There’s a reason why I’ve never really stated whether I’m pro- or anti-porn: my position is not that simple. And I don’t understand why anyone thinks it can be that simple. Not everyone’s working from the same definition of “porn”, for one thing. But there are so many elements to this conversation.
In fact, forget porn for a minute. Anemone distilled something for me a while back: in mainstream film, actresses are practically required to get naked and do sex scenes a lot – far more than male actors. This creates a situation of institutionalized sexual discrimination. It’s not that no actress ever happily and willingly filmed one of those scenes. It’s that very few (who, other than Julia Roberts?) manage to choose not to do those scenes and still have a great career. It’s not that women don’t have any other choice for how they can earn their living. It’s that they should have the option to work in film without facing special requirements their male counterparts don’t. Imagine being unable to get a promotion in your field of, say, telecommunications, without letting your bosses photograph you naked, and you begin to see a glimmer of what actresses go through. And the guys you work with get to skip that step.
This is wrong. And a lot of what happens to actresses in porn is equally wrong. The consequences can even be worse, given that commercial porn has gotten so hardcore that it seems likely actresses are being physically damaged for it. I know that link’s not the best source in the world, but when I searched the engines for links about women/actresses being hurt in porn, all I got were links salaciously offering to show me women being hurt in a sexual context. That says a lot, right there. (I got the Gail Dines link from Reddit Feminisms.) [ETA: a better link here.]
I have a problem with all that, and if it causes you to label me anti-porn, whatever. But you should also label me anti-film, I guess, since because I think both Hollywood and the porn industry are fully capable of providing fair working conditions for women but all too frequently don’t, my feelings on both industries and their treatment of actual women are pretty much identical.
Which brings us to the content of porn. As you know if you read this site, I object to a lot of mainstream movie content that I consider misogynistic. I feel the same way about porn. I have a problem with misogynist content wherever I find it. That said, I see the potential value of porn as sexual fantasies on screen, if the industry would (1) look after the well-being of actors better and (2) offer at least some non-misogynistic and midandrist content to balance out the misogyny. That certainly makes me anti-porn industry – at least the mainstream commercial industry as it is now. But then again, I feel pretty much the same way about Hollywood’s attitudes toward (simulated) sex.
I also see a desperate need for some realistic media representation of sex and sexuality (which some people would consider part of porn – I personally do not, but I’m including it to be complete). Perhaps some parts of the world are luckier, but in the US, we’re all caught between (1) people who refuse to talk about sex because that’s dirty, (2) people who blither on about it but actually don’t have a clue what they’re talking about and (3) porn, the most readily available of which is misleading about sex and the human body to say the least.
But perhaps one of the most puzzling aspects of the “pro-porn” position to me has always been that its proponents often see themselves as anti-prudery. I don’t get this, because porn conflates rape and sex even more frequently than religion. And that’s the most prudish belief anyone could harbor: to see sex as something so ungodly ugly and vile, that you can’t distinguish it from a form of torture.
One commenter at the above-linked Alternet article says: “I would say that we should be more worried about a sex-negative culture and attitude that has hijacked our society, necessitating porn.” That sounds good on the surface, but it actually misses the point. Prudishness does not force people to seek out porn; it encourages them to obsess on sex, because that’s what our brains do when you tell us something is forbidden. It’s the obsession with sex, fed by both prudishness and pornography, that causes a lot of problems both for individuals and for our culture in general.
Prudishness and porn both need to get out of our way, because both forms of sex-obsession are frankly just not merited. Sex is something that some people do (not all). It ranges from great to extremely disappointing. Sometimes the participants are gorgeous, but most often they’re just ordinary-looking. Sometimes there are yucky smells. Sometimes there are rude sounds. Sometimes it involves certain numbers and types of partners, other times it involves other configurations. Sex never involves seriously or deliberately hurting someone (outside of a safe BDSM environment).
Truth is, sex is just not that important, in the final analysis.
And that, ultimately, is why I don’t see much difference between porn, mainstream media and organized religion: they’re all just trying to manipulate us by generating an obsession with sex and then preying on it.
