Pornography

The pornography is the “obliging representation of subjects, of details obscenes, in an artistic work, literary or cinematographic”.

At the 18th century and the 19th century, the pornography (of the old Greek πορνογράφος pornográphos , of πόρνη / pórnê , prostitute, and γράφω / gráphô , to paint, write, describe) indicated the studies concerning the Prostitution. This term is often connoted negatively by its assimilation with the production of pornographic films, production décriée by its opponents like a industry of the sex more interested by the mercantile interest than by the question of the sexual representation. They bring the pornography closer to the Prostitution, regarding the latter as a form of escalavage and ill-treatment of the women. They insist thus to clearly distinguish the representation of the Sexualité (and the Nudité) from the pornography .

Another pejorative association comes owing to the fact that many people regard the genitals (or even the naked body in entirety) as ashamed, dirty, vulgar or ridiculous. In the same way, so certain people accept the representation of the intimate parts of the human being, they cannot accept the realistic representation of the sex act - for very variable reasons, energy of decency to the association of the sex act to something (once more) the ashamed one or of bestial, which tends to lower the dignity of the man. But for others, it is not the act which is ashamed, but the fact of exhiber and to deliver itself to the desire of others by thus denying its own human dignity (one drops to to be only one means of satisfaction). In these cases, the pornography is then synonymous with vulgarity or obscenity .

History

One finds representations of sex acts in the majority of the human society since prehistory. But the functions of these representations remain badly known: thus, one often associates such representations with rites of fruitfulness (which remain however hypothetical).

According to the companies, the representation of sexuality is subjected to different standards which are often related to the definitions that these companies give of sexuality: the famous erotic sculptures of the temples of Khajurâho in India, which are integrated in a religious architecture, did not certainly have the same statute as the sold pornographic photographs " under the manteau" in the Western cities at the 19th century. The definition even of the pornography thus changes according to the companies, and one will not be astonished to find in certain medieval cathedrals of the sculptures which appear today obscenes to us but which at the time only aimed at denouncing harmful or diabolic practices.

The history of the pornography is in addition closely related to the techniques of artistic, literary or different representation. The novels of the marquis of Sade fall under the French literary tradition of the 18th century of which they constitute an extreme misadventure. Engravings which accompany them, also obscenes are, resort on the other hand to the graphic techniques of the time and are very little innovating from the formal point of view.

Today, the pornography is a stake of debate sociétal primarily because of the means of technical reproduction (according to the expression of Walter Benjamin) - photography, cinema, videos, Internet - which give to these images an almost universal audience. The realism of the photographic or cinematographic image also modified our perception of the pornography: whereas any literary or artistic representation was up to that point struck seal of imaginary (the writer could imagine what he tells, and the painter to reconstitute what he shows us), photography, even if it is put in scene in an artificial way and sometimes even handled, us undoubtedly shows something which existed, actually took place (cf analyzes of Roland Barthes on the Camera lucida ). This new shape of pornography in the car incontestably a new capacity of fascination which explains the broad diffusion of these images but also the debates which surround them: fate of the pornographic actresses (many less often the actors…) is in the middle of the debates - they are forced? do they do it only for the money? is this a trade like another? - whereas nobody wonders about the possible models of the famous Japanese prints or the Hindu erotic sculptures.

Antiquity

For Rome, the sexual representations are reserved inside the Lupanar S, to make have patience the customers.

In China, a rich person Littérature exists and of many artefacts (Peinture S and Sculpture S) show a Liberté representation of the Sexualité.

In India also, the culture produced many representations of sex acts in particular outside the Temple S, because the culture developed the Sexualité in its “crowned” dimension (see on this subject the article on the Tantra).

The Middle Ages and Rebirth

Some see in François Rabelais a precursor of the modern pornography. Its Pantagruel was condemned besides in 1533 like work “obscene” by the Sorbonne. But this judgment undoubtedly related less to the obscenity of the book that on its general spirit (which one can describe as Carnavalesque), too far away from the lesson of the Church. The work of Rabelais testifies moreover to a mentality for which sexuality formed part of the human life still fully and as a subject “taboo”, prohibited with the representation and the common speech was not regarded. At that time, a category as the “pornographic one” was in fact unknown factor, and the charge of obscenity aimed much more of the behaviors that representations (written or graphic).

