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Democracy and Pornography: On Speech, Rights, Privacies, and Pleasures in Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

This article investigates the intersections of secrecy/interiority, the state, and speech/expression, and their implications for the rights of women. I propose a critique of commercial pornography that reanimates MacKinnon's claim that pornography and American democracy are in a relationship of mutual reinforcement, and incorporates poststructuralist (Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Butler) commitments to secrecy and unintelligibility, as well as their role in the production of pleasure.

Type
CLUSTER: SEXUAL EXPRESSIONS
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Hypatia, Inc.

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