By Cameron Maltwood and Kieran O’Meara
INTRODUCTION
For centuries, aesthetic enquiry has haunted
western philosophy like a spectre, mocking its every turn. This Casper-like
phantom, friendly in appearance and mischievous in behaviour can be summated in
the overarching question ‘What is Art?’. As the study of Art History and
Aesthetics will testify, the answer to this very query has been debated time
and time again, rearing its head at the most critical of junctures – just in
time to complicate all proceedings. It seems as though no matter how many times
we follow the rabbit of curiosity down some warren of deep thought, be it
Ethics, Psycho-analysis, Hermeneutics, Political theory, Literary Criticism and
so on, we encounter this mischievous spirit grinning at our confusion as only
Cheshire cats do.
Equally, at a darkened corner of art’s being lies
the notion of Sexual Experience. By this, I am not insinuating that art has
always somehow been connected to Sex. Nonetheless, it would be a blatant
falsity to state that Sexual Experience is not a major phantasmic element of
Art itself. To illustrate this, one only has to think of some of Western Art’s
oldest masters, and some of its freshest. Think of Roman, Athenian, or Persian
mosaics. Think of Michelangelo, obsessed with the manner in which the male-form
interacts with the world without underwear. Alternatively, perhaps think of
Grayson Perry and his pottery or tapestry. Without a doubt, some sort of
curiosity links art and Sex.
This is precisely what led us to this short enquiry
about the relationship between Art and the most sexualised material, that which
we call ‘Pornography’. Essentially what we intend to do here is simple. This
short thought-piece will etch out some of our thoughts locating where the line
stands dividing Pornography and Art. At its core, this question evokes a query
concerning location – i.e. the space at which Art becomes Pornography and
Pornography Art. We are going to attempt to carve out an argument with some
speed to avoid any dense confusion, and as such, we shall utilise an aphorismic
style. This has been chosen to permit an ease of flow across our thoughts. In
this, I would like to advise the reader that although such a style has been
employed to sanction an ease of flow, this does not necessarily signify a
logical advance from one point to the next. Overall, we shall argue that, in
our epoch, there is a line between Art and Pornography. we will contend that
its location is temporally contingent on what is publicly considered an obscene
reaction to empirical stimulus in any given era.
I.
Art is sensed. As we discussed in our piece
concerning the separation of Art and the artist1, art is itself
incredibly difficult to conceptualise. Nonetheless, in the past we have
utilised Hannah Arendt’s grasp of art to provide a framework of understanding.
In her ‘The Human Condition’ Arendt argues that there are three
components to Art: (a) its instrumental ‘uselessness’, (b) its durability
in the world, and lastly, (c) its possession of a posit of thought.2 Despite
this however, there are still some conceptual ambiguities at the centre of
experiencing art.
Some consider the work of Jackson Pollock a splat
of genius, and others just a splat of colour that even a monkey could have
done. Because of this, we would never wish to deny any work the mantle of being
labelled as Art, and equally, we would not want to denounce the experience of
some object as being more than an object. What does this tell us? This tells us
that art is itself (a) experienced empirically (by our senses), (b) evokes an
interpretive response, and (c) that a piece of art is something more than just
a mere object to be sensed or interpreted. This, whether or not entirely
accurate in an essentialist manner, opens the becoming of Art to any object or
action that can be sensed and interpreted as more than it is. Therefore, if I
am moved by a painting of Van Gogh’s, this would be no different to being moved
by architecture, interpretive dance, sculpture, literature, film and beyond –
all may be contingently classified (and as such declassified) as Art.3
II.
We wish to briefly distinguish the difference
between Art and ‘skill’. Across history, we can see examples where the term Art
has been utilised in a very loose way to denote a strict method or outlook
needed to succeed in a particular field. Here I am thinking of Sun Tzu’s ‘The
Art of War’, whereby the necessary abilities and skills to emerge from battle
victorious are divulged4; or Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ that
discusses the nature surrounding the ‘art’ of politics.5 Even
in the contemporary era we hear people speak of ‘art’ in its loosest form, for
example ‘He turns accounting in to an art’, or in the words of the current US
President Donald Trump: “Deals are my art form”.6 What this
usage of the term ‘art’ denotes is not Art proper – that ghostly and
complicated concept – but rather a ‘method’ or ‘skill’ which makes a particular
activity so precise one is guaranteed triumph routinely. This guarantee of
success is so miraculous, it has been awarded the virtue of something
transcendental, something greater than what it is – and this is why ‘art’ has
been chosen to describe these activities and skills. Need I say, this form of
‘art’ is not by any means the kind of Art we wish to discuss here, in fact it
is not Art at all but only an adage to conceptual misunderstanding. Art may
require some kind of skill to become manifest, but the application of skill
alone is not itself Art.