The wars of religion which tear shortly after Europe and the movement of the Counter-Reformation which will follow however deeply modify manners of the time: on the one hand, the devalorization of the " chair" in this context of exacerbated religiosity will be general in XVIe and the XVIIe centuries, while the Church will seek to control the most intimate behaviors of its subjects (via the confession in particular). If the pornographic representations are not firstly aimed, they are the victims of this general climate of “puritanism” (with the direction running of the term) which settles in Europe: at this point in time one repaints vineleaves on the frescos of Michel-Angel in the Vatican.

Traditional time

It is starting from the Reform and of the Counter-Reformation that date probably the Western distinction between what would be “erotic” (for example the naked artistic one) and what would be “pornographic”, i.e. illicit and condemned to clandestinity (even if they are not the terms employed at the time traditional). The constraint exerted on manners thus makes at this time pornography a exercise of freedom and subversion.

It will be the case in particular in France with the appearance of a Littérature libertine at the 18th century with authors as different as Diderot ( indiscreet Jewels ), Crébillon wire ( the sopha , Mislayings of the heart and spirit), Fougeret de Monbron ( Margot ravaudeuse the ) and many other authors now forgotten. Works of the Marquis de Sade constitute the extreme and singular result of this literature of which it gives a particularly black and cruel version (the " sadisme" from the author goes until the murder of men, women and children). In England, the Memories of Fanny Hill of John Cleland belong to the same tradition " libertine".

19th century

The 19th middle-class century will not put fine at the climate “puritanism”, whose judgment which struck in France in 1857 the Flowers of the evil of Charles Baudelaire is the example most sadly famous. One can even say that this century is particularly repressive as regards pornography: the “middle-class” decency imposes very strict limits on any sexual representation, and the least transgression causes scandal, as it was the case for example with the Olympia of Edouard Manet or Mrs Bovary of Gustave Flaubert (even if the realistic writer, contrary to Baudelaire, were not condemned). It is at the beginning of the 19th century, that the National library of Paris constitutes its famous “Hell besides” where the works are gathered offending “decency”.

That does not prevent the development of a whole more or less clandestine pornography whose certain productions are still famous today (for example Gamiani or two nights of excess allotted in a hypothetical way to Alfred de Musset or work engraved of Félicien Rops).

20th century

The literature " pornographique" will emerge nevertheless gradually in public space starting from the end of the 19th century and with the 20th century, in particular after the First World War in the climate of freedom of the mad years. Authors like Pierre Louÿs, Apollinaire ( the Eleven Thousand Rods ), Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, among others, will give him its noble letters.

In addition, with photography then the Cinéma were born from new images pornographic “taken on the sharp one” and from a new realism. These images will circulate during many years " under the manteau" before appearing gradually at the great day. The Scandinavian countries will authorize the first the diffusion of such images in particular under cover of sex education ( I am curious about Vilgot Sjöman, Sweden, 1967).

It is only in the Années 1970 that the pornographic films are authorized in the cinemas in France and in the majority of the Western countries. Various restrictions will be however put at this diffusion, in particular a general prohibition with the minors. In France in particular, a new Loi will make the production more difficult with the classification X which multiplies the constraints of diffusion: whereas certain films pornographic (or judged as such) had been shown on the cinemas of the “Grands Boulevards”, this new law strongly taxes the cinemas considered pornographic, which become specialized” and marginalized sector a “. One then attends the quasi-total disappearance of these rooms in the Années 1990, consequence inter alia appearance of the Video cassette.

