"Most people like to have sex, and a not-too-much-smaller segment of

them like to watch other people have sex, and that is what the adult
industry delivers."
Mark Kernes
Adult Video News senior editor
In this essay, I will try to point out how these features are
presented in our everyday thoughts about pornography, what do they
seem to respond to and finally, what is a different way to think about
pornography that might allow us to see different aspects of it. From our
everyday life understanding of pornography to the analysis of a great
number of scholars, it is generally considered as a bad or destructive
medium. It is often related with violence, unfaithfulness or depravation.
However, the fact that pornography is widely spread in our current
society gives to it different point of view from which it can be analyzed.
Pornography cannot be considered anymore as primarily an outlawed
medium, but as a medium in which people represents and explore
themselves and their sexualities.
The hardest part of writing about pornography is to define the
phenomena to be considered. The word pornography comes from the
Greek pornographos, meaning "ancient obscene painting, especially in
temples of Bacchus," or "(one) depicting prostitutes," from porne
"prostitute," initially "bought, purchased, with an original notion
probably of "female slave sold for prostitution"; and graphein, graphos,
meaning, "to write"(1). This definition holds a certain negative
connotation. For example, in the representation of sexual acts,
especially in Greek pottery, the prostitute is often shown as to have
sex in the position of the leapfrog or sodomy, being this consider more
degrading and less gratifying for woman. Finally, a number of vases
represent scenes of abuse, where the prostitute is threatened with a
stick or sandal, and forced to perform acts considered by the Greeks to
be degrading: fellatio, sodomy or sex with two partners (2). Nowadays,
some of the negative features of this definition remain still as
characteristics that underlie our general understanding about
pornography.
According to Caroline Wests essay "Pornography and Censorship",
pornography can be defined in three different ways, and all of them
capture something of the term's everyday use. First, as any material
(either pictures or words) that is sexually explicit. Second, as any
sexually explicit material that is primarily designed to produce sexual
arousal in viewers. And finally, pornography can be defined as any
sexually explicit material designed to produce sexual arousal in

consumers that is bad in a certain way. (3) Each of these definitions

has their own political implications that need to be analyzed.
We can start by analyzing the first of these definitions. Pornography is
as any material (either pictures or words) that is sexually explicit. West
states that the main problem with this definition is the cultural
ambiguity of what can be considered sexually explicit in different
societies and times. Moreover, we can see some of the examples she
use to demonstrate this ambiguity, such as, the women's uncovered
ankles that in Victorian times, as well as in certain (not specified)
non-western cultures, could have been or can be shocking. However,
as it is stated later in her essay, some representation such as bare
breasts, exposed vaginas, anus or erect penis can still be generally
considered explicit, regardless of their historical or geographical
context.
The idea of taboo or prohibition is the most important notion that
underlies this definition. For West to consider the womens uncovered
ankles as an example of sexually explicit, and group them together
with todays photographs of exposed vaginas or sexual intercourse
videos it has to be the case the nature of what is depicted is not what
characterizes them as sexually explicit. What characterizes any of
these depictions as sexually explicit, and thus as pornography, is their
relations with what is considered normal in a specific culture, in a
specific time.
This can explain some of the opinions made about an 1896, short,
silent clips that approached the erotic depicting an actress performing
a strip tease. The scholar Joseph Slade, professor of media arts at Ohio
University, said about them: "They look like your grandparents having
sex, they were quaint, but it was real intercourse. (4) The main word
is in this quote is quaint; quaint for the groundbreaking expectations
implicit in the word pornography, quaint because in the century that
separates the piece and the commentary the expectations have
changed, quaint because it challenges the concept it once represented.
As the notion of what is considered sexually explicit has change, a strip
tease made in 1896 has not the same eroticism, ground breaking
feeling in 2015, it fails to get into the definition of sexually explicit; it
can hardly be considered as pornographic anymore.
This definition shares, in this sense, a close connection with the third
one, in which the implication of an arousal that is bad according to the
morality that rules a specific place is made explicit. Furthermore, both
definitions seem to echo, in certain way, the thoughts of Sigmund
Freud, when in his highly influential book, Three Essays About
Sexuality, he wrote that the sexual instinct and the sexual object are

merely soldered together, and thus, a pathological character(i.e.

