In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a compu... more In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a computer screen and wait for a film to begin. Expecting to be scared by what they’ll see, the quartet film themselves with a web-cam. Music plays and the friends begin to squeal and exclaim, offering a shocked commentary on what they are watching. One young man excitedly walks in and out of frame while another stares wide-eyed at the computer screen in front of him. He doesn’t move even when the young woman tries to pull his face towards hers. After a minute and a half, the film ends with much laughter and the exclamation ‘Oh. My. God!’ The above describes Cougarguy222’s Spankwire Reaction video on YouTube – a clip which has been viewed more than 480,000 times and is described as ‘friends watching the HORRIBLE video, “Spankwire”. It’s the worst video EVER!!!!’ This is one of more than a thousand YouTube postings which record the reactions of viewers watching ‘Spankwire: One of the Scariest Vi...
A small but important niche, queer porn has grown out of initiatives like the Porn Film Festival ... more A small but important niche, queer porn has grown out of initiatives like the Porn Film Festival Berlin in Europe, the Canadian Feminist Porn Awards and productions by American-based filmmakers such as Shine Louise Houston, Courtney Trouble and Madison Young, who have all attempted 'to playfully affirm sexuality and reinvent new representations of desire and pleasure' (Ryberg 2013: 142). Queer pornography is, for many commentators, not just representation but an expression of politics struggling against stereotyping and conventional, normative sexual identities and practices (Attwood 2010; Jacobs 2007; Moorman 2010). One of the ways in which queer porn might have particular political valence is in its promotion as a form of collaboration and, as Florian Cramer writes, the 'replace[ment] of the rhetoric of artificiality in mainstream pornography … with a rhetoric of the authentic: instead of mask-like bodies normalized using make-up, wigs, and implants, the authentic person is exposed' (Cramer 2007: 174). What then do viewers make of these representations? Hill-Meyer recently suggested that the queer audience 'values diversity over cookie-cutter scenes, pleasure over fluids, and authenticity over façade' (Hill-Meyer 2013: 157). In the virtual absence of systematic research on queer pornographies and their consumers, this chapter draws on a major online survey of porn consumers undertaken at pornresearch.org. 1 A wide range of respondents, across all ages, completed the questionnaire. What do these tell us about queer pornographies and about queer orientations, identities, readers and readings? Motives and methods Our project proceeded from interest in the ways in which people might describe pornography as significant and important to their everyday lives and to their sense of themselves, their sexual experiences and relationships; it was not premised on assumptions about harmfulness or morality. Over 5,000 people trusted us sufficiently to tell us their stories, responses, pleasures and preferences, in ways which enabled identification of patterns, distinct groupings, connections and separations. 2 With so many responses we were able to do brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Background Rapid development and uptake of digital technologies have influenced sexual lives. As ... more Background Rapid development and uptake of digital technologies have influenced sexual lives. As part of development research for the decennial British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal–4), we aimed to understand the practices of adults in Britain using digital technologies to meet sexual and romantic partners. Methods We conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with adults in Britain on the role digital technologies played in their sexual lives. Here we draw on the accounts of 22 of those who had direct experience of online partner seeking. Informed by Social Practice Theory, we developed thematic codes encompassing the materials, skills and meanings that constitute online partner-seeking as a social practice. Findings Online partner seeking is a social practice normalised in contemporary culture, enmeshed within broader online cultures of image presentation. It is associated with multiple goals and imbued with possibilities as well as risks. Material elemen...
In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a compu... more In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a computer screen and wait for a film to begin. Expecting to be scared by what they’ll see, the quartet film themselves with a web-cam. Music plays and the friends begin to squeal and exclaim, offering a shocked commentary on what they are watching. One young man excitedly walks in and out of frame while another stares wide-eyed at the computer screen in front of him. He doesn’t move even when the young woman tries to pull his face towards hers. After a minute and a half, the film ends with much laughter and the exclamation ‘Oh. My. God!’
