Esra Padgett

On December 17th, 2018, an adult content ban was enacted on Tumblr, a microblogging and online content-sharing platform. The ban enforced the removal of all so-called adult content through the use of a censorial algorithm designed to flag or remove images. This paper traces the discursive negotiations between Tumblr and its users that emerged after the ban, a process centered on the very terms of what defines obscenity and constituted by competing pragmatics for sorting obscene images. This article outlines the history of obscenity law in the U.S. and its use of both inherentist and performative approaches. It then traces the shift in Tumblr's content ban, from a legal framework to an automated algorithmic agent for the task of discernment. The paper argues that disputes arising in the aftermath of the ban are the result of clashing sets of (meta)pragmatics-the semiotic processes of category-making, and image categorization more specifically-which, once the ken of juridical experts, are now brought to light by Tumblr's act of censorship.

This chapter opens with the question “Who speaks for porn?” as a way to interrogate historical discourses on pornography and to reposition academic approaches to the subject. Taking a linguistic anthropological lens to academic work on pornography, the chapter provides a close examination of the ways in which ideologies about porn are constructed, focusing in particular on the discursive circulation of the social figures central to pornography: performers, producers, and consumers. The concept of porn literacy is introduced to stress the importance of developing informed reading practices in future academic work on porn. To this end, a case study of a porn performer is offered to demonstrate how an ethnographically informed approach to semiotic processes of authentication, branding, and mediatization may lead to new understandings of the political economic structure of pornography and broaden our definitions of authenticity, desire, and subjectivity.

This article traces the 2015 controversy following porn performer Stoya’s accusation of rape by fellow performer James Deen, in which competing ideas about Stoya’s ability to consent circulated through popular and social media discourse. Focusing on the occupational class of porn performers, the article suggests that interpretations of sexual assault and notions of consent rely on particular models of personhood to prescribe and delimit definitions of who and how one can occupy a consenting (and thus, nonconsenting) subjectivity. The article introduces three chronotopic formulations of consent, spatiotemporal parameters for when and where consent is considered applicable, demonstrating how each is applied to a victim of sexual violence according to how the victim is interpellated as a particular kind of subject.

The question of who does language change has existed in the field of linguistics for decades. When does linguistic change occur? Who chooses when a new word becomes relevant and how does this happen? This essay investigates these questions through a feminist lens, adapting tools from both feminist linguistic study as well as feminist rhetorical theory and historiography. Rather than pinning down an answer, the essay attempts to follow the trajectory of the research itself, observing how perspectives can shift drastically depending on one’s method of inquiry. By using both primary archival material as well as contemporary case studies, the essay also investigates how a collaboration between current feminist approaches can bring a more holistic view to past, present, and future research.