Porn: Pleasure or Profit? An Interview With Gail Dines, Part I
June 29, 2010 by Shira Tarrant · 64 Comments
Move over dot-com, dot-org, and dot-gov. There’s a new domain on the block: dot-xxx. With 370 million sites and $3,000 spent for online porn every second, the industry’s revenues surpass earnings by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined.
This is author Gail Dines’s point: Porn is about profit, not pleasure. Some people make a buck; many more are harmed, argues Dines in her new book PORNLAND: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality (Beacon Press).
Gail Dines calls herself an anti-porn feminist, but she is quick to clarify that she’s not anti-sex. Unlike Dines—and in the interest of full disclosure—I am not anti-porn. I oppose censorship and unproductive arguments pitting sex-positive feminists against anti-porn activists. This keeps rival groups in far corners of the Sex Wars boxing ring. We need more conversation—not less—which means asking tough questions across ideological divides. To that end, I interviewed Gail Dines, curious about our agreements and differences on The Porn Question.
Ms./Shira Tarrant: You wrote Pornland for a mainstream audience. What is your primary hope for this book?
Gail Dines: I wrote Pornland to raise consciousness about the effects of the contemporary porn industry. Many people have outdated ideas that porn is pictures of naked women wearing coy smiles and not much else, or of people having hot sex. Today’s mainstream Internet porn is brutal and cruel, with body-punishing sex acts that debase and dehumanize women.
Pornland looks at how porn messages, ideologies, and images seep into our everyday life. Whether it be Miley Cyrus in Elle spread-eagle on a table dressed in S&M gear, or Cosmopolitan telling readers to spice up their sex lives with porn, we are overwhelmed by a porn culture that shapes our sexual identities and ideas about gender and sexuality. Pornland explores how porn limits our capacity for connection, intimacy and relationships.
ST: What is it about Miley Cyrus in S&M gear that bothers you? Is it her age? Or simply that she’s wearing pseudo-bondage gear?
GD: The problem is that women in our culture have to conform to very narrow definitions of femininity and it’s defined by porn. Miley Cyrus’s performance is not about creativity but dictated by capitalism. She aged out of Disney and this is the carefully planned-out launch of the new Miley Cyrus.
My issue is about the market and about how pornography frames femininity. Women are either fuckable or invisible. Miley Cyrus wouldn’t make any money [with an unfuckable image].
ST: Are you opposed to consensual BDSM sex in real life? Or do you see this as a harmful and exploitative relationship?
GD: What people do outside corporate forces, or outside capitalism, is none of my business.
I’m critiquing the commodification of sex. That gets confused with the idea that I’m telling people what to do in the bedroom. It’s a much easier argument to make [but] it’s a refusal to take seriously a radical feminist critique of the culture.
ST: Some people working in the business argue that porn is a legitimate way to earn a living. I know you disagree, but that keeps us stuck in an us-versus-them sex war. Do you see a way to move past that stalemate?
GD: The industry frames the work as a choice, because otherwise that would ruin porn. Choice is built into the way men enjoy porn. Men I interviewed are convinced the women in porn really choose this and enjoy their job.
Increasingly, women are drawn to porn by the glamorization of the industry. Some women have made porn work for them—Sasha Grey, Jenna Jameson. Jenna Jameson was on Oprah, who was gushing about her. Oprah went to her house and showed the audience Jameson’s expensive cars and private art collection. This looks attractive to women with limited resources. Capitalism can only succeed if there are people around who will do the shit work. Women with law degrees are not lining up to do porn. The vast majority of women doing porn don’t make it and don’t get famous. They end up in low paid work as well as the brothels of Nevada.
We need a world where women have real options to make a living. This is a class issue and a race issue. To talk about choice is to ignore how people are constrained by their social and economic situations.
To be continued in Part II …
Above: pornographic film set, 2007. Photo by Larry Knowles for The Naughty American website licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
Shira’s interview with Gail is similar to the interview I conducted with Robert Jensen. It is very important that we continue to facilitate this dialogue rather than go to our separate corners and treat each other like rivals. I think there is a middle ground here. Misogynistic “gonzo” porn has crept into the mainstream of Internet porn and can now be considered “sex ed” for many boys and young men today. We should all be concerned about the consequences of the proliferation and repetitive use of such porn. On the other hand, egalitarian porn can offer a path into the acceptance of sex without shame, a vehicle for women to declare that they enjoy sex without the condemnation associated with the past when women were supposed to act as though sex is disgusting and unfeminine.
Yet, I believe Ms. Dines makes a powerful point about the commodificaton of women’s bodies and sexuality, the one-dimensionality with which we are allowed to view women through the lens of media. The advent of violent forms of pornography is an effect of entrepreneurial men taking advantage of what they perceive to be a market ripe for the picking: men of all ages who enjoy seeing women humiliated, intimidated, and abused. We have to ask why so many men find this kind of media entertaining, or worse, erotically stimulating? Is it a backlash by some men to the increased visibility of women who are slowly gaining business and political power? Shira’s interview with Ms. Dines is an opportunity for all of us to dig into these questions and to examine what we can do to get more men and women involved in evaluating what we can do to reverse these destructive trends.
I appreciate your emphasis on dialogue and not pitting our teeny tiny group of folks who want gender justice in all of its forms
I want more!
oops – I hit publish too quickly. All of us working toward gender justice and sex education should figure out ways to be in dialogue and hopefully solidarity with each other. Dines is wise to look at the commercial profit machine of porn and “porning” of our mainstream culture and skip the morality segments. Much like Byron Hurt’s critique of Hip Hop – who benefits? Who makes money? Who retains dominance? Those are important questions and critiques.
A very revealing interview. At the risk of eliciting a “Well of course, you’re a MAN” retort, I will say that I am also not anti-porn. Although I have no interest in abusive or degrading scenarios in such films. I’ll leave a discussion of my personal proclivities OUT of this comment but suffice it say, I am a heterosexual male who believes whatever stirs the erotic imagination and generates sex-positive and pro-female thoughts is a good thing. There are flipsides of course with the negative impact of the lifestyle of the porn business on some of the people who make it and the undercurrent of exploitation and also the fact that some people just should NOT be watching porn (people can become so obsessed with their porn experiences and may lose the ability to have healthy sex with another, or even themselves.) Plus, the sheer volume of pornographic material out there is pretty ridiculous and I believe it is not a good thing. It does push the rest of society toward a dulling of the sensibilities and a general hypersexuality. Sexiness in all media is a prerequisite (if only subliminally) and the effects on young girls is obvious. This “premature maturity” we see all over the country, not just in New York where I live, is becoming a foregone conclusion. Young girls dress in clothing which is too tight and not age-appropriate. This is not a mode of self-expression in my eyes, it’s a conditioned cry for acceptance by boys and men (many of whom can’t seem to keep their pants up.) This problem is pervasive across social classes, neighborhoods and ethnicities. But to be honest, I doubt the existence porn itself is the cause. I think the ubiquity of nearly pornographic advertising and the growingly pervasive image of women having ultimately only their sex as their ultimate weapon, is helping to crank out generation after generation of very confused young people. And don’t get me started on body image. There is no representation of regular girls in the media. Sarah Jessica Parker or Precious, that’s what’s out there. You’re either successfully skeletal or an object lesson in loving yourself despite your unchecked obesity. So disrespectful to the delicacy of a girl growing up. Okay, pardon my curmudgeonly rant.
(PS, that was not a dig at the film Precious, which I actually found to be very powerful. My complaint was about the absence of anything but the extremes in body image.)
Dines is right. Whenever there’s an audience for pleasure, profit will quickly follow and behind it are a plethora of potential exploitations. Women usually receive the brunt of them. I, like the commentators so far and Dr. Tarrant, am not anti-porn, but I worry about those youth who have no one (or are afraid to ask someone) to contextualize porn for them. They need to understand what is made to look like pleasure for profit’s sake and how to ask a partner what will or will not be pleasurable for them. I’m looking forward to part two when Dines delves into those issues of race and class. And just to nit pick… I saw Jenna on Oprah and O practically shamed her into crying over her choices in the porn industry. She used her children against her and Jenna spent most of the interview defending herself and her sex life. I’m not sure where the glamorization of female porn stars actually occurs. In a profit-driven media society, we’d rather see them repentant and shamed than empowered business women. Just re-watch Oprah for strategies on how it’s done.
