"The Changing Landscape of Online Pornography: Translocal Networks and Transcultural Practices"

Jessica A. Martin, York University

jemartin@yorku.ca

Abstract:

Pornography's massive growth online in the last 25 years, and the emergence of technologies such as broadband, webcams and smartphones, has led to fundamental changes in the ways people encounter, consume, and relate to online porn. Pornography has undoubtedly infiltrated the Western mainstream; it is now woven into the fabric of ordinary life and everyday online multitasking. The ways porn is accessed and consumed continue to evolve, keeping pace with broader changes in Web use. While there is much work being done in contemporary porn studies which examines these changes, there is an aspect of porn's evolution online that has for the most part been neglected: the ways it is linked to globalization and the spread of ideas across nations and borders. Processes of globalization, the Internet, and developing media technologies have facilitated global access to pornography. Pornography now moves across geographic space, transcends national borders and links global communities – spreading narratives, norms, and social texts across global contexts. Despite these changes, contemporary porn studies has, for the most part, remained insulated from the theoretical work coking out of transnational studies. Conversely, transnational theory—as well as the theoretical positions developing out of transnational theory, such as translocal and transcultural theory—has all but ignored pornography as one of the flows of information that increasingly moves between and connects global spaces, and that has specific impacts on relations of intimacy, sexuality and desire. This paper explores how, when taken together, each of these approaches has the potential to broaden the scope of the other, and potentially answer some important questions around the ways globalization is impacting sexualities.

Keywords: Pornography, Porn Studies, Transnational, Translocal, Transcultural, Cultural Globalization

Pornography's massive growth online over the last 25 years has led to fundamental changes in its production and consumption. Technologies such as e-commerce payment systems, webcams, and broadband have made porn^[1] more readily available, and led to an explosion in both its production and consumption, and to a greater diversity of pornographic representations. And as new technologies are developed, the ways in which pornography is consumed continues to shift and change. While there is much work being done in contemporary porn studies which examines these changes in content, consumer base, and volume of product, there is an aspect of porn's online evolution that has for the most part been neglected: the ways it is linked to globalization and transnational discourses. Contemporary porn studies have, for the most part, remained insulated from the theoretical work coming out of transnational studies. As it stands there is dearth of work examining the significance of porn's increasing ability to transcend national borders and move freely across geographic space, as well as the questions this raises: Does porn created in one geographic and cultural setting have the same impact when consumed in another part of the world? In what ways does porn convey ideas, scripts, texts, symbols that represent particular cultural values and ideologies? What is the significance of pornography in other cultures? How does the flow of pornography across geographic and cultural space impact identities, sexualities, and cultural practices? Conversely, transnational theory—as well as theoretical positions developing out of transnational theory, such as translocal and transcultural theory—has all but ignored pornography as one of the flows of information that increasingly moves between and connects global spaces, and that has specific impacts on relations of intimacy, sexuality, and desire.

I will begin my exploration of these disparate approaches by investigating the recent transnational turn in humanities and social sciences, and the theoretical positions this turn has opened up. Translocal theory, for example, emerged in response to the perceived limitations in transnational approaches, and is in many ways the more general concept. The concept of translocality has made room for different types of translocal theory, such as transculturality. While interrogating these theoretical approaches, I will make clear that pornography has the potential to offer a unique insight into the ways translocal networks and flows are influencing the individuals accessing them. An analysis of porn through the lens of translocal theory would facilitate a deeper understanding of the impact translocal networks are having on intimacy, sexuality, and desire; of how culture is transmitted and spread across translocal networks through vessels of cultural meanings such as pornography; and of the ways that translocal flows and transcultural practices are reconfiguring the relationship between the proximate and the intimate and in doing so posing a challenge to traditional theories of sexuality. I will then explore the ways in which contemporary porn studies could be deepened with the addition of translocal theory. As it stands the majority of porn research is Western-centric^[2], focusing solely on Western audiences, Western consumption patterns, and Western relationships with technology. By employing a translocal approach this research could uncover a more accurate picture of the ways people interact with and consume pornography at a global scale. I propose that when brought together, these theoretical approaches—translocal theories and contemporary porn studies—significantly add to each other, enabling a unique perspective on the formation, figuration and reconfiguration of identities, imaginaries, sexualities and embodiments.

