☛ Call for Paper for Special Issue on Cinema and Culture (Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 2026). Last Date of Submission: 30 June, 2026.
☛ Creative Section (Vol. 7, No. 2, April 2026) will be published in May, 2026. Keep visiting our website for further updates.
☛ Colleges/Universities may contact us for publication of their conference/seminar papers at creativeflightjournal@gmail.com

The Fetishised Female Body: Pornography, Power, and Patriarchal Ideology in Literature

 


The Fetishised Female Body: Pornography, Power, and Patriarchal Ideology in Literature

Dr. Partha Sarathi Mandal,
State Aided College Teacher, Category I,
Department of English,
Lilabati Mahavidyalaya,

West Bengal, India.

Abstract:

This essay critically examines sexism, violence, and the objectification of the female body in pornographic representations through feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial frameworks. It argues that pornography often reinforces patriarchal ideology by placing the phallus at the centre of sexual discourse, thereby constructing women as submissive, fragmented, and commodified bodies. In such representations, the male ego functions as a colonising force, while the female body becomes the colonised space, reflecting broader patriarchal hierarchies that marginalise women as unpaid labourers, prostitutes, and subaltern subjects in both colonial and postcolonial contexts. These dynamics also expose the contradictions within nationalist myths such as the idealised “Mother India,” which fail to account for the lived realities of women. Furthermore, pornography fetishises specific parts of the female body, privileging scopophilic pleasure and the male gaze over holistic representations of female subjectivity. This fetishisation, filtered through consumerist and market-driven production agendas, contributes to the commodification of female sexuality and reinforces misogynistic representations. Drawing upon the concept of phallogocentrism articulated by Jacques Derrida and femino-phobic anxieties discussed by Rosi Braidotti, the essay explores how toxic masculinity, sexual aggression, and domination are normalized within pornographic content. The study also considers empirical observations regarding sexual violence in pornography and argues that such representations may contribute to broader cultures of misogyny and violence against women. Ultimately, the essay contends that pornographic media dehumanises women and reduces sexual relations to biological impulses, echoing Giorgio Agamben’s notion of the reduction of human life to bare, depoliticised existence.

Keywords: Phallogocentrism, Pornography and Female Objectification, Toxic Masculinity, Patriarchal Ideology, Postcolonial Feminism

INTRODUCTION

In this critical paper my research analysis and investigation would like to focus on sexism, violence on the female body during sexual intercourse in pornographic videos or how the boastful male ego is often sandwiched between the colonising phallus and the colonised-submissive female genitalia. In patriarchy, phallus is in the centre and women are mostly unpaid kitchen-workers, labourers, prostitutes —— the fading, subaltern and inferior female body whether in colonial/postcolonial contexts or in pornographic video contents vividly demonstrates the lacunae of the Mother India mythology as a bourgeois ideological construct. (Morton 40) In view of this, it could be argued that the Fundamentalists and watchdogs of patriarchal authoritarianism often tag Sunny Leone as a bad mother because she does not withstand with the RSS-Backed-Good Mother-Concept. Pornography often fetishises or it can be articulated that the consumption of pornographic videos celebrates a part over the totality —— in pornographic videos/representations a particular part of a woman’s body is highlighted violating the biological, anatomical, and natural spontaneity of the totality of one breast or a single breast and the funnel through which the pornographic gaze is filtered is pure fetishistic scopophilia or the celebration of male gaze. The misogynistic re-representation of the female body/bodies in pornography camouflaged by the production company’s deep-rooted agenda, i.e. the consumerism-consumption substratum of mercantile marketable video contents and sexual violence virulently projects the materialistic and offensive representation of the female body in postcolonial situation(s) in pornographic videos. Furthermore, the toxic masculinity and vituperative “phallogocentrism” (Derrida’s term for the masculine power at the origin of the Law), male chauvinism/machismo, masturbatory exhibitionism, connotations of sexual delight (?), ‘Femino-Phobic’ (Braidotti 63) anxiety astutely tallied in “Sexual Violence in Pornography: How Prevalent Is It?” (Monk-Turner and Purcell 58) can be most helpful in order to investigate the subhuman representation of the female body as fetish object, criminological agenda of the phallocentric universe where women are peripheralised and marginalised voices. Pornography is to be blamed in tandem for the really shocking number of rape, child molestation, and violence against women. The actors in pornography are mutually (?) involved in a task to perform the dictated action, i.e. lovemaking —— the way the male actor dominates the geography of a female body is brutal, bestial, and sadistic in nature. Dehumanised and animalistic approach of the male actor is purely the causes of Horme (impulse) and not by judgment:

Man has now reached his historical telos and, for a humanity that has become animal again, there is nothing left but the depoliticization of human societies by means of the unconditional folding of the oikonomia, or the taking on of biological life itself as the supreme political (or rather impolitical) task. (Agamben 76)

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This entire work is carried out in view of these following methods:

1)      Introduction.

2)      Literature Review.

3)      Results.

4)      Findings, Discussions and Conclusion.

5)      Preparation of references and in-text works citation. Primary sources, secondary sources, tertiary sources and webliography were prepared accordingly.