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Great post!
I would characterize my position more as being anti-bad-porn or anti-mysoginist-porn. Similar to my stance on prostitution.
In fact, I recently saw the documentary “Graphic sexual horror” about a bdsm porn site whose producer at least skirted the borders of consensuality. I think the documentary does a great job of both presenting what happened and not taking a position. Some scenes are very uncomfortable, and not because of the actual practices, but because of the connotation that here, limits were disregarded. At the same time, the film argued that porn is still a reasonably safe way for lower-class women to earn a lot of money, safer than stripping or prostitution, at least.
And yet, mainstream porn has taken so much from niche porn; you can find quite a number of fetishes in mainstream films nowadays, and so-called “rough sex” certainly feels ubiquitous. And in the age of the internet, anybody is constantly barraged with these images, you can get them anywhere and everywhere. I don’t think you can argue it doesn’t have an impact when even a 14-year-old pupil of mine showed me some scat porn on his mobile (it was done as a prank, with bad consequences for him).
The problem is, I don’t know how much in a porn film is really consensual. There was a film company in Poland (I think) that used regular models for hardcore bdsm (e.g. extreme caning). The models did it for the money and nothing else. They had no fun getting their bums beat, and with no experience in bdsm, did they know what they were getting into? Could they really make informed decisions to do this? On the other hand, these films were mostly presented as straight punishment scenes, there was no obvious misogyny like in many mainstream flicks – and still, do you know what happened off-camera?
In the end, I won’t condemn porn, per se. There are great independent porn flicks where you actually see the chemistry between the actors. And there are sites like Kink where at least it seems clear enough that the women are treated well.
Is porn really that different from other jobs? From modeling, or acting in mainstream fare? From working at a diner and having the guests ogle at you? At least in porn, women can hold positions of power, i.e. open their own studios, direct their own films, etc.
Though I agree on the realism issue. Just like life is not like life in Hollywood movies, sex is not like porn.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
Brava. I’ve had trouble articulating why the pro-porn activists sometimes really bother me and sometimes have excellent points, and this post, yes. Yes, exactly. Prudishness and porn go together. YES.
Vee(Quote) (Reply)
I remember reading something by Gloria Steinem in which she said that you might very well feel attracted to something and know, at the same time, that in a more egalitarian society you would be more likely *not* to feel attracted by it. That’s how I feel about pornography. I do like porn, inasmuch as I watch porn and feel aroused by it, though on the other hand I know some of the things that I enjoy seeing on screen are wrong from a moral/feminist/egalitarian point of view. And I suppose that makes me a typical viewer, as I can easily imagine that this is precisely the attitude that porn film makers trade on.
Not so long ago, I used to think in the simplistic “pro-porn is anti-prudery” way you describe, and one of the things that made me change my mind was that when I read stories written by actresses themselves (such as Raffaella Anderson and Ovidie, both French) I realized that even the most pro-porn of them had more contrasted views than mine — and they obviously knew the industry better than I do.
Though I’ve been a feminist (at least in theory) for a long time, I’m only beginning to realize that if I enjoy seeing women demeaned on-screen, it’s only because I’ve been educated to enjoy it, not because being an inferior being would turn me on. Apparently, one-third of mainstream porn viewers are women. I don’t know how serious these figures are, but it wouldn’t surprise me were they accurate. We (women porn watchers) do enjoy it: we’ve been taught to.
In the end, I don’t know what to think, really. I think the personal definitely is political, but how do you suppress or change your own desires? It’s a very long process and you have to be very steadfast to undertake it.
Adamantine(Quote) (Reply)
if I enjoy seeing women demeaned on-screen, it’s only because I’ve been educated to enjoy it, not because being an inferior being would turn me on. Apparently, one-third of mainstream porn viewers are women. I don’t know how serious these figures are, but it wouldn’t surprise me were they accurate. We (women porn watchers) do enjoy it: we’ve been taught to.
I disagree; not that it makes much difference, but I don’t think the case is so easy. Not all porn demeans women. Not all women watch demeaning porn, not all who watch demeaning porn like the demeaning part, not all who like it have been taught to do so by society (or at least I don’t think one can prove one way or the other).
