Today I had the misfortune of coming across two clips (here and here) from Channel 4’s The Sex Education Show, in which young people were interviewed about the kinds of porn that they’d seen and their parents were invited to a special viewing of online ‘hardcore porn videos’. We didn’t get to see these videos, but moaning and screaming could be heard above the dramatic music which the producers helpfully decided to add in. The parents’ reactions were hilarious and a classic example of the moral panic which grips Daily Mail Britain whenever sex is televised. They groaned, squealed, and covered their faces. One parent started crying; another walked out. Words like “sickening” and “disgusting” were thrown about. “What sort of woman would do that?” muttered one mother. Another parent who could have been lifted straight out of a right wing evangelical Christian sect declared: “That is not just porn, that is bordering on evil”; such videos were deemed to have “decayed the moral fibre of our society”. Presenter Anna Richardson actually listened to these “brave” parents and made no attempt to explain that there is a variety of sexual preferences and fetishes and that enjoying something out of the ordinary is not “sick” or “revolting”. It was also implied during her chat with three teenage boys that “lesbian porn” is “shocking” – homophobia at its worst and a huge mistake on the part of Channel 4. Comedy value aside, the programme’s vehemently anti porn, pro censorship angle is worrying.
Historically, erotica and pornography have played a vital role in the way in which people understand themselves. To quote an excellent article by Jennifer Evans, It Shouldn’t Be A Dirty Little Secret: A Feminist Makes A Case For Porn:
“If Michel Foucault is to be believed—the French philosopher whose writing helped birth the history of sexuality as a field—other cultures saw erotica as opening up much-needed discussion about mutuality—one’s likes and dislikes in the bedroom—and desire. Images provoked erotic play and negotiation, allowing, in an ideal sense, for an ethical and complimentary exploration of sexual wants and needs. Explicit images provided truths about our sexual selves.
Sometime in the 19th century this changed. Suddenly, explicit images became evidence of the contagion within. Instead of promoting healthy discussion and debate, pornography was evidence of a tortured soul, painfully out of step with the newly important place of the middle-class family and the masculinities and femininities that buttressed it. Science and medicine—newly professionalized—schooled men ways to channel and repress their desire as self-mastery became an emblem of responsible manhood. Women were alternatively regarded as frigid, uninterested, or over-sexed, requiring the discipline of marriage and motherhood to overcome their extreme emotions.”Much of this archaic stigma still lingers on today. It’s unsurprising that the 2006 study into women who watch porn showed that many of them feel guilty about enjoying sex without the love and romance and worry that they’re ‘sluts’. They are inhibited by shame and repressive societal expectations. Sasha Grey, one of porn’s leading feminist figures who I will touch upon later, is right when she says that sex is “the last taboo” and that the campaign to keep it behind closed doors is “a very moralistic, Christian way of thinking”. Anti feminists tell women to be ashamed of their appetites and urges; pornography encourages them to embrace them. Pornography is an outlet for our natural desires and kinks, especially for those without sexual partners. To break this post up a little I’m going to do some myth busting and directly address the 5 major arguments against porn.
1. “Pornography is sexist in its depictions of women.”
Much of the modern day criticism of porn stems from the increasing popularity of violent and rough porn. Many of the more popular online videos depict women being choked, slapped, called sluts and whores, deep throated, spat on, and even urinated on. While there is a discussion to be had about the ways in which patriarchy manifests itself in pornography, what is often forgotten is that these are all fetishes which men and women genuinely enjoy. I’ve already addressed the stigma surrounding BDSM in another post, but I want to expand a little here. When critics point to rough sex in porn as evidence of its misogyny, they are subconsciously marginalising kink and, in turn, women in the kink community who are already made to feel ashamed of their sexual preferences by the rest of society. The problem with the argument that rough or kinky porn perpetuates imagery of women as sexual victims is that it shows absolutely no awareness of consensual kink and also ignores the abundance of rough and kinky gay porn, or porn which depicts men being abused. It overlooks the fact that these fantasies are enjoyed by men AND women. What the parents on The Sex Education Show fail to understand is that something isn’t automatically immoral just because you’re not into it. Grey feels that we need to be more open and comfortable with our sexualities, because “all sorts of people like all different things, and we just need to accept that as a society”. She likes being choked, slapped and doubly penetrated. And she isn’t afraid to assert that desire. In her first-ever porn scene, she told her partner to punch her in the stomach before his climax. Yes, she told him to do it. There is no problem with porn videos depicting rough sex, provided it is consensual, and in most cases it is. Dr Charlie Glickman has written a very good piece about sex positivity in which he argues:
“The very notion that a sex act can be good or bad in and of itself is simply the current iteration of sex-negativity because it locates the value of sex in the activity rather than in the experiences of the individuals who do it.That’s like saying that sandwiches are good or bad without reference to the personal tastes of the people who eat them. It’s much more productive to ask how a given individual feels about what they do and make room for a diversity of responses, instead of judging the acts themselves.”And, as Greta Christina eloquently observes in Porn, Social Criticism, and the Marginalization of Kink, critiques of sexism in porn often miss the point and end up as kink-shaming. What needs to be emphasised is consent, and porn videos alone don’t always get that across. This is where sex education needs to step in.
2. “Pornography leads to violence against women.”
Feminists like Andrea Dworkin have linked pornography to sexual attacks and violence against women, but the evidence is debatable. Several studies, such as the one prepared by feminist Thelma McCormick in 1983 for the Metropolitan Toronto Task Force on Violence Against Women, have found no correlation between porn and sex crimes. The Task Force responded by suppressing the study and reassigning the project to a pro-censorship male, who returned the “correct” results. His study was published. Modern-day critics of pornography such as Gail Dines argue that men learn about sex from watching porn, citing a study from 2010 in which 80% of men said that the one sex act they would most like to perform is to ejaculate on a woman’s face. Aside from the fact that Dines et al are straying into kink-shaming territory, they are ignoring the fact that fetishes are instinctive, not learned from porn. Porn simply provides an outlet for those fetishes. The fact that porn is the main way in which millions of young men learn about sex highlights a failure in our sex education system to provide students with comprehensive information to equip them for later life. Porn can work alongside proper sex education to create healthy outcomes.
