I’m easing back into blogging this week. I have a bad cold, my first in months, probably contracted over the course of various recent travels. My wife and I spent Rosh Hashanah with the Kabbalah Centre International in Dallas, Texas last week; on Friday we flew up to Northern California for a weekend at our family’s country place in the hills northeast of San Jose. We went, in the damp and the bluster of an early autumn storm, to the Cal-Arizona State Homecoming game in Berkeley on Saturday afternoon. And our plane finally landed at Burbank Airport at 10:30 last night. I’m a bit groggy, but hoping to feel better as the week goes on.
And the emails! Folks, if you’ve emailed me recently, please be patient. I’m more than a little swamped. (Seven — count ‘em, seven — with questions about older men/younger women relationships in the last week alone. Flattering but overwhelming.)
The discussion thread below my post on “rethinking a virulent anti-porn/sex work stance” is approaching 200 comments, and is still quite active (and, all things considered, reasonably civil.) Amber Rhea put up a lengthy and thoughtful initial response at her place, and both she and Ren took issue with this remark I made in the original post:
I am keenly aware that porn can play a part in reducing our ability to connect with each other as full and complete creatures of light. Porn, it still seems to me, is the enemy of empathy.
That deserves some more explanation.
Empathy, of course, is the ability to not only imagine what an other person might be feeling(sympathy), but actually to understand what an other person understands, feels, and experiences. Contemporary English often confuses empathy and sympathy to the point that even many scholars seem to disagree as to the precise boundary that separates one concept from another — a point driven home to me in a few minutes of googling about this morning! Here’s one possible definition, from an article for physicians:
The origin of the word empathy dates back to the 1880s, when German psychologist Theodore Lipps coined the term “einfuhlung” (literally, “in-feeling”) to describe the emotional appreciation of another’s feelings. Empathy has further been described as the process of understanding a person’s subjective experience by vicariously sharing that experience while maintaining an observant stance. Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person’s experience from within that person’s frame of reference.
I like that last bit, and it’s relevant to the experience that I think a great many men have with heterosexual pornography. One of the valid criticisms that gets thrown at Robert Jensen is that as a man writing about men’s use of pornography from a feminist perspective, he centers men’s experiences and reactions; his Getting Off contains relatively few women’s voices. (Given that he was writing a book about how pornography impacted men, rather than an overarching cultural critique of commercialized sexuality, this seems like a fairly reasonable editorial decision to have made. The problem, if there was one with Getting Off, seems to lie in his fairly brief and caricatured descriptions of the women who work in pornography — more certainly could have been done to hear what they were saying.) In any event, both Jensen and I come to the same conclusion: almost regardless of the conditions under which pornography is produced, the impact upon the men who “consume” it regularly is often a decreased ability to connect and empathize with other human beings.
Many sociologists who have studied the impact of porn on American men suggest that there is a connection between the frequency of its use and negative, even hostile attitudes towards women. Some studies — the infamous UCLA Malamuth experiment chief among them — suggest that for certain men (the young in particular), repeated viewing of pornography can serve as a “disinhibitor to violence.” Of course, other studies reach different conclusions; as with so many other controversial contemporary issues, the “jury is still out.” I’m willing to concede that we don’t yet have sufficient evidence to suggest that “pornography” (a colossally broad category) always has a deleterious effect on even its most regular consumers.
It’s very difficult, I realize, for me to separate my own experiences with pornography from a range of other possible reactions. I have an addictive personality. I was addicted to alcohol and drugs for many years, and have now been clean and sober over a decade. I am not an “anti-alcohol” campaigner, however. I know perfectly well that plenty of people have this remarkable ability to do what I could very seldom do: have one or two drinks and then stop. At family dinners and at cocktail parties, I am confronted with evidence that not everyone who uses alcohol uses it the way I used it — so compulsively that it nearly took my life. I was addicted to prescription pills, too; on the very rare occasions in the past ten years where I have been given heavy-duty pain medication, I’ve always placed the bottle in the hands of a trusted friend or lover. Even now, frankly, I’d be uneasy about a bottle of Percoset in my medicine cabinet. And yet, I know plenty of people who use prescription pain meds as they were intended to be used.