Today, the development of Internet makes it possible the pornographic contents to be still diffused more widely and deeply modifies the structure of the market by supporting a strictly private consumption of these productions. If the bulk-heading between the world of the “pornography” (more or less stigmatized) and the public sphere is not completely tight, the barrier quite present and is maintained under the pressure of various more or less active social groups (many feminists are hostile with the pornography, but also family associations, religious groups, hostile militants anti-capitalists at “the commercial exploitation of the bodies”, even if the reasons advanced by one or the others are different).

Pornography in art

Literature

See also: pornographic Literature

Painting

See also: artistic Representation of naked the

Famous table naturalist the Origin of the world was painted by Gustave Courbet, at the request of a Turkish diplomat , in 1866, during one time (Second Empire) where manners very austere and were organized. This table, which circulated only within private collections, was regarded by the few close friends of the painter and the owner of pornographic work as highly ; it had been able to be prohibited and cause the lightnings of the censure if it had been under all the eyes. It was, at one moment, property of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan who dissimulated it within a framework at double bottom. Since 1995, it joined the collection of the Musée of Orsay and is exposed among other tables of Billhook, signs that the acceptance of the concept of pornography is simply relating to the one time manners.

In its books, Léonard de Vinci left several drawings obscenes, one in particular of Salaï posing for an angel while being affublé of an erection ( angelo incarnato ). Many of these drawings, censured a long time, remain to be discovered. Some even, asserting this mysterious word of the painter: “  Poor wretches mortals, open the yeux !   ” , believes to discover a pornography hidden in several of its most famous works (the Virgin with the rocks, etc).

Pornography and media of mass

Television, cinema and audio-visual industry

“The industry of the contemporary pornography took its rise with the beginning of the year fifty, with the creation of Playboy (1953)” (Richard Poulin).

The studies on this subject remain rather rare today . In 2002, one estimates that the turnover of pornographic industry rose to 50 billion euros.

The choices of pornographic industry influence sometimes directly certain sectors. Thus the success of VHS of JVC compared to its direct competitor in the United States, the Betamax, is partly due to the choice of pornographic industry to market cassettes VHS and not Betamax.

It could be that this fact reproduces for the choice of a successor to the disc DVD, pornographic industry having announced at the time of the THESE 2007 with Las Vegas, its preference for the format HD-DVD and not for the Blu-Ray. The future will say it to us.

Stars of the pornographic cinema

See the article Actors and pornographic film actresses

“Historical” magazines

The three first are American reviews now historical and can be described as erotic S (except for Hustler ), as Him besides (one tends to use to indicate this type of product the expression magazine Of charm) .

The French monthly magazine Union treats Sexualité, with photographs from a point of view of Voyeurisme. Swing is the historical review of the practitioners of the echangism.

Internet

The arrival of Internet exploded the market of the pornography. The diffusion of Multimédia there is easier and touches a larger audience, standardizing the trade of the sex to some extent. Sites can be devoted to actors or actresses of pornographic films, which allows to fidéliser customers. The Internet also saw the development of films carried out by amateurs.

Certain networks of private individual with private individual (P2P) are shown to support the diffusion of pornographic contents implying of the minors. An investigation of the General Accounting Office showed the bond between networks of file-swapping and the youthful pornography. The directing vice-president of Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, Alan Morris, denied this charge before an American senatorial committee (September 2003).

Difficult problems arise in connection with the diffusion of pornography on Internet: is

  1. Which the true share of the pornography on the Internet?
  2. is the legal framework of the diffusion of pornographic contents adapted to support Internet?
  3. How to protect the minors and the fragile adults from the exposure to these contents?

Some figures

The evaluation quantified of the pornography on Internet is carried out via analyzes or extrapolations which not offering true reliable sources are often disputed and criticized.

  • the analysts specialists the commercial on the Internet estimate that a pornographic site can gain between 10  000 and 15  000 dollars each day. Some of the oldest sites have incomes of almost 2 million dollars per month.

  • the Net surfers spent nearly 1 billion dollar to reach pornographic sites in 1998.

  • In 1998, there was more than 100.000 commercial pornographic sites and 200 new sites appeared daily.

  • On 57 million Americans reaching Internet, about half consults pornographic sites during 1 to 10 a.m. per week.