The issue of choice is interesting here for sure. Marx said men make their own history but not in conditions of their own choosing, and assuming he’d troubled to extend his thinking to women…the pornworkers (cinematic and live performers) I’ve known who’ve done quite well off of it certainly did choose to enter the industry, but in gradual and often manipulated stages commonly laid out by men at every step along the way (producers, agents, guardians’ boyfriends), and only within the larger contest of an incredibly limited range of alternative life options. None of which were nearly so likely to to yield any sort of fiduciarily stable future. And I could tell similar, remarkably similar in fact, stories about sexworkers I’ve met in the redlight districts of the putatively more liberated cities of Europe. So there’s always choices, but they’re always structurally contained and limited. Looking forward to seeing just how Dines goes about rendering judgement upon the choices made, though. For instance, she tells us BDSM is a commodified and exploitative model in the media, but isn’t going to tell us what we should or should not do in our own bedrooms. But if BDSM is that sort of externally programmed exploitation, then would I not just be internalizing and perpetuating this mediated violence where I to perform it with one or more consenting adults in private? Shades of the Frankfurt School are lurking here, I suspect, and I will be surprised if Dines is ultimately able to remain true to her convictions while also keeping her judgements off of consenting partners’ intimate performances. At least in those instances where such performances stray from a relatively narrow norm.
I am very interested in this book. The ideas of both pleasure and profit are important when discussing pornography. On one hand, the pleasure aspect is pretty obvious and widespread, but we cannot ignore the profit. As with many things in this capitalist society, when pornography became a big-business industry, certain people began to get exploited for the profit of others. Most of us would agree that the commodification of people’s bodies can have some ill-effects (for example, the commodification of many of the people of Africa during the Slave Trade, and it’s lasting legacy of racism in this society). But the idea of the commodification of people’s behaviors (like sex/sexuality) brings a different set of problems because the victim might not be as evident. I would like to see Dines’s analysis on this subject.
What a thought-provoking interview — thanks, Drs. Tarrant & Dines, for this discussion! Dr. Dines uses the example of Miley Cyrus’s increasingly “sexual” look to make the point that to make money, women must be sex objects. And while I agree that there ought to be more space for diverse representations (and enactments!) of female sexualities, I am not convinced that there is something inherently wrong with Miley’s look taking on more signifiers of young-adult sexuality. If I understand Dr. Dines’s argument correctly–and I admit I’ve only read this interview, not her book!–it seems that the example of Miley Cyrus as what’s wrong with commercialized female sexuality assumes Miley Cyrus lacks sexual creativity. This sets up a false dichotomy: one is either sexually creative and authentic (and outside of capitalism) or part of a capitalist enterprise and therefore sexually inauthentic. I don’t buy that separation. It’s possible that Miley’s performance is BOTH creative AND dictated by capitalism. If it were simply a matter of capitalism alienating us from our sexual creativity and authenticity, I think this would be a much less knotty issue. This isn’t an argument for the virtues of capitalism–I think it’s a seriously flawed, unjust system–but it is an argument against assuming “creative” sex cannot, by definition, occur in capitalist settings.
Great interview, great discussion! Looking forward to Part II.
Well, if I may, I would like to answer Ms. Schwartzman’s question with the answer that men are primary the ones who are profiting on porn. When I hear students in my classes make the point that female porn actors make more than their male counterparts, they seem to ignore the fact that behind the cameras, men are the overwhelming recipients of profit, particularly in the case of hard-core pornography as opposed to erotica. In the case of violent porn, men almost exclusively the profiteers. This part of the equation helps to inform us about who retains dominance.
So, while some change may be occurring within the pornography industry as a whole, it is men who continue to make decisions about product and who profit far more than those females who work in the industry. You are correct is pointing out the similarities in the music business, as does Byron in his film. White male recording industry moguls gain most of the profits in hip-hop, just as men continue to dominate the porn industry.
Great interview — this is the most telling part of all: “The industry frames the work as a choice, because otherwise that would ruin porn…Jenna Jameson was on Oprah, who was gushing about her…This looks attractive to women with limited resources. Capitalism can only succeed if there are people around who will do the shit work.”
This is as one-sided as it gets. It leaves no room for the voices of women who actually do porn, one of the biggest hypocrisies among feminists who decry porn. As a cultural criticism, anti-porn statements themselves dehumanize porn actresses, because they never allow for real voices of those women to be heard — likely because if those voices have something of substance to say, or anything positive to say about porn, anti-porn arguments are suddenly moot. But that’s when you say that these women are all being forced into it by men, right, Gail? A very convenient, and shockingly anti-woman (“you don’t know what choices are best for you”…where have we heard that before?), way to spin it.
Along those very lines, Dines claims that if the work isn’t a choice, it would ruin porn. But if it is a choice, it would ruin her point, and thereby her book sales. Which, by the way, is her own special way of profiting from porn. No porn, no book! So it’s lucky for Danes that she has something to rail against. Otherwise I guess she’d wind up in some brothel in Nevada.
while dines claims she is not anti-sex, as someone who has been employed by her and is now employed as an adult entertainer, i can tell you that not only is she anti-any-type-of-sex-she-finds-unappealing, she was so anti-the-kind-of-sex-i-enjoyed that she made me humiliated and ashamed of my own sexual desires.
dines says that porn “is brutal and cruel, with body-punishing sex acts that debase and dehumanize women.” since i like biting and scratching during sex, not to mention bondage and fisting, i am apparently being dehumanized by the men that pay hundreds of dollars to worship my body and the husband who treats me like a queen and can cum purely from seeing me orgasm?
art imitates life. i loved what i loved long before i began working for dines as a porn researcher, though it was doing research that included hours of watching porn that made me realize how much i enjoy it… and lead me to start masturbating, despite my shame at being what dines would call a woman who oppresses other women, or, as journalist ariel levy would call me, a “female chauvinist pig.”
since entering the adult industry, i have become more in touch with myself, my body, and my confidence. i no longer have sex without orgasming; ever. even on set. and my connection to my husband is intense, beautiful, and the type of relationship that our friends always ask us for advice on building for themselves.
regarding women and bondage gear: i was once told not to wear a black leather choker with the words “live in love” embroidered across the front. she explained to me that i was promoting violence against women by wearing S&M gear! even worse is dines’ insistence that porn dictates femininity.
i know this is Ms. so maybe not many of you are fashionistas? but if you are familiar with hegemonic magazine beauty, fashion models are almost always size zero. in fact, due to anger about the amount of anorexia in runway and high fashion modeling, sample sizes have now been mandated to size FOUR. so that models will be, you know, less anorexic.
porn promotes the embracing of all body types. i have been successful in this industry at a sexy and voluptuous size ten and with A-cup knockers.
dines says what people do outside of business is none of her business, yet she once begged to meet with a pro-BDSM social networking club at a local college to try to explain to them the harms of their ways. she denounced my own desires of BDSM as related to my trauma history and nothing more. she likes to use the term of “PROBLEMATICISING CONSENT.” yes, she made up that first word. she uses it all the time. so progressive to say that some women’s consent isn’t real consent because of what they’ve been through.
of course she won’t say that to Ms. magazine. but she’ll say it to her classroom.
while dines claims to be “critiquing the commodification of sex,” i wonder why she doesn’t critique the commodification of everything else. she shops in expensive stores, eats in expensive restaurants, and lives in an expansive, elegant home in a notoriously wealthy and luxurious area (home to some of the most wealthy in the state). her cigarette brand of choice is marlboro light.
why does dines do what she does? because it makes her money. dines is profiting off of porn in the only way that she can considering her looks. dines is paid for her writing, her teaching, and also her lectures, interviews and other appearances. amusingly, so am i as a porn star. we’re really not so different. i just don’t HATE on other women.
why don’t we start talking about making porn safer? i’d be twice as rich if i performed without condoms. why isn’t that dines’ top concern? why does she worry more about the women watching porn than the women in the porn? because, she claims, women are being forced to do it. so we need to abolish it rather then reform it.
guess what? in a capitalist society, all things are up for sale. land, water, sex. to say that only sex should NOT be for sale is puritan. and as far as choice – i graduated from a better college than the one she teaches at, with honors. i have a wealthy father and husband. i choose to be in the adult industry because i LOVE it. and i have my entire family, including my father, supportive and proud of my ability to perform, direct, and produce content (daddy is not allowed to watch it though. that would be as weird as me watching him have sex… and now i almost barfed).
while i may not get famous like Jenna J, i make a living and am happy. isn’t that what most people want? independence? what feels threatening to MY independence is that dines wants to define what “real” options are for women. she once told me becoming a professor like her was the only way i’d be able to make money and be happy. she literally used the word “only” with emphasis. and she was disgusted when i expressed my desire NOT to continue schooling and to focus on art instead.
dines has mastered the art of manipulation and the fact that she has so many people still vying to pay her to speak is proof that she is the most deceptive capitalist of them all. and just another bedfellow of the sex industry. she might as well join ron jeremy’s bill and offer staged debates around the country with him (as he currently does with another feminist academic).
i hope one day someone will interview this girl – dines’ student and a victim of her sick and twisted, malicious brand of “feminism.” it’s not that i mind speaking for free, but i’d like her audience to know the truth. not just the few who scroll down to real the comments.
