Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

Envisioning Feminist Genre Film: Relational Epistemology, Catharsis, and Erotic Intersubjects addresses the ways in which feminist filmmakers create narratives that unravel masculinist power paradigms in order to demonstrate different approaches to knowledge production and subjectivity as established through erotic, relational, and feminist dialogism, which foregrounds an ideology that individually and culturally we shape language through interactive and collaborative methods. This study delves into how these feminist films offer the filmmakers and viewers cathartic and pedagogical experiences to explore trauma as well as navigate expanding conceptions of gender, sexual, and relationship diversities. The focus of this project is to examine the impact of including the diverse voices and experiences of marginalized people into the modes of film production through on- and off-screen roles, arguing that these creators' ontological and experiential frames establish structures for the exploration of feminist and queer theories. While attentive to the prior approaches of feminist and queer theories when applied to film, I articulate the ways feminist filmmakers create specifically feminist films and how constructing narratives based on feminist ideologies unlocks opportunities for undoing and transforming gender and sexuality. Methodologically using close visual textual analsysis of feminist genre films, my dissertation delves into feminist film noir, queer melodrama, horror, and pornography to demonstrate how genre impacts the tools and approaches feminist filmmakers use to interogate and establish relational epistemologies in order to envision erotic intersubjectivity, as a part of the ongoing process of articulating the sovereign sexual subjecthood of the individual.

Committee: Erin Schlumpf Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Andrea Frohne Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennie Klein Ph.D. (Committee Member); U. Melissa Anyiwo Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; Film Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Womens Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Although Black feminist studies have for a long time seen pornography as a site of visual and symbolic violence for Black women, a more recent sex-positive scholarly tradition aims to explore the potential of pornography for the sexual empowerment of both performers and viewers. In this thesis I carry out a discursive analysis of the film Spookyfatbrat's Solo (2019), as well as an inquiry into its conditions of production. Spookyfatbrat's Solo is a short film produced by queer feminist pornographic company Pink & White Productions. The ten-minute-long narration presents Spookyfatbrat, a fat, Black performer, dismissing her work obligations for a day of masturbation. I argue that the ethical labor conditions of queer feminist pornography, under which the film was made, defy the exploitation of Black bodies and turn pornographic labor into craft, embodied work that opens possibilities for the sexual empowerment of performers. I also argue that this film intervenes in the symbolic realm by offering narratives of resistance against white supremacist, neoliberal, and fatphobic systems of power. Finally, I contend that the film discursively challenges the abjection of fat, Black bodies, reclaiming their right to pleasure, and encourages audiences to picture a departure from neoliberal subjectivities centered on market calculations of productivity and profit and to imagine futures focused on pleasure-oriented self-care.

Committee: Guisela Latorre (Advisor); Shannon Winnubst (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; Black Studies; Film Studies; Womens Studies

MFA, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Art

Vignettes is a series of six large industrially-woven tapestries examining the language of pornography and its effect when juxtaposed with non-pornographic imagery. Titles of streaming online videos from a pornographic website are superimposed over images of majestic, unspoiled landscapes. By separating these phrases from their visual contexts, the specific qualities of pornographic language are evident: it is a language of classification that is violent, sexist, racist, and degrading. This is important because the usage of such language is not arbitrary or context-specific; it reflects our genuine feelings about the societal position of women and about the extent of our voyeuristic privilege.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2021, Antioch New England: Clinical Psychology

The following dissertation provides a thorough literature review of internet pornography and internet pornography addiction for psychologists treating heterosexual couples in therapy and those training said clinicians. Factors that contribute to the development of compulsive sexual behavior are discussed, as well as how the addiction is maintained through reinforcing cycles. Factors including neuropsychological effects of neurotransmitters on the pleasure-reward system, insecure attachment, and childhood development provide insight into the manifestation of an addiction to pornography. Therefore, a thorough literature review on these aspects is necessary for current clinicians, as well as for those who are training clinicians. In addition, questionnaires that can aid clinicians in the assessment of couples in treatment will be addressed, followed by issues of clinical attention to be incorporated in the initial assessment process. Last, Emotion Focused Therapy and Gottman Method Couples Therapy will be explored as methods for treatment of couples with a partner who has an addiction to pornography.

