Reactions to the call to censorship.

As a long-time advocate and consumer of pornography, I find it fascinating how politically polarizing the discussion can be. I remember once in college, when a fellow student in a class in sexual politics broke into tears because her male roommate had used porn. I don't remember the full context of the story, but my initial thought at hearing her weep was something like "he wasn't forcing you to watch it. How did he affect you?"

These memories are getting stirred up because in the blogosphere, folks are writing about the Stop Porn Culture conference happening in Massachussetts this weekend, June 12-13, 2010. The descendents of Dworkin and Mackinnon are alive and well. It's a little late to do research, but here's what I could quickly find.

Here is the mission statement of Stop Porn Culture:

MISSION STATEMENT
StopPornCulture! is dedicated to challenging the pornography industry and an increasingly pornographic pop culture. Our work toward ending industries of sexual exploitation is grounded in a feminist analysis of sexist, racist, and economic oppression. We affirm sexuality that is rooted in equality and free of exploitation, coercion, and violence.

HISTORY OF THE ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY MOVEMENT
In the mid-to late 1970s, anti-pornography and anti-rape groups began to organize against pornography, arguing that pornography is degrading to women, and complicit in violence against women both in its production (where abuse and exploitation of women is common) and in its consumption (where pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation and coercion of women and reinforces the sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment.) Across the country, feminists formed groups such as Women Against Violence Against Women, Women Against Violence in Pornography, and Media and Women Against Pornography to educate people about the sexist and violent images in media and to demand social responsibility from media institutions. Feminists organized protests, marches, and group tours of pornography districts, picketed and boycotted films and presented slide shows on the pornography industry’s perpetuation of woman-hating and violence. Some groups engaged in direct action and civil disobedience against the industry to dramatically draw attention to pornography and its harms to women.

In 1983, grounded in the accumulated knowledge of pornography’s direct involvement in the subordination of women, feminists Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin proposed an ordinance that would offer women the chance to seek compensation for harm caused by the production and use of pornography. The anti-pornography civil rights ordinance that they drafted was passed twice by the Minneapolis city council in 1983, but vetoed by the mayor on the grounds that the city could not afford the litigation over the law’s constitutionality. In 1984, the ordinance was successfully passed by the Indianapolis city council and signed by the mayor. In 1988, the ordinance was also passed by a voter initiative in Bellingham, Washington. However, in both cases the ordinance was ultimately struck down as unconstitutional by the state and federal courts. In 1986, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts’ rulings in the Indianapolis case without comment.

Despite the defeat of the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance, feminists continued to organize against pornography in the 1990s through individual and small group efforts. However, anti-pornography feminists lacked a large-scale, national movement to support and coordinate their efforts.

With the explosion of technology and increased accessibility of pornography via the internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, feminists from around the country began to organize meetings to discuss the proliferation of pornography and the increased violence associated with its production and consumption. Through these discussions, it became clear that efforts were needed to rebuild a viable, national movement to combat the harms of the pornography industry. Several feminists developed a contemporary version of the slide shows developed in the 1970s to be used as an educational tool and to inspire action against the pornification of our culture. It is out of these efforts that the new organization, StopPornCulture! was created.

I'd like to take a crack at deconstructing the arguments of the anti-porn and pro-porn activists.

To paraphrase the anti-porn arguments that I have read or heard, the pornography industry as a whole is exploitative of female performers. In addition to that, the very subject of pornography is seen as harmful to society at large by endorsing or facilitating views that women are merely objects.

A somewhat more moderate view is that sexuality as portrayed by the ("mainstream"?) porn industry has been an influence on the culture of sexuality as a whole. One website suggests that its readers Make Love, Not Porn.

As for pro-porn arguments, Sasha Grey is quoted in her picture above. Audacia Ray wrote some very interesting thoughts on Waking Vixen. Tony Comstock wrote a response on Koan of Silence (oh, I think I just got that pun.) Nikol Hasler also recently interviewed Ashley Steel on Crushable.

Here is a video of sex blogger Violet Blue drumming up support on the anti-porn side. She uses a healthy sense of humor in her derision of the anti-porn arguments:



This may be tangential, but Professor Lisa Wade wrote an article about the portrayal of sexiness in the media. What Does "Lust" Look Like? This isn't strictly about pornography, but it does seem germaine to the discussion. It appears that images of women as sex objects already permeate popular culture.

In my own thinking about porn, I often feel that the men are presented as pieces of meat; they are more often than not faceless entities. When I read how differently men are paid for their services in porn than women, I question the notion that women are exploited.

From the wikipedia article linked above:

Most male performers in straight porn are paid less than their female costars. Ron Jeremy has commented on the pay scale of women and men of the sex film industry: "The average guy gets $300 to $400 a scene, or $100 to $200 if he's new. A woman makes $100,000 to $250,000 at the end of the year. "Girls can easily make 100K-250K per year, plus stuff on the side like strip shows and appearances. The average guy makes $40,000 a year."

I'm ambivalent. Perhaps there are women who have been exploited. Like Audacia Ray's porn:blue jeans analogy, we don't know the conditions of the workers by looking at the product.

On the front about images and perception, there's a porn-meme called POV. These are films shot entirely from the point of view of the (male) cameraperson who is also a performer. I haven't ever seen evidence of POV porn shot from a female perspective. I'd be curious to see this made. I'm not sure that it has ever been tried before, but I'm very intrigued by the potential. Even if it didn't sell well, what about the erotic possibilities? Also, what questions would it invite about the portrayal of women and men in the media?