The detractors of these studies oppose to them that they omit the fact that many pornographic Internet sites are small, or do not manage to release from benefit, in a too plethoric competition. This tendency is reinforced by the free exchange of files on Internet as for the other numerical media.

Right and pornography

A great number of State S strictly regulate the freedom of publication of pornographic works: minimum age of required access, limitation of the places of access, limitation of the representable things (for example, in France, a Viol cannot appear in the intrigue of a X film, whereas it can if it is not classified X).

Certain countries practice a severe repression against the pornography. For example, in China, the incurred sorrows can go until the life imprisonment.

The law in France

Article 227-24 of the Penal code: “the fact is to manufacture, transport, diffuse by some means that it is and whatever of either the support a message in violent or pornographic matter or likely to carry seriously reached to human dignity, or to make trade of such a message, is punished three years of imprisonment and 75.000 euros fine (375 000 euros for the moral persons) when this message is likely to be considering or perceived by a minor. ” Since 1994, the insult with the moralities is made up only if the pornographic message reaches the minors.

Salesmen of press and hirers out of video must mask the Magazine S and erotic DVD S or pornographic, like checking the age of their customers. The televised pornographic films are available only on paying chains. The decoders are provided with a system of locking, requiring a code for the access to these programs. The suppliers of access Internet propose software of Parental control, making it possible to prohibit the access to the sites containing certain key words.

Criticisms of the pornography

Whereas until in the years 1960, any representation of sex acts was considered to be “pornographic” and was prohibited in the majority of the Western countries, this representation then spread with the movement of “release of manners” (control by the women of their fruitfulness by contraception, legalization of contraception and the abortion, increase in the number of the divorces, claims feminist relating in particular to the " right to the plaisir" , emergence of the homosexual minority…). But the development of the pornography causes today various reactions, sometimes extremely negative.

These criticisms of origins various - feminists, but also resulting from various movements of moral reaction - can be synthesized in three great points:

  1. criticisms relate initially to the conditions of realization of the pornographic images, which would imply a forced exploitation of the actresses forced by violence or misery with sexual practices to which they would feel reluctant. The abuse is in any case manifest and legally condemnable when it concerns children: the fight against the childish pornography had in particular to become much more active with the development of the Internet. To these criticisms major is added a critic secondary (but important) concerning the disease risks sexually transmissible incurred by the actors and actresses not using condoms.
  2. Of others critical relates to the supposed effects of the pornography on the consumers: the pornography by the multiplication of the scenes of violence made to the women, would be an incentive with the rape. Moreover, it would be noted that the pornography develops in certain consumers of the phenomena of dependence pushing them to increase their consumption of such images. At the children and the teenagers, the effects of the visionnage of pornographic images former to any real experiment of sexuality are also problematic.
  3. Enfin, of strong criticisms relates to the same values conveyed by the pornography which would reduce the women to be only “objects” and ramèrenait the love affairs with simple sexual relations.

These criticisms are developed and discussed below.

Exploitation of the children

See the article childish Pornography

Pornographic industry and AIDS

Recent cases of HIV in the medium of pornographic industry reveal the work conditions of the actors and actresses. The actresses of the countries of the East and Latin America are not informed of the risks of contamination whereas they practice risky reports/ratios (multiple Sodomie and partners). But the producers often exert a pressure to make their film without any protection to the pretext of answer a request of the spectators.

However, one finds actors within this medium who fight for the port of the Préservatif like Julia Chanel, Ovidie or Clara Morgane.

Incentive with the Violence

The detractors of the pornography insist initially on its omnipresence supposed in the media. Thus, one will affirm that a European Adolescent sees (or would see) on average 14.000 sexual references per annum to the Télévision, among whom 165 only on the Contraception and the risks of MST. These figures however assimilate any sexual allusion to pornography.

The increasing diffusion of the pornography and in particular of images devaluing by the woman (going until the most extreme violences) is then shown to be responsible for many disorders of behavior in the company (sexual assaults, mistaken for the women, imposition of degrading sexual practices, etc). Certain statistical studies go in this direction, but indirectly, insofar as the consumption of pornography would encourage already violent people to pass to the act.

