Consultation response
Possession of extreme pornography

Response from Professor Martin Baker & Dr Ernest Mathijs

February 2006

Professor Martin Barker is Professor of Film & Television Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has been researching in the fields of media controversies since the 1980s. His research has includes six publicly-funded projects into media materials and their relations with audiences. Most recently, he directed (with Ernest Mathijs) the largest international audience study yet attempted, into the launch and reception of The Lord of the Rings. Professor Barker is Director of Research in the Department of Theatre, Film & Television Studies, and Director of the Centre for Audience and Reception Studies.

Dr Ernest Mathijs is lecturer in film studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Prior to 2001, he was assistant professor in film studies at the Free University of Brussels. His main research interest is the international, cross-cultural reception of alternative film and popular culture. Dr Mathijs is Director of the Centre for Research into Extreme and Alternative Media.

This response to the Home Office Consultation Document is produced by Professor Martin Barker, and Dr Ernest Mathijs, of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. We write as researchers and scholars who have a considerable history of work in fields relating closely to the topics in the Consultation Document. A brief biography for each of us, and list of our relevant publications in these areas, is appended to this response. In brief, we have conducted extensive researches on:
The history of scares and panics over possible media influences
The nature of ‘extreme films’, their production and reception
The character of actual audience responses to controversial media.
Much of this research has been conducted under the aegis of public funding bodies (for instance the Economic & Social Research Council), and all is available in the public domain. We stress at the outset that this commentary on the Consultation Document is not a contribution from the angle of civil liberties. There are no doubt legitimate concerns from that perspective, but they are not ours, in this commentary. Our comments are based on our understanding of our own and others’ best researches in these areas. We do not wish to deny that many of the images and other materials available both via the Internet and other routes are deeply unpleasant. However our research leads us to challenge the ways in which these are described, grouped and given significance in the Consultation Document. We also identify a number of underlying assumptions in the Document which will not, we believe, stand up under close, critical scrutiny.

1. Description and categorisation of the materials under consideration.

At a number of places in the Consultation Document, the materials being targeted are described in ways that is, we fear, misleading. It is not easy to tackle this part of the Document since few examples are given. This is now a major problem – only those with certain (legal and moral) interests in these materials are able to determine the viability of the descriptions and definitions being utilised in law. Using our knowledge of these sorts of materials, we would make the following rejoinders:

On page 1, a passing remark is made that the materials under consideration are “clearly for purposes of sexual gratification” (para 5). We find this descriptive claim highly arguable. From researches which we have conducted, we know of many previous cases where it has been asserted that materials are ‘clearly for certain purposes’. However research with actual users of the materials reveals quite different, and usually considerably more complicated, outcomes. We mention as examples:

a. Barker’s (1989) research with readers of the 1976 comic Action. Critics claimed that it was ‘purely gratuitously violent’. Yet a study of its readers showed that the violence was understood in a political framework.
b. Barker, Arthurs & Harindranath’s (2001) research with audiences for the 1996 film Crash. Here, it was widely claimed that the sex scenes in the film were ‘perverse’ and ‘pornographic’. Aside from the BBFC’s own judgement on this, the research demonstrated that for those audiences who were most enthusiastic and committed to the film, the meanings of the sexual materials in the film were the most complex, involving audiences in considering their own feelings about the activities being shown, and the place of different sexual orientations in our society.
c. Barker’s (2005) study of audiences to the controversial film Straw Dogs. This is of especial relevance since that film contains, notoriously, a prolonged rape scene, on the basis of which it has frequently been condemned for appearing to show the victim’s enjoyment of the rape. This research showed, again, that those audience members who most engaged with the film were the ones most likely to seek a context to understand the victim’s response, and to place the effects of the rape into the context of her on-going life. Equivalent work, arriving in parallel conclusions can be found in Mathijs’ research into the reception of the controversial film Daughters of Darkness, and of Man Bites Dog (both 2005).
What is common to cases such as this is the following: that the descriptive claims of critics, and those who dislike and are concerned about media and cultural materials, are very unreliable guides to what is found and perceived in the materials by those who choose and enjoy them.

This constitutes a serious problem for the ways in which the Consultation Document seeks to group and claim meaningful connections between the materials it proposes to outlaw.

We agree with the Document’s assertion that the emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web has altered the availability of these kinds of materials. However, we are concerned that, again, in so describing these materials, all sense of the context in which these appear is being lost. Again, there is a problem in that the Document is so unspecific that it is not possible to check any specific claims. Speaking, therefore, from our own encounters with these kinds of materials, we would draw attention to the following:

a) In our experience, a considerable amount of such materials appears in quite close association with the Internet phenomenon of fan-fiction websites. These websites have been widely researched. As a phenomenon, they arise out of organised fan interests in many kinds of published and broadcast programmes. Typically, such sites take broadcast story-worlds and extend them in a variety of ways. The most popular way in which this is done, is by writing further fictional accounts of possible sexual encounters between story-world characters. These encounters are both heterosexual (Het) and homosexual (Slash). Many of them are highly graphic, involving bondage, humiliation, and violence (frequently accompanied by American cinema pseudo-classifications, for example, NC-17).
b) What research (not our own) has revealed is that the great majority of both writers and readers of these stories are women. Research, from Sherry Turkle (1984) onwards, has suggested strongly that many women in particular use online presence to explore and play out aspects of themselves, and possible identities, for themselves – including perverse versions of themselves. The appearance of ‘violent’ imagery in proximity with such websites is clearly related to the fan-fiction phenomenon. Ignorance of this field, and the associated body of research, seriously undermines the claims of the Consultative Document.
2. Causal claims within the Consultative Document.