III.
There is a final point about Art which I feel is
imperative to state, and that is that Art wants to be sensed, by virtue of
being Art it has willed to be sensed. There is no piece of Art which is void of
a public character. In its most apt conceptualisation, to be ‘Art’ must
have a few properties therefore. (a) Uselessness as an object, one that is
created without an instrumental function – and in Arendtian terms thus becomes
durable within the human artifice, and, (b) is an object of sorts able to be
experienced empirically through the senses.
By this, an object becomes in itself a piece of art
when its primary function, if we can say this at all, is to undergo
interpretive experience. Art therefore is interpreted as soon as one, and it
need not necessarily be more than one, experiences it. Since art also must have
a creator by whose hand it is brought into being, it is therefore always
interpreted from the initial moment of its reification, that is by the artist.
As we have decoded, to be considered art, an object is required to undergo an
interpretive experience, and in this sense, Art requires an interpretive interlocutor
– i.e. to become Art an object requires a relation with an interpreter to
sustain itself as such. In this vein, Art always requires an ‘audience’ to
fulfil the role of interpretation, be this of a single interpreter or a
plurality of interpreters.
Art requires a space in which to be sensed by
an audience and it is through this space that it can be interpreted. In order
to be interpreted, there must be some public quality to Art entangled within
the necessity of its interpretational experience – manifested through the
essential character of ‘the audience’. Without this public quality, Art ceases
to be so. Art wills to be sensed because its public character is engrained
within it. Even if a painting, piece of music, dance, building and so on is
made for private sensation, this sensation still comes to be between the piece
of Art and the interpreter. Films for example, even home videos, are not made
for the sake of simply being made, but are made to be sensed. Art is Art
through this public character – it is a pillar of its becoming.
IV.
Now to Pornography. Pornography can be described as
material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or
activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement. In the 21st century, of
course the term Pornography makes us think of sexual films. Here is where the
root of the overarching question effectively stems from – films are certainly
Art, but does that mean also that the hardest of pornography is too?
There are a couple of nuances which have to be addressed
before we continue. The first must be between sex and Porn. It may seem obvious
but I think it is worth being restated. Sex is to physically engage in sexual
activity. Pornography is the recording of such sexual activity for consumption.
Is there an Art to sex? Certainly not; referring the reader back to aphorism
II. There may be a certain skill in inducing the most pleasure out of your
sexual partner(s), but this does not mean it is an Art, it is a skill which can
be instructed, learnt and performed. There is a certain level of skill to
Pornography also. By this, we are insinuating a certain amount of technical
skill is required to successfully create porn, i.e. the capacity to write (if
one is E.L James or the Marquis de Sade for instance), or the capacity to
direct, choreograph, film and so on. The last nuance we wish to discuss here is
between making porn and making non-pornographic films. In essence, there is no
difference between them in all but the content material. Even here, even some
of the greatest films which are considered to be Art contain within them
pornography.
V.
How do you define how pornographic art, or in this
case, the kind of pornography we find in the blockbuster movies we see every
day? Do you measure it by the quantity of sexual events in the film? If this
were to be our unit of measurement then films such as The To-Do List (2013,
dir. Maggie Carey) or The Wolf of Wall Street (2013, dir.
Martin Scorsese) might place near the top of the list. Perhaps you might
measure the pornographic-ness of the film by the explicitness of obscenity. If
this were the case then a film that repeatedly displays explicit obscenity,
such as Nymphomaniac (2013, dir. Lars von Trier) might achieve
a winning prize. In certain cases you may even rank the pornographic nature of
films upon how socially taboo the sexual acts they depict are considered. For
this, you could look at a range of pictures depending on just how taboo you
consider their subject matter to be. For a light example, you could see Secretary (2002,
dir. Steven Shainberg), a film about a secretary and her employer who, through
their professional relations, develop a deeply sadomasochistic relationship. A
film one-step further into the taboo may be Savage Grace (2007,
dir. Tom Kalin), in which a mother engages sexually with her only son in an
attempt to “cure” him of his homosexuality.
