Pornography and Intimacy in America

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Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at the University of Texas-Austin

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – In the past two decades, pornography has become increasingly a part of mainstream U.S. culture, while at the same time the content of the material has become more and more overtly cruel and degrading to women. How do we explain this apparent paradox?

Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at the University of Texas-Austin, will visit campus April 18 to discuss “Pornography and Intimacy” at 4 p.m. Friday in Memorial Hall 114. His visit is being sponsored by the department of psychology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas.

In this talk, Jensen will discuss the consequences of an increasingly pornographic culture on our intimate lives, drawing on material from his new book, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.

Prior to his academic career, Jensen worked as a professional journalist for a decade. In addition to teaching and research, Jensen writes for popular media, both alternative and mainstream. His opinion and analytic pieces on such subjects as foreign policy, politics and race have appeared in papers around the country. He also is involved in a number of activist groups working against U.S. military and economic domination around the world.

In his research, Jensen draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. Much of his work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men’s violence. Jensen is co-author with Gail Dines and Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality