Is porn a left issue?
Blackpreacher | 13.05.2007 09:13 | Globalisation
“No woman was put on this earth to be hurt or humiliated in order to facilitate male masturbation.”
-Gail Dines quoted in Not For Sale
“When you suffer from childhood sexual abuse or were severely abused as a child, you usually repress those memories. You are unable to say, ‘I am doing this because I was abused as a child and this is all I know how to do. This is all I know how to feel.' I think a lot of the women are in denial…and they don't realize what post-traumatic stress disorder is. You either totally go a whole different direction and turn your life around and get as far away from that abuse as you can – or you re-live the experience, and a lot of these women are re-living what they know how to feel.”
- ex-porn performer Carol Smith, in Not For Sale
-Gail Dines quoted in Not For Sale
“When you suffer from childhood sexual abuse or were severely abused as a child, you usually repress those memories. You are unable to say, ‘I am doing this because I was abused as a child and this is all I know how to do. This is all I know how to feel.' I think a lot of the women are in denial…and they don't realize what post-traumatic stress disorder is. You either totally go a whole different direction and turn your life around and get as far away from that abuse as you can – or you re-live the experience, and a lot of these women are re-living what they know how to feel.”
- ex-porn performer Carol Smith, in Not For Sale
Pornography is a Left Issue
by Gail Dines and Robert Jensen
Anti-pornography feminists get used to insults from the left. Over and over we are told that we’re anti-sex, prudish, simplistic, politically naïve, diversionary, and narrow-minded. The cruder critics do not hesitate to suggest that the cure for these ailments lies in, how shall we say, a robust sexual experience.
In addition to the slurs, we constantly face a question: Why do we “waste” our time on the pornography issue? Since we are anti-capitalist and anti-empire leftists as well as feminists, shouldn’t we focus on the many political, economic, and ecological crises (war, poverty, global warming, etc.)? Why would we spend part of our intellectual and organizing energies over the past two decades pursuing the feminist critique of pornography and the sexual exploitation industry?
The answer is simple: We are anti-pornography precisely because we are leftists as well as feminists.
As leftists, we reject the sexism and racism that saturates contemporary mass-marketed pornography. As leftists, we reject the capitalist commodification of one of the most basic aspects of our humanity. As leftists, we reject corporate domination of media and culture. Anti-pornography feminists are not asking the left to accept a new way of looking at the world but instead are arguing for consistency in analysis and application of principles.
It has always seemed strange to us that so many on the left consistently refuse to engage in a sustained and thoughtful critique of pornography. All this is particularly unfortunate at a time when the left is flailing to find traction with the public; a critique of pornography, grounded in a radical feminist and left analysis that counters right-wing moralizing, could be part of an effective organizing strategy.
Left media analysis
Leftists examine mass media as one site where the dominant class attempts to create and impose definitions and explanations of the world. We know news is not neutral, that entertainment programs are more than just fun and games. These are places where ideology is reinforced, where the point of view of the powerful is articulated. That process is always a struggle; attempts to define the world by dominant classes can be, and are, resisted. The term “hegemony” is typically used to describe that always-contested process, the way in which the dominant class attempts to secure control over the construction of meaning.
The feminist critique of pornography is consistent with — and, for many of us, grows out of — a widely accepted analysis on the left of ideology, hegemony, and media, leading to the observation that pornography is to patriarchy what commercial television is to capitalism. Yet when pornography is the topic, many on the left seem to forget Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and accept the pornographer’s self-serving argument that pornography is mere fantasy.
Apparently the commonplace left insight that mediated images can be tools for legitimizing inequality holds true for an analysis of CBS or CNN, but evaporates when the image is of a woman having a penis thrust into her throat with such force that she gags. In that case, for unexplained reasons, we aren’t supposed to take pornographic representations seriously or view them as carefully constructed products within a wider system of gender, race, and class inequality. The valuable work conducted by media critics on the politics of production apparently holds no weight for pornography.
Pornography is fantasy, of a sort. Just as television cop shows that assert the inherent nobility of police and prosecutors as protectors of the people are fantasy. Just as the Horatio Alger stories about hard work’s rewards in capitalism are fantasy. Just as films that cast Arabs only as terrorists are fantasy.
All those media products are critiqued by leftists precisely because the fantasy world they create is a distortion of the actual world in which we live. Police and prosecutors do sometimes seek justice, but they also enforce the rule of the powerful. Individuals in capitalism do sometimes prosper as a result of their hard work, but the system does not provide everyone who works hard with a decent living. Some Arabs are terrorists, but that obscures both the terrorism of the powerful in white America and the humanity of the vast majority of Arabs.
Such fantasies also reflect how those in power want subordinated people to feel. Images of happy blacks on the plantations made whites feels more secure and self-righteous in their oppression of slaves. Images of contented workers allay capitalists’ fears of revolution. And men deal with their complex feelings about contemporary masculinity’s toxic mix of sex and aggression by seeking images of women who enjoy pain and humiliation.
Why do so many on the left seem to assume that pornographers operate in a different universe than other capitalists? Why would pornography be the only form of representation produced and distributed by corporations that wouldn’t be a vehicle to legitimize inequality? Why would the pornographers be the only media capitalists who are rebels seeking to subvert hegemonic systems?
Why do the pornographers get a free ride from so much of the left?
After years of facing the left’s hostility in public and print, we believe the answer is obvious: Sexual desire can constraint people’s capacity for critical reason — especially in men in patriarchy, where sex is not only about pleasure but about power.
Leftists — especially left men — need to get over the obsession with getting off.
Let’s analyze pornography not as sex, but as media. Where would that lead?
Corporate media
Critiques of the power of commercial corporate media are ubiquitous on the left. Leftists with vastly different political projects can come together to decry conglomerates’ control over news and entertainment programming. Because of the structure of the system, it’s a given that these corporations create programming that meets the needs of advertisers and elites, not ordinary people.
Yet when discussing pornography, this analysis flies out the window. Listening to many on the left defend pornography, one would think the material is being made by struggling artists tirelessly working in lonely garrets to help us understand the mysteries of sexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth; the pornography industry is just that — an industry, dominated by the pornography production companies that create the material, with mainstream corporations profiting from its distribution.
It’s easy to listen in on pornographers’ conversations — they have a trade magazine, Adult Video News. The discussions there don’t tend to focus on the transgressive potential of pornography or the polysemic nature of sexually explicit texts. It’s about — what a surprise! — profits. The magazine’s stories don’t reflect a critical consciousness about much of anything, especially gender, race, and sex.
Andrew Edmond — president and CEO of Flying Crocodile, a $20 million pornography internet company — put it bluntly: “A lot of people get distracted from the business model by [the sex]. It is just as sophisticated and multilayered as any other market place. We operate just like any Fortune 500 company.”