On the other hand, one may not rate a film’s
pornographic-ness on its content alone, but equally its intent. Films that
intend to arouse, especially if based on an erotic novel, then may be an
appropriate place to turn our gaze. This would bring us to the likes of Fifty
Shades of Grey (2015, dir. Sam Taylor-Johnson), Magic
Mike (2012, dir. Steven Soderbergh), or Basic Instinct (1992,
dir. Paul Verhoeven). My last example of pornography in film is actually the
most literal; pornography as would be stereotypically recognised in film.
By this I mean a film that may or may not be otherwise particularly sexual, but
that displays within it actual pornography. For examples of this, see The
40-Year-Old Virgin (2005, dir. Judd Apatow), in which the titular
40-year-old virgin is locked in a store foyer by his co-workers and forced to
watch pornography playing on screens all around him. For another example of
this phenomenon, see Don Jon (2013, dir. Joseph
Gordon-Levitt), in which the main character, Jon, experiences the consequences
of his pornography addiction.
If we continue to abide by the definition of
pornography as stated above, then the penultimate group of films cited most
certainly constitute pornography, in that it is their intention to stimulate
sexual excitement. Contrary to this, the other examples provided do not
necessarily fit into the category of pornography, as the pornography in them is
not necessarily for us, the audience of the film, as it is for the character
within the film itself. It is not intended to stimulate us
sexually, but the character. As we observe any of the images viewed in the
world of the film as its characters do, those images deemed by an artist-director
to be relevant to the narrative, so too do we view pornography.
VI.
Films can be considered Art because they are (a)
experienced empirically, (b) evoke an interpretational response, and (c)
becomes something more than just light emanating from or projected onto a
screen, but a series of meaningful images. Porn is equally, (a) experienced
empirically, (b) evokes some interpretational response, and (c) becomes
something more than just light emanating from or projected onto a screen, but a
series of meaningful images; it just so happens that it is that very meaning
which makes us consider it ‘Smut’ and not Art. Therefore, to answer the
question ‘can porn be Art?’ our answer is: well yes, by the same strength that
film can be, so too could pornography be Art. So surely this therefore means
that the question we are answering is a false one? There is no limit between
Art and Pornography. However, this is not the case.
VII.
Although sharing the same capacity to be Art as any
other medium, pornography is considered socially to be ‘smutty’. By this I mean
that it is obscene. Pornography has encoded within it the notion of sexual
obscenity. To explore this, we should take a brief look at its etymological
roots as a linguistic signifier. We can see that the word ‘pornography’ is
drawn from the ancient Greek word for Brothel (Porneion) [πορνεῖον]
as ‘Pornographos’ [πορνογράϕος] – literally translating as ‘the
depicting of prostitutes’. In this manner, being attached to what appears to be
the perennial obscenity of prostitution, sexual activity, as that activity
which is conducted within the brothel itself, became the source of the
obscenity behind pornography – through its historical and etymological
interrelation with prostitution. Given the wider societal and historical
slander towards prostitutes, it is no surprise that with the term ‘pornography’
came the immediate claim of obscenity. Therefore, pornography can be Art, in
that it holds all the essential qualities of experiencing Art, but importantly
an obscene Art – irrespective of whether one subscribes
personally to such a judgemental prescription of ‘obscenity’.
VIII.
So far, we have decoded what of Pornography may be
considered Art. We would like to take this time now to reverse this, perhaps in
a Freudian way, to see what we can find to assist our overall enquiry: what of
Art desires to ultimately be Pornographic? To answer this we must return to
aphorisms I and III. In aphorism I, the last quality within the experience of
Art, (c), was that the object in question becomes more than itself to become
Art, evoking an interpretive response. For Pornography, this appears to be
obvious – film, image, language, performance all become a sexual stimulant and
provoke a biological response. When we ‘receive’ pornography we respond with
sexual arousal. In this moment an object which is sensed breaks its boundaries
as merely printed ink, projected light, or choreographed performance to evoke a
physical, biological response. We may find the works of Monet, Caravaggio,
Beethoven, Brecht, Fitzgerald, or even Nureyev equally as stimulating. Their
Art may even provoke some biological response in the release of certain
chemicals in the brain, like serotonin. However, none of these artists’ Art
cause the response that even the most mediocre of Pornography can. This brings
us necessarily back to aphorism III. Here, I claimed that an essential part of
Art’s character is its public quality – by virtue of being itself, Art wills to
be sensed in some form of public space. Equally, Pornography is made to arouse
– it too wills to be sensed.
