It seems Australians aren’t ready for a real debate on porn and sex. Yet.
The Australian reported last month that Telstra was offering “soft-core pornography” with titles like “Dirty Housewife and Hot Asian Gets Wet for between $3.50 and $4.95 per viewing” to customers with smartphones. It barely raised an eyebrow.
The mainstreaming of pornography is something it appears we don’t even want to talk about anymore. This is no doubt, at least in part, a result of the tiresome merry-go-round of the porn debates in Australia which are often ill-informed and out-dated.
There are only a handful of academics who research pornography in this country, yet it is a topic most anyone thinks they can weigh-in on.
Former sex-therapist Bettina Arndt, for example, has been busily extolling the virtues of pornography this year without ever having to talk about what modern, mainstream porn actually looks like.
Arndt argues porn is fine, because men who watch it report that they enjoy watching it.
The Porn Report, written by three prominent Australian academics who do actually conduct research in the area, employed a similar leap of logic. But a group of self-selecting porn consumers claiming porn is great does not make it so.
A tough gig
This level of public discussion means criticising the pornography industry in Australia is a tough gig. Indeed, critiquing pornography without being painted as an extreme, ideologically-driven feminist or a religious loon has proved nearly impossible in recent years.
Unfortunately, many of the old stereotypes about feminist critiques of porn continue to persist, despite the existence of new and challenging international academic literature.
One common retort is that the feminist critique (as if there were only one) of pornography is obsolete. Several scholars, both here and in the US, have publicly sought to “move on” from the kind of sexual politics which dominated porn debates in the 1980s and 1990s. But, in practice, they tend to still rely on using old feminist critiques as a starting point for any new discussion.
The Porn Report
The Porn Report, for example, was positioned specifically against the feminist anti-porn stereotype. The official website publicising the book, for instance, offers a set of true or false statements to the reader:
• Most porn users are uneducated, lonely and sad old men
• All porn is violent
• Pornography turns people into rapists or paedophiles
• Pornography portrays women as passive object of men’s sexual urges
The Porn Report unequivocally answers “false” to all of these statements and in the process sets itself up as correcting these misrepresentations.
But what the authors are actually doing is providing a false and overly-simplistic impression of anti-pornography arguments from previous decades. This leads them to assert that The Porn Report is inherently more objective and reasonable than any existing literature without ever justifying the claim.
A reasonable approach?
It must be noted that the objectivity of the Report has been called into question – among other things it was conducted with support from sex-industry lobby group, the Eros Association. But the authors’ point that we need to move on from the seemingly intractable pornography debates of the past is still a prudent one.
The problem is that accounts such as those found in The Porn Report, which are highly sympathetic to the porn industry, have become positioned as a reasonable approach to the study of pornography.
This ignores the increasingly broad and nuanced range of feminist-based research on pornography which is now emerging. Much of it has little, if anything, positive to say about either the porn industry or the content it produces. The Everyday Pornographies collection, edited by Karen Boyle (which I am a contributor to) is a good example of the diversity of these new approaches.
Everyday Pornography contains chapters about a variety of themes with a wide array of methodologies. These range from network analysis of the links between internet porn sites, to the use of participant observation for researching the symbolism of seamen on the amateur porn site X-Tube and the interactive website Nileflirt.com.
What is clear through these often novel approaches is that it is possible to genuinely transcend older debates without leaving issues of sexual politics behind altogether.
Bigger extremes
My own research shows that the porn industry is quite forthright about the content it produces. There is open acknowledgement from within the industry that pornography has become more extreme in last two decades.
In 2003, for example, so-called “porn industry bible” Adult Video News, ran a story titled “Harder, Faster. Can Porn Get Any Nastier?” which included this neat summary:
“There’s no question there’s been a turn for the harder in the XXX in recent years. In the mid-1990s, double penetration seemed to be the bar for nasty. Then came the massive gangbangs, such as the Houston 620 in 1999, bukkake vids (also 1999) and today … ass to mouth, double-vaginal and double-anal penetration is [sic] not uncommon.”
If we are to genuinely move forward and complicate discussions about pornography, then we must engage with the content that consumers are actually watching, as well as the international research which is documenting changes within the industry.
