For the longest time (am I the only one singing along to Billy Joel in my head now?), the term “pro-porn” really rankled me. And I mean up until about two days ago. As a matter of fact, on a certain level it still rankles me, because, like Trinity, I see it as a nasty, reactionary label slapped onto those of us who don’t toe the anti-porn hardline, by certain smug internet denizens who do.
But when I saw Ren had started this blog, I decided, “Fuck it. It’s time to take the label that was used to hurt and dismiss, and make it our own.”
Because, really, I am pro-porn - but, again, as Trinity has shown, one of the problems with that term is that it can mean so many different things, and if the people having a conversation are all operating from different definitions, there can be some pretty big misunderstandings. So, when I say I’m pro-porn, here’s exactly what I mean…
I think the free, open, uninhibited, joyful expression of sexuality, in whatever form makes people happy and gets them off, is a good thing. What you like might not be what I like and none of it may be what that person over there likes; but that’s beside the point. We all should feel the freedom from shame (or more severe, tangible punishment) to express whatever it is that gets us off. We should not feel that we have to “rein in” our sexuality because it makes someone uncomfortable, or because it’s seen as dirty, or sinful, or silly, or unimportant, or offensive, or whatever else. As women, we get all of this and more from the society around us, every day. And frankly I am sick of it. I am a highly sexual woman, and I am NOT going to apologize for it, or “tone it down,” or anything else. I am going to be ME.
So where does porn fit into all that? Well, I truly believe that porn can be an expression of these things for women. Note the word can. I shouldn’t even have to say it, but obviously this does not mean all porn is awesome. Most porn, in my opinion, isn’t awesome; but that doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. To go back to my music analogy, if I were to say I’m “pro-music,” I seriously doubt many people would immediately jump to “So, you support all the drug and alcohol abuse in the music industry?? So, you want to run independent artists out of business??”
And, too, there’s the very basic, fundamental concept that many people have already mentioned: consenting adults should be able to do whatever the fuck they want. None of us get to be the morality police for other adults.
I’m pro-porn as part and parcel of being sex-positive. And I’m sex-positive because, well, I just can’t imagine being any other way. It just feels right. This society is sex-negative, no two ways about it. And what’s bizarre is that sex is either dirty, nasty, base, shallow, frivolous, scorn-worthy; or it’s sacred, holy, extraordinary, on a pedestal above the rest of the world.
Neither of those are right. And it saddens me that those are our options (and astounds me at how often the two polar opposites are conflated). So how could I not be sex-positive?
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23 Responses to "Yeah, that’s right, I’m pro-porn"
I think it is important to say that sex is neither good or bad. In the same way that thinking is neither good or bad its just what we do, and everyone should be able to do it as they please.
I like the analogy to music and music appreciation. It works well.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about pornography, in the sense that I can see where some people think it damages a healthy approach to one’s sexual development and where other people think it improves and edifies such an approach. That pornography is so closely linked, then, to sexual health suggests that any dialogue about it has to follow along the complex lines that dialogues about health run: questions about fundamental rights, about acting justly, about balancing personal responsibility with corporate welfare (as in, what is a society willing to fund and support for the good of this society), about notions of propriety or doing what is proper, &tc. It’s all too often a dialogue reduced to simplistic disagreements about objectification or pleasure-enhancement, and I admit that sometimes that simplicity just makes things clarified enough for someone to make a decision that person believes is right and just for that person. I wish that I could attend some of the unconferences you’ve been to, to just listen in on what is being thought through. I’m sure the take of this evangelical Christian differs from some views and thoughts offered, and agrees on other parts. But, at this point, I’m not interested in definitively saying I’m pro- or anti-, yet I can see why you do. Or, at least I think I can see it.
I mean, I like that you said pornography “can be an expression of these things for women.” I like that the reference is not so much “for all people,” but for women, because it seems to me that the most significant fights you have had to face have been from certain feminists, not so much from the expected group of (religious) conservatives. As though what it is to be woman—so contested this term—cannot be extracted from what we think about porn. Pornography is not a separate issue, but it’s also not the issue.