Since when is Wikipedia an authority on sex-positive feminism?
Part of the problem is terminology. Anti-pornography feminists, as opposed to reactionary ideologues who consider any portrayal of nudity obscene, generally define pornography in such a way as to make egalitarian pornography an oxymoron. Truly egalitarian “porn” should be called erotica. The distinction is important, but of course the pornography industry wants to eradicate that distinction, as if everything involving nudity is equivalent, just free speech, regardless of how women are degraded, injured, or reduced to sex objects. Erotica, on the other hand, is a legitimate form of art that celebrates sexuality.
I’m a heterosexual male who came of age as the adult industry gained more social acceptance. My generation went from sneaking looks at Daddy’s Playboys to seeing out first sex acts on home video in the 80′s to the 90′s having dates ask me to go to Hustler Hollywood). I find the the Dines interview interesting reading and can see where she’s coming from. While I agree with her Miley Cyrus observation, an area where I vehemently disagree with her is the blanket statement that most women are drawn to porn because they don’t have options. While I feel this is true in some cases (especially the 18 – 21 crowd), it’s not necessarily true for the majority. Having known several porn stars in my time, I can tell you thatwhile there are a few naiive kids, some of them simply like what they do. Yes, there are those that have daddy and substance issues, but you could say the same thing about a lot of the actresses in Hollywood. As a filmmaker, I assure you that mainstream Hollywood, COSMO, GLAMOUR, and fashion shows are a lot more damaging to women’s self-esteem and body image than Larry Flynt. Case in point: we were doing reshoots on my latest project 18 months after priciple filming. My lead actress came bounding up to me saying that because she’d lost 20 pounds, I could photograph her from any angle. This is a woman who was 5’5 110 lbs! She didn’t get that insecurity from porn. The majority of porn actresses I’ve met are more comfortable with their bodies than your average woman. That’s not to say they may not have other problems, but not all are fleeing abusive stepdads.
As for the adult lifestyle being glamorized and luring women in under false pretenses, you could say the same thing about acting and (speaking of Oprah) even marriage. I’d also like to ask Ms. Dines about the explosion of older pornstars in their 40′s, 50′s, and 60′s. A lot of them DO have degrees and are financially stable. God forbid soome of them might just enjoy sex (and that power over men).
Regarding the Nevada brothels: Ms. Dines should take a trip down to Australia; where not only are brothels with sex workers legal, regulated and respected, the rape and sexual assault stat’s are far lower than here in the states. Go figure.
Bottom line is that I probably agree more with Ms. Dines than disagree. But I just wanted to adress some of her points. Great interview, Shira, and I look forward to part two.
The book seems very interesting. I really enjoyed the interview as well. It answered many of the questions I had in regards to porn. Can’t wait to read Part 2.
This certainly tackles an issue that rarely gets any attention. I would love to help put an event together that focuses on this. Thank you for sharing this.
Very informative. Can’t wait for the rest.
Hey, Everyone! Thanks for all these comments. I’m enjoying reading through them and getting a gauge of where folks are at on these issues. There’s more to come soon in Part II.
Question to readers: Do the photos of Miley Cyrus in the Elle layout bother you? (There’s a link above.) I don’t think they’re pornographic, or really very concerning. Sure, the pole dance on the ice cream truck lacked imagination and pimped her out. But IMO, the boots in Elle don’t say “fuck me” in the alarmist way that Gail Dines highlights. I also see her supine, not “spread eagle.” (And I say that with all due respect to all.)
Wondering what *you* think. -Shira
Thank you to Drs. Tarrant and Dines for this thoughtful interview regarding pornography and the presumed “pornification” of our culture. I would like to add my thoughts to the conversation. I am a queer, feminist woman who holds two M.A. degrees (in Women’s and Cultural Studies) and I am also a sex worker. While I certainly agree that all people’s choices are always/already “constrained by their social and economic situations,” or rather people’s lives are shaped within complex axes of inequality and constituted through shifting relations of power that are historically situated, I do not agree with the characterization that sex work is not “real” work. Indeed, Dines seems to proceed from the belief that sex work is “shit” work and no woman, if she knew the “truth” about the sex industry, would consciously chose the work. That is simply a lie, and it’s a pernicious lie with cultural power because it colludes with the larger cultural hatred of “whores.” Clearly, workers have a range of experiences in how they decided to enter the sex industry and a range of experiences while working in the industry and there is certainly room for feminist organizing and agitation to improve worker’s conditions.
But, I wonder how much actual room for dialogue is made when Dines deems sex work, from the start, to be an inherently degrading and exploitative form of labor. How can sex workers enter into this conversation, other than by telling stories of victimization? If sex worker could participate holistically in this conversation, we might perhaps point out that there are legal, political and cultural factors that leave us workers in a criminalized, stigmatized and non-unionized industry and that this is what leave us open to exploitation.
Which confirms for me, that Dines fundamental interest is not in dialogue with sex workers or starting cultural conversations about the intersections of sexuality and the market, but instead is to “raise the consciousness” of the oppressed and deluded. Indeed, what I hear in this and from what I’ve read in Dines book, I see a return to earlier feminist preoccupations with women’s supposed “false consciousness,” simply due to their interest or investment in things such as femininity or pornography. This posits that women, and certainly implies that sex workers, are the agents of their own oppression instead of again, pointing to the structural factors that sometimes leave sex workers and femininely gendered people without cultural and political power.
Moreover, it suggests that there is a “true consciousness” regarding sex work—and that Dines is here to tell us what it is. Lastly, I would suggest that the conversations about “consciousness raising/false consciousness” point to the long histories of white, Western women’s preoccupation with saving “Other-ized” women. Indeed, the current fixation on the “commodification of sex” might be seen as a “moral panic,” and a continuation of the “white slavery” panics of earlier feminist moments. Not to say that there are no valuable conversations about the intersections of commerce and sexuality (see Katherine Frank, G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire or Elizabeth Bernstein’s Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity and the Commerce of Sex), but it is to point out that historically, there is nothing altogether new about the commercialization of sex. What is new is the proliferating discourses surrounding the “hyper-sexualization/pornification” of our culture, and the way the use sex worker’s bodies and lives to fan cultural emotion and panic.
I would be interested to hear how Dr. Gail Dines reconciles these two statements. First,
and then, rather disingenuously:
At exactly what point does she consider “what people do” to be “none of [her] business”? On the one hand, she says porn seeps into every aspect of our lives, the very aspects she concerns herself with, and on the other she says there are behaviors people have (such as watching porn together, I might add) that are none of her business. I’m sorry, Ms. Dines, but you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
Now, I agree with some other commenters who say that Dines does well to keep the morality out of her arguments, but I also find many of her arguments little more than thinly veiled morality that dismisses much of the reality. Worse, her solution victimizes both porn producers (of all genders) and porn consumers (of all genders), without actually offering much in the way of helpful alternatives such as comprehensive sex education.
Porn is not the root problem, a lack of fair labor law where women are still paid less than men for the same jobs except in the porn industry, and the other socioeconomic issues are, which even people as misguided as Dines is clearly recognize. Even if pornography could or should be banned from society, none of these other problems will be eradicated with the disappearance of porn, and frankly I don’t see what Dr. Gail Dines is doing to improve the situation on those fronts. The irony of the anti-porn movement is that in its well-intentioned attempt to make women’s lives better, they actually make them worse by contributing to the culture of victim-blaming and sexual shaming that made so many women so vulnerable to the kinds of exploitative pornography that anti-porn feminists are so adamant about stamping out.
