This petition is to express our unwielding support for and solidarity with Routledge Press in the wake of a recent campaign to distort and ultimately destroy their proposed Porn Studies Journal program, which was created to provide an effective alternative to the dominant prevailing paradigm debate about pornography and its societal impact.
It is also in response to a counter-petition currently being put out by the antipornography group Stop Porn Culture, which seeks to impose their ideological and institutional controls onto the project through willfull distortion and libelous misinformation about the project, and to further their goal of stigmatizing and ultimately silencing alternative liberatory and progressive viewpoints about porn and its impact on culture, politics, and society.
Over the past 20 years, active sex workers, porn performers, and progressive porn producers and consumers have emerged to challenge the prevailent conservative and "radical feminist" beliefs about pornography...yet, those voices have never had the same academic and institutional outreach as had the traditional antiporn opposition. This journal is specifically designed to be that counterspace for actual study and rigorous discussion and debate to be supported. It is designed to expressively expand the debate and discussion...which probably explains the degree of intensity of the efforts of the other side to premptly attack it even before it gets off the ground.
It is no surprise that one of the main signatories of that petition is Wheelock College Professor Gail Dines, a long-time prominent antiporn activist whom has not only had a longstanding open bias against consensual adult sexual media, but has often resorted to ad hominen scapegoating and name calling in the face of evidence refuting her assumptions about porn as essentially "hate speech" against women and a template for rape and "degradation" of women. It is also not surprising that a significant majority of the sponsors and signatories of the counterpetition are either right-wing cultural activists who are devoted to using the issue of porn as a wedge to undercut women's autonomy (even as they hail themselves as "feminists"), or self-approved/self-appointed "experts" claiming scientific proof of the alleged harms of pornography, even when their "evidence" turns out to be assumed hearsay and invented out of thin air.
But even more offensive than the arguments put forth against the Routledge study, is the basic fact that opponents seek once again to intimidate and silence their critics into submission, and use the stigmatizing label "pro-porn" as a means of subverting academic study and academic integrity. McCarthyism, whether political or sexual, has no place in an academic environment.
We hope that Routledge stands tall and resists the urge to surrender to such tactics, and continues to stand for full scholarship and academic rigor, and proceeds to properly fund and support this endeavor.
The hacks at Stop Porn Culture are terrified because they know their monopoly on the conversation is crumbling. They want to burn this journal down before it even exists because they cannot handle actual academic inquiry that threatens their narrow prejudices. We are not backing down while they scramble to choke out the truth.
May 19, 2013
The people at Stop Porn Culture are terrified of a real debate and this surge in support proves it. They want to bury this project under their own lies but they failed to silence us.
6 Comments
N
Nicole Prause
12 years ago
Featured
As a neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist, I do not feel that my perspective needs to be in every journal. As such, the scope of focus of the "Porn Studies" journal appears appropriate for an academic journal, not that it is anyone's place to set the scope except for the board! The board includes well-known scholars in their respective disciplines. I wish the publisher, editor, and board well with their new endeavor and look forward to reading scholarship here when it is relevant for my work.
M
Mike Wade
13 years ago
Featured
Finally some serious study on this. Tired of the same old moral panic every time someone tries to look at this stuff objectively.
E
Elena Hughes
13 years ago
Featured
Ridiculous that people want this shut down before even reading an issue. Let the scholarship happen.
D
David Jordan
13 years ago
Featured
KEEP PORN STUDIES. Censorship has no place in a university setting.
J
Jessica Petersen
13 years ago
Featured
The anti-porn crowd just wants to control the narrative. This journal is a great idea.
S
Sarah Petersen
13 years ago
Featured
Academic freedom matters. People need to stop trying to censor things they dont personally agree with.
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Status: Closed — this petition is no longer accepting signatures.
This petition is to express our unwielding support for and solidarity with Routledge Press in the wake of a recent campaign to distort and ultimately destroy their proposed Porn Studies Journal program, which was created to provide an effective alternative to the dominant prevailing paradigm debate about pornography and its societal impact.
