reasons porn may suck

[keryx]

Naomi Wolf thinks it demystifies sex and makes real people confusing.

Feministe expands on Wolf's examination of college boys and the collegiate environment.

And I think it all too often furthers the message that there's some way you personally aren't hot enough. Or, for that matter, that you need to be hot. Cause we needed to hear that one again.

[Note that by "pornography" I mean any sold representation of sex, including advertising.]

Comments

[firecat]

I love porn (including some of the more clinically objectifying kinds). I also find a number of real people in all their "imperfect" glory quite sexy. Porn has very little to do with real-life sex to me, any more than I confuse watching a sit-com with hanging out with my own friends.

I think people attacking porn had better be careful unless they want the same attacks to be levied against vibrators and other sex toys that have improved some women's sex lives over the past couple of decades. Just as women can't compete with breast implants, men can't compete with the Jeff Stryker dildo or with the Hitachi Magic Wand. But in fact to many people it's not a competition at all.

[attrice.livejournal.com]

I think attacking porn for making women feel less desirable or for making men want unrealistic, porn star women is not the strongest argument against it. I think the fact that porn is basically prostitution with a camera, that it reduces women to convenient holes for fucking, and that many women in the industry are harmed physically and psychologically by making it are much more compelling arguments. I liked "The Beauty Myth" but I think Wolf's problem is that she often doesn't see the forest for the trees. I mean, the whole, head-scarf=mystery thing. Well, why not just force women into wearing floor-length skirts again. Then legs would be mysterious and men would be under their erotic spell. Bullshit.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is Naomi Wolf's whole position on porn. It's just one of her weekly columns - much like a blog post, it's more "I just learned this thing and here's my expansion upon it" than "this is the entirety of the problem with porn".

Her use of the analogy of other culture's attitudes towards sexuality wasn't effective, though. A BOOK on other cultures and sex might be, but in this case it ends up making her argument sound too much like "waaah - sex isn't mysterious enough".

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

No "may" about it. Certainly, the User/Consumer is part of the problem. But only part.

Saying that porn is not the problem, it's the assholes/sexists who are the problem is disingenuous. It oversimplifies the problem. It's like saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

I think you and I are aligned in the same mode of thinking, but for different subjects. You say, "don't give your money to someone who sells Weight Loss, it creates an atmosphere of hatred." I say "don't give your money to someone who sells Sex, it creates an atmosphere of hatred." For you, there is very little gray area when someone is selling Healthy. For me, there is very little gray area when someone is selling Sexy. Do you think that comparison holds?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I don't say "don't give your money to Healthy sellers". I say THINK about the selling of healthy before you sign the check. And I think that VERY VERY VERY much applies to porn.

The problem is - porn is EVERYWHERE (again, using my definition that selling sex and using sex to sell are both pornographic). So it's very hard to not contribute to it in some way. Bought a Bust magazine? I've contributed to porn? Bought a car? More porn, in all likelihood. In some ways, actual porn is the least insidious aspect of our pornographic culture, because it's at least direct.

And of course, we're getting to the point where the healthy stick is everywhere, too. Like, ideally I wouldn't shop at a store that carried Atkins-branded foods. But they're at the local independent organic foods store now, too. Eating organic is becoming another way to be beaten with el sticko del healthy.

So I'm saying I feel your frustration.

Also, I'm a firm believer in the subjunctive for argument's sake. There are always cases where what I say isn't true, even if it's true 9 times of 10.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I am sorry I put words in your mouth! :o

I've just been thinking lately about how your campaign against the Healthy Stick and my campaign against the Sexy Stick are analagous, and when I don't understand your statements I try to think of them in terms of my own. And I guess I was sort of asking you to do the same for me. :) Which you already did so there is no point to what I am saying! :)

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Hey, wait, did I say porn is not the problem, it's the assholes/sexists who are the problem? Cause that doesn't really reflect what I think, if I said (or implied) that.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

You didn't say it! It's the argument/implication I have heard many times in debates on the subject, however. I brought it in sort of because it had been on my mind, and because I was trying to think of the general pro- and anti- arguments that come up.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I think, when it comes to violence, that guns and porn are analogous. They don't provoke people to violence, but they might provide tools. But anyone who thinks of porn in such a narrow argument as "if porn doesn't provoke violence against women, it's okay" is clearly living in a cave.