Also, @Aletha:
What’s the difference between your statement and something like, “Truly safety-enhancing ‘censorship’ should be called filtering”? Terminology is important, but the distinctions between “erotica” and “pornography” are well-defined, as you’d know if you looked up the two words in a dictionary, and have nothing to do with egalitarianism, nor should they.
Oh, maymay, how dare feminists redefine language to shed some light on the murk the defenders of pornography want to keep in the shadows? You completely missed my point, but that is to be expected. My point is that there is nothing egalitarian about pornography, as opposed to what anti-pornography feminists define as erotica. Pornography depicting women is all about the exploitation of women as sex objects. It is not about art, free speech, empowerment, or sexual liberation; it is a form of violence against women.
Something relevant from the dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography:
“Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornē prostitute + graphein to write;”
Female prostitution is another form of violence against women. Both are mediated by the exchange of money. Consensual sex is an expression of mutually desired intimacy; it cannot be bought. What distinguishes pornography from prostitution? There are more witnesses enjoying the degradation of women. How is it protesting the degradation of women can be reduced to a moralistic argument? That is just a way of conflating the feminist argument against pornography with arguments stemming from beliefs that sexuality is dirty and shameful. How convenient and self-serving is that? The reversals make my head spin.
Actually, Aletha its your “reversals” that make my head spin.
You spin out a series of *assertions* about what constitutes misogyny, violence against women, and authentic consent, demand agreement, and declare anybody who disagrees with your perspective as “self-serving”.
And, yes, I do think that the kind of line on feminism and sexuality you adhere to is exceedingly moralistic. Just because an idea isn’t expressly coming from a religious or traditionalist POV does not mean it can’t be moralistic. I think the demand that others adhere to what amounts to some very sectarian views on sex, relationships, and media is inherently sectarian. You can trot out all the redefinitions you want, but ultimately, I don’t see your views as any less sectarian than a Catholic appealing to Humanae Vitae.
And as for your “dictionary definition” of pornography, here’s a term that you really should look up: etymological fallacy. Trotting out the ancient Greek roots of the word “pornography” proves exactly nothing.
“very sectarian views on sex, relationships, and media is inherently sectarian.”
Pardon me: inherently moralistic
Oh how I love discussing porn in public. I would agree with Gail very much on the notion that porn, in its various forms and degrees of subtlety are seeping into culture in less ostentatious ways. In addition, BDSM and Miley Cyrus engage in a very stimulating dialogue over fashion and sex. If she is only mimcing a BDSM-like fashion sense to garner attention or to make her presence known in an increasingly sexualized music industry, is it another avenue to for porn to start commodifying and shaping music?
What I find particularly interesting and worthwhile about this article is the commodifcation of porn and the pornographic sublime. Porn is growing ever so specific and far more fragmented than ever. even though we are watching people engage in sex on screen. there is virtually a site to cater to whatever fetish the human mind can conjure. Just the other say, I came across hotmormonboys.com which displays the guys who may or may not be mormon performing solo in “mormon fashion”.
Secondly, I use the term pornogrpahic sublime to refer to the subtlety of pornographic actions which pervade mainstream society. Very popular examples of pornographic sublime are the Tom of Finland comic of men fully clothed while packing huge and often times comical bulges in their pants. Nothing is meant about the size of their phallus but we assume they have a huge penis as a result of it. Same goes to for Miley Cyrus donning a BDSM fashion. While she does perform a sexually illicit act, we assume its overtly sexual tones as pornographic and as a result we are seeing pornographic images, or at least the imitation of pornographic images, in a less ostentatious manner.
Great Article Shira! I cannot wait for Part II!!!
So, drawing a distinction between egalitarian and sexist depictions of sexuality is inherently moralistic? Is feminism comparable to religion? It always amuses me when a woman asserting a strong opinion is claimed to be dogmatic, demanding agreement. How often does that happen to a man? Is it not possible that a feminist revolutionary like myself, or a woman like Dr. Dines who has spent a great deal of time researching the issues, might have a clearer picture of what is degrading to women than someone who wishes to deny the harm done by pornography? Did I say my citation of the etymology of that word proved anything? No, but I do find it relevant.
I also find relevant this analysis by Gloria Steinem, from the beginning of the chapter Erotica vs. Pornography in her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions:
“Look at or imagine images of people making love; really making love. Those images may be very diverse, but there is likely to be a mutual pleasure and touch and warmth, an empathy for each other’s bodies and nerve endings, a shared sensuality and a spontaneous sense of two people who are there because they want to be.
“Now look at or imagine images of sex in which there is force, violence, or symbols of unequal power…. But blatant or subtle, there is no equal power or mutuality. In fact, much of the tension and drama comes from the clear idea that one person is dominating another.
“These two sorts of images are as different as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain. Yet they are confused and lumped together as ‘pornography’ or ‘obscenity,’ ‘erotica’ or ‘explicit sex,’ because sex and violence are so dangerously intertwined and confused. After all, it takes violence or the threat of it to maintain the dominance of any group of human beings over another.”
The first sentence of that last paragraph was quoted in the Wikipedia article Feminist views on pornography linked in the original post (the anti-porn activists link). The purpose of distinguishing erotica from pornography is to delink sex from subordination and violence. Pornography has nothing to do with sex, except in a purely mechanistic sense, and everything to do with subordination and violence. That is the point of pornographic depictions of women, to reinforce the dominance of men over women. The defenders of pornography can call this view moralistic; I call it realistic. And since when does the Catholic Church find the dominance of men over women immoral?
“Pornography has nothing to do with sex, except in a purely mechanistic sense, and everything to do with subordination and violence.”
Because you and Dines say so. OK, fine.
Now as to your porn/erotica distinction, some of us happen to like watching the *mechanics* of sex. We also like seeing passion and lovemaking, which you wall off as erotica. I don’t want to see a split between porn and erotica, because I don’t like to separate the brute physicality of sex from the inner passion. And for ideologues who can’t wrap their head around that, or a priori define raw physicality as “violence” – too bad. Nobody should have to censor themselves because they make something that doesn’t agree with your sexual ideology.
“Is feminism comparable to religion?”
Yes! Any totalizing, all-encompassing political ideology is most definitely comparable to religion. That’s a very long-standing critique of 20th century ideologies like communism, fascism, nationalism, etc, and certainly applies to *some* kinds of feminism, notably the kind you’re spouting off about. That any understanding of that critique of ideology seems to be outside of your understanding is unfortunate.
“It always amuses me when a woman asserting a strong opinion is claimed to be dogmatic, demanding agreement. How often does that happen to a man?”
All the time, actually. Dogmatic marxists and free-market libertarians get called out like this all the time, and in at least half the cases, those are men.
“feminist revolutionary”
Head meets desk.
Good luck with that.
Two things, Aletha. First, no, I did not miss your point. I simply disagree with it. It’s blatantly dismissive of many people’s experiences, not least of all mine, and therefore when you state them as The Truth you are saying things that are in all senses of the word incorrect.
And speaking of “senses of the word,” let’s talk about words. While I agree that language can and perhaps even should evolve with time and thought, I don’t understand what value you see in equating concepts such as violence with concepts such as pornography, while segregating these things from concepts such as erotica. Such conflations do little to clarify your arguments while they do a lot to evade discussion; I’ll note that you totally ignored my original question.
You seem hell-bent on asserting not that porn is bad, but that porn forcibly produced with unwilling performers is bad, and if that is your belief, we have no disagreement. However, when you say “pornography…is a form of violence against women,” you jeopardize the validity of your own argument by failing to distinguish violence from sex acts, which are no more the same thing than arousal and desire are, a distinction Dr. Gail Dines is clearly fond of ignoring as well.
We have specific words for specific reasons, Aletha. If you wish to redefine language, you are welcome to do so but you will find yourself isolated in your own little world, unable to communicate with the rest of reality. Posit for a moment what would happen if everyone redefined language to suit their whimsy as eagerly as you seem to want us to do. Seriously, think about it.
Now, speaking of defining erotica versus pornography (MP3), I put the question to you: is this NSFW picture porn or erotica? How about this one? Or this? What about this? And this one? Which are porn and which are erotica, and why?