It’s easy to separate alcoholism from alcohol. It’s easy to separate opiate addiction from pain medication. It’s easy to make this separation because there are so many abundant examples of folks who use medication and alcohol in responsible ways. But as someone who was also addicted to pornography in my younger years, what I don’t get to see — in as obvious a way –are folks (men in particular) whose relationship to porn has no negative impact upon their lives. For me, alcoholism was a progressive disease: one beer became eight shots very quickly, so I learned I could never even have the first beer. For me, pornography addiction worked much the same way: I wanted “everlasting novelty”, and was compulsive about seeking out new images. (And this was back in the days before the Internet!) I could no more imagine using porn for fifteen minutes a week than I could imagine having three sips of wine and calling it a night. And just as my addiction to drugs and alcohol fed my narcissism and destroyed my empathy (to the point that some folks thought I might be clinically sociopathic), so too my porn use did tremendous damage to my ability to practice authentic intimacy. But this raises the obvious question: was my lack of empathy rooted in the porn itself, or in the addictive way I used it? Can the two be separated?
Most of us don’t go to social gatherings where we get to see people using porn casually but not compulsively. We don’t get to see the men and women whose porn use brings them pleasure but doesn’t diminish their ability to connect with each other. Indeed, my experiences of talking to other men about pornography began in Twelve Step and pro-feminist men’s groups — settings in which there was an assumption that pornography would almost invariably be spiritually, politically, and psychologically damaging. And while I was aware that many men spoke of using porn without negative consequences, I had a presumption that they were as I had once been: in a state of denial. Like most recovering addicts, I had to fight a very hard battle against a smug sense that I “knew” that no one could use porn without harming themselves or their families. I extrapolated from my own experience, and the experiences of men with whom I worked in recovery or in gender studies circles, and assumed that “almost every” man would be the same. And when I came to Robert Jensen’s work, I immediately identified with his experiences and his views, so fundamentally close to my own. Talk about empathy! It was as if Bob Jensen was my twin brother.
I hate pornography addiction and the harm it does. I abhor sex trafficking and the abuse of women and children around the world. I long for a world in which sexuality is used to bring about life-affirming connections between people, rather than driving them deeper into despair and alienation. But of course, I am more and more aware that many of those who do work in the sex industry, and produce pornography, share those same views. Just as a vintner longs to have his or her wines sipped and savored rather than frantically guzzled, many who do work behind and in front of the cameras clearly believe that they are bringing healthy pleasure to their viewers, and hope that those same viewers use what they see responsibly.
I know in my heart there is no place for pornography in my life today. But despite remaining very clear on that subject, I’m more willing now to hear the diverse voices of those who work in and around the sex industry. I realize that where porn is concerned, I’m guilty of confusing my hatred of addiction with the hatred of the substance itself. I hate the disease of alcoholism, but I don’t hate Seagrams or Anheuser-Busch; can I not make the same distinction between the disease of pornography addiction and the producers of at least some kinds of visual erotica? Can I start to acknowledge that while there is much within both mainstream and “gonzo” porn that is violent and degrading, other varieties of pornography may be redemptive, beautiful, and life-enhancing for user and performer alike? I think I’m getting to the place where I can say, “Yes, it’s a more complex issue than I have previously acknowledged.”
The trafficking of human beings for sex is an appalling global crisis. Most of the victims of this crisis are women. Those of us who call ourselves feminists ought to be devoting considerable energy to fighting against sexual enslavement. But we may need to consider the possibility that our most important allies in that work are those who work in the sex industry by choice. Though I have not yet made up my mind about legalization of sex work, I’m willing to consider the possibility that bringing porn and sex work out of the shadows and under the scope of careful, fair, feminist-centered regulation may be a particularly practical way to fight against human exploitation.
Empathy for the victims of sex trafficking and empathy for those who are caught up in sexual addiction cannot come at the expense of empathy for those whose experiences do not match up with our own. If we impose the same victim narrative on the Vietnamese child prostitute and on someone like Ren, we’ve had a failure of empathy. Addiction to porn made me, Hugo Schwyzer, less able to connect with other people and to see their full humanity. Heaven help me if, in the act of struggling against pornography, I allow myself to lose my empathy for those who views and experiences are radically different.
Thoughts are welcome.
Wow, for someone easing back into blogging and who also has a cold, this is a long post! I’m at work right now but I’ll give it a proper read-through tonight, and hopefully reply (either here or at my place).
One thing quickly (I only had time to skim your post)…
I am in a relationship w/ such a man. They do exist.
Dyed-in-the-wool anti-porn crusaders can choose to believe me or not. *shrug* I’m the one who lives with my partner.
