Is Ripperology murder porn?

[Suzi]

Exactly.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!
But OK there are a lot of us about who have a house full of books containing said images I guess - Not that many have people around to say 'Ere 'ave a look at this one'- mind you they're probably about- disturbingly...............

[Mykeru]

OK, why not have a thread like this. As far as I can see suggestions that Ripperology is murder porn (or gorenography) is based mainly on ideology e.g. Deborah Cameron arguing from a feminist perspective. What does everybody else think.

Chris Lowe

How, precisely, does Deborah Cameron argue this? Yes, I know I could Google it, but I'm not the one bringing up the conclusion.

Just off the top of my head I would guess it's a sort of jaded, post-modernist argument: That if a bunch of guys (let's ignore the female, ostensibly non-lesbian female Ripperologists) are interested in the historical mystery involving the murder of women it must be because they get off on it.

Which, of course, tells us a lot about the person making that sort of assumption.

My interest, as a male suspected of perversion, is anything but an erotic response to the mutilations. I do have much sensitivity and sympathy for the victims, but not only because they were murdered in a horrible way, but because their entire lives were tough propositions of poverty, alcoholism and despair.

As an alcoholic in recovery myself, the often overlooked aspect of alcoholism in the Ripper case resonates for me. Think of Mary Kelly. One of the last people to see her alive recounted that she said she had the "horrors of drink" upon her. To me, that doesn't mean she had a hangover, but was experiencing alcohol withdrawal, which is a horrible, potentially fatal condition that would spur a woman to prostitution and, in her case, was a major contributing factor to her decline and death. She threw up some beer she had in the morning. Alcoholics in withdrawal often vomit the day's first medicinal drink.

Think of the life of a woman in London, circa 1888 burdened by the trifecta of poverty, alcoholism and prostitution. Where's the porn?

I'm not even interested in the identity of Jack the Ripper. I assume none of the canonical subjects were the Ripper. He was probably an unknown, unmourned East-end local who died in a doss house, forever lost to history.

What interests me about Ripperology is that the case provides window into the class-conscious 19th Century, the social effects and biases towards poverty and alcoholism, rampant anti-antisemitism, sexism and xenophobia, the attitudes and lives of a cross-section of people, their fears and prejudices and a plethora of arcane information that would be lost were it not documented around a particularly brutal and then unique series of murders.

If I wanted "murder porn" the circumspect written accounts of the Whitechapel murders, along with a few sketches, grainy photos and hoax poison pen letters, is a pretty poor source for that. Besides, I find it hard to imagine Don Rumbelow (who was a detective, should that be suspect too? Police get the best "murder porn") and Paul Begg, for example, are just thinly veiled Larry Flynts of "murder porn".

[truebluedub]

Ah, the joys of having a shortened name that could be either masculine or feminine (I'm a bloke).
On where Deborah Cameron discussed ripperology see page 4 of this thread. She also wrote about it in an article called 'still going' which is on JSTOR if you have access to that. (or it could be Caputi but I'm fairly certain it's Cameron).

Chris(topher) Lowe