INTRODUCTION

This study compares the subject analysis of “pornography” and sexually explicit materials in libraries and on the Internet.  My concern is how librarians and other information professionals use specific tools and terms to organize their collections of “pornography” and other sexually explicit materials.  This study specifically focuses on the terms, or subject headings, that librarians use when talking about “pornography.”  

“Talking about” is used broadly to refer to discursive practices.   Discursive practices are part of the sociotechnical work done by librarians and information professionals to create, maintain, and use thesauri.  Discursive practices also include the unfolding of interviews and library service encounters.  The institutionally embodied sets of terms listed in thesauri and Web portals do a cultural kind of work, in that to effectively use a collection, users become familiar with the worldview represented by the system of terms.  “Talking about” also includes how this paper, as academic discourse, fits into the social world of academic departments, university practices, libraries, and the Internet. 

"Pornography" is used in this thesis as a gloss for terms used in various sites to render sexually explicit materials available for professional discussion.  It is specifically used for the way it incites reaction.  For instance, my using the word “pornography” in discussing the topic of this paper with the institutional structure of the University generated trouble, problems and misunderstandings.  I considered using milder term in discussions with professors and administrators, such as “erotica,” or the more technical “sexually explicit materials,” but both seemed to bowdlerize the topic at hand.  The term “pornography” is very volatile, and without carefully constructed contextualization its use tended to brand the study as deviant, and myself as a troublemaker. 

Rather than examining the materials themselves, I looked at the labels to describe the form and genre of sexually explicit materials.  What this study focuses on is how sexually explicit materials are codified into orderly systems; systems which are culturally constructed and, as a matter of course, constantly modified to fit emergent purposes and changing cultural forms. 

There are real-life consequences to these systems of organization.  According to Bowker and Star in their book Sorting Things Out ,[1] the “canonization of a category,” which includes building standard taxonomies for classifying materials, is that “people then socialize themselves to the attributes of a category.” Subject analysis of collections has an effect on people’s feelings of identity and their potential for self-organization and action. 

The terms used for certain materials draw lines around what is and is not criminal activity, for example.  Partial or total identities can be attached people who produce and use “pornography.” This identity can be attached to the use of a specialized, named genre of “pornographic” material, and then generalized to the use of any kind of pornography at all.  These categories are very powerful, because identities can be compromised or ruined[2] through the sociotechnical work done by these built systems of subject terms. 

An example of a strong term is "pedophile." This term has taken on so many meanings in public discourse that its use requires rethinking and clarification, which I will do at length later in this paper.  An older term that similarly took on blurred and multiple meanings is "sodomy," which can mean variously someone who engages in oral sex, has anal sex, has sex with animals, has premarital or extramarital sex, and probably some other things too.  The “sodomy” and “sodomite” term was, and still is, used to ruin careers and imprison the deviant or unfortunate caught in its web of differential enforcement. 

Sets of interrelated terms in thesauri can be redefined or reclaimed in a similar process to the way single terms get reclaimed.  Single terms have been publicly “retaken” or “taken back” such as in the 1960s ethnic movements.  The political retaking of slang epithets such as “Black” and “Chicano” made them powerful, controversial terms that are proudly raised as a symbol of political solidarity.  The women’s movement has retaken a number of negatively-valenced terms such as “dyke” and “cunt.”[3] Another epithet, “queer” has been retaken by some academics and activists and is now being used as an empowering label.  Even technical groups are getting into the game, with epithets like  “geek” and “nerd” retaken and turned into positive terms related to technical abilities and high earning power. 

Organized social movements, particularly those with organized libraries, can retake and redefine whole sets of terms by building and publishing their thesauri and organizing their collections with that world view.  For instance, A Queer Thesaurus,[4] which was carefully developed to as a consciousness-raising tool by queer librarians.  The International Thesaurus of Gay and Lesbian Index Terms[5] was constructed by combining a number of thesauri that grew from the gay and lesbian library and archives movement.  Although I’m not examining it in this paper, the 1987 book A Women’s Thesaurus[6]  has many sets of interrelated terms designed to provide a more balanced set of index terms about the place of women in literature.  The Lesbian Herstory Archives, which I also do not examine in detail, is distinctive because the ordering of their books on the shelves is alphabetical by first name – since surnames are a symbol of the patriarchal order.  A Research Guide to Human Sexuality[7] includes a chapter on several other similar thesauri. 

