Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog

Archive for the ‘Raunch Culture’ Category

Bam. Two negative, almost hateful diatribes against female-focused erotic fiction books in as many days.

Instead of being condemned as a cheapjack book slut pandering to male fantasies, you will be profiled in the serious press, with a photograph of you dressed demurely, and women will not be ashamed to be seen reading your book on the Tube. Feminist websites will praise you for “provoking debate in intellectual circles” and claim your book “does not intend to function as porn” (even though it sort of is porn).
- Feminist slant for female erotica writers – The Times Online

and

Roche and others from the new wave of women shock-jocks tell us that baring their fantasies, or recounting their love lives in lurid and exhaustive detail, is uniquely emancipating.

While I would fight tooth and claw for women’s right to sexual freedom, I’m not sure the sisterhood has gained much if it sees that freedom as a chance to brag about sex and conquests in the same kind of tedious and lewd manner that made the new lad so obnoxious back in the Nineties.
Un-erotica? As another female writer publishes an explicit novel is this new feminism or a tawdry betrayal of women? – The Daily Mail

The first piece derides all those nasty women writers for daring to dabble in erotica, because it’s really just porn, you know. And porn’s for men, after all.

The second piece happily indulges in all the usual false consciousness assumptions about how women who explore their sexuality mustn’t really know what they’re doing. That they’ve been duped, somehow, and isn’t it a shame they’ve lost their femininity like that?

The shoes-in-handcuffs idea pays lip service to the concept that exploring your sexuality equals being enslaved or degraded by it.

There’s this ongoing idea that writing about sex is inevitably tawdry, that writing something to induce arousal is a less noble and certainly less literary pursuit, one that should only be done by dirty old men in raincoats.

Facts. It IS feminist to have sex whenever and however you want. That’s a choice that women should be free to make. It’s a feminist act to express your thoughts and feelings about sex. And when a woman challenges the whole Madonna/Whore myth by publicly revealing that she is a voracious sexual being, she does all women a favour.

Now, go and read Girl With A One Track Mind. I’m sure she has a heap more to say on this topic.

Obsessing about my place in Google once again I found a rather long winded feminist essay about women’s porn, entitled: Rape Culture: Renegotiating Sexual Subjectivity on Porn Sites for Women. The piece takes a rather large philosophical stick to Sssh.com, which is an adult site for women that’s been around for roughly the same time as For The Girls. It does this in an attempt to make a general point about porn for women, which is that it somehow upholds the patriarchal “rape culture.”

Unfortunately the author, Caroline Godart, does not bother to define what “rape culture” actually is so I was confused from the very beginning about what point is being made. I can only assume that it’s the same ol’ same ol’ – that women’s erotica, in the form of adult sites like Sssh.com and FTG, reinforces gender roles and stereotypes. At least, I think that’s what she’s saying, although the piece is so full of academic-sounding references to Foucault, the Panopticon, the Lacanian Symbolic order, “haptic space” and other obscurities that I started to glaze over a little. I may call myself a feminist but that doesn’t mean I’ve done any study or serious reading on the topic, and this means I get kind of bored with extensive critical academic discussions about feminist theory.

Yes, I’m a philistine. What do you expect from an evil pornographer?

In any case, what did get my attention was the bizarre argument the author uses to conclude that Sssh.com reinforces “rape culture.” She says that because Sssh.com does not depict any rape fantasies, which many women have, it’s essentially not empowering women to fight against patriarchy and thus helps to perpetuate rape. So, no rape on the site equals rape.

I can almost see the logic here… but then it eludes me. Especially when the author is using descriptions like these:

Far from being traitors to their own kind, women who indulge in rape fantasies disguise themselves and poly-identify; they transform and appropriate a prototypical narrative that inherently dismisses the possibility for them to access power, especially in order to reach sexual satisfaction. They enable the fantasizing subject to use an oppressive culture over which she has no agency, by a clandestine appropriation of cultural “products,” i.e. the omnipresence of rape.

Hmmm. But of course. It’s far more complicated than I thought.

My understanding of the idea comes from Nancy Friday’s original research into women’s sex fantasies. In My Secret Garden (1975), she first discovered the prevalence of rape fantasies among the women she interviewed and concluded that they were primarily about women escaping sexual guilt by having pleasure forced upon them. In Women On Top (1991) she found that rape fantasies had actually declined among the younger generation because the guilt about sex was not nearly as prevalent.

In any case, in pondering the rather confusing idea that no rape = rape I found myself wanting to defend Sssh.com and, by association, FTG. While I don’t mind a good philosophical feminist argument about what constitutes porn for women and what it means for feminism, I’d like to at least be able to understand what the hell the critics are on about.

How do you depict heterosexual sex in a feminist way? That’s the big question here folks. Because for some feminists, any depiction of hetero sex is about men oppressing women. They can only see a negative power exchange and patriarchy in the act of penetration – this may be the “rape culture” the author speaks about.

But an awful lot of women don’t buy that. It’s why you get so many young chicks disavowing that they’re a feminist. I’ve argued before that women shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of their fantasies or desires if they are “stereotypical” or sexist… what gets you off may be seriously politically incorrect, but it does the trick, giddy up.

So who is Caroline Godart to applaud rape fantasies but reject the “normative” depiction of hetero sex? If porn’s intent is primarily to arouse, then you need to consider that fact when making a critical judgement of what’s being depicted.

I also want people to remember that, in the end, it’s just a porn site. That means it essentially exists to make money. In doing so, a site like Sssh.com aims itself at as broad a market as possible and tries to make the majority of surfers happy. Usually that means catering to middle class women who are keen to indulge in a little porn without all the offensive crap. They also want to feel comfortable with their sexuality and not alienated or threatened. This means that you’re probably not going to find cutting edge sexual representations on that kind of site.

I like to think that FTG has a strong feminist ethic and we do feature a range of perspectives and ideas within the site. At the same time, we still rely mainly on the stuff that others brand as “stereotypical” because that’s what our members (and we the site owners) want to see.

I like to think we could feature a rape fantasy within our Wicked Ways (letters) section at some time in the future although that would depend on someone actually submitting one. I acknowledge that women do have rape fantasies and that they should be expressed. But even making sure it’s in context may cause problems. We have to deal with our credit card processor who occasionally does a scan of our content and orders us to change certain words or content if it is deemed offensive. Thus, I once had to change an article discussing rape so that the “r word” became “sexual assault.”

As with a great many things, commercial factors do come into play and they do make a difference to the final product. I’m well aware that I straddle a line between my feminist philosophy and my desire to make a living from porn. No doubt I could sit down and produce a adult site that ticked all the boxes when it comes to critical feminism but I’m not sure it would be very sexy, or that it would make much money.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Nando’s pole dancing mother ad.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s been the subjects of numerous complaints to the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau. I’m pleased to say that they’ve given the ad the thumbs up.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The board of the Advertising Standards Bureau agreed, ruling that pole dancing was ” … a popular form of exercise” and “was not incompatible with family values”. The ad “depicted a strong in-control woman who went about her work in a professional manner”, because it showed her travelling to work wearing a suit, the board concluded, while the ad had not broken any rules regarding permissible levels of nudity.

There you go. Pole dancing is not incompatible with family values. In Australia, at least.

An article by Martha Irvine of AP has popped up in newspapers everywhere in the last couple of days.

The article is discussing the sexualization of popular culture, in particular the influence of porn, and it’s main focus is the behaviour of young women.

Many agree that the trend has had a particularly strong influence on young women — in some cases, taking shape as an unapologetic (my italics) embracing of sexuality and exhibitionism…

But many wonder if it really is empowering, especially for younger women and girls who try to emulate what’s already on the Web.

Too often, educators and health professionals say, the results are cases of “Girls Gone Wild” — gone wild.

There are various quotes from psychologists saying that the over-sexualisation of young women is harmful and much hand-wringing about the idea that porn presents a warped view of female sexuality.

I think it’s a reasonable thing to question what role models are appropriate for girls and young women. What made me angry about this article, however, was it’s double standards. This paragraph made it obvious:

While boys tend to seek out porn for their own sexual pleasure, [Simon, the California therapist] sees a sexual disconnect with girls who exhibit provocative behavior they’re not ready for — from undressing online to performing oral sex on boys.

This is the one mention the article gives to porn’s effect on boys – and note the unquestioning assumption that boys look at porn and there’s apparently nothing wrong with that.

Where’s all the hand wringing about the over-sexualisation of young men thanks to online porn and music videos? Where’s the moral panic that boys might be getting seriously negative ideas about women and sex if they encounter some of those nasty “reality” porn sites?

Cue the double standard. Society needs to worry about girls being sexual, not boys. Because girls aren’t supposed to be sexual beings, they’re supposed to be pure and wear white and stay virginally ignorant about sex until they’re married.

Boys… well, boys will be boys, right? It’s up to women to uphold society’s morals. Especially because women don’t know their own minds and are always exploited by sex, even if they themselves say otherwise.

So even though the story interviews women who say they feel empowered by exhibitionism and embracing an overt sexuality, their views are dismissed.

“Women,” says Eileen Zurbriggen, a psychologist at the University of California, “might be better off developing other sources of power.”

Sigh.

CAKE is in the firing line again.

This time it’s an opinion piece in Elle magazine by Virginia Vitzthum, a writer whose main interest is the online dating scene.

Ostensibly the piece starts out like a feature, but it quickly becomes a soapbox for Vtizthum’s own views on feminism, and why she doesn’t think CAKE measures up. As a piece of journalism, I think it makes a good blog rant.

I’m not saying this because I wholeheartedly support the CAKE enterprise. I’ve read other criticisms and I can see the reasoning behind some of them. CAKE does raise a lot of questions about women’s sexuality, feminism and commercialism, and a good journalist would have explored that in a fair and balanced way.

Vitzthum doesn’t bother. Instead, we get an awful lot of commentary and not much else.

The article says that the writer attended seven separate CAKE events and two sit-down interviews with Emily and Melinda. That’s a substantial amount of research for an article, and most likely provided a huge amount of material to write about.

Unfortunately, the CAKE participants or the two founders are never quoted without the author framing their words in an antagonistic way. The quotes are short and may well be out of context. Vitzhum always has the last word on the topic.

Example:

Kramer says that of “feminist” strippers, “You can say it’s the male gaze, but what about the object looking back and redefining the gaze.” Okay, fine, but even when the dancing woman is just as fulfilled by the experience as the man leering at her, she’s still not challenging stereotypes, furthering communication or improving sex.

Even Vitzhum’s use of words to describe her conversations with the CAKE founders is aggressive. Melinda in particular gets the rough end of the stick, portrayed as a confused anorexic who “snaps” and “rails” during their interviews.

I wasn’t trained as a journalist, but I’ve worked as one and I’ve written my share of articles about controversial topics. Perhaps the hardest one I ever wrote was about the issue of “abortion grief.” From a personal point of view, I saw the whole concept as a load of bollocks, just another pseudo medical condition made up by right wing conservatives to bolster their religious opposition to abortion. But I didn’t spend the article saying that. Instead, I interviewed experts from both sides, and also a variety of women who’d had abortions, including some who believed they suffered from abortion grief.

I wrote it up as fairly as I could. The reader could look at both sides and make up their own mind.

The only dissenting voice in Vitzhum’s article is her own. She would have been better off finding one of the many feminists or commentators who have a problem with CAKE and interviewing them.

As it is, this Elle article looks like a hatchet job.

Of course, I only have the scanned copy of the article to go on. I don’t know if this piece was labelled “feature” or “opinion.” It’s under the title “culture watch” which doesn’t tell me much.

I also don’t know if Elle magazine endorses the views of the author, but I do find it somewhat amusing that on the last page Vitzhum expresses feminist opinions about the media’s unrealistic image of women. This in a magazine that regularly features skeletal fashion models (check out their website) and that pushes “better skin overnight” and “61 shoes and bags just for you” on the cover.

The biggest news in the blogosphere at present is the outing of the Girl With A One Track Mind. The Girl has just had her book published and had expressed concern about losing her anonymity.

The Times has tracked her down and published her name. This has meant that The Girl has had to out herself to her family and friends.

The whole situation reminds me of Nikki Gemmell and her outing as the author of The Bride Stripped Bare. She wrote her book anonymously and her husband and family weren’t really aware of what was in the novel. She told Andrew Denton:

Well, the horrible thing was when I was unmasked very brutally by the British press — kind of really terrier-like, “We are going to find out who you are, we are going to publish, even if you deny it” — I suddenly had to make all these phone calls to Australia in the early hours of the morning and say, “Mum, Dad, I’ve written this book, I’ve done this thing.” They had no idea.

It seems The Girl is in the same situation.

Anonymity in sex blogging has long been an interesting issue. It’s one of the reasons I don’t write about my personal life. The internet may not be ink and paper but it is publishing all the same. People will read what you write and everything you write reflects who you are and what you think. And it’s very, very easy for a journalist to get hold of someone’s name, if they’re determined to do so. I’ve been there, on both sides. No-one is ever as anonymous as they think.

