, but perhaps correctly, undercut his own film’s luridness, <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/features/andrew-dominik-on-his-new-nick-cave-doc-why-blonde-is-a-masterpiece/5167609.article">telling Screen Daily</a>, “If I look at an episode of ‘Euphoria,’ it’s far more graphic than anything going on in ‘Blonde.’” De Armas echoed the same talking points later <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/ana-de-armas-movies-marilyn-monroe-blonde-netflix">in her L’Officiel interview</a>: “I can tell you a number of shows or movies that are way more explicit with a lot more sexual content than ‘Blonde.’”</p>
<p>This new wave of sexually frank and progressive series, <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/streaming-shows-sex-positive-how-to-build-a-sex-room-1235344021/">according to Variety television writer Joe Otterson</a>, may be one strategy that streaming companies are using to keep subscribers enthralled in an increasingly competitive marketplace. “It might take a little steam to keep the stream,” Otterson writes.</p>
<p>“Blonde” – NC-17, TV-MA or unrated – is just another provocative addition to this pot.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘Blonde.’</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185359/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Sandler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Movies carrying the NC-17 rating have traditionally been difficult to screen and promote, as they were locked out of some movie theater chains and traditional advertising.Kevin Sandler, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884992022-08-18T15:50:12Z2022-08-18T15:50:12ZWhat Netflix documentary The Most Hated Man on the Internet gets right (and wrong) about ‘revenge porn’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479640/original/file-20220817-26-nj31a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C6%2C4459%2C2984&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tired-exhausted-young-woman-hides-eyes-1051317908">Aleksey Boyko/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The most hated man on the internet, according to a new Netflix docuseries, is Hunter Moore. The <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hunter-moore-revenge-porn-ruling">convicted criminal</a> and self-described “professional life ruiner” Moore enabled the non-consensual distribution of thousands of private images by founding “revenge porn” website Is Anyone Up?.</p>
<p>The documentary captures what revenge porn is, how it is carried out and how traumatic it can be for victims. The women in the series were not stereotyped as being <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0004865814524218">naïve</a> or at fault, as they often are in media coverage. The series showed how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqw033">the thousands of people who share the image</a> play a role in revenge porn, not just the first person to upload them. </p>
<p>As a former probation officer, I’m interested in how society views sexual crime, and how we <a href="https://theconversation.com/sarah-everard-we-still-treat-indecent-exposure-as-merely-a-nuisance-offence-169064">treat women</a> who are victims. The docuseries could have gone further by talking about brave women as victims of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0004865814524218">gender-based violence</a>, not just “revenge porn”.</p>
<p>This term overlooks that private images shared without consent are not always actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqw033">pornographic</a>. It also <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ojls/article/37/3/534/2965256">blames the victim</a>, because it suggests they did something to deserve revenge. While I’ve used it above as most readers will be familiar with the term, for the rest of the article I will talk instead about image-based sexual abuse. </p>
<p>The series doesn’t make especially clear that it is normal to take and send images of yourself as part of <a href="https://www.insider.com/revenge-porn-victims-and-the-law-2019-12">sexual self-expression</a>, but when someone shares them without consent, it can be <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-wales-police-data-refuge-b2080235.html">a form of domestic abuse</a>. The internet is saturated with such images. There are now over <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/law/research/bham-law-spotlight-IBSA.pdf">3,000 websites</a> dedicated to image-based sexual abuse, and reports to the government’s revenge porn helpline are <a href="https://saferinternet.org.uk/blog/revenge-porn-helpline-report-2021">increasing</a> year on year.</p>
<p>Victims of revenge porn become <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/22/theres-no-end-and-no-escape-you-feel-so-so-exposed-life-as-a-victim-of-revenge-porn">isolated</a> and frightened of what others think of them. Because of this, many experience mental health issues including <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1557085116654565">PTSD and depression</a>. </p>
<p>As the docuseries showed, victims are usually female. Data from early 2022 shows that in the UK, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1319889/uk-victims-of-intimate-image-abuse-by-age-and-gender/">81%</a> were. Their images are generally shared without their permission <a href="https://revengepornhelpline.org.uk/assets/documents/intimate-image-abuse-an-evolving-landscape.pdf?_=1639471939">by men</a>, though not usually those who hack into their accounts. Most image-based sexual abuse is perpetrated by <a href="https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/newsroom/revenge-porn-nearly-doubled-in-just-two-years/">ex-partners</a>.</p>
<p>Many people imagine an angry ex-partner commits this crime for retaliation after an unwanted break-up. However, this is not always the case. A 2021 study of over 2,000 British people conducted by the law firm Slater & Gordon found some men wanted to <a href="https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/newsroom/revenge-porn-nearly-doubled-in-just-two-years/">scare their victim</a>. Others thought it was “a laugh”, an attitude shared by the perpetrators in the Netflix documentary. </p>
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<p>We live in a society where <a href="https://theconversation.com/stopping-violence-against-women-starts-with-learning-what-misogyny-really-is-175411">misogyny and male entitlement</a> leads to violence against women and girls. “Upskirting” and images of breastfeeding taken <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/law/research/bham-law-spotlight-IBSA.pdf">without consent</a> are also forms of sexual abuse, and evidence of the sexual harm caused to women in our society. A 2017 study found that the impact on victims of this kind of sexual abuse is <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10691-017-9343-2.pdf">similar</a> to that of sexual assault. On this basis, many campaigners and researchers argue it should be a specific <a href="https://www.qredible.co.uk/b/revenge-porn-sex-crime/">sexual crime</a>. </p>
<h2>What the series doesn’t cover</h2>
<p>The Most Hated Man on the Internet series gave a sense of what was happening in the US, but not in the UK. To tackle this crime, the UK government is trying to regulate the internet. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/online-safety-law-to-be-strengthened-to-stamp-out-illegal-content">online safety bill</a> proposes forcing internet providers to be more proactive in removing image-based sexual abuse, rather than waiting for victims to report it.</p>
<p>In England and Wales, “revenge porn” became a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37278264">specific offence</a> in 2015, with a penalty of up to two years in prison. The threat of sharing non-consensual private images became <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-bill-2020-factsheets/threats-to-disclose-private-sexual-photographs-and-films">illegal in 2021</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-public-sexual-harassment-a-crime-could-help-increase-reports-but-can-women-trust-police-to-follow-through-187722">Making public sexual harassment a crime could help increase reports – but can women trust police to follow through?</a>
</strong>
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<p>Even with these laws, victims are understandably reluctant to speak to police. This isn’t helped when police officers <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0886260518760011">don’t have enough training or understanding</a> about these experiences. Some officers have <a href="https://www.insider.com/revenge-porn-victims-and-the-law-2019-12">blamed women</a> for being victims of image-based sexual abuse. Currently, only <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-wales-police-data-refuge-b2080235.html">a fraction of police reports</a> of image-based sexual abuse lead to a charge or summons to court.</p>
<p>When victims do report, one third of them don’t pursue a charge because they cannot be guaranteed anonymity in a “communications offence”. If image-based sexual abuse was a sexual offence, then victims would have to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revenge-porn-sexual-offence-victims-anonymous-campaigners-say-a8920496.html">be kept anonymous</a>.</p>
