I like porn. There we go. I don't expect you to, although bonus if you do. Everybody has something that turns them on, whether it's naked men, naked ladies, or men dressed up as raptors flapping their "wings" while a cave-lady blows them (I draw the line at the people with a fetish for dragons fucking cars. Dude. seriously. what. the. fuck?).
However, I have noticed this, and you'd be an idiot not to. A lot more men will admit to liking - and watching - porn than women. And the vast majority of porn is made for, and consumed by men. Even the images of naked men are produced, in the vast majority, for gay men. If you go to fleshbot, there is a "gay" filter if you want to look at naked men, and "straight" for naked women (you don't have to choose a filter, though). Why? Both options assume I'm male - despite fleshbot coming from the same group as Jezebel. ECW talk about this issue here. Redtube at least allows me to choose my gender and interest - but all the adverts are aimed at straight males. Pornotube does the same as Fleshbot - gay, straight, all. But once again, the adverts (the facebook of sex! github for lesbians!) are for men. And they're skeezy.
Anyway. There is a point. Feminism, at least for me is - partly at least - about the right for women to control their own bodies. If women make the choice to sell their bodies for money, then I think they should be entitled to - although I also think that women in porn and prostitution need a great deal of support. No woman should ever have to sell her body - but if she wants to, with both eyes open, then ok*. Same goes for porn - if a woman wants to make porn, then sure, why shouldn't she? And if she wants to watch it, hurrah! If, for any person, watching porn is a part of embracing or experimenting with their sexuality, then why the fuck should they be made to feel bad for doing so?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wrestle my flowery chick-lit "girl porn" romance off my boyfriend.
*And mandatory health checks and no pimps.
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I don't know...while it would be nice if we could live in a utopia of true sexual freedom, I can't help but feel it's a lot more complex than this. What about the women who choose to go into porn, then realise that to truly make money and have staying power, you need to submit to increasingly violent and degrading sex acts? (there's a lot of testimony to this in ex-porn performer's memoirs) What about the women who 'choose' it because it's been made attractive to them by an over-sexualised society? What about all the women trafficked and coerced into an industry legitimised by what is probably a minority of women who have freely chosen to be there? I wish I could agree with you, but I can't help but look to the dark side that is inevitably tacked on to porn as an industry
ReplyDeleteditto monkeh - it's not sex i have a problem with, it's the utter one-sided gender depictions, all the dirty money involved (barely any of which actually goes to porn stars), the progressive/"gate-way" aspect of it (which has been well-documented), the lack of condoms, the sexist pornification of the mainstream... and the list goes on. i'd feel like a total hypocrite buying into that kind of industry, a bit like buying shares in the daily mail.
ReplyDeleteBut also the fact that porn on the whole doesn't represent real sex. I'm sure you can find some of it that does represent the reality of sex but by and large it's this huge stylised performance - sex fiction, if you like. I have no problem with sex or nudity or any of those things, but I can't help resisting the commodification of it all. If it were only about sexual freedom then I wouldn't have as much of a problem, but there is an awful lot of bad stuff coming along for the ride.
ReplyDeleteHurrah indeed. This is almost exactly what I've been planning to say on my blog practically since I started it but I kept wimping out.
ReplyDeleteEven better if they had a way to filter out the casual violence which all too often features in the middle of videos. It's usually only mild but still offputting.
I in no way support the violence and drugs of the porn industry - however I do believe that there is such a thing as porn created by people with high ethical standards (and I try to ensure the porn I watch/read is from reputable sources).
ReplyDeleteOn the sex fiction - I don't necessarily think that is wholly a bad thing. Books, films, plays - they're fiction too. Yes, it can be taken too far, and only an idiot expects real sex to be exactly like it is in porn (just as romantic relationships aren't the same as they are in books), but you can't just condemn it for being fictional. I'd like to see a lot more honesty in porn as well though - honesty about female sexuality, for example, but I think that unless women who consume porn become more vocal about it...
Again, I agree that the fiction element isn't a problem in itself - the problem is so much porn is marketed or portrayed as being real, and even more of it is consumed by people who assume porn reflects reality. And yes, they are idiots, but unfortunately there are a lot of idiots. The other problem is that the fictional element of porn is almost exclusively based in male sexuality, male fantasy, male dominance. At the very least, porn needs an equal male/female perspective.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely commend you for ethically sourcing what you watch - unfortunately so many people don't give a hoot, and the upshot of that is that the abusive side of the porn industry continues to creep along because so few people care enough to stop financing it. Ultimately, they don't care if they're getting off over a woman being abused or mistreated.
I must respectfully disagree. Women who want to star in porn, *should* be made to feel bad, in my humble opinion, because they're happily perpetuating the idea that women are mindless sex objects. Great if you're in porn, not so helpful if you work in the City and want to be taken seriously by men who have been conditioned by porn to see you as a vagina that has the unfortunate habit of speaking. It's all about collective responsibility - we should all try to avoid doing things that fuck other women over.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's not mentioning how the central theme of most pornography seems to revolve around endorsing violence (in the form of subjugation and control) against women; but I speak not from the viewpoint of someone who has watched much porn to back this up, but one who is currently very angry after watching a couple of documetaries about porn, and reading about the subject (book recommendation - Tracey Lords' autobiography).
PS - did you watch Hardcore Profits on BBC? There is only ONE porn production company that enforces condom use, the others all pretty much ban it, without being open about it, so endangering the sexual health of their actors, in the very first instance. Can't remember which the good company was, but might be worth looking up in terms of ethically sourced porn.
ReplyDeleteTo re-word - they shouldn't be made to feel *bad* per se, but encouraged to think about the consequences of their actions, and ideally pursue other career choices.
ReplyDelete