Internationalizing porn studies

Abstract

Porn studies are currently dominated by European and American scholarly networks. This article looks at how the field might broaden its scope to include non-western media and cultural contexts. Using an example of porn research in Japan and China, it is argued that non-western pornographies are not just a set of global and regional cultures to be mapped and studied, but are a tool for interrogating broader questions of technological innovation, internet politics, sexuality rights and obscenity legislation. Porn studies can and should deal with these larger cultural–political debates and social movements in addition to documenting different aesthetics of sexually explicit media.

Keywords:

• porn studies
• globalization
• Asian porn studies
• post-pornography