<h2>Victim support</h2>
<p>Another thing the docuseries showed was the importance of family support, both for the victim on an emotional level, and in seeking justice. The highlight of the series, for me, was Charlotte Laws, the mother of one of Moore’s victims. She campaigned against his website, and didn’t stop once her daughter’s image were taken down. She supported other victims and <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documentaries/true-crime/charlotte-laws-most-hated-man-internet/">the FBI</a> in a fight for justice against Hunter Moore. </p>
<p>Victims of image-based sexual abuse clearly need support, but not all have someone like Charlotte. Destiny Benedict, another of Moore’s victims, has since discussed how <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/07/29/most-hated-man-on-the-internet-hunter-moore/">vulnerable</a> and isolated she felt during her experience. The docuseries portrays Moore manipulating Benedict into sending him more content so he would remove photos of her children from his website.</p>
<p>The UK government has recently <a href="https://swgfl.org.uk/magazine/revenge-porn-helpline-flagged-for-additional-funding-under-the-new-violence-against-women-and-girls-strategy/">increased funding</a> for the Revenge Porn Helpline. The helpline is a place for people to report being a victim, but also a source of support which helps take images down. </p>
<p>The Most Hated Man on the Internet has drawn important attention to this issue, but there is more we can all do to support victims of revenge porn, starting with recognising it for the abuse it is.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>If you have been a victim or want help supporting someone who has, please contact the <a href="https://revengepornhelpline.org.uk/">Revenge Porn Helpline</a> or the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-abuse-how-to-get-help">National Domestic Violence helpline</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Grant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Campaigners argue that victims of ‘revenge porn’ need to be acknowledged as victims of sexual abuse.Jennifer Grant, Teaching Fellow, Community Justice, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837882022-06-14T12:30:08Z2022-06-14T12:30:08ZTumblr’s enduring appeal reveals the potency of the web’s cultural memory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468558/original/file-20220613-26-bds824.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C29%2C4820%2C3270&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Since its inception in 2007, Tumblr has served as a countercultural hub.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-the-tumblr-logo-seen-displayed-news-photo/1230550547?adppopup=true">Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When tech billionaire Elon Musk made a deal to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/25/1094671225/elon-musk-bought-twitter-plans">acquire Twitter in April 2022</a>, many Twitter users threatened to <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/04/27/twitter-mass-user-swings-musk-buyout-people-deleting-adding-accounts/">shut down their accounts</a> and migrate elsewhere online.</p>
<p>Tumblr – a microblogging platform launched in 2007 long known as a laboratory for <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-tumblr-taught-social-justice-to-a-generation-of-teenagers">social justice causes</a> and burgeoning fan cultures – became one contender. </p>
<p>However, many Twitter users proposing a migration to Tumblr seemed to be those <a href="https://twitter.com/BREAKDOWNMAMI/status/1518987368455356420">who had abandoned the site only a few years prior</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1518987368455356420"}"></div></p>
<p>In 2018, Tumblr content deemed sexually explicit – or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nsfw-means">NSFW</a> – was banned. The controversial policy led to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0163443720968461">mass exodus</a> from the site, the so-called <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/search/tumblr%20apocalypse">Tumblr apocalypse</a>.</p>
<p>Both as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444821996715">a communication researcher</a> and early era user of Tumblr, I’ve contemplated the site’s unique place in internet culture. And in the years following the NSFW ban, I’ve seen many try to make sense of Tumblr as a platform on <a href="https://thehustle.co/01202022-tumblr/">the</a> <a href="https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/internet/could-euphoria-cause-tumblr-resurgence">cusp</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/02/tumblr-internet-legacy-survival/621419/">of</a> <a href="https://qz.com/emails/quartz-company/2139456/tumblr-making-comeback/">a</a> <a href="https://www.mediaupdate.co.za/social/151662/the-comeback-of-tumblr-everything-you-need-to-know">comeback</a> or a vestige of <a href="https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/tumblr-renaissance/">a</a> <a href="https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-adult-content-ban">bygone</a> <a href="https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-mistakes-tiktok-teen-creators">era</a>.</p>
<p>And yet, long overshadowed by social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat, Tumblr continues to resist easy answers to what it is and could be.</p>
<h2>From ‘blue hellsite’ to hell in a handbasket</h2>
<p>Since its inception, Tumblr has served as a countercultural hub for women, queer folks, young people and marginalized communities. At the same time, it has long dealt with issues such as recurrent bugs and functionality problems, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/3da838/an-attempted-suicide-forced-a-tumblr-community-to-open-its-eyes-about-bullying">bullying</a>, <a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/nazis-on-tumblr-are-attempting-to-make-white-supremacy-hip">hate speech</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/tumblr-has-cutting-and-anorexia-and-bulimia-problem/331358/">the glorification of self-harm</a>, leading some users to term it the “blue hellsite.” </p>
<p>In spite of that, Tumblr remains a home to art, fandom, memes and social critique. This is partly due to the flexibility of the main user interfaces. Both the individualized blogs and real-time feeds display an array of original and <a href="https://help.tumblr.com/hc/en-us/articles/231236387-Reblogs">re-blogged</a> media, ranging from written posts to videos. In allotting greater control over how users presented themselves online – through, for example, <a href="https://help.tumblr.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001572547-Getting-Started-on-Tumblr">pseudonymity</a> and relaxed content moderation – Tumblr stood out as a bastion for <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/founder-stories-why-david-karp-started-tumblr-blogs-dont-work-for-most-people/?guccounter=1">creative expression</a>.</p>
<p>This approach contributed to its <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/1113/tumblrs-explosive-growth/">explosive growth</a>, which crested in <a href="https://financesonline.com/number-of-tumblr-blogs/">2013 and 2014</a> when Tumblr claimed <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/people-spend-more-time-on-tumblr-than-on-twitter-or-facebook-ceo-brags/">users spent more time on the site than Facebook and Twitter</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two smiling men sit in front of a screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468556/original/file-20220613-24-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tumblr founder David Karp meets with President Barack Obama in 2014 at a high point for the social media platform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-speaks-during-an-event-on-the-news-photo/450398894?adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Such openness also facilitated the rise in NSFW content that became a core part of Tumblr’s identity. For the user base, access to queer, feminist and alternative representations of sex and sexuality was meaningful, leading to self-exploration and community building for vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ youth. And for those who produced their own NSFW content, Tumblr’s leniency <a href="https://jezebel.com/i-m-hoping-it-won-t-decimate-my-income-tumblrs-porn-ba-1830879496">meant</a> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tumblr-sex-workers-nsfw-artists-lose_n_5c0714fbe4b0fc236111037e">income</a>. </p>
<p>The embrace of NSFW content – <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/5/18126451/tumblr-porn-social-media-ban">a rarity for social media platforms </a> – was even endorsed by its founder David Karp, who once characterized Tumblr as “<a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tumbling-on-success">an excellent platform for porn</a>.” </p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/20/technology/yahoo-buys-tumblr/index.html">after Yahoo acquired Tumblr</a>, there was concern that the platform would tighten its content policies. However, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer promised Tumblr users <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tumblr-yahoo-idUSBRE94I0C120130520">that little would change</a>.</p>