6)      Internet and web results, innumerable materials on Google, YouTube video analysis, newspaper reports, interviews, and critical-scholarly discussions of the porn videos    (available on many websites) are also some of the most significant tools in order to carry out this research.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND A BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PORNOGRAPHY

I owe my heartfelt thankfulness to my most respected Ph.D. supervisor Dr. Ravi Kumar Yadav (Assistant Professor, Kalinga University) for suggesting me to carefully read Richa Kaul Padte’s Cyber Sexy: Rethinking Pornography (2018) —— this book is undoubtedly a milestone in view of my critical enquiry. Padte’s informative and critical commentaries brilliantly postulate the deteriorated female body in porn, male fantasy, domination of the male body during intercourse and vice versa, gender stereotype and many other major issues. Angus Stevenson and Maurice Waite in their co-edited Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2011) define pornography as “printed or visual material intended to stimulate sexual excitement.” (“Pornography”) On the other hand Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory further elaborates the term:

(Gk ‘writing of harlots’) In all probability the term derives from the sign hung outside a brothel or whore’s establishment.

A pornographer is a writer of pornography, and a pornograph is a work of fiction (in the broadest sense of the term) in which there is a considerable emphasis on sexual activity and which is, as a rule, written in such a way as to arouse sexual excitement. It may be funny, serious, bizarre or horrific, and, like any other kind of fiction, it may be well or badly or badly written. (Cuddon 545)

In addition to that John Philip Jenkins in his Encyclopaedia Britannica-definition of the term scholastically comments:

Pornography, representation of sexual behaviour in books, pictures, statues, films, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. The distinction between pornography (illicit and condemned material) and erotica (which is broadly tolerated) is largely subjective and reflects changing community standards. The word pornography, derived from the Greek porni (“prostitute”) and graphein (“to write”), was originally defined as any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes. 

Because the very definition of pornography is subjective, a history of pornography is nearly impossible to conceive; imagery that might be considered erotic or even religious in one society may be condemned as pornographic in another. Thus, European travelers to India in the 19th century were appalled by what they considered pornographic representations of sexual contact and intercourse on Hindu temples such as those of Khajuraho; most modern observers would probably react differently. Many contemporary Muslim societies likewise apply the label “pornography” to many motion pictures and television programs that are unobjectionable in Western societies. To adapt a cliché, pornography is very much in the eye of the beholder. (Jenkins)

Our society has become more liberal in the broadest sense of the term —— the chasm between real and virtual is now bridgeable by modern science and technology. There was a time when mostly teenagers and youngsters used to buy porn DVDs and CD cassettes in order to clandestinely view those adult contents mostly in the absence of their parental surveillance. With the passage of time internet flourished and sparked a renaissance globally —— pornography is now easily accessible. One now just needs a smartphone and internet coverage in order to access the world of pornography. When Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928) were first published, these texts were considered as scandalous and pornographic in nature. Nabokov’s controversial Lolita (1955) and Lawrence Durrell’s Black Book (1936) were also regarded as pornographic texts and obscene. Two indispensable sorts of pornography may be distinguished:

1)      erotica (q.v.) puts an emphasis on the physicality in sexual intercourse. Lovemaking and bodily aspects are highlighted and presented in detail.

2)      exotica on the other hand is inundated with sexual perversions. It talks about abnormal and perverted sexual desires. Narcissism, sadism, scoptolagnia, masochism, fetishism, transvestism, necrophilia, paedophilic disorder —— these are considered as sexual deviations and abnormal in nature. These are also the common subjects which categorise the part-and-parcel of exotica in a nutshell.

3)      Vatsayana’s Kama-Sutra (4th c. AD), Casanova’s Memoirs (1826-38), Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (1st c. BC) can be classified as erotica (q.v.). On the other hand Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs (c. 1870 and Algernon Charles Swinburne’s The Whippingham Papers (late 1880s), Marquis de Sade’s Justine (1791) and The 120 Days of Sodom (1785) can be categorised as exotica.

 

In the Old Testament there is abundant material/discussion on this subject of pornography. It is also critically argued that Aristophanes’s Lysistrata in an abundance nurtures pornographic elements. In order to further essentialise and elaborate it can be commentated that in The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1st c. AD), The Letters of Alciphron (c. 200 AD), Athenaeus’s (2nd c. AD) Deipnosophistae, Lucian’s (2nd c. AD) Dialogues and last but not the least the Milesian Tales of Aristides (2nd c. BC) are incorporated with pornographic elements. These abovementioned texts besides carrying immense historical value and significance with them also postulate elements of pornography as signifiers.

 

J.A.Cuddon in Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory considers Boccaccio’s Decameron (c. 1349-51) as the first key work of modern pornography. (Cuddon 549) Skelton’s poetry and the fabliaux (q.v.), for instance are significantly characterised by pornographic, scandalous, and vulgar elements. After the fall of the Roman Empire this area appeared to be neglected and untouched for a certain period of time although in the Middle Ages poetry is often characterised by erotic elements. In the Renaissance period many works considerably dealt with pornographic elements.  Rabelais’s Gargantua (1534) and Pantagruel (1521), Poggio Bracciolini’s Facetiae (15th c.), Pietro Aretino’s Ragionamenti (1600), Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme’s Vies des dames galantes (1665-6), Béroalde de Verville’s Le Moyen de parvenir (1610), Cellini’s Memoirs (1558) featured pornographic elements in their discussions. John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, or Memoirs of the Life of Fanny Hill (1748-9) is often regarded as a magnum opus in the field of pornographic writings. This text inspired and flourished the human psyche to write and compose many other books which dealt by and large with bawdy and scurrilous elements predominantly in their texts. These texts are often so stuck —— they are autoerotic and fetishistic in nature primarily. Rolf S. Reade’s Registrum Librorum Eroticorum, Ashbee’s Notes on Curious and Uncommon Books are notable examples in this field of research and analysis on pornography. Apart from that Useful Hints to Single Gentlemen respecting Marriage, Concubinage and Adultery, New Atlantis for the Year (1762), The Voluptuarian Cabinet (c.1820), The Merry Muses of Caledonia, a Collection of Favourite Scots Songs, ancient and modern, selected for us of the Chrochallan Fencibles(c.1800), In Prose and Verse. With Notes Moral, Critical and Explanatory (1792) are notable works which also dealt with pornographic elements. The Adventures, Intrigues and Amours of a Lady’s Maid (1822), The Lustful Turk (1828), The Seducing Cardinale (1830), The Bedfellows: or Young Misses’ Manual (1820), The Modern Rake (1824), A Night in a Moorish Harem or the works of Edward Sellon are erotic pornographic in nature. Sellon is a champion writer of pornography —— especially his The Ups and Downs of Life (1867), The New Epicurean (1865), and Letters from a Friend in Paris (1874) exponentially celebrated vulgar elements, pornography and fetish objects. Frank Harris’s My Life and Loves (1925-9) demonstrated vulgarism and obscenity while the anonymous My Secret Life (c. 1885) interfuses nudity with dream elements. The words sadist and masochist derived from Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch —— these two celebrated men of dignity in their texts principally dealt with issues like perversion, fetishism, incest and taboo, flagellation practices as signifiers. In Japanese context, the culture of visual erotica flourished and affected the mainstream cultural narrative. Visual erotica emerged as a significant tool in order to circulate messages and provide sex education to the newly married couples, medical professionals. Sexual intercourse was depicted in an elaborate manner in order to spread awareness and importance was given on healthy sexual practices.