Transnational/Translocal/Transcultural

Over the last few decades we have witnessed a "transnational turn" in humanities and social sciences, which focuses on the "increasingly transnational mobility of people, media, commodities, discourses, and capital" and at the impact this mobility has "on local, regional, and national modes of sexual desire, embodiment, and subjectivity"^[3]. Works in this field look not only at the movement of bodies, but also the spread of ideas, images, and texts, and the ways in which they can be accessed simultaneously in different parts of the world in real time^[4]. This mobility is enabled by processes of globalization, a term used here to refer to both global economic, political, and social connections as well as their impact on "social practices, identities, and imaginaries of people throughout the world"^[5]. Scholars of globalization increasingly explore the shift from national to transnational identities, the ways that this shift reconfigures local embodiments and imaginaries, and questions around "the sociocultural processes and forms of life which are emerging as the global begins to replace the nation-state as the decisive framework for social life"^[6]. Theories of transnationalism emerged out of this questioning and out of "the necessity to conceptualize social fields that increasingly transcend national borders"^[7]. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the transnational turn primarily focused on the "transgression of and exchange beyond national borders," engaging with international migration, global-local dynamics in various locations, and other such "territorialised notions of transnationalism"^[8]. While this approach to the increased mobility of bodies, ideas and texts across national borders has offered much insight into changing sociocultural processes and the "flows, circuits, circulation of people, capital, and culture," it has severe limitations^[9].

The concept of transnationality focuses on activities and relationships that transcend national boundaries. In doing so it "takes the existence of nation states and national boundaries for granted," despite the fact that both are relatively recent inventions^[10]. As Clemens Greiner and Patrick Sakdapolrak make clear, "in much of the Global South nation building is a fairly recent phenomenon"^[11]. The nation-state emerged in Central Europe "no earlier than the eighteenth century," and was "not firmly established in parts of the Global South until the early twentieth century"^[12]. In addition, "international boundaries in many former colonies were drawn arbitrarily and enforced poorly," making the distinction between domestic and international migration complicated and often misleading^[13]. As such, not only is the concept of transnationalism inappropriate for describing "historical relationships between non-European regions and countries," but, in neglecting internal migration, it has the potential to obscure global migration dynamics^[14]. Developing out of transnational approaches, and in response to their various limitations, the concept of translocality emerged as a way to expand analytic focus beyond the limits of the nation-state. There is a growing literature on translocality, and in it we find a multitude of definitions, uses, and conceptualizations. It is often used "as an 'umbrella term' to describe mobilities and multiple forms of spatial connectedness," drawing on notions such as networks, flows, travel, transfer, and circulatory knowledge^[15]. Central to the notion of translocality is an examination of the ways that mobility, movements, and flows "produce connectedness between different scales"^[16]. Translocal theory offers a way to better understand the relationship between mobility and locality, as well as how this relationship increasingly structures and characterizes socio-spatial dynamics^[17]. In this sense it facilitates an analysis that is much less restrictive than transnationalism's limited focus on nations, states, and borders. It broadens the analytic scope to consider networks and flows which are not contingent on the movement of bodies across borders. Translocality is now often regarded as a more general concept than transnationalism, with some authors considering transnationalism "to be merely a special case of translocalism"^[18].

