The black screen returns: “Empowered by Porn?”
Note carefully the punctuation here. I wasn’t expecting an exclamation point, but a simple period would have sufficed. It might even have implied the same derisive message, but with a bit more irony. Like the porn it “critiques,” one thing TPoP lucks utterly is irony, at least of the intentional kind.
Can we guess the answer to the question posed? Sure, but that won’t spare us from further exposure to the producer’s opinion. I’m beginning to think nothing short of mortality could deliver us from it.
Lisa, the female fan we met first at AdultEx, comes back, as usual far more rational-sounding than the assorted ringers with which the picture is larded. She thinks it’s hypocritical for women to take porn out of a man’s life, and that neither marriage nor any other serious commitment justifies such action. It would be better if women just learned to accept porn and “roll with it and have fun with it.”
No proposition so real goes “unexamined” in these parts, so the narrator comes back, voicing over a Cosmo cover to the effect that “The pressure to be hypersexualized is increasingly present in women’s daily lives. Advice programs, talk shows and books instruct average women to spice up their sex lives with pornography.”
Hold it right there. Can anybody here tell me just what makes a woman “average?” The hypersexualizing pressure assertion, unsupported by anything other than some advertising pix and a few more magazine and book covers, is easily enough swatted down, but before getting to that, I don't want what I take to be pretty much a blunderbuss insult to women at large to pass unchallenged.
Clearly, this is a condescending slam, conscious or not, at women everywhere who, not having had the benefit of the Stop Porn Culture! slide show, are the feminine lumpen proletariat the enlightened vanguard in TPoP’s presumed audience must seek to liberate. I’m sure they should all feel ever so grateful to be accepted as merely average rather than deluded and victimized like those really tragic cases in porn.
Anyway, we’re next exposed to the “pressures” of pole-dancing classes and Carmen Electra exercise vids that these average women must face daily at whatever cost to their fragile self-esteem.
The ever-insightful Ariel Levy: “What’s interesting about porn or strippers or any other kind of sex work is it’s women whose job it is to impersonate lust or, you know, fake arousal. The idea that you’re going to get more in touch with your own authentic, innate personal sexuality by imitating a woman whose job it is to imitate sexuality, I mean you’re getting pretty far removed from the real thing.”
Pausing for a moment to ponder the sorry state of American publishing that lays out hard cash for the services a writer with such limited command of basic English syntax, I reread this passage a couple of times and decrypt it to mean that all sexuality shown in porn is essentially fake (and BTW, while porn performers do strip and some strippers do porn, the constant use of the two very different trades interchangeably does a disservice to both, and to the viewer). Therefore, none of the techniques used in either profession to produce arousal in a male audience could possibly be of any use to a woman of the real world seeking to arouse a male sexual partner.
As we all know, the use of artifice for such purposes is entirely a modern development and a by-product of cultural pornification. If you don’t count The Bible, The Kama Sutra, The 1001 Nights and a body of lore and literature stretching back to the dawn of recorded history, that is. And the sexual experiences of those men and women aroused by such artifices in their private lives have all been having inauthentic experiences throughout those thousands of years. Gee Ariel, thanks for the news, even if it is a bit dated.
Not that we’re given time to sort through this rhetorical hodge-podge. A clip from Girls Gone Wild, favorite punching-bag among raunch culture scolds, unspools to remind us of just how bad the situation has gotten for women who don’t wish to engage in drunken revelry on the beach with equally inebriated yobbos.
According to Levy, who has “walked around the beach” with the GGW posse: “Girls come running up them screaming ‘I gotta be on Girls Gone Wild. I gotta get a hat. And the just start, you know, flashing and stripping and the rest of it.”
The look on Levy’s face speaks to her opinion of such behavior far more effectively than her words, which don’t seem to suggest anything particularly repellent. Drunken young people have been known to do things far more dangerous. I’m no defender of Joe Francis, and I like GGW even less than other forms of reality TV (I’m a Dancing with the Stars fan myself).
I think the whole premise of watching people make fools of themselves for our entertainment is problematic, to use one of those words favored by self-styled “media critics,” which is the hat I’m wearing tonight. I don’t know if it’s the blatant schadenfreude that bothers me or the contemplation of the possible consequences for the participants, but I can process the appeal of physical cruelty in much less value-laden terms.
But the idea that GGW is that much more damaging to its participants than any other entertainment built on the same template because the content is sexual is dubious. The women of GGW are certainly more jovially mocked than the guys on Jackass, but fortunately the vast majority of men and women can quite handily avoid such hazards.
But we’re given plenty more of GGW just to make sure we don’t miss the point. After a quick glimpse of tits plastered with “Censored” signs and some giggles and talk of puffy nipples, we must immediately be reminded that THIS ISN’T FUNNY by the dour Ms. Levy (like we didn’t know this already).
“There was this one 19-year-old girl who had stripped in the back of a bar and simulated masturbation and I said ‘So what’s in it for you? Why did you do this?’ And she looked at me, totally baffled and she said ‘the only way I could see someone not doing this is if they were considering a career in politics.’ And that was an idea that I heard a lot from young women down there. It was just like obviously you would do this. This is just what women do, what ‘hot’ women do.”
That, ladies and gentleman, is a mighty big inductive leap. The woman in question – the one of age to shoulder a rifle in Iraq – sees no significant risk in exposing herself unless she were planning on a career. Whatever I may think if that logic, it’s hers and hers alone. How we get from that to a generalization that this woman, and by implication others, believe this to be “what women” or even “hot women” do is less supported than the flasher’s tits. She speaks for herself and Levy speaks for, at the very least “a lot of young women down there,” at the beach. There might be someone out there who could risk hypothesizing about these women’s motives with some objectivity, but that someone probably wouldn’t have written a book titled “Female Chauvinist Pigs”.
Back to MTV and Damone Richardson, expressing his surprise that women come to him when he DJs wanting him to play hip-hop with dirty lyrics. Worse, he’d even see women on the dance floor dancing to it.
“To me, it would almost be like white supremacist hip hop, saying, like, you know, ‘those drug using niggers in the city...’ but I would dance to it because the music was catchy. I don’t understand why more women don’t take offense to this stuff.”
Maybe it’s because they’ve been culturally conditioned to accept it as normal. Or maybe it’s because the music is catchy. There are legitimate questions to be raised about gangsta rap, but as a white person, I wouldn’t feel qualified to raise them. No such inhibitions plague the producers of TPoP, who happen to be white also. Still, I’d cut Richardson some slack I wouldn’t cut them. For one thing, he’s not talking about porn, a subject with which I can claim some familiarity. Last time I checked, that was the subject of this movie, though plenty of other media crit certainly seeps in through the cracks.
Meanwhile, out at the leafy campuses of the Ivy League, students have gotten into the porn business themselves, making “dorm porn”, at least according to cultural commentator Tyra Banks, who would never exaggerate any kind of excess for ratings purposes. Sure enough, the narrator validates Tyra’s claims with examples of student-run erotic magazines, many featuring (gasp) students themselves as nude models, and not just any students, but those from Harvard and U. Chicago.
Viewing the rather tasteful and creative photo spreads and covers of these periodicals is a welcome deliverance from the land of “Swirlies” at this point, though the filmmakers clearly don’t agree.
Looking at these images, ranging from lyric to outrageous, I’m inappropriately reminded of Dorothy Parker’s quip to the effect that “If all co-eds from Smith College were laid end-to-end … it wouldn’t surprise me.” THAT’S NOT FUNNY!
Certainly not to the narrator, who drags us back from our brief moment of erotic reverie to the grim, Dickensian reality of life at universities where tuitions run upwards of $40,000 a term. We’re reminded that many of these student publications make no secret of their profit motives. Hey, desperate people do desperate thing. Isn’t that what we’ve been told so far?
Oh, I forget, even women who don’t need money are still prostituted by a pornified culture. These clever folks have an answer for everything, don’t they?
We’re introduced to “Boink” founder Alicia Keys by way of a Tyra interview, which rarely bodes well. Alicia points out that ”Boink” does run serious articles on contraception and STDs, but admits: “It’s here for entertainment. It’s here to masturbate to. It’s here to titillate. It’s supposed to arouse you. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” Mercifully, we’re spared Tyra’s rejoinders.
We do learn that reality TV has come calling, and that a six-figure book deal may be in the offing for the devilish boinksters. We’re not entirely sure who is exploiting whom in this deal, but somebody’s always getting exploited in this movie, of that you can be sure.
College Student and political activist Elizabeth-Wrigley-Field sorts it out thus: “When people don’t actually feel like they could challenge sexism directly and change the terms on which we’re evaluated, than the reaction is “if you can’t beat sexism, you can join it.” So much for those troublesome Third-Wavers out there. They’ve just joined up with sexism because they don’t think they can beat it.
That they still identify as feminists might put a dent in this interpretation, but we’re not going to have to deal with such paradoxes just now. As far as Wrigley-Field is concerned, the way such women think is “actually a huge mistake. It’s just giving up on the idea of changing the way women are thought to be.” Oddly, many sex-positive feminists consider themselves to be doing just that, but they’re just plain wrong. Like all women who don’t agree with the producers, they simply don’t know their own minds.
Which brings us all the way around to Joanna Angel, whose full-on crucifixion is this film’s second most repulsive moment. You’ll have a hard time believing there could be something as foul, but TPoP is never to be underestimated when it comes to new ways of stripping sex workers of their personhood (no, that’s not what we do, that’s what they do).
We see Joanna arriving at a party, where she’s greeted by smiling autograph-seekers. But don’t be confused about the source of her fame. She maybe Rutgers grad with a degree in lit, but the important thing about her is that she’s the founder “Burning Angel” the Web site where she fuses punk rock with pornography.
Cut to her interview at AdultEx, where she tells the interviewer she’s learned a lot about herself and become a more powerful person through porn. Hah! They’ll show her, and us.
Cut to a darkened room where a cigarette-puffing guy reminiscent of Cancer Man in “X-Files” watches Joanna on TV, giving quite an impressive acting performance as she explains in a whiny voice that her daddy treated her like a little whore when she was five, then breaks into giggles. This material is so outrageously over the top, anyone who wasn’t hopelessly literal-minded would see it for the premeditated camp that it is, but everything about this “documentary” is to be taken literally and at face value, other than comments made by those who don’t share its ever-more-apparent biases.
In her interview, Joanna goes on to make the rather obvious observation that porn can’t really objectify women because you can’t turn a person into an object. It’s hard to refute that contention on scientific grounds, but that doesn’t keep the movie from trying. A quick shot of a female performer being slapped and having her mouth taped gives us little doubt about how that objectification thing works.
But Joanna soldiers on, insisting that showing a woman being choked and hit and spit on and called a dirty slut can still be feminist as long as everybody there is in control of what they’re doing.” But the images of Joanna being fish-hooked, spanked, bent over a table and having her hair pulled are unlikely to persuade those who don’t know, or care, what Joanna thinks about her own experiences, that she’s not an abused victim. That’s the image of her with which we’re left.
This whole documentary crew followed her around for days, told her lies, interviewed her for hours and served her up to us as self-deluded and pathetic. Not that they exploited her for their own purposes in any way, of course. These noble social reformers would never stoop to such tactics.
