How does pornography shape relationships and identity? What does it say about what it means to be a “real man”? In his new book, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, author Robert Jensen examines these questions and more, arguing that mainstream pornography creates a toxic masculinity that encourages the objectification and subjugation of women.
But can there be a feminist pornography? Throughout history, desire and passion have often been repressed. How are these powerful emotions expressed in emancipatory movements and, more generally, what does sexual expression look like in the 21st century?
Join us for a provocative discussion about pornography’s effect on contemporary sexuality from varying perspectives with Robert Jensen, a scholar whose work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men’s violence, and Barbara DeGenevieve, an interdisciplinary artist who examines sexuality, gender, trans-sexuality, censorship, ethics, and pornography through her work.
MORE ABOUT GETTING OFF
Pornography is big business, a thriving multi-billion dollar industry so powerful it drives the direction of much media technology. It also makes for complicated politics. Anti-pornography arguments are frequently dismissed as patently “anti-free speech,” “anti-sex” and ultimately “anti-feminist” silencing at the gate a critical discussion of pornography’s relationship to violence against women and even what it means to be a “real man.”
In his most personal and difficult book to date, Robert Jensen launches a powerful critique of mainstream pornography that promises to reignite one of the fiercest debates in contemporary feminism. At once alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough but crucial questions about pornography, manhood, and paths toward genuine social justice.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Robert Jensen is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a professional journalist for a decade. At UT, Jensen teaches courses in media law, ethics, and politics. He also is director of the Senior Fellows Program, the honors program of the College of Communication. In his research, Jensen draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. Much of his work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men’s violence. In more recent work, he has addressed questions of race through a critique of white privilege and institutionalized racism. In addition to Getting Off, he is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005) and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004).
Barbara DeGenevieve is an interdisciplinary artist who works in photography, video, and performance. She lectures widely on her work as well as subjects including sexuality, gender, trans-sexuality, censorship, ethics, and pornography. Her writing on these subjects has been published in art, photographic, and scholarly journals, and her work has been exhibited internationally. DeGenevieve received her MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico in 1980, and the same year began teaching at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. Before joining the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1994, she taught at San Jose State University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of Art. She has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship, and has been the recipient of three Illinois Arts Council grants among others. DeGenevieve is currently a professor and chair of the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This Artists, Activists, and Authors After Hours (AAAH) event is co-sponsored by The Public Square at the IHC, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, and Resources for Sexual Violence Prevention at the University of Chicago.
Free and open to the public. Reservations required. For more information, call 312.422.5580.