8. Disgrace is read in its relation to numerous unacknowledged narrative influences, including Richardsons Clarissa and Tolstoys Resurrection.

In Defoe’s lifetime, the words pornography, pornographer, and pornographic did not yet exist. But starting in the 1650s, a new genre of sexually explicit writing began to appear in English, so that by the 1680s a ’canon’ of erotic or obscene texts that would later be termed pornographic had become a familiar part of the literary landscape. In much of his own work, Defoe presents himself as a scourge of sexual immorality and indecency: an anti-pornographer. But in two key later texts – Conjugal Lewdness; Or, Matrimonial Whoredom (1727) and his unsettling final novel, Roxana (1724) – he not only engaged with the content of pornography, i.e. sexual acts and illicit or unregulated desire, but adopted some of its key formal features, such as the seductive dialogue between women and the tension between moral suppression and immoral enticement.

Deepfakes are a new form of synthetic media that broke upon the world in 2017. Bringing photoshopping to video, deepfakes replace people in existing videos with someone else’s likeness. Currently, most of their reach is limited to pornography and efforts at discreditation. However, deepfake technology has many epistemic promises and perils, which concern how we fare as knowers and knowns. This chapter seeks to help set an agenda around these matters to make sure that this technology can help realize epistemic rights and epistemic justice and unleash human creativity, rather than inflict epistemic wrongs of any sort. In any event, the relevant philosophical considerations are already in view, even though the technology itself is still very much evolving. This chapter puts to use the framework of epistemic actorhood from Chapter 5.

Relationship problems relating to sex and desire, including mismatches in desire and how to successfully address these; mismatches in preferred sexual activities and how to address these; the value of couples counselling for all couples.

This chapter considers how the Internet (and technology more widely) affects sex, including online pornography use, internet sex addiction, and dating apps. Practical advice on safe use of the Internet for dating is given. Advice for parents on the importance of open two-way discussion with children about online risks is covered.

In the Middle Ages, the dismemberment of Agrippina, Emperor Nero’s mother, was not simply a gruesome family affair, but it had links to the emerging practice of dissection and the anatomical difference between the sexes. According to classical authors, after an unsuccessful assassination attempt involving a self-sinking boat, Agrippina was slayed by Anicetus upon Nero’s orders.1 In Roman History, Cassius Dio added that Agrippina opened her dress and asked Anicetus to strike at her womb “for this bore Nero.”2 Nero wished to see her corpse to verify the death, “so he laid bare her body, looked her all over and inspected her wounds.”3 The emperor examining the wound of the womb is transformed in the Middle Ages into the image of the ruler ordering the dissection of the female body.4 Jacobus de Voragine described such episode in the Golden Legend (c. 1260).5 Jean de Meun, in his continuation to The Romance of the Rose (c. 1275), wrote that Nero “had his mother dismembered so that he might see the place where he was conceived.”6 Jean de Meun is documented between 1265 and 1269 in Bologna, where post-mortem medical examination was practiced from the thirteenth century onward.7 Giovanni Boccaccio reports the story at length, including the wound of the womb, and mentions that in some sources “after her death Nero inspected the corpse, criticizing some parts of her body and praising others.”8

Thinking as a way of coping with the situations in which we find ourselves. Internal dialogue and gestures. Situations calling for thought. Thinking and rational deliberation. Actions and plans for actions as having entirely different ontological status. In the seventeenth century the mechanical worldview separated bodies from minds, and thinking thereby became a disembodied process. The body was instead equated with “the passions.” As a result, movements such as the ballet came to be regarded only as aesthetic objects. Eighteenth-century theories of the origin of language buttressed this claim. The ridiculousness of ballets d’action. Ballet dancers now became sex workers, and the theater became a location where rational, disembodied, human beings keep their emotions.

It has been noted by numerous scholars that Wallace’s writing of sexual activity and identity was, to say the least, unsatisfying. Often violent and/or coercive, almost always alienating, and generally involving repulsion either within or beyond the text, sex is a site of conflict for Wallace. While juvenile sexual jokes animate the early work in particular (Frequent and Vigorous being the prime example), meaningful sexual experiences are few. Sex is problematic; phantom pregnancies and the choice of masturbation over sexual intimacy recur as images of the wasteful productivity of contemporary society and culture, while rape and sexual manipulation are common behaviors of the solipsistic (usually male) characters peopling this space. This chapter outlines some of the primary motifs of sex and sexuality in Wallace’s work, examining the ways in which he used the sexual subject to dramatize forms of social intercourse and self-expression and exploring the connections between sex, power and communication in his writing.

