Carnal Resonance

Cover

Download PDF (4.9 MB)
 

Title Page, Copyright

Download PDF (27.3 KB)
 

Contents

Download PDF (16.8 KB)
pp. v-vi

Preface

Download PDF (41.8 KB)
pp. vii-x

Initially, this book was to be one article in my postdoctoral research project on issues of location and interpretation in Internet research. Although it seemed obvious to me that there was much to be said about online pornography back in 2002 when I was setting out to study it, ...

Chapter 1. Introduction: Carnal Appeal

Download PDF (169.2 KB)
pp. 1-30

“Rules of the Internet” is a list of popular catchphrases that were coined in about 2004 and posted on the image board and Internet meme-sharing site http://www.4chan.org.¹ According to well-known rule 34, “There is porn of it, no exceptions.” Rules 35 and 36 further clarify the issue: “If no porn is found of it, it will be made,” ...

Chapter 2. Bad Taste, Miasmic Forces, and the Ubiquity of Online Porn

Download PDF (365.2 KB)
pp. 31-70

“Internet Is for PORN!!”—a World of Warcraft machinima video based on the musical Avenue Q—was uploaded on YouTube in April 2006, and it attracted over 6.5 million views within its four first years of distribution. In the video, Trekkie Monster interrupts Kate’s song about the wonders of the Internet by shouting “for porn” at strategic times. ...

Chapter 3. Amateur Wives and the Attraction of Authenticity

Download PDF (366.6 KB)
pp. 71-114

The transformations effected by Web distribution and digital production tools on pornography—its aesthetics, its economical underpinnings, and the experiences and resonances that it facilitates—cannot be understood apart from the shifting notions of amateur and professional. What was formerly hierarchical is currently elastic. ...

Chapter 4. The Literal and the Hyperbolic: Mapping the Modalities of Online Porn

Download PDF (318.8 KB)
pp. 115-164

If porn is considered one of the lowest forms of popular culture (Williams 1991, 2), then porn spam—or junk email—would in all likelihood be considered the lowest of the low (figure 4.1). Amateur porn may retain some status as peer practice and even “folk culture,” but spam email connotes the bulky and the commercial. ...

Chapter 5. Visual Pleasures: From Gaze to Grab and Resonance

Download PDF (247.8 KB)
pp. 165-206

From amateur videos to spam messages and porn stories, pornographic scenarios are depicted from a particular perspective—either that of an outside observer (in videos, represented by a cameraman or a camera placed on a stand) or of one person (as in point-of-view shots)—or from a mixture of numerous perspectives. ...

Chapter 6. Absolutely Disgusting: Shock Sites, Extremity, and the Forbidden Fruit

Download PDF (330.5 KB)
pp. 207-250

As discussed above at some length, the mass market for pornography has been fragmented as the Internet has facilitated an unprecedented spread and diversification of available content. In addition to the radical expansion of online amateur porn, this has meant the increased visibility of so-called extreme imageries and acts. ...

Chapter 7. Conclusions: The Tactile Grab of Online Pornography

Download PDF (84.1 KB)
pp. 251-262

My best friend at the age of eight had a sister and two brothers, all her senior by at least a decade. She was the baby of the family, and she performed the part by talking to her parents with a high-pitched baby voice. We went to school (third grade), had sleepovers, and played in the woods nearby. ...

Notes

Download PDF (97.5 KB)
pp. 263-278

References

Download PDF (120.4 KB)
pp. 279-304

Index

Download PDF (77.8 KB)
pp. 305-321