Pornography’s White Infrastructure

Abstract

In preparing my talk for a panel on “Whiteness and Technoculture” for the Society for the Social Study of Science in Boston, I wanted to think about the relationship of my research on the technocultures of the online pornography industry to the events in Charlottesville, which occurred only weeks earlier. Two trends within the online pornography industry came immediately to mind. The first is the aesthetic of “white innocence” as sexual fantasy that reveals a cultural conversation between the mainstream gay pornography industry and white nationalism in the United States. The second is the emergence of affiliate networks that aim to curate content for “unique male viewers” because the internet is, curiously, awash in “female-focused” content. Both of these phenomena seem particularly relevant at a time when white fragility, toxic masculinity, “men’s rights,” and xenophobia have been given explicit approval by the newly elected U.S. President, Donald Trump. These forces have long defined the United States, but they also reveal the way in which this presidency is uniquely awful and dangerous.