The Big Sister

What I Don’t Like About Porn
1. It perpetuates negative body image. When we see muscle bound men and huge fake breasts, tans, etc. in a context that we’re told is sexy, it’s hard not to feel like that is a physical ideal. It gives us unfair expectations about what we and our partner should look like and makes us feel bad about ourselves when we don’t look like that.

2. It perpetuates negative ideas about sex and gender roles. So much of mainstream porn is terrible about this. There are double standards (a scene with one man and multiple women will often portray the man as hot shit and lucky and the women as “sluts” but a scene with one woman and multiple men also portray the men as taking advantage of the woman being “slutty,” someone who “just can’t get enough cock.” A lot of porn also perpetuates the idea of exploitation as a pretty normal part of sex…the idea of “violation” is supposed to be sexy. I’ve heard the argument that this and the body image issue aren’t relevant…that they’re just like people saying video games encourage kids to be violent…that people separate porn from reality just fine. I disagree. If you continually expose or expose yourself to specific body traits or ideas and then reward yourself with a positive physical feeling (an orgasm), you’ll essentially train yourself to get off to these things. It’s called masturbatory conditioning.

3. It can be racist. Mainstream porn often plays into really ridiculous racist stereotypes. White men having sex with black women have “jungle fever” and Asian women play the stereotypical school girl parts. Interracial sex is portrayed as a fetish and some porn’s appeal is in violating or exploiting people of a certain race. Videos advertise their stars’ races almost as a commodity while simultaneously degrading them.

4. It can desensitize us. Pornographic images have gotten a lot more extreme than they used to be. People want to see more and more extreme images…it’s like in the old days when women wore full length dresses and a bare ankle was considered sexually risque. Now nothing is risque…we see completely naked bodies, gaping holes, etc. all the time, and porn has to push it even further to be taboo and exciting, and often this plays right back into the other issues…bigger fake breasts, more exploitation, more violent and objectifying sexuality.

5. A lot of the porn industry pisses me off. Yes, I’ve heard the statistics that women run a lot of it, and I’ll get into later the parts of that that I think are cool. But even if it’s women, porn uses some manipulative tactics. Sometimes they exploit people’s need for money. Because of a lot of the things talked about above and similar ideas in our culture as a whole, women often feel like being sex objects is a good way to gain value and attention, and they exploit that. Often people will end up in porn who have abusive pasts. All of this to make money.

6. Sometimes it just makes me a little jealous. This isn’t necessarily part of my big point by point look into the different aspects of porn that I’m doing here- this is more just my feelings. When I look at porn it’s not at all about the people in it. It’s about “hey…that’s sex and sex feels good…watching people feel good makes me think about what it’s like when I do things like that that feel good.”  And  I know that for most people, it’s about just that– watching stimulating images and not about having a desire for the particular people in the porn. Despite knowing this, sometimes I get upset about the idea of my partner getting off to the image of other people’s naked bodies.

What I Like About Porn

1. Porn sometimes encourages individual sexuality and masturbation and the idea that masturbation is ok for women too. When we talk about porn so much, we’re telling each other that it is ok to touch yourself– to want to feel good sexually, and to make yourself do so.

2. You may not be comfortable bringing up something you’d be interested in trying, or something you like to think about during sex or masturbation, but watching porn with a partner can provide a way to approach the subject.

3. It can give you ideas. Maybe you’ll see a position or a way to touch yourself or your partner  you wouldn’t have thought of on your own that feels really good. Even if you just end up laughing about it when you actually try it, it can be fun!

4. Porn sometimes challenges my ideas about my own sexuality. It makes me think about what I find sexy and why. Sometimes I’ll see a scene with a particular act that I find appealing and it makes me think about what I find so appealing about it. It challenges me to think things like, “Hmmm…what do I like about the idea of a glass dildo?” or “Why do I get turned on by men touching each other?” Porn was also one of the first indicators to me that I might not be completely heterosexual. I enjoyed watching women have sex and began to think about it when I masturbated. I have never had a desire to have a relationship with a woman, a lot of which could be social conditioning. Because that desire was never there, I had never considered the idea that I might be sexually attracted to women until I viewed lesbian porn and liked it.

Conclusion

Porn is one of the big divisive issues among feminists. It seems like a lot of people try to draw a big line between anti-porn feminists and “sex positive” feminists, but it’s really not so black and white. Both sides have really valid points, but instead of ignoring the bad or saying that the bad outweighs the good, we could instead be trying to change porn as it exists currently to be both sex positive and a truly positive expression of sexuality. And that’s where number five on my list of “what I like” comes in:

5. There are some really cool women-made porn companies. These companies are all about showing real people with real bodies making each other feel good in a completely consensual and respectful setting. They are striving to make porn with all the things I’ve said I like minus the things I don’t like.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t watch porn. It also doesn’t mean you have to ignore the things that can be really messed up about it. The most important thing is to be aware of the issues…watch it consciously and enjoy exploring your sexuality.

This entry was written becca, posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.