The production companies — from big players such as Larry Flynt Productions to small fly-by-night operators — act predictably as corporations in capitalism, seeking to maximize market-share and profit. They do not consider the needs of people or the effects of their products, any more than other capitalists. Romanticizing the pornographers makes as much sense as romanticizing the executives at Viacom or Disney.
Increasingly, mainstream media corporations profit as well. Hugh Hefner and Flynt had to fight to gain respectability within the halls of capitalism, but today many of the pornography profiteers are big corporations. Through ownership of cable distribution companies and Internet services, the large companies that distribute pornography also distribute mainstream media. One example is News Corp. owned by Rupert Murdoch.
News Corp. is a major owner of DirecTV, which sells more pornographic films than Flynt. In 2000, the New York Times reported that nearly $200 million a year is spent by the 8.7 million subscribers to DirecTV. Among News Corp.’s other media holdings are the Fox broadcasting and cable TV networks, Twentieth Century Fox, the New York Post, and TV Guide. Welcome to synergy: Murdoch also owns HarperCollins, which published pornography star Jenna Jameson’s best-selling book How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.
When Paul Thomas accepted his best-director award at the pornography industry’s 2005 awards ceremony, he commented on the corporatization of the industry by joking: “I used to get paid in cash by Italians. Now I get paid with a check by a Jew.” Ignoring the crude ethnic references (Thomas works primarily for Vivid, whose head is Jewish), his point was that what was once largely a mob-financed business is now just another corporate enterprise.
How do leftists feel about corporate enterprises? Do we want profit-hungry corporative executives constructing our culture?
Commodification
It’s long been understood on the left that one of the most insidious aspects of capitalism is the commodification of everything. There is nothing that can’t be sold in the capitalist game of endless accumulation.
In pornography, the stakes are even higher; what is being commodified is crucial to our sense of self. Whatever a person’s sexuality or views on sexuality, virtually everyone agrees it is an important aspect of our identity. In pornography, and in the sex industry more generally, sexuality is one more product to be packaged and sold.
When these concerns are raised, pro-pornography leftists often rush to explain that the women in pornography have chosen that work. Although any discussion of choice must take into consideration the conditions under which one chooses, we don’t dispute that women do choose, and as feminists we respect that choice and try to understand it.
But, to the best of our knowledge, no one on the left defends capitalist media — or any other capitalist enterprise — by pointing out workers consented to do their jobs. The people who produce media content, or any other product, consent to work in such enterprises, under varying constraints and opportunities. So what? The critique is not of the workers, but of the owners and structure.
Look at the industry’s biggest star, Jenna Jameson, who appears to control her business life. However in her book she reports that she was raped as a teenager and describes the ways in which men in her life pimped her. Her desperation for money also comes through when she tried to get a job as a stripper but looked too young — she went into a bathroom and pulled off her braces with pliers. She also describes drug abuse and laments the many friends in the industry she lost to drugs. And this is the woman said to have the most power in the pornography industry.
As we understand left analysis, the focus isn’t on individual decisions about how to survive in a system that commodifies everything and takes from us meaningful opportunities to control our lives. It’s about fighting a system.
Racism
As the most blatant and ugly forms of racism have disappeared from mainstream media, leftists have continued to point out that subtler forms of racism endure, and that their constant reproduction through media is a problem. Race matters, and media depictions of race matter.
Pornography is the one media genre in which overt racism is still acceptable. Not subtle, coded racism, but old-fashioned U.S. racism — stereotypical representations of the black male stud, the animalistic black woman, the hot Latina, the demure Asian geisha. Pornography vendors have a special category, “interracial,” which allows consumers to pursue the various combinations of racialized characters and racist scenarios.
The racism of the industry is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. In an interview with the producer of the DVD “Black Bros and Asian Ho’s,” one of us asked if he ever was criticized for the racism of such films. He said, “No, they are very popular.” We repeated the question: Popular, yes, but do people ever criticize the racism? He looked incredulous; the question apparently had never entered his mind.
Yet take a tour of a pornography shop, and it’s clear that racial justice isn’t central to the industry. Typical is the claim of “Black Attack Gang Bang” films: “My mission is to find the cutest white honeys to get Gang Banged by some hard pipe hitting niggas straight outta compton!” It would be interesting to see a pro-pornography leftist argue to a non-white audience that such films are unrelated to the politics of race and white supremacy.
Up-market producers such as Vivid use mainly white women; the official face of pornography is overwhelmingly white. However, alongside this genre there exists more aggressive material in which women of color appear more frequently. As one black woman in the industry told us, “This is a racist business,” from how she is treated by producers to pay differentials to the day-to-day conversations she overhears on the set.
Sexism
Contemporary mass-marketed heterosexual pornography — the bulk of the market for sexually explicit material — is one site where a particular meaning of sex and gender is created and circulated. Pornography’s central ideological message is not hard to discern: Women exist for the sexual pleasure of men, in whatever form men want that pleasure, no matter what the consequences for women. It’s not just that women exist for sex, but that they exist for the sex that men want.
Despite naïve (or disingenuous) claims about pornography as a vehicle for women’s sexual liberation, the bulk of mass-marketed pornography is incredibly sexist. From the ugly language used to describe women, to the positions of subordination, to the actual sexual practices themselves — pornography is relentlessly misogynistic. As the industry “matures” the most popular genre of films, called “gonzo,” continues to push the limits of degradation of, and cruelty toward, women. Directors acknowledge they aren’t sure where to take it from the current level.
This misogyny is not an idiosyncratic feature of a few fringe films. Based on three studies of the content of mainstream video/DVD pornography over the past decade, we conclude that woman-hating is central to contemporary pornography. Take away every video in which a woman is called a bitch, a cunt, a slut, or a whore, and the shelves would be nearly bare. Take away every DVD in which a woman becomes the target of a man’s contempt, and there wouldn’t be much left. Mass-marketed pornography doesn’t celebrate women and their sexuality, but instead expresses contempt for women and celebrates the charge of expressing that contempt sexually.
Leftists typically reject crude biological explanations for inequality. But the story of gender in pornography is the story of biological determinism. A major theme in pornography is that women are different from men and enjoy pain, humiliation, degradation; they don’t deserve the same humanity as men because they are a different kind of creature. In pornography, it’s not just that women want to get fucked in degrading fashion, but that they need it. Pornography ultimately tells stories about where women belong — underneath men.
Most leftists critique patriarchy and resist the system of male dominance. Gender is one of those arenas of struggle against domination, and hence an arena of ideological struggle. Put an understanding of media together with feminist arguments for sexual equality, and you get the anti-pornography argument.
The need for a consistent analysis of power
Leftists who otherwise pride themselves on analyzing systems and structures of power, can turn into extreme libertarian individualists on the subject of pornography. The sophisticated, critical thinking that underlies the best of left politics can give way to simplistic, politically naïve, and diversionary analysis that leaves far too many leftists playing cheerleader for an exploitive industry. In those analyses, we aren’t supposed to examine the culture’s ideology and how it shapes people’s perceptions of their choices, and we must ignore the conditions under which people live; it’s all about an individual’s choice.
