‘Treating it as a normal business’: Researching the pornography industry

Abstract

This article examines the lack of research on the pornography industry and the means of addressing this situation. Much contemporary pornography research invokes the apparent economic prowess of the pornography industry as justification for its work, yet focuses on the product and its reception rather than on the industry that produces it. In this article I identify and discuss the specific institutional challenges around studying pornography within business studies, and also the opportunities that arose through this work. The research methods used in this study of the North American pornography industry are presented and discussed, together with considerations around access, authentication, and stigma. I challenge the dependence by current scholars on secondary data about the industry by offering theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches with which to gather rich empirical material, thus furthering the wider field of pornography research.

The diverse economies of online pornography: From paranoid readings to post-capitalist futures

“…Recent work within porn studies has made an important case for recognizing pornography as a form of work, and has begun to focus on the labour of pornography rather than simply the representation, arguing for the need to pay close attention to issues such as worker safety and wages (see Berg, 2014;Hester, 2014;Lee and Sullivan, 2016). 7 Thus porn studies scholars have begun to highlight how pornography can be understood as just like any other industry or product, which can be ethically or unethically produced and consumed (see Comella, 2013;Voss, 2012). 8 Though clearly these are not necessarily the thoughts Dines is seeking to provoke amongst her readers, this turn to ethics and labour is of vital importance as it helps us think about how we can study pornography in a similar way to any other industry.…”

Anti/pro/critical porn studies

“…Yet there are still areas in which there is remarkably little work. In particular (and ironically given the frequent condemnation of the industry for its sheer size), the industry has received little detailed attention (Voss 2012).…”

EXPOsing Men's Gender Role Attitudes as Porn Superfans

“…Many of the studies cited above examine porn usage among consumers, but there is less scholarship differentiating among porn consumers’ experiences. Scholars have recently begun to explore the attitudes and behaviors of fans attending sexually oriented adult conventions (Comella ; Voss ) and pornographic film festivals (Cole ). A study of 1,225 men who attended SEXPO, a “health, sexuality, and lifestyle” exhibition, in Melbourne, Australia, identified a number of them as having accessed the services of a sex worker (Pitts et al.…”