Right, and if you believe that, well, wait for the conclusion (not too much more of this to go, thankfully) lying just the other side of the title card reading: “Harder and Harder”,,,
Who do we find behind that final door? Me, of course, insisting that there’s all kinds of porn: “Now there’s everything for everybody who likes any kind of erotic depiction (a bit of hyperbole, as I failed to leave out depictions involving minors or quadrapeds)”. We get a bit of Dita Von Teese playing with another girl in Andrew Blake’s “Pin-Ups 2” while I point out that Blake and Candida Royale make “lovely, lushly mounted, high-fashion looking pictures.” All we see of Royale’s entire, vast body of work is her company’s animated logo.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is ALL the feature porn you’re getting in TPoP, because feature porn, we will soon learn, is obsolete, despite bringing in something over half the revenues in porn video, surpassing all other genres combined, and generates mega-hits like “Pirates” that sell millions of copies. And though the growing momentum in porn these days is back toward bigger, higher-quality productions with the sex dialed back a bit, such things really aren’t representative of “current trends in mainstream pornography that is industrially produced in the U. S.”
“It’s very easy,” I go on to say “for outsiders, particularly those who have a hostile agenda toward porn to seize on ugly porn or mean porn or porn where the purpose seems to be to inflict some kind of abusive sexuality on one or another party involved.”
I didn’t expect that statement to go unchallenged when I made it and I was not wrong. What the narrator calls “a team of scholars” from New York University (where Sun teaches, by a coincidence in this film where coincidences don’t exist, as we recall) a U.Mass. and U. Rhode Island “examine” the content of popular pornographic videos.
Dr. Ana Bridges, who previously presented the results of her “content analysis” at a feminist anti-pornography conference with Wosnitzer, informs us that: “Defenders of pornography often state that critics hold up the worst examples, most degrading, most violent pornography and talk about why this is harmful, but that in fact pornography is very diverse. Our research team was interested in what people are actually viewing.”
And how did they go about finding out? “We randomly selected videos from a list of best-renting videos. In that way, we were not responsible for choosing which videos to content analyze. Rather, the viewers are choosing which videos to watch and we are sampling from their choice.”
The operative words here are “random” and “sampling.” As the research used charts from AVN, it’s hardly surprising that they found so many hard gonzo titles. Features are more expensive to make, thus less common. However, they routinely occupy a majority of the top ten renting and selling titles. Gonzos are cheaper and more plentiful, so if you go by numbers of titles on the list, they will be represented out of all proportion to what the majority of viewers “actually watch.”
This is called junk social science. Start from a conclusion and ignore all evidence that contradicts it. Though the narrator insists that the team studied over 200 scenes from “the most popular videos released in 2005,” they don’t show us a single frame from anything made by Vivid, Wicked, Adam&Eve or Digital Plaground, all feature companies that rented and sold hundreds of thousands of videos that year.
The montage that follows shows us only gonzo titles ranging from “No Swallowing Allowed” to “Teen Fuckholes.” I seriously doubt that “Teen Fuck holes” posed much competition to “Pirates,” bit when you’re cherry-picking data you have to overlook a few exceptions here and there, no matter how large.
Not surprisingly, considering how loosely they define “aggressive sex acts,” the team found that 89.9% of what they watched contained such acts. 48% contained “verbal aggression, mostly name-calling and insults.” Just what constitutes name-calling and insults is a highly subjective matter depending on the context. Sure, there are clearly porn vids where the terms used are meant to be offensive. In a different context, the same words might be construed as complimentary. As we’re not told how these terms we’re defined, all we have is a meaningless statistic based on someone’s opinion of what constitutes an insult.
Intent and tone are not considered.
But wait, let’s move on to the real thing, physical aggression. They found that in 82.2% of what they watched, 94.4% of these acts were directed at women. We’re shown some (literally) nakedly non-compliant footage of a man yelling at a woman and dragging her across a room by a handful of hair, then some spanking. The narrator does note that the women in these scenes “frequently expressed enjoyment of this behavior.”
To make sure we understand what behavior is meant, we’re shown more spanking, a bit of choking. Counted as “acts of violence” across the board. Spanking and gagging during oral sex were found to be the most common acts of aggression. We’re shown numerous shots of oral sex with gagging, all completely non-compliant as we’ve come to expect. This is very hard hardcore and we see it all, yet nary a record is proffered to establish, as lawful pornographers must, that all participants were adults over the age of 18 acting of their own free will.
Spanking and skull fucking to the gag-point are not everyone’s preference, but they are common acts in private as well as on video and were before video was invented. As acts of aggression go, they would have to be classed as pretty minor compared to anything you might see in a mainstream network crime show.
Nevertheless, Hatman pops up to talk about the terrible problem gonzo producers have figuring out “how many dicks can you stick in a girl at one time. If you’ve been following along, you’ll expect an answer to that question with numbing predictability. Hatman suggests that four is about the limit – one in her mouth, two in her ass, one in her pussy.
Have no doubt that Gail Dines will return next to remind us that there are “limits to what you can show and the way you can show it because there are limits to what the human body can endure. So what pornographers have to do is think of new and different things to keep the audience going.”
Clearly, we’re dealing with a progressive addiction here, right? That’s the model the producers are eager to sell us.
As an example, Bridges comes back to tell us all about ATM footage, in which performers suck cocks that have recently fucked them anally. Her team found ATMs in 42% of the scenes they saw. Yep, it’s pretty common in gonzo porn, though not allowed in features at all. I keep forgetting that features don’t exist.
And lest the troubling gaps in the research distract us, Dines, scarcely able to contain her revulsion, talks about the guys in the films make jokes about the girls having to eat shit. Girls make those jokes in these films also.
Well, if shock value is the value you want to cultivate, that’s pretty effective use of propaganda tactics. That similar behavior, once again, is not limited to porn and was not invented by porn, and that couples freely engage in it on their own time just don’t count as facts. The idea here is to make people queasy and I have no doubt this detailed discussion of a particular fact will have just that effect on many. So who cares of those who perform the acts consented to them or even enjoyed them? The actual experience of the individuals involved is irrelevant. We never get to hear any of them talk about those experiences, so we have no way of knowing how they are seen subjectively. Subjectivity gets little respect anywhere in TPoP, unless uttered in the form of rad-fem rhetoric, where interpretation rules all things.
The closest we come is a predictably self-loathing soliloquy from conflicted porn director Jimmy D., who feels ever so sad for the girl he shot doing the ATM, whom he was certain didn’t want to do it. If he had those misgivings, he might have stopped the scene and asked her if she wanted not to, but he kept on rolling and collected his check, so he must not have felt all that guilt-ridden at the time we see him filming it. Graphic retching noises leave us to draw the conclusions nicely set up for us.
Mr. Anonymous fan returns in silhouette to testify that most women wouldn’t be interested in performing ATMs “because they probably think it’s kind of digusting.” Again, no woman who does this is asked about it, though we’ve expended about five minutes on it, concluding with another gem from Jenson:
“All these acts at the base are about male domination and female submission, men’s ability to do whatever they want to women and women accepting it and not only accepting it, seeing it as part of their nature.”
Individual nature, nature as women, nature as women who make gonzo porn? Since we never hear from any, naturally we’re to assume that he means all women as far as the “ideology of porn” is concerned.
I will save the very worst for the very last, and then offer up a closing summation. It will be worth waiting for, I promise.
A sanctuary for supporters of sexual free expression and the adult sexual media.
Nod nod- Yep, because there are no sex tips for men in “esquire”, “Maxium” or “GQ” ever, either, and men are not subject to images of Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, or a whole host of hardbody male athletes like Tom Brady all time either, right? I guess they are immune to pressure unlike women, right?
ReplyDeleteAnd to think no woman might take a cardo-strip class or pole dancing for exercise because, what, they can’t swim or running is hell on the knees? Classes which often do not allow men even through the front door? Ahh, these people have ALL the answers!
Ariel’s book, frankly put, sucked. I hated it, and it was a real joy to hear a feminist like her talking about and picking apart women’s looks throughout the whole thing.
And good god, with Boink already…as if Playboy hasn’t been doing “the top ten party college” issue for years? And I’d say Keys, what, with her degree, little porn empire, and six figure deal…hummm, she sounds empowered to me.
And what they did with Joana was horrible. They did everything they could to make her look like a fool. But hey, we’ve known for awhile these people have no problem dehumanizing, degrading and using people for their own ends, right?
And yeah, I sure as hell noted we get lots of Dines input, but very, very little from performers themselves at all.
So honest and unbiased!
"Not surprisingly, considering how loosely they define “aggressive sex acts,” the team found that 89.9% of what they watched contained such acts. 48% contained “verbal aggression, mostly name-calling and insults.” Just what constitutes name-calling and insults is a highly subjective matter depending on the context."
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot wrong with this "content analysis" study, the details of which can be found among the "Stop Porn Culture" videos of the Wheelock conference.
The way the numbers were come up with in that study are suspect on a couple levels. You've brought up the issue of whether the videos there were getting from the AVN lists were really representative. There's also the issue of how the content was analyzed once the videos were chosen.
Basically, the people who actually watched the videos and scored the marks for "aggression", "name calling", etc were not an independent panel of any kind, but students recruited by Jensen and Wosnitzer, who would meet with Jensen for weekly "counseling" on the subject. It was obvious from the Wheelock conference presentation by a couple of these students that they felt really uncomfortable with porn in general and had pretty much bought into Jensen's ideas on the subject hook, line, and sinker.
(And as to how representative these students were in terms of race, class, ethnicity, etc of the general population is not discussed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the authors of the study didn't even record this critical piece of methodology. It is certain, that being college students, they're demographically skewed age-wise and a bunch of other ways. I also get the impression, from the videos anyway, that most of them were female.)
This is why I'd dismiss this study as yet another piece of junk social science. The fact that they're giving statistics for the number of "aggressive acts" just gives it the veneer of science. But ultimately these numbers simply represent the entirely subjective judgments of a group of people who's biases I'm very suspicious of.
Oh, and I forgot the most glaring aspect of the Wosnitzer study – there's is no control – something that makes it basically worthless as science. There is no other set of videos that the group was viewing that would establish a baseline for what the viewing panel was seeing as "aggression".
ReplyDeleteNow the obvious objection might be, how do you provide a control for porn, except more porn. Actually, the ideal control would be clinical sex tapes, which actually do exist in research circles. I believe such a collection is maintained by the Kinsey Institute, in fact. And if Wosnitzer is a legitimate researcher, surely he could have gotten access to these.
I really need to hold my nose and read Levy's drivel, don't I? *sigh*
ReplyDelete"Lisa, the female fan we met first at AdultEx, comes back, as usual far more rational-sounding than the assorted ringers with which the picture is larded. She thinks it’s hypocritical for women to take porn out of a man’s life, and that neither marriage nor any other serious commitment justifies such action. It would be better if women just learned to accept porn and “roll with it and have fun with it.”
No proposition so real goes “unexamined” in these parts, so the narrator comes back, voicing over a Cosmo cover to the effect that “The pressure to be hypersexualized is increasingly present in women’s daily lives. Advice programs, talk shows and books instruct average women to spice up their sex lives with pornography.”"
You know, it always annoys and confuses me when I see people getting weirded out my statements like this. Maybe it's that I'm kinky and therefore weird, but I've never operated under the assumption that monogamy means never feeling sexual desire for other people or never fantasizing about other people.
