Pornotopia
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Pornotopia is an idea in critical theory describing an imagined space determined by fantasies and dominated by human sexual activity, expressed in and encompassing pornography and erotica.[1] The word was coined by American literary critic Steven Marcus in his 1966 book The Other Victorians, deriving inspiration from nineteenth-century English literature on sexuality by moralists, physicians and erotic authors.[2]
American sociologist Daniel Bell expounded on the idea, viewing the promotion and enforcement of enjoyment in late capitalism as the ground for society's pornotopia, paradoxically going against the bourgeois virtues of sobriety, chastity and purity that the system of capitalism was historically built alongside.[3]
Structure
[edit]A pornotopia is characterized by its freedom from the normal social restraints of place and time ingrained by the Real, instead orienting around unconscious laws of enjoyment. Steven Marcus summarized this aspect with the principle that "it is always summertime in pornotopia".[4] Barriers to enjoyment and subsequently liberated sexuality are either split off entirely, or dissolved through an excess of sexual activity, provoking jouissance.[5]
In pornotopias, narrative flows are suspended on a tenuous line;[6] examples include picaresque novels allowing for multiple encounters, and Sadean novels with multiplications of all possible combinations of persons and their orifices.[7] Marcus argued that because of the freedom offered by the enjoyment of pornography that paradoxically traps subjects in its enjoyment, besides the orgasm, "it is an end, a conclusion of any kind, that pornography most resists".[8] For example, Susan Sontag singled out Catherine Robbe-Grillet's 1956 novel The Image as transcending its genre because its conclusion retrospectively illuminates the novel's sadomasochistic events and leaves them in a suspense that suggests limitless continuation, which is a key component of a pornotopia.[9]
Characterization
[edit]In a pornotopia, characters are typically hypersexual, forever ready for sex with an almost omnipotent capacity for libido, renewal and further activity, evoking freedom from external reality and timelessness.[10] In this sense, they can often be invulnerable; for example, in Anne Desclos' 1954 novel Story of O, the novel's central metaphor demonstrates that just as the chains never rust in her fairytale-style château, the inhabitants are never damaged by their ordeals, and never lose any of their allure.[11] This capacity of the novel, and of pornotopias in general, to allow the enjoyment of the Imaginary to overtake the reality principle was observed by Jacques Lacan, saying that "whatever happens to the subject is incapable of spoiling the image in question, incapable even of wearing it out".[12]
Criticism
[edit]Following the publication of The Other Victorians, historian Brian Harrison criticized Steven Marcus' concept of pornotopia for what he saw as a biased use of literary sources. From Harrison's analysis, Marcus exclusively drew on a small number of Victorian texts oriented around sexuality, from which he developed a lengthy conceptual conclusion about the intents and drives of pornography in general.[13] In 2017, literary critic Thomas Joudrey, drawing on the same archive that Marcus had examined at the Kinsey Institute, also challenged the concept of pornotopia by calling attention to the equally pervasive presence of bodily failure, decay, suffering and death in Victorian pornographic novels, appearing as impotence, castration, torn foreskins, slack vaginas, incontinence and syphilitic outbreaks,[14] although this could also be taken as transgressive enjoyment. Joudrey further challenged the concept of pornotopia by drawing attention to extensive political commentary in pornographic magazines such as The Pearl, including references to the Reform Bills and Contagious Diseases Acts, in addition to many controversial public figures, including Annie Besant, Charles Spurgeon, Wilfrid Lawson, Newman Hall, Edmund Burke, William Gladstone, and Robert Peel, where such a space of liberated and limitless sexuality is implausible against the social demands of non-sexual activity.[15]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Definition of "pornotopia"". collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2 January 2016.
- ^ Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England, Basic Books, 1966, p. 272-276
- ^ Daniel Bell, The Winding Passage, 1980, p. 302
- ^ Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England, Basic Books, 1966, p. 276
- ^ Linda Williams, Hard Core (1989) p. 239 and p. 170
- ^ T. Lovell/J. Hawthorne, Criticism and Critical Theory (1984)
- ^ Edwin Morgan, 'Introduction' Alexander Trocchi, Helen and Desire (1997) p. vii
- ^ Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England, Basic Books, 1966, p. 282
- ^ Susan Sontag, 'The Pornographic Imagination', in George Bataille, Story of the Eye (2001) p. 84–86 and p. 109–110
- ^ Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England, Basic Books, 1966, p. 275-6
- ^ Jean Paulhan, introductory essay in Pauline Réage (Anne Desclos), Story of O, 1975 edition, p. 163
- ^ Jacques Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1992, p. 202
- ^ Harrison, Brian. "Underneath the Victorians". Victorian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (March 1967), pp. 239-262.
- ^ Thomas J. Joudrey. "The Ethics of Anti-Perfectionism in Victorian Pornography." Victorian Studies 57.3 (2015): 423-32.
- ^ Thomas J. Joudrey, "Against Communal Nostalgia: Reconstructing Sociality in the Pornographic Ballad." Victorian Poetry 54.4 (2017).
Further reading
[edit]- Cole, Kristen L. (July 2014). "Pornography, censorship, and public sex: exploring feminist and queer perspectives of (public) pornography through the case of Pornotopia". Porn Studies. 1 (3): 227–241. doi:10.1080/23268743.2014.927708.
- Ellis, Bruce J.; Symons, Donald (November 1990). "Sex differences in sexual fantasy: an evolutionary psychological approach". Journal of Sex Research. 27 (4): 527–555. doi:10.1080/00224499009551579.
- Goleman, Daniel (14 June 1995). "Sex fantasy research said to neglect women". New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 June 2016. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
- Goodheart, Eugene (1991). Desire and its discontents. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231076432.
- Mertner, Edgar; Mainusch, Herbert (1970). Pornotopia: das Obszöne und die Pornographie in der literarischen Landschaft [Pornotopia: obscenity and pornography in the literary landscape] (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum Verlag. OCLC 250958139.
- Meyer, Adolf-Ernst (3 August 1970). "Staatsform: Orgasmokratie" [Form of government: orgasmocracy]. Kultur [Culture]. Der Spiegel. Review of: Pornotopia: das Obszöne und die Pornographie in der literarischen Landschaft [Pornotopia: obscenity and pornography in the literary landscape] (Mertner and Meinusch 1970) (in German). 32: 102–104. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
- Poynor, Rick (2006). Designing pornotopia: essays on visual culture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 978-1568986074.
- Salmon, Catherine (June 2012). "The pop culture of sex: an evolutionary window on the worlds of pornography and romance". Review of General Psychology. 16 (2): 152–160. doi:10.1037/a0027910. S2CID 144006609.
- "Thema eins" [Topic Number One]. Sex-Welle [Sex wave]. Der Spiegel. Editorial (in German). 32: 32–46. 3 August 1970. Archived from the original on 21 September 2016. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
- Symons, Donald (1979). The evolution of human sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-502535-0.