Also, women exist for whom porn has no negative effect - or sometimes a positive effect, in fact - on their lives. For just one example, Trinity wrote about its impact on her life here on your blog, I believe.
Hope the cold gets better quick, Hugo…
Two quick things…I’m married to a guy who watches porn, he’s married to a gal who both watches and makes porn…we’ve been together for over a decade…and when I look around at a whole lot of other folk in relationships…ours falls into the “good relationship” catergory.
And this…
“I’m willing to consider the possibility that bringing porn and sex work out of the shadows and under the scope of careful, fair, feminist-centered regulation may be a particularly practical way to fight against human exploitation.”
I’m damn wary of “feminist centered” regulation. When feminists continue to sing the praises of the Swedish Model when many Swedish sex workers talk about what a living hell it’s made their lives, when feminists decry the system in place in New Zealand, which has a lot of sex worker support, when there are feminists who refuse to see a difference between a sex worker and a prostituted person- flat out- and want to regulate content and forever drag in arguments over agency, choice, consent, even going so far as to say when a female performer has been raped and when she has not…without asking or even talking to her? The way Jensen asks for empathy for the women in porn when he does not speak to or listen to them either??? No, “feminist Regulation” is not something I, as a sex worker, porn performer, and small time pornographer can get behind, at all. Not right now anyway. Such things would concern me greatly. I mean, if I lived in the UK for instance, it is entirely possible I’d be in prison for having consented to images of myself on my computer via their extreme content law…I can’t get behind things like that.
Let me say that by “feminist regulation”, Ren, I’m talking about regulations that feature a much-broader range of feminist voices than those in place in some places. The NZ model seems to be a very promising one, and it was developed in conjunction with feminist input. “Feminism” isn’t monolithic, particularly on this issue.
Hugo, i know, but there is a section of feminism which absolutely sees the sex industry as monolithic, and it seems often, that section gets a lot of air time…Jensen is in that catergory, actually…have you seen this?
http://www.unlvrebelyell.com/article.php?ID=12487
Personally, I think any regulation should be sex worker/prostituted person centered. If feminism is part of that, cool…but the main say should come from the people the regulation is going to affect the most.
Yes, I saw it. I have a review copy of a “Price of Pleasure” which I need to watch and blog about.
Heh, you and several other people it seems.
Welcome back Hugo and hope that you’re feeling better. Hope you enjoyed your trips. I can never get out to Cal games these days, despite now being back in the Bay Area… Ah, the happy-go-lucky life of a 1L.
I’m all for looking at possibly “de-pathologizing” views on porn, sex work and other nexuses of sex, communication, and commerce when the pathological narrative doesn’t fit. However I have a concern. What I read is that you saw it as pathological in the context of your experience and the experiences of other men with addictive and spiritual issues. You’ve had cause to consider re-evaluating or expanding views based on the experiences and contrary arguments of people, mostly I am assuming women, who have been involved in producing porn, or “erotica” if you will, in non-pathological and non-destructive ways.
Okay, 1: pathological narrative, predicated on men and their sexual proclivities / desires. 2: non-pathological narrative, apparently predicated primarily on women and their sexual proclivities / performances.
Doesn’t seem like we’ve completely closed the circle here, i.e.: one could assume that you’re saying that it’s okay for women to do but not for men to watch, or else that men’s desire / sexual nature may still be pathological even if it’s okay for some porn producers or sex workers to be accepted (e.g.: the Swedish model: go after the johns but leave the prostitutes alone). Anything we can say about whether this desire / sexual nature / consumption is / isn’t / might be / might not be pathological?
Tom, those are legitimate concerns — I’m writing my way through this, without having come to a definite conclusion. I have left behind a fairly rigid orthodoxy about some things, while remaining deeply troubled by the way in which so much of pornography in our culture does get used in addictive, abusive, and destructive ways. How we come to that happy middle ground position that is intellectually honest, coherent, and deeply loving — I’m not quite sure. I’m travelin’ towards it.
Hugo: Here’s another post you might find interesting, written by Ellie Lumpesse: What’s wrong with sex work
Hugo,
I’m impressed by your willingness to reconsider your views. Seriously.