A critique of pornography doesn’t imply that freedom rooted in an individual’s ability to choose isn’t important, but argues instead that these issues can’t be reduced to that single moment of choice of an individual. Instead, we have to ask: What is meaningful freedom within a capitalist system that is racist and sexist?
Leftists have always challenged the contention of the powerful that freedom comes in accepting one’s place in a hierarchy. Feminists have highlighted that one of the systems of power that constrains us is gender.
We contend that leftists who take feminism seriously must come to see that pornography, along with other forms of sexualized exploitation — primarily of women, girls and boys, by men — in capitalism is inconsistent with a world in which ordinary people can take control of their own destinies.
That is the promise of the left, of feminism, of critical race theory, of radical humanism — of every liberatory movement in modern history.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gail Dines is a professor of American Studies at Wheelock College in Boston. She can be reached at
gdines@wheelock.edu.
Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
They are co-authors with Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Both also are members of the interim organizing committee of the National Feminist Antipornography Movement. For more information, contact
feministantipornographymovement@yahoo.com or go to
http://feministantipornographymovement.org
by Gail Dines and Robert Jensen
Anti-pornography feminists get used to insults from the left. Over and over we are told that we’re anti-sex, prudish, simplistic, politically naïve, diversionary, and narrow-minded. The cruder critics do not hesitate to suggest that the cure for these ailments lies in, how shall we say, a robust sexual experience.
In addition to the slurs, we constantly face a question: Why do we “waste” our time on the pornography issue? Since we are anti-capitalist and anti-empire leftists as well as feminists, shouldn’t we focus on the many political, economic, and ecological crises (war, poverty, global warming, etc.)? Why would we spend part of our intellectual and organizing energies over the past two decades pursuing the feminist critique of pornography and the sexual exploitation industry?
The answer is simple: We are anti-pornography precisely because we are leftists as well as feminists.
As leftists, we reject the sexism and racism that saturates contemporary mass-marketed pornography. As leftists, we reject the capitalist commodification of one of the most basic aspects of our humanity. As leftists, we reject corporate domination of media and culture. Anti-pornography feminists are not asking the left to accept a new way of looking at the world but instead are arguing for consistency in analysis and application of principles.
It has always seemed strange to us that so many on the left consistently refuse to engage in a sustained and thoughtful critique of pornography. All this is particularly unfortunate at a time when the left is flailing to find traction with the public; a critique of pornography, grounded in a radical feminist and left analysis that counters right-wing moralizing, could be part of an effective organizing strategy.
Left media analysis
Leftists examine mass media as one site where the dominant class attempts to create and impose definitions and explanations of the world. We know news is not neutral, that entertainment programs are more than just fun and games. These are places where ideology is reinforced, where the point of view of the powerful is articulated. That process is always a struggle; attempts to define the world by dominant classes can be, and are, resisted. The term “hegemony” is typically used to describe that always-contested process, the way in which the dominant class attempts to secure control over the construction of meaning.
The feminist critique of pornography is consistent with — and, for many of us, grows out of — a widely accepted analysis on the left of ideology, hegemony, and media, leading to the observation that pornography is to patriarchy what commercial television is to capitalism. Yet when pornography is the topic, many on the left seem to forget Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and accept the pornographer’s self-serving argument that pornography is mere fantasy.
Apparently the commonplace left insight that mediated images can be tools for legitimizing inequality holds true for an analysis of CBS or CNN, but evaporates when the image is of a woman having a penis thrust into her throat with such force that she gags. In that case, for unexplained reasons, we aren’t supposed to take pornographic representations seriously or view them as carefully constructed products within a wider system of gender, race, and class inequality. The valuable work conducted by media critics on the politics of production apparently holds no weight for pornography.
Pornography is fantasy, of a sort. Just as television cop shows that assert the inherent nobility of police and prosecutors as protectors of the people are fantasy. Just as the Horatio Alger stories about hard work’s rewards in capitalism are fantasy. Just as films that cast Arabs only as terrorists are fantasy.
All those media products are critiqued by leftists precisely because the fantasy world they create is a distortion of the actual world in which we live. Police and prosecutors do sometimes seek justice, but they also enforce the rule of the powerful. Individuals in capitalism do sometimes prosper as a result of their hard work, but the system does not provide everyone who works hard with a decent living. Some Arabs are terrorists, but that obscures both the terrorism of the powerful in white America and the humanity of the vast majority of Arabs.
Such fantasies also reflect how those in power want subordinated people to feel. Images of happy blacks on the plantations made whites feels more secure and self-righteous in their oppression of slaves. Images of contented workers allay capitalists’ fears of revolution. And men deal with their complex feelings about contemporary masculinity’s toxic mix of sex and aggression by seeking images of women who enjoy pain and humiliation.
Why do so many on the left seem to assume that pornographers operate in a different universe than other capitalists? Why would pornography be the only form of representation produced and distributed by corporations that wouldn’t be a vehicle to legitimize inequality? Why would the pornographers be the only media capitalists who are rebels seeking to subvert hegemonic systems?
Why do the pornographers get a free ride from so much of the left?
After years of facing the left’s hostility in public and print, we believe the answer is obvious: Sexual desire can constraint people’s capacity for critical reason — especially in men in patriarchy, where sex is not only about pleasure but about power.
Leftists — especially left men — need to get over the obsession with getting off.
Let’s analyze pornography not as sex, but as media. Where would that lead?
Corporate media
Critiques of the power of commercial corporate media are ubiquitous on the left. Leftists with vastly different political projects can come together to decry conglomerates’ control over news and entertainment programming. Because of the structure of the system, it’s a given that these corporations create programming that meets the needs of advertisers and elites, not ordinary people.
Yet when discussing pornography, this analysis flies out the window. Listening to many on the left defend pornography, one would think the material is being made by struggling artists tirelessly working in lonely garrets to help us understand the mysteries of sexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth; the pornography industry is just that — an industry, dominated by the pornography production companies that create the material, with mainstream corporations profiting from its distribution.
It’s easy to listen in on pornographers’ conversations — they have a trade magazine, Adult Video News. The discussions there don’t tend to focus on the transgressive potential of pornography or the polysemic nature of sexually explicit texts. It’s about — what a surprise! — profits. The magazine’s stories don’t reflect a critical consciousness about much of anything, especially gender, race, and sex.
Andrew Edmond — president and CEO of Flying Crocodile, a $20 million pornography internet company — put it bluntly: “A lot of people get distracted from the business model by [the sex]. It is just as sophisticated and multilayered as any other market place. We operate just like any Fortune 500 company.”
