Following on from my previous observations of online tags/keywords being used to classify non-pornographic works into a pornographic context, this post will be a brief sequel, incorporating the data analysis produced by Mazières et al* of intended pornographic content in its correct context. The paper is highly informative and begs further, deeper insight, as the writers themselves conclude, and despite being old (in Internet terms, published in 2014), I found some value in its analysis of tagging systems and terminology utilised for content involving marginalised and 'non-standard' bodies and types, as well as the fact that one of the two sites under query - Xhamster - employed me last year as a webcam performer.
Deep Tags presents visual and statistical analysis of the popularity, hierarchy, and intersection of keywords used to describe graphic video content. The importance of tagging systems is summed up early: "If we were to postulate that ‘words inform sexuality’ (Sigel 2000), our research explores the possibility that ‘porn tags inform pornography’." (p. 81). How tags are situated with regard to their connections to other tags (including common associations) is highlighted by their illustration of this point, using the tag for subjects who are differently-bodied from mainstream performers:
"As an illustration, ‘midgets’ – a low-frequency category in XHamster – is present 10 times more than expected in all videos having the tag ‘funny’. This indicates a strong relation between these two categories and tells us that it is highly likely that midgets appear mainly to fulfil a ‘funny’ aspect of the scene. The fact that ‘midgets’ appears more with ‘blowjobs’ than with ‘funny’ is statistically expected and therefore ignored, while the relation between ‘midgets’ and ‘funny’ is unexpected and consequently highlighted in the network." (p. 87)
Being writers of a paper devoted to data-crunching, Mazières et al do not aim to draw conclusions on the motives or attitudes involved in persons producing, viewing, marketing or tagging this kind of content. It does, however, cast shadows over the utopian idea (of mine) that any inclusion has to be better than exclusion, through the basics of semantic association: going by these datasets, 'midgets' are expected to be 'funny' when users seek (or identify) video works as such. Let's put it another way, and say that on a hypothetical XXX-rated site, there was a common tendency for the tag 'fat' to be paired with 'gross' - and there are indeed adult-rated websites catering precisely to 'tasteless' or 'shock' content** - what does that tell an observer about the uploaders, the viewers, the taggers? Obese performers feature far more commonly in pornographic videos than midget performers (I sense the tag 'BBW' hadn't risen to its current prominence at the time of writing Deep Tags), and 'plus-size' lingerie and such like are now commonly visible on shopping sites, including eBay (and with corresponding plus-sized models). All this positive body-imaging, however, can be undone in the minds of viewers if there remains a tendency to view such bodies in a negative, rather than inclusive or empowering, light - a tendency given online currency by such negative behaviour and associations, reinforcing cultural stigmas and criticisms (the term BBW, I suspect, is designed to reflect a body-positive way of identifying the larger (female) performer, precisely because 'fat' is degrading, and 'obese' rather too technical. In other news, the category "ugly" is one I have noted appearing with some regularity on straight/heterosexual image hosting sites in recent years. "Porn tags informing pornography", indeed...). In the example of midgets quoted above, we may, in fact, discern a retrograde step back to the bad old days of freak shows and carnival (in the broadest, Bakhtinian sense), where 'little people' bring laughter simply by their very appearance. (And no, being white, tall and skinny doesn't mean I'm writing this from an elevated position of untouchable superiority over other body types: see here for very recent negative reactions to my own nude form).
The above illustration from Deep Tags' visualization of the network of inter-related tags on Xhamster shows a further problem: as the writers note, the only connecting node between the non-hetero/normative bodies in the above diagram is the tag 'bisexual', which goes on then to encompass men, gays, black gays, ladyboys and shemale - pretty much everything that doesn't refer to cisgender women, or men doing things with cisgender women. After all, the category of 'gay' is capable of interacting with a great many of the tags depicted in the network: men can have threesomes, blowjobs, appear in cartoons, be amateur, Asian, masturbate, be young, old, do POV, public, spanking, BDSM, etc. What the diagram clearly illustrates is the marginalization of the non-normative body and encounter (we expect that the midget and BBW performers are nonetheless ensconced in straight scenes or performances). The writers themselves summarize:
"Among many other possible assertions, it is worth noting the strong separation of the cluster containing the tags ‘gay’ and ‘transsexual’ from all other parts of the network. Indeed, it is connected to the rest of the network only through the tag ‘bisexual’, which constitutes a privileged bridge for any other co-occurrence. The position of the gay cluster strongly reinforces a division between heterosexuality and homosexuality by isolating the latter (Sedgwick 1990). Halperin (1995, 44) states that ‘Heterosexuality defines itself without problematizing itself, it elevates itself as a privileged and unmarked term’, so what is ‘not heterosexual’ must be defined. It therefore acquires more semantic influence upon the repertoire of desires and fantasies available on pornographic platforms. This isolation of ‘gays’ calls for a more general analysis of cases where some categories or groups of categories become to some degree peripheral to the network and constitute niches."
The 'more general analysis' called for is, I hope, pending, in the hope of differentiating 'mainstream' from 'niche', 'kink' or 'perversion', and understanding the deeper issues therein. A common line I have noted on trans* profiles on adult dating sites and other online media is something along the lines of "I'm not your kink/dirty secret", in a clear attempt to empower the user beyond the still-marginalized status of the FtM, cross-dressed or non-binary body, and seek interactions with (presumably male) users who are able to view them as whole persons, not a fetishized manifestation of kinks and keywords. The writing of Dr. Angela Jones, especially the essay Cumming to a screen near you: Transmasculine and Non-binary people in the camming industry, will be informing the next phase of my research into the non-standard body in pornographic performance, with her research already touching upon some of the points and issues raised above. To sum up with a quote from Foucault, "'Words and things' is the entirely serious title of a problem" (in Karen Barad, Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter).
*Namely Deep Tags: toward a quantitative analysis of online pornography
**To the extent that my web protection application OpenDNS has 'tasteless' as a category of site that can be blocked. And on my network, it always has been.
