C'LICK ME: A NETPORN STUDIES READER Institute of Network Cultures Edited by Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, Matteo Pasquinelli Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2007 C'Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader is an anthology that collects the best materials of two years debate: from The Art and Politics of Netporn conference held in 2005 in Amsterdam to the 2007 C'Lick Me festival. C'Lick Me opens the field of ‘Internet pornology’. Based on non-conventional approaches, mixing academics, artists and activists, the C'Lick Me Reader reclaims a critical post-enthusiastic, post-censorship perspective on netporn, a dark field that has been dominated thus far by dodgy commerce and filtering. The C'Lick Me reader covers the rise of the netporn society from Usenet underground to the blogo- sphere, analyses economic data and search engines traffic, compares sex work with the work of fantasy, disability and accessibility. The C'Lick Me reader also expands the notion of digital desire, and smashes the predicatable boundaries of porn debates, depicting a broader libidinal spectrum from fetish subcultures to digital alienation, from code pornography to war pornography. The reader concludes by re-contextualising the Edited by Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, Matteo Pasquinelli queer discourse into a post-porn scenario. Contributions by: Adam Arvidsson, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Manuel Bonik, Mikita Brottman, Florian Cramer, Samantha Culp, Barbara DeGenevieve, Mark Dery, Michael Goddard, Stewart Home, A NETPORN STUDIES READER Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, Julie Levin Russo, Regina Lynn, Sergio Messina, Mireille Miller-Young, Tim Noonan, Francesco Edited by Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, Matteo Pasquinelli Macarone Palmieri aka Warbear, Matteo Pasquinelli, Audacia Ray, Andreas Schaale, Nishant Shah, Tim Stüttgen, Matthew Zook. ISBN: 978-90-78146-03-2 PARADISO AMSTERDAM • HOLLAND C’LICK ME C’LICK A NETPORN STUDIES READER Edited by Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, Matteo Pasquinelli COLOPHON C’LICK ME: A NETPORN STUDIES READER Editors: Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, This publication is licensed under the Matteo Pasquinelli Creative Commons Attribution Non Editorial Assistance: Geert Lovink, Commercial Non Derivative Works 2.5 Sabine Niederer Netherlands License Copy Editing: Wietske Maas To view a copy of this license, visit: Design: Kernow Craig http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Printer: Drukkerij Veenman, Amsterdam by-nc-nd/2.5/nl/deed.en Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures Supported by: Paradiso, Amsterdam No article in this reader may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical ISBN: 978-90-78146-03-2 means without permission in writing from the author. The C’Lick Me Reader is the second in the INC Reader series. We would like to thank all the participants of The first INC Reader was: the conferences ‘Art and Politics of Netporn’ Incommunicado Reader (2005) (2005) and ‘C’Lick Me’ (2007). A special Editors: Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle thanks to our director, Emilie Randoe, School Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures of Interactive Media, Amsterdam Polytech- Supported by: Hivos nic, for supporting our netporn research pro- Web: www.networkcultures.org/ gramme; to Pierre Ballings and Maarten van incommunicado Boven, Paradiso, Amsterdam, for hosting the C’Lick Me event and supporting the produc- Contact tion of the reader. Thanks to all the authors Institute of Network Cultures of the book for collaborating with us over the phone: +3120 5951863 years, as well as to all the photographers and fax: +3120 5951840 image-producers on the web whose works have email: [email protected] been cited in the different articles. web: www.networkcultures.org Order a copy of this book by sending an email to: [email protected] A PDF of this publication can be downloaded freely at www.networkcultures.org/mediaarchive TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 SECTION 1: THE RISE OF THE NETPORN SOCIETY Regina Lynn Sex Drive: Where Sex and Tech Come Together 7 Mark Dery Naked Lunch: Talking Realcore with Sergio Messina 17 Nishant Shah PlayBlog: Pornography, Performance and Cyberspace 31 Audacia Ray Sex on the Open Market: Sex Workers Harness the Power of the Internet 45 Adam Arvidsson Netporn: the Work of Fantasy in the Information Society 69 Manuel Bonik and Andreas Schaale The Naked Truth: Internet Eroticism and the Search 77 Tim Noonan Netporn, Sexuality and the Politics of Disability: A Catalyst for Access, Inclusion and Acceptance? 