Nonetheless, people who want to write honestly should be allowed the grace of anonymity. Some say it’s cowardly to do so, but I think remaining anonymous is a legitimate literary standpoint and people should respect the author’s right to their privacy if that is their wish.

MonMouth suggests The Girl’s outing may be a publicity stunt organised by her publisher and no doubt it will work. I can see this book becoming a bestseller very quickly indeed. If nothing else, The Girl’s privacy is about to be exchanged for a large amount of money. That may not be preferable, but there is some comfort in that, I suspect.

I found it rather vexing that The Times chose to drag Ariel Levy into its article. Seems The Girl’s uninhibited sexuality can now be tagged as yet another example of “raunch culture”.

The book will reignite the debate over female “raunch culture”, sparked by Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy’s book about the eagerness of young women to indulge in sexually overt behaviour. Levy argued “raunch” was corrupting women rather than empowering them.

Her character Abby asks: “Does thinking about sex all the time mean there’s something wrong with me? It’s a question I ask myself on an hourly basis . . . Is it common to look at men’s crotches as they walk down the street?” With such a shameless (my italics) interest in sex it is no surprise Margolis has gone to great lengths to try to conceal her identity.

If I were The Girl, I’d be pretty fucking insulted at the suggestion that her sexuality is “overt” “corrupting” and “shameless”, as if she is doing something wrong. The belief in women as pure and non-sexual still prevails in the mainstream press.

Update 14 August 2006
The Girl has now made a couple of responses via mainstream newspapers – details are on her blog. The Guardian’s piece makes for a great read, making some good points about the sensationalist and judgemental treatment by The Times of a woman who is promiscuous.

No one has the right to tell you how to fuck, according to Rachel Kramer Bussell in her latest Lusty Lady column at The Village Voice.

Arguing against those feminist “scolds” Ariel Levy and Pamela Paul, Rachel makes the point that enjoying sex – in any form – does not constitute a betrayal of feminist ideals.

Here’s a few paragraphs:

There’s a world of difference between being branded a sex object and choosing to be one under certain circumstances. Recall Tad Friend’s classic 1994 “do-me feminism” Esquire article, in which Lisa Palac said, “Degrade me when I ask you to” (emphasis mine)…

The feminist sex wars were largely fought before I was born, yet sadly, women continue to battle each other over what we do in bed, as if coming up with the most politically correct form of orgasm will automatically solve other inequities. I believe in advancing the cause of sexual freedom for everyone, by increasing our knowledge and offering room for fantasy and safe, nonjudgmental experimentation.

Sexual freedom is not the only, or the most pressing, issue facing American women today, but it’s vital to any true feminist movement. Excoriating other women and berating them for a host of erotic sins creates unnecessary divisions and puts people on the defensive. No one has the right to tell you how to fuck.

Indeed.

Find out more about Rachel at her website.

Another “porn for girls” magazine has popped up, this time in Germany. Gluck Magazine has just released it’s third issue, chock full of thin indie boys posing nude on their beds. The mag is run by two women, Nicole Rudiger and Elke Kuhlen and has sold out of its first two issues.

The creators say their intent in creating the magazine was not feminist. “Our audience – indie or not – just wanted to see ‘normal’ naked guys, and not the fireman types usually on offer.”

Unfortunately the main site is in German and the use of graphics means I can’t even try a Babelfish translation, so I can’t tell you much more about the magazine itself with any authority.

I did have a bit of fun translating German articles about Gluck into English, including the interview on this page.

The male Models is all Slacker types, which work pleasantly closable. Do you believe that perfect affect male bodies women deterring?
The only booklet, which gives it in this section in Germany, is Playgirl and those makes exactly that. But one knows and from the perfect man body is also surfeited one. I anyhow do not want to have wash board types in such a way in my bed. In addition it comes also that we have hardly money for production, i.e., we have usually only two films per Shooting. And then not for a long time discussed the photo selection to separate it is taken the pictures, which are not too dark. Our booklet is definitely a niche thing. Half of the women from our circle of acquaintances say: “Ihh, nee, which I do not want to see!” And the other half is completely open.

Hmmm, yes, I see, I see. Wash board types in one’s bed is not everyone’s bag, baby.

The Guardian has published an opinion piece by the authors of a “feminist fashion zine” called Pamflet (warning, horrific pink Myspace page, hurts the eyes). Anna-Marie Fitzgerald and Phoebe Frangoul say that their initial reaction to Gluck and Sweet Action Magazine was to “was to squeal with alarm, blush furiously and drop the offending material like a hot potato.” Seems these girls aren’t much into photos of dicks.