And, please don’t lazily avoid the question. I do ask in good faith; I’m genuinely curious about what you think.
O rly? That’s bullshit, and shows another incorrect coupling of concepts: consent is not about intimacy, but choice. Its definition is (roughly) “voluntary agreement or permission.” People choose to have sex for myriad reasons. How is saying that the only valid reason to have sex is as “an expression of mutually desired intimacy” different than saying the only valid reason to marry is to have babies? We both know the latter statement is bullshit; people marry for many different reasons, such as love, economic incentive, and a host of other things. Your narrow view of valid versus invalid sex betrays your moralism, as Random Observer pointed out.
Now, in fairness, let me try to answer your questions:
That’s pretty easy.
What distinguishes, for example, a movie from acting or modeling?
Well, can you remove moral judgement from pornographers for a moment? If you can, you might start protesting about the unequal pay that male sex workers and female sex workers put up with in the sex industry. That would be a non-moralistic argument, as its an economic one. However, by protesting degradation, you assumptively inject a lack of respect (as degradation is defined as “a less respected state”) based on your “ideas of right and wrong” (i.e., morals) regarding what you see. How, exactly, is that not a moralistic argument?
For what it’s worth, I really don’t enjoy degradation, but I really do enjoy filth. Try chewing on that one with and without disentangling “filth” from “degradation.” It would be so much easier if we just had the one word and not the other, right? Maybe you would like to redefine one of them?
There was a university of Pennsylvania student who was gang raped in 1990 after college men watched porn videos in their dorms.And I still have a 1985 letter written into Mademoiselle Magazine by a woman who wrote in response to Peter Nelson’s His Column,Why Nice Guys Like Playboy,she wrote from Allendale New Jersey,”I just finished reading Peter Nelson’s His Colum.Peter Nelson is certainly no nice guy,nor is any participant in pornography, a trade which profits from the exploitation of women.Why I must ask does a so-called “woman’ magazine” feature editorials which support misogyny? Mr.Nelson’s callous disregard for women is evident in his neglect to face the fact that pornography promotes rape and violence.I know,because my best friend was raped by four men who used pornography as a reference guide.If a magazine such as Mademoiselle can ignore the truth about pornography and actually trivialize it’s seriousness,I can only question it’s editorial purpose.”
Dr.Gene Abel found that more than 50% of sex offenders used pornography,and that the offenders who used it were less able to control their behavior than those who did not.Psychiatrist William Marshall found that 86% of convicted rapists regularly use pornography and that 57% admit to imitating scenes they enjoyed from pornography in the commiting of their rapes.Dr.Marshall also found in a Canadian 1983 study of child molesters in prison,that 77% of theose who molested boys and 87% who molested girls were also regular users of hard-core pornography.
Rhea from the sadly former Women’s Alliance Against Pornography Education Project in Cambridge,sent me a lot of research on the harms of pornography back in December 1990.
One of the things she sent me included information that North Carolina State Representavie Richard Wright-Democrat,while announcing enactment of anti-pornography legislation he sponsored,cited a N.C. State Police study which found:defendants in 75% of the violent sex crimes in the state”had some kind of hard-core pornographic material” in their homes or vechicles.”I’m talking about S&M (sadistic & masochistic) material,bondage he said,that came from The New York Times 1/26/86 & 10/13/85;The Virginian Pilot 10/20/85 and the articles were contributed by Alexandra Bassil,Ray Lynn Oliver;Barbara Sparrow.
Also included,was information about interviews with 50 Boston women who had been victims of marital rape,nearly 10% of their husbands were obssed with pornography;wanted their wives to help them make it.Many could only get aroused by staging a rape.”There was a sense that many of these men needed violence or strugle in order to have sex.They found the humiliation very stimulating.The women felt as though they were being used as masturbatory objects.There was a definite sadistic component to some.”Approximately 45% of the rapes were categorized as “Battering rapes”- Address to the NY County Lawyer’s Assoc.by David Finkelhor,Ph.D Associate Director-Family Violence Research Program,University of New Hampshire
The information also included a study conducted by the Michigan State Police in which 38,000 sexual assaults from 1956 to 1979 were analyzed found that in at least 41% of those crimes,pornography was used or imitated just prior to or during the act this came from Ladies Home Journal October 1985.The information Rhea sent me also included that a study of 36 convicted sexually oriented murderers/serial killers,found the single most common trait amongst them was 81% listed their primary sexual interest as pornography,71% voyeurism.The study’s objective,conducted by the FBI’s behavioral science unit in Quantico,Virginia,was to develop a psychological profile on sex killers in order to track them faster.The researchers concluded,after interviews with the 36 who collectively provided information on 1,188 murders,that the killers were characteristically immeresed in fantasy,this came from NY Daily News 6/26/85 and This World 7/14/85.
Feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler says in her book,Patriarchy:Notes Of An Expert Witness that serial killers are obessed with pornography and woman hatred and sexually use their victime both before and after killing them,and she said most wife beaters,pedaphiles,rapists and serial killers of women are addicted to pornography.Nobody would need to do studies to prove that racist and anti-semetic pornography is very harmful to Blacks and Jews and it would never have been made so mainstreamed and acceptable!
Rhea from the sadly former Women’s Alliance Against Pornography Education Project in Cambridge,back in January 1993 sent me many cartoons from Playboy and Penthouse of women being sexually harassed,used and sexually servicing their male bosses in the work place and they are horrible!
I asked her what are these cartoons from,she said they are from Playboy and Penthouse. I said what are the men doing to women in the cartoons,are they raping them.She said yeah,they are all different things,you will have to see for yourself and then she said,they’re pretty bad.
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography put their own captions under the cartoons under a Penthouse cartoon of a man saying to his boss,who is holding a photocopy of just a woman’s huge breasts with no head,”This is my Christmas bonus? A xerox photo of your secretary’s t**s?” THe Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote that Porn reduces women to the make-up of her body parts.
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote that Men are threatened by the concept of women’s equality under a Penthouse cartoon of a woman sitting on top of a phallic type nuclear warhead sucking on it with her legs open grasped around the tip of it,and The Penthouse caption has a man in a uniform talking to another man,saying,”Miss Oppenhawn,the newest member of our staff is a nuclear warhead specialist.”
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote that Porn teaches men that the only way of succeeding is by prostituting herself thereby removing the threat of equality.They wrote this under a Penthouse cartoon of a woman journalist with her hand in a man’s pants, and the Penthouse caption said,”Here I am again folks,out scooping those male journalists by interviewing an otherwise unapproachable diplomat.I suppose you’re all wondering how I do it.”Another from Playboy has a female employee with an upset humiliated expression on her face standing in front of her male boss’s desk with papers in her hand that she’s leaning on his desk, and the male boss says to her,”I had the most asmusing dream last night.Miss Grant-I dreamed you performed an unnatural sex act upon me.”
Another Penthouse cartoon shows a woman standing outside of her boss’s office with the word President on the door and she’s talking to another woman,her co-worker and she has a huge candy cain stuck in her backside,and she says to her co-worker,”I guess you can’t expect much of a Chrstmas Bonus this year.”The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote under this,Pornography elicits contempt for women.
A cartoon from Playboy had a male boss with an angry expression on his face barricading a woman employee on her desk with both of his arms around her,and she’s leaning away from him with a screaming upset expression on her face.The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography included this cartoon under their heading,Pornography elicits contempt for women.
Another Playboy cartoon has a woman military officer looking upset and humiliated standing with two male military officers while one of them cuts her uniform off into pieces and she’s nude.There are other women military officers standing further in the backround on the side.The Playboy caption says,”Usually we just cut off the buttons.”
Another from Penthouse has a male news caster sitting at a news desk reporting the news with a woman with big breasts in a low cut top sitting next to him.Penthouse’s caption has the male news caster saying, “Chet Carey here bringing you the news along with Miss Clover to provide relief by displaying her t*ts.”Another Penthouse cartoon has male doctors operating on a patient,while only a woman’s lower part of her body and legs are shown under one of the male doctors clothes,and their caption has him saying,”More suction”.
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote under these that Woman’s only attributes are in her sexuality.Another cartoon from Penthouse has a nude big busted woman in bed with her male boss,and he’s smoking his after sex cigarette and she says,”Incidentally,I’m sorry I turned you in at the office for sexual harassment!”