<p>Events that followed, however, would transform Tumblr.</p>
<p>First, in 2017, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/13/verizon-completes-yahoo-acquisition-marissa-mayer-resigns.html">Verizon Communications bought Yahoo</a>. Later that year, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/11/27/16706032/tumblr-david-karp-leaves-ceo-yahoo-oath">Karp left the company</a>. Then, in early 2018, a federal law called <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/13/17172762/fosta-sesta-backpage-230-internet-freedom">FOSTA-SESTA</a> passed, which made website operators like Verizon liable for sex trafficking or sex work carried out on their platforms. That November, Apple Store <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-child-pornography-removed-from-app-store">removed the Tumblr app</a> after child sexual abuse material was found on the site. Weeks later, Tumblr announced a ban on NSFW content that went into effect on Dec. 17, 2018.</p>
<p>But that same month, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-porn-ban-verizon-ad-goals-sex-work-fandom">Vox reported</a> that the NSFW ban was underway well before the Apple Store controversy. The objective: to sell more ads.</p>
<p>Tumblr’s various parent companies have long tried to monetize a platform <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/magazine/can-tumblrs-david-karp-embrace-ads-without-selling-out.html">historically resistant to traditional advertising</a>. The ban became a way to attract companies hesitant to advertise alongside pornography. </p>
<p>This move was transparent to many Tumblr users, who claimed that Verizon was repackaging its profit motive as a crusade to protect children.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444821996715">I’ve researched how</a>, in response to the NSFW ban, pockets of resistance emerged, ranging from <a href="https://logoffprotest.tumblr.com/post/181154543489/logoffprotest-logoffprotest-dbdspirit-the">boycotts</a> and <a href="https://www.change.org/p/tumblr-stop-the-december-17th-tumblr-nsfw-ban">petitions</a> to scathing critiques and <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/tumblr-dead-twitter-mourning-memes/">memes</a>. The policy, at its core, was a battleground for a deeper power struggle between platform owners and users. </p>
<p>The disconnect between how the two sides envisioned the platform ended up being mutually destructive. While Tumblr’s user culture was irreparably damaged, its corporate side also suffered, experiencing <a href="https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-lost-a-third-of-its-users-after-porn-ban">massive drops in site traffic</a>. In 2019, Verizon sold Tumblr to Wordpress’ owner, Automatic, for US$3 million – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/13/tumblr-once-sold-billion-owner-wordpress-just-bought-site-fraction-that/">a fraction of the $1.1 billion Yahoo had paid for it</a>.</p>
<h2>The end or a new beginning?</h2>
<p>While <a href="https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/tumblr-tag-ban/">clashes over site policy</a> persist to this day, I’ve started to see talk about Tumblr’s possible resurgence. </p>
<p>Even before Musk’s Twitter announcement, the platform seemed to be making strides in regaining public interest and relevancy.</p>
<p>There’s been the hype around the <a href="https://draculadaily.substack.com/about">Dracula Daily newsletter</a>, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/dracula-daily-reanimates-the-classic-vampire-novel-for-the-age-of-memes-and-snark-183084">percolated on Tumblr</a> in May 2022. Fan cultures for newer shows like “<a href="https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/internet/could-euphoria-cause-tumblr-resurgence">Euphoria</a>” and “<a href="https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/succession*?sort=top">Succession</a>” have also flourished on the site. And in meme culture, “<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/12/11/20991671/memes-decade-doge-baby-yoda">Tumblr humor</a>” – typified by a dry, absurdist and self-deprecatory wit – continues to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@diseasedisorder/video/7092488402880318762">circulate</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jelIyjar/status/1221846975437426689">widely</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahmarder/25-times-tumblr-was-ridiculously-weird-about-animals">online</a>. </p>
<p>But Tumblr’s “resurrection” seems to rely primarily on <a href="https://partner.studentbeans.com/blog/gen-z-trends/gen-zs-nostalgia/">a youth culture in the grips of nostalgia</a> for the early 2010s. What has been termed <a href="https://www.nylon.com/life/2014-tumblr-nostalgia-tiktok">Tumblrcore</a> – a 2010s subculture with a particular media taste, internet experience and soft grunge style – is a recent addition to the trend. Its renewed popularity was affirmed earlier this year with <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/2014-tumblr-girl-aesthetic">Vogue’s coverage</a> of the “2014 Tumblr Girl aesthetic.” </p>
<p>Tumblr, then, like the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-twitter-shutdown">defunct video sharing platform Vine</a>, has become a touchpoint <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/how-tumblr-became-popular-for-being-obsolete">for young people </a> who grew up on the internet and have emotional ties to its cultural history. As companies like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/home/facebook-wants-to-bring-back-young-adults-on-its-platform-but-they-say-theres-nothing-much-it-can-do-to-win-them/articleshow/90206539.cms#:%7E:text=It%20has%20lost%202.7%25%20of,been%20on%20a%20steady%20decline.">Facebook struggle</a> with the Gen Z demographic, Tumblr has, for some of them, emerged as an attractive “vintage” alternative – comparable to <a href="https://www.insidehook.com/article/internet/why-are-young-people-using-disposable-cameras">the return of disposable cameras</a> among young people. </p>
<h2>The TikTok roadblock</h2>
<p>But alongside these glimmers of regeneration, Tumblr faces two key obstacles.</p>
<p>The first is the ascent of TikTok. Though also <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines?lang=en">prohibiting NSFW content</a>, TikTok has imported many of Tumblr’s cultural features – from discourses around <a href="https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/originals/its-here-and-queer-how-tiktok-became-the-gen-z-tool-of-lgbtq-education/">sexuality</a> and <a href="https://www.marketingdive.com/news/tiktok-helps-gen-z-learn-about-social-justice-issues-study-finds/582916/">social justice</a> to the promotion of <a href="https://gritdaily.com/tiktok-eating-disorders/">pro-anorexia content</a> and <a href="https://youthopia.sg/read/cyberbullying-on-tiktok-is-a-major-issue/">bullying</a>. With TikTok as the beating heart of online youth culture, Tumblr is pushed further to its edges.</p>
<p>The second is Tumblr itself. While fighting to increase site traffic and <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/tumblr-monetization-post-fanfic/">earn ad revenue without driving users away</a>, the NSFW ban, like a vengeful spirit, continues to haunt Tumblr. One need only look at responses to <a href="https://twitter.com/tumblr/status/1518696182050004993">Tumblr’s</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tumblr/status/1518727409213734912">tweets</a> in the wake of Musk’s acquisition announcement. Representing the loss of once-prized community values, the ban, for many, became an emblem of the broken <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/rebecca-mackinnon/consent-of-the-networked/9780465063758/">social contract</a> between users and ownership.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1518780382929297408"}"></div></p>
<p>And so contradictory forces shape Tumblr’s standing. On the one hand, the memory of Tumblr keeps it alive in popular culture. At the same time, the underbelly of this memory – the part consumed by unresolved wrongs and resentments – seems to stop short any growth that could lead to a true renaissance. </p>
<h2>Beyond platform ‘life’ and ‘death’</h2>
<p>The peculiar case of Tumblr shows how classifying platforms as dead, dying or alive can be limiting. Such a frame often operates according to a capitalist logic in which “growth” means life and “stagnation” signals death.</p>
<p>Dwelling somewhere in between surge and stasis, Tumblr serves as a reminder that platforms are not just profit-driven businesses but gathering places with rhythms and cycles of their own. They are also cultural artifacts that, in moving through the collective imagination, take on different shapes and functions. </p>
<p>Attention to the in-between reveals a more complex relationship between users, platforms and owners. It is here the savviness of social media users is on display. Though platform owners wield unilateral power and control, users are increasingly equipped with an arsenal of resistance tactics, including exodus or migration. The rise of this untethered user – one who takes a nomadic approach to digital life – may pose an unexpected threat to digital intermediaries. </p>