What does it mean for us to study a national culture? As we will see in the pages to come, it mea... more What does it mean for us to study a national culture? As we will see in the pages to come, it means looking across and reflecting upon a range of the practices and activities that contribute towards the shared experience of community and 'nation'. In part our endeavour calls upon an understanding of the various cultural and political institutions within which culture is organised and regulated, but, perhaps even more, it demands we comprehend something of the transience and excitement of everyday experience. In Britain, cultural activities are shaped by their histories and their traditions, but they also have a dynamic relationship with the present. A comprehensive account of British culture should therefore be alert to the forces that give living, thinking and playing in Britain form and character, while presenting an enthusiastic account of how this national culture changes along with the population and the world at large. The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Culture offers just such an introduction to culture in twenty-first-century Britain. It brings together seventeen critical and insightful essays by some of the leading academics in British intellectual life. The subjects and issues the chapters cover are purposively varied, reflecting the diversity and debates that circulate in discussions of modern British culture. What emerges is a dynamic collection that brings together a number of aspects of living in and thinking about British culture. This is, therefore, a Companion designed to provide a fascinating and informative overview of modern British culture. However, the reader will also learn that British culture is not singular. Like most modern national cultures it is characterised by diversity and difference.
In this chapter I examine some of the discursive constructions of alternative (alt) and independe... more In this chapter I examine some of the discursive constructions of alternative (alt) and independent (indie) pornography, contemporary genres of porn facilitated by the development of the web. My interest here is in the aesthetic and ‘institutional’ politics of a number of important players in alt.porn to explore the ways in which concepts such as ‘alterity’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘authenticity’ are key elements in the discursive construction of alt.porn as different from ‘mainstream’ or ‘industrial’ pornographic productions and how such discursive constructions contribute to the ambivalent cultural positioning of alt.porn. While porn may be central to discussions within gender and sexuality studies, its place within media studies is much more peripheral – there are few accounts which take seriously pornography’s links to wider cinematic production or as businesses producing and distributing media content - thus a critical framework has developed in which ‘pornography’ sits somehow separate from other media forms. For the most part, in the plethora of critical academic titles on film and media, pornography is almost always overlooked – where general overviews of media production or consumption do deign to make mention of porn, it is limited to passing reference to ubiquity, size and profits: for many scholars, pornography remains a marginal genre of media production. As others have noted, "in the literature on the information society and the information economy, the subject of sex, and by extension, pornography, has been undertheorised [...] despite its powerful brand, Playboy Enterprises is not spoken of in the same breath as new entrants like Internet Entertainment Group." (Cronin and Davenport, 2010: 285-292) In this chapter I explore some of the ways in which alt.porn is constructed as a subcultural form and how producers negotiate their way to respect and authority, reflecting alternative sexual politics and community allegiances within their erotic ‘vision’ or performances such that a sizeable and, crucially, commercially viable audience will recognize and appreciate them
In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a compu... more In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a computer screen and wait for a film to begin. Expecting to be scared by what they’ll see, the quartet film themselves with a web-cam. Music plays and the friends begin to squeal and exclaim, offering a shocked commentary on what they are watching. One young man excitedly walks in and out of frame while another stares wide-eyed at the computer screen in front of him. He doesn’t move even when the young woman tries to pull his face towards hers. After a minute and a half, the film ends with much laughter and the exclamation ‘Oh. My. God!’ The above describes Cougarguy222’s Spankwire Reaction video on YouTube – a clip which has been viewed more than 480,000 times and is described as ‘friends watching the HORRIBLE video, “Spankwire”. It’s the worst video EVER!!!!’ This is one of more than a thousand YouTube postings which record the reactions of viewers watching ‘Spankwire: One of the Scariest Vi...
A small but important niche, queer porn has grown out of initiatives like the Porn Film Festival ... more A small but important niche, queer porn has grown out of initiatives like the Porn Film Festival Berlin in Europe, the Canadian Feminist Porn Awards and productions by American-based filmmakers such as Shine Louise Houston, Courtney Trouble and Madison Young, who have all attempted 'to playfully affirm sexuality and reinvent new representations of desire and pleasure' (Ryberg 2013: 142). Queer pornography is, for many commentators, not just representation but an expression of politics struggling against stereotyping and conventional, normative sexual identities and practices (Attwood 2010; Jacobs 2007; Moorman 2010). One of the ways in which queer porn might have particular political valence is in its promotion as a form of collaboration and, as Florian Cramer writes, the 'replace[ment] of the rhetoric of artificiality in mainstream pornography … with a rhetoric of the authentic: instead of mask-like bodies normalized using make-up, wigs, and implants, the authentic person is exposed' (Cramer 2007: 174). What then do viewers make of these representations? Hill-Meyer recently suggested that the queer audience 'values diversity over cookie-cutter scenes, pleasure over fluids, and authenticity over façade' (Hill-Meyer 2013: 157). In the virtual absence of systematic research on queer pornographies and their consumers, this chapter draws on a major online survey of porn consumers undertaken at pornresearch.org. 1 A wide range of respondents, across all ages, completed the questionnaire. What do these tell us about queer pornographies and about queer orientations, identities, readers and readings? Motives and methods Our project proceeded from interest in the ways in which people might describe pornography as significant and important to their everyday lives and to their sense of themselves, their sexual experiences and relationships; it was not premised on assumptions about harmfulness or morality. Over 5,000 people trusted us sufficiently to tell us their stories, responses, pleasures and preferences, in ways which enabled identification of patterns, distinct groupings, connections and separations. 2 With so many responses we were able to do brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Background Rapid development and uptake of digital technologies have influenced sexual lives. As ... more Background Rapid development and uptake of digital technologies have influenced sexual lives. As part of development research for the decennial British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal–4), we aimed to understand the practices of adults in Britain using digital technologies to meet sexual and romantic partners. Methods We conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with adults in Britain on the role digital technologies played in their sexual lives. Here we draw on the accounts of 22 of those who had direct experience of online partner seeking. Informed by Social Practice Theory, we developed thematic codes encompassing the materials, skills and meanings that constitute online partner-seeking as a social practice. Findings Online partner seeking is a social practice normalised in contemporary culture, enmeshed within broader online cultures of image presentation. It is associated with multiple goals and imbued with possibilities as well as risks. Material elemen...
In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a compu... more In a nondescript bedroom, four friends (three males, one female) sit together in front of a computer screen and wait for a film to begin. Expecting to be scared by what they’ll see, the quartet film themselves with a web-cam. Music plays and the friends begin to squeal and exclaim, offering a shocked commentary on what they are watching. One young man excitedly walks in and out of frame while another stares wide-eyed at the computer screen in front of him. He doesn’t move even when the young woman tries to pull his face towards hers. After a minute and a half, the film ends with much laughter and the exclamation ‘Oh. My. God!’
What does it mean for us to study a national culture? As we will see in the pages to come, it mea... more What does it mean for us to study a national culture? As we will see in the pages to come, it means looking across and reflecting upon a range of the practices and activities that contribute towards the shared experience of community and 'nation'. In part our endeavour calls upon an understanding of the various cultural and political institutions within which culture is organised and regulated, but, perhaps even more, it demands we comprehend something of the transience and excitement of everyday experience. In Britain, cultural activities are shaped by their histories and their traditions, but they also have a dynamic relationship with the present. A comprehensive account of British culture should therefore be alert to the forces that give living, thinking and playing in Britain form and character, while presenting an enthusiastic account of how this national culture changes along with the population and the world at large. The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Culture offers just such an introduction to culture in twenty-first-century Britain. It brings together seventeen critical and insightful essays by some of the leading academics in British intellectual life. The subjects and issues the chapters cover are purposively varied, reflecting the diversity and debates that circulate in discussions of modern British culture. What emerges is a dynamic collection that brings together a number of aspects of living in and thinking about British culture. This is, therefore, a Companion designed to provide a fascinating and informative overview of modern British culture. However, the reader will also learn that British culture is not singular. Like most modern national cultures it is characterised by diversity and difference.