Committee: Katherine Evarts Rice PsyD (Committee Chair); Gina Pasquale PsyD (Committee Member); Elizabeth Manley PsyD (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Mental Health; Psychotherapy

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Psychology/Clinical

Many people report experiencing distress resulting from their pornography use, even when their use is non-dysregulated. A recent body of work has shown that moral disapproval of pornography, rather than objectively excessive pornography use, is often a better predictor of this type of distress than the actual amount of pornography an individual consumes. Despite this, there is a limited understanding of the reasons for such moral opposition. The present study aimed to better understand these reasons by utilizing open-ended questioning. Although prior research has assessed characteristics that influence the reasoning behind moral opposition to pornography, limited research has explored these reasons with open-ended questioning to understand this phenomenon in the participants' language. This study also assessed the relationship between the reasons given for moral disapproval of pornography and both frequency and recency of pornography use. Analyses were carried out using an archival data set of a nationally representative U.S. sample, restricted to individuals who reported moral beliefs opposing pornography (N = 1,020). Results revealed 14 unique reasons reported by participants for their moral disapproval of pornography, although none of these reasons predicted pornography use. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are also discussed.

Committee: Joshua Grubbs Ph.D. (Advisor); Abby Braden Ph.D. (Committee Member); Anne Gordon Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Bachelor of Science, Walsh University, 2021, Honors

Parents with children in 5th -12th grade (N=80) responded to instruments measuring the relationship between their perceived knowledge, attitudes, and internet safety strategies with respect to the topic of pornography, as well the quality of communication that parents have with their child. Results showed that when parents possessed higher perceived knowledge of pornography, they were stronger in their belief that it was negative and that there is a need for restrictions. Furthermore, an increase in perceived knowledge of pornography was associated with an increase in the use of internet safety strategies. Multiple regression analysis suggests that the increase in the use of internet safety strategies as perceived knowledge increased showed to be much greater for parents that possessed a low quality of communication with their reference child. The implications of the findings as well as suggestions for future research are discussed throughout.

Committee: Kim Metz (Advisor); Laci Fiala (Other) Subjects: Educational Psychology; Personal Relationships

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice

In recent years, the phenomenon of nonconsensual pornography, and more specifically “revenge porn”, has become front-page news. The tragic outcomes, including several suicides by young people, have become well known. However, very little research has been done into the prevalence of nonconsensual pornography or the predictors of victimization. This dissertation seeks to fill this gap. First, this research examines the actual prevalence of nonconsensual pornography victimization among a sample of college undergraduates from two large Midwestern and Southern universities. This dissertation attempts to apply the lifestyle routine activities framework to explain nonconsensual pornography victimization. Results from this dissertation show moderate support for applying this framework to explain nonconsensual pornography victimization. Finally, this dissertation provides suggestions for future research, as well as implications for the lifestyle routine activities approach and prevention of nonconsensual pornography.

Committee: Bonnie Fisher Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Christopher Sullivan Ph.D. (Committee Member); Pamela Wilcox Ph.D. (Committee Member); Corrine Williams Sc.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2018, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Hegemonic masculinity and the negative consequences that it has on men and women continues to gain increasing attention in research and in popular culture. Particular attention is paid to the sexual violence that is perpetrated by men towards women, however, the research on men's sexual development and its relationship to this sexual violence focuses largely on biological explanations. The feminist literature, however, on sexual violence offers a differing perspective, which includes the socialization processes that men undergo in their sexual development that lead them towards normalizing sexual violence. One of these processes is the existence and normalization of the commercial sex industry. This study interviewed 12 participants, eight via individual interviews and four in a focus group, to ascertain the relationship between men's sexual development and their engagement with the commercial sex industry. The findings within this study suggested a strong link between men's sexual development, pornography, prostitution, and fitting in with all-male peer groups. Commercial sex served as a vehicle for participants to express their masculine identities and bond with peers over sexual topics. Literature and exploration on hegemonic masculinity may benefit from further analysis on how men's sexual development, including their enactment or understanding of sexual violence, is interwoven into their experiences of commercial sex. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and Ohio Link ETD Center https://etd.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: William Heusler Psy.D. (Committee Chair); Patricia Russell Psy.D. (Committee Member); Marta Guzman Psy.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender; Gender Studies; Mental Health; Psychology; Social Psychology