The production companies — from big players such as Larry Flynt Productions to small fly-by-night operators — act predictably as corporations in capitalism, seeking to maximize market-share and profit. They do not consider the needs of people or the effects of their products, any more than other capitalists. Romanticizing the pornographers makes as much sense as romanticizing the executives at Viacom or Disney.
Increasingly, mainstream media corporations profit as well. Hugh Hefner and Flynt had to fight to gain respectability within the halls of capitalism, but today many of the pornography profiteers are big corporations. Through ownership of cable distribution companies and Internet services, the large companies that distribute pornography also distribute mainstream media. One example is News Corp. owned by Rupert Murdoch.
News Corp. is a major owner of DirecTV, which sells more pornographic films than Flynt. In 2000, the New York Times reported that nearly $200 million a year is spent by the 8.7 million subscribers to DirecTV. Among News Corp.’s other media holdings are the Fox broadcasting and cable TV networks, Twentieth Century Fox, the New York Post, and TV Guide. Welcome to synergy: Murdoch also owns HarperCollins, which published pornography star Jenna Jameson’s best-selling book How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.
When Paul Thomas accepted his best-director award at the pornography industry’s 2005 awards ceremony, he commented on the corporatization of the industry by joking: “I used to get paid in cash by Italians. Now I get paid with a check by a Jew.” Ignoring the crude ethnic references (Thomas works primarily for Vivid, whose head is Jewish), his point was that what was once largely a mob-financed business is now just another corporate enterprise.
How do leftists feel about corporate enterprises? Do we want profit-hungry corporative executives constructing our culture?
Commodification
It’s long been understood on the left that one of the most insidious aspects of capitalism is the commodification of everything. There is nothing that can’t be sold in the capitalist game of endless accumulation.
In pornography, the stakes are even higher; what is being commodified is crucial to our sense of self. Whatever a person’s sexuality or views on sexuality, virtually everyone agrees it is an important aspect of our identity. In pornography, and in the sex industry more generally, sexuality is one more product to be packaged and sold.
When these concerns are raised, pro-pornography leftists often rush to explain that the women in pornography have chosen that work. Although any discussion of choice must take into consideration the conditions under which one chooses, we don’t dispute that women do choose, and as feminists we respect that choice and try to understand it.
But, to the best of our knowledge, no one on the left defends capitalist media — or any other capitalist enterprise — by pointing out workers consented to do their jobs. The people who produce media content, or any other product, consent to work in such enterprises, under varying constraints and opportunities. So what? The critique is not of the workers, but of the owners and structure.
Look at the industry’s biggest star, Jenna Jameson, who appears to control her business life. However in her book she reports that she was raped as a teenager and describes the ways in which men in her life pimped her. Her desperation for money also comes through when she tried to get a job as a stripper but looked too young — she went into a bathroom and pulled off her braces with pliers. She also describes drug abuse and laments the many friends in the industry she lost to drugs. And this is the woman said to have the most power in the pornography industry.
As we understand left analysis, the focus isn’t on individual decisions about how to survive in a system that commodifies everything and takes from us meaningful opportunities to control our lives. It’s about fighting a system.
Racism
As the most blatant and ugly forms of racism have disappeared from mainstream media, leftists have continued to point out that subtler forms of racism endure, and that their constant reproduction through media is a problem. Race matters, and media depictions of race matter.
Pornography is the one media genre in which overt racism is still acceptable. Not subtle, coded racism, but old-fashioned U.S. racism — stereotypical representations of the black male stud, the animalistic black woman, the hot Latina, the demure Asian geisha. Pornography vendors have a special category, “interracial,” which allows consumers to pursue the various combinations of racialized characters and racist scenarios.
The racism of the industry is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. In an interview with the producer of the DVD “Black Bros and Asian Ho’s,” one of us asked if he ever was criticized for the racism of such films. He said, “No, they are very popular.” We repeated the question: Popular, yes, but do people ever criticize the racism? He looked incredulous; the question apparently had never entered his mind.
Yet take a tour of a pornography shop, and it’s clear that racial justice isn’t central to the industry. Typical is the claim of “Black Attack Gang Bang” films: “My mission is to find the cutest white honeys to get Gang Banged by some hard pipe hitting niggas straight outta compton!” It would be interesting to see a pro-pornography leftist argue to a non-white audience that such films are unrelated to the politics of race and white supremacy.
Up-market producers such as Vivid use mainly white women; the official face of pornography is overwhelmingly white. However, alongside this genre there exists more aggressive material in which women of color appear more frequently. As one black woman in the industry told us, “This is a racist business,” from how she is treated by producers to pay differentials to the day-to-day conversations she overhears on the set.
Sexism
Contemporary mass-marketed heterosexual pornography — the bulk of the market for sexually explicit material — is one site where a particular meaning of sex and gender is created and circulated. Pornography’s central ideological message is not hard to discern: Women exist for the sexual pleasure of men, in whatever form men want that pleasure, no matter what the consequences for women. It’s not just that women exist for sex, but that they exist for the sex that men want.
Despite naïve (or disingenuous) claims about pornography as a vehicle for women’s sexual liberation, the bulk of mass-marketed pornography is incredibly sexist. From the ugly language used to describe women, to the positions of subordination, to the actual sexual practices themselves — pornography is relentlessly misogynistic. As the industry “matures” the most popular genre of films, called “gonzo,” continues to push the limits of degradation of, and cruelty toward, women. Directors acknowledge they aren’t sure where to take it from the current level.
This misogyny is not an idiosyncratic feature of a few fringe films. Based on three studies of the content of mainstream video/DVD pornography over the past decade, we conclude that woman-hating is central to contemporary pornography. Take away every video in which a woman is called a bitch, a cunt, a slut, or a whore, and the shelves would be nearly bare. Take away every DVD in which a woman becomes the target of a man’s contempt, and there wouldn’t be much left. Mass-marketed pornography doesn’t celebrate women and their sexuality, but instead expresses contempt for women and celebrates the charge of expressing that contempt sexually.
Leftists typically reject crude biological explanations for inequality. But the story of gender in pornography is the story of biological determinism. A major theme in pornography is that women are different from men and enjoy pain, humiliation, degradation; they don’t deserve the same humanity as men because they are a different kind of creature. In pornography, it’s not just that women want to get fucked in degrading fashion, but that they need it. Pornography ultimately tells stories about where women belong — underneath men.
Most leftists critique patriarchy and resist the system of male dominance. Gender is one of those arenas of struggle against domination, and hence an arena of ideological struggle. Put an understanding of media together with feminist arguments for sexual equality, and you get the anti-pornography argument.
The need for a consistent analysis of power
Leftists who otherwise pride themselves on analyzing systems and structures of power, can turn into extreme libertarian individualists on the subject of pornography. The sophisticated, critical thinking that underlies the best of left politics can give way to simplistic, politically naïve, and diversionary analysis that leaves far too many leftists playing cheerleader for an exploitive industry. In those analyses, we aren’t supposed to examine the culture’s ideology and how it shapes people’s perceptions of their choices, and we must ignore the conditions under which people live; it’s all about an individual’s choice.
