dc.contributor.advisor |
McGlashan, Hayley |
|
dc.contributor.advisor |
Powell, Darren |
|
dc.contributor.author |
Parsons, Sam |
|
dc.date.accessioned |
2022-07-14T04:08:39Z |
|
dc.date.available |
2022-07-14T04:08:39Z |
|
dc.date.issued |
2022 |
en |
dc.identifier.uri |
https://hdl.handle.net/2292/60431 |
|
dc.description.abstract |
This thesis examines the ways young people understand what they may have learned about sex,
sexuality and/or gender from engaging with online pornography, as well as how pornography may have
shaped their understanding of sexual consent. Based on an exploratory, narrative enquiry approach,
this thesis illuminates the lived experiences of two young men in Aotearoa New Zealand – Sung-Ho
and Billy – and how their engagement with online pornography shaped their understanding of sexual
consent, sex, sexuality, and/or gender. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and journal
entries were used to collate rich empirical evidence. A queer sex-positive feminist theoretical
framework was drawn on to examine how participants thought about and reflected on their learnings
and understandings of sexual consent, sex, sexuality, and/or gender from online pornography. This
framework was supported by two theoretical concepts: Gavey’s (2019) cultural scaffolding and
Butler’s (1990) performativity. The convergence of queer and feminist frameworks and theoretical
concepts enabled me to contextualise participants’ subjective experiences with greater attention to
how they are influenced by, and attempt to resist, notions of hierarchy.
My analysis of participants’ experiences and understanding of pornography revealed that they did
not perceive to have learned ‘anything’ about sexual consent from their engagements with online
pornography. However, participants reflected on how, as teenagers and young adults, they thought of
sexual consent as not requiring conversation or communication before or during engaging in sexual
acts with others. Because online pornography was where participants received the majority of their
sex education, this suggests that its influence may have been that it reinforced and further
normalised pre-existing notions of consent. In relation to how online pornography may have
influenced their conceptualisations of sex and identity, my conversations with participants
illuminated how they learned that sex was purely physical and that their sexual performance should
reflect that of professional actors. Furthermore, participants situated their experiences with
pornography as complex, nuanced, and gendered.
I concluded that participants’ understandings of sexual consent, sex, sexuality, and gender seemed
to be influenced by online pornography in ways that reinforced and further
normalised already existing cisheteronormative discourses. |
|
dc.publisher |
ResearchSpace@Auckland |
en |
dc.relation.ispartof |
Masters Thesis - University of Auckland |
en |
dc.relation.isreferencedby |
UoA |
en |
dc.rights |
Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. |
|
dc.rights.uri |
https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm |
en |
dc.rights.uri |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nz/ |
|
dc.title |
Turning a blind eye: How online pornography can shape young people's understandings of sexual consent, sex, sexuality, and/or gender |
|
dc.type |
Thesis |
en |
thesis.degree.discipline |
Health and physical education |
|
thesis.degree.grantor |
The University of Auckland |
en |
thesis.degree.level |
Masters |
en |
dc.date.updated |
2022-07-04T04:19:57Z |
|
dc.rights.holder |
Copyright: the author |
en |
dc.rights.accessrights |
http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccess |
en |