Another from Playboy has a male boss sitting behind a desk with a sign up behind him that says,Last-Minute Suggestions and his female employee is walking away holding a folder in her hand with an upset expression on her face,and the she says,”*Please* Mr.Fergusen! You can keep those last minute suggestions to yourself!.”
Psychiatrist Linnea Smith sent me two huge folders of important research and information on the harms of pornography(she thanked me for my important efforts educating people on the harms of porn,and she said it’s especially difficult because the public is desensitized,and the media is reluctant to criticize other media,especially sexually explicit media) back when I wrote her and told her about my experience as a big busted beautiful 13 year old girl being molested by teen boys who used Playboy and how they even made references to the women in it and how one of the boys shoved a pornographic magazine into my face and said,here’s a picture of a girl fingering herself.
Included in the research Dr.Smith sent me was other Playboy cartoons of women being sexually harassed on the job by their male bosses.Dr.Smith wrote on top of this photocopied page which has these cartoons on both sides, Job Harassment Sexual Harassment In The Workplace Has Been For Years A Popular Them For Cartoons In *Playboy* Magazine.One of these cartoons is of an overweight male boss with his femalke employee with an upset expression on her face trying to push him away and the caption has him saying,”Ms Beasly why are you resisting I voted for the ERA.”(the Equal Rights Amendment that was never passed).Another has a male boss in his office saying to his female employee,You want equality? Next time we’ll do it on your desk.”
Playboy also promoted child sex abuse, including ,gang rapes of women and children,incest, and sexual murders of women and children as normal and as jokes in thousands of cartoons,articles and even some pictures for over 30 years! Check out psychiatrist Linnea Smith’s excellent site talkintrash she has a section,Another Look At Centerfolds where she has *tons* of strong excellent research studies on harms of pornography!
Pornography and Rape Culture
Question: Pornography helps to create a rape culture.
Results:
Strongly agree 35.4%
Agree 22.7%
Some pornography does 18.8%
Disagree 11.0%
Strongly Disagree 8.4%
I have no idea 3.6%
Responses: 308
The results of this poll do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Men Can Stop Rape. The results are not scientific and solely reflect the opinions of those Internet users who have participated.
Copyright © 2007 Men Can Stop Rape E-mail: info@mencanstoprape.org
P.O. Box 57144 Washington, DC 20037
created by iapps
Pornography is extremely sexist and woman-hating and it teaches and normalizes sick distortions of women,men and sexuality,and it sexualizes male supremacy,sexist gender inequality,male dominance,women’s subordination and submission to men,,male supremacy objectification and dehumanization of women as only sex objects to be used,ejac*lated all over,and disgarded, for men,often calls women woman-hating names like s***s,b******,and w***** and even male violence!
And because it sexualizes and normalizes all of these sick things and sexist injustices, and has been wrongly mainstreamed and made acceptable in a sexist sick woman-hating male dominated society,that created and normalized it in the first place,more women are sadly disturbingly being influenced to think this is what normal hetrosexuality is,and it teaches men that this is what women want and like, and that they want to be treated by them this way! Attitudes like yours really make any hope for change seem hopless!
Many men who used to use pornography when they were younger who are now anti-pornography anti-sexist anti-male violence educators include, former all star high school football player Jackson Katz who wrote the great important book,The Macho Paradox How Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help and he writes about how pornography sexualizes men’s power,woman hatred,sexual objectification and dehumanization and subordination of women,and this is all connected to male violence,and gender inequality,and how the pornography industry has sold this woman-hatred and men’s power as normal and liberating to the public.
Therapist Russ Funk who is a anti-racist,anti-sexist,anti-male violence educator has written books and articles on this as well and he had a chapter ,What Pornography Says About Me(n) in the book,Not For Sale:Feminists Resisting Prostitution & Pornography in which he said that when he used pornography he saw all women as just f***able even women he saw in classes,business coleagues and women on the street .He said being commited to justice and using pornography is inherently contradictory,because one can not look at others as fully equal,empowered,dynamic human beings if one is also looking at them through the pornographic gaze.He also did a presentation in 2006 at The Center For Women Children and Families,Pornography What’s The Harm? On his site it describes 3 workshops he presents to people on the harms of pornography.He also wrote a book in 1993,Stopping Rape:A Challenge For Men and he includes pornography as one of the causes of rape culture.
The important organization,Men Can Stop Rape also discusses and educates on how men’s sexuality is socialized by pornography.
And Robert Jensen has written great articles and his important book,Getting Off Pornography And The End Of Masculinity.And Dr.Michael Flood’s recent report is great too.John Stoltenberg’s excellent 1989 book,Refusing To Be A Man Essays On Sex and Justice that consists of brilliant important speaches he made from the late 70′s -the late 80′s also discusses how pornography eroticizes and sexualizes male supremacy, sexism,woman hatred,violence,male dominance and female submission and subordination of women,and makes it feel and seem like sex to people and even makes sexism necessary for some people to have sexual feelings and arousal,keeps it this way, makes it the reality that people believe is true, and keeps people from knowing any other possibility.He co-founded Men Against Pornography In New York.
Brooklyn College psychology professor Dr.Robert Brannon was a co-chair with Phylis B.Frank for 20 years from 1990 of The New York NOW’s Task Force on the harms of pornography,trafficking, and prostitution and he is co-founder of NOMAS National Organization For Men Against Sexism and he;s the organization’s group leader of their Task Force on prostitution and pornography.THere islso a n excellent recent report by pro-feminist Australian gender studies and sociology professor Dr.Michael Flood,The Harms Of Pornography Exposure Among Children And Young People and he also includes a lot of great research studies about the effects on adult users.
Dr.Flood also then explains that in studies of pornography use in everyday life,men who are high frequency users of pornography and men who use ‘hardcore’,violent, or rape pornography are more likely than others to report that they would rape or sexually harass a woman if they knew they could get away with it.And they are more likely to actually perpetrate sexual coercion and agression.His reference for this is studies by psychologist Neil Malamuth et al 2000.Dr.Flood also says that perhaps the most troubling impact of pornography on children and young people is it’s influence on sexual violence. And he then says that a wide range of studies of the effects of pornography have been conducted among young people age 18-25,as well as older polualtions.
He says across these,there is consistent and reliable evidence that exposure to pornography is related to male sexual aggression against women.This association is strongest for violent pornography and still reliable for non-violent pornography particularly for frequent users. His source is psychologist Neil Malamuth et al 2000.He also says that in experiemental studies adults show significant strengthening of attitudes supportive of sexual aggression following exposure to pornography.He then says the association between pornography and rape supportive attitudes is evident as a result of exposure to both non-violent (showing consenting sexual activity) and violent pornography while the latter results in significantly greater increase in violence-supportive attitudes.He also says exposure to sexually violent material increases male viewers acceptance of rape myths and erodes their empathy for victims of violence.His source for this is Allen et al 1995.He explains adults also show an increase in behavioral aggression following exposure to pornography including non-violent or violent depictions of sexual activity(but not nudity) with stronger effects for violent pornography.Allen et al 1995.
He also explains there are many studies that show that teen boys who are frequent users of pornography more often sexually harass girls and believe it’s perfectly OK to hold a girl down and force her to have sex.
The person who mentioned how wonderful the brothels are in Australia…and how it is respected and regulated. Does this person have a clue Australia is a country with a large trafficking network of women who are trafficked from 3rd world countries? Get a clue and read the TIP 2010 trafficking in persons report, and read about the country of Australia.. and see that they are in much need of improvement in the care and safety of transporting trafficked women. Respectable brothels my a…..