Libraries and archives express cultural norms and political values in their subject heading systems.  It is important to point out that these values are present not only in thesauri that are intentionally designed as “consciousness raising tools,” but also in thesauri that purport to be “objective.” 

Sexually Explicit Materials

Throughout history, every new technology has generated its own sexual manifestations.  From cave paintings to vases and frescoes to romantic novels, gallantiana,[8]  pillow books, 8-pagers, daguerreotypes, stereographs, and every other kind of film; fine photo books and sleazy magazines; and chat rooms to live interactive streaming web video.  Their proliferation is remarkable, and this material is not likely to disappear anytime soon. 

I will use the term "sexually explicit materials" as the objective term to describe the multiplicity of items that depict or describe sexual behavior, activity, fantasy, artistic expression, and the rest in as many media as you can imagine.

Alfred C. Kinsey positions his perspective on sexually explicit materials in the introduction to his study Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.[9] 

(T]here is no aspect of human behavior about which there has been more thought, more talk, and more books written.  From the dawn of human history, from the drawings left by primitive peoples, on through the developments of all civilizations, ancient, classic, Oriental, medieval, and modern, men have left a record of their sexual activities and their thinking about sex.  The printed literature is tremendous, and the other material is inexhaustible.  For bulk, the literature cannot be surpassed in many other fields; for scholarship, esthetic merit, or scientific validity it is of such mixed quality that it is difficult to separate the kernel from the chaff, and still more difficult to maintain any perspective during its perusal.  It is, at once, an interesting reflection of man's absorbing interest in sex, and his astounding ignorance of it; his desire to know and his unwillingness to face the facts; his respect for an objective, scientific approach to the problems involved, and his overwhelming urge to be poetic, pornographic, literary, philosophic, traditional, and moral.  Fortunately the scientific observer is not called upon to judge the merits of these diverse and contradictory approaches.  All of them give evidence of what people think and do sexually and that is sufficient to make them scientifically significant.

Kinsey’s perspective is that sexually explicit materials can be studied as evidence of sexual expressiveness, and as such all examples are significant for preservation and study.  This vision continues to guide the library that carries his name.

The kinds of sexually explicit materials available are also a reflection of available technology.  According to Marty Klein in his article “History and Future of Sex,”[10]

In every era, new technologies are always adapted to sexual uses.  Here are some examples:

Pottery > pornography

     Car > drive-in

   VCR > porn films

      Telephone > phone sex

          Printing > penny dreadfuls

  Photography > pornography

Vulcanization > condoms

     Hormone research > contraception

          Internet > cybersex

In his book Obscene Profits,[11]  researcher and lawyer Frederick S. Lane III details the history of pornography technology as it leads up to the pornography on the Internet.  Starting with the Venus of Willendorf, he takes us through Greek and Roman figurines, monks and other copyists, Gutenberg and the printing press, Ben Franklin, French postcards, Tijuana bibles, stag films, “girlie” magazines, Playboy and the commercialization of sexual images in magazines, peeps and loops, the amateur video market, BBSs and sexual image scanning and exchange, ARPANET, Usenet alt.sex, to the World Wide Web and profit making porn sites.  This magnificent book, written by a passionate and well-informed lawyer, also covers all of the significant “pornography” court cases and an analysis of the language used by various Supreme Court Justices in significant decisions defining what is or is not “pornographic.”

I spoke to librarians and archivists who collect some of the above-mentioned materials.  These professionals are familiar with the vicissitudes of the available tools, and introduced me to the important issues in their thesauri.  With these interviews I emerged with an understanding of the concerns of librarians when organizing their sexually explicit materials for use.  This study will be useful to libraries that include or specialize in sexually explicit materials, and programs to build collections in support of sexological studies.  I also hope it will provide users with a conceptual framework to understand how to work with subject headings for sexually explicit materials.

The Leather Archives & Museum, the Seattle Sex-Positive Community Center, the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, and the Museum of Sex are examples of communities of practice that are developing collections and have a pressing need to organize their specialized collections of sexually explicit materials.  Likewise, the Internet has made a huge variety of sexually explicit materials available to virtually anyone.  To profit, these industries, just like any other web-based commercial business, need to make their wares findable to their customers. 

Sociotechnically built systems of subject terms ensure that the public, professionals, students, researchers, the media, practitioners, and users are able to make important decisions with and about this daunting array of materials.