This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Garlick, S. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Taking Control of Sex? Hegemonic Masculinity, Technology, and Internet Pornography

University of Victoria

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sgarlick{at}uvic.ca.

	Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that gender is a key category in pornography, yet the relation of the latter to contemporary masculinities remains relatively obscure. Although there is a substantial critical literature on the positioning and treatment of women in pornography, the connection between the consumption of pornographic images and the social construction of hegemonic masculinity has been more often presumed than examined. This lacuna becomes more apparent when juxtaposed with the profusion and proliferation of Internet porn in recent years. Rather than enter into existing antiporn or proporn debates, this article seeks to pose a different set of questions about the relationship between masculinity, technology, and pornography. It suggests that the Internet produces a qualitative change in the way in which viewers are affected by pornography and that this has implications for contemporary gender relations. Beyond men’s control over women’s bodies, Internet porn participates in the larger drama of a technological confrontation between men and nature—one in which control and the meaning of masculinity is perpetually at stake.

First published on August 25, 2009
Men and Masculinities 2009, doi:10.1177/1097184X09341360


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?