Campaigning for Real Marriage on The Por
Campaigning for Real Marriage on “The Porn Path”: Reality Programming and the
Affective Labor of Conjuring a Pornographic Imaginary
Jessica Johnson
University of Washington
Media, Gender and Religion Conference 2016
Abstract
Based on eight years of gathering empirical and discursive evidence on the evangelical
megachurch formerly known as Mars Hill in Seattle, this paper investigates Pastor Mark
Driscoll’s marketing of ‘authenticity’ through the staging of a reality TV talk show to
publicize the tell-all book Real Marriage and elicit donations for the first of several
“campaigns” during which sermon materials were advertised as “free” but came at a cost.
I examine this media strategy in relation to the financial scheme that erroneously elevated
Driscoll to New York Times “Number One Bestselling Author” status on its “HowTo/Advice” list, analyzing the church’s misappropriation of tithes to promote brand name
recognition in tandem with his preaching on porn addiction. This paper investigates how
Driscoll campaigns for Real Marriage by sermonizing on the evils of pornography and
freedom of biblical sexuality to augment the affective value, monetary profit, and cultural
influence of his celebrity image as “Pastor Mark.” As he sets out to define pornography
in lucid terms, Driscoll’s exposition demonstrates how slippery and difficult to contain
cultural meanings and expressions of pornography are, indexing the necessity and critical
potential of examining ‘porn’ not simply as image or text but also as imaginary and
industry; or, more precisely, imaginary as industry—an assemblage of virtual, visceral,
and visual processes at once global and deterritorialized circulating paranoia as affective
political and economic value. In turn, this paper analyzes intrafaces of body, brain, and
technology so as to investigate how a pornographic imaginary is conjured through the
media convergences and affective labor of performing and visualizing “biblical”
discourse concerning porn addiction that integrates idioms of neuroscience and tropes of
reality programming fetishized in U.S. cultural politics writ large.
Affective Labor of Conjuring a Pornographic Imaginary
Jessica Johnson
University of Washington
Media, Gender and Religion Conference 2016
Abstract
Based on eight years of gathering empirical and discursive evidence on the evangelical
megachurch formerly known as Mars Hill in Seattle, this paper investigates Pastor Mark
Driscoll’s marketing of ‘authenticity’ through the staging of a reality TV talk show to
publicize the tell-all book Real Marriage and elicit donations for the first of several
“campaigns” during which sermon materials were advertised as “free” but came at a cost.
I examine this media strategy in relation to the financial scheme that erroneously elevated
Driscoll to New York Times “Number One Bestselling Author” status on its “HowTo/Advice” list, analyzing the church’s misappropriation of tithes to promote brand name
recognition in tandem with his preaching on porn addiction. This paper investigates how
Driscoll campaigns for Real Marriage by sermonizing on the evils of pornography and
freedom of biblical sexuality to augment the affective value, monetary profit, and cultural
influence of his celebrity image as “Pastor Mark.” As he sets out to define pornography
in lucid terms, Driscoll’s exposition demonstrates how slippery and difficult to contain
cultural meanings and expressions of pornography are, indexing the necessity and critical
potential of examining ‘porn’ not simply as image or text but also as imaginary and
industry; or, more precisely, imaginary as industry—an assemblage of virtual, visceral,
and visual processes at once global and deterritorialized circulating paranoia as affective
political and economic value. In turn, this paper analyzes intrafaces of body, brain, and
technology so as to investigate how a pornographic imaginary is conjured through the
media convergences and affective labor of performing and visualizing “biblical”
discourse concerning porn addiction that integrates idioms of neuroscience and tropes of
reality programming fetishized in U.S. cultural politics writ large.