An open letter in response to Slate’s magazine article “Lady Problems – If Larry Flynt, Hugh Hefner, and Bob Guccione hadn’t had personal issues with women, would today’s porn be less awful?” by Amanda Marcotte.
Peter Driben - Flirt Magazine, Feb. 1949
Dear Ms. Marcotte,
I have just finished reading your article, and I felt the need to write back to you with my views to try to establish a debate over a topic which, it seems, both of us hold close to our hearts and write passionately about: the pornographic industry and its portrayal of female sexuality.
First, however, let me just separate porn performers from actors. These are different categories. To perform sexually in front of camera requires different skills from those who take up acting classes in order to deliver lines and convey emotions in a mainstream, non-sexual film or in a theater. To a certain extent, it might even be said that pornographic performance demands more, for there has to be such a deep physical commitment to the work that it is hard to parallel that to conventional acting. That is not to say that porn performers cannot act; on the contrary, most often than not they are so good on “faking” emotions that we do not even acknowledge that they are not really feeling all that. But to mix these two categories – performer and actor – is to inhibit any possibility one might have to explore different aspects of the adult entertainment industry, and to belittle performers who are not exemplary in “acting” but, nonetheless, deliver exquisite performances in pornographic film.
Second, anyone who claims that all pornography is degrading to women is looking only at one part of pornography. There are actually films, directors, studios, producers, and performers nowadays worried about empowering the female persona on camera in porn films. To beat over the deadest of horses, meaning the misogynist side of pornography, is to draw attention to a corpse that should not even be rotting here anymore, but yet remains unburied precisely because we fail to ignore it. It might be that for some people the degrading of women work as an aphrodisiac, and for those I am sure the industry will always carry special features. What concerns me is not that these films are being made, but that the line between female degradation and female abuse might be crossed at any time. What I mean is that female degradation CAN and SHOULD be staged to please those who are sexually turned on by it, an audience which not necessarily only includes men. I personally do not find that attractive, and politically I can even oppose to it, but that would be restricting sexual fantasies when, in reality, I would rather see men and women acting on their private fantasies aware that those must be staged and consensual. It is the non-consensual part of female degradation that concerns me, not the degradation per se.
Third, the idea that violent sex is degrading to women is, at the same time, a way to put them under the sex-less category AND a way to perpetrate female submission. Some women like it rough, and there is nothing wrong with it. Yes, there has been an increase on the number of more “violent” acts on pornography, at the same time that old/young roleplaying seems to be what motivates the market now, but that has to do more with the new economic position of porn than on the degrading of the female body itself. Examples can be found on girl/girl movies which explore bondage, spanking, or emphasis on certain body parts without any male participation. To say, in 2012, that porn is degrading because it is still being ruled and shaped by men is to ignore that a great quantity of films are in the hands of women, and they are the ones who are making the decisions today. Pornography is no longer a man-only realm, it is actually being thought up by women right under our noses.
What you have failed to understand is that if we regard pornography as women degradation we are exempting women from taking part in it when, in reality, they should be active in how their sexuality is portrayed and perceived by any audience. Yes, there are women who are still mimicking what we used to know as “porn”, meaning a world where the female participation is static and submissive and her presence is not really pivotal. It is all about men popping and the female orgasm being faked. That kind of porn still exists and will continue to exist, since it is hard to change not only the male attitude towards women, but also women’s attitude towards themselves. However, what can be seen in the porn industry nowadays is a change towards a more female encompassing aesthetics; one which observes male and female as equal and is able to free sexualities from pre-concepts, such as that all porn is degrading to women.
I am sorry if I sound too harsh, but the idea of looking at porn as a tool to degrade women sounds just too passé for me, like sitting around burning bras or dissing men – men which we, as women, raise. I belong to a new generation which has chosen to wear a bra, and who considers men allied and not enemies. It is time we prove bell hooks wrong, and show the world the master’s tool will, too, dismantle the master’s house… if only we choose to take it in our hands.
Some of us have already taken up the fight. As a woman, what are you doing?
