Dictionary

pornotopia en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˌpɔː.nəˈtəʊ.pi.ə/ (UK)
• /ˌpɔɹ.nəˈtoʊ.pi.ə/ (US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Blend of pornography + utopia; originally coined by American literary scholar and author Steven Marcus in his book The Other Victorians: a Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England (1966) to describe the setting in Victorian pornography.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) A fantasy world in which everyone is ready and willing to indulge in all kinds of sexual activity.
   • Pornotopia, it turns out, has the same narrative problem all utopias do—a perfectly happy place is more fun to live in than it is to read about. 2012, Roger Bellin (21 May 2012), "Pornotopia", Los Angeles Review of Books (retrieved 2017-10-31; archived from the original 2017-10-31)
   • Pornotopia emerges as the forces of self-gratification, mass consumerism, and advanced technology merge. 1994, Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover (1994), "The pornographic state", Harvard Law Review, 107:1374–1399 – via Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons, page 1375
   • Whether written or pictorial, pornotopia overwhelmingly depicts or evokes visual images of female bodies (or male bodies, in the case of male homosexual pornography), particularly the genitals. 1990, Bruce J. Ellis and Donald Symons (November 1990), "Sex differences in sexual fantasy: an evolutionary psychological approach", Journal of Sex Research, 27(4):527–555, page 544
   • Pornotopia is a fantasy realm, made possible by evolutionarily novel technologies (film, DVDs, the Internet, things that did not exist for most of human history), in which impersonal sex with a variety of high mate value women is the norm rather than the rare exception. 2012, Catherine Salmon (June 2012), "The pop culture of sex: an evolutionary window on the worlds of pornography and romance", Review of General Psychology, 16(2):152–160, DOI:10.1037/a0027910, page 155

Forms

Deriveds

pornotopian · pornotopic

Relateds

intimatopia · romantopia