<p>Tumblr is a case in point. And yet, in its new phase of existence, it remains a vibrant space for communication, culture and laughs. Its home at the margins should instead push us to imagine an internet free from the belief that bigger is always better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeanna Sybert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite a mass exodus of users in 2018, Tumblr continues to be a place that fosters fandom and subcultures. Now, Gen Zers searching for a dose of early-2010s internet nostalgia are signing up.Jeanna Sybert, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759302022-02-15T02:27:32Z2022-02-15T02:27:32ZA third of surveyed Australians say the internet is good for their sex lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446201/original/file-20220214-108557-16ac9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Discussions about online sex often make it sound like the “dark side” of the internet.</p>
<p>We hear so much about risks and dangers such as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/06/i-have-moments-of-shame-i-cant-control-the-lives-ruined-by-explicit-collector-culture">revenge porn</a>”, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/online-romance-scams-victimise-non-english-speakers-cause-heartbreak-financial-fraud">dating scams</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-16/billie-eilish-speaks-out-porn-exposure/100704588">porn addiction</a> and early exposure to sex.</p>
<p>But this isn’t the whole story. Our new study looks at how Australians use technology in their sex lives and the many benefits of this. </p>
<h2>A regular part of life</h2>
<p>We recently conducted <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/SH/justaccepted/SH21220">a survey of Australian adults</a> (ages 18 years or older). The study involved 445 people, with an average age of 42. More than half were women (58.5%), and 61% identified as heterosexual.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man texting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446202/original/file-20220214-27-124js8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sending sexual texts and using apps to find partners have become common practice, particularly among younger people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found digital media was a common part of people’s sex lives.</p>
<ul>
<li>60% had watched porn online </li>
<li>35% had used dating apps</li>
<li>34% had sent sexual texts or naked selfies to another person.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Better connections</h2>
<p>People also reported how digital technology benefited their sex lives and relationships. </p>
<ul>
<li>38% felt more emotionally connected to their partners </li>
<li>27% felt more sexually connected with their partners </li>
<li>31% said they found it sexually gratifying to share or receive sexual text messages with someone they met online.</li>
</ul>
<p>Others reported using the internet to find information about relationships or sexual health.</p>
<ul>
<li>54% said information they found online had helped them feel more comfortable about sex</li>
<li>49% said the internet had enabled them to explore new or different sexual cultures.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Yes, there are risks</h2>
<p>That being said, while reporting many benefits, participants were also aware of risks of sexual activity or communication online.</p>
<ul>
<li>59% agreed sharing naked or explicit images or videos could cause them embarrassment</li>
<li>51% agreed online sexual engagement could cause them problems in the workplace</li>
<li>51% were worried their search history could be seen by others if they searched for pornography</li>
<li>24% were worried about providing personal contact details when shopping for sex products online.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What is happening in Australia?</h2>
<p>In 2021, federal parliament passed the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021A00076">Online Safety Act</a>, expanding the eSafety Commissioner’s powers to combat cyberbullying and image-based abuse.</p>
<p>The commissioner can now demand that social media services, hosting services providers and individuals remove online material deemed to be <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-is-serious-online-abuse#find-out-if-esafety-can-investigate">harmful, dangerous or abusive</a> within as little as 24 hours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Blurred photo of person watching porn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446203/original/file-20220214-97814-10slfk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New federal laws are aimed at making the internet safer, but experts fear there will be unintended consequences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is an important step in improving digital safety given the global, unregulated nature of the internet. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F2fcd0904-5562-433d-b91e-861dafbce4f6%2F0211%22">there are serious concerns</a> these expanded powers will lead to restrictive acts, prohibiting consensual online sexual activity or information. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-online-safety-bill-could-allow-censorship-of-anyone-who-engages-with-sexual-content-on-the-internet-154739">A new online safety bill could allow censorship of anyone who engages with sexual content on the internet</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>LGBTQIA+ and other sexual or kink communities face a censorship <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-online-safety-bill-could-allow-censorship-of-anyone-who-engages-with-sexual-content-on-the-internet-154739">risk</a>, while <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/15/now-we-dont-have-a-safe-place-sex-workers-social-media-site-switter-shuts-down-amid-legal-fears?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">sex workers’ livelihoods are also at greater risk</a>, particularly as so much sex work <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/02/fears-online-safety-law-could-censor-all-adult-content-and-force-sex-workers-off-internet?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">shifted online</a> during COVID. </p>
<p>It could also make <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/06/23/parties-unite-to-deliver-greater-internet-censorship-powers-to-government-appointed-official/">safe sex education material</a> more difficult to access. </p>
<p>Current eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/02/fears-online-safety-law-could-censor-all-adult-content-and-force-sex-workers-off-internet?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">says</a> she will use the new powers to target child exploitation material and is not interested in policing the sexual interests of consenting adults. Nevertheless, the potential exists for such assurances to shift over time, or as a new appointee fills the position. </p>
<h2>Why does this matter?</h2>
<p>Decades of research show sexual health education <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305320">is most effective</a> if it teaches sex should be pleasurable. </p>
<p>Messages that focus on abstinence or disease and problems <a href="https://meridian.allenpress.com/her/article-abstract/76/3/297/31877/Sexuality-Education-and-Desire-Still-Missing-after">can undermine</a> people’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-46436-3_10">confidence</a> about pursuing healthy, consensual sexual relationships. </p>
<p>The same can be said for digital sexual literacy. Education about online safety <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_26">will be most effective</a> if discussions about risk occur in the context of sex in the digital world being a broadly <a href="https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4303">positive thing</a>.</p>
<h2>How do we balance risk and pleasure?</h2>
<p>Our findings add to the growing body of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315208589/mediated-intimacies-rikke-andreassen-michael-nebeling-petersen-katherine-harrison-tobias-raun">research</a> that shows how the internet and digital technologies can benefit relationships and sex lives.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/online-sex-parties-and-virtual-reality-porn-can-sex-in-isolation-be-as-fulfilling-as-real-life-134658">Online sex parties and virtual reality porn: can sex in isolation be as fulfilling as real life?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These are places where people explore their sexuality, learn about sex, and engage with diverse communities. It can also be a space to facilitate conversations about consent, safety and sexual health. </p>
