Pornography and the End of Masculinity

[noamnety]

Some months before that someone had forwarded to me an email about a pornography site that the person thought I should take a look at -- slutbus.com. It's a website to sell videos of the slutbus. Here's the slutbus concept:

A few men who appear to be in their 20s drive around in a minivan with a video camera. They ask women if they want a ride. Once in the van, the women are asked if they would be willing to have sex on camera for money. The women do. When the sex is over, the women get out of the van and one of the men hands the women a wad of bills as payment. Just as she reaches for the money, the van drives off, leaving her on the side of the road looking foolish. There are trailers for 10 videos on the website. All appear to use the same "plot" structure.

In the United States there are men who buy videos with that simple message: Women are for sex. Women can be bought for sex. But in the end, women are not even worth paying for sex. They don't even deserve to be bought. They just deserve to be fucked, and left on the side of the road, with post-adolescent boys laughing as they drive away -- while men at home watch, become erect, masturbate, obtain sexual pleasure, and ejaculate, and then turn off the DVD player and go about their lives. There are other companies that produce similar videos. There's bangbus.com, which leaves women by the side of the road after sex in the bangbus. And on it goes.

http://www.alternet.org/story/62833/?page=1

(With thanks to http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2007/09/28/new-jensen-book-porn-and-the-end-of-masculinity/ for the link)

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. And some say Andrea Dworkin is irrelevant

:eyes:

[ThomCat]

2. That is an amazing review.

That is so much more eloquent and concise than I think I can be.

Yes, porn is not just portraying sex. It is frequently portraying cruelty, humiliation and degradation as a core plot, and it is getting more extreme as the industry grows. Porn is a mirror into how many men view women, and that mirror is reflecting a very unpleasant image of what our society is becoming and where it is going.

And yes I agree that Andrea Dworkin has a lot to tell us, and no she does not hate men.

[lightningandsnow]

3. But what about...

What about feminist porn?

(I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just don't know. I don't watch porn.)

[ThomCat]

4. That review, and the book

aren't categorizing all porn. It's about the porn industry, and the way common mainstream porn is getting more and more extreme and misogynistic.

Nothing in there says that all porn is bad. But there are definitely a lot of good reasons why the porn industry should be watched carefully.

[noamnety]

5. I think that's addressed more clearly in Eisner's review of the same book:

"Now what we're talking about here is pornography, not erotica. Erotica is about giving and receiving sexual pleasure. Pornography is about linking sexual arousal with the infliction or suffering of pain -- be it psychological or physical. Erotica (from Eros, the Greek god of love) is about sexual love. Pornography is about male control over women -- and even beyond this, about domination and violence as normal and fun.

Images that link sexual arousal with causing physical or psychological pain perpetuate repression and injustice across the board. They condition people to accept, and even want, relations of domination and submission enforced by violence."

http://www.alternet.org/sex/63349

[lightningandsnow]

6. But...

That kind of makes sense, but how can gay male porn (and there is a lot of it) be categorized as being about male control over women?

(Again, I'm not trying to start sh** here, just trying to understand.)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

7. When it models the standard dominance-submission paradigm

I don't know how much gay male porn does this but I know some of it does.

Porn featuring a female dominatrix degrading a male submissive is doing the same thing. Anyone watching it *understands* that the characters are playing prescribed "male/dominant" and "female/submissive" roles, even though the actual players are reversed. Thus, the model is reinforced.

[lightningandsnow]

9. I understand.

Thanks for clarifying that for me.

[noamnety]

8. This isn't the forum for a discussion of gay male porn.

"This is not a group to discuss gender, class or sexual orientation rights and issues. It is specifically to discuss women's rights and issues as they affect women from a woman's perspective and experience."

[Lilith Velkor]

13. So gay male porn doesn't count as porn?

Hmf. News to me.

By the way, it is relevant. I enjoy gay male porn, and consider it hypocritical to denigrate anyone for enjoying straight or lesbian porn, so I don't. This doesn't invalidate my feminism one iota.

[Katherine Brengle]

11. Male control over a male who has assumed the position of the female

in intercourse.

Pretty simple really.

Also, male domination over other men does not erase male domination over women.

[Raksha]

12. So to put it in a nutshell, you could say that

erotica is about pleasure and pornography is about pain (and almost always women's pain).

[Katherine Brengle]

10. I've never seen "feminist" porn, but I am pretty sure it doesn't

exist.

There may be porn that is called "feminist" porn, but that doesn't make it so.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[defendandprotect]

15. Well, we have to know about all this crap -- thanks!!

As our patriarchy continues to use their political power to re-attack females, poverty begins to involve women in activities they would otherwise avoid -- i.e., re drugs and sexual exploitation.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

16. There will be a lot more of it fairly soon, thanks to Bush's economy.

Which will be cause of celebration for our porn-lovin' Liberal Dude contingent.