Two things -
“Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person’s experience from within that person’s frame of reference”
How does definition work in a philosophical system that believes that it is not only logically impossible to “understand another person’s experience from within that person’s frame of reference” - standpoint epistemology - but that this inability to conduct effective communication leads to a situation in which individuals or, resp. “classes”/groups in radical feminism, have no way to even understand the other’s point of reference? You really can’t have both: Either empathy is possible (on Wittgensteinian terms) and feminist arguments based on standpoint epistemology die or it’s the ther way around. You can’t have both.
“Though I have not yet made up my mind about legalization of sex work, I’m willing to consider the possibility that bringing porn and sex work out of the shadows and under the scope of careful, fair, feminist-centered regulation may be a particularly practical way to fight against human exploitation”
As my reference to standpoint epistemology makes clear - there’s no guarantee that “feminist-centered” regulation would be either fair or careful just because it’s “feminist”. Acually, I think that’s part of the premise of your post. I do believe that regulation and legalization is the appropriate way to deal with this issue - and the best way to fight against human exploitation.
Yay–they’ve re-done the firewall and I can get to HugoSchwyzer again.
I’d put my wife and myself in the category of “used porn some, didn’t seem to change our attitudes toward others.” HOWEVER–both of us were readers, not watchers. (IOW–it was text-based, narrative porn–not pictorial. And we both tended toward weird; I’m not quite in the “erotic versions of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk is an ocelot” category, but my tastes are definitely in that direction.)
SamS, I’ve never claimed that it is impossible to understand and empathize with those who do not share my views or experiences. For heaven’s sake, I’m a man who teaches women’s studies — if I believed a particular set of experiences as a woman were essential to understanding feminism on a deep level, I’d never have dared to do what I do.
Hugo,
hmm, it’s probably not necessary to be a woman to understand feminism (to “explain” it to yourself - think Dilthey - you do read German, right? Check the German wikipedia entry for a brief summary of the difference between “explanation” and “understanding”, it’s not in the English entry - de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Dilthey#Verstehen_und_Erkl.C3.A4ren) or to be a feminist, I never assumed that. But feminist epistemology stresses the importance of situated knowledge and the epistemic privilege of the situated knower to an extent that makes empathy pointless - as it cannot help to truly understand.
Well, I think all communicated knowledge is logically situational, as we’re all closed systems, but I think that doesn’t really matter for all practical purposes because I believe we’re able to empathize and communicate inter-systemically. It’s not me who claims that some opinons aren’t as valuable in a discussion as others, that’s feminist epistemology (standpoint epistemology).
And it’s at this point that I, the son of two philosophy professors, announce that the only philosophy I ever took in school was medieval scholastic philosophy. Epistemology for me makes me think of Descartes, and I never read Wittgenstein (though my father wrote many papers about his work). And when it came to feminist theory, I dodged those classes as best I could. In my nightmares, people come to me and demand that I explain Luce Irigaray to them.
Hugo–
I notice that the language you (and some others) describe pornography and its relation to those who read it, watch it, or look at it. The words you use differ markedly from the words with which I describe reading, watching, or looking at other forms of art or entertainment. For example, I notice you speak of people “using” pornography or “consuming” the images. Do you really describe reading or watching as using or consuming in other contexts?
This use of language, it seems to me, effectively removes all sexually-oriented material from any ordinary consideration as art, which in turn takes any consideration of artistry by the performers, camera people, and so on.
It seems to me that this use of language, minor though it may seem, helps us treat sex workers as fundamentally different, which in turn leads to both disrespect (which I have written about) and to profoundly misplaced priorities.
John:
Good point, as someone who does porn, I feel “watched”, not “used”.
There is an on going thing though, just in general, I saw some of the worst of it lately today (in a thread where someone proclaimed that porn performers should not be ALLOWED to have children), but yes, it is totally on-going…and that is the extensive, extensive othering done by those discussing porn…as if, perhaps, no one who ever does porn can read, or look at a blog, or take a womens studies class, or see a sex trade based lecture. The mere idea that the person (woman, most probably) sitting next to you at the cafe reading the paper or on her lap top might ALSO be involved in pornography never seems to cross anyones mind…ever. So it seems like folk feel absolutely free to discuss women in porn like mythological creatures who never leave the set…what they need, how they are “used”, what they must be thinking, how they must feel, how awful it must be, what must have happened to them for them to go into porn…
People don’t wonder that shit about their accountants. And it gets real old. Heh, I know a few people who were less than thrilled when “one of those women” showed up on their blog and said “Now wait a minute…”
And damn straight language matters. People buy and read books, they rent and watch movies. Same goes for porn. Consumed I can deal with, in the sense of the economy, we are consumers…but the notion of actual “consumption” thrown out there…funny, I don’t think most porn watchers are also cannibals…
“In my nightmares, people come to me and demand that I explain Luce Irigaray to them.”