Let us take two examples: The Ballet and a Peep
Show. The Ballet depicts dance for the public to interpret a narrative and
meaning through physical movement. A Peep Show depicts sex for the public to
interpret and become biologically aroused through physical movement. Beyond
content, what is the difference? Here the answer is twofold: (a) response, and
(b) delivery. Let us take these in reverse order. The Ballet is public because
it is performed in a theatre, an open space. A Peep Show, traditionally, is
not. Conventionally, a peep show forces the recipient to look upon their visual
stimulus through some obscured oculus. Alas, the recipient is here made to
believe that the very stimulus they are viewing is not public, and that they
are a Voyeur. It is a combination of the physical act they are watching, and
their enforced Voyeurism which forges sexual arousal and sexual response (acted
upon through masturbatory action or not). Quickly, one could therefore ask,
well what is the difference between this and finding a way to secretly view
others having sex outside of the peep show? The reason why one appears so much
more intrusive and potentially an act of sexual misconduct is because one
simply is. The conflation of the Peep Show and all-round sexual Voyeurism is to
ignore the engrained public quality embedded in Art. A peep show is a public
performance intended, through its delivery, to appear as a private act.
However, watching others unaware of your presence engaging in sexual activity
is to invade their private space, their private action; this is not to engage
with and experience performance, but to encroach upon and pervert the most
private of other’s moments for sexual stimulation.
Peep shows are performances of sexual activities
intended to be viewed by an audience through an obscured oculus to simulate
Voyeurism and thus stimulate sexual excitement. This is perhaps a flawed
example as it is not truly Voyeuristic in the sense that the performers are
aware that their actions are being viewed by the public, and given that the
public will have paid to attend a peep show, they too will be aware of the
performers’ consciousness that they are being watched, even if it is not
addressed. It is the experience of art that falsely does not will to be
experienced.
Not all pornography has to be voyeuristic. In fact,
it could be argued that no pornography is. Even pornography that does not
‘break the fourth wall’, addressing the viewer directly, is still observable
because the artist has shared it via some platform, and in doing so, is fully
aware that it is being made available for public viewing – where sexual
content is made available and always in “zones visible to the gaze of the
camera”.7 In simply being able to view porn at all then, the
audience should realise that it is so because the creator allows it to be so,
thus nullifying any voyeuristic properties the pornography may hold, short of
being merely recorded voyeurism proper.
But all of this is to neglect the fact that
any porn that attempts to be voyeuristic is doing, well, exactly that. It is
trying to provide the illusion of voyeurism as a strategy for sexual
stimulation. It is pretending that it does not want to be sensed, for the
reason that those watching it may find increased pleasure in this experience.
So, in fact, a better, more overt, example of porn
willing to be sensed might be the POV (point-of-view) pornography. In POV
pornography, we as the audience member are invited into the medium itself as
one of the subjects. There can be a few ways this is done. The most common of
these is to position us in the place of one of the recipients of sexual
pleasure. In other words, through experiencing POV pornography, we ‘become’ a
sexual agent within the pornography itself.
The less common, but by no means rare, form of POV
pornography is where we are placed in the position of another, viewing the
person or persons experiencing sexual stimulation. In certain cases, the person
or persons who are receiving sexual stimulation whom we are invited to watch
through the perspective of the voyeur are supposedly unaware of their (our)
presence. In this instance, we are placed in the position of the (fictional)
voyeur. It is interesting to note that porn which places us into agent
experiencing sexual pleasure is willing us to watch, and not just watch – respond
– by literally putting us in the shoes of the person experiencing sexual
pleasure. To respond as our ‘character’ responds, with
self-gratification. It is as close as pornography can get, at this point
in time, to literally punching its hand through the screen and engaging
physically and sexually with us, the recipient-viewer. Although, with the
invention of new technology increasing at an unprecedented rate, who knows
if this might be the case tomorrow. Since POV pornography often places us in
the shoes of its participants, when the participant we are ‘playing’ then is
addressed it becomes almost as if it is us that is engaging with the other in
the video. In this instance, pornography not only wills us to watch, but wills
us heavily to respond to it.
