Spanking Natasha: Post-Soviet Pornography and the Internet

Abstract

The collapse of Communism and the advent of the internet shifted the center of gravity in violent spanking pornography from Japan and Great Britain to the Czech Republic and Russia. Exploiting the vagueness of anti-pornography legislation, Czech and Russian internet pornographers displayed a propensity for realistic violence that surprised even veteran observers of the spanking genre, and viewers have speculated about ties to international slave trafficking known as the Natasha trade. Such links have not moved beyond speculation, and Czech companies have taken steps to distance themselves from such charges, while Russian producers of spanking pornography have emerged as the world's most violent.