Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on July 23, 2010). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, French Language, Literatures and Linguistics, Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies. ... [University of Alberta,] Fall 2010." Includes bibliographical references.

In 2008 it was reported that there are approximately 28,258 internet users viewing pornography every second, and that men look at pornography online more than any other subject matter (Eberstadt 2009). Pornography has become a primary tool of sex education for young men (Bowater 2011) with the average age of first exposure being age 11 (Stefan 2012). However, research on viewer understanding and interpretation of the images is scarce. What are boys learning about sexuality as they watch pornography? Do they use pornography as a ‘how-to’ manual expressing a desire to mimic the onscreen act or do they use pornography as a general stimulant expressing a generalized pleasure, interpreting the act in alternative ways? The pro-pornography stance stresses the agency of the viewer, meaning the viewer has the ability to access a broad array of content creating a poly-semiotic or figurative experience. The anti-pornography stance stresses the agency of the industry, meaning the industry pushes a dominant design creating a mono-semiotic or literal experience. The purpose of this study is to look at how viewers of online pornography interpret what they see. By analyzing viewer comments sampled from free pornographic tube sites, this study seeks to understand the extent of viewer agency; do men interpret pornographic images literally or figuratively?

This licentiate thesis describes the Swedish pornography policy and how this policy affected the pornography industry. The main aim of the study is to survey the development of the Swedish porn industry 1950-2000 and to consider how it was imagined both as an industry, and as a commercialized form of sexuality. The focus is on the relationship between the pornography industry and the state, and to study this relationship, the thesis is divided into three different but related parts. The first part concerns the institutional settings with main focus on the abolition of censorship in 1971. The political debates about legalizing pornography are studied in order to ascertain how industry and its actors are conceptualized in this context. It also draws attention to why regulation of the industry was considered necessary in the first place, as well as the how changes in the legislation affected the economic development of the industry itself. The second part concerns the Swedish pornographic press. My purpose is to map out all publishing houses that produced pornographic magazines from 1950 to 2000, and to chart some aspects of their economic fortunes. The history of pornography and connections to technological change is also studied in terms of estimating the influence of the video breakthrough on sales figures and market strategies for the publishing houses that had to deal with this development. In the third part, I study the regulation in action, i.e. when the publishers of pornographic magazines are prosecuted. I analyze all of the pre-1971 prosecutions – that is, the prosecutions that took place before regulation was removed. Using these records, it is possible to determine how the regulation was implemented, what content was considered harmful, and how that changed over time. This material, that includes the preliminary investigations from the police, also shows how the pornography producers handle the institutional settings to escape responsibilities and punishment. In this thesis, I show that the pornography industry in Sweden has a complex and changing relationship to the state. Although pornography is unwanted by politicians during the period, pornography is allowed to publish pictures without any restriction on sexual content in the 1970s. The argument for the deregulation is that censorship is incompatible with a modern democratic and liberal state. Pornography serves as a modern dilemma when the phenomenon is viewed as incompatible with a modern society, conflicting with the goal of gender equality, and when a regulation is seen as incompatible with the idea of basic liberties in a modern democracy. When it comes to the industry it shows that, quite unexpected, a lot of companies are run by women or as family businesses. There are no empirical grounds for the claim that pornography is an all male industry then, at least not in the Swedish case. The study also shows that the Swedish pornography industry was well established before the law change.

<p>This licentiate thesis describes the Swedish pornography policy and how this policy affected the pornography industry. The main aim of the study is to survey the development of the Swedish porn industry 1950-2000 and to consider how it was imagined both as an industry, and as a commercialized form of sexuality. The focus is on the relationship between the pornography industry and the state, and to study this relationship, the thesis is divided into three different but related parts.</p><p>The first part concerns the institutional settings with main focus on the abolition of censorship in 1971. The political debates about legalizing pornography are studied in order to ascertain how industry and its actors are conceptualized in this context. It also draws attention to why regulation of the industry was considered necessary in the first place, as well as the how changes in the legislation affected the economic development of the industry itself.</p><p>The second part concerns the Swedish pornographic press. My purpose is to map out all publishing houses that produced pornographic magazines from 1950 to 2000, and to chart some aspects of their economic fortunes. The history of pornography and connections to technological change is also studied in terms of estimating the influence of the video breakthrough on sales figures and market strategies for the publishing houses that had to deal with this development.</p><p>In the third part, I study the regulation in action, i.e. when the publishers of pornographic magazines are prosecuted. I analyze all of the pre-1971 prosecutions – that is, the prosecutions that took place before regulation was removed. Using these records, it is possible to determine how the regulation was implemented, what content was considered harmful, and how that changed over time. This material, that includes the preliminary investigations from the police, also shows how the pornography producers handle the institutional settings to escape responsibilities and punishment.</p><p>In this thesis, I show that the pornography industry in Sweden has a complex and changing relationship to the state. Although pornography is unwanted by politicians during the period, pornography is allowed to publish pictures without any restriction on sexual content in the 1970s. The argument for the deregulation is that censorship is incompatible with a modern democratic and liberal state. Pornography serves as a modern dilemma when the phenomenon is viewed as incompatible with a modern society, conflicting with the goal of gender equality, and when a regulation is seen as incompatible with the idea of basic liberties in a modern democracy.</p><p>When it comes to the industry it shows that, quite unexpected, a lot of companies are run by women or as family businesses. There are no empirical grounds for the claim that pornography is an all male industry then, at least not in the Swedish case. The study also shows that the Swedish pornography industry was well established before the law change.</p>