For example, according to an investigation of Bergen and Bogle made in 2000, thirty-two women violated out of hundred who were recorded by the police force stated to be forced by their rapists to take pornographic film positions inspired.

According to a study of Cramer, McFarlane, Parker, Soeken, Silva and Reel, 40,9% of the women bring back a pornographic consumption of their attacker: these women were forced to view scenes or to pose for scenes in pornographic matter.

According to a study of the Center-Women of Beauce in nonscientific matter, entitled the pornography is not without consequences , 13% of the women say to have undergone pressures of their spouse in connection with the pornography. 77% of the paedophiles having attacked little boys and 87% of those which attacked little girls acknowledged the determining action of the pornographic literature in their thoughts and their behaviors.

It is also noted that other studies conclude in a radically opposite way. For them, the pornography would be useful contrary to discharge system in which all the phantasms and all the impulses would be released, which would allow that those re-appear in a less frequent way in the real life.

Pornographic dependence

The existence of the pornographic dependence is not recognized officially by the Psychiatrie; it is only one theory suggested by some.

See the article Dependence with the pornography .

The partisans of this theory estimate that the dependence with the pornography involves a “pornographic conditioning” and a dependence invading on all the fields of the life, they speak about sexual Dépendance. Certain psychiatric studies would have shown a strong sexualisation of the human reports/ratios at dependant people with the pornography.

  • The most elementary theories on the training and conditioning show that the more one maintains a craving on the level the phantasm, the more it is strong. (D Michel Dubec, expert attached to the Court of Appeal of Paris)

  • The sexual dependence exists when a person practices a sexual activity which comes from there to affect its capacity negatively to be composed with the other aspects of the life, becoming implied in other relations - either true, or through the phantasms - and becoming dependant on the sexual experiments like source first of satisfaction (...) without glance with the consequences on her health, her family and her career. (Dr. Harry Schaumburg)

The analysis of the Dépendance to the pornography (which exists certainly and which is supported by the accessibility to Internet but of which it would be premature to make a " disorder pathologique") must be made in the widened context of the disorders of the dependence but also of sexuality. The pornography, far from being the simple cause of the dependence, undoubtedly comes to fall under a psychic personality complexes and to fill in a way or a another " manque" , a preexistent dissatisfaction, which will perdurera even if the access to the " produit" is removed. Thus, the " strong sexualisation of the humains" reports/ratios; in large consumers of pornography (supposed " dépendants") is not necessarily the effect of this consumption but rather the cause of this consumption or, in a more moderate way, a causal factor in a complex personality.

“Nihilism” of the pornography

The detractors of the pornography reproach him for denying human subjectivity, to destroy the sentimental relations with the other by making some the instrument of an insatiable pleasure. This insatiable character of the desire put in scene, in the higher bid of the signs of the pleasure (howls orgasmic, frenzy of the impulses, multiplication almost without limits of the partners, reduction of the human being to the only sexual instinct) would mark the complete absence of the desire paradoxically: indeed, to wish, it is to wish somebody; the elimination of the dignity of others, by practices of domination, destroys the body by transforming it into “meat” to consume, whereas it is this being which one wished.

The detractors of the pornography denounce a vulgarizing of the pornography in the current society. They consider that this vulgarizing is characteristic of the passivity of the consumers who accept it without any moral conscience; they advance sometimes this quotation of Fedor Dostoïevski: The man is a refuse, it is accustomed to all. ( Crime and Châtiment ).

Some are opposed to these arguments considering that these speeches are not appuyent on any reliable data on the consumers of pornography. As well as the note Virginia Despentes: " The articles and dedicated works with the kind are extraordinarily numerous. The serious studies are it less, one seldom tries hard to inquire into the reactions of the men who consume porn. One prefers to imagine what they have in cranium that to pose the question." directly; Despentes, 2006, p 96.

References

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