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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36567 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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I don't know of anyone who advocates showing kids porn.

Pedagogies of sexual identity: Porn can also be a significant source of education for sex/gender diverse young people, with a range of studies indicating that pornography is a significant source of explicit information that supports both sexual confidence and positive community formation for same-sex-attracted people (Waugh 1996; Ruddock and Kain 2006; Hillier and Harrison 2007; Kubichek et al. 2010).

While the deliberate linking of explicit images and texts with sexual health information is relatively rare in health promotion and health education materials targeting young people, heterosexual adults, or same-sex-attracted women, one Australian sexual health promotion project targeting sexually adventurous women has adopted similar strategies (Albury, Constable, and May 2012). Although the project has been active for less than 12 months and is still being evaluated, it illustrates some of the ways that a ‘community-driven’ approach to sexual pedagogy and learning can engage with the tastes and practices of porn consumers. The media campaign was developed in consultation with a reference group of women drawn from Sydney alternative sex sub-cultures. The project website, iloveclaude, is modelled on the social media platform Tumblr, and combines ‘found’ images from soft-core pornography and erotica with commissioned photo-sets, interviews, expert advice and short videos focused on safer-sex and blood-play practices (AIDS Council 2012)

As Buckingham notes, media education programmes focused on non-pornographic texts often adopt ‘a more student-centred perspective, which begins from young people’s existing knowledge and experience of media, rather than the instructional imperatives of the teacher’ (2008, 13). The difficulty for educators in the field of ‘porn literacy’, however, is that they may not legally distribute the object of study to their (minor) students, nor may they legally encourage students to develop alternative pornographic media as a means of developing literacy – a common strategy within mainstream media education. This means that porn education (for under-18s at least), neither permits close readings of actual explicit texts nor allows for direct discussions of specific texts... In an ideal educational setting, porn literacy education might permit a dialogue that offers the opportunity for educators to learn more about young people’s sexual cultures, and for both teachers and learners to extend their knowledge and understanding of the intersections between mediated representation and lived experiences of sex, sexuality, and gender.

...It might also seek to understand how young people’s readings of pornography (and their reception of porn education) can reshape the broader curriculum of formal sex and relationships education. This interrogation would not rule out explicit critiques of misogynistic, homophobic or racist tropes within pornography, but might also offer the capacity to open up critically productive conversations about the boundaries between adult sexual knowledge and young people’s sexual learning; and the ways popular and institutional discourses define particular forms of sexuality, sexual identity, and sex/gender expression as ‘legitimate’ (or ‘illegitimate’) know-ledge for young people.

Due to the contemporary moral climate surrounding the issue of pornography use among young people, but also, more generally, sex-positive teaching (Fortenberry, 2016 ), pornography literacy would likely be difficult to incorporate in school-based health and sexuality education programs

While pornography may benefit sexual minority groups by allowing them to see their own sexual preferences or behaviours on screen (Kubicek et al. 2010), it has been widely criticised for the way it portrays heterosexual sex and reinforces gender inequalities

Does "unfortunately it's illegal because teachers and kids sharing porn would be a Powerful tool for social justice" count? Or "porn is good for kids, but only if it's Queer and Addresses Gender Inequities"?

Like, I just want you to acknowledge here that these "social justice in porn studies" academics only have a problem with kids being given porn if they think it's the wrong kind of cisnormative porn.

To respond to your edits (which I think you ought to have marked as such, out of courtesy, given that I had already replied):

Does "unfortunately it's illegal because teachers and kids sharing porn would be a Powerful tool for social justice" count? Or "porn is good for kids, but only if it's Queer and Addresses Gender Inequities"?

Like, I just want you to acknowledge here that these "social justice in porn studies" academics only have a problem with kids being given porn if they think it's the wrong kind of cisnormative porn.

First of all, I would appreciate knowing what this quote is from. You've said nothing about where you found it, or who said it.

Second of all, it is still not clear to me that it is saying what you say it is saying. "Porn can be helpful in these ways and harmful in these other ways" is very far from an unqualified endorsement. The fact that the person who wrote this (whoever they are) reaches first for a social justice critique of porn is not actually evidence that they think porn is always good for children when it doesn't have those issues, or that children should be given it when they are not choosing to access it on their own.

In particular, I think there may be something important being said here:

This interrogation would not rule out explicit critiques of misogynistic, homophobic or racist tropes within pornography, but might also offer the capacity to open up critically productive conversations about the boundaries between adult sexual knowledge and young people’s sexual learning; and the ways popular and institutional discourses define particular forms of sexuality, sexual identity, and sex/gender expression as ‘legitimate’ (or ‘illegitimate’) know-ledge for young people.

