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Documentary Appearances

In 2019. I was filmed for two documentaries made by High Rising Productions, both of which will be available soon:

"The Last Word on The Last House on the Left":
















"The Emmanuelle Effect":

Kurja Polt 2019

I have just returned from Kurja Polt Festival where I presented a research paper about the slasher film alongside my fellow presenters Jamie Sexton and Alison Peirse. The event was organised and chaired by Russ Hunter. My thanks as always to Masa Pece and the Kurja Polt team for having me back. It was my third time at the festival, and it is always fantastic.

Here is a video of the complete talk (I was feeling really pretty ill during this, so probably not my finest hour):


A full gallery of photos from the event is available here. Some highlights below

Here is the summary of my talk, taken from the Kurja Polt zine:

[I think "dobra brada" is a compliment about my beard]

Here is a snap of me talking about slasher films on Slovenian National TV (on Osmi Dan)

Offscreen 2019

On 23rd March I returned to Offscreen Festival in Brussels for the fourth time. This year, I participated in a conference based on Offscreen’s Death on Film theme. I interviewed David Kerekes about his groundbreaking book Killing for Culture, I delivered a paper entitled “La Petite Mort: Sex and Death in Hardcore Horror”, and I participated in a panel discussion with David, Dr Tina Kendall (Anglia Ruskin University), Dr Russ Hunter (Northumbria University), and festival guest of honour Jörg Buttgereit (director of Necromantik, Schramm, and Der Todesking). Thank you to the festival team for having me back, and to everyone who came to the event

New Articles Coming Soon

I have two new articles coming out in print soon.

“The Origin of the Faeces” is a short piece about the tenth anniversary of the viral video 2Girls1Cup. The essays is part of a special section of Porn Studies (available in the online version here and an open-access/post-print version here). I was invited to contribute by Susanna Paasonen: read her article about 2Girls1Cup here (or an open access version here).

Here is the abstract:

On the ten year anniversary of 2Girls1Cup, this article examines the complex balance of shock, pleasure and disgust elicited by this viral video.

My article “Preserved for Posterity? Present Bias and the Status of Grindhouse Films in the 'Home Cinema' Era” was published in The Journal of Film and Video, and is available to read here (the official publication is currently open access - should that change, the pre-print version is available here).

Here is the abstract:

Despite the closure of virtually all original grindhouse cinemas, ‘grindhouse’ lives on as a conceptual term. This article contends that the prevailing conceptualization of ‘grindhouse’ is problematized by a widening gap between the original grindhouse context (‘past’) and the DVD/home-viewing context (present). Despite fans’ and filmmakers’ desire to preserve this part of exploitation cinema history, the world of the grindhouse is now little more than a blurry set of tall-tales and faded phenomenal experiences, which are subject to present-bias. The continuing usefulness of grindhouse-qua-concept requires that one should pay heed to the contemporary contexts in which ‘grindhouse’ is evoked.

New chapter

The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality is out now, edited by Feona Atwood and Clarissa Smith with Brian McNair. The enormous volume contains new work by (among many others) Feona Attwood, Adrienne Evans, Neil Jackson, Misha Kavka, Gareth Longstaff, Alan McKee, John Mercer, Sharif Mowlabocus, Susanna Paasonen, Niall Richardson… it also contains a chapter on "Sex and Horror" by me (which can be accessed here).

To buy and to see a preview, click here

Here is the full Table of Contents: 

PART I: Representing sexualities 

1 The normal body on display: public exhibitions of the Normaand Normman statues Elizabeth Stephens

2 Asexualities and media Kristina Gupta and Karli June Cerankowski

3 Representing trans sexualities Eliza Steinbock

4 Representing lesbians in film and television Rebecca Beirne

5 Representing gay sexualities Sharif Mowlabocus

6 Fifty shades of ambivalence: BDSM representation in pop culture Ummni Khan

7 The politics of fluidity: representing bisexualities intwenty-first-century screen media Maria San Filippo

8 Heterosexual casual sex: from free love to Tinder Kath Albury

9 Representing queer sexualities Dion Kagan

PART II: Sex genres 

10 Erotica Catherine M. Roach

11 A history of slash sexualities: debating queer sex, gay politicsand media fan cultures Kristina Busse and Alexis Lothian