And if you don't assume that people are faithful in their heads, the whole idea that looking at porn is some kind of psychic infidelity just evaporates, really.
I used to worry that porn use by a lover did mean something sinister, but I never really thought that sinister thing would be "comparing my body to other bodies." I worried that, since I'd heard so often that porn was degrading, he wanted to degrade people. When I watched porn with him (and he was the kind of guy who buys the nonexistent features no one buys according to TPOP, as well as the totally unpopular and laughable couple's tape, WTFOMG) I discovered that this was not only untrue but ridiculous.
I don't know. Maybe it's that I've not spent my life being teased for the way I look, but the whole idea that people are *that* fragile about their looks that they *feel bad* that they don't look like young actress/athletes chosen for physical attractiveness just makes my mind hurt. I know it's a real phenomenon that women feel this way, but I've never understood it. I tend to feel less like this is something to pity poor girls for and more like "Are you seriously considering labiaplasty because some 18-year-old dickhead insulted you? You ought to kick him to the curb for that, not want surgery. WTF."
"
The ever-insightful Ariel Levy: “What’s interesting about porn or strippers or any other kind of sex work is it’s women whose job it is to impersonate lust or, you know, fake arousal. The idea that you’re going to get more in touch with your own authentic, innate personal sexuality by imitating a woman whose job it is to imitate sexuality, I mean you’re getting pretty far removed from the real thing.”"
I think Levy is saying this:
1. Porn stars are acting. Therefore, when they appear to be experiencing sexual pleasure, it's likely or at least common that they are faking.
2. People, both men and women, assume that porn stars' expressions and reactions are not acting. That is, they think "this is what sexual pleasure looks and sounds like."
3. Some women want to be intensely sexual, either because they think it will fulfill them or because they think men will find them sexier.
4. They therefore mimic what they see porn stars do.
5. But when they do this, they are mimicking women who are actually MIMICKING arousal themselves. They're acting like women who are in turn acting in front of a camera.
6. But acting like someone who is pretending to be sexually excited is not likely to sexually excite you.
7. Therefore, women who mimic porn stars are unsuccessful in feeling sexier or more aroused than they did before.
8. They feel fake and disconnected, but don't know why, because they don't fully realize that they're faking faking.
10. Everyone goes unfulfilled and unhappy and sad. BOO.
Personally, I don't subscribe to 6 at all. I think that a lot of make-believe CAN be arousing. It may be, for example, that Marilyn Monroe was rarely having fun and was acting roles and going home and feeling awful. But Jane Queer Highfemme, who worships Marilyn, may feel sexy as all hell when she gets dolled up and goes dancing with the nattily-suited butches. She isn't necessarily going to feel like Marilyn felt (as if we know that anyway) when she mimics her. The mimicry itself may add a layer of fun, mystique, or sexiness.
I did want to ask what you think of Francis, though. I know he's been accused of rape, and from reading about the guy, I can definitely believe he would. He really bothers me. I don't like the idea of GGW either, for reasons you lay out here very well. But I think that even aside from that, Francis the person? Strikes me as pretty foul. Civilian you called me, and civilian I am, but I'd love to see that particular fellow voted off Porno Island. Yuck.
ReplyDelete"Back to MTV and Damone Richardson, expressing his surprise that women come to him when he DJs wanting him to play hip-hop with dirty lyrics. Worse, he’d even see women on the dance floor dancing to it.
ReplyDelete“To me, it would almost be like white supremacist hip hop, saying, like, you know, ‘those drug using niggers in the city...’ but I would dance to it because the music was catchy. I don’t understand why more women don’t take offense to this stuff.”
Maybe it’s because they’ve been culturally conditioned to accept it as normal. Or maybe it’s because the music is catchy. There are legitimate questions to be raised about gangsta rap, but as a white person, I wouldn’t feel qualified to raise them. No such inhibitions plague the producers of TPoP, who happen to be white also. Still, I’d cut Richardson some slack I wouldn’t cut them. For one thing, he’s not talking about porn, a subject with which I can claim some familiarity. Last time I checked, that was the subject of this movie, though plenty of other media crit certainly seeps in through the cracks."
As far as this goes, though, I don't know the full context of the remark, but it sounds an awful lot to me like "I get to decide what's degrading to women, and therefore what they should like."
Trinity,
ReplyDeleteJust thought you should know that Joe Francis HAS been voted off Porno Island. You'd never guess this from what goes on in the anti-porn blogosphere, but in the actual porn blogosphere, Francis' case was covered much more widely and seriously than it has been in MSM and the reviews have been withering. For one thing, he was never considered a "real" pornographer who actually makes things, but rather a hustler who gamed the system by using a camera to take advantage of drunk girls, get footage for free and get his dick in the business.
I'm sure this will be hard for some people to believe, but we have our own standards and while they tolerate things they shouldn't, they are applied pretty sternly where relevant.
A "producer" who is attracted to this occupation because he thinks he'll get laid a lot is in for a rude surprise. Unless he's also a performer, he's not getting anything he doesn't pay for. And even then, the "producer-performer" is always suspect unless he was a performer first who then became a producer, like John Stagliano.
Where Francis is concerned, i think we were onto his act before a lot of people in the outside world. I read some pretty fluffy coverage of this joker in places like the NYT, and while I'm sure somebody out here has something good to say about him, he's generally regarded as a sleazebag who got what he had coming.
And incidentally, it's the non-pro of his ilk who gets careless with I.D.s and releases - kinda like the TPoP producers.
The F.S.C., on the other hand, has a standing $10K reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone shooting sexually explicit pictures of minors, a reward that's been paid out several times.
Contrary to what said TPoP producers earnestly want you to believe, we hate assholes who exploit kids and we don't just gripe about it.
We drop the dime on them.
I will admit the ATM scene with the girl vomiting was uncomfortable for me to watch. I think it's a disgusting practice in porn and don't find anything sexy about it. The director seemed rude and insensitive to the girl's wishes, but conned her into doing it anyway. In addition to the section on racism in porn, I am actually with the filmmakers on this one.
ReplyDeleteMy argument with Chyng (?) began mainly because of their treatment with Joanna. She's always been one of my favorite porn stars and I interviewed her a few years back. Chyng asked me what i had thought of her and I told her how unfair they were to shat that clip out of all the Burning Angel clips they could have chosen. It just doesn't represent the majority of the work she does. Chyng went on and on about how Joanna told them stories of rape and abuse in her life that they chose to leave out of the film. I'd be really curious to hear from Joanna's side if this is true or not.
We also asked her about not including "Pirates", which she seemed to brush off. She mentioned she was familiar with it but gave no reason for not including it in the film. She also mentioned she had problem's with Tristan's work, but it seemed to have more to do with the performers Tristan uses than the actual content.
As a documentary filmmaker myself, I can see what they're trying to do here. They have a specific point of view they're trying to promote and are going all out to make sure people walk away with that message. What pisses me off, though, is that they're trying to promote the film as being "objective," which it clearly is not.
I am in the UK and therefore have had no opportunity to see this documentary. I do, however, have some questions for you Ernest which I hope you will have time to respond to.
ReplyDeleteYou state that 'not all pleasures are positive, healthy or morally defensible'. Could you give some examples of these?
I noted that you feel unable, as a white man, to offer any opinion of gangsta rap. I'm wondering why this same criteria does not apply to your critiques on pornography and it's impact on women. Is it your position that women do not face sexist discrimination and inequality?
You make reference several times to POP being propaganda. Would you say, as someone who has made a living from the pornography industry for 25 years, that you are immune to engaging in propaganda to promote and defend your work in that industry and the money you make from it? You also express concern at the impact this propaganda could potentially have, stating 'collateral effects are far from funny'. Given the proliferation of pornography, might that not have some collateral effects also?
Other mediums being as bad as or worse than pornography also appear frequently in your writings here. I am aware of feminist critiques of wider media and culture as well as those on pornography. What is your position on the impact of media on culture and society? I ask because I am confused by your dismissal on the one hand of hypersexualised culture but your concerns about the potential influence of POP and other such critiques of pornography on the other.
You mention that you've never been invited to a secret gathering where sexist ideologies are formulated to guide the making of pornography, I wonder if you believe yourself, or individuals in general, then, to be immune to the influences of society at large; that socialisation has no impact on who we are or how we develop; that we are not influenced or impacted by our relationships with family, friends, lovers, partners. Is there no cultural hegemony?
On a related point with regard fantasies.. Do you think we pop out of the womb fully formed as.. sadists, say, or subs?
You regard the statistics presented in POP as junk social science. Could you present more accurate figures on which titles and genres are most popular, including the internet? Pirates is mentioned frequently, I'm interested in figures for that but would like more general stats.
You question the categorization of violent acts by the researchers. Could you give your definition and, given your experience and knowledge of pornography, your own perspective on the prevalence of violence in pornagraphy.
Girls Gone Wild is mentioned as a 'favourite punchbag' for feminists. Isn't this, in part, because a prominant player has been accused of rape? Why is it ok for industry insiders that you mention to be critical of this and not feminists? You state that women are 'certainly more jovially mocked' in GGW than male participants in jackass. It appears that not only are they more jovially mocked but are raped and sexually assaulted too. What are your thoughts on why this might happen?
Chyng Sun asked "Don’t you think, that much of the enjoyment of pornography comes from watching the woman’s pain and humiliation?”
I missed your response to this and am interested in hearing it. What is your take on, for example, why men are aroused by woman being ejaculated on her face by multiple men and then consuming it or having another woman consume it?
What is your take on the reasons why degradation, of women usually, comes to be eroticised and fethishized?
You state that 'anti porn cultists' are fixated on sex. Is your basis for this purely the one element of their lives - anti pornography activism - that you are aware of? Given your objections to what you see as poor research and generalisations on their part isn't this a questionable assertion to make?
'..it is not beyond the realms of possibility that performers like to play dirty..' - what percentage of women would you say are in pornography because they love sex/enjoy the sex acts on screen versus those there for a paycheck (and the other reasons they ended up in pornography).
You opine that skull fucking to gag point is minor in comparison to some violent acts portrayed in mainstream shows. Can i ask if you see any differences in how violence against women is represented, why that might be, the cultural meanings behind it? Certainly my own critiques of pornography do not happen in isolation. Nor are those of any radical feminists that I know or have read. It is placed in the context of society and the world at large; the role of poverty, inequaltity and power.
Thanks for reading.
Wow, so many questions, Anon. And yet, you forgot to ask the obvious, and in keeping with your other questions – "When did you stop beating your wife?"
ReplyDeleteApart from it being a not very good jibe IACB I'm not really getting the point of your comment.
ReplyDeleteIf you've seen the documentary and have similar views to Ernest I'd be really interested in seeing your responses to my questions though.
The point is, that your questions are don't really come across as questions at all, so much as accusations. I wouldn't blame Ernest at all if he chose not to answer a number of questions as you've framed them. I certainly wouldn't.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen TPoP, but I'll be glad to take on this question (since the "content analysis" study in question is one that has been reported elsewhere and is one that I'm familiar with):
"You regard the statistics presented in POP as junk social science. Could you present more accurate figures on which titles and genres are most popular, including the internet? Pirates is mentioned frequently, I'm interested in figures for that but would like more general stats."
