Anna B Volk

I was in London in 2010, and found myself inside the Modern Tate Museum, watching porn. I also watched porn in my hotel room.

 

From inside the academic world I watch porn. And I also watch as feminist theories, gender theories, sexual theories, queer theories parade before me without even glimpsing at porn. Or, if doing so, speaking from a cold and distant perspective, or an extremely biased one. Or worse: with pre-concepts so deeply rooted on social bias that they fail to actually see what is before them.

 

From inside my bedroom, I watch porn. And I see changes are coming. Finally it seems to be out in the open, discussed in internet media and social networks.

 

Any questions that might rise are not easy to be answered. Very little literature is produced academically from the perspective of porn performers by scholars who are not performers themselves, and the positioning of the eye/I which might change the outcome of a research is quite powerful here. Virtually next to nothing is written about the porn industry that does not come with latent categorization and, therefore, judgment: it is depreciative, belittling, vicious, gynophobic, phallic centered, plastic, fake. 

 

I like porn. As a bisexual woman, I like porn. As a sexually active woman, I like porn. As a scholar, I like porn. And I love the academic world. I have taken it in my hands to introduce both my loves, hoping they will mate. And procreate.

 

 

 

-- Anna B. Volk