Anyway, there’s a lot of rich philosophical stuff to be said about the paradox in saying that sex is both base and sacred, holy and profane, nasty and extraordinary. It was something of a joke in Hegel to point out that the penis is both necessary for the sublime of procreation (recreation) and the mundane of urination. I don’t think we should do away with consideration of sexuality as base or holy—I think we’re not yet through with these terms—but rather I do think that we’re still failing to go through with the dialectic between them. Rather than compare sexuality to either and thus declare it one or the other, it seems to me that another way to go is to recognize ourselves as sexual beings in such a way that our own relationships to holy or to base are fundamentally changed. From the standpoint of how Paul writes about sex in the New Testament, there’s a lot being done with noting that the sexually charged marriage relationship is both a burning of the flesh and a sign of Christ’s burning for the church. To me, it’s a shame that this gets read into exactly the kind of screwed-up dichotomy you rightfully point out as screwed-up, resulting in an overwhelming misunderstanding and, worst of all, misappreciation of sexuality. But then I have significant disagreements with the conservative theologies and interpretations already…
So, anyway, I just want to say, continue to fight the good fight.
Re: “joyful expression of sexuality”
This sounds great. Unfortunately, you won’t find much of that in today’s bestselling porn movies:
To clear up confusion about what porn is generally about, academic researchers Robert Wosnitzer, Ana Bridges, and Erica Scharrer, together with coders like Michelle Chang, analyzed 50 recent top selling porn films selected from lists compiled by Adult Video News, the leading trade journal of the porn industry…
Ana Bridges: “…I’m going to begin to talk about what it is that we found after looking at these 304 scenes in these 50 top selling pornographic films. In total in the 304 scenes we coded a total of 3,376 acts of aggression. That ends up averaging…to an aggressive act every minute and a half. The scenes on average contained eleven and a half acts of verbal or physical aggression…”
Bridges: “We also coded for, what…we’re calling loosely in this talk, ‘extreme acts’ (of sex acts). The only sexual sequence that we coded, which is…when one thing follows another, was something called ATM…’ass-to-mouth’. This literally involves anal penetration followed by oral sex…she is literally eating her own shit. That occurred in 41% of the scenes that we coded…
Bridges: “So how many scenes didn’t contain aggression? About 10%…
Bridges: “Slapping happened 30% of the time… Most of the aggressors in these films were men…73%. By far the most common recipient of aggression was a woman. Even when women were aggressing, they were generally aggressing other women…”
“Less than 10% of the videos showed any kind of a positive act, and that included kissing… caressing happened maybe twice. Something like a verbal compliment, ‘Gosh, you look pretty’, not, ‘Slut bitch, come over here,’ that happened maybe five times in the 304 scenes. So we have a ratio of positive to negative behaviors of 1 to 9, which is not a sustainable, happy relationship.”
It would be one thing if the effects of porn were confined to the consenting adults who partake, but they do not. For example:
My name is Gail Kielson and I work at Necessities/Necesidades, an organization in Northampton, Massachusetts that provides services to battered women. I am a Licensed MSW, and for 17 years have worked with women and children who were living with abuse…
We have recently begun to formally ask the battered women who call us whether the abuser uses pornography and from this we *conservatively* estimate that at least 1/2 of the abusers use pornography as a part of the abuse. Battering is based on an issue of power and control, with the abuser using all kinds of methods to continually assert his power and control over the woman. Throughout, he is persistently working to deny her of her ability to make informed decisions about her life and through threats, coercion, and continual terror succeeds at clearly establishing himself as “in control”. We frequently hear a woman say that she feels like a prisoner in her own home, and in fact, she is.
