Capitalism: The Alluring Deception on The Horizon of Reason

Management Philosophy: Exposing the Manager’s New Clothes

Peter Prevos — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Although brick-and-mortar book-shops are slowly going the way of the thylacine, their contents still reflect society’s inclinations. The size of the management section in most bookshops compared to the philosophy section illustrates that books about business success are some of the most important writings of our time. Management philosophy is one of the most influential stream of thinking in contemporary society.

There is a myriad of books that explain how we can become great instead of just settling for being good, how to develop the habits of highly effective people, and how to motivate ourselves. A uniformly positive tone characterises popular management books, and they uncritically divulge their secrets to anyone hankering for corporate glory. The ideas in these books can be dangerous because, for the millions of people subjected to them, the outcome is generally negative. Management initiatives inspired by the latest fads are more likely to cause stress and misery than to result in the promised success. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, Harvard Business Review is the cause of, and solution to, all problems in business.

Towards a Critique on Management Philosophy. Shortlisted competition entry for the New philosopher Writers' Award IV (August 2014).

The Origins of Management Philosophy

Management thinkers play an unrecognised influential role in shaping contemporary history. Time Magazine's list of the most influential people of the previous century does not contain any of capitalism's prominent scholars. Frederick Taylor, Elton Mayo, Peter Drucker and other business gurus are noticeable only through their absence. However, their influence on the eighty thousand hours of our lives we spend at work is immense. These thinkers continue to shape the world in which we work and live.

In the wake of these pioneers, contemporary managers subject people in factories, cubicles, construction sites and other places of work all around the world to a continuously changing stream of ideas on how to create better businesses. Management might decide to implement Total Quality Management but find themselves in endless meetings trying to figure out why productivity slumped. When that doesn't work, they agree that the culture must be wrong and embark on a journey In Search of Excellence, leaving their business in a constant state of flux, always seeking new ways to improve the bottom line.

The origin of these developments lies with American engineer Frederick Taylor, who is often heralded as the inventor of scientific management. Taylor’s thinking was emblematic of the rationalist and pragmatic spirit of the late nineteenth century. It was a time when the successes of the exact sciences led to the belief that the scientific paradigm of the physical world also applied to the social world. Taylor believed that organisations could be controlled using mathematical principles, in the same way as steam engines work following the laws of physics. Taylor is the Plato of management science, and contemporary ideas of business success can be viewed, paraphrasing English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, as merely a series of footnotes to Taylor's work. The basic idea contained in popular business literature is that the social reality of the firm can be manipulated using simple scientific models.

The ideal workplace is like a termite colony.

When delving into Taylor's magnum opus, The Principles of Scientific Management, we find that the foundations of contemporary management thinking are troublesome. His attitude towards workers is reminiscent of Kant’s “_Vormünder_”—those who speak for others—as Taylor prevented factory workers from thinking for themselves. He moved all initiative and control from the labourers to management. Taylor’s ideal workplace is like a termite colony: rigid management techniques, designed to convert employees into mindless drones all working towards a common goal. Taylor based his ideas on a series of experiments conducted on men hauling lumps of pig-iron. His writings expose a disdain for workers: "It would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla to become a more efficient pig-iron handler than any man can be". Taylor's scientific management was the starting point of the capitalist paradigm of viewing human beings as resources in an abstract production process rather than as independent agents who are intrinsically valuable.

Frederick Taylor (1856-1910), the father of modern management.

The works of Taylor spawned a global industry of management consultants. Management invites these MBA-wielding specialists when they perceive that change is required. In the early days of this noble profession, consultants were mainly involved in crunching numbers to develop the best strategies for mergers, acquisitions and other complicated manoeuvres. More recently their attentions have moved to the softer side of managing an organisation, and consultants now also help businesses to improve their work culture.

There’s no clear understanding of what organisational culture is.

The problem is that there’s no clear understanding of what organisational culture is, and no firm grasp on how to change it to improve business outcomes. Culture is an 'essentially contested concept', unable to be grasped in theoretical models and therefore impossible to be manipulated to achieve predetermined objectives. We can understand culture conceptually, but it is not an object that can be controlled. Consultants are often more akin to a pre-modern shaman than a contemporary doctor in their attempts to heal businesses.

