parapornography

parapornography

English

Noun

parapornography (uncountable)

1. Literary work that is about sex or eroticism.
   • 2013, James Pate, “Introduction”, in Carl-Michael Edenborg, editor, The Parapornographic Manifesto:

     Sexuality in the realm of parapornography is not a place of humanist truths and psychological meaning (a vision of sexuality that dovetails all-too-neatly with the neo-liberal vision of the atomized, rationalist self) but rather an event that destroys 'meaning and identity through a mechanical repetition.'

   • 2022, Garrett Stewart, The Metanarrative Hall of Mirrors:

     In a painstaking takedown of Baker's “parapornography” in the London Review of Books, acknowledging its cleverness along with its suspect ethic, novelist-critic Adam Mars-Jones sees The Fermata as a book–being ultimately and only about masturbation–that is likely, in his clinching line, "to give self-abuse a bad name."

2. Popularizations of parapsychology that lack any scientific merit.
   • 1979, The Skeptical Inquirer - Volume 4, page 65:

     In a recent interview for De Telegraaf, Johnson told me ESP was not an established fact, and he expressed eagerness for close cooperation with professional magicians in his battle against "parapornography."

   • 2017, Gerd H. Hövelmann, ‎Hans Michels, Legitimacy of Unbelief, page 137:

     The pervading presence of parapornography has considerably complicated the scientific debate over "the Paranormal" – to the point where proponents and opponents frequently exhibit nothing but utter confusion when asked to explain precisely what they disagree about.