The use of pornography is but one means that an abuser uses to degrade and humiliate the woman. The stories that I hear are horrific and just when I think I’ve heard it all, I hear another horrifying story that sends me reeling. Women frequently state that abusers bring home pornographic videos and make them perform the acts depicted in the video. One woman described endless days and nights of this, with her husband demanding that she leave her place of business, a shop that she owned, and come home and enact the sexual tortures depicted on the videos; or he would demand that she leave the caretaking of her children and come into the locked bedroom and he would rape her. She attempted to protect her children from the knowledge of what transpired behind these locked doors, but their wide, terrified eyes indicated that they knew that she was being abused and they were helpless to protect her. Another woman said that she would come home from work, begin to make dinner for her children, and would hear her husband come in, turn the television on and know that he would then demand that she perform the acts shown on the pornographic videos. She had no choice but to submit, because if she did not he would threaten to beat her, or would beat her into submission. Another woman described how her husband brought home the videos and when she tried to withstand his sexual demands he put a gun inside her vagina and thus forced her to submit to his acts of abuse. Another woman said that her partner used pornographic books and read portions to her and then made her perform the degrading sexual acts described therein. Another woman said, tearfully, that her husband brought home pornographic videos and made her have sex with other men as he watched her and the videos simultaneously. Another woman said that her partner, while watching pornographic videos, raped her with all kinds of objects–pipes, sticks, knives. Perhaps the most horrifying story of sexual abuse, linked to pornographic use I heard was from a woman who was repeatedly raped, handcuffed to the bed, raped with all kinds of objects by her husband who continually used pornographic material. After years of terrifying abuse she managed to flee her husband and come into our shelter. He pursued her, terrified her and her children, threatened to kill her. When he was finally arrested and incarcerated her children began to disclose sexual abuse. As the children began to feel safer and safer their disclosures became more and more horrifying, for their father, paternal grandparents and paternal uncle had persistently and consistently, sexually abused them, using pornographic videos as a constant part of the abuse. Not only had the children been forced to have sex with each other and several playmates, but the adults had used objects in their genitals, had killed animals in their presence, had made them engage sexually with animals, had hung them from rafters, had threatened to throw them off a cliff, all acts depicted in pornographic videos. The results was that after several years of these disclosures, we were able to get the Commonwealth to bring him to trial and he was given 80-100 years in prison. However, these children are all in psychiatric treatment, one child had to be placed in a residential facility because he was actively suicidal, one child rarely talks, and walks through life with a haunted look, one child acts out in school. The mother has flashbacks of her own sexual abuse and lives, not only with her own terror, but with her self-imposed guilt that she had not protected her children. She cannot hear me say to her–”but he did this to them when you were off working, working to support the family and he maintained the secrecy by threatening that if they disclosed this horror he would kill them and you, their mother.”
There are hundreds more articles on how porn harms women, children, communities, and its own performers at NoPornNorthampton.org. Mainstream commercial porn represents a narrow, blinkered, unloving version of what sex can be about. I’m not feeling the joy.
NPNH,
You are not welcome on my blog. I’ve read your blog, as well as your lengthy comments at Ren’s blog and elsewhere. I published this comment because of the recent email exchanges between you and Ren, as I believe it serves to further illustrate your tactics. Further comments from you will be deleted. Your arguments here do not hold water and I am not going to bother picking them apart one by one, because I and many others have addressed these issues countless times in countless places. But what it boils down to is: the ABUSE is the problem, not the porn. Take away the porn and the abuse is STILL there, manifesting itself in another way. It’s easy to use porn as a scapegoat, but it does a disservice to women who are victims of domestic violence to reduce it to so simplistic an explanation.
Please do not comment here again.
You could go through that with a drinking game for all the logical fallacies there. i spy with my little eye…appeal to authority, appeal to disgust, correlation/causation confusion…
alternately, one could just go straight for the “throw the cartoon head of the cartoon person” game at MoPo. good god, that man is an annoying little nose goblin. hey Schlomo, you forgot the part about how it also MAKES PROPERTY VALUES GO DOWN.
I also like that we are to assume that what THOSE people find to be aggressive acts and whatnot are, in fact, aggressive? Aggressive can be subjective. A man or woman grabbing their partner and kissing them passionately in a Big Budget Hollywood Film could be called aggressive, no? A man or woman slapping the behind of their partner on a Network Comedy Show could be called aggressive, no? And this is tolerated, giggled at, or seen as passionate or sexy…but if a man or woman slaps their partners behind in a porn flick, bad bad bad…
Nicely done, Amber.
It’s a little flabbergasting how people can refuse to separate abuse from objects. The first thing that popped into my head when I started reading the 1,000+ words from NPNH (seriously, link) was, well, the Bush Administration is down with using waterboarding to torture prisoners of war…that means I should stop drinking water because water can be BAD.
Your music analogy is better though…
And, can I just say, Northampton deserves better representation. I’ve been there. It’s (mostly) such a happy place…
Amber: I wouldn’t have considered myself “pro-porn.” I remain kind of ambivalent on it myself. After reading what you have here, I’m certainly more pro-porn via your take on it than anti-porn. Your music analogy is a good one and it works: SURE porn can be a tool used in abusive relationships as NoPoNoHamp says — but anything in the hands of an abuser can become a tool of abuse. It’s that same old Evil Music thing that was out of control in the 80’s - 90’s: “Ozzy MADE those kids kill themselves by writing “Suicide Solution!” OZZY DID IT!”