You seem to labor under the illusion that junk science and bogus statistics somehow trump in the absence of other studies. That is not the case. Studies based on fundamentally flawed methodology, like the Wosnitzer's study, are meaningless, whether there have been other studies on that subject or not.
As for what titles and genres are most popular, "including the internet", I suppose number of copies sold as reported by AVN might be a good measure (though I don't think AVN groups statistics by genre), but I'll let Ernest field that one. And for internet sites, there really are no accurate stats that I know of, and I include Alexa ratings in the "not accurate" category.
But I can say, having watched a great deal of porn, that a great deal of it is not in any way violent, except perhaps from the point of view of those who see any violation of their ideological strictures as "violent".
Sorry, anony, but I answered all the leading questions on this subject I intend to during my interminable interview with Dr. Sun.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm stating here are my opinions. I put them up as such, not as unbiased and non-judgmental "examinations."
And I put my name and my address in there as well.
You don't even have the guts to sign in here. Your questions are, as IACB correctly states, accusations phrased as questions and I decline to subject myself to cross-examination by trolling strangers.
The law protects not only my right to speak, but also to decline to do so.
Before you bother going there, I could certainly respond effectively to every point you raise if I so chose.
As it is, I have no reason to give you that satisfaction.
Ernest,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. I misread you here, then -- it sounded like you were just saying "Well, I don't like it myself, just like I don't like Reality TV, but he can do what he wants." My mistake.
"You make reference several times to POP being propaganda. Would you say, as someone who has made a living from the pornography industry for 25 years, that you are immune to engaging in propaganda to promote and defend your work in that industry and the money you make from it? You also express concern at the impact this propaganda could potentially have, stating 'collateral effects are far from funny'. Given the proliferation of pornography, might that not have some collateral effects also?"
ReplyDeleteAnon, you've clearly got something in mind here, and appear to want us to divine what that something is just by reading your words. But, well, I for one don't know. Can you tell me what the name of this documentary porn makers have made to defend themselves is, and show me where they claim that it's objective and looks at both sides?
Funnily enough, I'm betting you can't. I'm betting it doesn't exist.
"Girls Gone Wild is mentioned as a 'favourite punchbag' for feminists. Isn't this, in part, because a prominant player has been accused of rape? Why is it ok for industry insiders that you mention to be critical of this and not feminists? You state that women are 'certainly more jovially mocked' in GGW than male participants in jackass. It appears that not only are they more jovially mocked but are raped and sexually assaulted too. What are your thoughts on why this might happen?"
Read the comment where he responded to me. He's clearly got as much love for Francis as you or I do, and he's also informing us that most of the porn industry feels THE SAME WAY. OMG.
"On a related point with regard fantasies.. Do you think we pop out of the womb fully formed as.. sadists, say, or subs?"
I don't know about Ernest, but if you want to see MY take on that, you can read it here.
I think it's just as foolish to attribute all our preferences to nurture/social shaping as it is to attribute them all to nature. Radical social constructionism just strikes me as a sloppy way of avoiding trying to understand what influence heredity and biology have on people, just as radical biological determinism strikes me as a sloppy way of trying not to understand that society shapes them as well.
Trinity. Yes, I have my own opinions on pornography but I was not expecting anyone to divine what the specifics of those are by my questions. I was simply looking for a response from Ernest.
ReplyDeleteI did read the comments, to you, about GGW and they were partly behind my question there. I wasn't clear why it would be an issue for feminists to critique them when pornography insiders already were.
I don't think I stated my position on essentialism vs social constructionism. I was asking the thoughts of Ernest. Noone can be absolutely certain of how biology shapes us, agreed, but I was posing a question about Ernests thoughts on how, among other things, our sexuality might be impacted by our socialisation.
Anony- I answered. See latest entry, now, I'm not Ernest, but...hey, I know porn.
ReplyDeleteFirst, regarding Joe Francis:
ReplyDeleteI never really regarded him to be part of Porno Island from the beginning, since most of his active GGW content as much as I've seen generally stopped at girl/girl kissing and fondling, bumping and grinding, and tit- and booty-flashing. In short, more of a softcore feel for the late-night Jerry Springer crowd than anything hardcore.
That doesn't mean that he isn't a total asshat...especially for not giving the young women he uses for his own profit the benefit of a model release or an adequate compensation..or right of first refusal.
Anthony
And now, to Anony's attempt at push polling thinly disguised as an inquiry:
ReplyDeleteI'm not involved in the porn industry like Ren or Ernest, but I do happen to watch my share of porn a lot, and follow the opinions of people within the industry and outside of it.
As Ernest said, he is under no obligation to be cross-examined like a criminal...especially because he is one of the particular TARGETS of TPoP's slanders and libels. Especially considering this film's extensive use of cherry-picking his very words to fit their propaganda efforts.
On the other hand, I have some thoughts on some of Anony's inquiries, and since everyone else here has shared their takes, might as well join the fray here. I'll answer the questions as if they were addressed to me rather than Ernest.
You state that 'not all pleasures are positive, healthy or morally defensible'. Could you give some examples of these?
Sure....people getting pleasure at the suffering of others is certainly NOT defensible or positive or healthy. That would be the case whether the pleasure is physical, psychological, or sexual.
Where Ernest seems to draw the line is where suffering is imposed on other people without their total consent. Whether consensual sexual acts amongst consenting adults crosses that line is the main fundamental issue that TPoP attempts to resolve in their favor. That their definition of "suffering" tends to ignore the actual practices and willful consent of those who actually engage in the acts they so decry, says a hell of a lot about their basic fundamental beliefs about what constitutes "pleasure"....especially the sexual kind.
You make reference several times to POP being propaganda. Would you say, as someone who has made a living from the pornography industry for 25 years, that you are immune to engaging in propaganda to promote and defend your work in that industry and the money you make from it? You also express concern at the impact this propaganda could potentially have, stating 'collateral effects are far from funny'. Given the proliferation of pornography, might that not have some collateral effects also?
Ahhhh....no, Anony....what Ernest is doing is NOT "propaganda" as compared to what the producers of TPoP are doing. Ernest is basically defending those who have been slandered so brusquely in the film. He has no need to "defend" himself or his profession or even his personal sex practices, because those activities are his own damn business....and since he has committed no crime or coerced no one into his lifestyle, it is simply none of your damn business to lecture him about his profession or his choices.
On the other hand, it IS his perfect right to question obvious falsehoods and lies when they are used to distort and dehumanize real people and reduce them to the status of objects to be used for another person's pleasure....which is exactly what TPoP does with the women performers "featured". The attempts to conflate consensual BDSM play with actual Abu Ghraib torture alone warrant a stringent defense.
Other mediums being as bad as or worse than pornography also appear frequently in your writings here. I am aware of feminist critiques of wider media and culture as well as those on pornography. What is your position on the impact of media on culture and society? I ask because I am confused by your dismissal on the one hand of hypersexualised culture but your concerns about the potential influence of POP and other such critiques of pornography on the other.
For starters, I don't share for one minute the notion of a dominant "hypersexualized" culture...just because sex may be used as a crutch to sell everything from cars to hair spray to soft drinks to hamburgers does not mean that our culture is so "pornified". Indeed, it's just as easy, if not easier, to profit from anti-sexual messages....and far, far more influential institutions like the media, the state, and organized religion, have far more power than "pornographers" or MTV to influence impressionable youth. Even BET has its religious programming every morning to go along with its "gangsta rap".
And yes, media can play a significant role in structuring mass opinion....but only to a certain point. In the end, individuals have been constantly able to defy and resist advertising and go their own way. ("New Coke", anyone?? The Macarena?? Mood rings??? The Y2K meltdown scenarios??) Individuals can choose to respond to media attractions or they can choose to reject them....but they do so AS INDIVIDUALS, not as a hive mass. Remember...if it had been left to the dominant media position a few month ago, Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic Presidential candidate.
You mention that you've never been invited to a secret gathering where sexist ideologies are formulated to guide the making of pornography, I wonder if you believe yourself, or individuals in general, then, to be immune to the influences of society at large; that socialisation has no impact on who we are or how we develop; that we are not influenced or impacted by our relationships with family, friends, lovers, partners. Is there no cultural hegemony?
See my response above to the last question. Also, if there is any impact that immediate family or friends have on our social influences, they usually tend to be more towards sexual conservatism and restriction, not towards "pornification". But, I guess that that's exactly the point that the authors of TPoP are hoping for to begin with, right???
On a related point with regard fantasies.. Do you think we pop out of the womb fully formed as.. sadists, say, or subs?
Ahhhh, no. In fact, most human beings do have their sexual fantasies shaped by their personal life experiences as much as by what they see and hear in the media. However, what finally emerges as their fantasies are strictly their own fantasies, not merely implanted by some alien or some microcode chip implanted by The Patriarchy.
You regard the statistics presented in POP as junk social science. Could you present more accurate figures on which titles and genres are most popular, including the internet? Pirates is mentioned frequently, I'm interested in figures for that but would like more general stats.
I can do you one better, Anony; just go to a megasite like Danni's Hard Drive or Naughty America or Brazzers...or do some real research and browse through the hundreds and hundreds of websites run by actual women performers or simply women wanting to express their exhibitionist/voyeuristic desires. Or, to be much simpler, try simply LISTENING to a few women performers (not just those who fit your strict ideological biases) talk about their own experiences and desires.
I'll continue this in the next post.
Anthony
Okay, since Trinity's response re the matter of Joe Francis and GGW evidently didn't sufficiently clarify this matter, which you, anonymous, used to slide in some standard boilerplate about the prevalence of rape in the making of pornography, I'll address it directly once more. The gravity of the acts in question and your obvious attempt to slander us all through guilt by association require me to do no less.
ReplyDeleteYou did say the following, did you not?
"It appears that not only are they (the women appearing in GGW) more jovially mocked but are raped and sexually assaulted too. What are your thoughts on why this might happen?"
Neither Joe Francis nor GGW are part of the world of "industrially produced mainstream pornography" this film claims to explore. He is widely detested in that world and his behavior has always been considered unethical and dangerous. As I've already stated, the X-rated press and porn blogosphere have covered this case far more extensively than MSM, and the commentary has been uniformly hostile to Francis.
He is not a pornographer. He is not a part of our industry. He is scum. He is also innocent of rape until proven guilty.
And the implication that rape is commonplace in porn is scurrilous and false and remains so no matter how often repeated.
My thoughts on why Francis might have done what he did are not the object of your expressed curiosity here, and I wouldn't have the slightest insight into his actions, having never met him or desired to do so. You clearly hope to tar us all by association with an individual we collectively despise, and wish other readers to draw conclusions to the effect that his execrable behavior is both typical of our industry and a predictable result of the manner in which said industry goes about its daily business.
We are pornographers and that description is not synonymous with rapists, despite your attempt to imply otherwise.
Denials of this intention will only damage your credibility further. Joe Francis may be your poster-boy for pornographers-as-rapists, but he stands alone, unsupported by any among us, and is representative of exactly nothing relevant to any broader discussion of pornography.
Oh, and one more thing about Joe Francis. I have no problem with feminists or anyone else calling him out for the things we do know him to have done, though I think it prudent to await a jury verdict before assuming he's guilty of every allegation. That is why we have a criminal justice system.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what I do find objectionable is the frequent portrayal of Francis as somehow typical of everyone in any way associated with the creation of mainstream porn.