Why doesn’t it make much difference? Because if you think demeaning porn is wrong, then it doesn’t matter why people watch it. It’s part of human successes that we managed to seperate ourselves from our baser instincts, at least partially, so fighting our own lizard brain is absolutely possible.
I see a different problem, though. Not with porn that demeans women. To me, the problem is twofold: porn that demeans the actresses, not the characters, i.e. the production is demeaning, not the product on screen; and porn that demeans women without knowing what it does and what that might lead to. That means that I think a consensual, play-acted denigration scene can be done, if the producers know that there is a context to such a scene.
Just like I don’t argue against all films where a woman is the victim of a crime, but against those who employ this unthinkingly, naively.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
I just followed your second link, and I do have an issue:
I would have to dig into some old notes or look the studies up again, but as far as I know, the most that could be said is that scientists disagree about the exact implication of media on aggression, not least of all because of the way aggression is sometimes measured and the question whether those measures actually translate into real-world behavior. And looking at crime stats doesn’t bring up any strong correlation with, say, the rise of video games or internet porn, either, which makes me doubt this assertion.
I’m also hesitant about the other points, at least the way they are presented there, as mere assertions. It’s perfectly possible she explained those ideas elsewhere, though, and I don’t have anything to back up my skepticism, either, other than a vague feeling of unrest whenever I see statements encompassing all situations and all the people always.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
When I was overcoming the prudery I was raised in (extreme fundie religion), I listened to teenage sex and addiction call in show. To keep the interest up, they had high profile guests on like (apparently fairly major) porn stars, music bands, plastic surgeons, etc. What really stuck with me that one of the porn actresses said, was that what is filmed is optimized to look good, not necessairly to feel good. She said it over and over again, but especially in response to a young male calling in to ask how something was done that he had seen, that as he was describing was not safe for the woman.
I thought it was a very interesting point – many people are getting their ideas, education, and visual reinforcements about sex from images designed not from what feels good but from looks visually appealing, and then consciously or unconsciously, imitating it. That’s one reason I have for being concerned about the way that porn is created and used in our society.
On the other hand, while porn is not interesting to me (I am not personally visually stimulated) I once had a boyfriend suggest it to me and very carefullt watch it with me to help me get past some lingering fear of the very natural activity of sex. I wouldn’t have had the extra fear if not for the extreme prudishness of my childhood, but given that, the vanilla porn did help. *shrug* It’s complicated.
Firebird(Quote) (Reply)
I was only linking in reference to her remarks on the harm actresses had suffered, not the whole article. And I did mention it wasn’t the best source even for that, but I had little choice since Google just wanted to show me violent porn.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Another vile way porn damages women and healthy sexual practices is the childification of porn, in which porn actresses over the age of 18 are made to look much, much younger, often in scenarios involving them losing their virginity to men in positions of power like teachers, coaches, and fathers. It’s imitation child pornography. And not only that, but most of the time it portrays the girls as the seekers of the sex, taking any responsibility away from the viewer and predator alike. Because she literally “asked for it.”
The essay I read about that was the most difficult part of the 85 page honors thesis I wrote on the ways in which Disney heroines are bad role models (and that Miyazaki’s make a pretty good alternative).
Anne(Quote) (Reply)
I read the alternet interview and realized they go into this briefly, mentioning it’s a sort of “gateway drug” into actual child pornography as well. Ugh.
Anne(Quote) (Reply)
…and I absolutely don’t want to say that actresses don’t suffer harm or experience a harassing environment.
I’m still pondering your point, too, about porn working in concert with prudishness. I never thought about it this way, which makes it a little hard to do now, but it’s a good point and the conclusions might be some I’m not comfortable with, so I don’t want to risk simply disagreeing with it because I don’t like what it meant.
As I said, thanks a lot for writing this.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
but is it? Or is it a safe way to explore fantasies, is part of the attraction that the women are verifiably not underage, and not children?