Here is the link to the article: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/11/larry_flynt_hugh_hefner_and_bob_guccione_would_modern_porn_be_less_awful_if_its_founders_hadn_t_hated_women_.html
I agree wholeheartedly. Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder. There will always be those who can’t see past how much it’s evolved. Good article!
Whenever I read a mainstream article like this about porn I always have to wonder where they’re finding all this degrading (and by implication men degrading women) porn and completely failing to find any of the wide variety of other types of erotic work out there. Are they using out-dated references or simply cherry-picking to support their preconceived notions? The spectrum of styles and approaches to porn has never been wider or deeper than what exists now. I don’t particularly like degrading porn of any variety, because that isn’t what does it for me, but if I wanted to I could easily find vast quantities of men being degraded by women, women degrading other women, etc. Not to mention the similarly vast quantities that aren’t degrading at all and are just people expressing themselves sexually in front of a camera.
I always find it interesting when 2 people have an argument that both feel is very important and yet both parties MAKE the argument that the other wishes they had made. Anna Marcotte made an argument about the state of MOST porn today being the result of the influence of the first major porn producers. In the Rebuttal Anna B. Volk makes the argument that while there is and always will be “and should be degrading” porn completely ignores the central theme of the original story. There is no attempt to even discuss the theory that the first producers have shaped the desires of the modern porn customer. These scenes of facials, barbie doll glazed, beach balls in the chest, fake orgasm performers did not appear out of whole cloth. They are the result of a business that was run by a very small group. In defense of the right for all kink no matter what the circumstance to exist requires at least a cursory thought as to which came first the chicken or the egg.
I agree with the original article that there is a dirth of porn that no matter how hard you try to justify the empowerment angle, is degrading. Degrading is not interchangeable with the “like it rough” euphamism. To argue that the way people have sex, want to see others have sex, and the way the business of porn is run is not shaped by a paradigm started in the 70′s is Short sighted. It’s only in the last 10-15 years has there been a growing niche of people in the business , both male and female who are showing a new way. Amanda Marcotte’s premise is correst: the porn you see today would be drastically different if there was a STRONGER feminist movement that demanded sexual expression, that didn’t allow these few men to shape 2 generations of an industry that both her and Anna b. volk actually embrace. To want a better balance in porn, to have all the colors of human sexuality expressed is not the same as wanting to trout out a “dead horse”. To tell the origin story, to point out shortfalls is not the same as wanting to start “restricting sexual fantasies ”
The aim for the future is clear, to promote, and praise the porn that celebrates women as owners of their own sexuality. Women who are part of every aspect of the business of porn.
LLM
In Australia at the moment (where I live) we have an ongoing public conversation getting our heads around porn in the ‘right now’.
The angle which makes many stop and think, as opposed to rolling our eyes at these people and get back to watching porn, is the undoubted impact the sexual interaction of Gen Y that the sheer all pervasiveness of porn is having. The main issue being that young men’s expectations of sexual interaction with young women is being shaped by porn.
This is actually backed by research data not alarmism and it really has to make you stop and think.
For my generation – Gen X and more mature people, the idea that anyone except idiots could actually expect their real life to be reflected in porn is bizarre. Apart from anything else men my age know that even if we did, our mothers would be appalled, ashamed and all sorts of other things if they knew we had allowed this to happen. But more intellectually, I think that we as a society (in western democracies) view porn through the prism which we used to view Erotica. I’m not saying they aren’t the same thing, but Erotica was something furtive, something that you acquired subtly (if not illegally) and it had a subversive feel to it. Even in the censorship debates (in nation’s like Australia in the 1970s) it was always understood, if not explicitly stated, that Erotica was only to do with sexual fantasy – which was only one part of who you are as a person.
Whether or not Erotica and porn are the same things, we approach porn with the same attitude and assumptions as we did with Erotica in the past. But the sheer plenitude and all pervasiveness of porn thanks to the web makes porn today something altogether different since a generation is possibly growing up without the vital context that Erotica/porn is about sexual fantasy not reality.
PS your blog is AMAZING!!!!! Love it! Hope my comment isn’t too rambling
BC