I’ve spent part of my time this week scribbling out some thoughts about Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, the genuinely extraordinary new book from Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at the University of Texas.
Deo volente and the crick don’t rise, I’ll finish my review tomorrow and post it. In the meantime, Courtney Martin has her own thoughts up at Feministing, and the comment thread below her piece is very interesting. Courtney is clearly troubled by the book, both by its insights into a world she has deliberately avoided, and by Jensen’s radical proposed solution: the eradication of masculinity as a category of human identity. I’m less troubled — largely because I think Jensen is more right than Courtney would like to believe.
I’ll say this as a preview: this is the first non-fiction book I’ve read this year that’s made me weep. It’s the best thing I’ve read about pornography in years, and it functions brilliantly on many levels. It’s so good that as I read, at times fighting back tears, I cursed Robert Jensen for writing the book I would have longed to write. Whatever I publish on pornography and masculinity in the future will be heavily influenced by this book and my response to it. I’ll explain tomorrow, and in the meantime, check out Courtney’s post.
UPDATE: The thread at Feministing has a lot on the problem of fantasy, and Greg raises the issue below this post. Let me, as a prelude to what I’m gonna write tomorrow, offer these links to old things I’ve written:
I haven’t had a chance to read Jensen’s book yet (and won’t until it is returned to the library), but I have read Jackson Katz’s Macho Paradox, and also his article “Pornography and Men’s Consciousness” in “Readings for Diversity and Social Justice.” If you’re familiar with either or both of these, I’m curious to know how you think this book compares to Katz’s position. Is it fair to say, as it would seem from Courtney Martin’s post, that Jensen is taking a much more radical position, or do you think they’re really saying similar things?
Another thing that I think was significant about Courtney’s post was that she said, without any sort of prompting, that “his prose reeks of self-hate and desperation,” as if she felt a bit sorry for Jensen and perhaps, by extension, any man of good will who reads the book. I think this is important because it is a succinct counterexample to the stereotype that feminists want men to hate themselves, and don’t really care about their well-being at all. Because frankly, when men try to educate themselves about men’s violence against women, in order to help end it, it is pretty easy to recoil in horror and self-loathing once one sees the bigger, depressing picture that we haven’t been forced to contemplate the way women have.
Al, I do know Katz’s work — and it goes a bit further indeed than Jackson does.
I adore Courtney and her writing, but I think she’s wrong about Jensen’s self-hate. He takes on that issue, and distinguishes righteous guilt and accountability from debilitating shame; for me, he draws a bright, clear line between the two.
I may need to put up TWO posts on the book, it’s that provocative…
I haven’t read the book yet, but Courtney’s post and yours make me want to. It sounds extremely powerful.
I’m with TH…must read the book.
I just can’t deal with porn, and like many women, simply avoid it.
well I’ll be interested in your review. While i have always thought some of the criticism of some porn is overblown there is clearly some sick stuff out there. when i read this line that is taken from the book:
“a few basic themes are common:
All women at all times want sex from all men;
Women like all the sexual acts that men perform or demand; and
Any woman who does not at first realize this can be easily turned with a little force. Such force is rarely necessary, however, for most of the women in pornography are the “nymphomaniacs” that men fantasize about”
I had an immediate thought. And what about Frodo , he never really would have been able to get to Mount Doom. And Aragorn couldn’t really kill all those orcs. He would have been wounded or something. And how could the Enterprise always get out of the deadly situations. The point being that porn ,and lord of the rings and star trek, are fantasy. I’m just not surprised that a Fantasy(porn) has elements of Fantasy. the problem with porn is men who are to thick to see it as fantasy.
My experience suggest to me that people often have fantasies that are less than politically correct, the spectrum of human sexuality is vast and kinky and some will always be enticed by what is forbidden or exotic.
We’ll see what learning the book brings.
But there isn’t really a Mt. Doom, Greg — no adult believes that Middle Earth is real. But lots of men DO believe there are women out there who “deserve to be raped”. Not all fantasy is the same, and it is also true that for many, the sexual fantasies they have don’t reflect real desires. (The example, much discussed in the Feministing thread, is some women’s fantasy of being overpowered.)
I gotta buy this. In fact, I will probably purchase it tonight on Amazon.
Hugo, Amanda had a post up a while ago about the reason that the more misogynistic pornography sells so well. It had to do with supply and demand. The average guy might only desire to see and attractive woman naked or having sex with a man (or woman) and those images are very easy to find and very cheap. However the few people who want the more violent images want it more than the “average” consumer so they will pay more for it. So the market responds in kind. What do you think of that argument?
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2006/10/05/well-the-worm-can-was-just-sitting-there-next-to-the-can-opener/#more-3903
I remember that post, and it was a very good one. But as Jensen makes clear, the market for “gonzo” porn (the most violent and misogynistic images) is too big to be sustained by a few troubled individuals. He spends a lot of time at adult trade shows (like the AVN) and it’s clear that the “hard stuff” is the “bread n’ butter” of the industry.
Hugo, maybe nobody believes Mount Doom and Rings of Power exist, but if you read Tolkien with any attention at all, you see that he sets up a racial heirarchy, with the Numenorean exiles (who happen to resemble British Celts and Picts) and the Northern Riders (who resemble the Saxons), at the top. And at the bottom? To quote from Return of the King: “black men like half trolls with white eyes and red tongues”. Nor does this occur only as an unfortunate slip; references to dark-skinned allies of Mordor occur in several places through the book, and the concept of hierarchy permeates it. If I felt compelled to conform my aesthetic responses with my social and political opinions, I could not like Lord of the Rings. But as Orwell points out in his essay “Politics versus literature”, you can like a book even if you disagree with the assumptions and world view of the author.
This applies to what we call pornography. That doesn’t mean we can’t look at something and call it completely unaesthetic, simply hate propaganda. In fact, I’d have to say we need to look at a lot of what we call pornography that way. But we do not have to take the position, which I regard as extreme, that everything changes once anyone takes their clothes off. I absolutely do not believe it does, and I apply that to both the political arguments against “pornography” (yes, redeeming artistic value does exist), and also the arguments based on concern for the workers (a very valid issue, but one that needs addressing in good faith, rather than as a cudgel to beat people you want shut up for political reasons).