Although consultants proclaim to use rational theories to improve organisations, they use magic symbols and incantations in the form of diagrams and slogans. The managers’ belief in these consultants and their pseudo-scientific tools cause a placebo effect. Although the placebo might reduce the symptoms of a problem, it will not heal the disease. Soon after the consultant has left, the next improvement initiative must be implemented to ensure the symptoms don't reappear. The business consultancy industry is a Perpetuum Mobile, a never-ending movement from one new management theory to the next.

Management Philosophy and the Horizon of Reason

Magical thinking in businesses is, however, not isolated to consultants. Places of work can be viewed through a theatrical metaphor. In this point of view, a workplace is like a theatre in which everybody is an actor playing a predetermined role, following a standardised script and using recognisable props against a carefully designed backdrop. At work, we are not the same people we are at home.

At work, we play the role of the professional, a generic type of human being found only in workplaces. “Being professional” is used as a value judgement, a behaviour pattern to strive for. Professional are expected to behave stoically and purposefully, without letting emotions get in the way. The veil of reason that covers their actions is, however, do not influence transparent. Important decisions are often based on intuition and post hoc justifications, using copious amounts of charts and tables projected onto walls and sketched on flip charts.

The scripts used by professionals have probably introduced more words to the English language than the combined works of Shakespeare. The comparison is, however, only valid in quantity and certainly not the quality of language. Managerial vocabulary does not possess the same poetic potency of the contributions made by the bard of Avon. Most of the vernacular used by managers consist of weasel words that suck the meaning out of language. Even though they are universally mocked through the allegorical game of Buzzword Bingo, words such as 'takeaways', 'innovation' or 'actionable remain popular.

The props of the professional are central to the role they play, with the business suit as the defining article. The business suit is the global uniform of the professional, regardless of cultural background. The suit and tie are symbols of power, in stark contrast with the fluorescent colours commonly worn by the working class. Deviation from this norm is shunned and only allowed during the post-modern ritual of Casual Friday. Even though these props are essential to the role of the professional, the suit and tie do not influence the quality of their decisions. In the words of sociologist Erving Goffman, professionals are "blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives".

Business success cannot be created by relying on models inspired by the physical sciences.

This critique of the world of the manager shows that business success cannot be created by relying solely on theoretical models inspired by the physical sciences. The dynamics of human organisations are too complex to be controlled through simple axioms and diagrams. Many of management's theories strip organisations of their humanity and replace it with replicable and rational simplifications of social complexity.

The Socratic path invites managers to be philosophically critical and understand what it is they are trying to achieve. Such an understanding cannot come from relying on scientific analysis alone but requires philosophical reflection. Managers should never stop asking “why?” and view problems from multiple angles—including through disciplines not traditionally used in business.

The main lesson, I refuse to use the noun 'learning', often used in business jargon, is that the psychological forces that drive our behaviour are persistent and cannot be manipulated like physical processes. There are no simple rules that can be followed to create the perfect organisation. Businesses should not rely on theories that purport to be scientific; instead, companies need philosophical thinking. Just like Socrates was able to critically reflect on Athenian society by asking questions and not accepting simple explanations, so too can managers improve their understanding by being critical of the status quo.

I Shop Therefore I Am: The First Law of Consumer Behaviour

Peter Prevos — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Think about the last time you purchased a magazine. Did you perform a rational hedonistic calculus and compared the benefits of spending fifteen dollars on New Philosopher magazine, a lunch, or deposit the money into your savings account? Almost certainly, your choice to purchase New Philosopher was not based on a rational process where you compared the various options, but the result of rationality bounded by your psychology and social background. Perhaps you bought this magazine to casually place it on your coffee table to cultivate your public persona? The fact that you are reading this article suggests that your interest in philosophy is perhaps a bit more sincere than merely a means to impress your friends.

