Det dubbeltydiga talet. Unga kvinnor samtalar om pornografi

Abstract

The artide is an analysis of how, within a cultural context of contradictory signals about heterosexuality and gender, a number of adolescent women interviewees had come to terms with pornography. Examples of these signals were the accessibility of pornography, the demands placed on them to live in heterosexual love relations and the gendered expectations on young women. My theoretical project aims to analyse how concepts of the body can play a part in young women's understanding of pornography. The subjects interviewed express a somewhat contradictory attitude to pornography. On the one hand, they describe pornography as reprehensible and wrong, and as something, which does not turn them on. On the other hand, they talk of how they react physically to pornography in a way, which they interpret as sexual arousal. Being turned on by the very pornography they reject fills them with self-disgust, which in turn takes on physical manifestations. The stories these young women tell of their encounter with pornography can be interpreted as a case of contradictory bodily signals - arousal and disgust at the same time. 1 argue that the subjects interpret bodily sensations as a reliable sign of what they want and feel deep down inside. The problem is which bodily signal (arousal or disgust) should they experience and interpret as the most true and the right one to follow? But it is not just the body's contradictory signals or contradictory discourses about pornography that can explain the interviewed girls' ambiguous talk about pornography. Cultural norms governing young women's sexual behaviour do not make it easier to come to terms with pornography; if they enjoy and desire pornography they run the risk of falling into disrepute and if they hate and resist pornography they run the risk of being ridiculed and verbally abused. In fact, it is a question of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'.