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

The advent of Internet technology allows many communication activities to move online. One of those activities includes pornography. Unfortunately, excessive consumption of pornography leads to detrimental effects. This study addresses the health issue of sexual compulsive and at-risk pornography consumption. Specifically, this study investigates what kind of persuasive messages would deter individuals from viewing pornography excessively. Fear appeals are popular tools to use in persuasive health messages. This type of appeal refers to a persuasive element that scares individuals through descriptions of negative effects that may happen if they do not comply with the recommendation within the message. Of all the fear appeal models, Witte's (1992, 1998) Extended Parallel Process Model is the most theoretically extensive. However, the EPPM has its limitations. Health messages using the EPPM at times fail to create adequate levels of fear and/or efficacy. These failures are primarily due to: (a) presenting the wrong threat and (b) message failure in building self-efficacy among audience. Hence, this study introduces the concept of social threat within EPPM, which can be induced by making social identity more salient. Two social identities that are relevant in addressing the issue of pornography are religion and relationship status/role. This is because the dangers of excessive pornography consumption are some of the topics in religious and relationship messages. Using male Christian college students as samples, the result of this study suggested that: (a) in EPPM messages using health threat, perceived threat and perceived efficacy served as a lone predictor of behavioral intention, (b) when using social threats in EPPM messages, several outcomes were present. In relationship identity-based EPPM message, threat moderated identity importance and perceived efficacy was a lone predictor in creating behavioral intention. In faith identity-based EPPM message, i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nichole Egbert (Committee Member); Mei-Chen Lin (Committee Member); Xueying Zhang (Committee Member); Susan Roxburgh (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Health

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2018, Communication Studies (Communication)

This dissertation explores communication about mental illness and other sources of emotional distress inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though often untrained, religious leaders are the most sought-after source of support for mental illness and emotional distress in the United States. I used interviews, autoethnography, participant observation, and the analysis of cultural documents to gather and analyze discourses which illuminated how several local LDS communities understood mental illness and other forms of emotional distress. I interviewed thirteen Mormon bishops and ten professional mental health care providers who worked with LDS dominant populations about their experiences providing care for members in distress. Three main questions guided my research: What narratives do Latter-day Saints use to make sense of mental illness and other forms of trouble and how does this sensemaking enable or constrain emotional wellness? How does the LDS culture's habitus foster inclusion or stigmatize difference? How does silence around stigmatized issues like mental illness, human sexuality, and gendered violence enable or constrain religious leaders' and communities' ability to appropriately make sense of and respond to trouble? I present my analysis in chapters four, five, six, and seven. In chapter four I outline the spectrum of silence inside LDS communities and situate mental illness along it. I argue that overly programmed life scripts which I term brittle narratives lead some members to stigmatize trouble, have unrealistic life expectations, live by absolutes, and strive for perfection. In chapter five I discuss LDS discourses about human sexuality which I describe as existing in a narrative desert, a discursive landscape that only partially tells a dominant story and uses institutional and social power to police and silence counternarratives. In chapter six I discuss discourses about sexual violence which fall under a category I named narra (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lynn Harter PhD (Committee Chair); William Rawlins PhD (Committee Member); Brittany Peterson PhD (Committee Member); Joseph Bianco PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Clergy; Communication; Counseling Psychology; Ethics; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Health; Mental Health; Organization Theory; Pastoral Counseling; Psychotherapy; Public Health; Religion; Religious Congregations; Rhetoric; Social Research; Spirituality; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, English

Modes of the Flesh considers the ways that literary form—mode, in particular—shapes the representation of the human body in British literature from approximately 1660-1800. Focusing on the allegorical, satirical, pornographic, and gothic modes, this project aims to expand our conception of literary embodiment, establish the represented body as a formal element, and make embodiment central to our understanding of the textual representation of human beings. Because modally-inflected literary bodies engage the same kinds of ontological and epistemological questions entertained by this period's empiricist philosophy, I argue that mode offers its own kind of philosophy of the body. But, because modal bodies engage these questions with a very different set of tools, the results are often provocatively at odds with mainstream philosophical discourse. Existing scholarship on the literary body tends either to analyze the way a body is represented in order to better understand the work's themes or meanings, or to argue that the way a body is represented reflects historical or theoretical models of embodiment. This dissertation differs from the first tendency by offering a theory of the represented body, and therefore taking the body as an object, not an instrument, of study. It diverges from the second tendency by arguing that the way bodies are presented in literature has as much to do with the kind of text they appear in as with scientific, theological, social, or other extra-literary understandings of the body. In each chapter, I focus on a significant mode of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, and a particular aspect of literary embodiment. The first chapter, on the allegorical mode and bodily matter, thinks about the function of materiality in a mode commonly associated with abstraction and interpretation. The second chapter, which considers the satirical mode and bodily form, explores the role of abstract form in satirical conceptions of personhood an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sandra Macpherson (Advisor); David Brewer (Committee Member); Robyn Warhol (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Dance Studies

