Porn and masculinity (from a male perspective)
Heh, I'll give my perspective, as a male consumer.
Two things enrage me about porn. Only one is the industry's "fault," and even then you could probably blame it on giving customers what they want.
1) The stigma against its use. I started watching it as a kid, like a large number people, yet was terrified and ashamed by it. Terrified, as my young naive self, that I was going to get punished and hauled off to juvenile hall or something for lying about my age. Not to mention punishments from parents. Ashamed because in this ridiculous culture sexual things are something that should be hidden away, so I even convinced
myself that I was doing something "bad." It wrecked my self esteem and plunged me into some of the worst depression of my life. Since masturbating gives an endorphin rush, naturally I became "addicted" as a way to offset my depression, and went through a nasty cycle of shame. Rejecting the notion that it was "bad" saved my life, quite literally. It also killed my religious faith as much as anything, since that was a bit player in initially convincing me that I shouldn't be doing such things.
2) What the article's really about. The mainstream porn industry is almost entirely made up of men dominating women. Google for "porn" and the first site that pops up is invariably going to be some dude overpowering a questionably willing (and/or kinky) women. The opposite (femdom) is considered
a fetish. A good argument for why this is bad, I think, is because a very, very large percentage of men get their first sexual experiences from porn. This is teaching them not only that the highly fetishized and exaggerated stuff shown on screen is
normal (when it very much isn't), but also that
that's what women want. Certainly it's the case that some women like that, but hardly all, and if a man does what porn has taught them to do with someone not very interested, it's not going to be pretty. I don't have any statistics, but my gut feeling states that yes, most men like to "dominate" and most women like to "be dominated"; that's why the majority of porn shows this, since they're just appealing to the majority. But like all assumptions about people, it's never something you should expect of your partner, and porn does a horrible, horrible job of showing that.
EDIT: Here's my responses to the 7 common replies the guy got:
1. They would like to see more plot and romance in pornography.
-- True! I get very, very tired of a pizza boy delivering a single hot sausage. All the stuff I regularly go back to has some romance and plot to it.
2. They do not particularly enjoy closeups of genitals.
-- Eeyup. Really this stuff's kinda gross. Particularly when it comes to drawn stuff, I prefer stylized to "realistic."
3. They not only do not find violence against women or domination of women sexy, they are specifically turned off by such behavior on the rare occasions they see it in pornography, and most haven't even seen any.
-- Very true. I don't mind "control," but the moment any sort of pain or possibility of it being non-consensual comes into play, it's a massive turn off.
4. Though they enjoy looking at women having sex with women, they don't believe the women pictured are actually lesbians.
-- Eeyup. Very rarely do they convince me otherwise.
5. They have not sought ever more vivid, kinky, and violent pornography, but have either stuck with what they liked from the first, investigated wilder content and returned to what they preferred, or lost interest altogether.
-- While it has introduced me to a variety of weird stuff that I ended up liking, I haven't fallen down some slope into wilder and wilder stuff.
6. They don't like the way men are portrayed in pornography.
-- Also true. I'm only ~95% straight and I don't like the muscular burly guys, and even less when they go into full domination mode. How bout some vulnerable nervous guys?
7. They are against making it available to children, even though many of them were exposed to pornographic stories and images before the age of 12 and don't feel the worse for it.
-- Here's where I deviate from the majority. I'm for making it available, precisely because any and every negative effect I've gotten from it was because I was told it was bad. Besides, if we stop hiding it, kids will be less interested. That door you keep locked is mysterious and exciting, while the door that's open is boring.
I have a personal vendetta against the culture of shame surrounding sex and porn. I don't think my experience is a unique one, not at all, and any effort to demonize and hide sexual themes is one I am opposed to. As for the porn industry's responsibility, I'm fine with them showing whatever they want (even crap like rape porn, provided it's strictly in the realm of fantasy), but they do need to do a better job of explaining that it is indeed, fantasy. No one's naive enough to think those 18+ confirmation boxes do a damn thing, so it doesn't absolve them from any responsibility on the matter.
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