A critique of pornography doesn’t imply that freedom rooted in an individual’s ability to choose isn’t important, but argues instead that these issues can’t be reduced to that single moment of choice of an individual. Instead, we have to ask: What is meaningful freedom within a capitalist system that is racist and sexist?
Leftists have always challenged the contention of the powerful that freedom comes in accepting one’s place in a hierarchy. Feminists have highlighted that one of the systems of power that constrains us is gender.
We contend that leftists who take feminism seriously must come to see that pornography, along with other forms of sexualized exploitation — primarily of women, girls and boys, by men — in capitalism is inconsistent with a world in which ordinary people can take control of their own destinies.
That is the promise of the left, of feminism, of critical race theory, of radical humanism — of every liberatory movement in modern history.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gail Dines is a professor of American Studies at Wheelock College in Boston. She can be reached at
![](/img/maillink.gif)
Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
![](/img/maillink.gif)
They are co-authors with Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Both also are members of the interim organizing committee of the National Feminist Antipornography Movement. For more information, contact
![](/img/maillink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Blackpreacher
Homepage:
http://www.oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html
Comments
Hide the following 9 comments
Just wanted to add some quotes;
13.05.2007 16:40
However, it is not necessary to reach definitive conclusions about the degree of pain women experience in such scenes to make one important observation. In these scenes, all three women at some point clearly appeared to a viewer to be in pain. Their facial expressions and voices conveyed that what was being done to them was causing physical discomfort and/or fear and/or distress. Given the ease with which video can be edited, why did the producers not edit out those expressions? There are two possible answers. One, they may view these kinds of expressions of pain by the women as of no consequence to the viewers’ interest, and hence of no consequence to the goal of maximizing sales; women’s pain is neutral. The second possibility is that the producers have reason to believe that viewers like the expressions of pain; women’s pain helps sales.
Given that the vast majority of those who will rent or buy these tapes are men, from that we can derive this question: Why do some men find the infliction of pain on women during sexual activity either (1) not an obstacle to their ability to achieve sexual pleasure or (2) a factor that can enhance their sexual pleasure? Phrased differently: Why are some men so callous and cruel sexually?
We live in a culture in which rape and battery continue at epidemic levels. And in this culture, men are masturbating to orgasm in front of television and computer screens that present them sex with increasing levels of callousness and cruelty toward women.
If you are a woman, ask this: Do you want to seek out such a man as a partner?
If you are a man, ask this: When seeking a woman as a partner, would you advertise that you enjoy these images?
Why not?
In a society in which so many men are watching so much pornography that is rooted in the pain and humiliation of women, it is not difficult to understand why so many can’t bear to confront it: Pornography forces men to face up to how we have learned to be sexual.
What kind of society would turn the injury and degradation of some into sexual pleasure for others? What kind of people does that make us -- the men who learn to find pleasure this way, and the women who learn to accept it?
We understand that the acquisition of that kind of physical pleasure at the expense of women also comes at the expense of our own humanity. I am not just generalizing from my own experience; this is a consistent theme in my exchanges with men, both in formal research interviews and informal conversation. When most of us strip away our sexual bravado, there is a yearning for something beyond the quick pleasures of the pornographic.
Can we men acknowledge our humanity if we find sexual pleasure in watching three men penetrate a woman orally, vaginally, and anally at the same time? Can we and live our humanity to the fullest if we find sexual pleasure in watching eight men ejaculate onto a woman’s face and into her mouth? Can we masturbate to those images and truly believe they have no effect beyond the rise and fall of our penises in that moment? Even if you believe that such sexual “fantasies” have no effect in the world outside our heads, what does that pleasure say about our humanity?
- husltingtheleft.com
###
I was getting a sense of power from watching the humiliation and degradation of the women on the screen.
I watched and heard the fake screams and I took power from their misery. I watched their faces twist for just a moment into a face of pain when they were penetrated anally; I saw it and I used it to make myself feel better. In some way I was taking their power. It was ME, it was certainly ME wielding the power over them in my mind, and it was the thought of ME taking their power on the screen that brought me to climax.
It was the power that is inherent in degrading and humiliating another human being that brought me climax. I was stealing THEIR power, taking it from them in my fantasies and on my TV. With every orgasm I was stealing the little dignity that these women had left and using it to feed my own, seriously lacking, seriously damaged, sense of power and control and self-esteem.
At the same time I hated MYSELF for using them. I hated myself for being a vampire of sorts, a kind of ‘self-esteem vampire’. A creature which was incapable of making her own self-esteem and who therefore took it from other humans. But self-esteem garnered at the expense of another human being does not, and never can, replace your own. It simply drains from your body because it never belonged to you in the first place. Power that is stolen from another person is always empty power, it never fulfills, it never leaves its mark on you for more than a few days, sometimes even a few hours.
This is the hallmark of EVERYONE I have ever met that uses pornography, males and females alike: low-self esteem and a horrible fear of being exposed as being weak. The common theme inherent in everyone that I have ever met who uses porn is low-self esteem, oftentimes depression, a sense of worthlessness, and a sense of being out of control. Porn becomes the mechanism by which these folks, males and females alike, gain control. There is an almost universal deep-rooted sense of insecurity, combined with a fear of failure. And these fears and these worries are alleviated, at least for a time, through porn.
But it’s not as simple as that because stolen power is never power and the sense of control only lasts for a little bit before the same old fears come creeping back in. The same old doubts, the same fears of failure, the same insecurities. - bitingbeaver.blogspot.com
###
HOW CAN YOU TELL WOMEN NOT TO BE IN PORN? ISN'T IT THEIR CHOICE TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT WITH THEIR BODIES?
The "choice" issue is a perennial favorite among the pro-porn set, usually deployed as a conversation-stopper. University professor Rebecca Whisnant has a great statement this one, which we'll quote first:
“We need to think and talk somewhat differently about women who participate in the sex industry. Yes, many are coerced. Many are not coerced, but their choices to participate are made under far less than ideal conditions and result in significant harm to themselves. Finally, there may be some women (a relative few, to be sure) who choose participation in the sex industry from a meaningful range of options and who experience that participation as at least tolerable, and at best empowering. Certainly there are women who report this to be true of them, and while we many often suspect that a level of denial is operative, we need not assume a priori that denial or dissociation explains every such case. Rather we can grant, at least for the sake of argument, that such cases exist. The next question is, what of it? In particular, it seems to me that a useful next question would be this: on whose backs are they having this tolerable-to-empowering experience? What are the costs to women in general, and to the overwhelming majority of prostituted women in particular, of allowing this opportunity to those few (by definition relatively privileged) women who might feely and sincerely choose it for themselves? (Not For Sale, page 24)
Okay, there are several main reasons that women get involved in porn, stripping, and prostitution. Unfortunately, no study currently exists with a pie chart of how many women fall into each category. That would actually be a big help. However, our extensive research
indicates that the following seven are the most common scenarios:
1. Childhood Sexual Abuse
A girl is molested, or raped, sometimes repeatedly, most commonly by a father or stepfather. The Department of Justice reports that 44% of rape victims were younger than 18 when assaulted. Sexually abused children are about 4 times more likely to develop a psychiatric disorder, and these typically include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, self-mutilation, or a dissociative disorder. At any rate, there is inevitably a destructive effect on the girl’s developing psyche. Survivors commonly describe feeling disconnected from their bodies and from themselves...a loss of control...unbearable shame...and confusion about sexuality.
