Studies on porn audiences and the uses of porn in non-Western contexts remain limited to this day. Embarking to address this theoretical gap, this article-based dissertation studies the uses of porn and other sexual media in Turkey, while further exploring the Turkish context through a historical lens. The study asks how to understand normativity and pleasure pertaining to sexual media in Turkey. It demonstrates the different ways of using porn as a spectator, which oscillate between pleasure and normativity in the Turkish context.

The dissertation is a qualitative study built upon Foucauldian understandings of power, actor-network theory, porn, and media studies. It analyses the uses of porn through eighteen interviewees’ accounts but also sheds light on the governance of sexualities and sexual media through historical accounts. The Foucauldian framework informs how the study handles the notions related to power, such as norm, normativity, normalizing tendencies, and so forth, while actor-network theory is crucial for making sense of the spatiality of power’s dispersal, which is pivotal to illuminate the networks through which the experiences of porn come into being. These networks not only include human actors, but they also cover a vast array of immaterial and inorganic entities, which for example, make internet infrastructure like underground cables and modems, or like traditional furniture and household objects that can ignite desires unexpectedly. Also, the notion of play was deployed to have a more nuanced understanding of the pleasure aspect. Thus, through these frameworks, the study elucidates not only how individuals navigate themselves between pleasure and normativity, but also how power exerts itself through the aggregation of different actors and networks. Finally, the dissertation uses narrative and thematic analyses for making sense of the interview data.

The dissertation mainly focuses on the narratives of the informants as well as the different historical periods in the late Ottoman period and modern Turkey. The analysis of the interviews reveals that the uses of porn in Turkey are multifaceted, echoing the findings of the recent scholarship on the mismatches between identity categories and desires, along with the multiplication and intensification of desires even when faced with the negative and dark affective registers. Also, an actor-network theory-informed approach to these interviews lays bare how constraining norms are enacted through different networks and how nonhuman actors can restrain pleasure or on the contrary, can make it blaze. Turning focus to the different historical periods like the 19th century Ottoman Empire or the 70s “notorious” sex influx presents the peculiar and original dimensions of the Turkish context to the reader.

The dissertation offers to see online porn as a toy-like phenomenon by deploying a play-based agency and thus argues that consuming porn is often for the sake of pleasure, which can be intensified and/or blocked by different normative configurations. Therefore, the study concludes that online porn spectatorship is not a dull consumption, instead an imaginative, interpretive but also haptic experience that can lead to further sexual exploration. This argument also explains the reasons behind the potential and sometimes surprising mismatches between the sexual identity categories and the “pleasurable” content. It similarly debunks the overemphasized effects, of the so-called Islamization of Turkey and the Justice and Development Party’s censorship mechanisms, for the uses of porn and other sexual media in Turkey. Through these findings, the study challenges the idea that porn spectators are passive consumers by default and reveals the processes by which norms come into being.

Studies on porn audiences and the uses of porn in non-Western contexts remain limited to this day. Embarking to address this theoretical gap, this article-based dissertation studies the uses of porn and other sexual media in Turkey, while further exploring the Turkish context through a historical lens. The study asks how to understand normativity and pleasure pertaining to sexual media in Turkey. It demonstrates the different ways of using porn as a spectator, which oscillate between pleasure and normativity in the Turkish context.

The dissertation is a qualitative study built upon Foucauldian understandings of power, actor-network theory, porn, and media studies. It analyses the uses of porn through eighteen interviewees’ accounts but also sheds light on the governance of sexualities and sexual media through historical accounts. The Foucauldian framework informs how the study handles the notions related to power, such as norm, normativity, normalizing tendencies, and so forth, while actor-network theory is crucial for making sense of the spatiality of power’s dispersal, which is pivotal to illuminate the networks through which the experiences of porn come into being. These networks not only include human actors, but they also cover a vast array of immaterial and inorganic entities, which for example, make internet infrastructure like underground cables and modems, or like traditional furniture and household objects that can ignite desires unexpectedly. Also, the notion of play was deployed to have a more nuanced understanding of the pleasure aspect. Thus, through these frameworks, the study elucidates not only how individuals navigate themselves between pleasure and normativity, but also how power exerts itself through the aggregation of different actors and networks. Finally, the dissertation uses narrative and thematic analyses for making sense of the interview data.

The dissertation mainly focuses on the narratives of the informants as well as the different historical periods in the late Ottoman period and modern Turkey. The analysis of the interviews reveals that the uses of porn in Turkey are multifaceted, echoing the findings of the recent scholarship on the mismatches between identity categories and desires, along with the multiplication and intensification of desires even when faced with the negative and dark affective registers. Also, an actor-network theory-informed approach to these interviews lays bare how constraining norms are enacted through different networks and how nonhuman actors can restrain pleasure or on the contrary, can make it blaze. Turning focus to the different historical periods like the 19th century Ottoman Empire or the 70s “notorious” sex influx presents the peculiar and original dimensions of the Turkish context to the reader.

The dissertation offers to see online porn as a toy-like phenomenon by deploying a play-based agency and thus argues that consuming porn is often for the sake of pleasure, which can be intensified and/or blocked by different normative configurations. Therefore, the study concludes that online porn spectatorship is not a dull consumption, instead an imaginative, interpretive but also haptic experience that can lead to further sexual exploration. This argument also explains the reasons behind the potential and sometimes surprising mismatches between the sexual identity categories and the “pleasurable” content. It similarly debunks the overemphasized effects, of the so-called Islamization of Turkey and the Justice and Development Party’s censorship mechanisms, for the uses of porn and other sexual media in Turkey. Through these findings, the study challenges the idea that porn spectators are passive consumers by default and reveals the processes by which norms come into being.