I was recently honored to be interviewed by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ quarterly folio, ACJS Today.
The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) is an international association established in 1963. The organization endeavors to foster professional and scholarly activities in the field of criminal justice. ACJS promotes education, research, and policy analysis within the discipline of criminal justice, both for educators and practitioners.
ACJS Today is the Academy’s official, open access newsletter. It’s a pretty impressive read complete with original articles, research explorations, book reviews, and interviews – now including one with me in the November, 2013 issue!!
In the interview, I talk about sex education, law and policy, and The Fast and The Furious films (among many other things). I also discuss a little bit about my background – specifically, how I got interested in the adult industry and some of my experiences in graduate school…
Here’s a snippet:
[ACJST]: Adult content production is legal in the U.S. Yet, in spite of its legal and protected status, adult- oriented films are still a stigmatizing and polarizing dimension of U.S. culture. Why do you suppose this is?CT: In my view, there’s not really one direct explanation for porn’s sustained stigmatized and polarizing status. I think it’s a synergistic result of a combination of factors—poor sex education, our culture’s general discomfort with sex, and the shroud of mystery surrounding the adult industry (among other things).
[ACJST]: I’m curious; how exactly does poor sex education contribute to the stigmatization of the adult film industry?CT: Even though there is certainly a diverse array of resources available online, formal sex education for adults and young people in the U.S. is inexcusably awful. But, in spite of being denied accurate, judgment-free information, humans continue to be interested in sex. So sometimes they seek out the most obvious and available depictions of sex—porn—for guidance, clues, and cues. And though porn performers are real people and their sex performances require at least some measure of real-world chemistry, the depictions we see as consumers are just that—crafted depictions and performances. Viewers, with no sounding board (such as comprehensive sex education) against which to meter porn, then internalize images with no critical frame of reference. This contributes to misconceptions about sex… (here)
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