Breaking down the term translocal into its prefix and suffix can facilitate a clearer understanding of its meaning. The use of 'local' emphasizes that despite increasing connections at global scales, "the local world does not cease to exist"^[19]. Regardless of how far connections extend, a physical human must reside somewhere^[20]. The prefix 'trans'—meaning across, beyond, through—highlights movement or mobility. The 'trans' in translocal thus "guides the focus from questions of locality to questions of connectivity"^[21]. It brings into focus the connections between locations, and the flow of ideas or ideologies across different spaces and temporalities. Together, this term attempts to integrate notions of fluidity and flow with notions of groundedness and situatedness. Translocality emphasizes the importance of the local while enabling an analysis of the ways "today's locales are connected physically and communicatively to a very high degree"^[22]. This connectivity takes the form of "multidirectional and overlapping networks that facilitate the circulation of people, resources, practices and ideas"^[23]. Translocality emphasizes the importance of "places as nodes where flows that transcend spatial scales converge,"^[24]. The clearest example of a multidirectional network that transcends spatial scales is the Internet. People all over the world can now communicate with each other from across the globe in real time, at minimal expense and with relative ease, via the Internet. The Internet facilitates the development of translocal social networks and cultural flow, while those accessing it remain fixed in place. In this way translocal networks facilitate not only the movement of bodies, but also the flow of goods, symbols, knowledge and texts, which can be consumed, interpreted, embraced and resisted by relatively immobile actors. Translocal theory and approaches can be used to enhance our understanding of how social spatial configurations are changing as a result of these global networks, as well as the impact this is having on "identity formation, media-use and knowledge transfer as well as local development processes"^[25].

Translocal theory has the potential to provide an interesting analysis of porn, a cultural form that is consumed in real time and place, but that moves across borders and geographic space via translocal circuits and networks. It is a specific type of information or cultural form that moves through the translocal networks created by the Internet. As Elizabeth A. Povinelli and George Chauncey make clear, "[i]nformation technologies allow quick communication across vast distances to those who have access to computer terminals and telephones"^[26]. There is a growing body of work examining the flow of information, ideas, opinions, and texts through the translocal networks created by the Internet, and the influence this has on identity formation and sexualities. Paula Uimonen, in her work in Tanzania, shows how "the Internet mediates translocal interaction" by allowing people to explore and maintain social networks and connections with family and friends from different parts of Tanzania, as well as around the globe^[27]. Uimonen found that in her informants' social worlds "the local and translocal are already entwined, as is the local and global"^[28]. In much the same way, Povinelli and Chauncey, argue that the Internet enables "diasporic and immigrant populations to maintain intimate ties connections with their real or imagined national homelands, state or stateless, or to create new transnational, originless communities"^[29]. Beyond enabling translocal social networks, the Internet facilitates the flow of cultural production, of political ideas, and of knowledge via circuits and networks that transcend time and place and yet are accessed by situated individuals, across global contexts. And as technologies develop and become increasingly accessible worldwide, "the dissemination of variously mediated forms of culture, embodiments, and desire happens at ever higher speeds and across long, striated distances"^[30]. Andreas Hepp argues that in the wake of media globalization, or "the increase of media communication across national borders," media cultures are increasingly de-territorial, and as such understanding their scope and impact requires "a multilevel, transcultural research perspective"^[31]. While this work is important and offers many insights into the formation and reformation of translocal networks and communities, it all but ignores the flow of sexuality and desire through these networks, and the impact this has on intimacy, identities, and sexualities.

As media spreads via translocal circuits and flows such as the Internet it disseminates cultural meaning, values, and ideals across global contexts. In this way media can be considered translocal phenomena, a form of "communicative connectivity" that transcends borders and links together different parts of the globe^[32]. Different media forms draw upon translocal processes to articulate their meaning across global spaces, linking them together in the process. Media cultures^[33] are now increasingly generated and communicated across territories^[34]. Hepp argues that this increasing connection of different locales via media globalization leads not only to increased communication across the globe but to "the construction of a common 'imagined community'"^[35]. And as these de-territorial translocal communities make stronger connections and ties, shared identities inevitably develop and evolve. Pornography is but one type of media that has proliferated alongside media globalization. While by no means a legitimized form of communication, pornography is undeniably a mediated form of cultural expression and representation, and one that has an ever-growing consumer base. As it is consumed around the globe it spreads the ideals, values, fears and taboos of the culture in which it was created, and potentially impacts the sexualities, identities, and imaginaries of those consuming it.

Pornography as Transcultural Form

In "How to Look at Pornography," Laura Kipnis argues that "[a] culture's pornography becomes, in effect, a very precise map of that culture's borders: pornography begins at the edge of a culture's decorum. Carefully tracing that edge...gives you a detailed blueprint of the culture's anxieties, investments, contradictions"^[36]. She refers to porn as "the royal road to the cultural psyche," arguing that pornography is "intensely and relentlessly about us. It involves the roots of our culture and the deepest corners of the self"^[37]. According to Kipnis, pornography locates and transgresses "each and every one of society's taboos, prohibitions, and proprieties"^[38]. And this transgression is no simple matter; rather it is precisely calculated and requires "knowing the culture inside out, discerning its secret shames and grubby secrets, and knowing how to best humiliate it"^[39]. This implies that, by closely examining the allegories located in pornography, we can learn about our culture's regulatory norms, and in turn how they impact our own identities ^[40]. As this media form transcends borders and is consumed outside of the culture in which it was created, it becomes a vehicle for disseminating meaning. Pornography is thus becoming a transcultural form, a vessel of cultural meaning that moves across, beyond, and through global spaces.

The ability of media forms to transcend borders has contributed to a general blurring of the boundaries between cultures. As Wolfgang Welsch puts it, "[t]oday's cultures are deeply entangled with and continually penetrate one another"^[41]. He argues that relationships between cultures now transgress, or pass through, classical cultural boundaries^[42]. As a result, cultural phenomena can no longer be "broken down into dimensions of traditional cultures based in specific territories," as they are increasingly generated across territories – they are transcultural^[43]. Transcultural approaches developed out of, and are a specific type of translocalism. They facilitate an analysis of the ways that translocal networks enable the flow and communication of cultural ideas, values, images and practices, and the ways in which cultures are increasingly co-constitutive. While there is a growing body of work looking at transculturality as a general perspective or broad phenomenon^[44], there is little work examining specific transcultural processes and practices. I propose that, not only does the translocal consumption of pornography offer a way of examining how translocal networks are shaping the identities and sexualities of those accessing them, but pornography also has the potential to offer a unique insight into transcultural practices and the ways in which cultures now actively penetrate one another.

These translocal networks and transcultural flows do more than complicate our understanding of the local and the global. As Povinelli and Chauncey make clear, globalization "poses a set of interesting problems to theories of sexuality," as it forces us to confront and challenge the "commonsense" linking of "the proximate and the intimate, the subject and her space and time of being, and thus her forms and practices of desire"^[45]. As global email communication and social media infiltrate the bedroom, as pornographic texts transcend borders and link cultures across the globe, and as webcams enable deterritorialized intimacy and desire, we are beginning to witness a reconfiguration of the intimate and proximate, as well as the desires and embodiments they give rise to. Povinelli and Chauncey argue that the processes and impacts of globalization force us to "fundamentally rethink the relationship between the subject and its intimate productions"^[46]. Translocal networks have reorganized the relationship between intimacies and proximate space. As such, we can no longer rely on theories of sexuality that assume this relationship is specific to our immediate space, for increasingly "intimate spaces are created by multiple textual forms—speech, cyberspace, film, television, telephonic media—produced vast distances from the site of their consumption"^[47]. Pornography offers the perfect example of these "reconfigurations of the intimate and proximate," as porn consumers are able to access and interact with porn, as well as with other porn consumers and even porn producers, from across the globe, in real and suspended time^[48]. Porn is increasingly a transcultural form, as it disseminates sexual norms, values, and ideas across time and space, and enables a sexual practice that is less and less tied to proximate space. If translocal theory took pornography as its subject, it would gain a unique insight into the ways increasing translocal networks, and the resulting transcultural practices, are shaping sexual identities, subjects and practices.