I would agree that some ephebophiles watch this kind of porn, but again, the actresses are not underage. On the other hand, I’m not sure I agree that ephebophilia or pedophilia can be “contracted”, that an adult would grow to become a pedophile from reading pedophilic stories or watching (fake) porn.
And might this not even be an outlet for the poor people who feel that attraction and try hard not to follow up on it?
It’s a murky issue; I think it’s definitely possible to learn behaviour from films, i.e. role models. But learning about what turns you on? I don’t know. Are threesomes in porn a gateway drug to becoming bisexual or homosexual? And while that sounds silly, maybe it does raise the possibility of trying things with people of the same gender, maybe it does serve as a starting point for some.
Hm.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
I base my opinions on two 2003 books by researchers, in which they state, among other things, that by this time researchers have reached consensus (the exceptions are people like Friedman who don’t actually do research in this area). It is possible they wouldn’t phrase things exactly the same way I did (science is like that), but I think I’m reflecting what they wrote.
My opinions are of course biased by my own experiences as a researcher (I have a rough idea what science can and can’t do), my experience as a child trafficked into prostitution and what I learned about attitudes there, what I’ve learned about healthy behaviour while recovering, and my experiences as an acting student, plus some autistic pedantry thrown in for good measure. Most people come at this subject from a somewhat different angle – I think my experiences are an unusual combination.
I would definitely be interested in people’s reactions to the two books I cite. I discuss them elsewhere on my film blog: The 11 Myths of Media Violence by James Potter, and I can’t remember the other longer more detailed one’s title.
I should say, though, that I was *surprised* to find sexualization and violentization linked by researchers. I thought they were separate issues.
For the record, I have no problem with erotica produced by people for free. I only have problems with it when it’s a paid job, because of how money can distort consent, and content.
Anemone(Quote) (Reply)
Anemone: I think that this really is an area with great emotional investments, and where books even by scientists can reflect a one-sided view. I haven’t read the Potter, but in Germany we have our major proponent who always comes up regarding computer game violence and similar topics, and he has a lot of dissenters that never get heard. I know Spitzer is cautious about media violence, and Neil Postman probably is.
Here’s a forum comment I once wrote about computer games, specifically; my comments are German, but I cite several studies, which are English.
The Skeptical Inquirer had a similar article: “Violent Video Games: Dogma, Fear and Pseudoscience” in their issue 33.5 by Christopher Ferguson.
I don’t see why this should not be transferable to pornography. And especially with this being such an ideologically charged issue, I haven’t seen the kind of consensus I would like to see here.
After all, I rarely see scientists standing up against violent or pornographical books, and I wonder how much of it is just part of the woes of progress? Goethe had a book in the late 1700s where people claimed he was responsible for teen suicides, but nowadays books just aren’t “in” anymore. Nowadays it’s films and games and, with the internet, ubiquitous pornography (and films and games).
Not to say there’s no effect; Bandura’s Learning from Role-Models does suggest there are learning effects. But is the solution condemnation or education? And how large and harmful is that effect?
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
Wow. And re-reading my own forum comment, it turns out those studies are pro aggression. Heh. And I seem to remember (now) that I got convinced by the SI article. Give me a minute to get that, but these links more support your idea.
From the SI article:
»Friedman found about 200 studies in his 2002 review (including non-peer-reviewed studies) which were about evenly divided between those that did and those that did not find effects« (on violent behavior).
»Summations of the research on video game violence find that they have either no effect or only very weak effects on aggression. Data from youth-violence statistics reveal that the explosion in popularity of video games, including those with violence, has clearly not produced a youth-violence epidemic, as your violence has declined precipituously during the same period.«
Mentioned analyses:
Anderson, C (2004): an update on the effects of playing violent video games. Journal of Adolescence 27 (1), 113-122.
Ferguson, CJ (2007): Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature. A meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 12 (4), 470-482.
Ferguson, CJ and Kilburn, J (2009): The public health risks of media violence: a meta-analytic review. Journal of pediatrics 154 (5), 759-763.
