Pornography and obscenity . . . work by specialism 
and fragmentation. They deal with figure without a 
ground—situations in which the human factor is 
suppressed in favor of sensations and kicks. In the 
same way, the individual can be separated out from 
the society, Robinson Crusoe style. I first began to 
explain . . . that pornography and violence are by-
products of societies in which private identity has 
been scrubbed or destroyed by sudden 
environmental change, or unexpected 
confrontations which disrupt the image which the 
individual or the group entertains of itself. Any loss 
of identity prompts people to seek reassurance and 
rediscovery of themselves by testing, and even by