There Must Be a Smarter Way to Talk About Porn

In our new series, Sex with Sam, we explore the far fringes, practicalities, great myths and socio-political struggles of sex in New Zealand. This episode, Sam visits porn researcher Kris Taylor to learn the ins and outs of pornography use.

Pornography research is a messy business. But, contrary to expectations, the actual day to day realities will probably seem pretty tame to most people. In fact, my pursuit is essentially the same as many other forms of academic enquiry: I spend most of my time reading journal articles, research reports, and books.

However, ‘pornography’, this amorphous, contentious, strange and saucy word, carries with it so much political baggage that I also often find myself in strange conversations, extraordinary email arguments, and being mischaracterized as either a porn apologist or an anti-pornography puritan. “Well, it is certainly very dangerous for young people today isn’t it?” is a standard response that I get, or else “I bet you watch a lot of porn, har har har” is a startlingly consistent favourite. Other people will spontaneously launch into long accounts of their own porn predilections. The vast majority of it is good natured, sort of humorous, and sometimes akin to a mollifying catholic confession.

I came to pornography research accidentally, with an interest in an online Reddit community known as NoFap. This community, predominantly (but not exclusively) patronized by young, heterosexual men, essentially hosts a supportive environment for those struggling with their own pornography viewership. My subsequent dissertation focused on how men who abstain from viewing pornography reconcile this abstinence with their expressions of masculinity.

Currently, I’m interested in the moral and ethical framings of viewing pornography, and how people negotiate and speak about some of the challenges that can pornography present. My current research began by asking men about the role that pornography plays in their lives, what they view it for, and what pornography actually is. One of the inspirations for the basic nature of these questions was that when reading about pornography addiction, simple questions like these are rarely asked. No one really talks about the role of masturbation in conceptualizing pornography addiction (is it the masturbating, the content, the internet, or the moral transgression that one is supposed to be addicted to?). Another major limitation in both media discussion and contemporary pornography research is that pornography is actually very poorly defined, if at all.

I also invited men who had completed the survey to participate in one on one interviews, discussing their pleasures and anxieties, discoveries and upsets arising from viewing pornography. What soon became clear to me was the scandalously unsophisticated nature of public discourses around pornography viewership. For example, there’s our hypocritical fixation on pornography as dangerous to teenagers which effectively gives adults a free porn pass. If we step back and look at this proposition this focus actually either ignores or contradicts the overarching normative trope in popular culture of pornography being a normal part of teenage boys’ bonding and sexual experimentation. Or take the proposition that viewing pornography causes erectile dysfunction. As I have argued previously, there’s a weird contradiction in simultaneously stressing out about boys not getting boners, while at the same time being concerned that teens are having dangerous penetrative sex.

And what about the suggestion that people are viewing increasingly violent pornography? Where contemporary narratives about pornography’s negative impacts rely on the assertion that pornography is becoming increasingly extreme and viewers are actively seeking out such hardcore content, recent research suggests that today's ‘mainstream’ videos contain less aggression than they did ten years ago, and that videos that do contain aggression often receive fewer views and lower ratings. Many of my participants also expressed their distress at viewing expressly violent, coercive, or overtly degrading content.

Now, these findings don't discount our interest in problematic scripts, representations, or violence in pornography at all. In fact, such insights can deepen and complicate our understandings of what people expect and receive from pornography. Yet, because this suggestion contrasts so markedly with contemporary narratives about how and why people view pornography, I anticipate the inevitable charge that advertising this study indicates that I might be a slavering pornomaniac.

But it is in this dichotomous hinterland that I sit with my research. We actually know very little about some pretty fundamental information about pornography viewership, and currently, most of what is printed and talked about offers a seemingly willful disengagement with the moral and ethical complexities of pornography and its viewership - instead talking about how pornography “mirrors the high from snorting cocaine”. The preliminary findings of my research suggest that pornography and pornography viewership are infinitely more complicated than our current rudimentary discussions can describe. And while I am still working my way through the data, I will confidently offer at least one firm conclusion: while pornography viewership is indeed a moral and ethical morass, a thoughtful engagement with pornography beyond a ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ dichotomy is out there to be had. We just need to invite the discussion, and listen to what people have to say.