<p>Managing digital risk should not be about sanitising the internet but supporting people’s choices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Shackleton receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne-Maree Farrell receives funding from the Australian Research Council, British Academy, Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Power receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Department of Health and Fairer Victoria. She has previously received funds from ViiV Healthcare. </span></em></p>A new study looks at how Australians use technology in their sex lives and the benefits of this.Nicole Shackleton, PhD candidate; Research Officer, Australian Research Centre for Sex Health and Society, La Trobe UniversityAnne-Maree Farrell, Professor of Law and Director of the Mason Institute, University of EdinburghJennifer Power, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1767622022-02-10T15:01:57Z2022-02-10T15:01:57ZWhy age verification is another flawed attempt to regulate online pornography in the UK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445419/original/file-20220209-15-ea7qzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4240%2C2824&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hacker-hacking-into-computer-network-young-1815280703">VALUA STUDIO/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government has announced that its forthcoming <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/world-leading-measures-to-protect-children-from-accessing-pornography-online">online safety bill</a> will require websites that publish pornography to verify users are over 18.</p>
<p>Sites will need to adopt a method of age verification, such as having users provide their passport information. They will likely need to employ a third-party provider to set up and maintain these systems.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1491434230634762242"}"></div></p>
<p>This isn’t the first attempt to restrict access to online pornography in this way in Britain. The government shelved plans for a similar age verification scheme <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/oct/16/uk-drops-plans-for-online-pornography-age-verification-system">in 2019</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no question child safety online is critically important. But if adopted, this move will be yet another piece of legislation to add to a messy patchwork of often flawed UK laws seeking to police pornography.</p>
<p>I’ve done research on the history of pornography in Britain, and particularly its regulation. In short, this has always been a problematic area.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1950s, the pornography business had begun to expand. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/contents">Obscene Publications Act 1959</a> sought to criminalise distributors of pornography, but had the opposite effect. Its ambiguous terminology gave way to loopholes that entrepreneurs exploited, creating <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268743.2018.1489301">a thriving market</a> for illicit goods that were sold in bookshops, via mail-order and exported to Europe in the 1960s and early 1970s.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1970s, there was a shift in the discourse from viewing pornography as an obscene object to questioning its impact and potential harm. A <a href="https://reprobatepress.com/2020/05/30/mary-whitehouse-and-the-nationwide-festival-of-light/">moral panic</a> around pornography ensued, leading to a range of new laws aimed at regulating access.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/42/contents">Indecent Displays (Control) Act 1981</a> and the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/30/contents">Local Government (miscellaneous provisions) Act 1982</a> sought to regulate the growth of sex shops beyond London’s Soho. Their neon-lit displays were replaced by blacked out windows.</p>
<p>Concerns around children’s access to pornography and violent material underpinned the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/39/contents">Video Recordings Act 1984</a>, which was deigned to regulate the new technology of home video.</p>
<p>In 2000, Britain appeared to liberalise its pornography laws <a href="https://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/arloh01.htm">following a review</a> of the British Board of Film Classification R18 certificate. Hardcore pornography could legally be sold in Britain, but under strict control.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-online-porn-crackdown-could-harm-young-people-more-than-it-helps-81213">The UK's online porn crackdown could harm young people more than it helps</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The shift of pornography to cyberspace complicated attempts at regulation further. Concerns around access to harmful pornography online led to the possession of “extreme” pornography being criminalised under the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/4/contents">Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008</a>. </p>
<p>If European countries such as Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden have been relatively relaxed their approach to policing pornography (Denmark was the first country to fully legalise pornography <a href="https://www.thelocal.dk/20190531/denmark-legalized-pornography-50-years-ago-did-the-decision-turn-out-as-expected/">in 1969</a>) Britain’s method has been to introduce a range of messy, overlapping laws. This becomes clear when you look at the <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/obscene-publications">Crown Prosecution Service’s</a> advice for prosecutors to consider a list of 14 laws before deciding whether to pursue an obscenity conviction.</p>
<h2>Perspectives from the industry</h2>
<p>Age verification for pornography was included in the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/contents/enacted">Digital Economy Act 2017</a>. Here, authority was to be given to a government-appointed regulator to impose penalties on websites refusing to adopt age verification, such as fines or ordering internet service providers to block access.</p>
<p>Between 2016 and 2019 I was researching the history of Britain’s pornography business and attending regular meetings of the United Kingdom Adult Performers Network. </p>
<p>Producers and distributors expressed concern about the impact of the Digital Economy Act 2017 on their business, fearing that age verification would dissuade customers from accessing their content. Would you want to visit a porn site if you had to put in your driver’s license details or your passport?</p>
<p>With pornography shifting from a physical to a digital commodity that is freely streamed by video aggregator sites such as Pornhub, small-scale producers viewed the measure as another threat to their dwindling profits.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close-up image of a girl looking at a smartphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445422/original/file-20220209-19-9nzjzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The UK government has revived plans to make pornography websites check users’ age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-holding-her-mobile-phone-watching-1758536315">FarukPhotography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Producers believed that age verification benefited large, powerful companies such as Mindgeek, which owns many of the popular streaming sites and production studios, and was offering to provide age verification services to smaller operators.</p>
<p>Importantly, Britain’s pornography producers and distributors were not opposed to age verification in theory. Indeed, they were concerned about children accessing inappropriate material. Their worry was about how this would work in practice, and the impact it would have on their business.</p>
<p>In the end, in 2019, the Conservative government deemed age verification for pornography websites unworkable and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/oct/16/uk-drops-plans-for-online-pornography-age-verification-system">dropped its plans</a>.</p>
<h2>Now it’s back on the table</h2>
<p>Britain’s renewed commitment to age restriction follows similar moves in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/french-parliament-passes-porn-age-verification-legislation/">France</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/germany-porn-sites-age-checks/">Germany</a>. </p>
<p>Under the online safety bill, power would be afforded to the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom, making it responsible for determining how websites are dealt with if they fail to verify users’ age. Social platforms containing pornographic content, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/09/reddit-and-twitter-users-face-age-checks-under-uk-porn-law-plans?">like Reddit and Twitter</a>, may not be exempt. </p>
<p>Privacy concerns remain, particularly around the potential for leaked data that identifies personal sexual interests.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-government-wants-to-control-porn-viewing-habits-69374">The UK government wants to control porn viewing habits</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We will now wait and see whether the government’s plans for age verification will succeed. But history shows that Britain’s pornography laws have never been fit for purpose. Producers and audiences have always found loopholes to circumvent controls. Some young, tech-savvy users are likely to do the same with this law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oliver Carter receives funding from the British Academy. </span></em></p>The online safety bill will make it mandatory for pornography websites to verify the age of users.Oliver Carter, Reader in Creative Economies, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1693582021-10-19T03:33:52Z2021-10-19T03:33:52ZOnlyFans has a split identity – it needs to declare its support for adult content creators<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427124/original/file-20211019-22-1qkb08h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you heard of OnlyFans? It’s a social media platform – like YouTube or Instagram. </p>