89 Matthew Zook Report on the Location of the Internet Adult Industry 103 SECTION 2: Digital DESIRE BEYOND PORNOGRAPHY Mark Dery Paradise Lust: Pornotopia Meets the Culture Wars 125 Matteo Pasquinelli Warporn! Warpunk: Autonomous Videopoiesis in Wartime 149 Florian Cramer and Stewart Home Pornographic Coding 159 Florian Cramer Sodom Blogging: Alternative Porn and Aesthetic Sensibility 171 Mikita Brottman Nightmares in Cyberspace: Urban Legends, Moral Panics and the Dark Side of the Net 177 Michael Goddard BBW: Techno-archaism, Excessive Corporeality and Network Sexuality 187 Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi The Obsession of the (Vanishing) Body 197 SECTION 3: NETPORN AFTER THE QUEER BOOM Mireille Miller-Young Sexy and Smart: Black Women and the Politics of Self-Authorship in Netporn 205 Katrien Jacobs Porn Arousal and Gender Morphing in the Twilight Zone 217 Barbara DeGenevieve Ssspread.com: The Hot Bods of Queer Porn 233 Julie Levin Russo ‘The Real Thing’: Reframing Queer Pornography for Virtual Spaces 239 Samantha Culp First Porn Son: Asian-man.com and the Golden Porn Revolution 253 Francesco Macarone Palmieri aka Warbear 21st Century Schizoid Bear: Masculine transitions Through Net Pornography 261 Tim Stüttgen Ten Fragments on a Cartography of Post-Pornographic Politics 277 BIOGRAPHIES 285 WEBOGRAPHY 291 1 INTRODUCTION The conferences ‘The Art and Politics of Netporn’ (2005) and ‘C’Lick Me’ (2007), are novel zones for academics, activists and artists to discuss and experience new phenomena around web-based sex and pornography. We are part of a porn-friendly, yet critical digi- tal generation, bothered by a cultural climate of narrow-mindedness and porn hysteria. Critical studies about pornography and queer activism have been carried out in previous decades, but we are looking to discuss our tactile immersion in pornographic networks. The Institute of Network Cultures agreed to launch such a space on an international level, providing an uncensored environment for exhibiting and analysing various kinds of netporn through conferences, a mailinglist and tagging area, a festival page on Myspace. com, and now a book publication. There is a sense of intellectual and social urgency around netporn, a need to awaken media activism and intellectual sharing to process these pornographic realms. It is indeed difficult to get public funding to support our events, but it is also a matter of challenging the now palpable mentality of fear of the oth- er and the stuffiness that followed supposedly moral conflicts and geo-political warfare. As we have witnessed in recent porn controversies in cultures as diverse as China and the Netherlands, the authorities are wary of courting pornography research as a valid contribution to open or activist media culture. It remains a risky endeavour to examine pornography, even though the last two years have seen a wider range of porn studies initia- tives. Perhaps our objectives are now able to enter mainstream society and become more acceptable again, but global anti-porn movements are also on the rise. We can surely keep developing porn discourses, but what about our initial desire to break open a new kind of public zone of consumption and debate? We see netporn as a site where all our major po- litical tensions and gender wars come to light, but our impetus to air tensions and support a post-utopian quest for pleasure and media awareness will remain controversial. Our two conferences propose to expand the definition of pornography. A similar re- vision of the narrow articulation of porn has been carried out by the participants of the Post-Porn Politics conference in Berlin in October 2006. Our contribution started out as a similar search for innovative bodily aesthetics and queer or feminist expressions, but has been mainly centered on an analysis of new technologies. Pornography is not seen as a fatally beckoning commodity, nor as queer counter-culture, but as accessible elec- tronic data that can be modified by social actions, communications and relationships. Netporn’s agency can contain a critique of commercial work ethics and gender roles, 2 C’LICK ME it also actively seeks out circuits of DIY online eroticism. What we emphasise in porn culture is alternative body type tolerance and amorphous queer sexuality, interesting art works and the writerly blogosphere, visions of grotesque sex and warpunk activism; all agencies relying on robust sex energies for their different purposes. These netporn play- ers also breed abundant or obsessive behaviours — lurking, seducing, up/downloading, chatting, mutual masturbation, dating and orgy-swinging. But the general economy of their actions only mimics the exchange economy and people get hooked as they engage in free trading and act out their specific sexual desires. As Bataille said, general econo- mies are based on the notion of excess where a surplus of data and information can only be channelled in a performative manner. Hence, we see modes of mimicry and play as a self-aware and ritualised enactment of a culture’s high point of exuberance, ecstasy and intensity. Hence we focus on a society of excess and atomised small players rather than giant industries or singular porn stars. It is also about the participation of women and feminists and the transformation of queer identities. Minority groups such as (post) feminists, queers and ethnic minorities use porn as a contribution to their social networks. By doing so they create a stance against the industries that have been influencing the porn experience until now. We investigate the role of ‘gender fluid’ entrepreneurism and web communities, and ask ourselves if gender queerness represents a new marketing devices or an actual sexual behaviour and sensibility.