Perhaps the example of a peep show is flawed,
simply, as it is too physical. In most cases, art’s public quality manifests in
a public environment, that it has a space through which it can be interpreted.
Therefore, the ballet is a grand example of this in Art’s case, as a gallery or
cinema is for ‘traditional’ artworks and films respectively. A Peep Show
however is too literal an example of a public space through which
interpretation can take place. When you think of pornography today, in the modern
world, what do you think of? For most of us, we would be willing to bet the
answer is the same – the porn video, accessed by most through online websites.
Websites that are, for all intents and purposes, accessible to all (within
confines of the law). Websites that are public. In this however,
the line has been blurred between the public and private realms.
The only difference between the pornographic
website and the gallery is their physicality. We would argue that the reason
porn is experienced online, through the public space of the website but in the
privacy of one’s own home, is simply because of stigmatised nature underscoring
pornography (and sex as a whole) – at least in a majority of occidental
societies. In fact, porn has been experienced in a physical public
space, in the adult movie theatres that gained notoriety in past decades.
Cinemas designated specifically for the exhibition of pornography. So to claim
that pornography is not, or has not been, experienced publicly is false. Of
course, the existence and usage of these theatres has since however declined
significantly with the rise of home video services, from VCR tapes through to
the internet and the smart phone. The reason that pornography is not viewed
today in physical public space is simply because there are not many public
spaces left in which to do so. Equally, the reason for their being so few
public spaces to view pornography is simply that the demand for this experience
has dwindled. When adult movie theatres were popular, they were so because
there was no alternative to view pornographic films. Art may will to be sensed
in a public space, but the public may not.
For those thinking that this is solely the case for
pornography too, they are sorely mistaken. Consider the ever-increasing subscriptions
to online video streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, and
YouTube to name a few. From this it is clear to see that the desire to
experience films in the privacy of one’s own home exists anterior to whether
the films are pornographic or not. The public, as it were, no longer requires a
physical public space in order to conduct its business, as everything about our
society is slowly moving online; and so too is our public space – the very
space in which we can appear to one another. Films and pornography may be
moving online, but so are we, in our jobs, economies, politics, hobbies, and,
most importantly, in our public discourse.
Despite this, both these examples lead to different
responses. The Peep Show creates sexual stimulation, biological reaction, and
the potential for voluntary response defined by the conjuring of physical
pleasure. It is precisely this heightened physical pleasure that
non-pornographic Art cannot summon. Monet, Caravaggio, Beethoven, Brecht,
Fitzgerald, and Nureyev can make the recipient of their works feel and
interpret so much meaning. Nevertheless, non-Pornographic Art does not make the
individual biologically seek the most intense of physical pleasures. This is
the side to Art which is pornographic – its desire to evoke a biological
response to its empirical stimulus. Its tragedy is that it cannot.
IX.
With this etymological fact established, that
‘pornography’ stems from ‘the depiction of prostitutes’, we can see that the
term ‘depiction’ is generally utilised when talking about
interpretive experience. By this, we could argue that within the etymology of
‘pornography’ rests the consideration of itself as a potential art, related at
its core to a central quality of art itself – interpretive experience. With
this, perhaps we can say that rather than art and porn being adversaries or
opposites, pornography exists as its own genre under the diverse umbrella of
Art. In this thought, we can at least venture some sort of answer to the
question of the qualities inherent in Art which rest also in pornography. If
pornography exists under the umbrella of Art, then anything and everything that
goes into it must stem from Art. As for that of Art which is in pornography, it
is whatever the artist of porn decides to reify what they can take of art and
posit into porn. However, this does not commonly appear to vary widely from
porn to porn.
An answer as to what of art is in pornography and
pornography art rests with the intentions of each. Most art does not attempt to
arouse a person sexually, but it does have other intentions. A horror movie,
for instance, attempts to scare the audience, and the reactions to that scare
are things like jumping, screaming, gasping, and in extreme cases, and particularly
in young children, an involuntary expulsion of ‘bodily waste’ in whatever form.
