Violence against Women in Pornography illuminates the ways in which adult pornography hurts many women, both on and off screen. A growing body of social scientific knowledge shows that it is strongly associated with various types of violence against women in intimate relationships. Many women who try to leave abusive and/or patriarchal men also report that pornography plays a role in the abuse inflicted on them by their ex-partners. On top of these harms, male pornography consumption is strongly correlated with attitudes supporting violence against women. Many researchers, practitioners, and policy makers believe that adult pornography is a major problem and offer substantial evidence supporting this claim.
Violence against Women in Pornography, unlike books written mainly for scholarly and general audiences, specifically targets students enrolled in undergraduate criminology, deviance, women's studies, masculinities studies, human sexuality, and media studies courses. Thoughtful discussion questions are placed at the end of each chapter, and appropriate PowerPoint slides and suggestions for classroom exercises will be available to aid student understanding. The main objective of this book is to motivate readers to think critically about adult pornography and to take progressive steps individually and collectively to curb the production and consumption of hurtful sexual media, including that from the "dark side of the Internet."
Walter S. DeKeseredy is Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Research Center on Violence at West Virginia University. He has published 19 books and more than 130 scientific journal articles and book chapters on violence against women and other social problems. DeKeseredy is the recipient of many prestigious awards. In 2008, the Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma gave him the Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award. He received the University of Ontario Institute of Technology's inaugural Research Excellence Award in 2007. In addition, he jointly received the 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Division on Women and Crime. ASC's Division on Critical Criminology gave him the Critical Criminologist of the Year Award in 1995 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. In 2014, the Academy of Criminal Justice Science's (ACJS) Critical Criminal Justice Section honored him with the Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award.
Marilyn Corsianos is a Professor of Criminology and Sociology at Eastern Michigan University. Corsianos's research interests include institutions of social control, public and private policing, and power and violence. She has studied the police in the United States and Canada focusing on police ethics and corruption, gender issues, detectives, discretionary powers, and community policing. She is committed to pursuing social change by identifying exclusionary practices in the production of knowledge, and identifying more equitable policing systems. She has published three books in addition to Violence Against Women in Pornography, including one on policing and gendered justice, which won a CHOICE Outstanding Title Award. In 2015, in recognition of her research, she received the prestigious Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award, which is the highest honor a faculty member can receive at Eastern Michigan University. In addition, she received the 2015 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Division on Women and Crime.
