Using Pornography to Rewrite the Script for Consent | The MIT Press Reader

"Pornography is neither monolithic, nor universally harmful. Viewing it and engaging with it can be a complex, multilayered experience for anyone. Some pornography, for some viewers, may indeed reproduce the dominant sexual scripts that prop up rape culture. Equally though, some types of pornography, for some viewers, can be hugely empowering. It may reflect our identities and experiences, help us explore our sexuality, help us exercise sexual agency and bodily autonomy, and challenge and rewrite dominant scripts of what sex is and how it should work....

It is perhaps ironic, then, that the kind of legislation that anti-pornography feminists campaign for, and that bans “extreme pornography,” most severely impacts small and independent producers — the kind more likely to produce queer, feminist, ethical, and consent-focused pornography. The legislation focuses on specific acts: acts that go off the default sexual script, that are more prevalent in queer (and to an extent in feminist) pornography. It casts them as intrinsically deviant and undesirable, regardless of the context of either production or representation. It closes down avenues for challenging default sexual scripts and consensually exploring sexual possibilities beyond that default. This and other similar legislation does not necessarily stop young people — or anyone else — from picking up default sexual scripts from mainstream pornography, and it does nothing to improve education about or understanding of consent...."