Mitrofan, Paul, Spencer (2009): Is aggression in children with behavioral and emotional difficulties associated with television viewing and video game playing? A systematic review. Child: Care, Health and Development 35 (1): 5-15.
Sherry (2007): Violent video games and aggression: why can’t we find links? In Preis, Gayle, Burrell, Allen, Bryant: Mass Media Effects Research: Advances through Meta-Analysis (pp. 231-248)
Just the same, if porn had an aggressive effect, I would expect the rise of the internet to coincide with a rise in violent crimes, or maybe specifically rape crimes, since not only are a lot of people now very easily subjected to porn, but mainstream porn has become if anything, then more violent, more misgynist. AFAIK, crime rates don’t go up, however, and I wonder why – if the effect is real and large, then something else must work against them going up, and I have no idea what that might be, so perhaps the effect is small or nonexistent?
And yet, in theory, there could be an effect. Hrm. As I said, I think it’s murky.
Plus, it’s quite possible that those video game things don’t that much transfer to porn.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
It is a murky issue. I’d recommend reading the essay on it. I found it in this book: http://newarrivals.nlb.gov.sg/itemdetail.aspx?bid=13188471
I would definitely not posit that any person that watches this variety of porn is automatically a predator, wrong, or on the way to being into child pornography. I just don’t know enough about it to do anything but mention that the article says that
The essay kind of details how there has been this transition into younger and younger looking actresses and I wouldn’t be able to go into with any mastery of the subject.
I think porn can be a great thing and a not so great thing due to a lot of factors. I’ve read another article on porn in Japan, and if I remember correctly the conclusion was that the abundance of hentai and fetish porn, including childified women, may be helping to lower sex violence and abuse irl.
And yes, I think that many porn fetishes would probably be a great way to explore fantasies one wouldn’t pursue irl.
Also, I always forget that word though I know pedophile doesn’t apply to teens. Ephebophilia is the attraction to teens, right? (looked it up, right, adolescents 15-19 generally).
Anne(Quote) (Reply)
I’m pretty much with you about sex not being a big deal. I mean, it’s a fun thing, and it is–for a lot of people–a basic instinct like eating, but we tie it into a lot of ideas about success or failure, shame or glory, that really make very little sense.
As far as porn content goes…I’m with the author of The True Porn Clerk Diaries : not all porn demeans women, but some does. With some, that’s the point–and while I’m all YKIOK about humiliation fetishes, the fact that a lot of the misogynistic content isn’t “tagged” as fetish stuff freaks me out.
I mean, I don’t particularly want to see or read about disappointing sex, sex with gross sounds, or sex between ordinary people (one of the reasons I don’t watch mainstream porn is that the guys are *stunningly* ugly in most cases): my media consumption tends very much toward the escapism/fantasy angle, particularly the media involving sex. However, the assumption that women in a standard straight fantasy must be unwilling/reluctant/demeaned is offputting, to say the least.
I would also really, really like to see more workplace standards for porn, and sex work in general. Not that other kinds of employment don’t also suck–heh–as far as treating people right…
…okay, it’s 11 AM and I already need a drink.
Isabel C.(Quote) (Reply)
not all porn demeans women, but some does. With some, that’s the point–and while I’m all YKIOK about humiliation fetishes, the fact that a lot of the misogynistic content isn’t “tagged” as fetish stuff freaks me out.
Oh, yes! Well put.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
To both Patrick and Anemone:
Just tossing this in: according to the profilers I read, pretty much ALL serial killers have a nice big stash of porn – sometimes niche stuff that’s particularly violent. Serial killers don’t suddenly decide one day, “I think I will kill people – it sounds like fun, and I’m confident I won’t get caught.” They work up to it, using fantasy and real-life practice to get there.
Most of them have sexual components to their crimes, and the pattern of escalation is so reliable it can be used in profiles: they start out fantasizing and/or watching porn, then they start acting out their violent sex fantasies with partners or prostitutes, then if that’s not enough (and for some would-be killers, it is), they start preying on victims.
So the idea of a strong link there makes sense to me. We may not understand exactly how it works, but it looks to me like people already prone to violent behavior use sexually violent media to fuel their urges.
