Official lecture 7

Question 1

who said “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

Answer 1

JACOBELLIS

Question 2

Define Pornography

Answer 2

Material that is sexually explicit

Question 3

what is sexually explicit

Answer 3

but what is that? it is hard to define
not just nakedness, but the explicitness of sexuality
unsatisfactory definition, moving on…
Sexually explicate material designed primarily to produce sexual arousal in viewers
part of problem here is “production”?
but in terms of perspectives, it becomes pornographic depending on the perspective
Sexually explicit material deigned to produce sexual arousal in consumers in a way that is inherently transgressive

Question 4

what does MacKinnon talk about

Answer 4

pornography

Question 5

what does MacKinnon say

Answer 5

“It seems essential to the kick of pornography that it be to some degree against the rules…” (MacKinnon, 162)
she looks at porn and says that it is essential to porn that it crosses boundaries

Question 6

porneia in New Testament equals what

Answer 6

sexual immorality

Question 7

Porn represents women as experiencing…

Answer 7

Dehumanization 
 Enjoyment in pain and humiliation 
 Pleasure through rape 
 Tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, physically hurt 
 Submission, servility or display
 Reduced to parts 
 Whores by nature 
Penetrated by animals 
 Sexualized degradation
no positive definition 
corned about the impact of porn on women 
by this definition (what is listed) much literature, art, etc is porn but we don’t recognize it because we are numb to it

Question 8

what does Feona Attwood say

Answer 8

“In our culture, sex is becoming more and more visible, and more explicit. Sexual representations, products and services are becoming more accessible to a wider group of consumers, and the development of new communication technologies to support, replace or reconfigure sexual encounters are increasingly part of ordinary people’s everyday lives.”
porn has spread out and attach itself to culture (mainstream culture)
not just the pornographers themselves, but what counts as porn itself

Question 9

what is Pornographication

Answer 9

the iconography of pornography becomes commonplace

Question 10

what is Expansion of “pornosphere”

Answer 10

obscene texts proliferate and become more accessible

some unintended and some intended

Question 11

Can porn be domesticated

Answer 11

this is, if porn involves this transgressing of boundaries, yet it has somehow found itself through out culture and is now changing the culture, then it isn’t dangerous (this is the assumption that it is domesticated).

Question 12

what does Regnerus talk about

Answer 12

Porn as Culture

Question 13

what does Regnerus say

Answer 13

“Pornography is not like the passive consumption of any given movie. Instead it is as if you were watching the same movie over and over again, with minimal variations. It is repetitive and powerful narrative about sex that certainly contains the capacity to shape us” (121)

Question 14

does Regnerus think that porn is good or bad

Answer 14

he is concerned that it is shaping us negatively
“we may be shaping or molding our sexuality, at least in part, through interaction with pornography” (122).
“…pornography is indirectly shaping (and increasing) the sexualization of situations, what people are willing to try, and what they come to desire sexuality” (123).
we have decided to interact with porn (laws allow for it), but what we didn’t necessarily recognize is that interaction will be shaping
this is what he is saying

Question 15

what does Catherine McKinnon say

Answer 15

it is against the rule, but more of a “wink wink” against the rules
you have men setting boundaries on what men can have sexual access to it… even though you can have access to it, it is the fact that it is a little bad that keeps it sexy

Question 16

what did Cooper-White wrte

Answer 16

“The Cry of Tamar”

Question 17

what does Cooper-White say

Answer 17

“It seems essential to the kick of pornography that it be to some degree against the rules, but it is never truly unavailable or truly illegitimate. Thus obscenity law, like the law of rape, preserves the value of, without restricting the ability to get, that which it purports to devalue and to prohibit. Obscenity law helps keep pornography sexy by putting state power –force, hierarchy –behind its purported prohibition on what men can have sexual access to” (162).
she is getting at this from a religious perspective
this distancing of the individual from real relationships (including sexual relationships)
she sees this as part of the abuse and violence

Question 18

what did Regnerus write

Answer 18

“The Cheapest Sex”

Question 19

what does Regnerus say

Answer 19

Cheaper sex “[C]oupled sexual activity has become more widely accessible, at lower “cost” to everyone than ever before in human history”
Infertile sex
Unromatic sex
it is delink from the reproduction and context of ling term type of relationships
Cheapest sex “Solitary sex— masturbation— is now able, by use of digital pornography, to mimic coupled sex more realistically than ever before” (Cheap Sex, 10-11)
The Pill, pornography, and online dating
these remove you and the cost you have (in terms of sex)

“Compare… sexual intercourse before the wide availability of pornography with music before the advent of Edison’s phonograph. You simply had to be there, meaning coupled sex and music were going to be live performances if they were going to be experienced at all” (108).
getting at this virtual aspect of porn, just like music you had to have the band there before there were ways to listen to the recordings
“[Digital pornography] replaces sex (for some),augments it (for others), and alters real sexual connection with real persons. It has changed sex and altered relationships in ways that iTunes has not changed music” (108).
in the replacement of sex, he is thinking particularly of men
he differentiates the sex drives; mens are higher than females
they need to find replacements
porn is shaping and influencing the way our culture thinks about sex
“Modern pornography… not only supplies cheap sex but stimulates interest in it, too” (108

Question 20

what is the Pornographic Double-bind

Answer 20

High quality pornography production has reached a level significant enough to satisfy many men.
Fewer men seeking a committed relationship with a real woman
Women’s power in the relational market is undercut (128).
“This is the pornographic “double bind,” wherein women find themselves stuck between unhappy scenarios— the unwanted porn use of the man they are with, the elevated odds of the same among the men they might leave him for, and the risk of being alone” (132).