Researching Grey Zones: Pornography Research Between Pleasure and Harm

This paper discusses the advantages and challenges of analyzing sexual images visually. It lays out the design of and experiences from collecting data at two national hotlines, who receive anonymous reports by “digital bystanders”: people who in their everyday life come across problematic sexual images online. To achieve nuanced data on how people respond to sexual images online, this study took a mixed-methods visual approach. Through quantitative content analysis and qualitative reading of the images, the grey zones of age, consent, and authenticity could be analyzed visually. Despite the ethical issues inherent in working with such sensitive images, I argue that they are vital in understanding how Internet users interact with illegal, legal, and grey zone images online.