Pornography addiction and the perimeters of acceptable pornography viewing

Abstract

In this study, we investigate how pornography addiction is constructed by members of the New Zealand public by analysing six 2016 newspaper articles focusing on pornography addiction, and the 1430 Facebook comments posted in response to them. Utilizing a critical discursive approach, we identified five interpretative repertoires employed to construct both the viewing of pornography and pornography itself in multiple ways. Our analysis suggests that although pornography remained poorly defined, it was at turns framed as both unnatural and natural to view. The naturalness of viewing pornography however was complicated by an explicit acceptance of pornography addiction, which was variously proposed as being similar to substance abuse, a threat to intimate relationships, and as a convenient excuse. Moreover, the pornography addict was reliably described as male, and implicitly placed within a monogamous heterosexual relationship, with pornography depicted as most threatening when impinging upon such relationships. As such, we argue that the construction of pornography addiction not only reifies morally conservative historical concerns, but also side-lines the ethical and political ramifications of normalized pornography viewership. The possible replacement of discussions about the content of pornography with debates about user effects indicates a rapid historical shift from concerns for community standards to concerns for personal responsibility.