 


Fig.1. The Insistent Lover, wood-block print by Sugimura Jihei, c. 1680. 27.3 × 40.6 cm. Image: The Art Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection, reference no. 1935.406 (CC0)

 

Makura-e (pillow pictures) was basically designed for amusement and it also provided valuable instructions to the newly married couples so that they can enjoy a healthy sex life. During the Tokugawa period (1603-1867) shunga (erotic prints) was easily accessible and the newly invented technologies known as colour woodblock printing helped enormously in circulation and distribution of erotic prints among the masses. (Jenkins) 

 

PORN AND TODAY’S GENERATION: IMPACT ON THE YOUTHS

Consumption of sexually explicit contents is the now the new trend —— today’s youths love to spend their countless seconds, minutes, and hours on social media accessing porn sites, adult videos; in a democratic country each and everyone has their individual rights to watch anything they want but it is also a fact that the youngsters of today’s generation are addicted more to porn and less to the global youth icons like Swami Vivekananda whose towering personality still can inspire a billion. Online gaming platforms are fantastic, bizarre, and even grotesque —— social media is intoxication of human imagination and it is making us machines. Capitalist profit making multinational companies in this age of glocalisation often display their ads on porn sites; basically they are the sellers of sexual stamina capsules, sex toys, contraceptive pills, penis enlargement products, female cosmetics, and for an adult to access these explicit advertisements is permissible in a democratic country but nowadays even the teenagers, children and under aged youths access internet and get in touch with these adult contents/explicit ads; the aroma and fragrance of childhood are being relinquished to accept the curse of the virtual reality. Joy is perpetual but pleasure is transitory and perishable. Porn videos or the flaunts of the enchanting seductress, white chicks, the dominance of the male actor over his female counterpart, orgasm, sucking and licking, brutality in the name of lovemaking, vulgarism, sexual hooliganism cannot be permanent joyfulness but these are evanescent and fickle virtual realities. The libidinal energy is achieved through a series of monotonous weird sex positions —— we will have to make the genius Elon Musk or a global phenomenon Swami Vivekananda our role models instead of an animalistic seducer Johnny Sins or a naughty plumber boy Jordi El Niño Polla. 

It could be argued that the horny porn-stars with their voluptuous swags weave hypnotically the threads of fallacious virtual reality in order to fantasise the unconscious and repressed telos of the youths. In the pandemic period India witnessed its record number of viewership on porn sites —— people loved to spend hours accessing pornography.

The following stat scientifically analyses a huge jump in porn consumption during the lockdown period in India. When the lockdown was induced youths swamped like bees on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and obviously the porn sites witnessed a massive jump in their viewership.


Fig.2. TNN’s “Indians Watching more porn during Covid-19 lockdown.”

In view of this abovementioned stat which was published in The Times of India on Apr 16, 2020 I would like to cite some relevant lines from India Today article entitled as “Pornography gets a pandemic boost, India reports 95 per cent rise in viewing”:

Indians seem to be leading the world in porn consumption, reporting a 95 per cent spike in traffic to adult sites during the three-week lockdown.

Data show the country, the fastest-growing smartphone market, registered a 20 per cent jump in consuming porn content even before the official restrictions kicked in late March.

Although several Indian telecom operators have blocked a number of adult sites, their content still can be accessed on mirror domains.

Released by Pornhub, the world's biggest porn site, the statistics delivered insights into consumption patterns since the coronavirus pandemic induced quarantines and lockdowns across the world. (Kannan)

 

After critically analysing the crux of the abovementioned newspaper article I would like further add few points which I strongly believe are really important to elucidate and examine in order to understand the abysmally threatening impacts of pornography, adult contents/jokes, social media gossips, fraudulent gaming applications etc. on youths and children:

 

1)      The vicious and malicious malwares attack smartphones and steal our personal data. Doctored videos, morphed or superimposed digital images are instrumentalised in order to blackmail the victims. Cyber attacks and cyber criminals are genius in the field of hacking information from our personal computers, the alarming rate of cyber attacks in this recent pandemic period raised tension and anxiety.

2)      Women are the worst victims of cyber attacks. Cyber criminals often threat their female targets of posting their private moments or personal information(s) on internet. As a result the vulnerable victims are trapped and they are forced to pay a hefty amount to the cyber criminals.  

3)      Child pornography is a criminal offense. The representation of gullible women on social media platforms as sex objects, online trolling of rape victims by the sadistic netizens, roasting videos are often derogatory, harmful, and anti-democratic in nature. Social Media influencers are often paid by the corporate franchisee to advertise their products and in pretty number of cases the quality of those products are not up to the mark. These paid influencers and self-acclaimed celebs easily target the vulnerable sections of their subscribers to purchase those online products by hook or by crook.

4)      Few days ago I was streaming the Netflix web series entitled as Jamtara-Sabka Number Ayega (2020) on my smartphone and this story comments on the notorious Jamtara-fraudsters and cyber criminals who are ambitious and materialistic in order to pursue their cherished dreams to become resourceful and wealthy. Jamtara is an unrivalled plethora to the researchers in order to study criminal psychology, cyber crimes, fraudulent hackers and perpetrators. There is an evil nexus between the administration and the cyber criminals as Jamtara blatantly exposes the greedy negotiation between the goons and the cops. An underprivileged district Jamtara where the rays of development hardly reach, the local inhabitants are mostly illiterate and in order to survive in this cruel godless universe they have transformed Jamtara into a criminal hub —— the den of cyber attackers and bank fraudsters. Bank accounts and passwords need to be strictly monitored by the users and it is mandatory to change online banking password after a certain period of time in order to prevent scams. The banks are taking initiatives and they are spreading awareness message among its customers to prevent cyber frauds.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA, CYBER CULTURE AND PORNOGRAPHY

Secularism is under attack in India. Intolerance debates, religious bigotry, mob lynching, fascism or the hijab controversy are the biggest newsmakers on national televisions. Social Media is now strategically used as an instrument by a small number of powerful people in order to weave their secret propaganda —— I call Social Media the biggest garbage of doctored videos, the ruthless machinery which spreads lies and hate speeches against impoverished minority communities, weak and vulnerable sections of the society are bullied and roasted on Facebook or on WhatsApp status by the sadistic-hegemonic groups or classes. During violence and communal riots Social Media is used as a tool just for the sake of spreading intolerance. Fake news now spreads even faster than light. The study of literature is universal and comprehensive in nature and the students of literature are believed to be sensitive to the miserable conditions of the peasants, weavers, minorities, factory workers who are the real heroes of India but it is the greatest irony of fate that now they are being crunched under the surveillance of a Big Brother who loves monopoly, privatisation, authoritarianism and fascism. Since ages the powerless sections are dominated and oppressed by the powerful classes —— only a very few number of bureaucrats, industrialists, powerful ministers who belong to the centre of the power structure make the laws of the land. They decide and we follow.

The title of my research article is “ The Fetishised Female Body: Pornography, Power, and Patriarchal Ideology” and the abovementioned analysis and critical commentaries which I have penned down from a scholar’s point of view found it intrinsic and unavoidable in order to figure out those adjacent relevant subfields, i.e. crisis on social media and women’s role, present day banking scams, cyber attacks, secularism etc. besides keeping a critical eye on the main objectives and intentions of my write ups, i.e. the subhuman and annoying representation of the female body and sexual violence in pornographic videos and adult contents. My appeal to my dearest readers is not to put aside those subfields as irrelevant and whimsical —— these discussions are auxiliary but also essential parts to the wholeness of the focal point of the text. In order to write this paper I thought it is necessary to visit the adult sites, to read adult jokes, to view and analyse those so-called dirty memes purely for my scholastic endeavor. I had accessed world’s some of the most visited and popular porn sites, studied the lifestyle, struggles of the porn-stars. I wholeheartedly acknowledge the contribution of the widely scattered social media adult memes, numerous YouTube shorts on adult contents, the sexist and biased representation of the female body on Instagram reels, ejaculation on the faces of the white blonde by the aggressive black male actors in interracial porn videos and the feminist analysis of the given act from a scholar’s point of view, animalistic doggy style and sodomite intercourse, physical or psychological torture on a female body during a gangbang, aggressive male behavior, numerous video lectures on YouTube on this topic of discussion, interviews, newspaper articles, internet search results and biography of the porn actors fertilised my critical thoughts to think and to progress in my literary mission.

 

In view of the abovementioned discussion I would like to cite a scholarly article entitled as “Cultivating a Critical Classroom for Viewing Gendered Violence in Music Video” ( Rodier et al. 63) where the erudite scholars anathematised sexual violence and the derogatory sex culture where women are saleable fetish objects. This article is a brilliant commentary on the utilitarian glorification of heterosexual intercourse in most of the porn videos where the male body dominates and tortures the soft female body. As Rodier et al. further elaborates:

 

 The matter of violence against women is an ongoing concern to feminist scholars, who argue that violence is best understood in cultural terms. This means that individual acts of violence against women are not simply isolated outbursts but practices that are structurally enabled by a rape culture (see Brownmiller; Donat and D’Emilio; Buchwald, Fletcher, and Roth). Susan Brownmiller, for instance, argues in her groundbreaking book, Against Our Will, that rape is not fueled by sexual desire, but rather is an expression of masculine power. In the wake of Brownmiller, feminist scholars have conceptualized rape as part of a continuum of gendered violence that includes nonconsensual sexual activities, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, child abuse, and incest, all of which are enabled by hegemonic gender roles and related patterns of domination and subordination. Despite the enormous efforts on the part of feminist scholars and activists to challenge the patterns of male domination that enable widespread gendered violence, recent statistics are clear that sexual violence continues to be a part of many of our lives. One explanation for the persistence of a rape culture—that is, a culture that implicitly condones sexual violence against women—is that sexual violence is concealed beneath myths and misconceptions that direct attention away from both its frequency and its severity. Predominant among such social myths is the insistence that women are often partly responsible for the violence done to them (i.e., victim-blaming). These myths become particularly forceful within the context of domestic violence. As Patterson and Sears point out, domestic violence is generally associated with choice—those who “choose” to stay in violent relationships are ultimately held responsible for the actions of their perpetrators. Recent feminist scholarship has addressed cultural narratives, myths, and misconceptions that uphold a rape culture by contextualizing them in relation to postfeminism (Projansky) and neoliberalism (Patterson and Sears). Though a notoriously complex concept, one of the central tenets of postfeminism is that women are free to exercise almost limitless choice and thus full responsibility for their lives. In this way, postfeminism neatly lines up with neoliberal formations of the ideal modern subject. (Rodier et al. 63)  

