Abstract
This chapter examines the policing of speech and the silences that have resulted from this in academic work on sexual representations. In particular, it focuses on the examination of women’s relationships with sexual representation, drawing on the accounts of researchers in the field, as well as my own experiences of working in this area. My work focuses on sex and the media–particularly on pornographies, sexuality online, and researching and teaching sexually explicit media. This last area of interest is taking on new urgency in the current context where sex education and media literacy are claimed as central to citizenship, yet remain underdeveloped, and where misconceptions and myths about sex media continue to be reproduced in public debates and in legislation. It is this strand of my research which prompted me to start collecting the accounts of researchers who work in this area.
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