Beyond that, they put the boot into Gluck for the usual “feminist” reasons: Porn makes men lazy in bed, porn exploits women, yada yada yada. Like Ariel Levy, they seem to believe that enjoying sexually explicit material is something only men do, and if women do it, we’re “aping” men.

“Equality is a feminist ideal,” they say, “but reversing the gaze only creates more inequality: again, that is not a template we want to repeat. We don’t need to behave like a man to be sexual beings.”

They also subscribe to the whole “women aren’t visual” theory and say they much prefer to read erotic fiction or romance novels.

Thus, after the initial bout of intellectual naysaying, we see the real reason for their dislike. It appears that Fitzgerald and Frangoul don’t like Gluck simply because it doesn’t turn them on.

“The women we know prefer sexual fantasies to be contextualised, which is why erotic fiction is far more successful than porn for girls will ever be. Sexually charged words that stimulate the imagination are infinitely more arousing than any one-size-fits-all porno mag or movie.”

Now, I’m not a big fan of thin pale guys. I quite like perving on washboard types. But that’s not to say that Gluck doesn’t deserve to exist or that what these German women are trying to do is wrong. Good luck to them, I say.

And then there’s this statement, which made me smile:

“We resent anyone – male or female – telling us what’s sexy, and hipster girls’ take on sex is as prescriptive as any lads’ mag, even if it is wrapped in girlie packaging.”

You know what? That’s exactly what the hipster girls are saying about YOU. And they’re saying it about me too. And now I’m saying it about you as well.

Damn, this “porn for girls” thing is such a bitchy business.

PS: Jessica Valenti of Feministing gets two thumbs up for this comment:

“I think the emergence of these kind of hipster porn mags for girls is a great thing… Clearly there’s porn out there that is damaging to women and warrants our criticism. But that’s not all porn. Being a feminist doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate sexuality and recognise that a part of sexuality is looking at naked people. I don’t know if I would call it a step towards equality exactly, but it’s definitely fun.”

Seems I’ve failed the sisterhood again – in Spanish, no less. Today I got a pingback from a Spanish blog called Girls Who Like Porno, commenting on this Erika Lust post. Judging from the garbled Babelfish translation, the post is not complimentary.

I had a look at their “about porno” page which features an English translation of their philosophy:

“[We are] Girls who don’t like some kind of porno, a porno restricted by sexism, racism, capitalism, patriarchy, gender boundaries and that leaves your compuer full with viruses.

“We enjoy creating and cosuming the porno we like: intelligent, queer, open, free and plural.”

Now, that’s a noble philosophy, one with which I can sympathise (although I’m not sure that fighting against computer viruses and the patriarchy is something that should be done concurrently). I believe mainstream porn needs to break out of a lot of the cliches and stop perpetuating things like racism and hatred towards women.

The thing about “gender boundaries” is probably where they’ve got their knickers in a knot with me (although I am something of a capitalist, so who knows). I am, after all, one of these evil pornographers who insists on showing hetero male-female sex, sometimes with a little bit of old-fashioned romance thrown in. I like the idea that sex should also involve love, at least occasionally. My porn features a few fantasies that involve the men having the power. Oh, and sin of sins, I label my erotica as “porn for women.”

Apparently this is “stereotypical” and should not be condoned. Ask some feminists and they’ll say it perpetuates the patriarchal male-female paradigm of sex where the man holds the power and helps to maintain a society where women are exploited and abused.

It’s an interesting political argument (and sounds very intellectual too, don’t you think?), but one issue that is often ignored in these sorts of debates is what happens when a woman is aroused by the very stereotypes that offend some feminists.

What happens when you’re a sucker for that romance novel situation where the big hunky hero carries you off for lusty sex after rescuing you from the bad guys? What happens if the sexual fantasies you use to get off involve being dominated by your husband? What happens if you get wet thinking about being deflowered and “taught” by an older, more knowledgeable man? Or if you like the idea of being “objectified” by a man, or an audience of men?

I’m certain that many women have sexual fantasies that involve a male-female power paradigm forged by the patriarchal society, ones that rely on “gender boundaries” for their spark of heat. Our sexualities aren’t forged in a vacuum. Society teaches us what is sexy; it plants numerous seeds in our subconscious as children that may grow into individual preferences and desires as adulthood dawns. Fantasies and sexual urges are notorious for being politically incorrect.