The reasons we buy stuff are complicated and are in most cases not the result of a rational decision process. Marketers and anthropologists understand that we don't purchase things for what they do for us but for what they mean to us. All purchases have a practical as well as a symbolic motivation. Your car is more than a hunk of metal that takes you to work and back. Clothes are more than a protective layer to compensate for our lack of body hair. The car we drive and the clothes we wear express our social identity, more saliently, they communicate the type of person we would like to be. Even consciously not caring about brands is effectively a sign of our personal preferences to the outside world.

Barbara Kruger, 'I Shop Therefore I am' (1990).

Erving Goffman explained our purchase behaviour through a theatrical metaphor. He argued that our social interactions are guided by the roles we play in public life. To achieve the desired effect on others, we use a script through the actions we take and the language we speak. Our purchase behaviour sets the mise en scène for the performances that form the backbone of our public life. We purchase products to create the backdrop to our lives and to use them as props. This pattern is not unique to contemporary affluent societies but can also be found throughout histories and cultures.

The industrial revolution was a turning point in this behaviour. Our innate desire to own things to construct our ideal self, combined with our recently acquired unparalleled wealth has created a situation where environmental and social values are at risk. This growth has been driven by the science of marketing, which has developed profound insights and rhetorical methods to maximise sales.

First Law of Consumer Behaviour

Marketers have a deep understanding of our motivations to purchase the things we need and want. The ethical position in this debate often revolves around the notion that we don't need to buy the things we do, we merely want them. This statement presumes that we need a rational motivation for each purchase we make.

To understand how marketers think we have to reposition the concepts of needs and wants. When a child tells his mother that she needs a mobile phone, the swift response will often be: "You don't need a phone, you just want one". The common sense view of needs and wants assumes a normative hierarchy between the two concepts. A need is interpreted as a sine qua non, something without which your life would not be possible. A want is considered to be solely motivated by desire and contingent to living our lives. The parent faced with the choice to purchase a mobile phone for her child will more often than not rationalise her decision by justifying the want as a need. A phone becomes a need because parents interpret the device as a way to keep their child safe.

This perspective on needs and wants is problematic because the distinction between the two is highly dependent on personal interpretations to distinguish between something we need versus something we want. In the extreme, all we need to survive is air, water and food. We can extend this list by referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees access to food, clothing, housing and medical care. But where can we draw the line between needs and wants?

Marketers have a different concept of needs and wants which is not based on a normative hierarchy but anchored in psychology. A need is a state of felt deprivation, and a want is a need that can be satisfied with a purchase. Maslow's hierarchy of needs helps to explain this idea. Maslow stated that our needs not only include physiological needs and safety. The hierarchy of needs also recognises that we need social belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation. Material culture plays an essential role in achieving all of these needs. My laptop satisfies several of my needs. Writing this essay is a way to actualise my inner self. My computer also fulfils an element of self-esteem through its high-end specifications and social belonging through my membership of online communities and communicating with distant friends.

These insights into our purchase behaviour help marketers to increase the likelihood that people buy their market offerings. Our purchase behaviour is unpredictable at an individual level but governed by patterns at a collective level.

The real self, plus a product equals your perceived self

The first law of consumer behaviour states is that your real self, plus a product equals your perceived self. A magazine advertisement by fashion brand Swish Jeans humorously visualised this idea in 1996. The ad shows an image of an elderly lady, a plus sign, a pair of jeans, an equals sign, followed by fashion model Eva Herzigová. This add explicitly states the hidden message embedded in most advertising.

Luca Albanese (1996), Swish Jeans advertisement with Eva Herzigová visualses the first law of consumer behaviour.

This principle permeates the majority of advertising and sales campaigns. Even promotion of unfashionable products such as toilet paper deploys images of harmonious families in immaculate houses. Advertising aims to create a Pavlovian association between the products they sell and the imagery of a perfect life.

We can rework this equation from a business perspective: the perceived self minus the real self, equals entrepreneurial opportunity. What this means in practice is that marketers can improve opportunities to sell products by increasing the promise of the perceived self. More controversially, advertising can also decrease perceptions of the real self to widen the gap between reality and our desired state of being.

