Abstract

In spite of their widely divergent views, anti-pornography feminists, sex-positive feminists and cyber-libertarians agree that the Internet has radically altered the terms of the debate concerning the impact of pornography on society. In this article, I align myself with those theorists who acknowledge the potentially destructive effects of Internet porn while seeking alternatives to censorship to mitigate these effects. Internet porn exists within the wider visual culture and I believe that critical engagement with certain kinds of sexually-themed art encourages a transgressive practice of critiquing and shaping our sexual culture that the Internet tends to thwart. My argument begins with a brief overview of relevant feminist and sociological perspectives on Internet porn. After this theoretical context has been established, I analyze the art of Jeff Koons, Terrence Koh and Felix Gonzalez-Torres to illustrate that there are vital forms of artistic expression corresponding to philosopher, Margret Grebowicz’s call for “philosophical pornography”.