This dissertation develops multiple theories of ecosexuality with three works of performance: Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens' performance art project the Love Art Laboratory (2004-2011), Carlos Batts' pornographic film Dangerous Curves (2010), and Pina Bausch's dance Rite of Spring (1975). Following the premise that all sexuality—even human sexuality—is always already ecologically entangled with any number of nonhuman lives and materials, I consider the ways in which the performing arts produce views and understandings of these entanglements. Thinking with these three case studies, I develop multiple overlapping, intersecting, and diverging theories of ecosexuality that each figure human/nonhuman relations in ways that think beyond anthropocentric definitions of sexuality and the culture of human exceptionalism that such anthropocentrism reinforces. Following the use of the term “ecosexuality” in Stephens and Sprinkle's performance artwork, I suggest that the significance of this concept will be as multiple and shifting as the terms from which it is assembled—ecology and sexuality—and that each of the performance works within this study demonstrates specific choreographic principles with which ecosexuality can be thought. Methodologically, I approach this material through a process of choreographic thinking, first articulating the prominent features of each performance and the choreographic principles that they instantiate, then using those principles to mobilize my theorizations of sex, sexuality, and human/nonhuman relations. These theories are supported by the work of critical theorists and philosophers across a range of disciplines, an interdisciplinary constellation including queer theory, feminist philosophy, posthumanisms, new materialism, porn studies, and dance and performance studies. With each of these three case studies, I arrive at a unique understanding of ecosexuality. The Love Art Laboratory presents ecosexuality as a matter of orientati (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Norah Zuniga Shaw (Advisor); M. Candace Feck (Committee Member); Harmony Bench (Committee Member); Catriona Sandilands (Committee Member) Subjects: Dance

BA, Oberlin College, 2011, African American Studies

Through a methodological framework consisting of historical analysis, pop culture analysis, and hip-hop feminist theory, this paper will explore the complex intersections of race, gender, and agency in contemporary hip-hop and adult entertainment. The first section, "Look Back at Me: Jezebel, the Black Lady and Constructions of Black Female Sexuality Identity", will consist of a historical overview of images of Black women constructed since enslavement into the late 20th century and highlight the links between these stereotypes and the sexualized images that exist of Black female identity in contemporary hip-hop. The politics of respectability will also be discussed and how the concept aided in the construction of the dominant Black female sexual scripts. The second section, "Mic Check: The Rise of Women in Hip-hop", will examine the evolution of women in hip-hop from the mid-1980's to the present, analyzing how the rise in popularity of hip-hop music has affected the portrayal of Black women's bodies in the sexual marketplace. The third section, "Hip-Hop Pornography" will speak to the influence of visual culture in rap music and how it has created intersections between hip-hop and the adult entertainment industry. It will examine ways Black women who participate in these industries view their images and how they exercise and conceptualize agency while dealing with the hyper-masculinity inherent in their fields. The fourth and final section of my paper will present my conclusions and plans for further research. In sum, Black women are challenging stereotypes through the mediums of hip-hop and adult entertainment that have been subjugating their sexuality for decades. To a certain extent, this freedom is liberating because they are embracing a pro-sex framework and breaking deeply engrained silences that have been present surrounding Black female sexuality. Conversely, there are ways that these 'erotic revolutionaries', to borrow a term from Shayne Lee, re-entren (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Caroline Jackson-Smith (Advisor); Pamela Brooks (Committee Member); Renee Romano (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black History; Black Studies; Ethnic Studies; Film Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Mass Media; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Psychology/Clinical

Despite the prevalence of pornography use, and recent conceptualization of excessive, problematic use as an addiction, I could find no published scale to measure craving for pornography. Therefore, I conducted three studies employing young male pornography users to develop and evaluate such a questionnaire. In Study 1, I had participants rate their agreement with 20 potential craving items after reading a control script or a script designed to induce craving to watch pornography. I dropped eight items because of low endorsement and found that the craving script did not yield higher mean scores across the remaining 12 items. In Study 2, I revised both the questionnaire and cue exposure stimuli, and then evaluated several psychometric properties of the modified questionnaire. Item loadings from a principal components analysis, a high internal consistency reliability coefficient, and a moderate mean inter-item correlation supported interpreting the 12 revised items as a single scale. Correlations of craving scores with selected sexual history and personality variables provided support for criterion validity and discriminant validity, respectively. The enhanced imagery script did not impact reported craving; however, more frequent users of pornography reported higher craving than less frequent users regardless of script condition. In Study 3, craving scores demonstrated good one-week test-retest reliability and predicted the number of times participants used pornography during the following week. The questionnaire could be applied in clinical and research settings to plan and evaluate treatment and to assess the prevalence of craving among recreational and problematic users of pornography.

Committee: Harold Rosenberg Ph.D. (Advisor); Carels Robert Ph.D. (Committee Member); Anne Gordon Ph.D. (Committee Member); Priscilla Coleman Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychobiology