Should Works of Online Textual Pornography be Censored, or Should We Censor the Censorship?

Abstract

The subject of pornography and censorship is important because of the wide debate surrounding the topic, the different models, and the different arguments speaking either for or against censoring of pornographic materials. Different types of pornography such as visual or textual bring complexity to the debate due to the ideas surrounding literary or artistic merit, balanced against the ideas of symbolic harm and promotion of sexist or otherwise offensive values. It appeared, however, that the more alternative approaches to pornography like text pornography, typically in the form of online fiction, had been argued to challenge the dominant narratives, and silencing pornography would mean silencing non-dominant discourses and further discriminating against alternative narratives and sexualities. The main research question of this thesis is whether or not textual works of online pornography should be censored or should there be a limit to censorship. In order to provide an answer to the research question and place it within the wider debate on pornography and censorship, a comparative study had been carried out with Ficbook.net and FictionPress.com being the main focus. Thematic Content Analysis was used in order to analyse 20 comments attached to top 10 works on each of the website, and to establish patterns and themes that were most prevalent in the comments. Special attention was given to users’ attitude towards explicit materials, age, gender, and possible opinions on either state, or website censorship. This study found that most of the users had a favourable view of rated materials, and some of the most prevalent themes included rejection of stereotypical of female characters in favour of non-standard approaches to characters and sexuality. The findings fit into the wider debate where they were supported by further academic research that yielded similar results, and it meant that censorship has the potential to silence alternative discourses. However, negative liberty for producing and consuming pornographic materials also denotes blurring the boundaries of the widespread condemnation of certain extreme materials, and therefore, alternative approaches to regulating pornography are needed in order to balance the ideas of harm and liberty.