unhealthy or abnormal) is not to be found in the content of the new
sexual aim and object but in its relation to the normal(5).
Moreover, Freuds analysis about perversions shares with Wests
definitions of pornography, which as she said is widely spread in our
times, not only a superficial similarity in their concepts, but a
fundamental aspect. They share a notion about power, which can be
described, following the thoughts of Michel Foucault, as juridicodiscursive notion of power. Power in these terms, as it is described in
Foucaults book History of Sexuality, is to be understood as an object
that can be possessed and thus, imposed on the individual. It
corresponds to the idea of a system that controls power and rules the
relation people can have towards certain ideas by the means of
prohibition and censorship (6). In our examples, the definitions seem to
imply that the depictions are bad because they are conformed by
sexually explicit material, it being anything that is alongside of what
is considered normal. They are bad because they depict abnormal
subjects seen from the specific power that rules its society. They are
bad because they depict what is not supposed to be depicted, what
those who possess power have prohibited.
Similarly, the second definition analyzed under the same term is
slightly underestimated by West. She talks against it just by giving the
counter-example of art, such as the movie Last Tango in Paris saying
that, although, it causes sexual arousal on the individual that watches
it, it makes it for aesthetic-artistic purposes. It implies that the arousal,
caused for aesthetic purposes is correct, but once there is another
intentionality, an arousal for its own sake, that makes it incorrect. In
this definition, there is still this kind of arousal that might be
considered incorrect or abnormal.
The nature of this hidden quality of the arousal, if we considered under
the terms of the juridico-discursive idea of power, which West implies
we all generally commend to, has been thoroughly studied in the texts
of George Bataille. In his book Eroticism: Death and Sensuality, Bataille
traces the origin of eroticism to the religious sacrifice by the analysis of
the nature of the arousal. According to him, the nature of eroticism can
be found in the transgression of a taboo, a transgression that comes
first from the acceptances and knowledge of what is prohibited, but
also the awareness of its necessity to be transgressed. The
transgression does not deny the taboo but transcends it and
completes it(7) he says, and as we can see, this puts West, and our
everyday ideas about sexuality again in the context of taboo and
prohibition, i.e. the juridico-discursive notion of power.

For Bataille, as well as for Freud, West, and most of everyday

pornography consumers, there seems to be a general acceptance
about pornography in which there is a power exercised by someone, in
this case each society in which an individual lives, that imposes its
views about the subject and determinates what is correct and
incorrect. The same can be said if we see from the other side, there is
the force exerted from the industry of pornography, which it is in a way
degenerative to the rules of the society, it challenges it; it tries to
liberate or destroy.
These ideas become more important when they can be found in big
scale political situation. For instance, some feminist groups object to
pornography on the grounds that it harms women. On a opinion on the
New York times, Chyng Sun, a professor of media studies at New York
University claims that the fact that so many men and boys watch
pornography is disturbing because most scenes now feature sex acts
intended to degrade women (8). Later on talking about a famous
practice depicted on most recent pornographic videos, ejaculation on
womens face, she says, It is about controlling women, doing
something disgusting to them. Its like spitting or urinating on them
(8). Although, I think that professors Chyng vision about pornography
intentions may be in parts accurate, I also think that her approach to
pornography, that of rejecting it because its repressive qualities,
because in certain way it can be considered bad, respond to the
specific discourse we have described as the juridico-discursive
understanding of power, and as I will try to show on the rest of these
essay, is not the most beneficial way to understand and, based on this,
to analyze pornography.
A 2008 study of 813 American university students found that 87
percent of men and 31 percent of women reported using pornography
(3). If we study the attached Image1 at the end of this paper, we can
notice how at first, it seems almost impossible to find a young person
on its twenties that has not watched pornography. Furthermore, a big
percentage of the population of pornographic consumers (67%) does
not even think of it as an incorrect behavior, but it has become a
normal element of the development of their sexuality. To eliminate
pornography from the everyday life of people seems not to be an easy,
I would like to say possible, task, but it does not mean that certain
features of it, as those pointed by professor Chyng should not be
fought, it is just a matter of changing the strategy.
To explain this different approach to pornography, necessary to see the
gaps from which it can be analyzed, we can examine the opinion of the
San Francisco sexologist, Seth Prosterman, as cited in an article of the
web based magazine Livescience, as saying, porn is one way for

