Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture »

Susanna Paasonen is research fellow at the Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki. She is the author of Figures of Fantasy: Internet, Women and Cyberdiscourse and co-editor of Women and Everyday Uses of the Internet: Agency & Identity. Kaarina Nikunen is Lecturer in Media Culture and Laura Saarenmaa is researcher in Media Culture, both at the University of Tampere.

This international overview of how pornography--from softcore to hardcore, gay to straight, female to male, black to white--infiltrates and proliferates through various media. Porn is everywhere; from the suggestiveness of music videos to the explicit discussions of popular magazines; from the erotica of advertising to the refashioning of sex acts into art works; from a small garage industry to an internet empire. The media immerses us in the pornographic aesthetic. Now integral to popular culture, porn is part of our everyday lives. Sexual desire is commodified, pornified and the media leads the way. Exploring music videos, alt porn sites, Cosmogirls and Gaydar online forums, H&M's street advertising, retro pin-ups, film and educational sex videos alike, Pornification analyses the transformation of porn in today's media and its impact on our culture.

Introduction: Pornification and the Education of Desire PART I: PORN HISTORY 1. From Garage to Global Industry: The Untold Story of the Adult Content Business 2. The Pornographic Gaze: Empire, Race and Sexuality 3. The Golden Era of Porn: Nostalgia and History in Cinema PART II: PORN CULTURE 4. Alt Porn: The Clash of Community and Commerce 5. Making Porn into Art 6. Cosmo Girls Talk: Blurring the Boundaries of Porn and Sex 7. Gay Men and the Pornification of Everyday Life PART III: PORN MEDIA 8. Outdoor Porn: Advertising Heterosexuality 9. Insatiable Sluts and almost Gay Guys: Bisexuality in Porn Magazines 10. The Pornification of Music Videos 11. Pinups: Iconography, Retro-Chic, and Irony 12. Bend Over Boyfriend: The Spread of Instructional Sex Videos 13. Feeding the Hunger: The Media's Role in the Pornification of Everyday Life Conclusion: Porn Futures.