In the summer of 2021, I grew more and more horrified about the vast number of reports of male violence against women in the media. In Plymouth, Jake Davison shot and killed his mother, four others, and then himself. It was later discovered he was involved in online ‘incel’ communities. ‘Incel’ means involuntarily celibate and although the term was first used in a harmless way, it now describes a system of belief where the men involved believe that they are entitled to sex and the women who deny it to them are evil. This event in particular, along with the high profile rape and murders of Sarah Everard and sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry in 2020, prompted me to start making work on sexual violence and pornography.
Hardcore pornography is now available within seconds to anyone with a device and and internet connection. I limited the source of my research to the homepage of ‘pornhub.com'. Pornhub is the world’s leading free pornography website (similarweb.com, 2022). Pornhub, and other sites of its kind, facilitate easy and free access to hardcore pornography. On the navigation bar of Pornhub one can browse categories relating to age, race, body type and “scenario”. Almost always, the descriptors of categories only apply to women - ‘big tits’, ‘small tits’, ‘big ass’, ‘blonde’, ‘brunette’, etc. The list of ethnicities is accompanied with photos of women only. Women are categorised into sections in order for men to select an object best suited for their sexual gratification.
Much of this material exists on the boundary between legal and illegal. Categories such as ‘teen’, ‘school’, ‘babysitter’ and ‘college’ hint at underage, hence illegal, sex. So do references to sex between family members. The former categories are prefaced with ‘18+’ and the latter with the term ‘step’, thus avoiding the depiction of sex with underage girls (rape) and incest. This content legitimises, and helps to feed, a sexual desire for sex acts of this perverse nature and signifies a demand for pornography which transgresses the boundaries of ‘acceptable’. Videos depicting sex between ‘dad and step-daughter’ and with ‘barely legal’ girls are available from the homepage of ‘pornhub.com'. They sit amongst videos with titles often including descriptors such as ‘rough’, ‘hard’ and ‘hardcore’ followed by, for example, ‘deep-throat’, ‘face-fuck’ or ‘finger-fucked’. They often describe women screaming, gagging and choking from the extremity of the sex. Women’s bodies are described as objects. Common phrases include ‘filling up her pussy with cum’ or reference to women’s vaginas as ‘masturbators’. Women are passive in the act: ‘allowing him to fuck me’, ‘husband shares wife with friend’, ‘he put it in the wrong hole’, ‘he fucked me without asking’. The examples of these trends are endless.
These videos do not appear on the homepage randomly, but because people are watching them. Additionally, the presence of grossly violent content without any specific navigation will only worsen the problem. Viewers consume these videos mindlessly and become accustomed to their content. Violence and misogyny is normalised, glamourised and sexualised. Free-to-access porn sites like Pornhub profit through advertising. Every video watched equates to money earned. Pornhub is operated by the Canadian company MindGeek, which is owned by 4 men. Their 2021 revenue was an estimated $460 million (Financial Times, 2020). MindGeek have been subject to a number of lawsuits for hosting content featuring women who had been coerced into appearing under false pretences, underage girls and sex trafficked-children.
Hardcore pornography, hosted on websites like Pornhub, teaches that women and girls are things to be used, whether this be for sexual gratification or financial gain.
From left to right:
FUCK ME LIKE A PORNSTAR, digital drawing
MY STEPSISTER’S PUSSY TURNED OUT TO BE THE BEST MASTURBATOR, oil pastel on paper, 21 x 29 cm
FUCK ME LIKE A PORNSTAR, card collage, 117 x 117 cm
Exhibited at GSA Degree Show 2022 & winner of Scottish Society of Artists New Graduate Award 2022
EXHIBITIONS
Work featured in group exhibition Interim at 16 Nicholson Street, Glasgow. January 21-24 2022 .
WOMAN AS HOLE, card collage, 17x23 cm.
Work also featured in:
SSA 130 YEARS - ANNUAL EXHIBITION
GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART 2022 DEGREE SHOW