It's not clear from your quote what "productive conversations" would consist of, but I can see two potentially sympathetic things being alluded to here. One of these -- from my second bolded section -- is the lack of access children might have to non-pornographic information about LGBTQ topics. Children sometimes turn to porn because they don't have alternate sources of information, and this can be particularly true when topics like homosexuality and trans identities are deemed off limits for them. Rather than castigating them for turning to porn for information in that situation, it might indeed be helpful to leave room for a productive conversation about what information they are looking for.

The second sympathetic thing that I might be detecting here -- although I would need more context to be sure -- is this reference to "the boundaries between adult sexual knowledge and young people’s sexual learning." I do wonder if this is trying to say that adult pornographic content is not necessarily a good source of sexual learning, and that it's useful to have a boundary here.

My apologies, it is very difficult to block quote from PDFs on my shitty phone, and I ended up making a ton of edits.

I'll just say I think you are trying to read this in any way that doesn't acknowledge its most obvious implication: that porn is a tool for shaping children's sexuality in ways "social justice educators" find appealing.

Just read the first full article where she explicitly criticizes dissuading kids from looking at porn in favor of teachers guiding them towards porn that advocates queer bloodplay and Progressive values. Then check out the cites for even more out there stuff.

At the very least you have to acknowledge that "nobody wants to show kids porn" is not true. I'm just sick of these constant "nobody is saying X" arguments which inevitably end with "I can't believe you still oppose X" a year later.

she explicitly criticizes dissuading kids from looking at porn in favor of teachers guiding them towards porn that advocates queer bloodplay and Progressive values

A CTRL-F for "blood" in that article you linked leads me to one instance, in a section whose heading is "Pornography as (adult) sex education." As in, for adults. So your summary is definitely inaccurate. I reiterate that this does not appear to be an example of someone advocating that we should show kids porn.

She literally talks about how that same model can be used for children, if you would please read the article instead of Ctrl+f-ing through it. It's not that long, I managed to find and read it on a short boat ride after seeing your initial claim.

Okay, fine, I read it. I really am doing my best, here, to see what you are trying to refer to. I think the only statement that seems like it might be saying something of that nature is this one:

As Buckingham notes, contemporary ‘mainstream’ media literacy education ‘seeks to begin with ... students ... existing tastes and pleasures, rather than assuming that these are merely invalid or “ideological”’ (2008, 14). While sexuality education targeting adults (particularly same-sex-attracted men) currently takes this approach to pornography, education targeting heterosexual young people does not.

This then leads into the concluding paragraphs, which you quoted above, and which are suggesting directions for "[f]uture research (and practical inquiry) into pornography and/as sex education." I think the strongest interpretation I could make of this would be something like "maybe porn literacy classes for young people should start with (and accept) their existing porn tastes instead of trying to prescribe the correct ideological responses."

From what I can see, however, the article is not actually proposing that the rules around not being allowed to show porn to young people should be changed.

Your first quote sounds like it is saying "children sometimes access porn and use it for sex education." I don't read it as saying that children should access porn and use it for sex education.

Your second quote is about "media literacy" in the context of teaching people who already have access to porn to be more critical of it.

It's important to keep in mind that the term "porn" in the US is often used to refer to material that isn't strictly pornographic and sometimes not even sexualized. The stereotype of us being a bunch of prudes exists for a reason.

It seems very normalized in what we might call Tumblr-adjacent spaces. Come for the Harry Potter fanfiction! Stay for the Draco!mpreg BDSM scenes!

Most of those stories are by adults and for adults. Tumblr's app is rated 17+. AO3 has a box to tick on explicit fanfiction that asks you to confirm that you are over 18. This doesn't prevent younger people from ticking the box, of course, but this is still not the same as deliberately showing porn to kids. Your argument amounts to saying that kids can access porn on the internet, therefore anyone who puts porn on the internet is "showing kids porn." That's a deeply specious mischaracterisation of what is actually going on.

This is fair. I was keying more off the word "anyone", which may have been changed in what looks like a mess of edits upthread. If I were to tie it more to the direct topic at hand, I would note that a sizeable portion of school librarians and elementary school teachers under 40 are "Tumblr-adjacent", and enough of them are quite happy to openly brag about how much they love normalizing kids consuming porn, or encouraging kids to be non-straight/cis to keep LibsofTikTok in business. Honestly, it's not like they have to do much; genderqueer/sexuality is essentially a conglomerate subculture these days and all of these kids have mostly unregulated internet access. Kids are finding this stuff well enough on their own, there's no real need except proselytizing self-aggrandizement to insist on having books in the middle-school library that can't be read aloud at a schoolboard meeting.

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