In a nutshell Rodier et al. in their erudite research work have critically pointed out these following observations:

 

1)      Feminist activist and American journalist Susan Brownmiller in her epoch-making book entitled as Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975) critically observes that rape culture is often fuelled by masculine aggression. In an unequal power structure patriarchal surveillance oppresses women and pushes them at the periphery level while men rule from the centre.

2)      Women are dominated and they are subordinate voices in patriarchy. Child abuse is one of the most annoying aftereffects of pornography video consumption.

3)      Rape-victims are bullied and taunted by the insensitive society. Rape is not enjoyable but it is savage, rude, and monstrous.

4)      Women continue to be bullied and seduced perpetually in heterosexual power structure.

5)      Lovemaking is often forceful. Women are not the sex toys. They have also their own individual rights. Marxist feminist thinkers continue their fights against phallocentric monopoly.

6)      Women are metaphorically orphans in patriarchal culture.

 

I would like to critically examine the issues of sexual violence in a porn video entitled as “Lisa Ann and Danny Wylde My Friend’s Hot Mom” which can be accessed at www.biguz.net/watch.php?id=249206&name=lisa-ann-%26-danny-wylde-my-friend%27s-hot-mom and this adult content is the celebration of heterosexual power structure. The male actor bangs and pounds into the female genitalia of the female actor named Lisa Ann, the unparalleled seductress-queen of the porn industry. This 26:27-minutes long porn video charges and fantasises the imagination and incorporates elements of strange, ugly, and deceptive virtual reality quite detached from the phenomenal real world. The retrogressive-prospective penile strokes, vaginal orgasm, mamma’s hot friends, MILF revolution, big breasted horny white female and a domineering black cock assemble every nook and corner in most of the pornographic videos. Spirituality and relationship writer Sarah Regan in her scholarly written internet article entitled as “11 Expert-Approved Sex Positions For Couples With High Sex Drives” critically comments on the best sex positions which can help to  prompt sexual arousals vis-à-vis this article is also concerned about healthy sex life as it diligently can provide mental and psychological satisfaction to the couples. On the other hand, The Times of India-article entitled as “9 Sex Positions And The Number Of Calories They Burn” scrupulously elaborates that good time on bed is no less than a good sporting exercise because calories eventually burn during sexual intercourse which as a whole help to increase body stamina and fitness. Pejorative, it is obviously in most of the cases the way male actors merciless penetrate and whack the female body during intercourse. In Lisa Ann-starrer porn video entitled as “Brunette Mom Lisa Ann Makes Sex Like A Crazy With Big Boobs” the female breasts are fetishised and these parts of a female body have enough inferno to light the smartphone screen ablaze. Twisting of breasts is emblematic of masculine hegemony/dominance. In “Young Guy Fucks His Stepmom Vanessa Cage After Reading Her Diary” incest and taboo are presented in a dramatised manner in order to fantasise. On the other hand porn videos like “Slutty Blonde Katalina Kyle Has Anal Sex With Two Men”, “Hot Latina Ashlyn Peaks Prefers Big Cock Inside Her Wet Cunt”, “Loser Caught In The Hands Of Lustful Teacher And Was Exploited By It”, “Big Boobs MILF Robbin Banx Cheats On Her Husband But He Even Likes It”, “Skinny Guy Fucks His BBW Stepmom Sybil Stallone From Behind” and numerous other porn videos scattered on internet in a rhizomatic format are the greatest celebration of heteronormative power structure in most of the cases though many porn videos are scripted on lesbianism or homosexuality. Men seduce from top and women are subordinate-passive voices —— purely for research-purpose, after finding the dwindling gender inequality and massive violence against women in those videos I am stunned, shocked, and surprised at the perpetual celebration of heterosexuality in a typical patriarchal society. These abovementioned porn videos are the monotonous repetitions of a series of bizarre sex positions in pretty number of cases —— missionary, doggy style, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, spooning, oral, lotus, upstanding citizen, butter churner, the pretzel dip, spider, spork, snow angel, standing wheelbarrow, cross booty, golden arch, table top, valedictorian, stand and deliver (Thapoung et al.) and many others. These positions are reprehensible and celebrations of male chauvinism.