12 Erotic manga: Boys’ Love, shonen-ai, yaoi and (MxM) shotacon Anna Madill

13 Ways of showing it: feature and gonzo in mainstreampornography Federico Zecca

14 From the scene, for the scene! Alternative pornographies in contemporary US production Giovanna Maina

15 ‘Not on public display’: the art/porn debate Gary Needham

16 User-generated pornography: amateurs and the ambiguity of authenticity Susanna Paasonen

17 Celebrity sex tapes Gareth Longstaff

18 The media panic about teen sexting Amy Adele Hasinoff

19 Sex advice books and self-help Meg-John Barker, Rosalind Gill and Laura Harvey

20 Social media platforms and sexual health Paul Byron

21 Young people, sexuality education and the media Anne-Frances Watson

PART III: Representing sex 

22 Videogames and sex Ashley M. L. Brown

23 Sex and celebrity media Adrienne Evans

24 Sex and music video Diane Railton

25 Debating representations of sexuality in advertising Despina Chronaki

26 Media representations of women in action sports: more than ‘sexy bad girls’ on boards Holly Thorpe

27 Sex and horrorSteve Jones

28 Sex in sitcoms: unravelling the discourses on sex in Friends Frederik Dhaenens and Sofie Van Bauwel

29 Sex and reality TV: the pornography of intimate exposure Misha Kavka

30 It’s all about your sex appeal: deconstructing the sexual content in women’s magazines Claire Moran

31 The Invisibles: disability, sexuality and new strategies of enfreakment Niall Richardson

PART IV: Deconstructing key figures 

32 The metrosexual John Mercer and Feona Attwood

33 The sex addict Barry Reay

34 The stripper Alison J. Carr

35 The pen is mightier than the whore: Victorian newspapersand the sex-work saviour complex Kate Lister

36 The pornography consumer as Other Alan McKee

37 The porn performer Angela Gabrielle White

38 The Dominatrix Danielle J. Lindemann

39 The pervert Lauren Rosewarne

40 The pornographer Neil Jackson

Offscreen 2017: Stephen Sayadian

I have just returned from Offscreen (Brussels) where I had the opportunity to speak with Stephen Sayadian about his career in film-making (Cafe Flesh, Dr Caligari, Nightdreams) and as Art Director for Hustler.

During the Q&A/Masterclass session with Stephen, I got the opportunity to ask him a question that I have been wondering about since 2004 (when I was researching about HIV, sex, and horror fiction in the early stages of my PhD...which ended up having nothing to do with HIV). Cafe Flesh is based within a post-apocalyptic landscape where half of the populace becomes deathly ill if they engage in sex. Given that the movie was shot in 1981/released in 1982, and (what would eventually become known as) AIDS was first clinically observed in 1981, I have always wondered whether Cafe Flesh was an immediate response to the medical context, or whether the film's language of 'sex positives', 'sex negatives', and sickness was coincidental. For anyone who is curious, Stephen confirmed that the former is the case. It was also interesting to hear Stephen refer to Cafe Flesh as 'anti-erotic'; I have always described it as one of the least titillating "porn" films I have seen (which is one of the reasons I was initially intrigued by it). Stephen told me that the film was originally supposed to depict a castration and was meant to end with Max being hanged. Those additions would have further augmented the horror embedded in the film's tone.  

I was also unaware that many of the images from Hustler magazine (particularly the parody adverts), which I have used countless times in lectures about porn, were created by Stephen. Given how thematically dark some of that material is, I am now considering writing a piece about the coalescence of sex and horror in his work. 

The Offscreen festival continues until 26th March. For more information, please visit http://www.offscreen.be/en/offscreen-film-festival-2017

New Article out in Porn Studies

My latest article “‘Extreme’ porn? The implications of a label” has just been published online at Porn Studies journal http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2016.1196011.

