The Regulation of Sex-Themed Visual Imagery: From Clay Tablets to Tablet Computers

315 Pages·2016·4.801 MB·English

by  Lyombe Eko (auth.)

The Regulation
of Sex- Themed
Visual Imagery

The Regulation
of Sex- Themed
Visual Imagery
From Clay Tablets to Tablet Computers
Lyombe Eko
THE REGULATION OF SEX- THEMED VISUAL IMAGERY
Copyright © Lyombe Eko 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-56423-8
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
The author has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire, RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York
Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004- 1562.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
ISBN: 978- 1- 349- 57781-1
E-PDF ISBN: 978-1-137-55098-9
DOI: 10.1057/9781137550989
Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave Macmillan®,
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number
785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Eko, Lyombe, author.
The regulation of sex- themed visual imagery : from clay tablets to tablet
computers / by Lyombe Eko.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Erotica— Censorship— History. 2. Pornography— Government policy—
History. 3. Sex and law— History. I. Title.
HQ458.E5185 2015
306.77— dc23 2015024371
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
1 Sex- Themed Visual Imagery as Regulated Representations:
From the Euphrates Valley to Silicon Valley 1
Part I: Theoretical and Historical Approaches 21
2 Theoretical Approaches: Explicit Visual Sexual
Imagery as Rule- Based Re- presentations 23
3 Explicit, Sex- Themed Visual Imagery as Rule-
Based Representations in the Ancient World:
Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Ethiopia 35
4 The Origins of Pornography: The Heterogeneous,
Sex-Themed Art of Ancient Greece 51
5 Explicit, Sex- Themed Visual Imagery as Regulated
Representations in China and Japan 63
6 Regulation of Sex- Themed Visual Imagery
in India: From Entwinement of the Sacred
and the Sensual to Emphasis on Karma 77
7 Clash of Civilizations: Deterritorialization of Judeo-
Christian “Legislative Texts” to the Greco- Roman Empire 87
8 Explicit Visual Sexual Imagery as Regulated
Representations during the Roman Empire,
the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment 105
9 Regulation of Sex- Themed Visual Imagery in the Muslim
World: The Persian, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires 131
Part II: Regulation of Sex- Themed Visual Imagery:
Continuity, Change, and the Legal Turn 153
10 Regulation of Explicit Visual Sexual Imagery in the
United States: The Tension between Agape and Eros 155
vi CONTENTS
11 Pedagogy of the Repressed: Sexual Liberation, Sexual
Capitalism, and Freedom of Expression in the United States 175
12 Sexual Capitalism, Organized Crime, and Explicit,
Sex-Themed Visual Imagery: The Deep Throat Cases 197
13 Portrayal of Government Workers in Explicit,
Sex-Themed Visual Imagery: First Amendment Issues 209
14 Explicit, Sex- Themed Visual Imagery and
Intellectual Property Law 219
Part III: International and Comparative Approaches to
the Regulation of Explicit, Sex- Themed Visual Imagery 233
15 Sex- Themed Visual Imagery, Freedom of Expression,
and Women’s Rights: American and Canadian Approaches 235
16 Regulation of Online Pedopornography (Child
Pornography) in the United States and France 257
17 Epilogue: Looking Back and Looking Forward:
Sexting and Revenge Porn 275
Bibliography 283
Index 303
Illustrations
Figure 1.1 The Ishtar vase depicting Ishtar, or Innana,
the winged, nude Sumerian goddess of love and war 5
Figure 1.2 Detail of the Ishtar vase. Note the pubic triangle 6
Figure 2.1 Vase painting of a Greek mythological scene. Eros
is the god of passionate physical love 33
Figure 3.1 The Uruk or Warka vase 36
Figure 3.2 W 20274: Uruk (modern, “Warka”) Mesopotamian
protocuneiform clay tablet. This is a legal document
listing identities of female and male slave names 39
Figure 3.3 Hammurabi bas- relief in the US House
of Representatives, Washington, DC 41
Figure 3.4 Terra- cotta plaque of sexual intercourse 42
Figure 3.5 Horse frontispiece from the ancient (Amik) Valley.
The woman is holding tails of lions. The lower part
depicts nude women holding their breasts 46
Figure 3.6 Horus, the falcon- headed god of the sky, and his
consort, Hathor, goddess of feminine love and
motherhood. Her name meant “mansion of Horus” 47
Figure 3.7 Visual representation of the Ethiopian national
narrative that is grounded in the sexual relationship
between King Solomon of Israel and the tenth-
century Ethiopian queen, Makeda 50
Figure 4.1 P484: François Boucher, The Rape of Europa 55
Figure 4.2 Ruins of the temple of Diana/Artemis in Ephesus 56
