Pornographies, pleasures, pedagogies in UK/US

We are currently witnessing a significant paradigm shift in feminist discourses on pornography in the United Kingdom. There is a shift away from focusing on censorship and legislation to approaching in a less censorious way issues of visual representation, sexual excitement and sexual practice. Old orthodoxies have come under challenge and are being examined in print, seminars, conferences and undergraduate courses as well as in the practices of pornographic film and video making. Given that we actually know very little in historical, cultural or psychic terms about the origins, impulses, gendering or trajectories of individual or collective sexual desires, drives, fantasies and responses to explicitly sexual visual imagery, we need a full and open debate. But the issues are complex as well as highly charged. Many feminists have contradictory and confusing feelings on these issues.