Abstract
‘Torture porn’ misrepresents the subgenre’s sexual content, and torture porn’s decriers have failed to adequately explain the label’s implied pornhorror confluence. Where direct comparisons between torture porn and pornography have been made, they fall short. Some critics have pointed out that ‘torture porn’ is inapposite for describing horror film, and would be better suited to defining, for instance, a ‘video of a professional dominatrix beating someone up’ (Thompson, 2007). Thompson’s evocation of BDSM (bondage/degradation/sadomasochism) porn lacks detail because he dismisses ‘torture porn’ rather than considering what can be learnt from the label’s amalgamation of genres. Equally disparaging is Lacey’s (2009) contention that ‘the term [“torture porn”] seems a little hard on something as innocuous as pornography’. Although he queries how valid the comparison between pornography and popular horror is, Lacey presumes that porn is inherently depraved, and admonishes torture porn for being ‘worse’. Lacey does not explain why ‘porn’ is synonymous with ‘badness’. One aim of this chapter is to unpick the problems Thompson and Lacey gesture towards. In order to better expound the connotations of ‘torture porn’, the discourse that situates ‘porn’ must be scrutinised. Examples of pornography will be utilised to flesh out those significations.
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