To browse Academia. The paper explores the contemporary discourse surrounding pornography, specifically the framing of porn consumption as an addiction. This narrative, which highlights a societal shift from viewing the production to the consumption of pornography, positions the white heterosexual male as the focal point of current anxieties.
It examines the historical context of fear surrounding sexuality and technology, linking the current pathologization of porn to age-old moral panics. Furthermore, the text discusses the implications of this discourse in terms of social control, the emergence of self-pathologization among men, and the potential inclusion of porn addiction in DSM-6, emphasizing how language shapes societal realities.
Integrative Cancer Science and Therapeutics, Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. A new diagnosis for old fears? In many ways, the current pathologization of porn parallels earlier instances of the medicalization of sexualities, first and foremost in its attempt to present moral judgement as scientific fact.
On a temporal axis, the discourse surrounding porn follows the typical pattern of sinβcrimeβdisease that has already been observed with regards to the framing of, for example, homosexuality Conrad and Schneider , Whether put in moral, legal, or medical terms, however, it remains a designation of deviance that still carries with it the normativity of a former understanding as sinful.
In other words, any pathologization of sex in general, and of porn in particular, is and always has been a moral panic in the guise of scientific objectivity. Up until recently, the discourse primarily targeted female porn performers.
