For many individuals, pornography is a troubling and problematic issue. Regardless of how the public views this topic, one thing is clear: Pornography is as prevalent and accessible as smartphones and laptop computers. Indeed, beyond traditional hardcore material, a pornographic sensibility permeates many aspects of culture-from tween and young teen fashions to television and commercially successful films. In fact, pornography is so widespread that more often than not it is taken as a given in our modern social space. However, the thought of engaging in intellectual discussions about the topic strikes many-particularly scholars-as beneath them. And yet something this impactful, this definitive of modern culture, needs to be laid open to scrutiny. In The Philosophy of Pornography: Contemporary Perspectives, Lindsay Coleman and Jacob M. Held offer a collection of essays covering a wide range of viewpoints-from issues of free speech and porn's role in discrimination to the impact of porn on sexuality. These essays investigate the philosophical implications of pornography as a part of how we now seek to conceive and express our sexuality in contemporary life. Contributors to this volume discuss: opornography as a component of gender and sexual socialization oecological understandings of sexually explicit media osubordination, sexualization, and speech ofeminism and pornography opornography's depiction of love and friendship oblack women and pornography oplayfulness and creativity in porn Because its subject matter-sex, gender, interpersonal relationships, and even love-is reflective of who we are and what kind of society we want to create, pornography demands serious treatment. So whether one chooses to accept pornography as a fact of modern culture or not, this collection of timely essays represents a variety of voices in the ongoing debate. As such, The Philosophy of Pornography will be of interest to not only those who are engaged in porn studies but also to an audience educated in and conversant with recent trends in philosophy.

This volume assembles hundreds of cases and studies to provide the most accurate and comprehensive picture of the status of pornography in the criminal justice system. Presenting high-level research in an accessible and organized manner, it explores a range of topics, including investigating and prosecuting a case, arguments favoring and opposing decriminalization of pornography, and relationships between pornography, mental disorders, and crime. It also examines criminal justice responses and international laws, policies, attitudes, and definitions of pornography in comparison to those of the United States.

Anti-porn feminism is back. Countering the ongoing 'pornification' of Western culture and society, with lads' mags on the middle shelf and lap-dancing clubs in residential areas, anti-porn movements are re-emerging among a new generation of feminist activists worldwide. This essential new guide to the problems with porn starts with a history of modern pro and anti political stances before examining the ways in which the new arguments and campaigns around pornography are articulated, deployed and received. Drawing on original ethnographic research, it provides an in-depth analysis of the groups campaigning against the pornography industry today, as well as some eye-opening facts about the damage porn can do to women and society as a whole. This unique and inspiring book explains the powerful comeback of anti-porn feminism, and it controversially challenges liberal perspectives and the mainstreaming of a porn culture that threatens to change the very nature of our intimate relationships.

Netporn delves into the aesthetics and politics of sexuality in the era of do-it-yourself (DIY) Internet pornography. Katrien Jacobs, drawing on digital media theory and interviews with Web porn producers and consumers, offers an unprecedented critical analysis of Web culture as digital artistry and of the corresponding heightened government surveillance and censorship of the Internet. Netporn features Web users who question the goals of global commercial porn industries-whether they are engaged in Usenet fringes, video blogging, peer-to-peer distribution, porn art collectives, or decadent amateurism. Emphasizing gender and cultural differences, Jacobs shows how the creative uses of netporn images and services are important ways of exploring or redefining the 'network body' and indispensable ingredients of a maturing network society.

In this gracefully written, accessible and entertaining volume, John Semonche surveys censorship for reasons of sex from the nineteenth century up to the present. He covers the various forms of American media-books and periodicals, pictorial art, motion pictures, music and dance, and radio, television, and the Internet. The tale is varied and interesting, replete with a stock of colorful characters such as Anthony Comstock, Mae West, Theodore Dreiser, Marcel Duchamp, Opie and Anthony, Judy Blume, Jerry Falwell, Alfred Kinsey, Hugh Hefner, and the Guerilla Girls. Covering the history of censorship of sexual ideas and images is one way of telling the story of modern America, and Semonche tells that tale with insight and flair. Despite the varieties of censorship, running from self-censorship to government bans, a common story is told. Censorship, whether undertaken to ward off government regulation, to help preserve the social order, or to protect the weak and vulnerable, proceeds on the assumption that the censor knows best and that limiting the choices of media consumers is justified. At various times all of the following groups were perceived as needing protection from sexually explicit materials: children, women, the lower classes, and foreigners. As social and political conditions changed, however, the simple fact that someone was a woman or a day laborer did not support stereotyping that person as weak or impressionable. What would remain as the only acceptable rationale for censorship of sexual materials was the protection of children and unconsenting adults. For each mode of media, Semonche explains via abundant examples how and why censorship took place in America. Censoring Sex also traces the story of how the cultural territory contested by those advocating and opposing censorship has diminished over the course of the last two centuries. Yet, Semonche argues, the censorship of sexual materials that continues in the United States poses a challenge to the free speech that is part of the f

Pornography is a volatile issue in the United States-depending on the source of opinion, it can be viewed as either demeaning or empowering. Global Perspectives on Social Issues: Pornography asks whether the issue is similarly contentious around the world. Richard Procida and Rita Simon collect in this volume a wealth of data on laws, regulations, and public opinion regarding pornography in a wide sample of countries in both the West and the East. The authors pose and discuss the following questions: Is censorship of pornography correlated with authoritarianism? Does the censorship of pornography lead to the censorship of other more valuable speech, such as political or artistic speech? How much of a factor is pornography in violence against women and the sexual abuse of children? Is the United States more, or less, prudish than other nations around the world, particularly other Western democratic nations? The book reveals a variety of approaches to the treatment of pornography, providing sociologists, legal scholars, and women's rights activists with a valuable reference tool.

Obscenity, Child Pornography & Indecency

?Private sexual fantasy can preoccupy vast areas of a person's mental life, ? notes David Powlison. ?As explicit sexual images proliferate in films and magazines, on television, and over the Internet, the temptations increase and the bondage seems unbreakable. Even Christians can find that their lives have become a push-pull stuggle between indulging in fantasy and resisting it.? ?Is it really possible to slay the dragon of pornography and fantasy once it has gained control of your life?? asks Powlison. The answer is yes, as you will see from this interview with a man called Bob, who experienced Christ's deliverance in this part of his life.

With tourism accounting for approximately thirty percent of the Caribbean's GDP and twenty-four percent of employment, a link between the sex trade and the tourism industry has gained recent attention. Shifts in global production, an increase of disposable income for pleasure and recreation, and a desire by North Americans and Europeans for an experience of 'exotic' cultures, are often claimed to be the cause. This volume explores the connections between the global economy and sex work, focusing on the experiences and views of women, men, and children who sell sex. Apart from attention to sex tourism in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, and Jamaica, the book also examines sex work in the gold mining industry in the hinterlands of Suriname and Guyana, and in the entertainment sector in Belize and the Dutch Antilles. It presents new insights into the Caribbean sex trade and provides proposals and strategies for addressing the situation in the twenty-first century.

Diana E. H. Russell, well-known for her pioneer research on the prevalence of rape and child sexual abuse, the reality of wife rape, the trauma of incestuous abuse, and the misogynist killing of women (femicide), breaks new ground once again in her analysis of pornography and its relationship with misogyny and rape. In this unflinching and uncompromising volume, Diana E. H. Russell examines the relationships between pornography, misogyny, and rape. As the title implies, Russell contends that these relationships are in fact dangerous to women. Dangerous Relationships begins by dealing with the vexing and thorny issue of defining pornography and considers the various types of pornographic materials that are commonly available. Russell turns to the notion that hatred of women is a predominate aspect of pornography and that racist undercurrents are often exploited in visual pornography of all types. She examines the conception of pornography as a cause of rape and provides a rich body of statistical evidence supporting the relationship. Dangerous Relationships argues forcefully that pornography indeed has victims and is a call to arms against the misogyny it engenders. Because pornography is increasingly accessible through the Internet, CD ROMs, digital cameras, and new technology, Dangerous Relationships will be important to scholars in the fields of violence against women, child abuse, interpersonal violence, deviant psychology, sociology, and criminal justice.

So serious are the topics of rape and sexual assault that the mere discussion of them is often avoided. In this book, Mary Odem and Jody Clay-Warner examine the complex and painful issue of sexual violence from various perspectives, including sociology, criminology, anthropology, public health, and women's studies. The inclusion of personal accounts from women who have been raped or threatened by rape makes this collection particularly accessible, compelling, and powerful. An essay details one woman's long struggle as a rape survivor, a poem describes the fear of rape and society's treatment of the victim, and a sonnet traces the journey from victim to survivor. Not only does this invaluable collection define and examine the prevalence of rape and sexual assault, but it analyzes social and institutional factors that contribute to their occurrence and provides strategies for prevention and change.

Walter Kendrick traces the relatively recent concept of pornography--the word was not coined until the late 18th century--which became a public issue once the printing press gave ordinary people access to the erotica of the Greeks and Romans, the art and literature of the French enlightenment, and the poems of the Earl of Rochester and John Cleland's "Fanny Hill." From the secret museums to the pornography trials of "Madame Bovary" and "Lady Chatterly's Lover," to Mapplethorpe, cable TV, and the Internet, Kendrick explores how conceptions of pornography relate to issues of freedom of expression and censorship.