Pornography has long been a subject of interest to researchers, policy makers, and the general public. This chapter provides an overview of recent findings in pornography research with an emphasis on male sexuality. First, we present a brief summary focused on the definition of pornography. Then we outline the results of studies on pornography use along with details about how often men and women consume pornography, what type of pornography they prefer, and other aspects of pornography use. Finally, we address the results of some of the most significant research on the effects of pornography use on male sexuality, such as risky sexual behavior, sexual self-esteem and well-being, sexual dysfunction, sexuality in couples, and pornography addiction. The findings of current research on pornography are limited by methodological and theoretical shortcomings which compromise their generalizability. We provide a short overview of some limitations in the measurement of pornography use. All in all, many findings on pornography, its use, impact, and long-term effects are preliminary and should be interpreted with caution.

Ted Bundy was separated from any individual caregiver after birth. Apparently, he was disturbed by the uncertainty around who was his biological mother. Pretense on who she really was might also have contributed to his distress. These experiences seemed to have initiated his resentment against women, which were subsequently inflamed by jilting. Intelligent, handsome and articulate, Bundy was described as a most unlikely serial killer, which shows the limitations of stereotypes. He was very sensitive to social class and uncomfortable with his own position. He illustrates a feature of displaced aggression: that retribution can be out of all proportion to the initial trigger. Bundy was an organized offender committing murder in a series of states of the Union. However, he became somewhat disorganized at the end of his killing series. Bundy exemplifies the use of cognitive empathy to gain access to his victims. He claimed that violent pornography played a role.

Phenomena such as fantasy, anger and temptation can be studied in a non-forensic population and insights tentatively extrapolated to lust killers. Consider the fantasy experienced by someone addicted to drugs. An image of a drug might pop into the conscious mind and if it will soon become available, the imagery can be pleasant. Otherwise, it can be tormenting. Fantasy features large in lust killing and appears to play a causal role. If a person already has a tendency towards sexual violence, watching pornography can increase this. The cold-to-hot empathy gap refers to the difficulty someone in a cold state has in appreciating the temptation of being in a hot state. The term ‘displaced aggression’ refers to aggression arising initially from a situation where retaliation against the trigger would be difficult. Sadism can be studied in non-forensic samples. A number of psychoactive drugs can increase the tendency towards aggression.

The motivation underlying lust killing normally arises from a merging of desires for sex and dominance. Although anger is a negative emotion, aggression has properties of an appetitive activity. Heterosexual lust killers generally have a grievance against women. Homosexual lust killers appear to be unhappy about their sexual orientation, often because of taunting. A distinction is drawn between affective and predatory aggression. An act of killing is commonly preceded by taking alcohol or illegal drugs, viewing violent pornography or acute stress, such as a fight with a partner. Brains are a hybrid of regions old in evolution and development and regions that are new. A Go-System, also known as a behavioural activation system, employs dopamine and underlies engagement with incentives. This system is strongly activated by the prospect of reward in individuals high on a psychopathy score. Sex differences in sexual violence are discussed in terms of brain processes.

Chapter 9 focuses on various theorists who make up the Anti-Free Speech Movement, starting with philosopher Herbert Marcuse. They suggest that the First Amendment has been interpreted too broadly to allow protection for speech they believe is intolerable, and that this should be reversed. The chapter examines those who have espoused critical race theory to develop arguments for suppressing hate speech, and feminists who advocate suppressing sexually oriented speech. The connection between these various theorists is that they argue that the First Amendment has gone too far, yet they vigorously deny that they support censorship. In doing so, they adopt the rhetoric and tactics designed by Anthony Comstock, Fredric Wertham, and Newton Minow before them. The chapter concludes that the purpose of the First Amendment is to block government from having the type of power these theorists advocate, and suggests that one way to preserve free speech is to use this list of characteristics as a means of identifying censors.