Abstract
Since the feminist sex wars of the 1970s, the study of pornography has grown in academic circles. The 1970s–1980s were marked by fiery public disagreements between pro-porn feminists and radical anti-porn feminists surrounding the relationship between pornography and sexual violence against women. Historically, the academic study of pornography has focused on aggressive and controversial types of pornography, largely ignoring viewers perceptions and preferences. Tom Pollard’s book Sadomasochism, Popular Culture and Revolt: A Pornography of Violence, follows this historical emphasis by focusing on violent pornography and its relationship to popular culture and human behavior.
Pollard engages with the most controversial categories of pornography: sadomasochism, war, torture, and fascism. His work is in line with recent scholarship by behavioral scientists, who emphasize sadomasochism as a pervasive social force. According to this view, the submissive factions of society are in revolt against the dominant forces. This has led to what Pollard calls a “sadomasochistic trope,” which he argues is present in both on- and off-screen violence, and more broadly, human behavior. Pollard credits recent social movements, like #metoo and Black Lives Matter, with the explosion in public awareness surrounding pervasive sexual violence and racism in America.
Despite the sometimes brutal descriptions, the book is written in a concise and engaging manner. The first chapter discusses sex and violence, defining and introducing a wide range of topics, including sadomasochism, Hollywood violence, racist porn, and the demand for and proliferation of violent pornography. Pollard concludes that violent pornography exposes and reinforces pop culture’s sadomasochistic foundations. He uses the example of simulated prisoner abuse, a common porn trope, as a symbol of hidden power dynamics. In Chapters 2–3, Pollard provides a brief overview of the scholarship on the effects of pornography. He then turns to the technological changes that have facilitated and hampered censorship efforts, allowing violent and transgressive content to be distributed with unprecedented speed. Next, the chapters discuss the recent phenomena of revenge porn and the role of new technologies in its popularity.
Chapters 4–7 deal with the history of torture, war, and fascist porn. In Chapter 5, Pollard succinctly defines “war porn,” which arose post-9/11 and resulted in the proliferation of brutal wartime imagery (e.g. pictures of Abu Ghraib prison torture). Pollard argues that America’s obsession with imagery of human brutality was quickly sexualized, leading to a new transgressive genre of pornography. In Chapter 6, “Fascism,” the author describes the history of fascism, focusing on several post-WWII, Nazi-themed sexploitation films. One notable example he discusses is the 1975 Canadian film, “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS,” which unflinchingly depicted Nazi sadomasochistic violence. According to Pollard, Nazi Germany is the exemplar of latent sadomasochism, as elite German dominators brandished absolute power over submissives.
In the final chapter, Pollard brings us back to his main argument: that society is dominated by sadomasochistic relationships. He highlights the work of several theorists, including Lynn Chancer, who claimed that our culture is sadomasochistic due to the degree to which we are bombarded, on a global scale, by experiences of domination and subordination. Therefore, sadomasochism, traditionally seen as a psychological phenomenon, is instead theorized as a socio-political dimension of human action. Pollard claims that contemporary society has devolved into a cultural war between the aggressive and paternalistic dominant group (i.e. fathers, police, politicians, etc.) and the historically submissive groups (i.e. people of color, gender minorities, etc.). However, I felt that the book was lacking in empirical evidence for this insight, as it failed to actually demonstrate this conclusion.
The crucial weakness of this book is the author’s seeming tendency toward the conflation of rape, violence, porn, war, and bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM). This lack of precision and differentiation leads to confusion of terms and sweeping claims. The following exemplifies Pollard’s fusing of many or even all pornography genres into one: “although these obviously violent porn genres currently inspire the most interest, all pornography genres rely on violence for dramatic intensity.” (p.8). Indeed, Pollard only explicitly introduces and situates a core BDSM principle, sexual consent, in his final chapter, and the book lacks critical nuance when discussing BDSM more broadly. The author often relies on imprecise and overstated claims regarding the prevalence and popularity of violence in pornography, which other recent studies have demonstrated to be problematic.
While the book presents a broad overview of the field, I was left wanting more critical insight. Given Pollard’s focus on dominant and submissive relationships, for example, I found the discussion of patriarchy, its evolution throughout history, and its reproduction in social institutions lacking. While the book is rich in details this lack of critical engagement with crucial sociological frameworks is unfortunate. However, Pollard does an excellent job of highlighting how social violence, and more specifically, sadomasochistic trends, influence societies. He forces readers to engage with the complex relationships between violent pornography, gender conflicts, and specifically, how popular culture serves to contextualize and reinforce dominant/submissive relationships. Given that his examples (real-world and fictional) focus heavily on male perpetrated sexual violence toward women, gender, media, and criminology scholars interested in how both fictional and real sexual violence are contextualized in popular culture will find this book very relevant. Furthermore, Pollard correlates recent transformations in violent pornography with a rise in authoritarianism, paternalism, as well as a rise in revolts from those, previously deemed “submissive” (i.e. powerless) groups (women, people of color, etc.). Indeed, Pollard’s thesis echoes current academic attention to hidden forms of power, and how these pervasive forms perpetuate violence. He concludes the book by highlighting the need to talk directly with women and allow them to narrate their own experiences of sexual violence.
Overall, the book offers a highly engaging introduction to the study of violent pornography, American society, and how sadomasochist relationships persist in social contexts. However, readers who are looking for a more nuanced approach to pornography consumption and trends, as well as the role of violence in today’s pornography, may want to look elsewhere.