SURE

My research has focused on the texts and contexts of sexually explicit media and sexual practices. I am a founding member of the Onscenity Network – an international network responding to public concerns about the visibility of sex in commerce, culture and everyday life. I am particularly interested in the deployment of normative accounts of ‘healthy sexual development’ in campaigns to limit access to pornography (and more mainstream media) and, in particular, current anxieties about 'addictions to pornography' and an attendant rise in ‘unnatural’ sexual practices. I am a founding co-editor of the Routledge journal Porn Studies - you can read about it here: http://www.clarissasmith.co.uk/?page_id=1568 My research interests cover: · All aspects of sexuality and sexual representations in the contemporary moment. · The institutional practices, representational strategies, uses and meanings of sexually explicit media. · Histories and discourses of censorship especially in relation to sexually explicit materials. · Discourses of sexual agency, sexual ethics and sexual literacy. · Audiences and their meaning making. · Relationships between media representations, identities and practices.