It is clear that translocal theory could be expanded with a consideration of porn as a specific type of information or text that passes through translocal networks. With its evolution in online spaces and the increasing flow of information across translocal networks as made possible by the Internet, pornography has became a transcultural form and in turn its consumption a transcultural practice. Just as translocal theory would be enriched by a focus on pornography, so too would the work being done in contemporary porn studies be deepened with a consideration of translocal theory.

Contemporary Porn Studies

Social scientists offer many reasons why porn is an important area of study. Porn is not only "an enormous economic force", but it has been "a driving force behind the technological development and deployment of almost every type of media"^[49]. It makes us reflect on questions about power and tolerance, it can facilitate a deeper understanding of human sexuality, and it has been argued that porn can provide us with a map of our cultures borders^[50]. With pornography's movement online and the advent of new media technologies, such as broadband, e-commerce and webcams, pornography has inherently changed. The rise of Internet porn has effectively domesticated pornography, bringing it further into the privacy of the home and making it increasingly accessible. This has dramatically increased the number of porn consumers and made it available to those "who have traditionally been forbidden it"^[51]. This expansion in consumer base has led to a virtual explosion of porn online, something that has been referred to as the "pornography gold rush"^[52]. The Internet has become porn's "dominant distribution system", and Internet porn is increasingly "mainstream, easily accessible, and cheaply available"^[53]. This boom enabled porn producers to diversify their products, targeting "specialist tastes and niche markets that would be impossible to sustain offline"^[54]. These days virtually any fantasy or scenario you can dream up can be found online.

It is not simply content and consumer base that has changed with porn's move online; we are also seeing major changes in the ways people are consuming porn. Media technologies are now part of the fabric of ordinary life, and lead to a "blurring of the 'real' and the 'representational,' reinforced by the dramatic expansion of forms of online self-representation and social networking"^[55]. It has been argued that, in the West, the consumption of pornography is increasingly a part of everyday multitasking, "as users move between socializing, buying commodities and searching for information...chatting, peeping, cruising, masturbating and maintaining friendships"^[56]. Pornography has become more and more a part of mainstream Western culture, and as such the consumption of pornography is no longer construed as "seedy, lonely, and furtive"^[57]. Instead porn consumption is increasingly constructed as a "sophisticated online experience" characterized by easy access and convenience^[58]. Consumers are using porn in what has been described as "private space within a public environment", and as with much new media and technology, it is now experienced "as an interactive and creative activity"^[59]. Unfortunately, the majority of research being done on the changing practices of porn consumers focuses exclusively on Western audiences, neglecting the specificities of porn consumption in different global contexts. Beyond this, research into the relationship between porn and emerging media technologies have ignored the ways these technologies have enabled the movement and flow of pornography across translocal networks.

The relationship between sex and technology is an old and established one; as Attwood purports, "technologies have always been adapted for sexual purposes"^[60]. Slayden argues that across history, "each new technological development" has made possible "new types of sexual encounters, interactions, and practices"^[61]. This relationship goes both ways: sex often "drives technological development" and it is clear that "sex has shaped the Internet as it currently exists"^[62]. Early on, porn companies, such as Vivid, "made significant investments in research and development for security and payment software that they marketed to the rest of the [dot-com] industry"^[63]. Consumer demand for porn has been the driving force behind the development of new technologies, such as, "servers, streaming software, chat forums, and e-commerce payment systems"^[64]. The Internet and new media technologies associated with it offer ever-new forms of "communication, data transmission, and community building", and pornographers continue to be the "lead users of any new communication technologies"^[65]. As a result, the very nature of online pornography continues to evolve and change at a rapid pace.