NOTE: What I’ve read about this is US and UK based research. Could it work differently in Japan because of cultural differences? Quite possibly, for all I know.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Jennifer, I don’t doubt that at all.
But is this about violent people searching for violent media, or violent media making people violent? It’s the cause and effect question.
As far as I know, there’s no such thing as catharsis, so watching violence doesn’t make your violent urges go away. You might be able to choose violent media to substitute becoming violent yourself, but that would have to be a conscious choice, just watching it won’t help. And it’s possible these media will even enhance your urges.
But do they make you into a (sex) criminal? I’ve played some violent video games, I’ve watched some slasher films, I’ve read some horror fiction and I’ve consumed quite an amount of bdsm pornography, and yet even my fantasies are more or less consensual.
But I certainly don’t want to argue that there aren’t reasons for people not to like porn; nowadays, I’m not much of a porn watcher, myself.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
Reported incidences of sexual violence in Japan, you mean.
Japan has no laws protecting the privacy of rape victims, a six month statute of limitations on reporting rape, the victim must prove that s/he attempted to resist the rape, and only really forceful rape is considered rape. Victims of domestic abuse are encouraged to remain silent, to “save face”.
Just because the stereotype of Japan is a bunch of passive salarimen doesn’t make it so. Rape, sexual violence, and domestic abuse are prevalent as much as it is in the States.
That attitudes that lead to sexual violence are being challenged or mitigated at all should not be credited to the porn industry, but the humanity of the men and women who were trying to do something about changing those attitudes.
Lux(Quote) (Reply)
If you have developed empathy/conscience, *nothing* can turn you into someone who feels the urge to go around hurting people. People with empathy *notice* when they’re becoming desensitized, and back off the desensitizing influence. This is why I kinda doubt Gail Dines’ conclusions. I think someone who keeps watching porn until he’s lost the ability to appreciate ordinary sex or romantic relationships must have already had some kind of sex-related issues that kept him from backing off when porn started to interfere with his real life. (ETA: I’m not saying THIS person is on his way to becoming a predator, either. Could just have some big sex hang-ups, which are sadly easy to develop in societies where double messages about sex abound.)
Violent or wannabe-violent people definitely go searching for violent media to fuel their desires. Profilers don’t talk about the violent media escalating their desires. It’s more a tool that enables them to escalate their desires.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Fair enough.
Also, I may just start to believe in God again because I want to blame someone for making things so complicated. Why can’t issues be black or white? Why can’t humans be perfect and consistent? Why can’t there be just one good value we all hold dear?
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
@Lux–I couldn’t get the reply button to function.
Seriously? Oh. That’s troubling. I mean, I certainly knew there was violence and that that stereotype of Japanese is false (being an anime fan I’m more prone to imagining school girls and blue hair, gothic lolitas and those stereotypes anyway), but I had no idea there were no privacy laws and everything else.
I guess really what I should do is stop bringing up barely-remembered essays. I fail like that.
Thanks for the insight.
And the last paragraph is so true. I was falling prey to the correlation/causation thing, and not even with (any) facts to back my assumptions. Thanks.
Anne(Quote) (Reply)
That Altnet interview gave me nightmares about anal prolapse (and I have a weird trigger when it comes to guys who like hetero buttsex…I start freaking out and denouncing them for it and I feel as if I can never properly articulate why, I end up saying “it’s unnecessary/women don’t have prostates so they can’t enjoy it/I had a traumatic experience with an enema when I was younger so I don’t like it” and they insist “BUT THEY LIKE IT IN PORN AND MY GIRLFRIEND DOESN’T COMPLAIN SO IT MUST BE OKAY!”…*sigh* I don’t know what I’m trying to say here).