I challenge not the criticisms of Francis as an individual by anyone. What I do challenge is his symbolic use as a placeholder for others he in no way resembles.
Have at him, but leave us out of it. He isn't one of ours.
OK...to continue with my response to Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteYou question the categorization of violent acts by the researchers. Could you give your definition and, given your experience and knowledge of pornography, your own perspective on the prevalence of violence in pornagraphy.
sure, Anony...if by "violence" you mean "coercive abuse of battery," then I can tell you straight out that the majority of commercial porn out there contains little or NO violence whatsoever. In fact, anyone who attempts to film an actual scene of sexual violence (rather than a simulation or a depiction of violence therin) is committing a crime of accessory to murder or sexual battery, and as such deserves not only ridicule, but a date with a judge and jury.
And no, depictions of consensual BDSM or top/bottom play don't count as "violent", either.
If there is even a remote small existence of combining sex with violence, it is all mostly based on projecting the fantasies of the individual producers, not due to any direct political or social agenda.
Girls Gone Wild is mentioned as a 'favourite punchbag' for feminists. Isn't this, in part, because a prominant player has been accused of rape? Why is it ok for industry insiders that you mention to be critical of this and not feminists? You state that women are 'certainly more jovially mocked' in GGW than male participants in jackass. It appears that not only are they more jovially mocked but are raped and sexually assaulted too. What are your thoughts on why this might happen?
Sorry to burst your bubble, Anony, but GGW is NOT hardcore porn, anymore than jackass is representative of male pop culture. Joe Francis has already been established here as a total asshat and exploiter of women, and his escapades of getting women drunk enough to do suggestive acts are more than worthy of contempt. And, as Ernest has duly commented here in his last post, the adult industry has roundly and unequivocably repudiated Francis as a pick-up artist and a scammer.
And BTW....no one, not even Ernest, is claiming that "feminists" should not be allowed to have a criticism of cretins like Joe Francis on general principle; to raise such a non-sequitier is simply an attempt to project your own biases on others. If you have any report of women in porn actually being "raped" and "sexually assaulted" on screen during the production of their content; then it is your obligation to back your allegations up with facts. We simply will not make your case for you.
Chyng Sun asked "Don’t you think, that much of the enjoyment of pornography comes from watching the woman’s pain and humiliation?”
I missed your response to this and am interested in hearing it. What is your take on, for example, why men are aroused by woman being ejaculated on her face by multiple men and then consuming it or having another woman consume it?
What is your take on the reasons why degradation, of women usually, comes to be eroticised and fethishized?
"Pain and humiliation"??? Really, Anony?? Is that what you call it when a woman in porn has an orgasm and then smiles at the camera and her partners who participated in such?? What about the pro domme who gets off on a scene with a male bottom.....is she feeling "pain and humiliation"?? Is the man who is getting himself off on this scene as a submissive merely faking it?? Or is he merely a liar hiding his true absolute power over his domme top???
As someone who actually watches plenty of porn, Anony, I can easily assert to you that I absolutely know the difference between a woman showing "pain and humiliation" and a woman showing pleasure and joy. I see far more of the latter in the porn I view than I ever do the former.
And has it ever entered your mind that perhaps even the sperm on the woman's face might be...well, you know, FAKE??? That even the "humiliation" and "pain" that you and Chyng Sun say that she is eternally suffering just might be just plain good acting?? Besides, we are talking about sperm here (if it happens to be real), not battery acid; unless it gets into the eyes or nose, it is really no big deal.
And of course, one woman's "degradation" may happen to be another woman's joyful fetish.
You state that 'anti porn cultists' are fixated on sex. Is your basis for this purely the one element of their lives - anti pornography activism - that you are aware of? Given your objections to what you see as poor research and generalisations on their part isn't this a questionable assertion to make?
No, Anony, it's not questionable at all...it is their actual arguments and stated principles and ACTIONS in support of their beliefs that prove Ernest's point to be correct.
'..it is not beyond the realms of possibility that performers like to play dirty..' - what percentage of women would you say are in pornography because they love sex/enjoy the sex acts on screen versus those there for a paycheck (and the other reasons they ended up in pornography).
I don't know, Anony...why not try asking the women who are in porn and respecting their answers. That wouldn't be too much of a reach for you, wouldn't it?? Oh, I forgot....women who say they love their work in porn are simply either LIARS attempting to rationalize their self-oppression or their selfish addiction to The Cock, or paid agents of "the pornographers". Or, they're just brainless skanks and mindless sluts who just can't control themselves.
And...isn't it possible that women performers are capable of loving BOTH the work AND the paycheck??
You opine that skull fucking to gag point is minor in comparison to some violent acts portrayed in mainstream shows. Can i ask if you see any differences in how violence against women is represented, why that might be, the cultural meanings behind it? Certainly my own critiques of pornography do not happen in isolation. Nor are those of any radical feminists that I know or have read. It is placed in the context of society and the world at large; the role of poverty, inequaltity and power.
Boy, for someone who claims to be so impartial, you sure end with a leading question.
Unfortunately, you and your "radical feminist" allies seem to have it all backwards. Porn is NOT the foundational element of social and economic inequality and power; it is only a reflection of such inequalities. It is a medium used to reflect personal sexual desires, not a delivery system for any political or social expression of desires. It is merely an exaggeration of sexual expression, in the same way that comedy exaggerates laughs, horror films exaggerates fear and fright, and action movies exaggerate drama. None of the latter are considered such a dire threat to the social order quite like sexual speech and expression is; and to focus all attention on indicting sexual speech as being the foundation of social inequality -- let alone violence and inequality against women -- is not only a travesty of justice against innocent people and innocent desires, but a ultimately reactionary theory.
I will end this with Marcia Pally's one-line anthem that is as true today as it was when she first said it during the high Feminist Porn Wars of the 1980s:
Ban Sexism, not Sex.
Now, I'm done.
Anthony
"But the idea that GGW is that much more damaging to its participants than any other entertainment built on the same template because the content is sexual is dubious. The women of GGW are certainly more jovially mocked than the guys on Jackass, but fortunately the vast majority of men and women can quite handily avoid such hazards."
ReplyDeleteErnest, are these your words on GGW?
And below are your later comments?
"Neither Joe Francis nor GGW are part of the world of "industrially produced mainstream pornography" this film claims to explore. He is widely detested in that world and his behavior has always been considered unethical and dangerous. As I've already stated, the X-rated press and porn blogosphere have covered this case far more extensively than MSM, and the commentary has been uniformly hostile to Francis."
I think it's understandable that I sought clarification on your position, as did a frequent poster to your site who is pro-pornography.
I applaud those in the pornography industry who speak out against such individuals and I would also defend the right of feminists to critique Francis and the potential harms of pornography.
Anthony, how would you define trolling?
ReplyDeletePresumably by publishing a blog contributors here wish to invite discussion and debate? You would say that I'm a troll because I disagree with Ernest and have asked questions of his postings?
To clarify, I have never stated that I am impartial, clearly I am not. I am obviously anti-pornography and I am a feminist, and the questions I asked are reflective of that position.
You watch a lot of pornography and make friends with women on pornography through myspace and other social networking sites. Would you say that this gives you expert status on those women's, and other women's experiences, of pornography?
You state that people getting pleasure at the suffering of others is not defensible, positive or healthy. Is it because of your qualifications/experience as a frequent pornography watcher and blogger/social networker that you are certain those involved in pornography are not harmed physically, psychologically or sexually? What of those who engage in bdsm pornography where getting pleasure at the suffering of others or some kind of personal suffering might be the kink of both participants and the expressed goal? Are those elements of pornography indefensible?
On your assertion that I have crossed a boundary or lectured Ernest on his personal life, can you clarify why you believe that to be the case? From my perspective, I am noting that Ernest makes a living from pornography so will not be likely to speak objectively on the issue. You, Anthony, like to wank to pornography, seemingly a great deal, which you seem to believe makes you an expert on the topic and on all women (or maybe just the ones you know on myspace and from the dvd's you watch?) involved in it. I don't recall reading any objective writing from you on the matter either, unsurprising given the large part it plays in your life.
I have not had an opportunity to see POP so I cannot comment on it's objectivity or lack of. Hopefully I will get the chance to do so. Again, people are posting their opinions on a blog and, I would have thought, expect others to respond whether to agree or disagree with those opinions and to ask questions of the posters. Should I only respond or ask questions if I agree with you?
I did not state that pornography, or wider media in general, are the sole influences on culture and society. I posed questions on media to clarify whether it has an impact or not, because I was confused about Ernests position (eg, appears to dismiss the potential influence of pornography on one hand but concern about the impact of POP on the other). I also asked generally about the influence of socialisation - family, friends, institutions etc. What are the dominant ideologies, in your opinion Anthony, and where do they come from? You're a lefty, yes? How does western culture frame class? How does it frame race? What are the power structures? Who has the power and why? How are those represented and reflected in media, in culture, in society, in pornography?
Fantasies. Did I say they were implanted by patriarchy? I must look over my notes.." What emerges are strictly their own fantasies"? Where do those fantasies come from? How are they shaped? By their personal life? Of course. What does that personal life consist of? Who are we socialised by and where do those people/institutions get their ideas and beliefs from?
On statistics. Will Danni's Hard Drive or Naughty America have statistics on pornography use that are more accurate than AVN? I am not a researcher, I was hoping to access statistics that won't be dismissed as junk science and was asking for information where I might find those.
What women performers have you listened to Anthony? I was not aware that you are involved in research, sorry. I have done quite a bit of reading on what women in pornography have to say about the business and have spoken to women who have been involved, but thank you for your suggestions.
Moving on to your question about violence. I did not have a definition in mind, I was asking Ernest his perspective - based on his years of experience - about the prevalence of violence in pornography. In his opinion. Just to clarify though, your position is more or less that it doesn't exist because even the 'remote small existence' is a projection of individual producer fantasy?
The producers then are immune to society at large? They don't respond either to supply and demand?
Could you clarify also what you mean by no direct political or social agenda, just so that I can be sure I'm understanding you.
I didn't state that GGW is hardcore pornography. Ernest described them as a favourite punchbag for feminists. I asked why they shouldn't be attacked by feminists as well as industry insiders.
On anti-pornography activists.. I had no idea that you knew some/all of them on a personal basis and are thus able to state unequivocally that they are indeed fixated on sex. I must apologise.
Can you point out where I state that pornography is the foundational element of social and economic inequality and power? I agree it is a reflection of those; a reflection that also in turn has it's own influence. Can you say what aspects of society you believe it does reflect?
Ban sexism? I'm with you on that. I wonder what impact that would have on you though, given your own attitudes toward women.
I know that was directed at Anthony, but I'll just offer this simple observation –
ReplyDeleteBy my count, that last post consisted of at least 30 questions, most of them pointed, accusatory, and leading. No, no badgering there.
There is just simply not enough time in the day for such nonsense.
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ReplyDeleteOh, Anony, dewd (or dewdette)...just be lucky that I am about to be headed for work, because I can't unload the full wrath of my response. That'll have to wait until later tonight.
ReplyDeleteFor the time being, however, I will simply say this: I don't claim to be an academic or a know-it-all like you apparantly are: I'm simply a civilian working-class fella with an opinion that you apparently don't like. Well...too bad; you're the visitor trying to question us, so we reserve the right to respond and defend ourselves.
