No Country for Old Men? Representations of ageing body in contemporary pornography

Thanks to the spreading of digital technologies and the advent of the internet, over the last two decades the ageing body has found discursive and commercial visibility within the area of adult entertainment. Notwithstanding the progressive importance acquired by the ageing body in pornography, though, this subject has suffered so far from academic neglect, with very few exceptions. The objective of this chapter is therefore to provide a first investigation of the meanings and uses of the ageing body in contemporary pornography. In the first part I try to position the ageing body within the sphere of contemporary pornography at a crossroads between two different dynamics: a socioeconomic dynamic related to the current state of the adult industry, and an epistemic dynamic related to the formation of the pornographic subject. In the second and third parts I try to outline some ideas for the analysis of the strategies informing the pornographic representation of the ageing body; more precisely, drawing on age studies, as well as media and cultural studies, I investigate the codes and conventions through which pornography (re)presents the ageing body