News Release:
'Subtle censorship' targets sexual pleasures
| Date 28/11/03 No 217/03 When it comes to sex, censorship is taboo, but when it comes to pleasure, subtle censors are working overtime, research by an academic at the University of New England shows. Dr Gail Hawkes, a lecturer in Social Science, will present some findings from her soon-to-be-published book, Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture, at a national conference for sociologists at UNE on Thursday, December 4. Also presenting at the conference will be Kath Albury, chief investigator on the three-year research project Understanding Pornography in Australia. Ms Albury will be talking about the "cottage industry" of pornography. Dr Hawkes said she was interested in how some sources of sexual pleasure are almost obligatory in our society while others remain morally challenging. As an example, she said, last year authorities banned an underwear advertisement that showed a woman alone on a bed, with the text: "If he is late you can start without him." Another depicted an almost-naked woman on a bed, hand outstretched, with the caption: "Bring him to his knees." A more acceptable version of the advertisement in the same campaign had the caption: "Moan, moan, moan." "The implication of the first two messages was that sexual pleasure can be equally derived from masturbation or oral sex," Dr Hawkes said. "It was acceptable to them, however, to run the same ad with the ‘Moan, moan, moan’ text, which was more suggestive of ‘traditional’ sexual pleasures."
|
She said it was mixed messages such as this that showed there remained a lot of anxiety surrounding how people derived sexual pleasure. "In a similar vein, many women find it uncomfortable breast-feeding in public because of the primarily sexual meaning our culture gives to the breast." "It is a real irony," she continued, "that in an age when sexual and hedonistic holidays are openly advertised, particularly on the Internet, the ways in which we are titillated are still 'censored'. For example, the sex promoted on these holidays is of bare breasts, nude massages and spas. It is telling the consumer how to be titillated." Ms Albury will complement Dr Hawkes’s paper with a look at the type of pornography made in Australia, who it is aimed at, and whether people think it is harmful. "So far I have personally interviewed about 20 or 30 people, and fewer than 5 per cent of these respondents believed pornography had a negative impact on them," she said. The conference, on December 4, 5 and 6, includes a public forum, "The End of the Rural?", to be held at Armidale Town Hall at 8 pm on Thursday, December 4. Speakers at the forum, chaired by UNE's Associate Professor Tony Sorensen, will include Geoffrey Lawrence and Rick Farley. The public will be encouraged to take part in the forum to discuss what the future holds for rural communities. Media contact: Dr Gail Hawkes, School of Social Science, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 2277 or Lydia Clifford, Public Relations Manager, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 2779. |