It is also in response to a counter-petition currently being put out by the antipornography group Stop Porn Culture, which seeks to impose their ideological and institutional controls onto the project through willfull distortion and libelous misinformation about the project, and to further their goal of stigmatizing and ultimately silencing alternative liberatory and progressive viewpoints about porn and its impact on culture, politics, and society.
Over the past 20 years, active sex workers, porn performers, and progressive porn producers and consumers have emerged to challenge the prevailent conservative and "radical feminist" beliefs about pornography...yet, those voices have never had the same academic and institutional outreach as had the traditional antiporn opposition. This journal is specifically designed to be that counterspace for actual study and rigorous discussion and debate to be supported. It is designed to expressively expand the debate and discussion...which probably explains the degree of intensity of the efforts of the other side to premptly attack it even before it gets off the ground.
It is no surprise that one of the main signatories of that petition is Wheelock College Professor Gail Dines, a long-time prominent antiporn activist whom has not only had a longstanding open bias against consensual adult sexual media, but has often resorted to ad hominen scapegoating and name calling in the face of evidence refuting her assumptions about porn as essentially "hate speech" against women and a template for rape and "degradation" of women. It is also not surprising that a significant majority of the sponsors and signatories of the counterpetition are either right-wing cultural activists who are devoted to using the issue of porn as a wedge to undercut women's autonomy (even as they hail themselves as "feminists"), or self-approved/self-appointed "experts" claiming scientific proof of the alleged harms of pornography, even when their "evidence" turns out to be assumed hearsay and invented out of thin air.
But even more offensive than the arguments put forth against the Routledge study, is the basic fact that opponents seek once again to intimidate and silence their critics into submission, and use the stigmatizing label "pro-porn" as a means of subverting academic study and academic integrity. McCarthyism, whether political or sexual, has no place in an academic environment.
We hope that Routledge stands tall and resists the urge to surrender to such tactics, and continues to stand for full scholarship and academic rigor, and proceeds to properly fund and support this endeavor.
The hacks at Stop Porn Culture are terrified because they know their monopoly on the conversation is crumbling. They want to burn this journal down before it even exists because they cannot handle actual academic inquiry that threatens their narrow prejudices. We are not backing down while they scramble to choke out the truth.
May 19, 2013
The people at Stop Porn Culture are terrified of a real debate and this surge in support proves it. They want to bury this project under their own lies but they failed to silence us.
6 Comments
N
Nicole Prause
12 years ago
Featured
As a neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist, I do not feel that my perspective needs to be in every journal. As such, the scope of focus of the "Porn Studies" journal appears appropriate for an academic journal, not that it is anyone's place to set the scope except for the board! The board includes well-known scholars in their respective disciplines. I wish the publisher, editor, and board well with their new endeavor and look forward to reading scholarship here when it is relevant for my work.
M
Mike Wade
13 years ago
Featured
Finally some serious study on this. Tired of the same old moral panic every time someone tries to look at this stuff objectively.
E
Elena Hughes
13 years ago
Featured
Ridiculous that people want this shut down before even reading an issue. Let the scholarship happen.
D
David Jordan
13 years ago
Featured
KEEP PORN STUDIES. Censorship has no place in a university setting.
J
Jessica Petersen
13 years ago
Featured
The anti-porn crowd just wants to control the narrative. This journal is a great idea.
S
Sarah Petersen
13 years ago
Featured
Academic freedom matters. People need to stop trying to censor things they dont personally agree with.
As a neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist, I do not feel that my perspective needs to be in every journal. As such, the scope of focus of the "Porn Studies" journal appears appropriate for an academic journal, not that it is anyone's place to set the scope except for the board! The board includes well-known scholars in their respective disciplines. I wish the publisher, editor, and board well with their new endeavor and look forward to reading scholarship here when it is relevant for my work.