<p>Access isn’t open to everyone, however. Only subscribers (“fans”) can see the photos and videos posted by OnlyFans content creators. Most subscriptions cost around US$10 (A$13.50) a month, with tips as optional extras. </p>
<p>Visiting the OnlyFans <a href="https://onlyfans.com/">homepage</a>, you’re invited to “sign up to support your favourite creators”. The platform <a href="https://onlyfans.com/about.html">describes itself</a> as a place where “creators can monetise their content and interact with their fanbase”. </p>
<p>So, if you’re new to OnlyFans, it may surprise you to learn it is overwhelmingly understood as a site for adult content. The phrase “to start an OnlyFans” is commonly understood to mean someone is selling access to erotic, or sexually explicit, photos and videos of themselves.</p>
<p>Why is there this disconnect? And why is this a problem? </p>
<h2>Studying OnlyFans</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268743.2021.1974927">new article</a> for journal Porn Studies I analysed 100 news articles (from February to December 2020), 100 OnlyFans memes (gathered January 2021), as well as 100 posts to the official OnlyFans blog (from mid-2018 to early 2021). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-the-porntropreneur-even-hustlers-need-side-hustles-in-the-gig-economy-129067">The rise of the ‘porntropreneur’: even hustlers need side hustles in the gig economy</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>These sources represent different perspectives. News articles reflect mainstream understandings. Internet <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/memes-digital-culture">memes</a> – remixed snippets of popular culture – reveal our shared norms and values. Meanwhile, official blog posts can tell us about the image Only Fans is attempting to cultivate. </p>
<p>My study drew on the work of social media scholars Karin van Es and Thomas Poell, who <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120933289">argue</a>, what people think a platform is for matters – they call this the “platform imaginary”. It impacts how people use it: their expectations and experiences. Importantly, it also impacts who thinks the platform is for them.</p>
<h2>A ‘celebrity porn app’?</h2>
<p>My analysis discovered very different ideas about what OnlyFans is for, or a contested “platform imaginary”. </p>
<p>News articles were most likely to call OnlyFans a “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6824131/Jessika-Powers-brother-Rhyce-selling-photos-celebrity-porn-app-15-99-MAFS-fame.html">celebrity porn app</a>”, an “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9074873/Love-Islands-Megan-Barton-Hanson-bares-gets-mould-breasts-vagina.html">X-rated subscription platform</a>”, or “<a href="https://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/gold-coast/how-gold-coast-changed-innocent-girl-tyana-hansen/news-story/4ff979d87ed897968093c6a745b03556">adult entertainment site</a>” for “<a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/real-life/instagram-babe-bullied-looks--21383831">racy snaps</a>”.</p>
<p>In a similar vein, memes about OnlyFans implied the platform was for adult content, with jokes about how easy it is for women to make money by showing off their bodies. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1296861434610159616"}"></div></p>
<p>Other memes <a href="https://memezila.com/When-you-find-out-how-much-they-make-with-onlyfans-meme-6728">include</a> a man taking a photo of his behind, with the tagline, “when you find out how much money they make on OnlyFans”. Another is a <a href="https://funnyjunk.com/Help+plz/rsrkMef/">picture</a> of a serious-looking young man on the phone, captioned, “Me calling customer support when her OnlyFans is just pictures of her in a bikini”.</p>
<p>The memes were especially telling – they didn’t just joke about OnlyFans being a platform for adult content, they also slut-shamed the creators by inferring that selling adult content was degrading. </p>
<h2>Or a place for makeup and workout tips?</h2>
<p>By contrast, 87% of posts to the OnlyFans blog don’t mention adult content at all. </p>
<p>Instead, the blog showcases fitness instructors, beauty experts, photographers, artists, and musicians. One (rare) <a href="https://blog.onlyfans.com/pole-dancers-thrive-on-onlyfans/">post</a> to do this claims the platform will support, and never censor, pole dancers. </p>
<p>This ties in with its <a href="https://onlyfans.com/about.html">official</a> (vague) line that OnlyFans contains “content creators from all genres”. This emphasis is misleading, given OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely created the platform in 2016 <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8561309/How-bankers-son-37-revolutionary-adult-site-OnlyFans-making-millions-lockdown.html">to capitalise</a> on the rising demand for customised porn. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1448652592993603589"}"></div></p>
<p>OnlyFans has thrived during COVID lockdowns. From November 2019 to November 2020, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/06/16/the-shady-secret-history-of-onlyfans-billionaire-owner/?sh=43caa4e55c17">it posted revenues</a> of US$400 million (A$541 million), up 540% over the previous year. Although there is an argument the company needs to “rebrand” to stay profitable. As Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/onlyfans-investors-struggle-9cc92523-6607-40ad-9893-4175e7966b52.html">recently reported</a>, while sexual content makes the site popular, “it also scares off venture capitalists”. </p>
<h2>Profiting from, then banning, explicit content</h2>
<p>In August, OnlyFans announced it was <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/onlyfans-will-prohibit-sexually-explicit-content-starting-in-october/">going to ban</a> sexually explicit content, explaining it must “evolve our content guidelines”,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform, and to continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There was an immediate backlash. Not only was it <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/andriamoore/twitter-reactions-onlyfans-new-ban">ridiculed</a> as nonsensical (a site for adult content that doesn’t allow adult content?), sex workers, porn performers, and adult content creators were outraged about being banned from a site they had helped make famous and profitable. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1428440836837048325"}"></div></p>
<p>The company <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-26/onlyfans-reverses-ban-on-adult-content/100408200">reversed</a> the decision just a week later, after resolving a undisclosed issue with its payment providers. But anger and distrust remains, as now the door is open to OnlyFans banning explicit content in the future. </p>
<h2>Deplatforming sex</h2>
<p>There is also a bigger issue here about maintaining spaces where sex workers are safe and able to do their jobs. </p>
<p>Often debates around “deplatforming” (removing someone’s access to a web site) centre around free speech and whether people like Donald Trump should be allowed a Twitter. But deplatforming is also a serious threat to sex workers and porn producers as part of a “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-02-20/sex-workers-fear-twitter-insta-deplatforming-online-safety-bill/13160850">gentrification</a>” of the internet. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-deplatforming-work-to-curb-hate-speech-and-calls-for-violence-3-experts-in-online-communications-weigh-in-153177">Does 'deplatforming' work to curb hate speech and calls for violence? 3 experts in online communications weigh in</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>There are multiple harms flowing from this. </p>
<p>Banning sex from a particular platform means sexually marginalised people lose somewhere safe to interact. As queer studies scholar Stephen Molldrem <a href="https://www.wussymag.com/all/2018/12/6/tumblrs-decision-to-deplatform-sex-will-harm-sexually-marginalized-people">wrote</a> when microblogging site Tumblr banned porn in 2018: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>many queers, kinksters, people who engage in various kinds of sexual commerce, and transfolk who use the platform […] are going to get shafted by the decision (and not in a good way).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It also <a href="https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Sex-and-Social-Media/?K=9781839094095">cuts off</a> important avenues for sexual experimentation, and education. And <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/onlyfans-creators-appalled-porn-ban-destroys-their-livelihoods-sex-workers-1621480">destroys</a> the livelihoods of those in the adult industry. </p>
<p>Further adding to the uncertainty is the issue of chargebacks – payment providers see sex and porn as <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300233223/new-money">high-risk</a> industries because of the high rate people denying they paid and getting a refund. </p>