3. “Porn can never be feminist.”
What exactly is feminist pornography? The annual Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto has three guiding criteria:
- A woman is involved in the production, writing, direction etc of the work
- It depicts genuine female pleasure
- It expands the boundaries of sexual representation on film and challenges stereotypes that are often found in mainstream porn
One of the reasons why porn is considered anti feminist is because it ‘objectifies’ women. But are critics missing the point? Avedon Carol, spokesperson for Feminists Against Censorship, sums it up when she says:
“There is no reason to think that porn can’t be ‘woman-friendly’…The thing about porn is that it’s about what turns you on, not what your intellectual ideals are – sexual desire isn’t really very intellectual. So the question of ‘woman-friendliness’ may be rather corruptive to the discourse, if what you are looking for is an intellectual ideal rather than just material women enjoy using to get hot”.Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls. It isn’t degrading to focus on their sexuality. It’s also worth considering that in feminist porn both partners operate as equals. Anna Span makes porn from a ‘female perspective’ by shooting in a different way to traditional porn directors, thus avoiding the ‘male gaze’ trend, and by selecting good looking and experienced men that women WANT to watch. For those who want to learn more about feminist porn, I’d recommend this excellent 2003 documentary, which “takes a rare and empowering look into the pornography industry and feminist community to see how they intertwine within the politics and poetics of female sexuality. It shows women who are committed to making and supporting pornography that includes their feminist values and will go up against an entire industry, stereotypes, and sexism to get what they want”. In the words of Ellen Willis, who famously coined the term ‘pro sex feminism’:
“As we saw it, the claim that ‘pornography is violence against women’ was code for the neo-Victorian idea that men want sex and women endure it.”4. “Female porn actors are victims of false consciousness.”
A common argument wheeled out by anti porn campaigners is that women who pose for or act out porn are so traumatised by patriarchy that they cannot give real consent. In No porn is good porn?, Abby O’Reilly notes that
“pornography continues to be perceived as the last refuge of the male sexual pervert and ill-informed cock-slut who, in her pretensions to empowerment, is ironically consolidating archetypal male oppression at the same time as flashing her muff at anyone holding a camera”.I am in full agreement that the porn industry currently has its fair share of problems, and one of them is that the women involved are often addicted to drugs, economically trapped, and sometimes pressured into doing things that they aren’t happy with. This needs addressing urgently and it requires a radical shake up of our society, not censorship of porn (which I will address later). But what of those women who are happy and healthy and who still choose to do porn? A common characteristic of the porn actors who have been interviewed about their work is a love of exhibitionism. They enjoy being naked and having sex on camera. To stop them from doing that is a denial of their right to choose anything outside the narrow range of choices offered by political/sexual correctness.
Some pornographic actresses such as Nina Hartley (who is active in the sex workers’ rights movement), Ovidie, and Madison Young are self-described sex-positive feminists who argue that much of what they do on camera is an expression of their sexuality. My personal favourite – who I mentioned at the beginning of this article – is Sasha Grey, an intelligent and eloquent philosophy graduate with a clear mission statement:
“Most of the XXX I see is boring, and does not arouse me physically or visually. I am determined and ready to be a commodity that fulfills everyone’s fantasies…I don’t need to see genitalia up close; I don’t need to see a dirty yellow couch against a white wall. I want to see something different, like this is not exciting to me…If you look at me and you think ‘Here’s a woman who’s intelligent, cognizant and making her own choices’, and you still tell me that what I’m doing is wrong, screw you, because that should end the debate.”5. “Porn should be censored.”
Aside from being a violation of freedom, censorship of porn as advocated by many anti pornography feminists has serious flaws. In its mission statement, Feminists For Free Expression argues that censorship has never reduced violence, but has historically been used to silence women and stifle efforts for social change. They point to the birth control literature of Margaret Sanger, the feminist plays of Holly Hughes, and works like Our Bodies, Ourselves and The Well of Loneliness as examples of feminist sexual speech which has been the target of censorship. And one of the problems with censorship is that it simply drives the industry underground, offering “a cosmetic, dangerous ‘quick fix’”. As Anna Span came to realise, censorship is counterproductive; it does not eradicate the tendency to eroticise the female body, but simply forces these thoughts underground.
I am tired of others trying to control my sexuality by telling me what I should or shouldn’t like based on what someone else thinks is best for me. As it happens I share Grey’s opinion that most porn is boring, but I will always defend a person’s right to take part in or watch it. Enough of paternalism. We have rights over how we enjoy our sexuality and we don’t want to be labelled as sick or twisted. Porn isn’t for everyone. Some people just don’t get turned on by looking at others having sex. That’s fine.
Critiquing sexism in porn isn’t bad in itself. But most critiques either generalise all porn as bad or class the sex acts themselves as bad, which ignores the fact that it is possible to make porn which is ethical and consensual and which values the satisfaction and emotional well-being of all participants. Yes, there is a lot of abuse within the porn industry. But there is a way to combat that without criminalising porn, which in itself is not inherently sexist. Policing sexuality is the wrong way to combat patriarchy; it only leads to repression, shame, and greater opportunities for exploitation. And until we accept that it’s okay to be turned on by watching other people have sex, be it straight or gay or rough or sensual or just plain filthy, we will never truly be liberated.
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