On page 10, following paragraph 31, respondents are asked their responses on this kind of material “in the absence of conclusive research results as to its possible negative effects”. This question is highly tendentious, and we wish to challenge it on several grounds:

a) The presumption behind the phrasing of the question is either that the research has not yet proved conclusion, or that difficulties in designing and carrying out such research are always going to constitute problems of providing proof. We do not accept this. To the contrary, many recent careful re-evaluations of the research record in this area have demonstrated the opposite. Public understanding of this topic has been seriously distorted by systematic exaggeration, by distorted presentation of research findings. Perhaps the most important work of this kind was done by Professor Jonathan Freedman (2002), who re-examined the entire field of work on the relations between televised violence and audience aggression. Our own work on the history of claims about the consequence of ‘dangerous’ media materials have less systematically, but nonetheless seriously, undermined the public claims of these ‘dangers’ (see, for instance, Barker’s (1993) evaluation of Elizabeth Newson’s influential document at the time of the James Bulger murder trial).
b) In passing, the Consultative Document refers (paragraph 10) to the case of Graham Coutts, recently convicted for the murder of Jane Longhurst. At his trial much evidence was introduced of Coutts’ use of internet pornography sites. We are deeply sceptical about the way this is being used. This recent case has not been subject to the kinds of critical examination that has been possible in other, previously quotable cases. At the time of the trial of the two boys who murdered James Bulger, a wave of publicity claimed that they ‘must have been’ influenced by watching the film Child’s Play III. In the case of Columbine killings, again, it was claimed that the two young men ‘must have been’ influenced by either rock music in general, or more specifically films such as The Matrix or The Basketball Diaries. More recently, in the case of Stefan Pakeerah, it was claimed that he ‘must have been’ influenced by his playing of the game Manhunt. Repeatedly, on close re-examination, these causal episodes turn out to be unreliable, if not simply mythical. Yet the rhetorical force of these claims remains. This is an example of poor, and dangerously misleading, argument. Untested anecdotes, given power by publicity, are not the basis of good law. More importantly, our own and others’ research on the history of such public campaigns displays how systematically unreliable these prove to be. (See as instances Pearson (1983), Barker (1984a))
c) It is not simply the case that the evidence is so far unconvincing or incomplete. The approach implicitly taken by the Consultative Document ignores the existence of a considerable body of work, of which ours is only a small part, which has taken this field of enquiry into new and much more promising directions. The work of UK researchers such as David Morrison (1999), David Buckingham (e.g., 1996), Philip Schlesinger (1992,1998) and Annette Hill (1997), as well as our own, has demonstrated how much can be learnt about the meaning and impact of culturally controversial and problematic materials by using new methods of research and approaching the issues with a reconceptualisation of the topic.
3. The Consultative Document’s Discussion of ‘Pornography’

It concerns us greatly that the consultative document is inconsistent and careless in its terminology, and that once again these inconsistencies reveal assumptions which the research record simply will not sustain. We note for instance that there are unexplained shifts between ‘pornography’, ‘extreme pornography’, and between ‘consensual’ and otherwise. At various points the materials which it is intended to declare illegal are named as ‘indecent photographs’, ‘extreme images’, ‘potentially illegal pornographic material’, ‘extreme pornographic material’, ‘pornography’. Probably the most ambiguous name used is ‘pseudo-photography’. A substantial body of research now exists on the significance of the development of digital altered/enhanced photography, and on the ways in which these processes can alter the sense of ‘reality’, both of the particular images, and of the ways in which images as a whole are perceived and understood. The Consultation Document is entirely unclear on what the supposed dangers of this kind of materials are. To the extent that this is intended to be a claim about the relevance of the degree of mimesis, then the research by Mosselmans & Mathijs, 2000, and Mathijs & Hessels, 2000 becomes particularly relevant.

The Document either is unaware of, or has chosen to ignore, the by now substantial body of new research into pornography. This has explored the historical dimensions of this, in ways which far outrun simple discussion of increases or greater ‘explicitness’ (see for instance the work of Linda Williams (2004)). This work has constituted, as one writer has called it, a whole shift in ‘paradigm’ for thinking about the uses to which pornography may be and is put (see Attwood 2002). As one example, Katrien Jacobs (2004) has demonstrated the complex role played by pornographic websites in simultaneously operating a commercial system, and enabling ‘exuberant’ attitudes to sexual pleasure. Other researchers have shown the important role that pornography has played in resistance movements in, for instance, South Africa.