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / A presente dissertaÃÃo tem por interesse principal as pornografias contemporÃneas, ou as novas pornografias, ou ainda: as pornografias realizadas recentemente e, em geral, divulgadas por meio da Internet e em festivais especÃficos. Para tal, ela toma, como objeto de anÃlise, os primeiros trabalhos do portuguÃs Antonio Da Silva â realizador radicado em Londres â, produzidos entre os anos de 2011 e 2013, e que se expressam em pornografia junto a demais linguagens fÃlmicas e discursivas. Esta anÃlise toma singularmente os trabalhos de Antonio para pensar, de modo mais geral, como as atuais produÃÃes em pornografia se apropriam de outras formas de falar do sexo, da sexualidade e da prÃpria pornografia. Ao mesmo tempo, encarando, como fundamental a presenÃa do corpo do pesquisador como espectador de sua constituiÃÃo. Nesse sentido, traz como metodologia a escrita performativa, que permite o uso em primeira pessoa, e a utilizaÃÃo de modos de escrever e de falar do tema alÃm do escrever e do falar acadÃmicos. Esta anÃlise tem, por base teÃrica, a vinculaÃÃo da imagem pornogrÃfica à noÃÃo de performatividade, com base nos trabalhos de J. L. Austin (1990), Jacques Derrida (1991) e Judith Butler (1988, 1997). Sobre a pornografia que se discute, o trabalho toma autores como Feona Attwood (2007, 2011), Nuno CÃsar Abreu (1996), Linda Williams (1989, 1991, 2004, 2014) e Katrien Jacobs (2004), dentre outros. Juntam-se, ao texto acadÃmico e dissertativo, confissÃes, memÃrias e poemetos, que vÃo compondo a anÃlise performativa dos trabalhos de Antonio, com base na escrita performativa, teorizada e apontada, aqui, por Alexandre Beigui (2011). Ao fim das contas, o principal interesse à interpretar o que à o pornogrÃfico, tanto do ponto de vista da linguagem como do espectador, e, por isso, à trazida à tona a noÃÃo de performatividade, ajudando-nos, escritor e leitor, a pensar sobre uma possÃvel performatividade pornogrÃfica no lugar de uma pornografia como algo dado e identificado a princÃpio.

Sex work is one of the rare elements of our society that is both accepted and stigmatized. Ironically enough, it is stigmatized without being studied in depth. The truth is we know very little about sex work and even less about pornography—the most legal of genres. While researchers have spent a great deal of time determining the effects that pornography has on viewers, particularly juvenile viewers, little research has been done on the men and women who make pornography. A 43 question survey was created and disseminated to those in the pornographic film industry, both amateur and professional, resulting in 210 respondents from all walks of life. The results of the inquiry show that social scientists know relatively little about working in pornography, having a profound impact on the current discussion and future research. Additionally, this investigation presents a new and creative method for surveying hard to reach, hidden, or sensitive subject populations that will aid in aspects of future research on sex work and other stigmatized behaviors.

Please consult the full text version of the thesis for the abstract. / (M.A. (English))

