Pornification as Westernization on the semi-periphery: The history of the Hungarian ‘porn boom’ in the 1990s

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reconsider ‘pornification’ as a universal concept to describe the mediatized process of proliferation of pornographic images in cultural spaces. Based on a textual and discursive analysis of newspaper clippings from the 1990s, autobiographical books and semi-structured interviews with Hungarian porn industry participants, this article explores the local factors that made Hungary an ideal place for the international porn industry to expand production after 1989. This article contributes to the growing body of literature in Porn Studies, which emphasizes the importance of the industrial nature and global inequalities in porn production. We examine the local discourses that justified the ‘porn boom’ as a sign of westernization and the country’s catching-up to the West and present the key factors in the capitalist reintegration process that led to the expansion of the Hungarian porn industry.

Experience of deprivation of liberty: Comparative analysis of symbols of graffity in a child psychiatric ward and in prisons

“…Ez aktuálisan megélt nemi érés élményének elaborációja lehet. Ugyanakkor a börtönbeli rajzok explicitségéhez a szőrtelenség is hozzájárul, ami a pornográfiai és divattrendek visszatükröződése lehet, de akár pornifikációról (Csányi, Dés & Gregor, 2022) is beszélhetünk. Az érem másik oldala, hogy a börtönben a szexuális depriváció gyötrelmet okoz a fogvatartottaknak, így az is lehetséges, hogy explicit rajzok a szenvedésnyomás manifesztumai.…”