Figure 4.3 Vase painting of Silenus and Maenad. Hydria from Caere 57
Figure 4.4 Aphrodite of Syracuse 60
Figure 5.1 Commercial ceramic flowerpot reproduction/variation
on the theme of “The Concubines of Emperor Chu” 67
Figure 5.2 Detail of commercial ceramic art design from a
Ming dynasty palace garden scene (commercial
Chinese flowerpot). Note the display of the
tiny foot, a symbol of beauty and sexuality 68
Figure 5.3 Hishikawa Moronobu, black- and- white shunga 70
Figure 6.1 Chir- Harana. The Gopis (unmarried milkmaids)
plead with Lord Krishna to return their clothing 80
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 6.2 Erotic art façade from the Khajuraho sex- themed
temple complex in Madhya Pradesh, India 82
Figure 7.1 Spirit of Justice. Neoclassical statue at the
US Department of Justice 88
Figure 7.2 Marble group with Aphrodite, Pan, and Eros—
symbols of sexuality in Greek mythology 96
Figure 8.1 Ilona Staller: porn star, exhibitionist, and Italian
member of parliament 107
Figure 8.2 Fresco in a brothel in Pompeii 110
Figure 8.3 Sandro Botticelli (1445– 1510), Birth of
Venus (Nascita di Venere). The shell symbolizes
the womb and birth canal 112
Figure 8.4 Fresco of The Last Judgment by Michelangelo 117
Figure 8.5 Detail of Mary and Jesus in Michelangelo’s
The Last Judgment 118
Figure 8.6 Detail of Biagio da Cesena as Minos, god of
the underworld, being bitten by a snake in
Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment 120
Figure 8.7 Venetian masks flourished during the
Renaissance as symbols of the anonymous
celebration of sexuality and hedonism 123
Figure 9.1 Globalization of sexual capitalism: International
editions of Playboy magazine 132
Figure 9.2 Pen box 138
Figure 9.3 Ardavan’s slave- girl Gulnar with the young Ardashir
from the Shahnamah (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp 140
Figure 9.4 Album leaf depicting two intertwined women 144
Figure 10.1 Sex shop in Seattle, Washington 168
Figure 11.1 Hugh Hefner and Playboy bunnies at Playboy
Mansion Halloween party preview 183
Figure 11.2 Unemployed and homeless sex industry
worker on the streets of Vancouver, British
Columbia, during Pride Week, 2012 186
Figure 11.3 Retail porn for the masses; sex shop in
Seattle, Washington 187
Table 16.1 Comparison of child porn regulation
under French and American law 273
1
Sex- Themed Visual Imagery as
Regulated Representations
From the Euphrates Valley to Silicon Valley
One of the ironies of explicit images that portray sexual scenes is that they are
rooted in the religious experiences of most cultures. From the dawn of time,
religion and sex have been intertwined. This is especially true of the civilizations
of the peoples of the ancient Near East, the region of the world that covers parts
of modern- day Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. Contem-
porary events in this part of the world remind us of this fact from time to time.
In 2006, a court in Istanbul, Turkey, acquitted 92-y ear- old Turkish archeologist
Muazzez Ilmiye Cig of the criminal charge of inciting religious hatred. The crime
with which Cig had been charged was connected to her academic research. One of
the foremost experts in ancient Near Eastern civilizations, and especially the civili-
zation of Sumeria, Cig had written that the veil worn by millions of women in the
Middle East— and by religious women in the Western world— was a religious and
sexual artifact that predated both Christianity and Islam. She stated that five thou-
sand years ago, the religious headscarf, or veil, was a symbolic garment that helped
set sacred temple prostitutes or priestesses apart from other women (Arsu, 2006).
She had written that these sacred prostitutes had sex with young men in the pagan
temple as an act of worship and celebration of the goddess of love, sex, and fertil-
ity. Cig argued that wearing a headscarf in contemporary society should therefore
not be taken as an expression of a woman’s morality or religiosity (Arsu, 2006).
Many Turks were not amused. The claim that the religious headscarf, or veil, was
the distinguishing attire of temple prostitutes in ancient Sumeria was an explosive
claim to make in Turkey, an Islamo- secular country. Though Turkey has a secu-
lar constitution and sees secularism as its official creed, it has a population that
is almost 98 percent Muslim. Furthermore, its Islamist prime-m inister- turned-
president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and increasingly assertive Islamist political par-
ties slowly but surely oriented Turkey away from its twentieth-c entury dogmatic
secularism toward being a country in which Islam is the guiding politico- cultural
ideology (Eko, 2012). Indeed, in Turkey, it is a criminal offense to offend the