I'll save the rest for later.
Oh..and "my own attitudes towards women"??? You don't know me, Anony, and unless you manage to actually read what I wrote rather than make an ass of yourself and make assumptions based on your own talking points handed to you by your antiporn allies, then you have no standing to lecture me on anything....let alone "my opinion of women". If you can't handle that, then...may heaven help you.
Anthony
IACB, Anthony spends a considerable amount of time posting personal attacks both here and on his blog, do you have a problem with that or solely with those who disagree with your position on pornography?
ReplyDeleteAgain, I'm absolutely clear that I am not impartial on this issue and neither are my questions.
Would you like to give me some clear guidelines on how I should respond appropriately to articles without inducing your ire? Is there a limit to how many questions I should ask? I'm not a researcher, but are you saying that my questions should always be impartial and objective? Are you impartial and objective when questioning those you disagree with? There I go asking questions again, I'll wait until you set me straight on some good practice guidelines for blog commenting..
Anthony, I am not an academic. I'm a working class female.
No, I don't know you and haven't claimed to. I have, however, read your blog and your postings here and elsewhere where your attitudes toward women are very apparent. My observations of you and your attitudes are mine's and come from reading your own words. I have no online allies, although there are certainly people whose opinions I agree with.
Of course I know only what you present online, perhaps you are entirely different away from your pc in attitudes and beliefs.
I'm the visitor and you reserve the right to defend yourselves? From... questions?
I'm not aware of having lectured you; disagreeing with you, absolutely.
In what way have I made an ass of myself? I'm interested to hear your opinions so that I can reflect on it.
Lastly, heaven help me? You'll unload the full wrath of your response on me later? What exactly do you mean by that? I never find internet hardmen or hardwomen particularly impressive, but you might want to consider your tone, and your phrasing, which some could find threatening.
Anony,
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that if we showed up at, say, Heart's place, or the blog of any other radical feminist, and posted something like, say:
I have a few questions.
You claim that people are influenced by the media. But surely you realize that there are, for example, gay people in small towns, who are rejected and ridiculed for who they are. Why do you think that these people's sexuality is socially conditioned, rather than innate?
Radical feminists spend quite a lot of time "examining" and "theorizing" about pornography. In many cases, though, this means viewing it in order to analyze it? How does this viewing affect the radical feminist in question? If that person is, for example, a man like Jensen, who admits he used to consume porn for fun, how can we be sure he's "analyzing" only, since we know he once sexually responded to porn?
Radical feminists seem to focus on gonzo to the exclusion of the feature. What does it say about them that they choose to devote such attention to, as Dines puts it, "body-punishing sex?"
Carol Queen calls some people "absexuals," meaning "people who get their sexual thrills vicariously from condemning other people." How do you think this concept relates or does not relate to radical feminism?
...etc.
If I came into a radical feminist forum and said those things, people would rightly see that my questions are written from a pro-porn slant. They all assume from the outset that radical feminists really are pushing an anti-sex agenda.
While I'm free to believe that, and in some particular cases I actually DO believe it, it wouldn't be out of bounds for the people I was asking those questions to roll their eyes and say "No, we're not going to discuss this with you. You have an agenda."
Anon -
ReplyDeletePutting the subject of porn and feminism aside for a minute, I think basic common sense should tell you that unloading a series of 30 questions on any blog on any subject is not exactly a way to foster dialog. And especially given the clear hostility of your line of questions, I really don't think you could be expected to be received civilly in any context.
And if you don't get that, I really think you need to go back and learn a little bit of Internet Etiquette 101 - actually, make that simple Not Being an Asshole 101.
Trinity, I'm not sure how much more explicit I can be about my leanings. I am anti pornography and my questions are in that context.
ReplyDeletePeople who support the perspectives written on this blog do appear on anti pornography blogs on a regular basis and express their opinions, and, ask questions of those who oppose their views. They also write postings targeting particular individuals who are anti pornography and post what can only be described as personal attacks on them in their own blogs. This also happens from people on the anti-pornography side, although from what I've seen to a lesser degree (but I have obviously not seen every blog and website in the world).
As for me having an agenda, I suppose I do in terms of wanting a response to my questions and RE was one person who decided to do so.
In terms of trying to directly answer your question, all I can say to you is, I would either choose to respond to you or I wouldn't, depending on your questions and whether I felt I could answer them or not and whether I could bothered to at the time, fully aware that you had a pro-pornography perspective.
IACB, asking questions is not a way to foster dialogue? Seems to work pretty well for me away from the interwebs. Or away from this blog in particular. Asking questions which show I obviously disagree with someone might not be a way of fostering dialogue in order to make bestest pals but I'm only really interested in finding out peoples opinions at this stage.
ReplyDeleteIn what way am I being an asshole?
I'd also be interested to hear your perspective on internet etiquette.Like I said in my previous post to you, I keenly await your guidance on the correct manner to disagree and make postings in an appropraiate manner in this and other blogs.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteMakes sense to me. I'm honestly not as angry at you as IACB, Anthony, or Ernest is -- but I completely understand why they're not answering you. I think if you want answers (and I'm not saying you don't), it would probably be a less suspicious tactic to do something other than rapid-fire leading questions.
And some of your questions, like "define violence," are REALLY broad. Do you have in mind a specific definition of "violence" that you could give if we asked you the same thing? While it's true that Ernest doesn't define it, he does spend a goodly amount of time in his fourth posts describing the differences he sees between BDSM, including BDSM on film for profit, and real violence. (Negotiation, empathy, and the people who these things are done to describing them as good rather than as violent.) I think it would be much more productive to talk about why those things are or are not violent than to try to come up with a sweeping definition, for example.
It's not the mere fact that you're anti-porn that's bothering me (can't speak for anyone else.) It's the way you don't seem to be engaging what we're saying. (For example, you totally ignored MY answers. That's fair, since I'm not in the industry, sure, but it might well look bad to people who already suspect you of bad faith here.)
Trinity, what do you mean by bad faith?
ReplyDeleteMy question to Ernest about violence in pornography was in response to his criticism of the definitions and/or criteria used by the makers of POP. I was asking him to clarify his persective on that particular issue as someone with years of experience in the industry. He chose not to do so, fair enough. How could I have phrased the question in a way that would be more acceptable to you?
I apologise if I seem to have ignored your opinion somewhere or haven't responded, I thought I'd made responses to everyone but clearly missed points that you'd made along the way.
Since this will only go round in circles and dissension appears unwelcome - in the form of asking questions, or a certain amount of questions, or questions by someone who is anti-pornography (i'm still not sure of the protocols) - I won't make any further posts on this matter.
"IACB, asking questions is not a way to foster dialogue?"
ReplyDeleteEven getting away from the fact that a lot your questions are really thinly-veiled accusations, the fact that, asking a HUGE volume of questions, like you're doing, would require a chapter-length essay. And I, for one, am not going to take the time to do that just to appease some troll.
"In what way am I being an asshole?"
I think underneath all of your disingenuous, I think you know the answer to that one.
"Since this will only go round in circles and dissension appears unwelcome - in the form of asking questions, or a certain amount of questions, or questions by someone who is anti-pornography"
You remind me of a variety of protester who's game it is to simply be as disruptive as possible – show up at public meetings and hog the microphone during Q/A to go on about 911 Truth or some other issue that's probably peripheral to the discussion, disrupt events by screaming at people through a bullhorn, and so on. Then, if they get thrown out or arrested, make a big to-do about how they're being censored, when really, the issue is the shitty and disruptive manner in which they go about expressing themselves, not that they're expressing some forbidden truth.
Likewise here, I'm sure you'll go away smugly self-assured that we're unable to answer your oh-so-righteous "radical" challenges. But in fact, the reason you're not being engaged by several of us has everything to do with the fact you're badgering us, not with the fact that we feel we can't be questioned by anti-porn folks.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteWell, I actually have something of a rapport with Ernest, but... if what I wanted to know was whether he feels there ever is violence in porn, I might have said something like:
I've heard you say in several places that you do critique some of the people and practices of the industry. What are some of the things you've seen that you do feel are harmful or sexist?
I don't think I'd ask a direct question about "violence" because people DO often wind up not talking about the same phenomena, especially if person A thinks BDSM/gonzo is violent and person B thinks it's just fantasy.
If you meant something more along the lines of "I can see why you think BDSM and gonzo aren't real violence, but what if the audience doesn't know that? Do you feel you have any responsibility if someone who isn't empathetic/who is hateful 'copies' what he's seeing in an undeniably violent way?" I'd probably say it like that.
My best guess at Ernest's answer (and I hope you correct me, E, if I'm making a mistake here) would be something like "No, I don't think pornographers are responsible. I don't think images make evil people do evil things. I think evil people do evil things because they are hateful or jealous or fearful or unhinged or violent. I don't think you can blame people for how other people use things they have made."
For ME (not Ernest,) I'd add that I do think people can be influenced to do things, but I think this phenomenon is much less about media as about groups. People will do some really unwise, nasty, or mean things if they feel it makes them "fit in." I don't think they do nearly as much because they're copying pictures.
And yeah, I do think that porn influences pop culture some. Or, rather, people's pop-culture idea of what porn is about influences pop culture some. But I don't think it has that "making people zombies" thing to it. I think that really intense brainwashing is actually *group dynamics,* not Pavlovian responses to arousing images.
Which is why I'd be a lot more suspicious of a large crowd of drunk frat boys "bonding" over watching porn together than I ever would of some guy staring at his monitor/television with his penis in his fist.
(To be clear, I don't think ALL "male bonding," even of this sort, is misogynistic. But I'd suspect that if it DID happen in a group where dominating women is a sign of manhood, they might well lose their scruples to impress one another and say/do nasty sexist stuff to fit in.)
(to be extra clear, where I said "for me" I don't mean I know he disagrees. I just mean I'm not conjecturing about his opinion there, but rather giving mine there.)
ReplyDeleteTrinity,
ReplyDeleteWell, I couldn't have said any of it any better myself. In fact, you clearly understood what I did say in TPoP, to the effect that evil people do evil things and don't need pictures to show them how.
I believe those people should be held responsible for their actions and not the pictures they looked prior to those actions.
Time and again, the criminal justice system here has taken the same position. Defenses based on outside influences fail in front of judges and juries pretty much wherever they're attempted, and with good reason. This kind of "twinkie defense," if successful, would open the way to all manner of excuses for criminal behavior.
David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam, claimed he got orders to commit serial killings form his neighbor's dog. Should we hold the dog responsible?
I also want to say that I appreciate the calm and reflective manner in which you've addressed what I still see as hostile trolling. I don't know if you accomplished much with the person you addressed by this approach, but I appreciate the tone it sets.
I admit to being short-tempered with this kind of thing, perhaps from having so much exposure to it, and from knowing just how inaccurate most of it is, and from the fact that I am an identified object of hatred in some rad-fem circles, as you and I have both seen.
Anon seems to think that personal attacks come more commonly from our side than hers, but I doubt anyone has suggested recently that she should be killed for how she makes her living.
And this kind of thing really does annoy me:
"I applaud those in the pornography industry who speak out against such individuals and I would also defend the right of feminists to critique Francis and the potential harms of pornography."
