Feminists have long had issues with porn.
What kind of porn, you may ask? Pornographic novels? Nude portraiture? Gay porn?
No, somewhat unsuprisingly, it’s mainstream porn aimed at heterosexual males!
It’s a fact that men are biologically more responsive to visual than literal material, and that women are more responsive to literal rather than visual stimulus. Hence, there are certain kinds of material that heterosexual males are naturally drawn to. So, if one siezes upon a certain kind of material and can speculate that it is harmful in some way, you have a very handy way of denigrating those who are attracted to it!
However, here feminism falls into two camps. The first group, who find porn aimed at heterosexual men ‘disempowering’, and the second group, who find participation in the sex industry ‘empowering’.
This is where feminism trips itself up.
‘..but I thought we were about ‘equality’? Why can’t we participate in this and make some money?’
Those who would say this subscribe to the view that an expression of sexual power is also an expression of social power.
And so, the first camp make excuses for them.. they were forced into it by men! They entered the sex industry to boost their confidence after it was broken by men! Porn (..that heterosexual men like) is exploitative!
The truth is that the only person in the porn industry who is being ‘exploited’ is the person participating in it, if they were exploited at all!
Feminism has yet to produce a convincing study, even after 40 years of trying, that porn aimed at heterosexual men affects the way women are treated in society.
The first camp will make excuses and protest. The second camp will carry on regardless.
This is because people like porn, and there will always be a living in it for people who are prepared to participate. Exploitation of any kind is certainly wrong, but who in the western world really has no career options other than entering the sex industry?
If feminists are really concerned with humanitarian issues as they purport, and not concerned with creating mistrust and division between the sexes, wouldn’t these energies be better spent working with those who are working in prosititution rather than porn?
Perhaps by ensuring that they are safe?
Perhaps feminists could tackle the spiralling drug abuse that goes hand in hand with this?
Perhaps feminists could ensure that those working in prostitution are only those who choose to?
Of course, I am talking about those in the sex industry of both sexes from all levels of society – not just the female streetwalker, but the male escort and the gay male masseuse.
But then, how could you use that to demonise men?
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September 28, 2007 at 12:20 am
Davout
As women have increased the cost of sex, porn consumption has gone up.
Second, the incidences of rape have decreased with an increase in porn. Hence, feminists are caught in a no-win situation: if they cause the reverse i.e. porn to decrease they might find that rape increases. This, in addition to increasing rape, will tear to shreds any remaining vestiges of the rape=power hypothesis.
If they stay mum on porn, they look hypocritical because their mainstream party line is anti-porn.
Further, even if they wanted to do something, they couldn’t cos adult porn is legit as freedom of expression.
Consequently, their solution is to make facile gestures toward reducing porn.
September 28, 2007 at 12:24 am
Exposing Feminism
..and only porn aimed at heterosexual males, at that!
Thanks Davout.
I would like to take this opportunity to reassure the casual reader that the Men’s Rights movement is absolutely against rape of any kind.
September 30, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Doug S.
Is the cost of sex actually increasing? I would suspect that the cost of sex has decreased significantly since before the invention of the birth control pill and is currently at a level that is much lower than it has been historically (at least in rich countries with European-derived cultures, such as the United States).
September 30, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Exposing Feminism
I suspect that Davout isn’t talking about the literal ‘cost of sex’ here, Doug – but rather the cost to a man of a relationship with a woman in the feminised countries.
You can see evidence of a social reaction to this in the marriage strike.
October 1, 2007 at 12:05 am
Kim
Feminists aren’t against porn, per se, they’re just against a man using or enjoying porn. As you said, they encourage all forms of a woman’s “sexual liberation”, just not a man benefiting in it. Men using porn or going to strip clubs takes aways a bit of their sexual power. The withholding of sex loses some of it’s potency if a man has other options. My experience is, the sex industry isn’t a threat to a wife who treats her husband well and doesn’t use sex for blackmail.
October 1, 2007 at 12:08 am
Exposing Feminism
Thanks Kim!
Very well put.
It would be interesting to hear from some feminists about this in consideration of these points.
