Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
Interview [published October 2000]
Lawrence O’Toole: Talking Dirty
Chris Mitchell meets Lawrence O’Toole, author of Pornocopia:
Porn, Sex, Technology and Desire
It’s a well-worn joke that any dinner-party discussion
of the internet will inevitably include a mention of finding
pornography while on- line. As Lawrence O’Toole
points out in his book, Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology
And Desire, the internet has been the biggest
leap forward for the distribution of pornography since
the advent of video. For people in countries such as the
UK, which has much stricter pornography laws than
the US and Europe, the net has opened the floodgates
for what was previously considered taboo and banned.
“New technologies have always come into the
country bringing the idea that our restrictive conditions
can be cast out,” explains O’Toole. “But it rarely turns
out to be the case. Look at video, which was meant
to herald the end of the censor – it’s actually become
a great tool for the censor. But censorship is always
thought of in absolutes. You cannot restrict access to
illegal materials – you can only make it very difficult to
get hold of them.”
“I’m certainly not an advocate of unrestricted access
to porn,” O’Toole stresses, “but teenagers will
get hold of this material.” Certainly the net has made
BUY Lawrence O’Toole books online from and
that access easier, but in doing so, not only has it
begun to change attitudes toward porn but the very
nature of the net itself.
“The internet has certainly helped make porn become
more mainstream,” says O’Toole. “We’ve now had a
pornographic presidency – oral sex in the White House
and Monica Lewinsky’s semen-stained dress broadcast
continually on the news. Or, as another example,
George Michael on Parkinson talking about having sex
in public toilets. Once all that has been brought out into
the public, there’s no way back.”
Inspired by the passionate debates about porn taking
place in Usenet newsgroups such as rec.arts.erotica,
Pornocopia is part history and part analysis of the
ways and methods by which porn has emerged from
the shadows in the last couple of decades and become
ever more accepted within conventional society.
“The general reaction to the book has been very
healthy and positive,” O’Toole claims, “which shows
that people are less concerned about porn and I think
the internet has partly contributed to that. People are
beginning to realise you can look at hardcore imagery
392
More
Spike
email
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z