Here is the abstract:

Despite its prevalence, the term ‘extreme’ has received little critical attention. ‘Extremity’ is routinely employed in ways that imply its meanings are self-evident. However, the adjective itself offers no such clarity. This article focuses on one particular use of the term – ‘extreme porn’ – in order to illustrate a broader set of concerns about the pitfalls of labelling. The label ‘extreme’ is typically employed as a substitute for engaging with the term’s supposed referents (here, pornographic content). In its contemporary usage, ‘extreme’ primarily refers to a set of context-dependent judgements rather than absolute standards or any specific properties the ‘extreme’ item is alleged to have. Concurrently then, the label ‘extreme’ carries a host of implicit values, and the presumption that the term’s meanings are ‘obvious’ obfuscates those values. In the case of ‘extreme porn’, this obfuscation is significant because it has facilitated the cultural and legal suppression of pornography.

Read the full article here.

Government Consultation on Age Verification for Porn

Online multiple-choice survey: https://dcms.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6lH57lhIw71L6n3

Deadline for responses: 12th April 2016

Proposal document: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/500729/AV_ConsultationDCMS_20160216.pdf

The UK government are proposing to enforce age verification for porn websites, under the mantra of protecting children. Regardless of one's stance on porn itself, the proposals are fundamentally flawed in various ways. For example, the current proposal is to implement a system of age verification (by entering credit card details, for instance). The regime (their term, not mine) will target the most popular websites (or, as the survey puts it, sites most accessed by children - good luck substantiating that claim). The survey posits that there are over '5 million' websites hosting porn. Restricting access to a major, visible website like PornHub won't protect children; it will fragment traffic, redirecting users to a host of smaller, less visible websites. Blocking a handful of sites will not prevent access per se.

Even if the restrictions were imposed on all porn sites (which is impracticable), the government would be faced with the same problems that plagued their attempt to block porn at ISP level. For instance, all manner of non-porn websites would be erroneously targeted (recall that sex education sites and even the government's own website were blocked by the previous filter). Moreover, the system would almost certainly be circumvented; the previous filter was bypassed via a browser extension within 24 hours of its implementation. The previous filter attempt failed; that much is evident from this attempt to find a new restriction system. One of the reasons it failed (even before being branded 'illegal' by the EU) is that the uptake for filtering was so small; most users opted out. This might not signal that the public want porn, but it certainly suggests that the public do not want a poorly implemented system that is unfit for purpose.

Even anti-porn campaigners should be worried about this proposal on the grounds that it stands little chance of being effective. If anything, anti-porn campaigners should be insulted by the proposal since it appears to be a superficial gesture aiming to placate complainants rather than a genuine attempt to protect children. 

If the agenda really is to protect children - and I remain unconvinced that it is - then the implementation of age verification is a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere. Personally, I would rather that time and money were invested into improving sex education rather than creating a number unnecessary and short-lived legislative changes. 

I have registered my concerns via the consultation survey, and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

Myles Jackman Patreon Page

https://www.patreon.com/MylesJackman?ty=h

From the site:

"As an award-winning lawyer I am an expert at advising clients accused of sexual offences. I also provide a unique advisory service for clients in the arts and media; the adult industry; as well as offering pro bono advice for campaigns, organisations and activists. I have dedicated my career to challenging the legal framework by which sexual morality is constrained through my activism, campaigning, litigation and advocacy.

Please help Me to help You by becoming my Patron.

A donation of just $1 US Dollar a month will allow me to work pro bono on legal challenges like Judicially Reviewing the Extreme Pornography legislation under which Tiger Porn defendant Andrew Holland was prosecuted. I can also continue my cutting-edge work representing criminal defendants charged with consensual adult pornography offences and advocate for privacy and freedom of expression issues for members of the BDSM, LGBTQ, Adult-Industry and Sex-Work communities."

https://www.patreon.com/MylesJackman?ty=h

PhD Studentship Opportunity: Extreme Media

The Department of Media and Communication Design at Northumbria University is currently advertising PhD studentships in the following areas:

• African social media
• Extreme media
• Gender and media
• Industrial contexts of horror cinema
• Italian film genres

Details are available at: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/research-degrees/

The extreme media scholarship is begin offered by me - see advert below:

Dept / School / Faculty:

Department of Media and Communication Design | Northumbria University

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Project Title:

New Theoretical Approaches to “Extreme” Media (ADSS/DRFMED7P/61878)

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Project Supervisor(s):

Dr S Jones  (email: steve.jones@unn.ac.uk)  

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Application Deadline:

31 March 2015

A growing number of scholars have addressed the notion of “extremity” in recent years, leading to exciting new developments in the fields of film studies and cultural studies. However, there is still much work to be done not only in developing our understanding of “extremity” as a concept, but also in critically engaging with the enormous variety of media texts that have been commonly understood as “extreme”. This PhD project will contribute to this emergent area of scholarship by developing new theoretical approaches to the examination of “extreme” media texts and/or the concept of “extremity” itself. Applications are invited on any aspect related to the topic, including (but not limited to) the following indicative themes: 

• Representations of violence in, for example, contemporary action or horror film 

• Moral/ethical theory and controversial subject matters 

• Taboo subject matter in, for example, “gross-out” comedy 

• “Extreme” bodies 

• Atrocity imagery 

• Genre-blurring and extremity 

• Issues relating to offence and regulating taste in the social sphere 

• Legislating and censoring “extreme” media 

Enquiries regarding this studentship should be made to: Dr Steve Jones, Steve.jones@northumbria.ac.uk, 0191 227 4036 

For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see 

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/ 

Please ensure you quote the advert reference above on your application form.

Funding Notes:

The full-time studentship provides full support for tuition fees, and an annual tax-free stipend at RCUK rates (for 2015/16 this is £14,057 p.a.)

Relevant publications by Steve Jones: 

• Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013 
• Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014 
• “Gender Monstrosity: Deadgirl and the Sexual Politics of Zombie-Rape”, Feminist Media Studies, 13:4, 2013 
• “No Pain, No Gain: Strategic Repulsion and The Human Centipede”, Cine-Excess Journal Launch Issue - Subverting the Senses: The Politics and Poetics of Excess, 2013 
• “Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror”, Sexuality & Culture., 2015

Porn in Crisis: Playboy's Future Plans

The porn industry has been floundering for a while now, but if anyone is in any doubt about how bad things are looking for mainstream US porn producers, check out this article on Playboy:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240346

In the article, Playboy CEO Scott Flanders discusses his strategies for sustaining the brand, which include making the content increasingly SFW:

'“You could argue that nudity is a distraction for us and actually shrinks our audience rather than expands it,” says Flanders. “At the time when Hef founded the company [in 1953], nudity was provocative, it was attention-grabbing, it was unique and today it’s not. It’s passé.”'

According to the article headline, the implications are that "Nudity Could Completely Vanish From the Brand": am iconic porn brand without any nudity. Playboy may be attempting to distance itself from the stigma associated with "porn", but this is also an indication that the meanings of the term "porn" itself are shifting. 

Petition: AMSR 2014

The new legislation against online porn rushed through parliament by the UK government bans depictions of female ejaculation: resultantly, many have called out this law as being fundamentally sexist. Other groups are concerned that the law is squarely aimed at the BDSM community. Both sets of complaints strike me as being entirely on point. Regardless of how one personally feels about any of the practices involved, if you are offended by the implications, consider signing this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/david-cameron-mp-remove-regulations-for-video-on-demand-pornography-amsr-2014

From Change.Org:

Remove Regulations for Video On Demand Pornography (AMSR 2014).

Sexist, archaic and damaging. This amendment to the communications act (2003) was rushed through parliament to take away the rights British people have on the internet.

Since 1/12/14, The Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 requires that video-on-demand (VoD) online porn now adhere to the same guidelines laid out for DVD sex shop-type porn by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC).

This includes the likes of: Spanking, Caning, Penetration by any object "associated with violence" , Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual), Watersports, Female ejaculation, Facesitting, Fisting.

The regulations make NO distinction between consensual and non-consensual acts.

They treat female ejaculation as a myth (and more unsafe/disgusting than male ejaculation).

This is one further attempt to censor the internet, as with David Cameron's plan to force ISPs to filter pornography.

They will damage smaller, independent film makers and producers, where as huge pornography companies will be left comparatively unscathed, causing a loss of British jobs as independent film makers are forced overseas.

Uneccesary censorship, patriarchal behaviour is all too often the path our government takes. We have 50 shades of grey out in the CINEMA in february, yet we're not allowed to watch a real equivalent made by British people. The government have no right to dictate what a responsible adult does for work, or what they look at on the internet.

We call for a complete removal of this amendment, underhandedly rushed through parliament in only ONE MONTH, which is inherently sexist, insulting and damaging to many British people.

Most Popular Porn Tags...in a Diagram

What could be sexier than a visualisation of the 500 most popular tags assigned to streamed porn? Prepare to be uncontrollably aroused by Max Eistein's "vital statistics": 

http://datalooksdope.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/tags_6800.jpg

For more information about how he compiled the information, see: 

http://datalooksdope.com/tags

What is Rob Black Doing Now?

The last I saw of Rob Black was on Louis Theroux's Twilight of the Porn Stars documentary, and he did not look well (neither, in fairness, did the industry). For anyone wondering what Black is up to these days, Vice have an interesting article about him. It is worth reading for his claims about the PBS documentary that nominally triggered his arrest, and his claims that the extremity he has become associated with was an exaggerated performance.    

AVN Awards 2015: "Clever" Titles

It is that time of year again - the 2015 AVN award nominations have been published. Most categories fail to interest me (and there are so many categories). In fact, I'm only ever really interested in Clever Title of the Year (see my post here). Make no mistake, these are rarely "clever", and are most often patently offensive. For instance, this year 12 Inches a Slave has been nominated, and that is a title that definitely falls into the offensive category (see my previous post here). Other candidates include fellow nominees 1 in the Slit 1 in the Shit and (the rather boring) Pregnant and Pounded. 

There are the usual batch of parody titles, which do verge on being witty:

• Dawn of the Planet of the Gapes
• The Little Spermaid
• Trans Formers

We have also been treated to some titles that don't really work, including Two Chicks at the Same Time, Man!, Romancing Her Rectum and I’m Not 50, I’m 5 Perfect 10’s. 

Since this is all quite dizzying, let's pause for a reality-check:

Clever (klɛvə), adj.

1. quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent. (antonym: stupid)
2. skilled at doing or achieving something; talented.
3. showing skill and originality; ingenious.
4. (informal) sensible; well advised.

Draw your own conclusions about how these titles measure up.

Over the last few years, my favourites have been those titles that are so long and cumbersome that they don't come close to working. The industry did not let me down this year, offering My Black Stepdaddy Disciplined Me Now My Pussy Is Sore! and She Divorced Me So I Fucked Her Hot Slutty Attorney. Surely the latter already has the "Clever Title" trophy in the bag. 

Drone Porn (NSFW)

One of the standard tropes of hardcore porn is the "meat shot": close ups of genitalia. Personally, I'm not a fan of the kind of anatomical detail such shots provide (especially in HD). There are other parts of the body that are more interesting: faces, for instance. 

For those who are bored or turned off by meat shots, the kind folk at Ghost+Cow Films have an alternative to offer: long-distance porn shot via drone. Surely this counts as an "extreme" form of porn?

Snappy Interviews re: Working as a Porn Star

Some readers may be interested in this article (although the title is bound to induce a sigh or two):
http://www.buzzfeed.com/richardhjames/this-is-what-its-actually-like-to-work-as-a-female-porn-star

Politics.co.uk Piece on Extreme Porn Laws in UK

"Anti-porn laws allow police to target those they don't like" on Politics.co.uk
http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/10/27/comment-anti-porn-laws-allow-police-to-target-those-they-don

Texas Dildo Masqueade (1998)

For anyone who though Rob Rotten's Texas Vibrator Massacre was the first porn film to parody Tobe Hooper's sexless terror-fest, I bring you...

Dear pornographers, no more of these are necessary.