When we think of debates about pornography, what first comes to
mind is the question of whether it should be banned or protected.
But perhaps we should ask instead what pornography tells us about
the way individuals are valued or represented. Combining literary
criticism and political theory, Frances Ferguson describes the
affinities between pornography and less controversial
representations to provide a better understanding of its harms and
to demonstrate how it works. Pornography first developed in western
Europe during the late eighteenth century in tandem with the rise
of utilitarianism, the philosophical position that stresses the
importance of something's usefulness over its essence. Through
incisive readings of Sade, Flaubert, Lawrence, and Bret Easton
Ellis, Ferguson shows how pornography - like utilitarian social
structures - diverts our attention from individual identities to
actions and renders more clearly the social value of such actions
through concrete literary representations. Only when pornography is
used to expel individuals from social structures or institutions
that promote value, Ferguson argues, is it potentially dangerous.
Impassioned, judicious, and deeply informed, Pornography, the
Theory will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in
literature and its cultural history.
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