October 1, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Doug S.
So you think the cost of relationships, as opposed to sex, has gone up since, say, 1915? Well… marriage has become more risky, but alternative arrangements have become more acceptable, so I’d say it’s a wash.
Sex itself gets cheaper when women get richer and don’t need to use it to “buy” a man’s support through marriage or other means.
October 1, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Exposing Feminism
You seem to agree with me that the decline of marriage and the traditional family model is in line with the decrease of the (literal) cost of sex, Doug?
I would say that the cost to western society outweighs the personal sexual benefits for both men and women.
October 1, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Davout
Doug S.,
Apologies for making a vague point. I meant the cost of ‘consistent sex’ with a single average female, or as EF has pointed out, a relationship. The increase in cost is partly due to women leveraging their increased finances in order to attempt to get men to do whatever they feel men should be doing.
This is borne out by the fact that the probability of divorce (and domestic violence initiated by the woman) increases as the differential wealth gap between the woman and man increases in favor of the woman.
Having gotten more cognizant of the pitfalls of relationships,more men opt for hookups and women give these to men at decreased cost with the hope of trapping them into relationships wherein they can then hike the going rate of sex.
Even with hookups, there is also the incidental threat of the woman poking the condom/forgetting to be on the pill, resulting in a pregnancy over which the guy has zero control.
October 1, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Davout
Doug S.,
I disagree with your point “Sex itself gets cheaper when women get richer and don’t need to use it to “buy” a man’s support through marriage or other means.” because women tend to extend their ‘marrying up’ tendencies to relationships. The woman with means typically does not make herself sexually available to the man with no means, unless she is unattractive. In the case of the latter, the relationship for both is borne out of necessity rather than desire.
October 2, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Davout
Doug,
The baumeister paper is very helpful. It eliminates one of the major crutches feminism leans on.
October 3, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Anonymous
Feminists aren’t against porn, per se, they’re just against a man using or enjoying porn.
I read a debate regarding prostitution among female college students… The consensus was that it an immoral activity and they were totally against it, but they didn’t wish to ban it because the women would lose their jobs !
October 6, 2007 at 8:52 pm
khankrumthebulgar
Feminists have not objected to the Folsom Street Gay Pride festival. They are objecting to any Sexual Expression they don’t approve of by Straight Men. They see themselves as the Gatekeepers of Sex. It allows them to increase therefore the Market Value of Women to sex starved Men. The problem is that Marriage is not a place where Men are getting their sexual needs met anymore. When Marital Rape laws were passed Women legally no longer had to meet their Husbands Sexual Needs. Thats why there is an epidemic of No Sex in marriages. One in five is celibate. With Sex occurring once a year or less.
Men are finding ways to cope with this Un Natural loss of Sex. And with Women desperate for Males to marry. The games playing with Pick Up Artists, Players, and Bad Boys. Is leaving decent Men with no outlet. This has resulted in the explosion of online Porn. So Feminists must decry any Male who does not toe the line as a Sex Criminal. In fact they consider all Men Sex Criminals anyway.
As a result Men are in record numbers refusing to marry or Marrying Foreign Women. Last year 12% of US Marriages was to Foreign Women. If this trend continues in 20 years it will be one in four US Marriages.Women have badly over played their hand. And Men are boycotting them. Hows that working for you Ladies??? Not really well apparently.
January 3, 2008 at 7:38 am
Renegade Evolution
wow, I’m way late on this one, but….there are feminists who aren’t all that against porn. In fact, it is a huge blow up issue amid feminists themselves, hell, some feminists even like porn…or are at least indifferent to it.
Some of ‘em even MAKE porn.
January 3, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Exposing Feminism
Confusing, isn’t it? As Davout said earlier;-
‘If they stay mum on porn, they look hypocritical because their mainstream party line is anti-porn.
Further, even if they wanted to do something, they couldn’t cos adult porn is legit as freedom of expression.’
January 3, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Renegade Evolution
Oh, porn is one of the biggest divisional issues in feminism, for certain. Both sides have some valid points, but it is an explosive topic- no question.