LOL, that is fair enough.
I think it’s fair to understand pornography as something that engages the viewer more than most movies. Most pornography is viewed in one of two contexts: Masturbation or groups of men watching it together in order to impress each other with how much they can denigrate the women in it. The latter use is clearly inexcusable, and the former, which I assume most avid pro-porn feminists support, validates the “use” verb, because porn’s function begins and ends with its ability to get you off. Few people watch porn like you watch a movie, which is beginning to end to engage the artist’s statement. You actually try to manipulate the speed and order to fill your desires, fast-forwarding and rewinding as appropriate.
For example, I notice you speak of people “using” pornography or “consuming” the images. Do you really describe reading or watching as using or consuming in other contexts?
If you masturbate to the Venus de Milo, you’re using it as pornography. But if you sit fully clothed in an armchair reading The Story of O with an eye towards critiquing its amazingly bad style, you’re reading it as literature. It’s not about the quality of the piece, it’s about what you do with it.
In other words, if you watch An*l Sl*ts 4 for the cinematography and non-erotic entertainment value, you are neither consuming nor using it, you are just watching it. Is this something that people habitually do, though? Signs point to “no.” Likewise, good cookbooks can be read for pure pleasure, but most people use them primarily as tools for achieving a purpose, however artfully they may be composed. Porn is like that. And nobody gets defensive or outraged when we talk about “using” cookbooks, do they? Because that’s what they’re for. Porn that doesn’t inspire somebody to want to, ahem, put it to use, is bad porn per se.
No, no one gets outraged when people talk about using cookbooks. Yet, language is important, for a variety of reasons. People do indeed use lots of things, cars, pens, lawn mowers…I guess I don’t really object so much to the word “use” to describe what is done with the film itself, but rather when people speak about the people in the film being used. Distinction made.
An addiction to porn is the result of a deeper personality issue. Its the same with all addictions. People watch porn or drink or whatever for various reasons and those reasons probably really have nothing to do with the outlet.
Young men and women watch porn because they are curious about sex, lovers and couples watch it because its fun to experiment with. Some watch it because they are lonely or horny or both; Whats the big deal? If you are harboring a fear of pornography, you are probably really afraid of something else about yourself. Porn or the absence of it is not going to change the fundamental problem if there is one.
I really hope that Elizabeth and other posters using women’s names are really men and not women posters!
There is a very big problem if you actually think there is no problem with so many men and now unfortunately many women too who are now influenced by typical sexist,woman hating dehumanizing male supremacy pornography because of the sexist,woman hating male dominated society that has created and normalized pornography in the first place!
And your totally screwed up unjust belief that if any thinking feeling *true feminist* woman or man is afraid of,against and appalled at how overtly sexist,woman hating, and totally dehumanizing of women pornography really is!
Which as a male former pornography user even said, typically portrays women to men as nothing but things to stick d**ks into,just things to feel,f**k,and ejaculate on and forget and typically calls women, totally women hating names such as,cum eating sluts,whores and b**ches, really is and is intended to be!
What a totally screwd up unjust and scary place for anyone to learn about sex!
I’m sure that you or anyone else who defends and supports this sick damaging sexist woman hating pornography,would never make the same excuses and defenses of racist or anti-semetic pornography that portayed blacks for whites and Jews for Germans and anti-semetic Christians the same exact ways!
And nobody would say that the blacks and Jews “chose” to be in it and therefore it makes it OK! And for *any* woman to use or support pornography is *exactly* like a Jew getting off and supporting anti-semetic pornography or a black getting off and supporting racist pornography,there is *NO* difference!
And also for a woman to hypocritically call themselves a “feminist” and then defend and support pornography is exactly like a black civil rights activist claiming to support black people’s full human and equal rights,and then supporting and using racist pornography!
And I also meant like a Jew using anti-semetic pornography!
Why can’t you just recuperate from a cold like normal people?