Since the dawn of philosophy, thinkers have advocated that we should detach ourselves from the material world. In the European tradition, Socrates wandered through the Agora, telling his fellow Athenians that the search for wisdom is more important than material wealth. At the other bookend of the timeline of philosophy, we find the sharp critique of the Frankfurt School. Herbert Marcuse explicitly accused marketing of being the driving force of wasteful consumerism and the progenitor of false needs.

Marcuse seems to adhere to the common sense view of needs and wants, with its problematic and subjective differentiation between what is needed and what is merely desired. Removing the normative difference between needs and wants is enlightening because it better explains why we purchase products. That this explanation is valid is proven by the success of marketing, which applies this theoretical insight to maximise sales.

Removing the normative difference between needs and wants has significant ethical implications. It is not hard to see how this primary marketing mechanism can lead to unethical behaviour by marketers. Fashion advertising often portrays the unattainable ideals of female bodies, lowering the self-image of vulnerable women. These strategies have even been identified as contributing causes to eating disorders. The ongoing need to generate revenue results in a barrage of new products and advertising, which can lead to a level of consumption that damages the natural environment.

Promoting goods for sale is as old as commercial activity itself. The advent of marketing science has given salespeople profound insights into human behaviour. It could be argued that with the advent of social media, marketers know more about human behaviour than social scientists merely because they have unparalleled access to intimate details about our thoughts and behaviours. Contemporary marketing is much more sophisticated than anything ever seen in the history of humanity. Firms deploy advanced rhetorical strategies, supported by scientific research, that exploit our bounded rationality to maximise sales.

Many philosophers appeal to our inner self and call for detachment of the material in favour of the inner life. These philosophers ignore the significance of material possessions to our everyday lives. Their lofty ideals have little influence on our inherent need to purchase stuff to enact our social roles and construct our public persona.

This insight into the first law of consumer behaviour does not negate the ethical responsibility of marketers to protect vulnerable customers and prevent harm to the environment. With great power comes great responsibility, but the enormous forces of economic interest more often than not drown these ethical concerns.

Pornography Art and the Commodification of Sexual Desire

Peter Prevos — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 10:00:00 +0000

Pornography is available in many different types of media, closely following the vanguard of modern technology. There is also a plethora of genres, each with varying degrees of explicitness. There is no consensus among scholars on a definition of pornography. Some consider nude photographs in Playboy magazine pornography; while on the other end of the spectrum, this label is reserved for explicit depictions of actual sex. This final essay discusses the special status of pornography art in contemporary society following Marxist, semiological and anthropological perspectives on material culture.

This essay focuses on so-called ‘hardcore’ pornography as depicted in films rated X-18+ by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification. These are productions containing “depictions of actual sexual intercourse and other sexual activity between consenting adults”.

Marx and Pornography

The Marxist view of material culture focuses on the people producing and consuming products, rather than on the objects of consumption themselves. A core aspect of Marxist theory is the idea that capitalism facilitates the commodification of the social world by disconnecting the producer from the consumer. Marx used the term commodity fetishism to describe the disconnection of products from the story of those who made them and how they were made, not to be confused with sexual fetishism, which is an erotic fascination with a specific object or part of the body.

This disconnection from the social environment of their production allows for products to become commodities and abstracted to mere exchange values. Marx argues that commodity fetishism is an unnatural and undesirable state because commodities not only hide but replace relationships between people.¹ Producers and consumers having no direct social contact prevents the development of a moral connection between them.

Erotic photography (circa 1885).

In the case of pornography, commodification creates a disconnection between ethical and emotional aspects of the act of producing pornography from the act of consuming it. This issue is the foundation of early feminist pornography criticism by writers such as Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon, who focus on the examination of misogynistic sexual representations.²

Feminism and pornography

The feminist critique follows from the argument that pornography is based on unequal power relations between the men and women involved in its production. The argument continues, following Marx, by asserting that the commodification of pornography severs the link between production and consumption and thus neutralises any ethical issues related to its production; promoting similar behaviour by those who consume it. Pornography is isolated as the focus of concern with violence towards women and is as such often defined in its perceived ability to harm.