The question is, are women who have “stereotypical” sexual fantasies wrong? Especially if they’re self aware and know that such fantasies may be “un-feminist” or politically incorrect? Should they deny that aspect of their sexuality? Can they be “re-educated” to be turned on by gender-neutral porn?

And can porn ever be gender neutral, considering it is all about sex and sexuality?

And just what is this perfect female sexuality that is free from the patriarchy? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do you define it? How do you achieve it?

The recent conference about women and porn in Norway discussed this issue. I don’t think they found an answer.

I think I’d like those women who come here to attack me for being “stereotypical” to give the issue a little more thought. Yes, it’s a good thing to wave the flags in the air and demand a better kind of pornography, and I’m all for that. But replacing one sort of dogma with another is not necessarily a change for the better.

I think the last word should go to a young contributor to the book A Piece of Cake, commenting on the issue of the “male gaze” and subject/object politics in porn:

“According to one kind of feminist sensibility, we must demand we be subjects and avoid identification as sexual objects. Fine. However, women are brought up with our sexuality tied to our experience as objects. Our ability to feel sexy in many ways is rooted in our ability to be desirable i.e. to play the object role. It is important for us feminists not to condemn women for enjoying this role, because doing so stands in the way of women’s sexual fulfillment.” – Erin, 22

A little over two weeks ago I was quoting The Hite Report on this blog and musing about how important that piece of research was to the feminist movement and women’s sexuality.

Now the Australian has an interview with Shere Hite and I’m disappointed to say that she seems to have become a little conservative in her outlook. The article implies that she supports the US Republicans via an endorsement of Condi Rice but what I found more disturbing was her thoughts on the whole “raunch culture” issue. Specifically this comment:

“Women are adopting men’s behaviour, aping the most extreme types of masculinity. It is thumbing a nose at the old morality, but it is not where we want to go. Having to like porn is like women having to like sport.”

Having to like porn? Who is holding women down and forcing them to like porn?

I mean, sure, it’s a hard job, making ourselves enjoy porn, being forced to look at naked men and sexy hardcore, having to pop off to the bedroom for a quick orgasm in spite of ourselves. We really have no control over this kind of thing, it’s forced upon us… somehow.

And pity those poor, unnatural women who actually like sport… of their own accord. What on earth is wrong with them?

I’ve been contacted by Anne Sabo, an academic who is researching women’s porn, and the changing face of gender relations within pornography.

She’s co-hosting an academic conference at the University of Oslo in Norway in June entitled Heterosexual desire in gender equality discourse: A point of trouble?

Now, don’t let the title put you off. This is actually an important roundtable discussion about women and porn, new and alternative porn, feminism, female sexuality and all sorts of good academic-y, porny-discussy stuff. Never mind all that new Victorian, oh-so 2005 “raunch culture” business. Those Norwegians have well and truly moved on and are looking at the whole vast issue in a more expansive and accepting way.

Here’s some of the lecture topics:

* Cheap, tough, or exposed? Framings of young women’s sexuality in three generations

* Masturbation: Female freedom, male loneliness?

* Turned on by Pornography – Still a Good Girl? Young women’s talk about pornography

* Invisibility and desire: Masculinity and the soft-porn approach to gender

* The Vanessa sexzine and PostPorn film production: a feminist DIY approach to porn

* The Perils and Potential of Porn from a Gender Equality Perspective (Anne is the keynote speaker)

Now, if you HAD to go to an academic conference, wouldn’t you just love to go to this one? Especially since Anna Span was going to be there?

The blurb at the bottom of the conference page makes for fascinating reading and raises a lot of important questions.

I like this last bit:

“Erotica and pornography have been accused of solidifying a phallic patriarchal order. However, isn’t it possible that these discourses could attempt to show resistance to this order, to break out and away from it, only in different ways than the discourses of feminism and gender equality? Seeing the significance erotica and pornography play as discourses on sexual desire, would we not cut ourselves short if we dismiss them rather than consider their potential to expand the room and possibilities for desire?”

Good point.

From what I can gather, the title of the conference relates to questions about whether what arouses hetero people (especially women) gets in the way of gender equality.

“The challenge for today’s women is, it seems, to embrace and promote their sexuality as strong independent subjects without appearing to submit to the media’s exploitation of their bodies as sexual objects. An even “worse pitfall” would be to confess relying on erotic fantasies that play on traditional subject-object relations between men and women.”