As we indicated at the outset of this response, our primary interest in this Document is in its relation to research. The Document says that the research does not conclusively prove the ‘harmfulness’ of the materials it seeks to make illegal. This response focuses on the substantial misrepresentation of the research record, which not only does not prove such ‘harmfulness’, but rather indicates that this has been the wrong question to ask. It has the same status as asking, of a drug, if it should be considered dangerous because to many people it smells or tastes unpleasant.

We believe that it is simply irresponsible to ignore the now substantial body of research which has explored, in great detail, the ways in which materials judged culturally problematic may mean quite different things to those to whose cultural worlds they are relevant and meaningful. Terms such as ‘pornography’, ‘extreme pornography’ purport to have clear and obvious meanings, in the way that a term such as ‘blasphemy’ once claimed these. This government has claimed on a number of occasions to wish to work within a framework of evidence-based policy. This is not possible when whole bodies of careful, validated and often publicly-funded research is not considered.


Bibliography:

Attwood, Feona, ‘Reading porn: the paradigm shift in pornography research’, Sexualities, 5 (1), 91-119, 2002.

Barker, Martin, A Haunt of Fears: the Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign, London: Pluto Press 1984(a).

Barker, Martin (ed.), The Video Nasties: Freedom and Censorship in the Arts, London: Pluto Press 1984(b).

Barker, Martin, Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics, Manchester: Manchester University Press 1989.

Barker, Martin, ‘The Newson Report: a case study in “commonsense”’, in Martin Barker & Julian Petley (eds.), Ill Effects: the Media/Violence Debate, London: Routledge 1997, pp. 12-31.

Barker, Martin, Jane Arthurs & Ramaswami Harindranath, The Crash Controversy: Censorship Campaigns and Film Reception, London: Wallflower Press 2001.

Barker, Martin, ‘Loving and hating Straw Dogs: the meanings of audience responses to a controversial film’, Participations: online Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 2:2, 2005.

Buckingham, David, Moving Images: Children’s Emotional Responses to Television, Manchester: Manchester University Press 1996.

Freedman, Jonathan, Media Violence and its Effects on Aggression: Assessing the Scientific Evidence, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2002.

Hill, Annette, Shocking Entertainment: Viewer Response to Violent Movies, Luton: John Libbey 1997.

Jacobs, Katrien, ‘Pornography in Small Places and Other Spaces’, Cultural Studies, 18:1, 2004, pp. 68-83.

Mathijs, Ernest, ‘Man Bites Dog and the Critical Reception of Belgian Horror (in) Cinema’, in Steven Jay Schneider & Tony Williams (eds.), Horror International, Detroit: Wayne State University Press 2005, pp. 315-35.

Mathijs, Ernest & Bert Mosselmans, “Mimesis and the Representation of Reality: a Historical World View”; In: Foundations of Science. 5:1, 2000, pp 3-44.

Mathijs, Ernest, "The Making of a Cult Reputation: Topicality and Controversy in the Critical Reception of Shivers", in Mark Jancovich et al. (eds). Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste. Manchester, Manchester University Press 2003, pp. 109-26.

Mathijs, Ernest, “Bad Reputations: the Reception of Trash Cinema”, Screen, 46:4, 2005, pp.1-22.

Mathijs, Ernest & Xavier Mendik, “Making Sense of Extreme Confusion: European Exploitation and Underground Cinema”; in Mathijs, E. & X. Mendik (eds), Alternative Europe; European Exploitation and Underground Cinema. New York/ London: Columbia University Press/ Wallflower Press 2004, pp. 1-18.

Mathijs, Ernest (2004). "Nobody is Innocent: Cinema and Sexuality in Contemporary Belgian Culture"; in: Social Semiotics. Vol. 14, Nr. 1. p. 85-101.

Mathijs, Ernest, “AIDS References in the Critical Reception of David Cronenberg: It May Not Be Such a Bad Disease after All”, Cinema Journal, 42:4, 2003, pp. 29-45.
Morrison, David, Defining Violence: the Search for Understanding, Luton: University of Luton Press 1999.

Pearson, Geoffrey, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, London: MacMillan 1983.

Schlesinger, Philip, Men Viewing Violence, London: Broadcasting Commission 1998.

Schlesinger, Philip et al., Women Viewing Violence, London: BFI 1992.

Turkle, Sherry, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, London: Granada 1984.

Williams, Linda, Porn Studies, Duke University Press 2004.

Government Censorship

Government Censorship News 2004 2005 2006
Government Consultation on Extreme Pornography 2005 2006
Published Responses to the Government Proposals
A summary of Scottish Extreme Pornography Consultation Responses (5th April 2006)
A legal opinion on the Extreme Pornography Proposals by Rabinder Singh QC (13th Dec 2005)
Government Consultation on Extreme Pornography Responses (May 2006)
Proscription of Satellite Channels Used by the Government to ban channels (Feb 2005)
Intimidating the BBC. News about the Iraqi War not pro-Government enough (Feb 2004)
Sexual Offences Act 2004 (Jan 2004)
XXX, a Home Office Comment (May 2003)
Communications Bill 2002 (Nov 2002)
Latest from the Department of Culture, Media, Sport and Proscription (Feb 2001)
Extract from the Government white paper on media regulation (Dec 2000)
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