Pornography and Christianity are multifaceted, complex institutions that resist generalisation. In today's postmodern society, they are also mediated commodities that compete within the mediasphere. They are both dependant on the mass media, and communication technologies such as the internet for their survival. The binarised nature of these two institutions has led to a significant amount of 'productive othering', whereby both institutions have sought to define themselves in relation to their 'other', thus creating a space in society for their opposing force. In a sense, Christianity and pornography rely on each other in order to contextualise, and provide an opportunity to restate their own ideological position. This mutual need, suggests that the contemporary nature of their relationship is symbiotic. The relationship between pornography and Christianity can be observed in various sites within the mediasphere, such as the internet, and the film industry. These two sites provide varying accounts of their relationship, and evidence of productive othering, while also demonstrating the paradoxical affect the postmodern mediasphere is having on these two institutions -- that they are also becoming increasingly hybridised, intertextual, and difficult to distinguish from one another.

I am fascinated by the men who visit the strip clubs of Hindley Street in Adelaide. In other words, I observe male spectators who look at naked women performing an alluring act for their pleasure. Such a scene represents sexual difference at an extreme level particularly as the night progresses and the men get drunker becoming themselves a part of the performance. Strippers manipulate mens desires and fantasies and parody, through their routine, the male in the act of sex. And as men watch men watching women perform, I suggest men are actually sharing their sexual experiences with each other, raising questions about assumptions of ???heterosexual??? desire associated with why men go to strip clubs, as gender boundaries blur and become ambiguous. / The focus of my research has involved positioning myself as a member of the audience in three strip clubs along Hindley Street a clothed woman in a male dominated space dedicated to the representation of nudity and sex. In conducting my research, I have relied upon a methodological approach loosely based both on ethnographic and the action research models with the aim of using the understandings gained through this to inform my visual art practice, which includes photographic images, staged settings and installation. I consider my artwork to be a form of experimentation through which I explore issues of sexuality, power, sexual transgression and gender difference within strip clubs creating provocative scenes which position viewers as voyeurs. / My thesis as the totality of the artefacts and exegesis which form the outcomes of this research draws on critical and cultural theory concerned to explore pornography, with particular reference to masculine fantasy and desire. I also make reference to a number of contemporary visual artists who question these same issues through their works. / My project questions why men go to strip clubs, and involves speculation as to whether this choice actually entails a rejection by such men of aspects of their own masculine identity, or reflects a need to detach themselves from the physical act of sex with women, or perhaps simply reveals their reliance upon fantasy, titillation and suspense as a form of sexual pleasure. Using a play of gender roles based on a reversal of performative aspects of the scenario of the strip club, I hope the artefacts created in the course of this research will provoke viewers into exploring unsettling questions and issues and reflect an image of men as being both complex and vulnerable, rather than dominant and in control. Through constructed installation spaces involving photographic images of empty strip clubs, men and women, along with smell, lighting and sound I attempt to set the stage for a performance upon and about sexual desire and difference. / Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, n.d.

I am fascinated by the men who visit the strip clubs of Hindley Street in Adelaide. In other words, I observe male spectators who look at naked women performing an alluring act for their pleasure. Such a scene represents sexual difference at an extreme level particularly as the night progresses and the men get drunker becoming themselves a part of the performance. Strippers manipulate mens desires and fantasies and parody, through their routine, the male in the act of sex. And as men watch men watching women perform, I suggest men are actually sharing their sexual experiences with each other, raising questions about assumptions of ???heterosexual??? desire associated with why men go to strip clubs, as gender boundaries blur and become ambiguous. / The focus of my research has involved positioning myself as a member of the audience in three strip clubs along Hindley Street a clothed woman in a male dominated space dedicated to the representation of nudity and sex. In conducting my research, I have relied upon a methodological approach loosely based both on ethnographic and the action research models with the aim of using the understandings gained through this to inform my visual art practice, which includes photographic images, staged settings and installation. I consider my artwork to be a form of experimentation through which I explore issues of sexuality, power, sexual transgression and gender difference within strip clubs creating provocative scenes which position viewers as voyeurs. / My thesis as the totality of the artefacts and exegesis which form the outcomes of this research draws on critical and cultural theory concerned to explore pornography, with particular reference to masculine fantasy and desire. I also make reference to a number of contemporary visual artists who question these same issues through their works. / My project questions why men go to strip clubs, and involves speculation as to whether this choice actually entails a rejection by such men of aspects of their own masculine identity, or reflects a need to detach themselves from the physical act of sex with women, or perhaps simply reveals their reliance upon fantasy, titillation and suspense as a form of sexual pleasure. Using a play of gender roles based on a reversal of performative aspects of the scenario of the strip club, I hope the artefacts created in the course of this research will provoke viewers into exploring unsettling questions and issues and reflect an image of men as being both complex and vulnerable, rather than dominant and in control. Through constructed installation spaces involving photographic images of empty strip clubs, men and women, along with smell, lighting and sound I attempt to set the stage for a performance upon and about sexual desire and difference. / Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, n.d.

Thesis (M.A.) Brigham Young University. Dept. of Communications. / Bibliography: leaves 72-75.

Thesis (M.S.W.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-141). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-305). Also available online

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Rhode Island, 2007 / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-173).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 24-26, 54-55, 75-76).

Thesis (M.A.)--The Master's College, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-127).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.