The blurb at the bottom goes on to question whether it’s possible to form a new female sexuality without those “pitfall” fantasies. For some reason that bit stuck out at me because it raises that whole “official feminist sexuality” issue. Is it so bad to indulge in those “old fashioned” fantasies? Especially if they result in female pleasure? Do we have to reconstruct our fantasy lives to be politically correct?

It’s actually a huge question because so much of what turns people on is subjective and politically incorrect (and one person’s stroke material is another’s horror movie). The whole thing is, in the words of the Norwegians, “problematic”.

But it’s well worth discussing.

In any case, I hope the issues broached in Norway make their way to the US, Britain and Australia. It will be nice to see more academia broaden their approach to feminism and porn beyond the well-worn boundaries of Dworkinism vs Hefner.

The SF Weekly has a very long article on the Cake movement… and bits of it have me shaking my head. Overall, it gives a negative view of the Cake women, and suggests that they’re not “real” feminists.

Having just written a huge post about the way some feminists make assumptions about other women’s motivations and intelligence, I now see a fine example of this mindset in that article.

Take for example this comment by Pamela Paul, author of Pornified:

“I think it’s a very twisted way of looking at women’s liberation to assume that every step towards aping men is a step forward,” Paul says. “I think women are kidding themselves. They talk about owning something, empowering yourself. You can talk about all of that, but if I go out and eat 20,000 Big Macs, am I owning McDonald’s? Am I empowering my body by co-opting it myself? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Erm, Pamela… has it ever occurred to you that women might be doing something off their own bat? That they may not necessarily be “aping men” – or if they are, it’s done in a very self-aware, possibly ironic way? Again, we see this awfully condescending attitude, this “academic feminist knows best” platform.

And I’m kind of disturbed by this statement from author Rebecca Whisnant:

“Feminism is not necessarily about doing what’s good for you — hopefully it will be good for you. But it’s about considering the implications of your choices and everybody’s choices for women in general.”

Wow, I can’t wait until the anti-abortionists get hold of that one.

So… feminism is all about choice – unless its a choice that conservative feminists don’t consider to be truly feminist.

What next? All feminists are equal, unless of course you don’t really know your own mind, are “aping men” and aren’t following the official script as to what constitutes correct female sexuality.

There’s also this parting shot by the article’s author:

“…It may be that we’re not as far along in the story as Gallagher thinks, and that when real female sexual empowerment comes along, it will look quite different.”

Ah yes. REAL female sexual empowerment.

As decided by whom?

Violet Blue had this to say:

“The article wasn’t really about Cake, but was instead a grandstand for the writer to promote her views on women and porn, her extremely negative perceptions about sex workers, and make some seriously sweeping judgments about women who go to (and enjoy) events like Cake parties.”

And Rachel Kramer Bussel said this:

“The way this writer and Ariel Levy make it sound, you can’t have your CAKE and be a feminist too; it’s one or the other, stripper or President, as opposed to viewing a little more accurately how our sexuality and sexual self-esteem can actually empower us in other areas of our lives. Even if they don’t, we’re all entitled to a healthy, fulfilling sex life, and the idea that there’s some way “feminist sex” should or shouldn’t be is outdated and ludicrious and almost always close-minded.”

The SFWeekly article hints at a new war among feminists about porn and female sexuality, and it is a discussion that’s worth having. The unfortunate thing is that I think we could be covering old ground. Books like Rene Denfield’s The New Victorians successfully pointed out this puritanical, rigid way of thinking among the old guard of anti-porn feminists, and the arguments I see in that article look wearily familiar.

In any case, the best response to this article is from Cake founder Emily Kramer in SFist. It’s all worth reading, but I really liked this comment:

“If you only see “raunch” in this new generation of sexually expressive women — you give credence to conservatives who believe that women shouldn’t have access to the HPV vaccine because female sexuality is a dangerous thing to promote.”

Last week For The Girls published my review of the book A Piece of Cake: Recipes for Female Sexual Pleasure. Written by Melinda Gallagher and Emily Scarlet Kramer, the book is essentially the manifesto of the five-year-old CAKE movement. It tells the real-life stories of women’s sexual experiences and fantasies.

A while ago I posted about CAKE in my old blog. CAKE parties feature porn viewings, male and female strippers, fantasy sharing and general socialising. Basically it’s all about women enjoying sex – in any way, shape or form that they desire, and to buggery with what anyone else thinks or says. I rather like that philosophy, so the CAKE ladies have me onside to begin with.