Right.
I had that LP, we all did. I can still quote the words from that song, that’s how well I knew it. I never thought of killing myself, nor did the rest of the kids at my school. You see the point. For that reason, everything NoPo writes up there, I dismiss utterly. The only abuse that porn is going to “trigger” or feed or whatever is in people who are predisposed to violence/abuse in the first place. I just don’t believe it makes monsters out of those are who of a non-abusive psychological makeup. In fact, I’ve experienced this first hand. More on that another time, perhaps
In fact, the more I think of it, (here I go again with the Other L Word), blaming porn for abuse is kind of lazy. Sure, blame it on porn! Let’s not even bother to get into the real reasons for abuse, the cycle of power and control, how American culture is impossibly, paridoxically obsessed with sex — as long as we never talk about it! How many times have I cautiously kept a rated R HBO movie on as my daughter was around, hand on the remote, getting ready to change it. How many times has the R been for violence, not sex. Like I give a shit if she sees two girls/guys kissing — but I do give a shit if she sees someone being hurt. The unwieldy point, right, violence is okey dokey, just no sex!
But I digress.
Back to NoPo: NO KISSING IN PORN?! Oh, gads, no! What’s next: Porn is bad because it never depicts men lying down their coats in a muddy road for women? No hand holding? No “cutesy wootsey” pet names?
I, personally, hate kissing scenes. Forget porn, I don’t like to watch anyone kissing on any film, PERIOD. In fact, I look away. Armchair psychs may have a field day with that one, but NoPo and those he sites seem to believe kissing is what we all want in our “romantic films.” I don’t. Don’t be dictating my turn ons, thanks.
Back to you, A :”We should not feel that we have to “rein in†our sexuality because it makes someone uncomfortable, or because it’s seen as dirty, or sinful, or silly, or unimportant, or offensive, or whatever else. As women, we get all of this and more from the society around us, every day. And frankly I am sick of it. I am a highly sexual woman, and I am NOT going to apologize for it, or “tone it down,†or anything else. I am going to be ME.”
Well good gracious me. What could be more “feminist” than that???
Nicely done!
In fact: re-reading NoPos graphic tale of abuse up there pisses me off. Recall, I work with vicims of DV. I am disgusted by the fact that he/others like him use these “shock and awe” stories of abuse to push their agenda. Using these women’s pain for their political platforms.
Listen up, NoPo, and I mean this sincerely: IF you indeed care for victims of DV, what many of these women who go into shelter need are HOMES. Many of them come to the shelter with no money, no transportation and horrible credit/past evictions, sometimes criminal records. This credit, eviction and criminal history keeps them OUT of public housing, leaving them no place to go. Twice last week alone, TWO separate women said to me, after weeks of searching for affordable housing: “No wonder women go back to their abusers.”
You wanna help these women — or would you rather just use their stories for your agenda?
If you want to help, HELP ME house them by starting a site demanding separate Section 8/subsidized housing vouchers for ONLY victims of DV.
Or start a site on how to make it illegal for vicims of DV to be refused tenancy due to thier credit/eviction history — as many times, it was the abuser that fucked up her credit/housing.
I would bet my job that any of the women I worked with would far rather you spend your time doing this that slapping stickers on Playboy.
And while I am angry here, NoPo, I am deadly serious.
Too often, this “shock and awe,” Lifetime Movie crap about DV.
These women need a place to live, not Anti-Porn folks benefitting from their pain.
In fact, the more I think of it, (here I go again with the Other L Word), blaming porn for abuse is kind of lazy
Yep!
as far as the rest: it’s bollocks, i’ve seen plenty of kissing in prawn. hell, there are hetlez flicks that consist of nothing BUT, practically. but yeah: so? it’s such a weird glomph of stuff he has all moshed together. anecdote of horific abuse, and then BESIDES THAT, there’s -no kissing- in hardcore porn. like, if there -were- that’d somehow alleviate the horrific abuse of the women he keeps -using- to further his agenda?
and yeah, exactly right, it’s “shock and awe;” hell, the catalog of suffering is pornographic in itself. it’s meant to provoke a strong emotional reaction and catharsis of some sort; there’s no context to it; it’s cheap and manipulative and badly spliced together…
and yeah, NoPo: why not take up Kim seriously on that? you want to help, then help. You’ve got money. Shitloads of money. Why not spend that and your time on something besides endlessly trawling the interwebs for more evidence of -just how bad- prawn is (and putting it on your site) and wringing your hands about there goes your neighborhood. some people would be glad to have a home at -all-, let alone worry about the -decreasing value-. and yeah, i think that there are a lot of ways you could help BEFORE whinging about ATM or whatever it is that’s got up your skirt this time.