Of course, not each and every sexual abuse survivor becomes a porn star, because that would equal 1 of every 6 American women. The numbers are that high. But researchers in the field find that frequently, survivors can directly trace their entry into porn, stripping, or prostitution back to their previous abuse. Their first sexual experiences have taught them that their primary value in life is their body and what others want to do with it. Or they learn that they are dirty little whores and they might as well live the part. As Taylor Lee, sexual abuse survivor and ex-stripper explains,
"The first time I had sex, I was raped by someone close enough to my family to call my mother 'mom.' Now, I was sure what I was for. I knew that my greatest asset was my sexuality and knew how badly it was desired. I also realized that I had little control over my sexuality, that it could be taken at will. It was easy to give it for profit; at least then I was in control." (Not For Sale, page 58)
Legendary porn performer Traci Lords recently linked a rape she experienced as a 10-year old with her underage entry into the porn industry. And America’s porn sweetheart, Jenna Jameson, has also reported several rapes during her adolescence.
Can a truly free choice be made in response to childhood trauma? We think not.
- FAQ continued @ oneangrygirl.net
blackpreacher
Homepage:
http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/
of absolute crap
13.05.2007 19:26
yes of course the capitalist system exploits people through porn and yes of course patriarchy exhibits its self in the porn industry
the capitalist system also exploits people through the provision of health care, where patriarchy is also a self evident factor, women surgeons and consultants are pretty hard to come by
so should we ban healthcare or organise against hospitals
porn is sex, sex is porn, that is all it is, people have sex, someone taking a picture of it
to be anti-porn per se is to be anti-sex, or is it ok to have sex as long as you dont take a photo or show it to anyone else
fight capitlism, fight patriarchy
do not get involved in puritan distractions like those written above, sex is great, denial of human sexuality has long been one of the biggest weapons used against us by authoritarians and it seems a new puritanism is building within the left
islam, eat your heart out, the left will be calling to ban bikinis and miniskirts next, get your burkha and your chastity belts out, it wouldnt do to offend these new moralists
yes the porn industry is exploitative and controlled by men, so is every other industry
that doesnt make taking photos of naked people wrong
what a load
Thanks for comments (sincerely)
14.05.2007 18:41
If you believe porn is sex, and if you have sex like the fantasy sceanario's portrayed in porn movies then their is little I can say to you.
Do you think there is nothing exploitative and wrong in commodifying sexuality for profit.
Do you honestly think watching eight men masturbated into a women's mouth, getting her to swallow it and call her names like 'whore' and 'slut', and then talking against the patriarchy of capitalism isn't grossly hypocrtical, then there is little I can say to you.
Please read the descriptive text of the some of the most famous porn sites ie. Bang bus and tell me it isn't something we should address as humanitarian who alledgedly care about the emotional and physical well being of women ie. Bang bus, Ass Traffic, etc.
Please look with your heart and tell me if you can view and make those videos and truly respect women, and female sexuality. Why call them 'whores', 'sluts', etc, if it is nothing to be ashamed of, and is not a deragatory act?
Please seperate porn, and Sex.
Porn is fantasy, it is no more a realistic and healthy representation of sex, as Rambo is of War, or Grand Theft Auto is of inner city Gang Life.
Just to clarify I advocate education over censorship. And please contemplate this; what is the difference between prostitution and porn?... A video camera.
No one is advocating repression of sexuality, but a repression of patriachy and material that supports the woman's role as subservient, in this case sexuality? Are they empowered, or are they dirty cum guzzling whores? Can you honestly adovcate those type of images, and words, and still say you repect women, and female sexuality?
Please do me a favour before you close your heart to the issue, please spend just one evening reading through all the articles in the following links, and tell me porn isn't a hugely exploitative industry that is rarely critisize publicly by the left.
blackpreacher
buying it
14.05.2007 20:42
to compare porn and prostitution is disengenuos, porn does not require the transfer of money to take place and amateur porn made because people, guess what, like it, is becoming increasingly popular
the arguments are competely specious, if you dont want censorship then what do you want?, what is your point, you argue for education, but what should that education comprise of, educating people out of being turned on by porn, or be turned on by appearing in porn
i have a sexually submissive side, i quite like the idea of being abused and filmed, sorry if that doesnt sit with your homogenised view of sexuality, but we all 'get off' in our own way
and we all have a right to get off in our own way as long coercion is not involved
coercion is involved in the porn industry, just like poeple are coerced into killing and dying for their country, working in unsafe or exploitative conditions and all the other aspects of repression that capitalism and authoritarianism inflicts on us
we should struggle against all of them
but to single out porn shows a misunderstanding of the nature of human sexuality
porn is not bad
porn is not morally wrong
porn is pictures of naked people or peoples having sex, that is all
coercion is wrong, oppression is wrong, abuse is wrong, but none of these things have to be present in porn
the current mass market of porn, i agree represents an unhealthy male attitude to the subjugation of women, the growing market of amateur or small scale bdsm/fetish porn does not
have a look around the net, every kink, fetish and perversion is catered for, usually by consenting adults who enjoy what they do, and why the fuck not, what kind of moralist are you to judge them
whats interesting to me is many of the same people in the new feminist anti-porn movement which seems to be happening in the UK are also the very same people who criticise muslim women for wearing the veil
the message is dont show too much, dont cover, in fact if you dontlive and look exactly like us then your religious beliefs/sexuality is to be challenged and even condemned, stalin would be proud, is this the new radical left
and though you say you oppose censorship but as i mention, you dont really actually say what you want, and your actions will not help women and men who are being exploited in the sex indusrty, but instead further villify and exclude them from political discourse
should we picket playboy mansion, hell yeah
should we condemn consenting adults for their sexual tastes, kinks and perversions
fuck no
get a grip
still not
thanks again
15.05.2007 19:28
It seems we agree basically, but are talking past each other.
The mainstream coporate marketed and produced porn and it's industry is highly exploitative, in regards to the participants, consumers and sexuality in general. I think we are both agreed on that point, correct?
My post was aimed towards the above corporate porn industry, and not towards the amateur variation that you seem to be taking it as directed towards.