The other thing about CAKE is that I heard about them via negative comments from Ariel Levy’s book Female Chauvinist Pigs. Levy argues that the rise of “raunch culture” and the elevation of porn stars into role models is bad for women, and that talk of “empowerment” in that context is a perversion of feminism.

I will admit – I still haven’t read Levy’s book. Reading it sounds unpleasant, to be honest. But I keep seeing hundreds of opinion pieces based on it, all of them nodding sagely along, fretting and beating their breasts about all these naughty women wearing Playboy T-shirts and going to pole dancing classes.

And I can kind of understand their concern. It’s really not a good thing that 10 year olds are wearing g-strings or that Paris Hilton gets in the news so much.

At the same time, Levy’s basic argument has sat very uncomfortably with me for a long time and it’s not only because her definition of “female chauvinist pigs” is off the mark. I kept thinking there was a serious flaw in her logic, but didn’t give it enough consideration to put my finger on it.

Now, thanks to the CAKE book, I can nail the issues. Thus:

Levy’s paints a picture of modern female sexual expression as one that is completely influenced by men. No matter what we do, no matter how much we think we’re making our own choices, patriarchy is behind it. If a girl puts on a Playboy T-shirt, or enjoys porn, or goes to a strip club, it’s because she’s been duped. Poor silly women, huh?

This is THE BIG ONE in terms of “where feminism when wrong when it comes to sex.” It’s the pervading attitude of Mother Knows Best and it’s awfully, frustratingly insulting. Who is Ariel Levy to suggest that a woman who engages in these activities is confused or deceived? How does she know what motivates women to participate in “slutty activites”?

And that’s the other thing. Levy’s philosophy seems to echo a generally conservative viewpoint of what is acceptable when it comes to sex. Her criticism of CAKE parties, pole dancing, porn and “raunch culture” in general is made from a position wherein such things are inherently wrong. She doesn’t question the Dworkinite concept that “porn objectifies women”, and thus concludes that any acceptance of porn or overt sexual behaviour in the “male” way is against the ideals of feminism.

Which raises the questions: What is acceptable female sexual behaviour? Exactly what can a girl enjoy that’s sexy yet not influenced by the all-pervasive patriarchy? And how do you know when you escape from the “bad” mindset and start engaging in good feminist sexuality?

The CAKE book, and the philosophy behind it, refutes those aspects of Levy’s argument well.

To quote from my review:

“According to one kind of feminist sensibility, we must demand we be subjects and avoid identification as sexual objects. Fine. However, women are brought up with our sexuality tied to our experience as objects. Our ability to feel sexy in many ways is rooted in our ability to be desirable i.e. to play the object role.” – Erin, 22

Denying this kind of sexual sensibility is just another way to oppress women, the CAKE authors say. So, they introduce the idea of “the CAKE Gaze: women choosing to be subjects, objects, or both at the same time… The crucial point is that we knowingly choose this role as part of an equal sexual interaction.”

The CAKE girls know where it’s at. Being self aware means that a woman can choose any kind of sexual activity she likes, and that will be empowering for her.

Now, I will accept Levy’s argument insofar as it’s unfortunate for women to engage in sexual activities without being self-aware. Certainly this applies to teenage girls, who are less mature and more likely to be influenced by a sexualised pop culture. At the same time, such behaviour may be part of a journey to awareness – a learning experience, if you will – so who are we to say it’s a bad thing?

Incidentally, a reviewer at Amazon brings up the idea that maybe pop culture – in the Paris Hilton guise – would be better referred to as “moron culture” and raises the question of how much influence our media-heavy culture has on young people. If, as Levy suggests, women are being duped into aping sexist behaviour, where is this influence coming from? Why is it happening now?

If I accept Levy’s concept, then I would suggest the two main culprits for the sexualisation of pop culture are the easy availability of internet old-style mainstream porn, and the popularity of rap music – in which all women are skanks, hos and bitches. If this kind of media is out there, easy to obtain, and a lot of it is offering only one view of female sexuality, then yes, that’s going to have an influence. At least, it will have an effect on those confused people who think that mainstream men’s porn and rap are a real representation of sex and black culture respectively.

On the other hand, perhaps women are increasingly asserting their sexuality in overt ways because 35 years of feminism, complete with Cosmopolitan sex articles, Hitachi Magic Wands, increasing sex education and contraception have meant that sex is on the agenda, and women are ready to step out from under the missionary position.

If that’s the case, I think it’s extremely unfortunate that some feminists are denouncing what could well be a fine example of women’s liberation.