The changes we are seeing in the consumption of online porn in the West are linked to broader changes in the ways people use the Internet to create, consume and share information. As always, changes in the ways porn is accessed, shared and consumed are keeping pace with these broader changes in Web use and technology, ushering in a new era of online porn that some are calling "Porn 2.0"^[66]. Porn 2.0 refers specifically to the new wave of porn sites that host user-generated content, but more generally the term refers to the multiple new ways to consume and interact with your favourite pornography. In addition to being able to produce your own amateur porn to post on user-generated YouTube-style sites, such as, YouPorn.com or Xtube.com, porn consumers can now post comments on the videos they have watched, compile interactive lists of their 'favourite' videos on each site, join website forums, watch live webcams while 'chatting', or use sites like tumblr to create their own porn blog where they post, reblog, or 'like' thumbnails and gifs. With these changes, the porn consumer "is no longer just a paying punter, but actively organizes and controls their porn in ever more individual ways"^[67]. Sharif Mowlabocus argues that these new ways to consume pornography "engender a sense of community that can be aligned with recent discussions of social networking, where individuals are able to express themselves in nonhierarchical and noninstitutional spaces"^[68]. Porn is no longer consumed on it's own, rather each video is "embedded within the community that consumes it"^[69]. These changes are working to "smudge the boundaries between producer, performer, distributer, and consumer" and in so doing they are complicating the traditionally linear relationship between production and consumption^[70]. Interestingly, the research being done on changes in porn consumption have failed to consider how these changes in technology and Internet use enable the development of translocal communities and networks, leaving many questions unanswered. For example, how is the transcultural nature of online porn impacting user experience? Are porn consumers increasingly accessing porn from different geographic locations? Does the consumption of North American porn in different global contexts impact perceptions of the West? Does the proliferation of pornographic texts from around the globe work to decentre the West, via the emergence of non-Western scripts, images, powered dynamics or identities? These are but some of the questions that translocal theory could help porn studies tackle.

What is missing from all of this research is a consideration of processes of globalization and the ways that the Internet and developing media technologies have facilitated global access to pornography. Porn is increasingly a translocal and transcultural phenomenon. As it moves across translocal networks it spreads cultural ideas, texts, norms, and taboos to different corners of the globe. And yet, as Katrien Jacobs makes clear, "porn studies are dominated by European and American scholarly networks" and tend to ignore porn practices in other parts of the globe^[71]. She writes: "[n]ow that porn studies has emerged as an international academic field of study with a dedicated journal, researchers from many different cultures will be able to shape and influence the field"^[72]. Despite this opportunity, however, she argues that research into relationships with porn in non-Western cultures have "not yet scratched the surface"^[73]. Jacobs attempts to address this gap in porn studies literature with works such as People's Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet (2012)^[74], in which she explores the use of porn—and the relationship consumers have with it—in Hong Kong and China, as well as the domination by Japanese porn industries. While this is a fascinating glimpse into non-Western relationships with pornography, it is but a small piece of the puzzle. As translocal networks and flows blur the boundaries between cultures, pornography can in many ways be used as "a tool for interrogating broader questions of technological innovation, Internet politics, sexuality rights and obscenity legislation, media governance and censorship, ... regional frameworks and aesthetics of sexually explicit media" at a global scale^[75]. Adding a translocal frame to porn research would not only broaden its scope, but would enable us to gain a much deeper understanding of the relationship people from all over the world have with pornography.

Conclusions

The 'transnational turn' in scholarly work over the last few decades has opened up space for the emergence of theoretical approaches, such as translocality and transculturality, which provide specific tools for better understanding the processes of globalization as well as the impacts they are having on individuals and communities across the globe. In particular, translocal theory enables the study of a broad scope of processes through which multidirectional fluid networks facilitate the circulation of bodies, ideas, resources, and cultural forms, and in the process connect locales from across the globe. Pornography is but one type of information that passes through these networks, and yet it is unique in that it has the potential to tell us a great deal about global sexualities, the blurring of cultures, and about the ways that translocal circuits are changing the relationship between proximate and intimate. At the same time, translocal theory has the potential to broaden porn studies' current Western-centrism. This would facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the relationship people from across the globe have with pornography, as well as how this relationship is complicated by processes of globalization. Unfortunately, as it stands, these two fields remain insulated from each other. Taking these approaches together would broaden the scope of each field and potentially answer some important questions around how globalization is impacting sexualities.