In this chapter I examine some of the discursive constructions of alternative (alt) and independe... more In this chapter I examine some of the discursive constructions of alternative (alt) and independent (indie) pornography, contemporary genres of porn facilitated by the development of the web. My interest here is in the aesthetic and ‘institutional’ politics of a number of important players in alt.porn to explore the ways in which concepts such as ‘alterity’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘authenticity’ are key elements in the discursive construction of alt.porn as different from ‘mainstream’ or ‘industrial’ pornographic productions and how such discursive constructions contribute to the ambivalent cultural positioning of alt.porn. While porn may be central to discussions within gender and sexuality studies, its place within media studies is much more peripheral – there are few accounts which take seriously pornography’s links to wider cinematic production or as businesses producing and distributing media content - thus a critical framework has developed in which ‘pornography’ sits somehow separate from other media forms. For the most part, in the plethora of critical academic titles on film and media, pornography is almost always overlooked – where general overviews of media production or consumption do deign to make mention of porn, it is limited to passing reference to ubiquity, size and profits: for many scholars, pornography remains a marginal genre of media production. As others have noted, "in the literature on the information society and the information economy, the subject of sex, and by extension, pornography, has been undertheorised [...] despite its powerful brand, Playboy Enterprises is not spoken of in the same breath as new entrants like Internet Entertainment Group." (Cronin and Davenport, 2010: 285-292) In this chapter I explore some of the ways in which alt.porn is constructed as a subcultural form and how producers negotiate their way to respect and authority, reflecting alternative sexual politics and community allegiances within their erotic ‘vision’ or performances such that a sizeable and, crucially, commercially viable audience will recognize and appreciate them
Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond
The history of the grind house is well trodden, offering a picture of exhibition spaces that even... more The history of the grind house is well trodden, offering a picture of exhibition spaces that even in their heyday were characterized by a pervasive stench of decline: their outer facades testaments to faded glories, while their interiors bore all the signs of mistreatment and neglect. David Church has explored the advent of domestic video technologies as the final nail in the coffin of the grind house as locale and the consequent morphing of the term to reference genre rather than exhibition. 1 And in that morphing grindhouse found a new lease of life on the very technology that brought the films into the domestic sphere. There are similar parallels in histories of pornography; itself a " most elastic textual category, " 2 porn arcades and cinemas were often located (at least in the United States) in the same geographical spaces, and were squeezed out by gentrification at least as quickly as the grind houses. Just as low-rent horror and exploitation films found a new lease of life on VHS, pornography was able to find a very comfortable and lucrative home on that format before, in turn, moving through DVD and into the digital online environment. Porn has been understood as an engine of innovation: exploiting each new technology as it arrives and, according to some histories, guaranteeing the success of one format (VHS) over another (Betamax), but the picture may be more complex than the simple replacement of one delivery platform with another. 3 As we have moved into the twenty-first century, new patterns of consumption and engagement have taken their toll on professional pornographic productions, particularly through sharing outside of paid-for distribution channels with scenes ripped and repurposed online as vignettes, or converted to gifs as forms of " micro-porn. " We could talk of this as exciting evidence of consumer agency, 4 but for porn producers, maintaining the profitability of the pornographic text has proved difficult. Production costs do not disappear even if consumers are clear they want their content for free. Thus I come to another way in which porn as genre has walked in step with grindhouse. Just as the exploitation-cinema favorites have found their way into rerelease in beautiful packaging and remodeling for the DVD/Blu-ray connoisseur, so too " vintage " pornography has a market, both as collectable and as rerelease. Porn
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