‘We hid porn magazines in the nearby woods': Memory-work and pornography consumption in Finland

This article presents the key findings of a Finnish memory-work project conducted in 2012 on consumer experiences and associations related to pornography. The memory-work material points to a high degree of reflexivity in definitions of pornographic preference as well as to drastic shifts in the ubiquity of pornography from the pre-1990s ‘age of scarcity’ to the current ‘age of plenty.’ At the same time, contributors' narratives of childhood experiences of finding and collecting pornography complicate public concerns on early access to porn as specific to digital media. By drawing on original research, the article considers the possibilities of memory-work as a method for exploring the connections between personal everyday encounters with pornography, technological developments, and transformations in media regulation across decades.