No matter how many times and in how many ways I attempt to make clear that Joe Francis is not of the same world as lawful pornographers, and no matter how fervently I encourage feminists and anyone else who likes to denounce him and his actions, she still associates him with "the potential harms of pornography" in the same sentence. What, really, is the use in responding to slight variations of the same question repeatedly, only to provide openings for more of the same guilt-by-association tactics?
But I do think the high road is the good road, and the more we can stay on it, the better for all concerned.
Much as I like and respect both Anthony and IACB, I differ with both on substantive issues and I'm always willing to engage them, or anyone else, over issues in dispute if that engagement holds some hope of a constructive outcome.
You and I have disagreed from time to time and never once has that disagreement degenerated into a hostile exchange.
I have no fear of or problem with anyone who wishes to challenge positions I've taken in a rational and courteous manner. Anyone doing so can expect the same in response. While I understand that different people may interpret these terms in different ways, the substance of them is pretty obvious.
Now, having done whatever it is she set out to do, anonymous departs in a huff, just as I predicted she would in a long post following Ren's response to her initial questions. I wouldn't be surprised if, all claims to the contrary aside, some of what has gone on with her here surfaced elsewhere as "opposition research." I suspect this because it's happened to me many times before.
If so, I hope she'll take some of your comments along with her as well. They do us all credit.
"I also want to say that I appreciate the calm and reflective manner in which you've addressed what I still see as hostile trolling. I don't know if you accomplished much with the person you addressed by this approach, but I appreciate the tone it sets."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure it will change Anon's mind. But I've seen it change other minds, minds on the fence, minds beginning to doubt what they've accepted. And someday that person might be Anon. I've seen it happen before.
I don't know, though. Like you say, only so many hours in a day. That's why I've focused on one or two questions rather than twisted my head into a pretzel trying to come up with all the answers Anon says she would like.
"Much as I like and respect both Anthony and IACB, I differ with both on substantive issues and I'm always willing to engage them, or anyone else, over issues in dispute if that engagement holds some hope of a constructive outcome."
I differ with both of them on a lot as well, as I'm sure everyone on the Internet with a pulse knows by now. :)
"If so, I hope she'll take some of your comments along with her as well. They do us all credit."
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Well...I'm back from work, and now I can do a bit more elaboration on my response to Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, my apologies to you for the assumption of you being an academic...though it did seem like you were considering some of your questions were tending toward an academic's POV...such as the role of "western culture" on shaping human opinions or the role of the media.
I should say though, that my perspective of the entire porn debate comes not from any academic study or research, since I'm not a researcher, nor from any experience of being a sex worker or porn performer. It comes simply from my own personal thoughts and impressions gained from my being a consumer and a fan of sexual media, my correspondences and feedback with a few women and men who have performed in the business, and my general Libertarian Left political perspective that I have groomed and developed over the years. Like I said, I assume no expertise on any of these matters; all I have are my own opinions and thoughts on the issue that I deeply feel most passionate about.
Also....I don't expect anyone to absolutely agree with any of my views, since I'm well aware that my basic philosophy is somewhat, shall we say, eccentric. But, it is my views and mine alone; I take full and complete and exclusive responsibility for every word I type or say. I do not attempt to speak for anyone else, nor can anyone else claim to speak for me.
The fact that I sometimes do have some disagreements with the other esteemed contributors of this blog does not diminish in any way my utmost respect for them, and my deep gratitude to them for putting up with me as a contributor. Ernest can tell you all about the exchanges that we have had over the years over at Nina's old forum, and Trinity, Ren Ev, IACB, and the rest know all about my reputation as a firebrand and a bomb thrower when it comes to debating antiporn activists. They are as entitled to disagree with my methods and my tone as always, and if they prefer a more high-road approach to discussion and debate, well, more power to them. It's just my personal nature to take some things very personally, and to react in kind when I feel that innocent people are being unnecessarily abused and attacked.
And yes, Anon, my views both here and at my SmackDog Chronicles blog and elsewhere about radfem antiporn activiskm and some antiporn activists can sometimes get pretty down and personal. You see, madame, when you see people you admire and respect be trashed and smeared and have their very lives and profession reduced and distorted and their own personal life stories basically denied and slanted to fit into a narrow ideological worldview, it kinds of makes me motivated enough to respond in defense.
And when the attacks turn personal themselves and make accusations on myself for being less than human -- remember that I've been called everything from a rapist to being "Ren Ev's pimp" to wanting to "degrade all women" by merely defending a woman's right to make sexually explicit media and a man's (and woman's) right to consume and enjoy it -- then you may excuse me very much for reacting in a bit of anger. I really don't take direct personal insults too kindly...and though I do admire Trin and Ernest for their ability to take the high road, I do not and will not apologize one bit for my own approach of direct confrontation with what I simply feel to be nonsense.
If you want to call that "personal attacks", Anony, then that's your opinion and you are entitled to it. But please, please, for Goddess sake, please spare me the line about how I'm attempting to silence you and I'm being so offensive by responding to your push poll....especially when you end your rant with a drive-by smack at me for my "attitudes towards women."
With all that said, let us agree to disagree and at least respect where we are both coming from.
My words, and mine alone, as usual.
Anthony
Now then...having vented on that, a point-for-point response to Anonymous's most recent rebuttal.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, how would you define trolling?
Presumably by publishing a blog contributors here wish to invite discussion and debate? You would say that I'm a troll because I disagree with Ernest and have asked questions of his postings?
Actually, Anony, I never said that I consider you a troll merely because you disagree with our stated positions on porn. The trolling accusation is based not on your personal opinions, but on the tone and your deliberate use of leading questions designed to entrap the respondent (in this case, Ernest) into the stereotypical strawperson porn producer/typical male porn lover/misogynist/woman hater/rapist that antiporn feminist activists can easily rip down. The fact that you can only respond to reaction by others like IACB and myself with thinly veiled contempt simply justifies my point further.
To clarify, I have never stated that I am impartial, clearly I am not. I am obviously anti-pornography and I am a feminist, and the questions I asked are reflective of that position.
Oh, but there is no need for such clarification....you have made your personal opinions quite explicit enough with the tone of your questions. I don't think that anyone would even think by reading your questions that you were anywhere near "impartial".
The problem is, though, that the creators of TPoP do in fact claim themselves to be exactly "impartial" and "nonjudgmental"...when the actual content of their film is anything but. If you are attempting to defend them, at the very least admit to that fact.
You watch a lot of pornography and make friends with women on pornography through myspace and other social networking sites. Would you say that this gives you expert status on those women's, and other women's experiences, of pornography?
Ahhhhh, nope, I wouldn't....and I never, ever assumed such expert's status to begin with. I can only go by their own personal experiences and by their own activism for their profession. Unlike the folks at TPoP, though, I don't feel the need to make overhauling generalizations about them, nor do I assume any right to dismiss their life experiences...any more than I would dismiss the experiences of any woman who may not have as pleasant an experience as a porn performer or a sex worker as those women I have befriended.
Here's an idea, Anony...since you seem to know a lot about my online accomplices, why not actually go to their sites and get to know them as real live human beings as well as sex performers?? Or, is it beyond your ideological grasp to even consider those not totally in lockstep with antiporn ideology??
You state that people getting pleasure at the suffering of others is not defensible, positive or healthy. Is it because of your qualifications/experience as a frequent pornography watcher and blogger/social networker that you are certain those involved in pornography are not harmed physically, psychologically or sexually? What of those who engage in bdsm pornography where getting pleasure at the suffering of others or some kind of personal suffering might be the kink of both participants and the expressed goal? Are those elements of pornography indefensible?
I will cede to Ernest and Trinity on the matter of BDSM porn, since they have been much more intimately involved in that scene....and I will admit that my own personal tastes are a bit more "vanilla" and conventional. But guess what, Anony...just because I may not be a BDSM player does not mean that I don't respect the power of sexuality or the nature of consenting adults using sex as a means to resolve their inner power dynamics.
And it's not a matter of me being cyberfriends of people who have done BDSM or even conventional porn which grounds my fundamental principle of consensual, safe, and mutually pleasurable sexual activity; it's basic respect for human individuality and free will and mutual concern for safety. If a scene goes haywire or if someone is coerced into doing something he or she is not comfortable doing, then it is NOT sexually arousing to me. I will not attempt to speak for Everyman, but only for me, when I say that only the woman's active involvement in her pleasure turns me on.
Also...I fundamentally reject the leading assumption that I believe that BDSM porn must innately subject its practicioners to "personal suffering". Extended sensation used for sexual pleasure is fundamentally different from actual pain and abuse; just as much as a BDSM scene is different from actual torture.
On your assertion that I have crossed a boundary or lectured Ernest on his personal life, can you clarify why you believe that to be the case? From my perspective, I am noting that Ernest makes a living from pornography so will not be likely to speak objectively on the issue. You, Anthony, like to wank to pornography, seemingly a great deal, which you seem to believe makes you an expert on the topic and on all women (or maybe just the ones you know on myspace and from the dvd's you watch?) involved in it. I don't recall reading any objective writing from you on the matter either, unsurprising given the large part it plays in your life.
Oh, please....LOL....get real, Anony. So, the mere fact that I "wank a lot" to porn means that I am not "objective" enough to cast criticism on the producers of TPoP or antiporn feminism in general?? OK....does that mean that only those men who do NOT masturbate or those who happen to be totally horrified by the sight of naked women touching themselves or men and women mutually enjoying sex are "objective" enough to be deserving to stand criticism of antiporn feminist theory??? Under those standards, only the likes of Ted Haggard, a few Catholic priests, Richard Leader, and Bob Jensen would qualify...and I can take a guess as to how favorable they would treat this documentary.
And it's so funny how you can allow yourself the freedom to make such a deep psychoanalysis of me based solely on my writings and associations.....but you accuse me of making assumptions??
I have not had an opportunity to see POP so I cannot comment on it's objectivity or lack of. Hopefully I will get the chance to do so. Again, people are posting their opinions on a blog and, I would have thought, expect others to respond whether to agree or disagree with those opinions and to ask questions of the posters. Should I only respond or ask questions if I agree with you?
One more time, Anony: NO ONE is questioning your right to post here and ask your questions. In fact, we are actually far, far more tolerant here of contrarian opinions than most antiporn feminist blogs, which wouldn't evern allow their critics even a pixel of their bandwidth to defend themselves. Again, it was the tone of your questions and the general attempts to assume certain conclusions that we are challenging.
I did not state that pornography, or wider media in general, are the sole influences on culture and society. I posed questions on media to clarify whether it has an impact or not, because I was confused about Ernests position (eg, appears to dismiss the potential influence of pornography on one hand but concern about the impact of POP on the other). I also asked generally about the influence of socialisation - family, friends, institutions etc. What are the dominant ideologies, in your opinion Anthony, and where do they come from? You're a lefty, yes? How does western culture frame class? How does it frame race? What are the power structures? Who has the power and why? How are those represented and reflected in media, in culture, in society, in pornography?
Oh, how deep do you want me to answer that, Anony?? You will pardon me if I don't take your bait, since my basic philosophy as a Leftist comes from a bit more earthbound foundation than yours. I tend to be more of a plain conventional theoretical Marxist in that I see power as more contained in structural institutions (the State, corporations, Organized religion) which are generally organized by economic class, and which use certain vectors such as race and gender and sexual orientation as a means of maintaining social inequality. Given that, I would see porn as a bit less central to the issue of racial or gender or class oppression....it is more a byproduct of inequity rather than a cause.