We undoubtedly live in an era where pornography is becoming mainstream. Researchers from all sides can agree on that at least. To shut down debates about porn and sex by painting all “anti-porn” researchers as wowsers is therefore not only disingenuous, it does us all a great disservice.
Seán McNally
Market and Social Researcher
How do you measure social readiness?
I see this term frequently used along with putting the word 'real' in front of an idea. Putting aside the motivations for using the term, as I've never heard anyone say, "group X are ready for a real debate/ discussion/ choice", especially if their position is disagreed with.
As a social research I've not seen any attempt to measure social readiness, that is not self-defining by including performance of the actual task, as readiness presuposses we are…
Read moreDale Bloom
Analyst
“This ignores the increasingly broad and nuanced range of feminist-based research on pornography which is now emerging.”
Does this mean that social science research has to be based on some type of ideology, rather than based on the scientific method?
If so, just how objective and reliable is social science research?
My observations are that social science research is nothing but completely unreliable.
Jeff Poole
logged in via Facebook
Riiiiight...
So the author dislikes the fact that the Porn Report authors actually reported on the pornography that Australians are watching. She then proceeds to dismiss their report in favour of more abstract - I hesitate to call it 'research' - that DOESN'T reflect what Australians are watching but what ... This passes for scientific method in Sociology?
It's like going to a newly discovered tribe to research their food taboos, ignoring what they actually do and 'researching' them by giving them a sample of MacDonalds!
Or researching music taste in Australia by ignoring what music sells in Australia and instead researching what academics in Conservatoria listen to.
Once again the term 'Social Science' is shown to be an oxymoron of breathtaking proportions
Jeff Poole
logged in via Facebook
And why is it that queer porn is ALWAYS ignored by these alleged 'porn researchers? Are they ALL still living in the Australia of the seventies when gay men and lesbians didn't exist?
If I was to be cynical I'd think it's ignored because It wrecks their wowser arguments. When it's a guy watching guys or a gal watching gals then its REALLY hard to enforce the tired and feeble meme that it's all about misogyny or violence.
So please Ms Tyler broaden your range - there are others in the world outside your narrow view of sexuality - although all the literature ignores us like a 50s Society Matriarch drawing aside her skirts as the unclean people pass.
All except of course the authors of the Porn Report...
Susan Ruthenbeck
Luftmensch
seamen or semen? Both feature in porn..
I welcome more informed discussion in this area.
Ironically, I was a former contractor for Telstra's interenet service provider and my employment was summarily terminated for talking about porn with another employee in the lunchroom. I was 'talking about porn' in reference to it's place in society, not the details of some racy pics I had viewed.
We need to stop censoring this discussion and consider how porn is consumed and what are the advantages and disadvantages.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Susan
Could you nominate a reliable source of data to base the discussion on?
Seán McNally
Market and Social Researcher
I don't feel it has to be based on data, except when statements about the behaviour and effects on others are being made. A key element for the discussion may well be what types of research we need.
Given the nature of the topic it would be interesting to see how well evidence based policy will go when it runs against ideology and personal liberty.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Sean,
The article is a little difficult to understand, but the author seems to be suggesting that data from the Porn Report is subjective and compromised.
“It must be noted that the objectivity of the Report has been called into question – among other things it was conducted with support from sex-industry lobby group, the Eros Association.”
Then the author seems to be recommending data from The Everyday Pornographies collection. However that collection describes itself as follows: -
“This…
Read moreSeán McNally
Market and Social Researcher
Dale, my comment was mainly addressing Susan's comment "We need to stop censoring this discussion and consider how porn is consumed and what are the advantages and disadvantages".
The reports nd evidence mention in the articles and by you ar not worth the moments of my life lost to reading them in any depth because they are so biased. Hence my comment if we want to take this seriously then we need a more scientific approach to understaning "how porn is consumed and what are the advantages and disadvantages".
In short, I agree with you.
Bruce Baer Arnold
Lecturer in Law at University of Canberra
The Porn Report (Melbourne University Press) by Alan McKee, Kath Albury & Catharine Lumby is an intellectually rigorous, empirically based and academically credible study by three leading scholars. It is disappointing that it has been subject to gibes about industry support.