Experimental research to determine connections between viewing pornography and violent behaviour has, however, not found any conclusive evidence of a causal link between the two.³

Recent feminist discourse has been more positive towards pornography, giving rise to a polarised debate between anti-pornography and anti-censorship campaigners. Most research used to support anti-pornography claims has not considered the possibility that women may enjoy viewing sexually explicit material. Although many women assert to be anti-pornography and say they do not enjoy watching it, experimental research indicates that women do get aroused viewing pornographic films. It subsequently could be argued that the lack of sexual arousal in women watching pornography has been socially constructed.⁴

Semiology and Pornography

The Marxist approach does not seem to be able to provide a satisfactory account of pornography. Although commodity fetishism appears to be a valid objection against commodification in general, the feminist critique that watching pornography, disconnected from ethical concerns about its production, causes violent behaviour, has not been justified and simplifies the complexity of the semiological and cultural dimensions of pornography.

From a semiological perspective on material culture, the focus is moved away from the people involved in production and consumption, in favour of the objects themselves. Pornography is analysed as a text, not in its literal meaning as a text about sexuality (from the classical Greek: ‘writing about fornication’), but as an aspect of contemporary public discourse about sexuality. Baudrillard distinguishes different ways of looking at consumption: “an object is not an object of consumption unless it is released from its psychic determinations as a symbol; from its functional determinations as an instrument; from its commercial determinations as product; and is thus liberated as a sign …”.⁵ Pornography is, using the words of Roland Barthes, a ‘mythology’, that can be analysed to provide an insight into the society in which it is produced and consumed.⁶

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto: I am human and I consider nothing human strange to me.

Terrence, The self-tormentor.

To entangle pornography’s place in contemporary society, it is required to look beyond the superficial moral and aesthetic aspects, usually associated with the subject. Pornography has existed for many centuries but has historically been restricted to underground distribution channels. Over the past decades, sexually-oriented material has become available in mainstream media and representations of sexual activity have become more explicit. The ‘pornofication’ of the cultural landscape and proliferation of hardcore pornography, propelled by mass media, can, however, not be explained away as a lapse of morals and cultural decay.⁷

The increased consumption of pornography is a sign of a reconsideration of traditional values. Western society, dominated by Judaeo-Christian thinking, traditionally values otherworldliness over the physical and temporal. Pornography is considered deviant from accepted social norms because of its emphasis on physical aspects of existence over metaphysical values.

Enlightenment thinking has, however, slowly eroded the influence of Christianity, leading to a reversal of the primacy of otherworldliness over the physical. In the wake of these changes, some have resorted to complete atheism and materialism. The pornographic literature of Marquis de Sade, for example, is laced with atheist philosophy. In more recent times, people are seeking to strike a balance between physical and spiritual values. Many shops dealing in metaphysical products, such as tarot cards, healing crystals and books about meditation, also sell products related to sexuality. This striving for a balance of the spiritual and the physical is also illustrated in the iconography of the exterior of Insight Adult Books.

The increased availability of pornography is thus a sign of changing value patterns in Western societies, which are moving ethical primacy away from the spiritual towards an appreciation of physical aspects of life. The disconnection of sexuality from procreation and a focus on hedonistic aspects has propelled it into mainstream culture, leading to democratisation and diversification of public sexual discourse.

The cultural significance of pornography can be explored by mapping the movement of pornographic expressions in society. The circulation of pornography in society is closely related to the available technologies. Until the invention of photography, expressions of sexual desire were limited to writing and painting. Recent technological developments in means of delivering media to consumers have substantially reduced the threshold for producing and obtaining pornography—visits to seedy sex shops in dark alleys are no longer required as the Internet delivers it directly into people’s houses. The adult retail industry has reacted to these changed attitudes to pornography by establishing more open and inviting places.