 

MARKETABLE REPRESENTATION OF THE FEMALE BODY IN INDIAN CONTEXT

 

 I would like to further elaborate my discussions on sexual violence with reference to Indian rapper Badshah’s typical misogynistic “Genda Phool” song in order to inculcate and infuse a comparative critical study between violence against women in pornographic videos or in misogynistic bullshits of Badshah and Yo Yo Honey Singh. Badshah’s notorious/scandalous “Genda Phool” song which maliciously/viciously/malignantly triumphs toxic maleness. Badshah in his controversial "Genda Phool'' has been unsuccessful to turn out to be an explorer in soul-making just like Bob Dylan in his messianic working class revolution in "Chimes of Freedom" or Abbasuddin Ahmed in his timeless "Amay Bhasaili Re" as unlike these two celebrated heart-piercing legendary songs which are at their best in illustrating an assortment of agathokakological existents of our mundane lives or in their solemn endeavor to discover a metaphysically thoughtful perception of human life or in their exhilaration of vasudhaiva kutumbakam ("the entire world is a solo family") belief or in their protuberance of harmonious equilibrium or in their solicitous significant insights for the equivalent allocation of possessions to the peripheralised/marginalised and blue-collar working class people who fit into the border line of an unequal power sharing, Badshah's intoxication of imagination like that of wine in "Genda Phool'' unflinchingly only perambulates salacious/pornographic vituperation, malignant masculinity and gender discrimination. In the midst of incalculable memes, video adaptation(s) which are now going viral on social media of Badshah's "Genda Phool" which unquestionably is a derivative/plagiarised text as the bigheaded singer/rapper purloined lyrics from an aged Bengali folk ballad called "Boroloker Bitilo" with no due acknowledgment to its actual songwriter Kahar who is a mouthpiece of the "have nots" category (Marx in Wen 74). "Genda Phool'' time and again fetishises or let us articulate it does also exaggerate the fraction over the entirety/wholeness; in case of Badshah's "Genda Phool" song a specific fraction of Jacqueline Fernandez's bodily jouissance is spotlighted/zoomed infringing/contravening the organic, corporal, usual impulsiveness of the entirety of one boob or single boob and the shaft through which the pornographic visualisation or ogle is filtrated is unadulterated fetishistic schopophilia or the jamboree of male gaze or what is defined as the adoration of bigotry, sexism, machismo and male chauvinism. Badshah's machismo achieves vicious pleasure principle in invigorating/consecrating profoundly lalochezia to the topoi of this misogynistic/sexist song entitled as “Genda Phool”. This song is demarcated as a kind of masturbatory exhibitionism, an abusiveness additionally connected with the showy gestures of the insignificant bourgeoisie (Najarian 20). Is there any wonder that the rurban lyrics used by Badshah should be so fetishistic, so autoerotic, so autotelic and so immovable? (Levinson 193) Badshah's "Genda Phool" pivots on "phallogocentrism". The conceited and cocky TikTok video content creators, YouTubers or the most viewed vloggers are sharing and uploading on internet an assortment of forms and adaptation(s) of Badshah's "Genda Phool'' just for the sake of amusement at an exceedingly low-priced rate but during this era of worldwide virulent disease COVID-19, communal segregation and quarantined loneliness my scholarly nobility is representatively finding out the nauseatic malodorous stinking of gender inequality, re-representation of formulaic femininity, patricentric domination, Master/Slave, Centre/Periphery  Dichotomy or the 21st century edition of a She-tragedy in these incredibly/inventively/esthetically pitiable adaptation(s) or in Badshah's controversial "Genda Phool'' song itself. “Genda Phool” is not a spokesperson of Dalit, Adivasi or Minority women as the trajectory of this misogynistic text centres around the standard of living, ostentation or the embellished colossal imago of an affluent papa's princess who has an elongated and flabby hair. Is Badshah’s “Genda Phool” appropriate for those peripheralised/marginalised/subaltern women folks who are the representatives of "[n]on hegemonic groups or classes." (Gramsci xiv). In her "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1985) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942) highlighted the subaltern continuation of women and their vituperative dehumanised existence in our phallocentric society and to Spivak subaltern/colonised women are twice as subjugated in colonial/postcolonial state of affairs: "...the subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the female as female is more deeply in shadow." (271) The voluptuous butterfly tattoo on the curvaceous waist of Jacqueline Fernandez in “Genda Phool”  intoxicates symbolically a camouflaged political agenda with it as it viciously/maliciously unveils the producer's deep-rooted  consumerism-consumption substratum of mercantile marketable video contents/presentations agenda, i.e. the materialistic representation of the female body in this Age of Neo-industrialisation which is repetitively/unremittingly rustled up in this song in the technique of zooming the bare sexy abdomen or the thumka and sexy cleavage of the projected female characters on this video song. Similar to this Honey Singh's notorious and sexist re-representation of the female body virulently projecting women characters as objects of commodity fetishism in his controversial and misogynistic rap hits like "Choot", “Blue Eyes”, “Love Dose” or Wajid Ali and Mamta Sharma’s super hit duet song "Fevicol Se" —— Jacqueline Fernandez, Badshah and Payal Dev starrer "Genda Phool'' which has already been viewed over 897  million times globally on YouTube in the last 24 months actually collocates a couple of adversative doctrines, i.e. arrogant male hubris/machismo and subservient, stereotypical and colonised/marginalised position of women in an unequal heteronormative phallocentric power sharing where phallus is in the nucleus of the power structure and minority voices, hijras, homosexuals, women, downtrodden/subjugated/battered voices are kicked away at the margin level of the power structure. Women’s quite defenestrated continuation in the uneven surveilling ethos of phallocentric power structure which is  inflexible, controlling and tyrannical/authoritarian has for a second time been hypothesised in “Genda Phool” song: "khelta nahi cricket wricket/ Par lelu teri wicket wicket". These treacherously patricentric bullshits exultantly cherishing the boastful  male hubris, machismo and male chauvinism have been shockingly perpetrated as lyrics in this ostentatiously sexist bonanza, also  cast women as the objects of sex or better to say subjugated baby-making machines ——  I would like to articulate, where "wicket" metaphorises male sex organ, i.e. phallus and these vicious/voluptuous lyrics brief us about the fulfillment of the sexual fantasy and the satisfaction of the repressed/unconscious carnal jouissance of the hero boy of this song through masturbatory exhibitionism/intercourse with the "Genda Phool'' girl. The “Genda Phool” girl is not perceptibly ticking the boxes in the approved manner of RSS-BACKED-GOOD-MOTHER-CONCEPT as she is not demonstrated as sanskari on this video;  Jacqueline Fernandez will be tagged as "Other"/Bad Mother by a group of double-tongued humbugs who will be noticeably having instinctive ejaculation(s) of semen during nap/wet dream(s) when the escalated/engorged/enlarged/firm confidence of their phallic-Eiffel tower-like-penile erection will get a hold of sadistic pleasure principles/jouissance at the voluptuous and sexy thumka, postcolonial female ass or the hot sizzling female body of the women characters projected on this music video but as expected these hypocritical parasitic/predatory leeches on the contrary will also initiate disparaging tittle-tattles, to and fro or ifs and buts about  such an quintessential and iconic artist like Jacqueline Fernandez only for the reason that she is not a man at the same time as likewise the staunch followers of “phallogocentrism” aided/assisted by the pettifoggers of RSS-BACKED-FANATICISM,  Fundamentalists and longstanding watchdogs of patriarchal authoritarianism tag SUNNY LEONE AS A BAD MOTHER.