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
I don’t see the marketing of very young women in porn as a niche category, really, and I think that’s the problem. I feel like it’s pretty much the mainstream. While I questioned a lot of what was in that AlterNet article, I feel her most important point was that stuff which was once hardcore, niche, fetish material is now mainstream. It made me think about how the dirty magazines I used to find as a kid in the 90s were so much more consensual, so much less hateful and brutal than the stuff I encounter today on the Internet without even meaning to look for it. Mainstream porn– the stuff that I encounter either by accident or during a rare actual effort to find decent porn, anyway– seems to normalize ephebophilia, among other things. Everything is “BARELY LEGAL” this and “JAILBAIT” that. I feel like society at large, even, is always giving a wink and a nudge to men who want to have sex with underaged girls.
I would like to think that someone who isn’t into ageplay or underaged girls would just avoid that sort of porn, but I think it’s a lot more complicated than that when “regular” culture is always implicitly condoning the sexualization of young girls at the same time as porn culture is aggressively pushing “jailbait” pornography. I mean, at this point, I imagine a lot of men might have wondered was wrong with them that they weren’t counting down to the day of the Olsen twins’ eighteenth birthday with everyone else.
I didn’t think the point of the AlterNet article was that “ALL PORN IS BAD, MEDIA VIOLENCE IS HARMFUL” so much as “This is the kind of stuff that young people find when they search for porn, and it is much more hardcore than it used to be.” I do wonder what the effects are if you’re an 11-year-old today and the first message you receive about what is “sexy” is today’s hateful mainstream porn. To me, that’s different than playing a video game where you shoot cops, because kids are taught from an early age that that’s wrong. It’s not so much that I worry looking at violence will make them become violent, but in a society like ours, how long is it going to take before someone sits them down and says “Making women feel good is sexy. Consensual sex is sexy. Humiliating and hurting women is not sexy”? If it ever happens at all? (Of course, I’m not saying that consensual humiliation/pain fantasies aren’t okay, but I don’t think a kid presented with today’s brutal mainstream porn is going know to make that distinction.)
Savannah(Quote) (Reply)
Excellent article! I’ve avoided mentioning porn here for many of the same reason you have. I ”especially” agree with your point that people aren’t always talking about the same thing – the porn industry just in America is far more varied than the Hollywood industry, exponentially so due to low production costs and internet-based distribution.
There are a few points I’d like to make, though.
Gail Dines is not a reliable authority. She lies. A lot. I found her work engrossing at first, but watching one of her presentations two things flipped my suspicion sensors due to how they conflicted with what I had already learned studying the American porn industry:
She claimed that “gonzo” porn is essentially defined by the work of Max Hardcore, which is absurd. Hardcore’s work was very niche, especially when compared to the work of John Stagliano, widely recognized as the most significant producer of gonzo porn. Hardcore’s work is repulsive, Stagliano’s far less so. This is in keeping with the Dines’s pattern of presenting the more extreme fringes of porn as the mainstream.
The third one was the one that made me stop the video, and I could not finish it until I had taken time to calm down. It’s a position that Dines has articulated several times, essentially boiling down to: the consent of female performers in porn is not legitimate. However much they have have consented initially, “something changes” on the set, and their consent is voided. (Apparently consent is a warranty and not an ongoing process.)
Dines quite simply tells female performers that they have been raped, and she, not they, is the arbiter of that fact. I’ve read a number of blogs by female performers full of a great deal of rage at Dines over this.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Er, sorry, that “especially” in the second sentence was supposed to be italicized and thus emphasized, not in scare quotes. Comes from trying to switch between different websites with different typey protocols.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
I’d really like to see the article she cited in regards not to rape of female performers, but of physical damage they had to be treated for (which I find plausible, and obviously if we could see her source it would be much easier to evaluate). But I couldn’t find it online.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
–I mean, I don’t particularly want to see or read about disappointing sex, sex with gross sounds, or sex between ordinary people (one of the reasons I don’t watch mainstream porn is that the guys are *stunningly* ugly in most cases):–
It’s kind of sad that if I want to watch porn with pretty boys, I have to look for porn designed for gay men.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
So true!
Also, I’d like to see if not disappointing sex, then at least un-perfect sex, fun sex, you know, with a laugh and maybe some mishap. I don’t think that would take away the sexiness at all.
But yes, sexy men, I’m up for that.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
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