Key questions

• 1. When, if ever, should lawful acts between consenting adults be unlawful to display?

• 2. Can different legal systems maintain their own definitions of obscenity in a global, networked world?

• 3. Can simulated acts of violence corrupt, or otherwise harm, those that view them?

• 4. How should a balance be struck between protecting people from their own preferences and the right to engage in and display actions that others consider wrong?

• 5. Does watching pornography and/or playing violent computer games incite or defuse aggression and/or frustration?

Links to affordances

Global digital networks certainly increase access to pornographic content, but that is not to say that certain material is not blocked, or at least blocked to a degree. Legal differences between states create scope for evasion, but laws have been significantly harmonized in recent years. Countries with the capacity to block and trace non-consensual content do so (posing a challenge to efforts at concealment), even if the resources here may not always match that invested in seeking and circulating it. In relation to both non-consensual (or simulated, non-consensual, ‘extreme’) pornography and violent video games, content does not simply incite viewers to violent thoughts, actions and beliefs – even if such content may reinforce and/or normalize existing dispositions and ideas in certain individuals. Access is the primary affordance of interest here, while concealment and evasion are in a constant state of cat-and-mouse between guardians and those who breach obscenity laws. The question of incitement remains complex, contradictory and contested.

Synopsis

Digital networks increase scope to access explicit sexual and violent content. The question of concealment and evasion take on a distinct meaning in relation to non-consensually circulated (‘revenge’) pornography, where what was thought to be private is disclosed without consent. However, regulation is possible here precisely because those that disclose such content are often not as anonymous as they believe they are.

Where issues of access, concealment and evasion are very significant in relation to pornography online, the question of incitement remains key to discussions of both sexually explicit materials and violent online gaming. Does the consumption of such material incite real-world acts of violence, from sexual violence to mass shootings? The full history of the law regarding the concept of the obscene is beyond the scope of this work.