An interesting critical essay from Inside Higher Ed —

Perhaps you’ve heard of Rule 34. It expresses one of the core imperatives of 21st-century culture: “If something exists, there is porn about it. If no porn is found at the moment, it will be made. There are no exceptions.”

Consider, for example, the subculture devoted to eroticizing the My Little Pony cartoon characters. More people are into this than you might imagine. They have conventions. It seems likely that even more specialized niches exist — catering to tastes that “vanilla” My Little Pony fetishists regard as kinky — although I refuse to investigate the matter.

Consider it a topic for future issues of Porn Studies, a new journal published by Routledge.  “Just as there are specialist journals, conferences, book series, and collections enabling consideration of other areas of media and cultural production,” says the introductory note for the inaugural double issue, “so pornography needs a dedicated space for research and debate.” (Last year, many people disagreed: news of the journal inspired much protest, as Inside Higher Ed reported.)

The most interesting thing about that sentence from the journal’s editors is that “pornography” functions in it as an active subject. Porn is figured almost as an institution or a conscious entity — one capable of desiring, even demanding, scholarly recognition. The satirical Rule 34 comes very near to claiming agency for porn. With Porn Studies, there is no such ambiguity about the sheer world-making power of pornography.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/07/essay-debut-issue-porn-studies#ixzz312hPAR3I