 


Fig.3. Arushi Jain’s “Here’s everything to know about Badshah’s Genda Phool controversy.”

PORN-STARS: GRAND VERSUS MINI NARRATIVE

It could be interpreted that the porn-stars’ decentred alternative subcultural existence challenges the dominant cultural narrative —— these low, filthy and untouchable porn-stars (obviously in the eyes of mainstream cultural narrative) are bullied, alienated,  and choked by the so-called standard and elite groups  who rule and control the flow of powerful mainstream culture. These actors of porn movies neither have the intellectuality and scholasticism of Satyajit Ray or Steven Spielberg nor are they elated and worshipped as larger than life Hollywood superstars —— they are also not generally seen in grandiloquent and civilised award ceremony shows although with due exceptions, however but they rule the wildest and darkest dreams. They are uncanny and the unbeatable conquerors of the unconscious mind. They dominate the darkest wet dreams. On the smartphone screens may be for temporary short moments they enrapture Eros. Bodily fluids gush out and splatter as cums or sometimes results in coitus interruptus —— youths get detached from the reality and sneak into the unchartered territory of carnal energy and libidinal efflorescence. Lisa Ann, Angela White, Shyla Stylez, Mia Khalifa and many others are often regarded as world’s sexiest and hottest porn-stars who monopolise the hidden folders on the smartphones of a countless number of people —— they satisfy virtually the unflinching carnal desirers of patriarchy.

PORNOGRAPHY: A STUDY OF FLESH AND BLOOD

Indrani Haldar, who is a renowned Bengali actor brilliantly, played her role as a docile and submissive housewife in the critically acclaimed movie entitled as Jara Bristite Bhijechhilo (2007), where the character she played was forcefully seduced by her newly married hubby on their first night. Against her wishes and permission or mutual consensus her husband in order to boast up his male ego/machismo violently started smooching her —— harassing hook-ups, violence against women by their male counterparts on the lusty first night predominantly premise in our orthodox patriarchal Indian society where wives are treated as sex objects and not as human beings in flesh and blood. In the abovementioned movie the sadistic and hypersexual Indian husband seduced his wife against her wishes. This movie is a typical example of marital rape, sexual violence, and passive existence of Indian housewives who are economically dependent on their husbands in most of the cases.

This movie received a top rating on IMDB. This movie rebels against heterosexual power structure where women are passive voices and are the silent observers of patriarchal power sharing. Marital rape is a serious issue and it is brutal, injurious, and anti-democratic in nature where the rights of a woman are killed.  



Fig.4. “Indrani Halder Very Hot N Sexy Lovemaking.”

