Revealing Covers

I read a series of articles today on Slate.com about pornography--specifically, about books written by women purpoting to uncover the effect of porn on our culture.

From what I gathered, the discussion wasn't about the books. It was about the authors either apologizing for or shrieking about the porn industry, and the views that the discussionistas had about such positions. According to Pamela Paul, porn is responsible for "failing relationships, men's flight from intimacy, men judging women by harsh appearance standards, men liking large breasts, female body-image issues, general female insecurity, lack of sexual foreplay, male impotence, men demanding more oral sex, [and] infrequent sex among couples." Wow. Okay.

I can't say that I've had a lot of successful relationships--that's kind of the way things go, you only get one, and it's always the one you're in till it isn't successful, and then you're not in it anymore. But I have dated/flirted with/been intimate with (both emotionally and physically) a number of men that is not statistically insignificant. And all of them, at one point or another, have watched porn. Some more than others, it's true. But I want to use my experience to talk about some of these claims--that porn is empirically a bad, bad thing.

First, I really resent these uppity feminist ideas that no one would work in porn if they weren't being pressured/exploited. Of course there's some of that going on, more than I think any of us would ever guess. But can't we, as women, just accept that some other women may be comfortable working without their clothes? Perhaps this is less about feminism and more about being threatened by these women.

Second, why be threatened? In my nearly seven years of dating experience, only one man ever claimed to enjoy masturbation more than sex, and even then, sex won because it was a more interactive experience--ensuring someone else's pleasure as well as his own. Yes, there are men out there with porn addictions, but this message seems eerily like D.A.R.E and abstinence-only sex ed programs; they're not sharing that there's a safe and healthy level of porn.

Because there is. Granted, I don't much care for porn. Not because it offends me (although some of those penises are very scary) but because it comes off as either humorous or clinical rather than sexy, arousing, or even erotic. I watched a full hour of the award winning Pirates...adult film...laughing hysterically with my girlfriends the entire time, not only at the insane dialogue, but also at the idea that someone did costumes for this, someone spent time composing a score. Also wondering if perhaps some of the girls had retractable teeth.

I've also attempted to watch porn with guys I've dated. It has always ended in either confusion or laughter on my part. Talk about clinical--a woman hooked herself up to a (literal) fucking machine with different heads for different orifices, and it honestly looked like the cameramen just set up a tripod and left.

I don't view porn as cheating. If I did, then I'd have to be equally hard on myself for the time I spend daydreaming about fictional characters. I have a hard time convincing myself that human beings are naturally monogamous--in fact, that's what makes commitment so meaningful, that you're giving up something, making a sacrifice for this person, who now means more to you than the hoards of slightly more attractive people you could be screwing.

To address some of the reviewer's accusations of the porn industry as viewed by one of the authors: in my experience, the men who watch the most porn, or the ones who watch it openly, without shame, have been the ones most into their partner's pleasure, the ones most accepting of real bodies, both theirs and their partner's, and the ones least likely to push for anything their partner is unwilling or reluctant to do. Now, I have dated and am friends with almost exclusively men in pursuit of college degrees, which means that this is an extremely limited demographic, and one which generally lends itself to a warmer male attitude towards performing oral sex. For some reason, this is usually interpreted to mean that these men are better partners, more respectful, more caring, etc. And yet the more willing a woman is to perform oral sex, the more oppressed she is, the less self-esteem she has. That's a strange double standard.

Why is that? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most people know, academically, that head is head. But this oral-sex stigma comes from one of two places; either the glorification or vilification of femininity. If it's the glorification, then the woman is degrading herself by deigning to touch the inferior male genitalia, and only the men who are worthy get to approach the women's. If it's vilification, then any man willing to stick his head down there is obviously deserving of several medals and a drawn-out ceremony.

Or maybe it has something to do with general female attitudes towards sex as a route to intimacy--that receiving oral sex, as a woman, means something more than giving it. I don't know. All I know is that porn is not the social evil some people make it out to be, given that everyone involved is consenting and possibly even having fun.