Lefties don't need special rights

I'm about as gay as I am left-handed. Which is to say that I can write with my left hand if I make myself do it. It isn't pretty and it never feels right.

I was thinking up this whole analogy about how left-handed folks were once shamed and chided into behaving in a right-handed way and how that was similar to the way that gay folks are often shamed and chided into behaving straight. If you believe that sexual orientation is as biologically ingrained as handed-ness then it shouldn't be too hard to understand.

In my research, I found one person who said basically what I was thinking but from the gay/left-handed perspective. Go there to find my basic conclusion, but from an insider. I'm not suggesting that left-handed people are gay or vice versa. If you believe that gayness is genetically programmed ("Oh, my girl takes after her aunt Susie") then it makes sense. Though they were once expected to change their ways, being a left-handed is now more-or-less considered natural and not sinister, pun intended.

Some have argued that being gay requires a behavior, that men who are attracted to other men and women who are attracted to other women don't need to act on those impulses. The sin of gayness, as described above, is a sin of acting the way that one's heart tells them to do rather than squelching those feelings. It makes sense to me that teachers and parents tried to purge the left-handedness out of children. Would it have to do with making kids more "normal?"

This is to me what the whole mess is about: encouraging normalness. As a strange person, I have to take offense. Don't get me started on "tradition."

I imagine that being a leftie and learning to write with one's right hand would be similar to being gay and marry a person of the "appropriate" gender. This appears to be, after all, what opponents of gay marriage would encourage. However, marrying the wrong person would seem to be much more horrific to me.

Why is it said that the existence of same-sex marrieds threatens the existence of marriage as an institution? It seems irrational to me. Put in this same point of view, it seems as if folks were complaining that left-handed kids threaten to infect a whole school with the Southpaw flu.

I once tried signing my name with my left hand. I'm still all right.

The Other Sexual Storytelling

I was surprised this morning to see myself name-checked on Tony Comstock's blog, (one image on link not safe for work, however the post is interesting so check it out!). The post regards the history of the MPAA - those folks who make the movie ratings and the progression of the X rating through the NC-17 rating. I responded again with a consideration about sexuality in narrative, stories where graphic depiction of sexuality is warranted, at least where I believe it to be warranted.

For those not familiar with Comstock Films, they produce award-winning, sexually graphic documentaries featuring couples discussing their relationships and sex lives, intercut with footage of their lovemaking. I've only seen Matt and Khym, but I'm curious to see more.

Here's a portion of my response, with included links:

On the whole though, doesn’t the cinema’s barren approach to sexuality reflect the lack of discussion that society has put into it? That we feel that sex is a “dangerous topic,” means that we associate it with darkness. It seems to me that many folks feel the need to talk about sexuality in hushed tones and thanks to you for endorsing a more open view.

Perhaps strangely, I find the occasional joyful sex trip in comics more than cinema. Even though I grow tired of the industry on the whole, it does seem to have room for folks who couldn’t (or don’t want to) get their stories told anywhere else. A couple of light-hearted porn strips like Xxxenophile (NSFW) or Small Favors makes the porn comics world worthwhile. I still want to see serious discussion of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls.

The last link brings up the interview I did with Melinda Gebbie a couple of years back. Part two of that interview can be read here: Lost Girl Found. I'm really proud of that interview, so I'd love for more people to read it.

This whole discussion brings up some thoughts to me. For purposes of discussion, I generally think of the label of "Porn" as pertaining to stories told in order to help get someone off, or to inspire its audience to touch themselves or others. More often than not it's the narrative version of a lap-dance or a virtual brothel. It's a very profitable market and has always been, as far as I know.

The question I'm considering at the moment is about that line between Porn and other sexually graphic storytelling (see, I don't even have a word for it yet!). One significant difference is that Porn more often than not has not much to it in a literate sense; the goals of the characters are simple and predictable and it seems that there is really no potential for growth or evolution, those elements of story that make us relate to stories in emotional, intellectual or spiritual ways. I'm reminded of Victorian porn ("I'm spending! I'm spending!") though the formula probably goes back a bit further.

Perhaps it works differently in pornographic novels. Pornucopia, by Piers Anthony is probably the first that I read and for an obscure book which I only read once, I want to assume that it was wholly influential to my sexual worldview, or at least the way I view sex in fiction. It is self-proclaimedly pornographic, but I remember relating to and caring about the characters, especially the main character, Prior Gross. Maybe other porn novels are better, but I haven't read many. This was wild for me, back in my Xanth-reading days. Maybe what made it fun was its airy quality, like reading those pun-tastic fantasy stories.

It seems to me that the other sexual storytelling (would anyone like to suggest a phrase?) is more often than not quite bleak, as Tony Comstock suggested. When an art-house director approaches graphic sex, the results are often depressing. That might have more to do with art-house directors than the notions of narrative sexuality, but what are you gonna do?

Going back to the Fight or Fuck post, I think that these impulses are generally exclusive, and I still endorse an inclusive worldview by far. However, now and then I have a new conversation and realize that the sex and violence aren't mutually exclusive. I would hope that the two activities were separate, but life is occasionally more complex than the way I would wish. Sexuality can be joyful, but it can also be traumatic.

Maybe it's that last that brings out the navel-gazing in the bulk of film-makers. I believe that sexually graphic storytelling has a potential to be much more than that; healing, uplifting, inspiring, revelatory. I wonder if these kinds of stories will grow out of the porn world or out of projects like Shortbus or Comstock Films. All I can hope is that those stories come eventually and that the world is less afraid when they do.