It’s been fun working on the memory-work materials on Finnish people’s experiences and memories of porn, collected in 2012, but that project is now done. My last actual research article on this, titled Bad education? Childhood recollections of pornography, sexual exploration, learning and agency in Finland, written together with the marvellous Sanna Spišák, is just out with the journal Childhood. Many nostalgic memories there, and notably few mentions of trauma. Read it here if the mood strikes you. And here’s the abstract:
“This article draws on a memory-work project on the childhood experiences and memories of pornography in Finland to argue that the autobiographical younger self used in these reminiscences is a creature distinct from the cultural figure of a child at risk, and that the forms of learning connected to pornography are more diverse and complex than those limited to sexual acts alone. The notion of an asexual child susceptible to media effects remains detached from people’s accounts of their childhood activities, experiences and competences. By analyzing these, it is possible to critically reexamine the hyperbolic concerns over the pornification and sexualization of culture.”
Susanna Paasonen 