CRITICAL ARGUMENTS AND COUNTER-ARGUMENTS: RESULTS AND FINDINGS

Infinite number of salutations to Walter S. DeKeseredy and Marilyn Corsianos’s joint venture in their excellently well written magnum opus Violence against Women in Pornography (2016). This Routledge- book is inundated with extraordinary research analysis in the field of pornography —— critical chapters are well-arranged and neatly penned down. This brilliant book in its noble adventure in critically unwrapping the scholastic commentaries and notable data analysis on pornographic video consumption and “the degradation, abuse, and humiliation of women” (DeKeseredy and Corsianos 17) has set a milestone to the scholars and researchers in order to investigate the abusive, violent, and fetishistic representation of women in pornography. Awfully demeaning and passive voices of women in pornography hint at the aggressive phallocentric monopoly and sadistic machismo. This insightful book is a specialist in critically commenting on these following issues. On social media and internet the demeaning and degrading superimposed images and digital photos of female models and adult video actors are perniciously low in nature —— neither women are sex dolls nor are they saleable commodities. They are human beings in flesh and blood. A democratic society is mandated to ensure their safety and security.  Today’s world hangs on social media. Internet is a global phenomenon. Item numbers, incorporation of sex scenes in adult web series are instrumental in order to galvanise the youth-attraction. Corporate production companies are caught up in a rat race in order to earn more and more profits —— sex is a tool, it has become a business-propaganda-machinery in order to fantasise and fetishise the sizzling, hot, and horny female actors as saleable products. Youths are being sequestered in a strategic manner from learning and reading practices. Hanging on social media, access to adult contents, all eyes on the porn sites, live-in and check-in to the OYO rooms for a big bang —— these are the biggest and most challenging obstacles which are alienating the youths away from books and physical exercises. The youths are more interested in PUBG or Garena Free Fire —— they are least concerned about gymnastics, meditation, body buildings, cricket and football. We live in a “post-Playboy world” (Jensen) that features women as subordinate to men. Multiple extramarital affairs, back bitching, mendacious online relationships, “fraudulent and non-divine” (Said 333) virtual chatting platforms, discrepancy between online and offline world, televisual virtual reality, YouTube buffering(s), Facebook pokings, Instagram reels and thousand others in preponderance set the paradigm of today’s online world where we receive perpetual delight in killing bots in PUBG not in companionable, innocuous friendship in black and white offline mode. Spanking, slapping, whipping, and gagging in pornographic videos are the part-and-parcel of male aggression and female submission. Male actors are like hungry perpetrators in porn contents and mainly their body language during pornographic video shootings represents tireless dominance. They rule, oppress, tear, and colonise the female body. The porn industry is growing faster and it is awful and degrading that some adult contents feature underage female actors. Dehumanising and painful tasks are being performed by a group of underage actors and in pretty number of cases they are economically underprivileged sections —— situation and crass reality are the causes which implore them to do so.   Ariel Levy, in her highly praised book entitled as Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (2005) warns against the commodity fetishism of the women’s body in pornography. Teenage-models, aspiring porn-stars go through breast-enlargement surgery and medications in order to achieve their goals. Porn videos are not merely shot for male sexual arousals; it is also violent and aggressive in nature.


Fig.5. “Does Watching Pornography Affect Mental Health?”

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

Cyril Dixon’s extremely important newspaper article entitled as “Online porn turns men into monsters and one of them killed my sister” in abundance exposes the terribly brutal impact of porn culture on women. This scholarly Daily Express article which was published on Apr 20, 2022 and which can be accessed at www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1598597/online-porn-sexual-predator-murder-anti-pornography-campaigner-victims caused me to screech with pain. This article comments on the besmirching and abominable representation of women in pornography. According to the abovementioned article there is a relationship between the overwhelming boom in porn industry and the alarming surge in attacks on women (Dixon).


Fig.6. “Understanding the issues: young people, pornography and violence against women.”

Explicit contents turn men into potential monsters —— these groups of pathological people (DeKeseredy and Corsianos 1) are imbued with uncontrollable penile erection and excessive sexual desires. They are convinced to believe that aggression and violence are normal human behaviours during sexual intercourse. Dixon cites that pornography directly fuels women exploitation and violence.   

Porn-stars and their colossal hanky-panky in pornographic videos challenge the dominant cultural canon and its holier-than-thou colonising mindset which loves to rule from the centre. The unholy and aberrant pornographers’ alternative decentred/perverted “multicultural cosmopolises” (Nayar 33) are de-territorialisational, de-stereotypical, and uncivilised in the eyes of the guardians of civilisation who set the standards. Porn-stars sparked the repressed and unconscious territory, each and everyone now just needs a magical wand to vanish all the problems and sadness. After days of my tireless research on this field I stand firm by my opinion that women are the worst fatalities of patriarchy-driven commodity fetishism —— violence against women in pornographic videos is often fuelled by uncontrollable bodily fluids while penetration allocates male domination and female subordination.  

Works Cited

DeKeseredy, Walter S., and Marilyn Corsianos. Violence against Women in Pornography. Routledge, 2016.

Rodier, Kristin, et al. “Cultivating a Critical Classroom for Viewing Gendered Violence in Music Video.” Feminist Teacher, vol. 23, no. 1, 2012, pp. 63-70. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406.

Dixon, Cyril. “Online porn turns men into monsters and one of them killed my sister.” Daily Express, 20 Apr. 2022, www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1598597/online-porn-sexual-predator-murder-anti-pornography-campaigner-victims. Accessed 20 April 2022.

Cuddon, J.A. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 2013.

“Badshah Genda Phool.” YouTube, uploaded by Sony Music India. 26 Mar 2020,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD4Z8dlZPd8. Accessed 23 April 2020.

Regan, Sarah. “11 Expert-Approved Sex Positions For Couples With High Sex Drives.” Mindbodygreen, 20 Apr. 2022, www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/sex-positions-for-high-sex-drive. Accessed 10 May. 2022.  

“9 Sex Positions And The Number Of Calories They Burn.” The Times of India, 14 Sept. 2017, www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/photo-stories/9-sex-positions-and-the-number-of-calories-they-burn/photostory/59352006.cms. Accessed 10 May. 2022.

“Lisa Ann and Danny Wylde My Friend’s Hot Mom.” Biguz, uploaded by Sampiang, 6 June 2016, www.biguz.net/watch.php?id=249206&name=lisa-ann-%26-danny-wylde-my-friend%27s-hot-mom. Accessed 10 May 2020.

Jamtara – Sabka Number Ayega. Directed by Soumendra Padhi, screenplay by Trishant Srivastava, Netflix, 2020. Netflix, www.netflix.com/in/title/81183491.

Stevenson, Angus and Maurice Waite, editors. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2011. 

Padte, Richa Kaul. Cyber Sexy: Rethinking Pornography. Penguin Books, 2018.

Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen, Stanford University Press, 1998.

Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. 2nd ed., Columbia University Press, 2011.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

Monk-Turner, Elizabeth, and Kristen Purcell. “Sexual Violence in Pornography: How Prevalent Is It?” Gender Issues, vol. 17, no. 2, 1999, pp. 37–45.

Morton, Stephen. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Routledge, 2003.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, 1975, pp. 6–18.