Hey, Random Observer and maymay, it is never wise to underestimate an opponent. You can obfuscate and ignore all you want, calling it a matter of disagreement, gray areas, morality, right and wrong, to each his own, whatever. I have heard it all before. I made the mistake of overestimating your ability to comprehend what women have been saying about your precious pornography. Gloria Steinem wrote that book almost three decades ago. I did not make these ideas up, and neither did she. Those who pretend the controversy is all about gray areas or individual preferences ignore the context, the experience of women suffering so men can gratify their egos, the fact that manufactured confusion has given cover to grotesque forms of abuse of women, whatever men could dream up that other men might enjoy vicariously, calling it consensual because the women got paid. You just do not get the first thing about this issue. I have to conclude that is not due to being ignorant or dense, so it must be some kind of willful blindness. My issues with pornography are not matters of logic, law, morality, or censorship. I understand your position more than you think. I wrote an essay for my blog over three years ago (The Trouble with Pornography at http://freesoil.org/wordpress/?p=24). What the defenders of pornography wish to ignore and obfuscate is basically, women are getting hurt so men can get off on it. I strongly suggest you stop trying to make your contempt for women who oppose porn about me, or your theories about my use of language. This idea I am like a religious fanatic is so tiresome, off base, and off point, why bother to futilely attempt to clue in the clueless? Perhaps you could explain how it is you think pornography has some redeeming value. What is the logic behind vicarious enjoyment of degrading women? Does that enjoyment trump the associated suffering of women?
I might have more to say later, but right now I feel like I would be wasting my time. This discussion could too easily turn into a train wreck. I can tell I am being baited.
I really, really hate the term “sex-positive”. It’s like “pro-life”. It implies that those against porn are against sex. That is usually the first question I get when I say I have deep concerns with pornography. “You don’t like sex?” Sigh… They should just call themselves “pro-porn”. Call a spade a spade.
But I am glad that she is interviewing anti-porn feminists. I’d actually like to see some debates or panel discussions with some folks who identify as anti-porn feminists and some folks who identify as pro-porn feminists and have them engage in a discussion. Put the arguments out there and let people decide.
I’d also highly suggest reading this transcript of a talk given by Rebecca Whisnant:
Not Your Father’s Playboy, Not Your Mother’s Feminist Movement: Contemporary Feminism in a Porn Culture
A talk delivered by Rebecca Whisnant at the conference “Pornography and Pop Culture: Re-framing Theory, Re-thinking Activism” (Boston MA, March 24, 2007)
http://www.saidit.org/archives/jun06/article5.html
This excerpt is particularly interesting and relevant to this discussion:
“Now think about it: in this cultural and political context, a feminism that acquiesces to certain key male entitlements, while simultaneously presenting itself as bold and liberated and rebellious, is likely to be appealing to many women. A version of feminism that supports girls’ and women’s desired self-conception as independent and powerful, while actually requiring very little of them as far as confronting real male power, will similarly have wide appeal. It is my contention (now jumping ahead by a decade or so) that the versions of feminism currently most popular in the academy and in U.S. popular culture more broadly are of exactly this kind—and that the backlash dynamics I just described are on especially clear display with respect to the politics of pornography. After all, in one important sense, what happened in the eighties was good news: back then, the feminist critique of pornography had enough cultural, political, and intellectual momentum that an orchestrated campaign was required to defeat it. For at least the past decade, however, despite the best efforts of many of us in this room, that critique has largely dropped off the radar screen, replaced in some quarters by a depoliticized faux-feminism that caters to rather than challenging the porn culture.”
I interviewed John Stoltenberg back in 1986 for my WBAI radio program, and in answer to my question about if he saw Candida Royalle’s egalitarian porn as ‘erotica’, he condemned her as a pimp. (Note: Stoltenberg is Andrea dworkin’s widower).
That speaks directly to Aletha’s attempt to maintain a divide between ‘porn’ and ‘erotica’. Ms Royalle called the anti-porn feminists on this, and she proved that they were just bluffing. Their dishonesty on this distinction is precisely why it is correct to view them as sex-negative, their protests to the contrary notwithstanding.
Gail Dine’s organization is called Stop Porn Culture. Its website is financed by a fundamentalist Christian outfit that wants abortion outlawed. What kind of feminist takes money from those folks?
To elaborate on my last point, Gail Dines’ Stop Porn Culture website is registered and owned by Skyward-bound Productions, specializing “in serving churches and other nonprofit organizations get the materials they need to help spread the ministry of Jesus Christ.”
@Steve Silver, you amuse me with your pronounced pro feminism that drips of condescension. You really hate the term sex positive and want “a spade called a spade”. So what. Who are you supposed to be again? You read some feminist literature and decide the female world, especially those of the sex industry and sex industry activism should slot themselves in your narrowly defined polarized positions. You are different from the men who slot women by physical attributes disregarding our feelings, our experiences, our thought processes, and how we arrived at those.
We should just call ourselves pro porn. Ok Pope Alexander VI, welcome to the Treaty of Tordesillas. You, as the enlightened pro feminist man get to slot the world in two categories. What about the indigenous people of the continent? Who cares about them? The mighty has voted so that the great powers can have their convenient business and struggles within the chosen confines of a man who was enlightened.
There is no “pro porn” steve. There is a sex worker rights movement and sex worker rights activism that happens to get mislabeled by you and many others under a title chosen by feminists opposed to the sex worker rights movement. A title called “pro porn”.
A few points for you to contemplate Steve. The world isn’t black and white. You don’t solve problems by pitting parties into two sides, not mention forgetting the oppressed class that already exists.
The sex worker rights is an eclectic movement of activists working toward improving the lives of individuals in the sex industry. Many in the sex industry have little time to focus on feminist ideology. Instead they are focusing on paying bills, child care, trying to live in a world that remains male dominated. While your belly may be full enough, Steve, to have a lot of bandwidth to use on slotting everyone into some two sided feminist war, the rest of us don’t have that luxury.
Ah, some of the usual suspects have finally arrived! At the risk of being censored yet again, I ask you, Sheldon, for some evidence for your charge about the ownership and registration of the Stop Porn Culture website. It happens to be registered to Lierre Keith, according to whois.com. The connection you allege is certainly news to me. I will know soon enough if there is any truth to it.
I am very pleased to see Jill Brenneman enter this conversation. Her perspective is unique, to say the least. I would love to hear more voices like hers in debates such as this.
Excerpt from her bio, located at http://swopeast.org/speakers/jill-brenneman/:
“Having a unique series of experiences that at different times in her life made her an unwilling participant as a submissive escort for an escort service catering to BDSM clients, yet at a later time in her life she was a sex worker by choice, both escort and exotic dancer. Jill, can speak from first person perspective about the differences between her non-consensual participation in the sex industry as a submissive and her experience later as an adult sex worker making a consenting and open choice to do sex work. The two very separate experiences in her life give an audience a nuanced sense that the sex industry/sex work is complicated, not black and white.”
Sex educator, columnist and author Violet Blue has done the work of researching Stop Porn Cuture’s background. She has all the details on her website “Our Porn, Ourselves.”
Here is the relevant section:
‘As of 2008, Stop Porn Culture’s website (domain) was registered and owned by Skyward Bound Productions [http://ourpornourselves.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/3008064193_526a58f6a3_o.png],
specializing “in serving churches and other nonprofit organizations get the materials they need to help spread the ministry of Jesus Christ.” Currently the website is hosted by the leading Mormon-owned web hosting company Bluehost, with a record of arbitrary censorship and endorsement of anti-gay causes.
Thank you, Ms. moderators, for finally approving my comments.
Violet Blue also had this to say: “Stop Porn Culture does not appear to have affiliation with the religious motivations of their internet business associates.” (see http://ourpornourselves.org/stop-porn-culture/ )
I found that screen shot of the old whois listing on the Tiny Nibbles Violet Blue blog, and posted a link on my own blog. I see no evidence that Skyward-bound Productions ever owned or financed the Stop Porn Culture website. That is a rather small website design outfit. I could not find any claim by Violet Blue about that alleged financing, nor any mention of abortion. Usually people pay website designers for their services, not the other way around. Would you care to point out that information I could not find, Sheldon, or did you just jump to conclusions?
The conclusions I drew from Violet Blue’s data were my own. They are the standard conclusions one draws if the subject were, say, abortion or the ERA.
Since Skyward-bound rants about Jesus, what do you really expect their position on abortion to be?
The point is, is that Skyward and now this Mormon outfit is a internet business associate of Gail Dine’s group. The particular way in which the cash flows between them is not as important as the fact that it is flowing between them at all. Gee, I wonder if there are any neo-Nazi website design groups out there who could lend Stop Porn Culture a hand when SPC plans its next website upgrade?
Why should this be a shock and a surprise? Dworkin and MacKinnon worked together with folks from StopERA like Beulah Coughenor (sp?) to introduce their Model Anti-Porn laws back in the 1980s. The more things change..