L’idée-force de cette thèse est que littérature et sexualité ont partie liée, mais également et surtout, que la potentielle sexualisation de l’art verbal, à l’écriture comme à la lecture des textes, ne se limite pas à un genre spécifique d’écrits (qui irait du sentimental, au pornographique, en passant par l’érotique). La sexualisation à réception, toujours aléatoire, dépend de la force du style et de la sensibilité des lecteurs. La théorie de la réception que nous tentons de construire postule qu’il n’y a ni grand, ni petit art, ni arts majeurs, ni arts mineurs. L’art est un effet produit par la rencontre entre une oeuvre et un public ; il se manifeste intégralement en sensations. L’effet de l’art atteint son paroxysme lorsqu’il se fait pornographique. Cet effet pornographique de l’art, dont nous souhaitons cerner les conditions de déclenchement et de matérialisation à réception, émane de créations littéraires dont le style attire, séduit, aimante, captive et ravit les lecteurs, en leur offrant une vision de l’humain dans ce qu’il a de plus fragile et fascinant : son intimité la plus profonde et la plus cachée, son sexe. Pour appréhender ce vécu si intense et si rare qu’offrent certains textes, nous tendrons à définir l’idée de style pornographique, au sens de création par le style d’un effet pornographique. Puis, nous nous intéresserons plus largement à la portée et à la valeur de ce style, en proposant une typologie des principaux phénomènes qu’il déclenche à réception. Enfin, si l’effet pornographique est l’horizon vers lequel tout écrit littéraire tend, cet effet ne demeure, cependant, qu’un horizon. De ce fait, il conviendra de préciser, dans un troisième temps, les limites et les dangers du pornographique. / The main idea of this thesis is not only that literature and sexuality are related, but also that the sexualization of art, during the writing and the reading as well, is not restricted to specific literary genres (sentimental, erotic, or pornographic). The sexualization, always uncertain, is both due to the strength of style and to the readers’ sensitivity. The theory of reception we intend to elaborate is based on the idea that there is neither high art nor low art. Art is an effect caused by the encounter of a work and a public. Art is nothing but sensation. Art can recreate some reality by means of invoking sensations.The effect of art reaches its paroxysm when it becomes pornographic.This pornographic effect is derived from literary texts whose style attracts, seduces, captivates and ravishes readers, by revealing the most deep and the most secret intimacy of humans : their sex. We intend to see where, when and how this effect may happen. First, we’ll try to define what we mean by “pornographic style”, in other words what in style manages to create a pornographic effect on readers. Then, we'll attempt to bring to light the many phenomena it induced. However, even if the pornographic effect is the main purpose of art, it has to remain an horizon. Therefore, we'll have to consider the limits and risks of all pornography.

Potential influences from using sexually explicit Internet material (SEIM) are controversial, however, the underlying psychological mechanism(s), which potentially can explain these found associations with SEIM consumption, have not been well studied. In the present research, I examine the relationship between SEIM consumption and subjective wellbeing (i.e., sexual and general wellbeing). In particular, I address the circumstances under which the consumption of SEIM is negative for wellbeing by assessing an ideal-actual sexual discrepancy in the context of intimate relationships. I drew on perspectives from self-discrepancy theory to explore whether SEIM consumption generates disparities between ideal and actual sexual experiences, which then may influence consumers’ sexual and general wellbeing. I expected this hypothesized ideal-actual sexual discrepancy to function as one of many underlying psychological mechanisms to explain SEIM’s negative impacts on various types of subjective sexual wellbeing (SSW). I also expected that via SSW, the discrepancy would also explain the ambiguous relationships between SEIM consumption and subjective general wellbeing (SGW) found in the past. That is, I predicted a serial mediation model with sexual self-discrepancy mediating the relationship between SEIM consumption and SSW, and SSW mediating the relationship between sexual self-discrepancy and SGW. Two studies together demonstrated the general progress from consuming SEIM to the evaluation of self-perceived wellbeing under the condition of evaluating sexual experiences with intimate partner(s). In Study 1, the data-driven gender specific sexual preference highlighted the need of model testing separately for men and women because of the potential difference in experiencing the negative impacts from consuming SEIM through the different progress of formation of ideal sex scripts influence by pornographic sex, and generation of an I-A sexual discrepancy in men and women. Results of Study 2 from male SEIM consumers further supported the hypothesized mediation role of I-A sexual discrepancy and SSW (i.e., sexual esteem and sexual satisfaction) in understanding the relationships between SEIM consumption and wellbeing. Overall, the present research illustrated the consumption of SEIM can shape one’s sexual preferences of pornographic sex and generate unrealistic expectations of pornographic sexual experiences with intimate partner(s). Hence, the experience of I-A sexual discrepancy from unachievable ideal sex is a key factor in identifying SEIM’s negative impacts on wellbeing. Moreover, parsimonious serial mediation paths through I-A sexual discrepancy and SSW also demonstrated the relationship between SEIM consumption, SSW, and SGW in one model. This finding indicates SSW works as an important indicator of ones’ SGW. The present research provides a theoretical explanation to understand the impact of consuming SEIM on wellbeing and implicates the importance exploring different types of sexual discrepancy associated with SEIM consumption and ways to mitigate the experienced I-A sexual discrepancy in intimate relationships.

Please consult the full text version of the thesis for the abstract. / (M.A. (English))