Pornography Art

The changed attitude towards representations of sexuality has faded boundaries between private and public discourse about sexuality. The fading boundaries affected definitions of art and pornography. The depiction of sexual desire has a long history in art, and many works that were controversial in their time are now accepted as art. Definitions of pornography and art have traditionally relied on categories such as ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture. Increased acceptance of pornography has, however, faded the distinctions between art and pornography.

An example of pornography becoming art is Made in Heaven, a series of works by American artist Jeff Koons, that consists of explicit photographs and statues of the artist with the Italian porn star and former member of parliament Ilona Staller. Historical developments in art points towards a greater acceptance of explicit depictions of sexuality and even the boundaries between hardcore pornography and what is accepted as art are fading.

Jeff Koons, Made in Heaven, at the Whitney Museum.

The commodification of pornography stimulated the production of female-focused ‘erotica’, promoting the democratisation of sexual discourse. Sex shops, specialised in products for women, such as Myla and Taboobo have been established and also film producers produce pornography explicitly marketed to women.⁸ The fading of the boundaries between public and private sexual discourse and the availability of suitable technology has enabled many ‘amateurs’ to produce pornography, breaking down barriers between consumer and producer.

Until the development of cheap and powerful distribution methods, pornography has been limited to underground subculture. Marketing techniques used to sell pornography are aimed at deconstructing its ‘occult’ aspects by moving away from stereotypical gender-biased iconography, democratising public sexual discourse. Pornography has, however, not yet lost its deviant label and maintains a fringe position in society, providing a map of its fears and anxieties.

In this essay, it has been argued that Marxism is not able to provide a satisfactory account of pornography, mainly because it denies the real-world complexity of the issue. The semiological approach provides detachment from ethical constraints, showing porn to be a sign of changing value patterns in contemporary society. Analysis from the cultural perspective reveals an ongoing pornofication of the cultural landscape, fuelled by the changing value patterns. This brief essay illustrates how studying the place of pornography within contemporary society can provide valuable insights into its ethical boundaries and anxieties.

Notes

Marx, K. (1954). Capital. A critical analysis of capitalist production. Progress Publishers, Moscow.

Attwood, F. (2002). Reading porn: The paradigm shift in pornography research. Sexualities, 5(1):91–105.

Ciclitira, K. (2004). Pornography, women and feminism: Between pleasure and politics. Sexualities, 7(3):281–301.

⁴

Beggan, J.K. and Allison, S.T. (2003). Reflexivity in the pornographic films of Candida Royalle. Sexualities, 6:301–324.

⁵

Baudrillard, J. (1981). For a critique of the political economy of the sign. Telos Press.

⁶

Barthes, R. (1957). Mythologies. Paladin, London.

⁷

Attwood, F. (2005). Fashion and passion: Marketing sex to women. Sexualities, 8(4):392–406.

⁸

Beggan, J.K. and Allison, S. T. (2003). Reflexivity in the pornographic films of Candida Royalle. Sexualities, 6:301–324.

Insight Adult Bookshop in Bendigo - Marketing Pornography

Peter Prevos — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This essay presents an analysis of Insight Adult Books in Bendigo. Adult bookshops are the traditional point of sale for pornography and, as such, maintain a controversial place within society. Pornography, as a commodity in contemporary culture, will be analysed in the next essay for this subject.

This article discusses several aspects of the shop, analysing its architecture, interior design, products and customers. Insight Adult Books has a special status in Bendigo because of the controversial nature of pornography and that this special status is reflected in its architecture and interior design and vice versa that the design of the shop helps to reinforce the unique position of pornography in society.

Anatomy of an Adult Bookshop

The exterior of the shop does not provide many clues to the product that is being sold inside. There is no shop window displaying products, and the name of the shop is displayed in small letters on the door, not directly visible from the street.

Insight Adult Books in Bendigo storefront.

The most prominent feature of the front is the logo, which carries a tripartite symbolism (Figure 1). The logo is a stylisation of the number 69, referring to the colloquial name for a commonly known sexual position. Another interpretation of the logo is two spermatozoa moving in a circular motion. At a different level, the logo refers to the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol, which signifies balance and harmony.