Now..I never said that porn didn't or couldn't have some influence on socialization; but that any influence has to be placed in the context of far greater sources such as religion, corporate capitalism, and the use of the State to enforce dominant ideology. All of those forces have usually been used and exploited not to promote "pornification", but to openly oppose and supress it. It has only been in the past 30 or so years that sexual media in the modern Western world (including the US) has been able to even approach the power of the Religious Right and the conventional Puritan Left in challenging conventional sexual conservatism. Focusing on the evil threat of Britney Spears' naked midriff and Jenna Jameson's millions while ignoring the history of the mass Religious Right is the equivalent of focusing on a tornado touching down in the eyewall of a Category 5 hurricane.
Fantasies. Did I say they were implanted by patriarchy? I must look over my notes.." What emerges are strictly their own fantasies"? Where do those fantasies come from? How are they shaped? By their personal life? Of course. What does that personal life consist of? Who are we socialised by and where do those people/institutions get their ideas and beliefs from?
Gee, Anony...are you saying that individual people should not have any control whatsoever over their deepest fantasies?? That since everything is socially constructed out of a evil "patriarchy" which shapes everyone's viewpoint of themselves, even the most personal of all individual thoughts should be scrutinized for political correctness?? And how is that not that much different from the Religious Right critique of individual thought and action which states that "sin" should be eradicated even in thought because even the slightest thought will lead ultimately to action that "defies" God's plan???
On statistics. Will Danni's Hard Drive or Naughty America have statistics on pornography use that are more accurate than AVN? I am not a researcher, I was hoping to access statistics that won't be dismissed as junk science and was asking for information where I might find those.
Ahhhhh...wrong again, Anony. I didn't suggest you visit those sites for academic research and number-crunching statistics; I recommended them particularly for you to visit the sites of the WOMEN featured there, just to get a glimpse of their full humanity as WOMEN, not just as "sex objects" or merely sex performers. It would be a perfect anecdote to the dehumanization of such performers that is so prevalent in TPoP.
What women performers have you listened to Anthony? I was not aware that you are involved in research, sorry. I have done quite a bit of reading on what women in pornography have to say about the business and have spoken to women who have been involved, but thank you for your suggestions.
Well...I'm not a "researcher" per se, but I have met and befriended several women who happen to be porn performers and sex workers....and their views are just as valid and worthy of respect as those whose experiences aren't so kind to them. Besides, I never for one second would deny or downgrade the experiences of any woman; the industry is no monolith, and there are many assholes and brutes in the sex industry as there are in real life. I just happen to have a much more open mind about women's experiences, and trust them to tell their stories rather than to claim to speak for them.
Moving on to your question about violence. I did not have a definition in mind, I was asking Ernest his perspective - based on his years of experience - about the prevalence of violence in pornography. In his opinion. Just to clarify though, your position is more or less that it doesn't exist because even the 'remote small existence' is a projection of individual producer fantasy?
The producers then are immune to society at large? They don't respond either to supply and demand?
Nice try at projection, Anony, but no cigar for you. As much as you would attempt to bait me into saying that violence in porn doesn't exist at all; I don't say that in the least. In most porn, especially the typical vanilla porn that most people consume, any violence depicted is seperated from the sex; since violence would get in the way of the main point of porn, which is to sexually arouse.
Now, this isn't to say that in some subgenres of porn there isn't an element of hostility to women...but this is more likely to reflect the vision of the producers of such material, rather than any "demand" by a mass consumer audience. As much as you would like to make hardcore gonzo porn the main featured attraction that makes the billions of profit, the fact remains that the most profitable and most watched variety of porn remains non-violent images of women pleasuring themselves. That's the real demand that determines supply.
Could you clarify also what you mean by no direct political or social agenda, just so that I can be sure I'm understanding you.
I meant just what I said....that for the most part, there is no direct political or social agenda in the production or consumption of pornography, other than the promotion of sex for it's own sake and pleasure. Now, porn can be utilized for other, more esoteric, more political means.....but the more it deviates from its main goal of sexual arousal, the less potent the effect it can have. Of course, the promotion of sex itself can be highly political in its own sense in that it challenges the fundamental basis of sexual ignorance and sexual conservatism that is so dominant in modern political discourse...which might explain why so much political capital is consumed on censorship and suppression of sexual media.....and attempts to denigrate sexual speech and behavior as threatening to society or health or nature. Or...to women's humanity.
I didn't state that GGW is hardcore pornography. Ernest described them as a favourite punchbag for feminists. I asked why they shouldn't be attacked by feminists as well as industry insiders.
No...but most antiporn feminist activists are more than quick to use the antics of Joe Francis to smear pornographers with his broad brush, and to use his example of how he exploits his marks (young women) to profit off their efforts.
And I thought that criticizing the likes of Joe Francis was automatically seen as "feminist" to begin with?? Or, are only antiporn activists allowed the right to call themselves "feminists"???
On anti-pornography activists.. I had no idea that you knew some/all of them on a personal basis and are thus able to state unequivocally that they are indeed fixated on sex. I must apologise.
Really??? Where did I ever say that I knew them personally?? Critiquing them on their words and their actions are quite adequate enough for me....I don't feel the need to know them that personally.
And if you managed to actually read my words, you will see that I never said that they were "fixated on sex", only that they seem to be focusing on sexuality as a source of oppression, leaving out far more powerful and consistent institutions.
Can you point out where I state that pornography is the foundational element of social and economic inequality and power? I agree it is a reflection of those; a reflection that also in turn has it's own influence. Can you say what aspects of society you believe it does reflect?
Maybe you personally haven't, Anony....but plenty of your antiporn allies have openly stated that banning porn and policing sexuality among women is the centerpiece of liberation of women from "male oppression". Pay a visit to the sites of Heart (Women's Spaces: The Margins) or Maggie Hays's Antipornography Blog, or Witchy-Woo's blog, for some pertinent examples.
Ban sexism? I'm with you on that. I wonder what impact that would have on you though, given your own attitudes toward women.
Ah, yes...be the impartial reviewer, and conclude with a roundhouse implication of me as a woman hater merely because I "wank off" to porn. How nice of you, Anony.
But as the saying goes: sticks and stones may break my bones, but mere words will never harm me. My belief in the full and equal treatment of women as complete human beings remains unfettered by my personal consumption of porn...in fact, having met so many incredibly strong, intelligent, and openly sexual women through the medium of porn has only intensified my belief in full equality. It is that humanity that The Price of Pleasure seeks so much to deny and demonize and denigrate.....and is why I can take all your personal insults with a couple pounds of salt.
I know where you stand on this, and now you know where I stand. Let our paths cross again in a more civil discussion...or not at all.
Anthony
Anthony,
ReplyDeleteJust to be perfectly clear on this, whatever we may disagree about, I feel your last rebuttal was righteous in all respects.
Clearly, this poster went out of her way to be snide and condescending toward you and while you called her out on it, and rightfully so, you also addressed her leading questions extremely effectively.
Nice work. Hope she at least comes back long enough to read it.
Serpentlibertine,
ReplyDeleteI meant to get back with you on something here before I got mysteriously entangled in the rhetorical equivalent of a barroom brawl.
I understand completely why anybody might find ATMs repellent, although I rather fancy them under some circumstances - please see below before killing the messenger - and I would shoot them under those circumstances if I shot that kind of movie.
The below part is that experienced anal players prepare for such scenes with great care. There's a lot of flushing and cleansing first and the worst things the receptive party is likely to encounter as a result are his or her own intestinal bacteria, which already live in that person's digestive tract and to which it is accustomed. As Tristan Taormino says, it's not as unsafe as it looks. But that doesn't keep the TPoP gang from devoting a whole lot of running time to the subject.
But where I agree with you completely is in your assessment of the director's behavior. Full disclosure here: I'm familiar with this director and have had issues with him in the past. He's obviously very conflicted about the work he does, which he goes ahead and does anyway, then tries to enlist our sympathies for HIM because he feels so guilty.
What he did in this instance is exactly what I would expect of someone with that way of thinking. He behaved unethically, manipulated a performer into doing something she wasn't mentally or physically ready to do, ended up with something bad happening, and then made it all about himself.
I have a great idea for this guy. If he has such a hard time dealing with the nature of the material he shoots, and lacks the ethical boundaries to do it safely and consensually, why doesn't he just get out of this business and find something better suited to his talents and character?
I don't have a problem with the act itself, but I have a major problem with the conduct of the director in this instance and I don't want to appear as an apologist for it in any regard.
"The Bible, The Kama Sutra, The 1001 Nights and a body of lore and literature stretching back to the dawn of recorded history, that is. And the sexual experiences of those men and women aroused by such artifices in their private lives have all been having inauthentic experiences throughout those thousands of years..."
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that the Old Testament of the Bible advocates for stoning women and owning slaves? And the people depicted in the Kama Sutra and 1001 Nights are fictional?
I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with the idea that pornography has been around for a long time. But the examples above--a first century text in which a man offers his own daughters to be gang raped? An eleventh century collection of stories in which a woman is turned into a donkey as repayment for her infidelity? I mean, these aren't exactly the best selections out there in order to justify the idea that porn is harmless, or that the people who work in the sex industry have agency and are not being victimized.
"You do realize that the Old Testament of the Bible advocates for stoning women and owning slaves? And the people depicted in the Kama Sutra and 1001 Nights are fictional?"
ReplyDeleteWell, as a matter of fact, o condescending Anon, I do realize that and I'm quite sure that Ernest Green, the author of the above piece, realizes that as well. Which is relevant how?
This reminds me of the debate tactics of college-age lefties who, in an argument about civil liberties, will pull out the "founding fathers were all slave owners who just wanted to protect their own privileges" argument and think they've played the ultimate trump card. Which is actually peripheral to the actual issues at hand. The argument in fact only demonstrates the hypocrisy of those individuals, not the overall invalidity of every idea they ever came up with.
"I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with the idea that pornography has been around for a long time. But the examples above--a first century text in which a man offers his own daughters to be gang raped? An eleventh century collection of stories in which a woman is turned into a donkey as repayment for her infidelity? I mean, these aren't exactly the best selections out there in order to justify the idea that porn is harmless, or that the people who work in the sex industry have agency and are not being victimized."
I think you need to go back and read what Ernest actually wrote, because your arguments are so off the point that's actually being argued as to not even make sense. To start with, the argument that women in the porn industry have agency does not rest on the fact that sexual literature is as ancient "Song of Songs" and "Kama Sutra".
What Ernest was arguing against, if you go back and read it carefully, is the argument seemingly advanced by Ariel Levy that pornography is something entirely novel, some new wild card in the world of sexuality that's only emerged since Deep Throat. In fact, people have been consuming sexual words and imagery for millennia. And sex work is also certainly that old. Modern live action pornography is merely the application of modern artistic and media technology to the above.
Which is neither an argument for or against the harmlessness of porn per se, only an argument against the idea that porn is something novel or foreign to human culture. The larger argument against the idea of the harmfulness of porn rest on separate set of arguments, which if you read far enough, you'll see that Ernest is making.