Girls Negotiating Porn in South Africa: Power, Play and Sexuality

The book explores how teenage girls in South Africa encounter and consume pornography, focusing on their online playful and pleasurable pursuits as they explore and expand upon their sexual curiosities. It argues that girls' online adventures are a critical site for learning, developing, and negotiating gender and sexuality, providing a launchpad for them to contest race, gender, and heterosexual domination while opening up online porn to broader interrogation and critique.

Format: Hardback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 15 July 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

The book delves into the intricate ways in which teenage girls in South Africa engage with and consume pornography, placing their experiences within the broader sociocultural and affective dynamics of power. It specifically focuses on the playful and pleasurable pursuits of these girls as they explore and expand upon their sexual curiosities online.

In this digital age, the book invites us to contemplate the multifaceted meanings surrounding porn, as it has become an everyday normative experience. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from and inspired by new feminist materialism and assemblage theorising. Pornographic content is readily accessible to teenage girls through various mediums, including billboards, magazines, books, television, music videos, games, online streaming, and social media sites. It is important to note that girls do not necessarily need to engage with hardcore porn to encounter porn; it is pervasive in various forms.

The book argues that the online adventures of teenage girls constitute a critical space for learning, development, and negotiation of gender and sexuality. These meanings are constitutive of pleasure and the pursuit of sexual knowledge, but they also provide a platform for girls to challenge race, gender, and heterosexual domination while opening up online porn to broader interrogation and critique.

The book will appeal to researchers across African studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, youth, gender and sexuality studies, porn studies, and childhood studies. Its insights into the experiences of teenage girls in South Africa shed light on the complex interplay between power, sexuality, and technology, offering valuable contributions to the field.

Weight: 540g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032028897