The logo is thus a complex representation of the nature of this shop: the number 69 signifies its sexual nature with the spermatozoa emphasising male-oriented sexuality. The symbol refers to Taoist philosophy, emphasising a balance between the opposite forces Yin and Yang. One of the interpretations of Yin and Yang is the perceived dualistic nature of body and mind. Reference to this Taoist symbol can semiotically be interpreted as communicating that there is more to pornography than the physical aspects. Reference to the Taoist symbol is most likely not coincidental as the shop is located in the Chinese area of Bendigo. The Taoist symbol is also widely used by western people with a cosmopolitan identity and by referring to the Yin-Yang symbol the shop participates in this identity, which is commonly considered to be more open-minded and flexible than traditional identities (Grace and Woodward 2006, 35).

The logo provides a complex message, directly referring to the sexual nature of the products on sale while balancing their carnal nature by referring to Taoism. The logo also provides a message that can only be decoded by individuals that understand the symbolism, effectively concealing the true nature of the shop from those who do not share the knowledge, such as children.

The name Insight Adult Books continues the dual coding provided by the logo. The first part of the name suggests that the products sold in this place will give insight, some undefined esoteric knowledge, and refers to the mind, rather than the body. This point is leveraged by the existence of ‘metaphysical bookshops’ in the United States, England and New Zealand that also use ‘Insight’ in their name.

These shops sell books about subjects related to the mind, such as meditation and astrology. The term ‘mind’ is used as being synonymous with related concepts such as spirit and soul. The link between these shops is, however, not only in name as the metaphysical bookshops also sell books about sexuality. The second part of the name Insight Adult Books is a euphemism for pornography from the time before video and electronic media. It refers to the sexual nature of the shop, albeit not a direct one. It should be noted that most other shops selling pornography, such as the Club-X franchise, are much less subtle about their purpose.

Both the logo and the name of the shop show how body-mind dualism, a central tenet throughout Western philosophy, works within society. The body, has since Plato (Phaedrus 246C–D), been identified with everything temporary, chaotic and immoral, while the mind has been identified with eternal order and everything good. Consequently, pornography is often considered sinful because of its focus on the carnal aspects of sexuality. The insight that is referred to in the name of the shop evokes ideas by thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud, who emphasised that humanity is driven by instincts, rather than a rational mind. The body is thus ethically neutral and has equal standing to the mind. The name and logo of the shop are designed to dissolve body-mind duality and construct pornography as balancing the physical and the mental.

Adult Bookshop as a sacred space

A unique feature of the shop is that to be able to enter it one first has to pass through a vestibule. A legal notice is displayed inside the vestibule, which informs the visitor about the explicit nature of the material on display inside. The formal notification removes all double meaning produced by the name and logo and prepares the visitor before entering the world of pornography. In some aspects, the architecture of the bookshop is reminiscent of sacred spaces, such as churches and temples. Sacred spaces are usually approached through a ‘threshold’ that divides sacred space from the outside world (Habel, O’Donoghue and Maddox 1993, 33). The threshold of Insight Adult Books is marked by the vestibule, a transitory zone which leads from the ordinary world into the world of pornography and eroticism.

Another aspect of sacred spaces is that they transform people, enabling them to perform acts they would not otherwise engage in (Habel et al. 1993, 34). This transition also occurs in the adult bookshop where customers look at imagery which is not publicly available in the outside world. The analogy with sacred buildings is confirmed by the Buddhist temple, situated a stone throw away from the shop. The temple is enclosed by a wall and is also entered through a vestibule. The vestibule is covered with paintings which emphasise the special nature of the space the visitor is about to enter. The architecture of the temple and the adult bookshop are similar, albeit with a reversed purpose. The temple is designed to protect the sacred nature of the interior from the outside world, while the adult bookshop is designed to protect the outside world from the material inside.

Adult books Yellow Pages Advertisement.

The Yellow Pages advertisement for Insight Adult Books states that the shop sells ‘marital aids’, lingerie, naughty novelties, leather goods, imported adult magazines, DVDs and videos. It is interesting to note that the shop does not sell any books. The items usually referred to as pornography (magazines and films) appear on the bottom of the list, shifting the focus to those products that align with the cosmopolitan identity of the shop, established by the name and logo.