In fact, you might say that an ambitious comedy film might attempt the same
reaction. Nevertheless, there is one difference between most art and porn in
this respect, and that is its desire for us to respond to this involuntary
biological response. Pornography wills us not only to interpret it but also to
respond to such interpretation by the ‘conjuring of physical pleasure’. A
horror movie may will you to scream, jump, or cry, but that is it.
X.
What does this reversal tell us about the line
between Pornography and Art? Essentially, when some object easily wills us to
respond to its stimulus with our biological faculties, in a manner considered
obscene, we have ventured into the realm of Pornography and are no longer in
the realm of Art.
XI.
Interestingly, what is considered obscene changes
with the times. We consider sexual pleasure obscene in the contemporary epoch
due to the past religious ethics which governed individual practice and their
increasingly secularised morality in the modern period, continually, it seems,
convincing ourselves of our sexual freedom in relation to the past, and are yet
in this act imprisoned by the supposed ethics of the past – unable to engage potentiality.8 For
specific ecclesiastical and religious reasons, specific sexual acts were deemed
to be in contravention of God’s natural law, and as such, pushed sexuality into
the deepest of caverns of our private lives. Prior to Judeo-Abrahamic religion,
sex was seen in a different light by wider society, as something more public.
Could you imagine an Athenian or Roman public orgy in today’s world? Could you
imagine the British army encouraging passionate sexual acts between its
soldiers, as was the policy in Sparta? For a myriad of reasons, western society
today perceives sex as something private, to not show its face in the public
realm as Art does. It is for this reason our society cannot grasp pornography
as a potential Art; and it appears that this is the case because of the
so-called illicit biological response it summons – the will to satisfy one’s
own sexual desires and drives for physical pleasure.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, where is the line between pornography
and Art? In simple terms, the line of demarcation is not universally and
objectively fixed. In the past, the public nature of pornography was accepted
and engaged with, and as such Pornography was a form of Art. As sex became
obscene it underwent a retreat into the private sphere. In this moment the line
between Art (virtuous and meaningful) and Pornography (obscene by its will to
summon sexual pleasure) was drawn. Perhaps in future epochs sex will undergo a
revision and its illicitness cast asunder, prompting a return to public life as
well as private. In this moment, pornography will be reinstated as an Art, or
perhaps closer to it. For now, however, our collective ‘truths’ will continue
to tell us that there is something dirty about sex (perhaps there is, we don’t
know) and as such, our experience of pornography will continue to project that
very same societal disgust at stimulated sexual desire and pleasure – drawing
the limit between Art and Pornography.
Perhaps this think piece made the limit between Art
and Pornography somewhat more concrete. We would like to think that it has done
exactly what it set out to do at its inception and offer some answer to the
question at hand. Nevertheless, even as we write this now, we can hear the
faintest laughter of one purple and pink cat fading into a mist of confusion.
This warrants our journey, another day, back down this, the apt, and perhaps
Playboy-esque rabbit hole to Wonderland – where, without doubt, we can do none
else but simply wonder.
NOTES
1 Cameron
Maltwood and K.J. O’Meara (2019) ‘As a Human Amongst Other Humans and The
Immanence of Potentiality: On Separating Art from Artist’, Amor Mundi.
2 Hannah
Arendt (1998) The Human Condition, Second Edition, Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, pp. 167-169.
3 Architecture
should always be differentiated from ‘construction’. The latter is concerned
only with functional instrumentality. To illustrate this, one can see that St.
Peter’s Basilica is an example of architecture, designed without material
instrumental function in mind and has withstood the test of time repeatedly.
Whereas The Shard, in London, although it does have an element of ‘the
architectural’, is an example of construction – being concerned primarily with
the function of housing offices, apartments, and so on. All buildings rest
between the interplay of ‘architecture’ and ‘construction’ in some capacity;
some are closer to the former, some to the latter.
4 Sun Tzu
(2005) The Art of War, Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, inc.
5 Niccolo
Machiavelli (2005) The Prince, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6 Donald
Trump (2016) Trump: The Art of The Deal, New York: Arrow Books,
p.1.
7 Slavoj Zizek
(1997) The Plague of Fantasies, London: Verso, p. 178.
8 Michel
Foucault (1978) The History of Sexuality: Volume One, New York:
Pantheon Books.