Blog 5: Embodiment

Embodiment is defined as the tangible, visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling. Pornagraphy embodies the idea of exploiting women and children in the global industry of prostitution. People use the internet as a way of open communication to anyone around the world. Any information that is loaded onto the internet may be used or misused by anyone, as talked about in lecture. The internet has shaped global domination and is showed by the use and control of it by the military. Although there is little regulation of what is being put on the internet. The standards of the internet are being set by the sex industry and the consumers supporting it. Due to such high profits for pornagraphy there are few barriers on the net. In the internet’s own way slavery is accepted and exploited by men who feel ownership over the women and children that they are buying for their own personal desires. Women are dehumanized and seen as items in the ‘sex market’ . “Porn is the business of crafting, packaging and selling fantasy” according to the article E-Rogenous Zones by Blaise Cronin and Elisabeth Davenport. They go on to say that porn has become this code word for corrupt male lust. There is this ability for men to interact with porn online, anywhere. “Digital distribution directly to the consumers domestic environment or workplace brings a reassuring sense of privacy to the transaction that heretofore has been uncomfortably public for many individuals.” (E-Rogenous Zones, Positionging pornagraphy in the digital economy, Blaise Cronin and Elisabeth Davenport) This enhances the allowance for men to use these sites whenever they want to connect to them.

The media spectacle plays a major role into the expectations that facilitates men’s desires over the internet. The influence of society and especially the media generalizes the belief of what is to be a ‘male’. The pop-up advertisements, the constant advertisements, strip clubs, and so forth that justify men’s interest for buying sex or to see woman as a body nonetheless. The use of discussion boards for sex tourism enables an exchange of information and can give immediate feedback about their experiences, which gives sex tourism and prostitution more power.  From the article, Race, Gender, and Sex on the Net by Chow-White, he said, “Cyberspace enables sex tourists to build deeper connections between the rationalization, sexualization, and commodification of sex workers' bodies and Western masculinity.” Also, mens expectations of what women “should” look like or should act is unrealistic and reflects a negative expectation of the ‘real’ woman with the use of prostitution and pornography. The culture of pornography is marketing efficiently to not just men but aids the tactics of advertisements marketing towards women to look like the those in the sex industry. Creating this whole idea of how a woman should look and act, and again justifying the power practices of men consuming acts of sexual fantasies.