<h2>What OnlyFans should do now</h2>
<p>My research shows the split identity of OnlyFans. This is something it will need to resolve going forward (both for itself and its creators). But there’s an opportunity here for OnlyFans to declare its support for sex workers and porn performers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/onlyfans-controversy-highlights-the-bind-facing-most-gig-workers-167101">OnlyFans controversy highlights the bind facing most gig workers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Openly stating adult content creators are welcome, including them prominently on the OnlyFans blog, and proactively working with payment companies to ensure they can profit from their work would set an example. As an aside, <a href="https://fortune.com/2021/08/19/onlyfans-banning-sexual-content/">Fortune notes</a>, going G-rated might help OnlyFans secure investors in the short term, but could cost the business over the long term. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, for those in a stigmatised, precarious industry, a place that cultivates a sense of belonging for adult content creators is a platform worth imagining.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily van der Nagel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows a stark difference between popular ideas about the social media platform and how OnlyFans seeks to present itself.Emily van der Nagel, Lecturer in Social Media, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1630642021-07-04T11:28:18Z2021-07-04T11:28:18ZEradicating sexual exploitation in porn should not be at the expense of sex workers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408945/original/file-20210629-24-1u4rk04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C32%2C5382%2C3333&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Before drafting legislation that seeks to protect sex workers and minors, law-makers should consult with sex workers. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Locher) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conservative MP Arnold Viersen recently introduced <a href="https://parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/bill/C-302/first-reading">Bill C-302</a>, adding two offences to the Canadian Criminal Code regarding pornography: one for making material without written confirmation of performer’s legal age and consent and another for distributing such material. </p>
<p>Curiously, both acts are already illegal. </p>
<p>Canada has some of the most stringent laws in the world around child sexual abuse material and consent to sexual activity. It is <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-37.html#docCont">a federal offence to distribute “intimate images” without a subject’s prior knowledge and consent</a>. Rules are stricter with higher punishment if the material depicts a minor, including fictional characters. </p>
<p>This new bill would not enhance existing measures to curb online sexual abuse. Instead, it vastly increases surveillance of porn workers, a highly stigmatized and overly policed group.</p>
<p>There is absolutely a need to prevent online sexual exploitation, but protective measures must extend to everyone — including porn performers. Laws must be developed with meaningful sex worker consultation. Failure to do so risks exacerbating the violence Viersen claims he is seeking to prevent.</p>
<p>Evidence of dangerous policy is clear in the United States, where 2018 legislation — Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) — have resulted in sex workers’ social media accounts being banned and <a href="https://hackinghustling.org/erased-the-impact-of-fosta-sesta-2020/">entire platforms shut down</a>.</p>
<p>Other restrictions have <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7v33d/sex-workers-what-visa-and-mastercard-dropping-pornhub-means-to-performers">discriminated, delayed and outright cancelled payment processes</a> for legal sex workers. A recent U.S. government accountability office report found these laws made life <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/162823/sex-trafficking-sex-work-sesta-fosta">significantly more dangerous</a> for sex workers, but have only been applied to <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-385">a single trafficking prosecution</a> over three years. </p>
<h2>The problem with ‘written consent’</h2>
<p>Currently in Canada, it is <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-162.1.html">illegal</a> to circulate in any way “an intimate image of a person knowing that the person depicted in the image did not give their consent to that conduct.” Written proof from the person depicted isn’t necessary, ensuring greater privacy for performers. </p>
<p>In contrast, the proposed new bill states that consent “means the voluntary agreement, in writing, of the person whose image is depicted in the pornographic material.” But documentation isn’t voluntary if mandated by law and potentially made public any time a complaint is filed. </p>
<p>Porn studio productions already follow extensive <a href="https://www.freespeechcoalition.com/forms-templates">informed consent</a> and model release documentation processes, similar to other media and performance industry standards.</p>
<p>Nothing in Bill C-302 improves upon those practices. Instead, the expansion of legal powers would be felt most heavily by independent content producers, burdened with having to prove they are not exploiting themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=207%2C172%2C3754%2C2459&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408437/original/file-20210625-9546-1m02sxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Porn studio productions follow extensive informed consent and model release documentation processes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Donald Tong/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such record keeping requirements represent a risk to sex workers who are already stigmatized. <a href="https://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/impact_of_criminalisation_pb_prf01.pdf">Fear of exposure and harassment</a> can lead workers into illegal or quasi-legal activities where they need not provide identifying information to police or government officials, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-021-00576-9">who have demonstrated little concern with their well-being</a>. </p>
<p>As Conservative Sen. <a href="https://ricochet.media/en/265/sex-workers-demand-rights-and-respect-not-draconian-legislation">Don Plett said in 2014</a>: “Of course, we don’t want to make life safe for prostitutes; we want to do away with prostitution.” </p>
<p>Similar sentiments against pornography persist. </p>
<h2>Sex worker testimony an afterthought</h2>
<p>Deeming sex workers either helpless and incompetent — or immoral and obscene — politicians routinely ignore their expertise on the relationship between porn, online platforms and consent violations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/porn-not-to-blame-for-public-health-issues-82116">Porn not to blame for public health issues</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This was clear during the <a href="https://sencanada.ca/en/Content/SEN/Committee/412/lcjc/15ev-51557-e">2014 senate hearings on Bill C-36</a>, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, when sex worker concerns were dismissed by Plett and others. </p>
<p>It happened again in 2016 when <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/89211/motions/8136502">Viersen introduced M-47</a>, a motion for the Standing Committee on Health “to examine the public health effects of the ease of access and viewing of online violent and degrading sexually explicit material on children, women and men.” </p>
<p>Most recently, sex workers were sidelined when Viersen instigated parliamentary committee meetings on “<a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/ETHI/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=11088039">ensuring the protection of privacy and reputation on platforms such as Pornhub</a>.”</p>
<p>Sandra Wesley, director of the Montréal-based sex worker advocacy agency Stella, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7695681/commons-committee-pornhub/">released a statement after their request to speak at those meetings was rebuffed</a>: “The response that I got back is that sex workers are not relevant to this conversation.” Invited to the hearings, however, were <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-evangelical-group-with-trump-ties-waging-war-on-pornhub">American anti-porn activists backed by evangelical Christian organizations</a>.</p>
<p>After mounting a social media campaign, sex worker rights groups were finally included - in the final day of meetings. In <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/ETHI/meeting-31/evidence#Int-11243030">her testimony</a>, Jenn Clamen of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[Sex workers] have been organizing for over 50 years against violence and abuse in the industry. It’s why we started organizing …For this reason, sex workers are best placed to be at the centre of this discussion.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bill C-302 fails to recognize the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-new-definition-of-pornography-with-consent-at-the-centre-111994">high standards of consent</a> established by porn industry professionals and activists. This bill isn’t about consent, but eradicating an undesirable sexual citizen: the sex worker. </p>