What I want is an education balance to the discussion of porn, if we turn on most music channels, late night tv, advertisments, celebrities (ie. Paris Hilton), etc, we see quasi-porn and it's values promoted to us (ie. Lynx ad's, Christina Aguilera video's, late night tv). As the left is famous for pointing out that the subtle value systems portrayed in media are designed to keep as us consumers. In this case porn corporations, and it's quasi counter parts (ie. FHM) seem to have an agenda to convince us that good sex requires shopping - a gym membership, a magazine purchase, cosmetic surgery, make-up, etc. I believe the media promotes the values that make porn sell so well and remain relatively unchallenged by globalization critics in general - I believe, a balance is drastically needed.
Also I haven't 'singled out' the porn industry. Out of the thousands of articles available for search in the indymedia archives how many do you find critisizing porn? How many articles in the guardian and the independent do you find critisizing the industry? How many globalisation critics do you read lecture or write about the subject of exploitation of workers within the industry? I haven't singled out porn, I have presented something that is drastically overlooked. And like most people like me I have been labelled anti-sex for my attitude to disliking Seymore butts, Larry Flynt for telling us how to have sex, and what the ideal women looks like, and for buying such material and writng against worker exploitation, the shaping of human interaction by the media.
It was also not intended as a personal attack, I was pointing out that the marketing of corporate porn (as we both know marketing departments are very manipulative things) is directed towards making people want, and believe in this fantasy depiction of sex, and in the subserviant nature of women to men's demands as if they have no sexual autonomy of their own.
I believe it is strange that this fantasy has increasingly become intergrated as normal, I think it is extremely damaging when it comes to kids who watch it without any real sexual experience. They need to be taught that the coporate porn marketed is a fantasy and is no more a realistic depiction (again with the movie analogy) of sex as kill bill is of fighting - alot of preparation, editing and direction go into making it look that way. From pornstar belladonna ;
"You have to really prepare physically and mentally for it. I mean, I go through a process from the night before. I stop eating at 5p.m. I do, you know, like two enemas, and then the next morning I don't eat anything. It's so draining on your body."
- in Robert Jensen's "A Cruel Edge"
The factor that outrages me is the marketing aspect of it - trying to make others want and believe it. You may like and participate the power games inherent in mainstream porn, but what about the women who do not and the marketing of porn values in our society is shapign them to feel guilty and frigid for not wanting to do those things - a brief outline of corporate porn's values influrence in society from oneangrygirl...
(I have used so many bloody excerpts that people must be getting pissed by now, but anything I say someone before me as already said it better)
###
An increasingly common scenario.
Say you're an average, all-American girl, born in 1987. That makes you 18 in 2005. At age five, you watched skinny women shake their asses around in the "Baby Got Back" video, which played on MTV approximately every 15 minutes during the summer of 1992. You and your little friends copied those moves and your parents thought it was so darn cute that they got out the camcorder.
At age eleven, the Spice Girls were your idols. They showed that you could achieve Girl Power by looking hot, staying skinny, and showing lots of leg. You thought Ginger Spice was the hottest, and pleaded to dye your hair red....
...Your guy friends were all bragging about jerking off to porn, and you quickly realized that you had to act like that was no big deal. That's what all the other girls did.
By 11th grade all the girls were wearing the Playboy bunny chokers and Porn Star shirts and shorts with "Naughty" written across the ass. Guys who dated a lot of girls called themselves "pimps," and you and your friends went through a phase when you called each other "whore," as a term of affection. One of the most popular guy's dads had promised to hire him a stripper for his 18th birthday party, according to the latest rumor. You watched girls get drunk at parties and make out with each other while the guys cheered and took photos. You saw American Pie and The Girl Next Door and countless reality TV shows where women paraded around in hot pants and thong swimsuits and even wedding gowns, competing for fabulous prizes and/or husbands. Senior year, a new Hooters restaurant opened on the highway near your school and became the cool new hangout. Sometimes you ended up there with friends after the game, and your Uncle Jim hosted his 45th birthday party there.
...All of your ideas about love and sexuality have been shaped by a lifetime of semi-sleazy, exploitative experiences. But you think of them as normal, just like you think porn is a natural part of everyone’s life. ...Time and again, it's been clearly demonstrated that you, and all womankind, are really only useful for one thing. Luckily, this one thing happens to be what men will pay you top dollar for. And right now, you’re unemployed.
If you decide to become a stripper, are you really choosing freely? Or are you simply taking the next logical step in your American-girl socialization process, a track fashioned by the marketers, magazine editors, and movie producers, upon which you were placed as a young child?...
########
As for the nature of human happiness and sexual fulfillment, that is something of course that is out of the scope of this discussion... whoever you are ;-) Maybe this is one reason why neither not many anti-globalisation critics don't touch the porn industry, people accuse them of telling people not to do it doggystyle (humour ;-).
blackpreacher
Homepage:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/genderarticles.htm
mistake
15.05.2007 19:35
This should have read...
And like most people like me I have been labelled anti-sex for my attitude to disliking Seymore butts, and Larry Flynt for telling us how to have sex, and what the ideal women looks like, and for critisizing leftist men for praising such material and writing against worker exploitation by corporations, and the shaping of human interaction by the media.
#shouldn't write in a rush.
blackpreacher
still not buying it
16.05.2007 01:43
porn is not embedded in the youth culture here in the way you suggest it is in the US
the feminist and mainstream left have challenged porn many times, but it is such a muddy argument, you claim to be anti-censorship, so what is it you actually want
yes we can all say that playboy style mainstream porn is oppresive and misogynistic, but this attack is not on the corporate idealised image of women (or men for that matter) but on porn per se
which i say again, is disengenuous
what do we want, not sure, is that the clarion call of this anti-porn movement
you cant have it both ways, you cant promote freedom of sexuality and then complain when that freedom moves in a way you find distasteful, you can fight against genuine exploitation and abuse, but that does not seem to be what is being propsed here
i say again, in every industry and sphere of human life, capitalism demeans, explotis and abuses people, and the porn industry is a fine example of that in action
however to single out porn in this way and ignoring the millions of people who indulge in amateur porn, or ffs just get off on seeing pictures of naked people just doesnt cut it
perhaps the virulence of porn reflects that as human beings we are still trapped in entrenched quasi-religious viewpoints of sexuality, where the appreciation of the human form and sex is seen as somehow dirty and bad, which leads people into a deviated and exploitative view of human sexuality
i do not see how your campaign helps to stop this, yes support those who are being exploited, and target those exploiting them
but to criticise people for enjoying looking at, or participating in porn further adds imo to the puritanical mess that has made so many people worldwide so screwed up about sex and sexuality
the arguments you offer seem to be based more on the mainstream medias (and i include playboy in with the msm) attitude towards women and relationships, what is considered beauty etc
but much porn has nothing to do with that, and in fact is actively in opposition, it not politically but aesthetically towards those viewpoints
as for mainstream porn, i think you underestimate the human spirit, most people, even teenage boys see the likes of hustler for what it is and grow out of it, and go on to form intelligent and adult sexual relationships
when half the world cannot feed their children, when western and other government are slaughtering people by their hundreds of thousands, well i can understand why the left does not prioritise this issue
perhaps we should look more closely, and act quicker in cases of genuine exploitation, but porn is the tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to media representations of gender, and the more underground and amateur porn is probably doing more to subvert notions of gender and sexuality than any bunch of placard waving lefites outside porn cinemas could hope to achieve
...
guilt is bad
18.05.2007 15:38
I'd rather not use it so much, but was abused as a child & have recently been abused by women in relationships, Iam trying my best to find love.