First, great essay, Amber!
Second, NPN – this is so fucking typical of a “response” from Adam Cohen. Notice just how little is Adam Cohen’s own words and how much of it is literally cut-and-paste boilerplate. Personally, if it were my blog, I’d issue a conditional ban on NPN – as in, keep your spam on your own blog, but if you’re willing to come here and talk like a human being, then you can have your say. I suppose that would be a complete ban in effect, since I’m not sure if the man is capable of communicating in his own words.
yeah. there was a Catholic evangelist on this vc i belonged to who had the same M.O. personally given a choice i prefer outright flaming. it’s like those telemarketing calls where it’s actually a robot calling -you?- and it tells you blandly to “please stay on the line for an important message” and puts YOU on hold, even though it’s called YOU? at midnight? and it won’t even respond to your complaints or swearing, because it’s a ‘bot? and it keeps calling back? and calling back? and calling back? and…
but yeah, same blandly hateful tone, same tendency to flood with dubious stats and weasel words and inflammatory quotes from -other- people. same shifting goalposts: well, what about the CHILDRENNN? what about the penguins starving in Antarctica? surely you’ve nothing against penguins?…same bloody-minded persistence, same flat-out refusal to cop to the entirely selfish position he was coming from (in his case, he actually WORKED for some evangelical outfit, although he swore up and down it had NOTHING TO DO WITH his, well, evangelizing wrt gay marriage and abortion, this was his lunch hour. i got so exasperated i ended up reporting his employer to the IRS–(after making sure i was correct in my assessment that yep, they were in violation) they had a voters’ guide in clear violation of the religious non-profit exemption they claimed. i’m sure nothing came of it under this administration, but damn, it made me feel better).
it’s the end of the world. porn! oh noes! everyone will melt! melt, i tell ya, melt. when i get a chance, i have to transcribe this great sex positive essay i read this a.m. amber. you vill love it dahlink!
and IACB — good to see you around again. i’ve asked around about where you’ve been. know you got busy with work and school, but missed ya anyway.
Oh, hi, B|L and thanks – I have been pretty busy, though for the last few days I’ve been blogging pretty heavy, probably more than I should. Basically, I’m in the home stretch with my Master’s thesis, but at the same time am very busy with what was supposed to be a part-time freelance job, but got a huge amount of work dumped on me, to the point where its kept me from my thesis. I may be quitting that job soon, needless to say.
Amber, I really loved this post…. but I love your response to NPNH even more.
Thanks, sassywho!
Go porn! I am a fan of anything where I get to see some dick!
Amber — wonderful response to NPNH. I agree with you and with Kim that his response is lazy and selfish, and I hope he takes up Kim’s challenge (though I doubt he will).
Also, re NPNH’s claim about porn featuring killing animals — huh? I think we can reasonably conclude that this guy would have done what he did with or without porn.
o, i suppose that might be a reference to “crush” videos. not exactly the sort of thing you get over the counter at yer local T&A store, i don’t think. and even then i think most of them are more like, bugs (although i’ve heard tell, in tones of urban legend but they may well not be, of videos where bigger animals are–don’t even want to really finish dwelling on it, anyway). but then this is a man who calls A2M “eating poop,” so, you know, he’s just a tad prone to sensationalizing.
If it hadn’t all been over before we even started, then it most certainly would’ve been over when I got to that part.
Ass-to-mouth is “literally eating her [implication: guys never do it!!] own shit.” Riiiiiight.
Does he understand the mechanics of a human body? Can he follow a simple narrative description? Because, I have my doubts.
That’s telling ‘em, Amber!!!
If more people would be as willing to call out the likes of Adam Cohen on such utter bullshit as he swills with NoPornNorthampton, then we might just change things around here for the better.
Anthony
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