‘The embodied empathy revolution … ’: pornography and the contemporary state of consumer virtual reality

Virtual Reality (VR) has been proposed as a potentially revolutionary medium for pornography. The notion of VR as a an ‘empathy machine’ has led to predictions that VR will facilitate more empathetic relationships between pornography and the viewer, and pornographic actors and viewers. This affective turn in VR pornography is contingent upon the use of teledildonic technology and VR to facilitate new embodied relations for the viewer. However, the current state of VR pornography is very far from this vision. Currently, VR pornography is dominated by a variation on the point-of-view genre of pornography where the viewer is embodied in a stationary, subject position – often that of a straight, white male while a female actor submits to the desire of the actor. The promise of VR pornography is currently some way from being realised, and the material currently available recycles debates on heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity in eroticism

Bodies, cultures and health: young people constructing and contesting gender and sexuality through design and digital technology

Ph. D. Thesis.Digital technology holds a pivotal role in the construction of young people’s gender identities and sexualities. Concern revolves around adult fears associated with risk and danger, yet digital technology can also radically reconstitute how young people construct and contest gendered and sexual identities. In this thesis, I use a method pioneered in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and design, Design Workshops, to explore empirically young people’s talk around gender, sexuality and digital technology, analysing this workshop data in a thematic discourse analysis informed by Discursive Psychology. First, I analyse a body-mapping activity, where I examine how young people collectively constitute the sexual body with socio-cultural scripts, arguing that young people rehearse traditionalistic scripts of sex, sexuality and appearance, yet navigate mature (visual) gendered and sexual identities through notions of self-authentication, individuality and rebellion. Second, I examine how young people navigate gendered and sexual cultures through their talk about digital technology, finding that young people use this talk to assert positions of a mature sexual self, make judgements about correct/incorrect sexual conduct, and make inquiries of sexuality, particularly in relation to marginalised sexual practices. Finally, I look at strategies of designing for sexual health with young people through two prototype interventions, where I illustrate the importance of acknowledging young people’s positionality. This thesis expands on the method of Design Workshops, and of research around young people’s sexual identities, arguing that the interactional analysis of collaborative sense-making activities in this context provides a lens to analyse for, and design around, young people’s positionality as sexual agents. My conclusions discuss the value of analysing workshop data from a discursive standpoint and, using this, indicate culturally relevant ways of introducing a ‘discourse of desire’ around young people’s sexualities for UK sexual health context