Why does there even have to be “sides” or worse labels? We would get much farther by forgetting about sides, about labeling each other, and instead channeling that energy into concrete steps to reduce and eliminate harm and exploitation in the porn industry.
I’m often classified as “pro porn” based upon those that I work with. For all the rhetoric directed at me for years, the energy would have been better spent working on constructive goals. The reality is that I support safety and protections for porn industry workers. I don’t even watch porn and at best am ambivalent. Which is a far cry from being “pro porn”. But I do care about those working in the industry and their well being.
Perhaps we can come to the table just as human beings, leaving our political affiliations at the door and find compromises that lead to solutions.
I will explain what I do not understand. I do not get why on a feminist blog the issues of women getting injured, humiliated, one, both or more, so men can get off cannot be discussed without men persistently intruding their theories of how all forms of “sex” are equivalent free expression as long as there is consent all around. In a certain very popular genre of pornography women are tortured, one form or another. This is one big issue Gail Dines and allies have tried to raise, while irate men and their allies dodge in all their clever ways. Sex can be different for women, when the partner cooperates, and something more that is hard to describe. One might call it love or passion, but what I mean is something more. Something like imaginative, creative, attuned, empathetic, above all unscripted, wild, out of control yet centered in the fire of life? What? I am no poet. To express this in images is in the realm of erotic art, what is possible for humans, but many have no idea it is within their reach, because the man is ignorant, unimaginative, uncaring, unattuned, who knows, I could call it indifferent. I have experience of a lifetime with a bunch of men all over the spectrum, from the mystical to perhaps the worst form of betrayal. The common vulgar expression is the man is good in bed, but of course it is more than that. I am sorry that many if most women suffer from men who are not great lovers, for whatever reason. Some guys need no assistance from external props to be wild in love. May their tribe increase.
Guilt by association is an ancient diversionary tactic. I am a journalist, even before representing the Free Soil Party. As a journalist I respect another according to the quality of their journalism, and all other issues are secondary. Gail Dines has had unfortunate associates. Whether that was out of ignorance, or she did not care, is impossible for me to know, but I have reason to doubt it was deliberate. To cast doubt on another journalist because of their associations is a slippery slope and a trick to divert the issues raised. I might as well renounce all information provided by any source associated with bluehost, or a pornographer. Gee, the second host recommended on a list from no less than WordPress (see http://wordpress.org/hosting/ ) is bluehost! Should we all boycott WordPress? My blog, this blog, Violet Blue? What about blogrolls? On the roster here is Alas, sold to the very business a few years back. Should I boycott this blog on principle because of that? Those who cast aspersions on Gail Dines for unfortunate associations might find a more relevant angle. That has been done by some of her critics here, when they disputed an aspect of her ideas directly. Distortions and stretched analogies are not helpful; hot air just wastes the time of everyone concerned. For another example of that slippery slope, about thirty years ago a man Sheldon might know from WBAI, Pacifica fund raising star and independent journalist Gary Null originally got his expose of the Politics of Cancer published by none other than Bob Guccione over the irate objections of the entire Penthouse board, after Null could find no other publication who would touch it. Guccione printed free copies of those articles on request, which cost a pretty penny. Gary Null has other associations and ideas I dislike, but I judge his journalism as that regardless of any of those side issues, matters of opinion or personality clash. That is required by my idea of professionalism. Null raises important issues about the way things go down in this world. Gail Dines raises other important issues. On a feminist blog I think those could be the focus of this discussion, regardless of all these diversions, like her associations.
By the way, I read a bunch of the small forum that evil website designer calling his outfit Skyward-bound put up about the time he ran for local election. I could not find any mention of abortion. Such a big issue for him, I guess he thought it was so obvious he did not need to mention it? I do not put any faith in standard conclusions, as a rule. Perhaps Violet Blue is a bit more careful a journalist than Sheldon Ranz. Look at what gets said about Sarah Palin by feminists about her views on birth control and sex education. The standard conclusions are wrong, as usual; Sarah Palin is on record defending teaching about birth control in sex education. Good journalism uncovers such inconvenient truths. Women getting roughed up or otherwise reduced to sex objects is an important political issue for me. One woman had the courage to post here about what it cost her personally. Can that be discussed here, or is her story to be dismissed as a fluke? I think she speaks for the majority, but the numbers do not matter, not really. What matters to me in the context of this plague of men battering, raping, murdering women is that popular pornography feeds the flame of the madness that lets men get off on these fantasies or the reality of hurting and humiliating women. That money is greasing this part of The War Against Women just adds insult to injury.
I sympathize with the moderators. Trying to moderate this kind of discussion can be a bear, and I imagine I have contributed to the difficulties, but I had reasons to say everything I said, and I imagine the same is true of everyone who has contributed, even if they had to eat their words. On my blog I only censor irrelevant nonsense. One could ascertain that from the battle over my story on Rapelay, when a commenter insisted on defending that video game as harmless fantasy. Nonsense, but relevant.
A good place to start would be the Adult Industry Medicine (AIM) Foundation, headed by ex-performer Dr. Sharon Mitchell. The AIM website lists its phone number.
Genuinely open-minded folks can arrange a meeting with her and/or her staff, and can then ask them what they need to do their job better.
Found via a Facebook friend, Quotes from Jenna Jameson in her book How to make love like a porn star, a cautionary tale. It is not a pretty picture.
There is no “pro porn”, Jill Brenneman? That must be news to Violet Blue. Did you see the latest trackback on Part 2? Ms. Blue highly recommended Part 2 in her blog entry Food for Thought: Latest Pro-Porn News and Information on her Our Porn, Ourselves blog, http://ourpornourselves.org/food-for-thought-latest-pro-porn-news-and-information/ . Or is she reclaiming the term, heaven forbid?
Another thing I find ironic about all this, aside from the fits I must be giving the moderators, is what I observed on my blog about a peculiar misrepresentation of anti-pornography feminists, “I know of no feminist who opposes the rights of women in the pornography industry. Some feminists, including myself, think such women have a right to a way out.” Does that make me a utopian dreamer?
Women – and men – do not have any exits blocked if they wish to leave the pornography industry. Hundreds of performers leave each year, and hundreds of new ones take their place.
Utopia delivered!
As for Aletha’s post from 7/19 – which for somne reason just popped up today – it’s important to understand that “guilt by association” as a tactic was started in the Sex Wars by Dworkin and MacKinnon and continues today with Dines and Stop Porn Culture. If they are now getting the short end of the stick that they wielded against other feminists, then they have no one to blame for that but themselves.
Sex-positive feminists give as good as they get. They are not like those timid Democrats scared by Fox News into axing Shirley Sherrod.
Inasmuch as Dines and Stop Porn Culture claim to be so high-falutin’ and radical in their feminism, their hypocrisy needs to be exposed, regardless of Aletha’s “WordPress-made-me-do-it” defense.
Kudos, Shira, for facilitating such a rich discourse on this subject. I love your moxie, and am obviously NOT alone. : )
For some reason, Sheldon? I was sorely tempted to let this thread die, but perhaps I should explain my mysteriously appearing comment. Did you not understand my allusions to the moderators? Five of my comments between these two entries were temporarily held up in moderation, presumably for violating the comment policy, which says in part: “Criticisms of feminists/feminism should be respectful and constructive.” However, it appears the moderators had no problems with your contemptuous character assassination and gross distortions of Gail Dines and her allies. Go figure.
By the way, do you actually think “sex-negative” fits me? I cannot speak for Gail Dines, but really, that description is completely absurd. But it fits in with the kind of reversal I have learned to expect in this arena of the “sex” wars. That is another misnomer; the wars have been about pornography, not sex.
I should have been more specific in my reference to “a right to a way out.” To me that implies a right to assistance, for instance vocational, educational, emotional rehabilitation, to develop a skill or talent that would enable a woman to find a better way to make a living.
For you to characterize my remakrks on Dines as gross distortions is interesting since, on your own Free Soil Party blog, you admitted that some of Dines’ associations have been ‘unfortunate’. Well, that’s one way to put it!
And, is every webhoster listed on WordPress affiliated with religious fundamentalsts? Did Dines and her friends even attempt a background check, via Google if nothing else?
Of course ‘sex-negative’ fits you. Your defensiveness is reminiscent of het folks who oppose gay marriage but claim that they are not homophobes because they ‘hate the sin, love the sinner.’