Punk, Porn, & Politics: The Aesthetics of Radical Sexualities

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It is forty years since the emergence of punk with its phenomenal impact on music, journalism, politics, fashion and design across the UK and USA. Although punk has been incorporated into popular culture, the influence of punk's challenges to convention can still be felt in areas of activism, politics and sexual dissidence. The crossovers between 'adult entertainment' and punk, as forms of resistance to heteronormativity can be felt in the practice and productions of figures as disparate as Vaginal Davis, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pussy Riot and Courtney Trouble. Historical, contemporary, cultural, legal, and moral battles have been fought over art, questioning its legitimacy and its funding, particularly when sex becomes the subject or when sex enters in to relation with other subjects such as religion, death, children, politics. Definitions of art and pornography and art/porn are caught in the ever-shifting climates of tolerance and politics, and punk aesthetics have been used by artists and porn producers to unsettle the aesthetic and affective dimensions of what is supposed to be 'good sex'. Setting aside the standard questions about the morality of pornography, this research seeks to explore the roots and routes of punk in pornographic productions. This will allow for an examination of the connections between media productions and artistic endeavours, exploring the geo-politics of punk and their connections to 'taboo-busting' representations and the radical potentials of sex.