An open letter in response to Slate’s magazine article “Lady Problems - If Larry Flynt, Hugh Hefner, and Bob Guccione hadn’t had personal issues with women, would today’s porn be less awful?” by Amanda Marcotte.
Dear Ms. Marcotte,
I have just finished reading your article, and I felt the need to write back to you with my views to try to establish a debate over a topic which, it seems, both of us hold close to our hearts and write passionately about: the pornographic industry and its portrayal of female sexuality.
First, however, let me just separate porn performers from actors. They are different things. To perform sexually in front of camera requires different skills from those who take up acting classes in order to deliver lines and convey emotions in a mainstream, non-sexual film or in a theater. That is not to say that porn performers cannot act; on the contrary, most often than not they are so good on “faking” emotions that we do not even acknowledge that they are not really feeling all that. But to mix these two categories – performer and actor – is to inhibit any possibility one might have to explore different aspects of the adult entertainment industry, and to belittle performers who are not exemplary in acting but, nonetheless, deliver exquisite performances in pornographic film.
Second, anyone who claims that all pornography is degrading to women is looking only at one part of pornography. There are actually films, directors, studios, producers, and performers nowadays worried about empowering the female persona on camera in porn films. To beat over the deadest of horses, meaning the misogynist side of pornography, is to draw attention to a corpse that should not even be rotting anymore, but yet remains unburied precisely because we fail to ignore it. It might be that for some people the degrading of women work as an aphrodisiac, and for those I am sure the industry will always carry special features.
What concerns me is not that these films are being made, but that the line between female degradation and female abuse is being crossed at any time. What I mean is that female degradation CAN and SHOULD be staged to please those who are sexually turned on by it, an audience which not necessarily only includes men. I personally do not find that attractive, and politically I can even oppose to it, but that would be restricting sexual fantasies when, in reality, I would rather see men and women acting on their private fantasies aware that those are staged and consensual. It is the non-consensual part of female degradation that concerns me, not the degradation per se.
Third, the idea that violent sex is degrading to women is, at the same time, a way to put them under the sex-less category AND a way to perpetrate female submission. Some women like it rough, and there is nothing wrong with it. Yes, there has been an increase on the number of more "violent" acts on pornography, at the same time that old/young roleplaying seems to be what motivates the market now, but that has to do more with the new economic position of porn than on the degrading of the female body itself. Examples can be found on girl/girl movies which explore bondage, spanking, or emphasis on certain body parts without any male participation. To say, in 2012, that porn is degrading because it is still being ruled and shaped by men is to ignore that a great quantity of films are in the hands of women, and they are the ones who are making the decisions today. Pornography is no longer a man-only realm, it is actually being thought up by women nowadays.
What you have failed to understand is that if we regard pornography as women degradation we are exempting women from taking part in it when, in reality, they should be active in how their sexuality is perceived, portrayed, and received by any audience. Yes, there are women who are still mimicking what we used to know as “porn”, meaning a world where the female participation is static and submissive and her presence is not really pivotal. It is all about men popping and the female orgasm being faked. That kind of porn still exists and will continue to exist, since it is hard to change not only the male attitude towards women, but also women's attitude towards themselves. However, what can be seen in the porn industry nowadays is a change towards a more female encompassing aesthetics; one which observes male and female as equal and is able to free sexualities from pre-concepts, such as that all porn is degrading to women.
I am sorry if I sound too harsh, but the idea of looking at porn as a tool to degrade women sounds just too passé for me, like sitting around burning bras or dissing men – men which we, as women, raised. I belong to a new generation which has chosen to wear a bra, and who considers men allied and not enemies. It is time we prove bell hooks wrong, and show the world the master’s tool will, too, dismantle the master’s house… if only we choose to take it in our hands. Some of us have already taken up the fight. As a woman, what are you doing?
Here is the link to the article: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/11/larry_flynt_hugh_hefner_and_bob_guccione_would_modern_porn_be_less_awful_if_its_founders_hadn_t_hated_women_.html
- Published March 19, 2012