<h2>Exploiting consent to harm sexual minorities</h2>
<p>Legal scholar <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Law-and-Consent-Contesting-the-Common-Sense/ORegan/p/book/9780367785635">Karla O’Regan</a> notes, while consent is ostensibly about ensuring personal freedoms, it actually entails “a series of unspoken presumptions about what is normal human behaviour,” such that “the availability of consent hinges on the ‘reasonableness’ of the defendant’s conduct.” </p>
<p>Since what is judged reasonable is contained within laws governing morality, some sexualities and acts are considered <em>fundamentally</em> objectionable, falling outside what groundbreaking sexuality studies scholar <a href="https://sites.middlebury.edu/sexandsociety/files/2015/01/Rubin-Thinking-Sex.pdf">Gayle Rubin</a> called the “charmed circle” of heteronormative monogamy. </p>
<p>Anti-sex worker policies, steeped in moralization and infantilization, do not recognize porn performers’ ability to consent to sex work. This reproduces the stigma underlying <a href="https://journals.msvu.ca/index.php/atlantis/article/view/3041/pdf_38">systemic cultures of sexual abuse</a> that prioritize “good” victims over “bad” ones. </p>
<p>Consent is too critical a framework to be weaponized by politicians looking to do away with undesirable sexual citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Sullivan has received funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the University of Calgary Research Grant Committee.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maggie MacDonald receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, through a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship in support of her doctoral research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerie Webber is the Board Chair of PASS (Performer Availability Screening Services), an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to the health and safety of adult industry workers. PASS maintains a working relationship with the Free Speech Coalition, an industry trade association. </span></em></p>Why are sex workers routinely excluded from debates on their own legal and human rights?Rebecca Sullivan, Professor, Women's Studies, University of CalgaryMaggie MacDonald, PhD Student, Faculty of Information, University of TorontoVal Webber, PhD Candidate, Community Health & Humanities, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624112021-06-11T12:40:21Z2021-06-11T12:40:21ZFrom abortion and porn to women and race: How Southern Baptist Convention resolutions have evolved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405761/original/file-20210610-27-glalc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C311%2C4617%2C2907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Raise your hands if you think this year's Southern Baptist Convention meeting could be feisty.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/ea4186124356480596285b6aaf176122/photo?Query=Southern%20Baptist%20Convention&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=271&currentItemNo=63">AP Photo/Matt York</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Southern Baptist Convention will convene its annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, on <a href="https://sbcannualmeeting.net/">June 15, 2021</a>, in what could be the most consequential such get-together in recent memory.</p>
<p>Just 15 years ago, the SBC <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/21/southern-baptist-decline-continues-denomination-has-lost-more-than-2-million-members-since-2006/">boasted some 16.3 million members</a> across the United States. However, it is hemorrhaging members. According to data released in May, Southern Baptists have <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/southern-baptists-grow-in-number-of-churches-plant-588-new-congregations-amidst-covid-19-pandemic/">lost over 2 million members since 2006</a>, with <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-loses-another-435000-members-in-2020/#.YMJABJNKj_Q">over 400,000 defections</a> in the last year alone.</p>
<p>The denomination has also been embroiled in a number of controversies in recent years. A <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-critical-race-theory-and-intersectionality/">resolution passed at the 2019 meeting</a> condemned critical race theory, a set of ideas that view racism as structural rather than expressed through individual prejudice, prompting <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/12/23/black-pastors-break-southern-baptist-critical-race-theory/">several prominent Black pastors to depart</a>. And in March, Beth Moore, a very popular female Southern Baptist author and speaker, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bible-teacher-beth-moore-ends-partnership-with-lifeway-i-am-no-longer-a-southern-baptist/">publicly announced that she was leaving the group</a>, citing the SBC’s approval of Donald Trump and its views on gender. The widely held perception is that the SBC has <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/southern-baptist-convention-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket.html">lurched farther to the right</a> over the last few years.</p>
<p>As a result, all eyes will be on the resolutions that are debated and subsequently passed at the annual meeting, the belief being they will give tremendous insight into the trajectory of the SBC and more generally American evangelicalism, of which Southern Baptists are the largest group.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://www.eiu.edu/polisci/faculty.php/hendrickson.php?id=rpburge&subcat=">religion data analyst</a> who wrote a computer script to collect and organize the text of all the resolutions passed at the annual meeting data back to 1845 to see if there were any patterns. What became clear was that many of the “bread and butter” culture war issues that fueled the SBC 20 years ago – such as abortion and homosexuality – have faded and been replaced by a new set of issues that seem to be furthering the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-fight-for-the-heart-of-the-southern-baptist-convention">divide between conservatives and more moderate members</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1401704061762785289">Ryan Burge</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>One thing to note is that for the first 100 years of the convention, which was formed in 1845, the culture wars that dominate the conversation today were largely absent. The discussion concerning race began only in the 1940s, but that quickly ebbed a decade later.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, the annual meeting began to turn to concerns about abortion and how that affected women in the United States. In the early years after the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">Roe v. Wade decision</a> in 1973, many resolutions that discussed abortion also contained the word “women.” </p>
<p>But that linkage began to weaken by the late 1980s. Discussion around abortion peaked in the mid-1990s, which is right about the same time that topics concerning homosexuality were being discussed with greater frequency. </p>
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<p>But in the last 10 years, there’s clear evidence that the classic culture war issues of abortion and homosexuality have faded. In fact, the word “homosexuality” has not appeared in a resolution since 2013. In their absence, race and gender have become much more central to the debate. Pornography – a hot resolution topic during the 1980s when the <a href="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/want-a-closer-look-at-the-1980s-porn-industry-in-nyc">pornographic industry was experiencing a boom</a> – no longer registers as a concern worthy of registering in a resolution.</p>
<p>The last meeting of the SBC occurred in 2019, and there was both a resolution on women not being included in the selective service, which would determine who would be eligible for a military draft in the U.S., and one against the teaching of critical race theory. </p>
<p>There’s ample reason to believe that both the role of women and race will be on the minds of the attendees next week, given the amount of media coverage to the topics in the runup to the event.</p>
<p>The trajectory of evangelicalism hinges in part on what resolutions get debated at the annual meeting and which ones eventually pass. Is the solution to a rapidly declining membership becoming more theologically and ideologically conservative? Or is a more inclusive SBC the remedy to this downturn? </p>
<p>The annual meeting might deliver a clearer picture of where members of the SBC see the future of the denomination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Burge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A religion data analyst scraped the texts of all Southern Baptist resolutions over the last 150 years. Here’s what he found.Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.