I don’t understand how so many people in this class can say they do not ‘buy into’ Naomi Wolf’s, “The Porn Myth.” Much like our discussion about “The Beauty Myth,” individuals in this class have looked at “The Porn Myth” one-dimensionally without much evidence to back up their claims. You can’t have an opinion unless you know what you’re talking about. The conversation we had about “The Beauty Myth” shifted entirely to a conversation about media image as opposed to what it was really trying to say: that women have the importance of beauty pushed so far down their throats that goals involving intelligence are not something their told to reach for. Take Hilary Clinton for example, she is criticized for not trying to be a beautiful woman (and that’s it). However, if she were to beautify herself, no one would take her seriously. Just because you think women do not have to look at media images or be affected by them, does not mean you do not ‘buy into’ “The Beauty Myth.”
Pornography is an epidemic that is slowly eating away at our society. In 2006, pornography revenues rose up to an astonishing 97.06 billion dollars: of that, 13.33 billion was graciously donated by the
Decades ago, pornography may have had good intentions, seeking to liberate women’s sexuality by displaying their formerly sheltered bodies in glossy centerfolds. Currently, however, “the majority of men… [do] not consider Playboy—once the epitome of the genre—to even be pornography at all, because it doesn’t depict actual sex acts” (Paul 5). Pornography’s heavy integration into nearly every aspect of our consumer culture has gained it increasing social acceptability. The existence of sexually explicit material in mainstream society has caused a desensitization to centerfolds, pin-ups and TV and movie nudity. Presently, because of this desensitization, the pornography industry continues to push the limit on extreme sex further and further. They always try to create original images that shock. It is for this reason that the industry has created the “gonzo” genre of pornography. For those of you who do not know, gonzo is mainstream porn’s roughest, fastest-growing genre and is most popular because its films have no storylines, presenting sex almost without interruption. As an avid pornographer viewer states, “no longer [does] the pornoholic have to fast forward through 10 minutes of inept dialog to get 5 minutes of sex” (Pornoholic). In this genre, women are aggressively “throat-fucked” and experience triple-penetration by many men. Gonzo stresses “sex that is structured on a dynamic of domination and subordination” (Jensen, “Just”).This genre is not only obscene, but is also degrading, abusive, inferiorizing and harmful to women. It causes men to fail to see the divide between violence and sexuality. The link between pornography and real life provides self-validation and social justification for men to abuse, sodomize and rape women. Pornography perpetuates the primal, Neanderthal belief that females should be sexually dominated, which helps maintain the second-class social status of women.
In my research, I viewed pornographic images (of women giving oral sex) that were very unsettling. I saw male performers prying female performers’ eyes open, while smudged eye make-up, tears and semen ran down their faces; female performer’s eyes being covered with black electrical tape so that she could not see what was happening to her; male performers repeatedly banging their testicles against the females’ eyes and nose, to prevent them from breathing; a male performer forcing his penis into the female’s mouth and closing his fingers on her nostrils while taunting her. Some female performers, who are forbidden to use their hands while giving oral sex, were handcuffed. Worst of all, one of the female performers was forced to wear a wooden vise and kneel, while the male thrusted repeatedly into her mouth. What I just described to you is in the mainstream section of adult video stores across the country, which means it has been normalized and socially accepted. It would surprise me if you did not find those images degrading. Men see these images and masturbate to them; it sends the message “women are for sex, and women like sex this way” (Jensen, “Just ”). In fact, studies show that men learn from and emulate what they see in pornography; experts refer to this as exemplification theory: ‘Each and every sexual act portrayed in pornography is treated as an exemplar of sexuality. . . .Thus, to the extent that pornography shows almost all women screaming ecstatically when anally penetrated, for instance, exemplification theory projects the generalization that almost all women outside of pornography will do likewise.’ In other words, men learn that what goes on in porn, goes on in the real world” (Paul 18). And that doesn’t make you, Citizen Z, feel threatened by pornography? You might claim that there those men who are only masturbating to a fantasy, but in reality, the men masturbating to orgasm are not a fantasy. They watch real women being sodomized, abused or sometimes raped and the result is a real orgasm. “In this culture, men are masturbating to orgasm in front of television and computer screens that are presenting them with increasing levels of callousness and cruelty toward women” (Jensen “Cruel”). Men see this degrading, gonzo pornography and become sexually aroused; they find the infliction of pain on women during sexual activity to be an enhancement to their ability to achieve orgasm and not an obstacle.
Where I found the porn statistics:
http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html
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