"If we are to genuinely move forward" we need to move beyond the snideness exhibited by some contributors to Big Porn Inc: Exposing The Harms of the Global Pornography Industry (Spinifex 2011) and to look dispassionately both at the affiliations of those contributors and at claims made in that work.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Bruce
This issue would be an example of the public being caught in the middle, and eventually the public does not know what is reliable and what can be believed.
If Alan McKee, Kath Albury & Catharine Lumby are academically credible, then it could also be claimed that at least some of the contributors to Big Porn Inc are also academically credible. For example, Helen Pringle has received awards from Princeton University, the Fulbright Foundation, the Australian Federation of University Women…
Read moreHelen Pringle
Senior Lecturer at University of New South Wales
It seems to me that some of the criticisms of Meagan's article miss the point completely, and it is as if the writers hadn't read what she says but merely skimmed it.
When people write about pornography, whatever their perspective, one of the most frequent responses to us is: "where is your evidence?" Some of the commentors here are asking this question too. It is an appropriate and fair question. But within the limited space of an opinion piece like this, Meagan has offered evidence that is…
Read moreDale Bloom
Analyst
Helen,
The author point towards “feminist-based research on pornography”.
There is a question as to what “feminist-based” actually means, but the sentence did not say “scientifically based”.
Feminist-based research may have no relationship at all to the scientific method, and I think it should be a concern for any scientist or researcher if someone tries to claim that feminist-based research is a bona fide or approved form of research.
If violence is being carried out in porn movies, then the matter should be taken to the police.
Paul Pagani
Teacher
The author wrote:
"In 2003, for example, so-called “porn industry bible” Adult Video News, ran a story titled “Harder, Faster. Can Porn Get Any Nastier?” which included this neat summary".
You state:
"The evidence she offers is based on research in the pornography industry trade magazine Adult Video News".
So an opinion column that appeared in a trade journal is regarded as industry research? And you challenge others that question the evidence and research presented (or not presented)?
But aside from this quibble, the thesis of this article seems to vacillate. And the claim that those who argue that pornography is innocuous are silenced seems at least a little hyperbolic given the exposure I have had to debate in recent times (e.g. Hack on JJJ, newspaper items and current affairs shows).
caroline norma
lecturer, RMIT University
In quibbling over how warrant claims might be made in research on pornography, I think commenters here miss the bigger problem that Meagan addresses in this piece. Fairly serious changes are now taking place in Australian society as a result of pornography saturation from a decade ago. Police and lawyers have spoken publicly about their inability to handle the volume of child pornography-related cases that are emerging. Women's services are describing changes in the nature of sexual assaults they…
Read moreSeán McNally
Market and Social Researcher
The comments made here are not quibbling and what is at stake is not small.
As a father of two daughters and an uncle of six girls, I'm frequently disturbed by how female’s are portrayed, more often the portrayal of then as victim rather than a designer of their own destiny, sexual or otherwise.
Having grown up in period and culture where sex was demonised as were females who dared to not to wait till their wedding night, I’m not in a hurry to assume my concerns should be theirs when all…
Read moreDale Bloom
Analyst
Caroline,
You seem to be suggesting that no research is necessary, or no one should be concerned about the quality or reliability of any research that does occur.
If this is the case, every school and university should be closed tomorrow, because facts are not important, and people should feel free to just “make things up”.
Mark Harrigan
Dr
I feel this entire debate misses the point.
Porn exists. People watch it. Some enjoy it, some do not, some (probably a small number) are obsessed by it and some are revolted by it. Most of us, I suspect, have seen it and watch it at some level but not terribly often
It comes in a variety of flavours , straight, gay, bi, fetish, "extreme" etc.
The industry wants to promote it (for profit reasosns) and the wowsers want to ban it (because they seem to think they have to right to tell others…
Read moreAnthony Nolan
Ruminant
It used to be that I was a captive of old school feminist thinkling on porn as represented by Dines, Jensen and Russo who emphasised an analysis of the social relations of porn production. I would stare in awe at the masses of women who engaged with this industry and see them as evidence of the total failure of postmodern feminism to gain any traction.
However, since reading the Porn Report I've seen the error of my ways and now accept that employment at any level of the sex industry, including…
Read more