In this pioneering study in religion and culture, Mielke acknowledges the power that pornographic images continue to assert in a culture whose conscious intention is to deny their attraction. Despite efforts by Christians and feminists alike to radically alter the sexual agenda in the direction of a more tender and respectful eroticism, much of contemporary America continues its sexual odyssey with unrepentant enthusiasm and with an increasing interest in overt sexual imagery. Mielke's unique analysis brings together a wide range of sources contemporary as well as historical Christianity, sex therapy, secular feminism, contemporary psychoanalysis, and behavioral science research studies in an attempt to explain the prevalence of pornographic themes and imagery in human sexual arousal and fulfillment. Contents: Preface; Acknowledgements; Introducton; The Problematic Place of Pornography in Culture; Sexual Liberalism in America; Feminists Confront Pornography; Christian Perspectives on Sex and Pornography; The Dynamics of Sexual Excitement: The Research of Robert J. Stroller, M.D.; Pornography's Challenge to Theology; Bibliography; Readings for Further Study; Index."

Pornography has fascinated and divided researchers, policymakers, and the public for years. Does it have harmful effects on individuals? What effects in particular? Does pornography influence everyone or just some people? How should society deal with the results of this influence? In Pornography, Linz and Malamuth sort through these and other questions by placing their topic within the broader context of fundamental human nature theories. Their approach reveals a systematic interweaving of social science, morality, and law through three different perspectives: conservative-moralistic, liberal, and feminist. The fifth volume in the innovative Communication Concepts series, this book is an invaluable addition to current research on pornography and obscenity. Students and professionals in communication studies as well as research methods and the social sciences in general will find Pornography to be an illuminating and compelling study.

Gay pornography, online and onscreen, is a controversial and significantly under-researched area of cultural production. In the first book of its kind, Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity explores the iconography, themes and ideals that the genre presents. Indeed, John Mercer argues that gay pornography cannot be regarded as one-dimensional, but that it offers its audience a vision of plural masculinities that are more nuanced and ambiguous than they might seem. Mercer examines how the internet has generated an exponential growth in the sheer volume and variety of this material, and facilitated far greater access to it. He uses both professional and amateur examples to explore how gay pornography has become part of a wider cultural context in which modern masculinities have become 'saturated' by their constantly evolving status and function in popular culture.

For many Americans, the emergence of a "porno chic" culture provided an opportunity to embrace the sexual revolution by attending a film like Deep Throat (1972) or leafing through an erotic magazine like Penthouse. By the 1980s, this pornographic moment was beaten back by the rise of Reagan-era political conservatism and feminist anti-pornography sentiment. This volume places pornography at the heart of the 1970s American experience, exploring lesser-known forms of pornography from the decade, such as a new, vibrant gay porn genre; transsexual/female impersonator magazines; and pornography for new users, including women and conservative Christians. The collection also explores the rise of a culture of porn film auteurs and stars as well as the transition from film to video. As the corpus of adult ephemera of the 1970s disintegrates, much of it never to be professionally restored and archived, these essays seek to document what pornography meant to its producers and consumers at a pivotal moment. In addition to the volume editors, contributors include Peter Alilunas, Gillian Frank, Elizabeth Fraterrigo, Lucas Hilderbrand, Nancy Semin Lingo, Laura Helen Marks, Nicholas Matte, Jennifer Christine Nash, Joe Rubin, Alex Warner, Leigh Ann Wheeler, and Greg Youmans.

This edited collection examines pornography as a material practice that eroticises gender inequality and sexual violence towards women. It addresses the complex relationship between pornography and medicine (in particular, sexology and psycho-therapy) whereby medicine has historically, and currently, afforded pornography considerable legitimacy and even authority. Pornography naturalises women's submission and men's dominance as if gendered power is rooted in biology not politics. In contrast to the populist view that medicine is objective and rational, the contributors here demonstrate that medicine has been complicit with the construction of gender difference, and in that construction the relationship with pornography is not incidental but fundamental.A range of theoretical approaches critically engages with this topic in the light, firstly, of radical feminist ideas about patriarchy and the politics of gender, and, secondly, of the rapidly changing conditions of global capitalism and digital-technologies. In its broad approach, the book also engages with the ideas of Michel Foucault, particularly his refutation of the liberal hypothesis that sexuality is a deep biological and psychological human property which is repressed by traditional, patriarchal discourses and which can be freed from authoritarianism, for example by producing and consuming pornography.In taking pornography as a cultural and social phenomenon, the concepts brought to bear by the contributors critically scrutinise not only pornography and medicine, but also current media scholarship. The 21st century has witnessed a growth in (neo-)liberal academic literature which is pro-pornography. This book provides a critical counterpoint to this current academic trend, and demonstrates its lack of engagement with the politics of the multi-billion dollar pornography industry which creates the desire for the product it sells, the individualism of its arguments which analyse pornography as personal fantasy, and the paucity of theoretical analysis. In contrast, this book re-opens the feminist debate about pornography for a new generation of critical thinkers in the 21st century. Pornography matters politically and ethically. It matters in the real world as well as in fantasy; it matters to performers as well as to consumers; it matters to adults as well as to children; and it matters to men as well as to women.