The Nature Of Pornography

Today, a wide variety of visual representation have become the venue for pornography to drive many parts across the broad spectrum of representation (Dennis, 2009). Conventionally, a general understanding of pornography is to express – and possibly also produce and construct – sexual fantasies (Purcell, 2012). However, the nature of pornography does not only restrict by the representation of sexual acts. There are many debates and studies on the mainstreaming of pornography, pornographication, pornification, normalization of pornography, porno chic, and the rise of raunch culture by scholars, journalists and representatives of the porn industry. This is for the reason that pornography have yet become predominant features of popular media culture

If we describe something as pornographic, there should be at least two possible implications, one will be sexual sense, and the other being socio-cultural sense. This can be shown in the discourse of others. In recent years, visual representation analyses, particularly in Western societies, have demonstrated the fundamental subject of representation is the man (Owens, 2012). This phenomenon shows that, on one hand, men seem to be the only focal point of the representational system. De Beauvoir’s groundbreaking work The Second Sex expressed the opinion that women, on the other hand, are deemed to be the object or the other from a feminist perspective, such idea triggered second-wave feminism. Following her work, for the postmodernists to alter this representational system, they are literally staged to expose that system of power that enables certain representations while repressing others like women whose legitimacy is not represented. With regarding to pornography, it does not only portray the distribution of male power over female bodies but also violates women through representation of the sexual desire of men (Kipnis, 1993). There are many reasons for such uneven distribution of power, and cultural reason is one of the most prominent. Mainstream pornography as one of numerous types of cultural expression that function in an intrinsic social environment of gender and vulnerability

However, postmodernism offers no clear path to action, Judith Butler identifies this. What Butler (1995) argues is there are various reasons and solutions to women’s subordination. In the case that the term ‘postmodernism’ is so vague that it has to be meaningful. Therefore, the attempts of postmodernists to alter the representational system seem to be futile. In addition, the representation of sex in the media has steadily turned women to become more and more sexualized. Using music video as a deliberate example; Women’s open, moist and lipstick-red lips, half-closed eyelids which can be seen as visually pornographic are all over the place (Juvonen et al., 2004). ‘Adore You’, for example, is a music video of Miley Cyrus, which seems symbolically pornographic. It is very alluring as she moaning, rolling around and pointing a video camera down her panties. Such video would attract more viewings than the ordinary as it is sexually suggestive. As we can see, pornography has been used as a consumer product for profit-gaining purposes and commodified to bring in value. It also connotes a kind of commodified sex; in this way, media recognizes sex for a mass market and make it as a selling point to increase their profits (Nead, 2004). This is the visual implication of pornographisation which we can see solely from watching the video or listening to the music. In this way, pornographication and