Performing Sexual Liberation: The Body and the Medical Authority of Pornography
A critical counter point to the current academic trend for analysing pornography as sexually liberating for women
Further info
Date 24 October 2014
Duration One day
Venue College Court
Fee £7
Contact Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans hbe1@le.ac.uk
Book now only 50 places available
Keynote Speakers
Dr Gail Dines, Wheelock College, Boston, USA:
Neo-liberalism, Pornography and the De-fanging of Feminism
Dr Stephen Maddison, the University of East London, UK:
Make Love Not Porn? Pornography and the Entrepreneurial Voyeur
Dr Meagan Tyler, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia:
Spectacular Sex: The Collision of Sexology and Pornography
Outline
Description
The 21st century has witnessed a growth in academic interest in what has come to be understood as the pornographication of culture.
The purpose of this conference is to gather a group of scholars together whose approach provides a critical counter point to the current academic trend to analyse pornography as sexually liberating for women (and men).
The conference addresses whether pornography, as an emblem of sexual freedom in a democratic society, needs rethinking. It aims to do so through analysing the complex inter-relation of pornography with branches of medicine (for example, sexology and psycho-therapy, and the pharmaceutical industry that helps support these latter) which afford pornography considerable legitimacy and even authority with regard to sexuality. The conference provides the opportunity to explore the relationship between pornography and medicine within the context of larger social structures and neo-liberal government.
The papers presented critically examine the increasing medical authority of pornography in the light firstly of feminist ideas, and secondly, of the rapidly changing conditions of neo-liberalism, global capitalism and digital-technologies.
Selected presentations include:
- ’Squirting’ and the pathologisation of female sexuality as uncontrollable.
- The disciplinary production of the pornographic body.
- Dark desires versus natural sex: medicine, pornography and the history of women’s sexuality.
- The confessional health practices of male porn performers.
- Pornographic assistance in bio-political times.
Schedule
09:30-10:00 Registration
10:00-10:15 Welcome and Opening Remarks
Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans, Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Leicester
10:15-10:50 Key Note: Neo-liberalism, Pornography and the De-fanging of Feminism
Dr Gail Dines, Wheelock College, Boston, USA
10:50-11:10 Coffee
11:15-11:50 Key Note: Make Love Not Porn? Pornography and the Entrepreneurial Voyeur
Dr Stephen Maddison, University of East London, UK
11:50-12:25 Key Note: Prescribing Porn: Sexology, sex therapy and the construction of ideal sex
Dr Meagan Tyler, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
12:30-13-30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 Theme 1: The Disciplined Body
13:30-13:45 The Violable Body: cosmetic practices and the pornographic (de)construction of women’s bodies
Dr Julia Long, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
13:45-14:00 Dark Desires versus “Natural” Sex: medicine, pornography and the history of women’s sexuality
Dr Tracy Penny Light and Dr Diana Parry, University of Waterloo, Canada
14-00-14:15 The Performance and Consumption of the Erotic Body
James Kay, University of Warwick, UK
14:15-14:30 Pornography and the Enfreakment of Disability
Dr Helen Pringle, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
14:30-15:00 Questions and discussion to the Panel
15:00-15:30 Tea
15:30-17:00 Theme 2: The Performing Body
15:30-15:45 Squirting: one in the eye for feminism!
Rebecca Inez Saunders, King’s College, UK
15:45-16:00 Focusing Foucault’s ‘Lens’ on Adult Film Performer’s Sexual Health Within the Sexual Health Setting
Gregory King, University of Greenwich, UK
16:00-16:15 Pornography, sexualising sexism, and sexual consent: exploring how young people talk about gender in pornography and about sexual consent
Dr Maddy Coy, London Metropolitan University, UK
16:15-16:45 Questions and discussion to the Panel
16:45-17:00 Comfort break
17:00-17:45 Plenary
17:45-18:00 Final Remarks – ways forward: Heather Brunskell-Evans
18:00-19:00 Wine reception
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