We live in a corporate fascist state, everything is effected, much of what you say is true but if we followed your rules with everything life would stop.
Physcologically your articles attitude is just burying things deeper, is there a man or women alive who hasnt seen a naked pic & not felt turned on?
Whats wrong with that preacher?
glam
sorry for late reply. Part 1.
19.05.2007 17:20
#WARNING CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE#
Thanks for the reply glam, and please forgive my late reply. The kind of porn you appear to like I personally believe doesn’t represent the mainstream and popular in corporate porn, and my post is generally directed towards the most popular. Sorry if I caused you offence, I hope you are well.
My point is, what is turning us on and why? And what does this derived pleasure say about our humanity? Do we care about the performers in the videos that we derive pleasure from?
Seems we do disagree then, I believe porn is deeply imbedded in youth culture in Britain. Page three for instance, or look at the lads magazine’s available in almost any newsagents. I for one began watching it when I was 13 with friends via the internet and videos, I through my own self created suffering developed almost all the negative consequences derived form porn use that is reported in scientific studies. Something I now spend a great deal of time, and energy trying to neutralize, and rid myself of. My reasons for this post is to save the humanity of some who was like me, and out of empathy for the women in porn (the latter is more important to me, but the former is vital).
Most teens I knew have access to the net, and are aware how easy it is to access porn - as anyone with the net knows. FHM, Maxim etc are popular magazine among young boys, and if you are aware of the content has pornographic material within it every issue. I have seen the ’naughty’ and ’porn star’ t-shirts in retail shops, I have also seen the playboy stationary in WHSmith, I have had women turn me on by telling me I can do acts on them that I personally know come from pornography and they are only saying to ‘entice me‘. Late night, channel 4, channel 5, E4, and bravo regularly play soft-porn and ’documentaries’ around porn, and I - like many teens I knew - regularly watched. I do applaud channel 4 for their season of explore the positive and negative aspects of the porn industry though. Mobile phone corporate porn has now become commonplace too.
Women’s sexuality is time and time again displayed in this subservient manner, and sex is displayed as power games, without taking into consideration the emotional aspect of sex, and is described with selfish language. If people are ok with sex as power play and subservience (such as yourself, whoever you are), then that is cool, however some women want emotional intimacy without that during sex, and are made to feel ’frigid’ or ’inhibited’ if they don’t desire to be treated that way. They are also made to feel that way if they dislike their boyfriends watching porn and it’s quasi counterparts by being labelled anti-sex. In my opinion the fantasy of corporate porn, and the reality of contemporary sex, and the internal desires of most people has become merged very subtly.
Corporate porn promotes values that lead one to separate sex from emotional intimacy, it reduces it to body parts, and selfishness. Women are their to pleasure the men and their pleasure is only a consequence of the man’s pleasure.
Also regarding the idea that left critics don’t comment on Porn because war is more important. Leftist critics comment all kind of things from war to ecology to sweatshops. One of the things the left is most famous for is highlighting worker exploitation as a globally important issue. No Logo is a wonderful example of a passionate critique on marketing and worker exploitation, I - and I suspect - many others do not regard her work as a waste of time, and less of an educational step to healing the harm done to society by materialism than Noam Chomsky’s Understanding power.
I dislike corporate porn so much because it is the one industry where it seems exploitation, humiliation and degradation or the workers is what the product is based around.
We may grow up and disregard porn, but only after we have fed an industry that is increasing based around depicting, exploitation and degradation. After we have disregarded porn for a loving relationship, do we then acknowledge that behind the fantasy that we derived pleasure from, that someone in reality was being described and treated in a way that we wouldn’t dream of treating - or want someone else to treat - the females in our lives that we respect and love? If we do not acknowledge that fact then we have to acknowledge that any sense of compassion we have for women doesn’t extend to porn performers.
Here are some excerpts from the descriptive texts of popular sites;
###
‘For 2 years we have gone out in our van with camcorder in hand, in search for every girl's inner slut. We have driven all over the country, and over the past year, all over the world. We have returned with footage that your brain will not want to accept, but will have to. It is undeniable. It is debauchery. It is human behaviour brought to frightening lows…’
‘NEW WHORES DEGRADED EVERY WEDNESDAY! ‘
‘She stays on her knees, and proceeds to have her faced fucked by 2 of our ebony meatslingers until she's gagging and her eyes are tearing all over the place.’
‘We find a brand new hottie every week, plow her tight ass and shoot a thick creamy load all over her face. Who cares if it hurts, none of our girls get away without getting their backdoor plundered.’
‘Now once your hard try sliding it in to Amanda's virgin ass and see how much it hurts. All I can say is another ass another Destruction.’
‘She doesn't like black people because they are like monkeys! Fuck her and fuck that, because she is going to get it on with Bruno and he is going to teach her some fucking respect! But, why the fuck is she doing this? For money, why else! She needs money for school and if it means fucking Bruno then so be it!’
####
To me the language, values and scenes (I used to watch my fare share of porn) is helping create a lack of empathy sexually towards women. How many of us men ask before we enter a women? How many of us have tried to, or talked around a women round who initially said no into having sex - and if you are one of those men (like me) why was her initially no not respected?
In some scenes in porn it is clear - verbally and physically - the women is physical/emotional pain and discomfort - and is having a hard time dealing with what is happening - but that however doesn’t stop many men from regularly climaxing to the scenes. In some videos and sites female discomfort is the attraction.
My point is what does the lack of critique from the left and the popularity of such movies, and sites say about our state of humanity. What does it say about our humanity when women - who don’t wish to engage in the type of sexual acts depicted in that porn, or don’t want their male partners watching that type of porn, are labelled as prudes. Can you understand the discomfort the women may feel knowing that the men around them derive great sexual pleasure from watching those kind of videos based around degradation and domination?
What does it say about our collective sexuality when people who don’t like porn are labelled anti-sex, and people in the pro-porn camp are allowed to label themselves as 'sex-positive' with the alternative description for being people (in orwellian style) against porn being most obviously and immediately 'sex-negative' .
blackpreacher