people to explore their own sexual desires (4). Contextualizing,

pornography can be also understood as any material that allows
people to explore their own sexual desires. What doctor Prostermans
professional opinion in some sense represents are the thoughts of that
67% of regular consumers of pornography. This approach to
pornography takes into account the power relation between the viewerindustry in a slightly different way. There is no just powers being
exercised from above the individuals and the rules they have accepted,
but the individuals are the ones who accept what is offered by
pornography and explore their capacities, improve themselves in areas
that might not, otherwise, be freely exercised. Additionally, it makes us
conscious that is the same individual who might also rule what is to be
presented. The industry not only imposes a view in the individual, but
also responds to the viewer interest; they show what sells, what is
being asked from them.
As an example of this, studying closer pornography by genders, we can
see how by years there is been a constant shift from interest that is a
reflection of bigger social concerns. If we study again the charts
attached at the end of this paper in Image2 and Image3, we suddenly
realize how certain characteristics such as an arousal of interest on
feminists pornography (pornography made by activist directed to a
female audience) matches with an interest in pornography depicting
homosexual subjects. When gender becomes a social issue, then, it is
reflected in what people want to see. Similarly, the next diagrams,
Image4, Image5 and Image 6, can be read as showing that around
2008 the amount of people concerned of racial problems was
representatively bigger than the amount of people concerned in 2010.
This is reflected in the amount of people that freely watched interracial
pornography in those years. A social concerns creates parameters of it
is correct or incorrect for people to think about certain topics, and as
there is a decrease of interested towards 2010, people can wander
around more freely about the topic and a greater range of possibilities
are open for them. The relationship between people and pornography
seems to work in a circular manner; their concerns affect the industry
that responds to this by affecting at the same time their concerns.
This capacity of people to determinate somehow what might be
presented in pornography primarily allows them, as Doctor Prosterman
correctly stated, to explore their sexual desires. If people are more
aware of the use they can give to pornography, and bigger range of
possibilities it offers to them, certain conservativeness towards sex
might decrease, and people can more freely realize certain features
they may otherwise hide about their own sexual desires. However, this
possible public should also be aware of the repressive capacities that
pornographic industry holds. The depiction of certain acts, the use of

certain parts of the body with more frequency as well as others

underling ideologies as those of violence towards woman can be
present under certain circumstances. It certainly does not mean that it
is always conscious choice made by those who manage the industry,
but as we said before, it is also partly a representation of people
interests. On the other hand, it does not deny its possibility to be
repressive, especially for those that are in the process to develop their
sexuality, and that are more susceptible to imitation.
Certainty, the idea of considering people watching other people having
sex as normal can be somehow striking. That is what is happening, and
the process seems irreversible. If we are willing to challenge some
features of this medium, as we could do with other mediums such
television or radio, we should be aware how we considered our relation
of power with it. The question might be not why pornography depicts
violent acts against women, and the solution might not be feminist
pornography either, but why are people so keen to watch other people
having sex. Why do teenagers have to access to the Internet and
watch pornographic videos, why is it the principal source for them to
explore the sexualities. What are other options, do we need another
options, and are they better. As a guy quoted at the end of professor
Chyan opinion The second you have an orgasm and that passion sinks
out of your body, and youre still watching the movie, you start to
really see whats going on. This is not sexy. This is not sex. This is not
how I want to experience sex(8). But the question that left is then;
why did he watch it originally?
In conclusion, pornography cannot be considered anymore as merely
destructive or negative. It should also be analyze in its relations with
people and its capacities to represent them. People have always had
the necessity to understand themselves in anything they do, and
pornography seems not to be the exception. An important step now it
is to find a way in which to make people aware of the positive and
negative possibilities offer by pornography, of the power relations that
play a role in it and also. As we have shown in this essay, there is
nothing bad in pornography more that there is in any other human
relation that implies power. It just needs to be understood differently.

Image1

Image2

Image3

Image4

Image5

Image 6

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4)
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6)

Citations
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pornography
Cf. Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus, ch. 6 "The Athenian
Prostitute", pp. 174179
West, Caroline, "Pornography and Censorship", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL
=<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/pornography-censorship/>. Page
2.
http://www.livescience.com/8748-history-pornography-prudish-present.html
Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. 1905. Trans. Steven
Marcus. New York: BASIC BOOKS INC, 1975. Print. Page 4.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. 1976. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York:
Pantheon Books INC, 1978. Print. Page. 81- 92

7) Bataille, George. Death and Sensuality: a Study o f Eroticism and the Taboo. Walker
and Company, NY: First City Lights edition, 1986. Print. Page 63
8) http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/11/11/does-pornography-deserve-itsbad-rap/pornography-has-become-more-hard-core
Images
1) http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/GSS+Website/Browse+GSS+Variables/
Mnemonic+Index
2) http://sexualitics.org/#theproject
3) http://www.gallup.com/poll/163535/americans-rate-racialethnic-relations-positively.aspx