The slogan at the bottom leaves, however, no room for interpretation as to the purpose of shop. The question, whether the pleasure referred to in this advertisement is purely physical, remains open. The majority of the products on display suggests that physical pleasure has primacy, as most of the retail space is reserved for X-rated movies, which are not known for their intellectual or spiritual qualities. Books about spiritual and emotional aspects of sexuality are not sold by Insight Adult Books, confirming that carnal pleasures are the main focus of this place.

The interior of the shop does not conform to the stereotypical idea of a dark and seedy gathering place for male perverts in trench coats. The shop is a long rectangular open space, painted in stark white with bright fluorescent lighting. All products, which predominantly consist of films, are placed along the long walls with a glass display case with sex toys in the centre of the shop. The explicit nature of the displayed products is in contrast with the clues provided by the logo and name of the shop. The interior does not deliver the promise of a place that offers insight or a balance between the physical and the spiritual. The shop is clinical and straight to the point, explicit photos of sexual activity and different varieties of sex toys confront the customer, leaving nothing to the imagination.

The products sold in Insight Adult Books focus on male sexuality, with a small section reserved for male gay pornography. Only the area with ‘marital aids’, consisting of massage oils, vibrators and the like, seems to provide for female customers. X-rated movies are, however, not exclusively watched by males. Recent research into Australian sexuality shows that one-third of people who watch X-rated films are female. The gender balance does, however, shift somewhat in terms of the use of sex toys. Twelve per cent of men and fourteen per cent of women indicated using sex toys for masturbation (Richters and Rissel 2005, 39).

In recent years, adult stores have become more accessible and attitudes towards pornography have shifted, increasing the proportion of female pornography consumers (Kirk and Boyer 2002, Attwood 2002). The shop does not only cater to single people looking for solitary sexual stimulation. One wall contains a notice board where people can place advertisements. The notices on the board are mainly from couples seeking like-minded couples to engage in sexual activities. No data is available on the social class of the average visitor in the shop. Traditionally, pornography consumption is associated with the working class. The pornography consumer is considered by some to be a projection of upper-class fears about lower-class men: “brutish, animal-like, sexually voracious” and this image is projected back on to pornography itself (Attwood 2002, 95). The age of the visitors is regulated by law, and the warning mentioned above sign in the vestibule contains a legal notice informing the visitor that a minimum age of 18 applies for entry to this place. That same law also regulates the type of product that can be sold in the shop.

In the state of Victoria, only R-rated films can be sold. The films on sale in the shop are, however, predominantly X-rated films, something that was observed in all adult shops visited for this essay. This deviation from the law shows that the acceptance of pornography in contemporary society is broader than the legislator has allowed for.

Former adult shop Dendy Cinema in Melbourne.

Conclusion

This analysis of a local adult bookshop shows that the special status of pornography determines the architecture of Insight Adult Books in contemporary society and this special status enhanced by constructing a veil of secrecy and restricting the sale of pornography to specially designed places. The name and logo of this shop are semiotically ambiguous and seek to move attention away from the physical aspects to more cosmopolitan ideas about sexuality. This message is, however, not continued inside the shop where the physical aspects of sexuality are emphasised.

This shop forms a horizon of the acceptable within contemporary Australian society. In the next essay, pornography as a commodity will be analysed in more detail.

References

Attwood, F.: 2002, Reading porn: The paradigm shift in pornography research, Sexualities 5(1), 91–105.
Grace, F. and Woodward, I.: 2006, Sociology of identity, Griffith University.
Habel, N., O’Donoghue, M. and Maddox, M.: 1993, Myth, ritual and the sacred. Introducing the phenomena of religion, University of South Australia, Underdale.
Kirk, M. and Boyer, P. J.: 2002, American Porn, PBS.
Richters, J. and Rissel, C.: 2005, Doing it Down Under. The sexual lives of Australians, Allen and Unwin.