(Good post and glad you’re back)
Oh gads…
Well “Clearly”..I’m a woman. Who watches and makes porn. By choice. Not a feminist though, so maybe that will help. Also a Jew…but as of yet, I’ve not seen pornographers attempting to eliminate women from the face of the planet. And not all porn is sexist woman hating, so on. Yes, lot’s of it is, but not all. And I’m pretty sure Hugo, et all, aren’t fans of the sexist, woman hating stuff (I however will admit my own affection for Gonzo freely). However, as both a person who makes and watches porn, and a person who had relatives who didn’t make it out of Europe in WWII, I arch a brow at the comparisions. None of my relatives consented to be where they were or got paid and had contracts in place for what happened with them. I do. Big difference, right there.
And I’d say calling people sick and screwed up right out of the gate and going on with yet another round of “choice” and “real feminists” is…a bit abusive.
I agree with Ren that language matters. And I would add that even if you can defend the expression “using” pornography, I find it difficult to find a definition for “consuming” that fits. Nobody I know of goes to the theatre to consume Shakespeare, and although my family’s Joy of Cooking has got pretty dog-eared over the years, I don’t think anyone would say we have consumed that, either. I don’t think this language really fits, unless you want to imply that pornography involves both exploitation and destruction.
As for the business of “putting pornography to use”, I honestly don’t think most of us actually “use” pornography the way we use cookbooks. For me, and I think most people, what we call “pornography” feeds a fantasy rather than giving us a number of steps to follow the way a cookbook does. I also find the definitions circular: you “use pornography” by masturbating, except presumably in the case of “couples pornography”, but if you don’t want to “use” it, that makes it bad pornography… so what makes it pornography in the first place?
More broadly, it seems to me that this still assumes that the emotions associated with what we call pornography differ from the pity and terror of tragedy or the belly laugh of comedy. It takes talent and skill to make us ache for King Lear or fall out of our chairs laughing at a Tom Lehrer song, but any bubble-head with silicone implants or an outsize schlong and a willingness to get naked can make us hot and bothered. Again, this implication that a solid line separates art and pornography seems to me to lead to all kinds of negative implications for people who work in pornography and the sex trade generally.
Oh here we go again… “you must be a man.”
Thinking I better bow out of this thread while the getting’s still good.
“Young men and women watch porn because they are curious about sex, lovers and couples watch it because its fun to experiment with. Some watch it because they are lonely or horny or both; Whats the big deal? If you are harboring a fear of pornography, you are probably really afraid of something else about yourself. Porn or the absence of it is not going to change the fundamental problem if there is one.”
There are men who openly admit to using porn specifically because it is the one outlet left in society in which blatant misogyny is still tolerated and therefore acceptable.
For anyone reading who hasn’t read them already: Ren has two posts on Porn and Misogyny on the sidebar of her blog. She gives a pretty good explanation of what she sees as misogyny in porn and why she believes men are attracted to porn because of this misogyny.
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2006/10/pornography-misogyny.html
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2006/11/porn-misogyny-part-ii-examining-why.html
“For me, and I think most people, what we call “pornography” feeds a fantasy rather than giving us a number of steps to follow the way a cookbook does.”
Except for the fact that many people do try to act out the acts they see in porn. It’s also quite well known that some men who commit acts of sexual violence are mirroring the acts that they saw in porn.
“I guess I don’t really object so much to the word “use” to describe what is done with the film itself, but rather when people speak about the people in the film being used.”
Ren,
I’m confused by what your saying because I recall you writing posts on your blog in which you actually referred to yourself as a “professional object” who gets “used”. It could be that when you were speaking of being “used” it was in a separate post. But I’m pretty positive that you have referred to yourself with both of these terms before in a positive manner.
Yeah, we have a Godwin’s law
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
winner, ahm - loser (Economist reformulation: “The first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument”).
I’m sorry I wasn’t online last night when some of this got posted… folks, the whole point of this post (and the one that preceded it) was to challenge those who hold strong views on one side or another of the porn debate to consider the other view. In particular, I’m calling on my fellow anti-porn feminists to take seriously the voices of women who do do sex work by choice, rather than imposing upon them an infantilizing victim narrative.
“In particular, I’m calling on my fellow anti-porn feminists to take seriously the voices of women who do do sex work by choice, rather than imposing upon them an infantilizing victim narrative.”
What about those anti-porn feminists who don’t view all sex workers as victims but still do not support the sex industry? Are we to remain quiet in this particular discussion?
I personally do not support the infantalizing of women who engage in sex work by choice. I still can not speak for those feminists who may do exactly that, nor will I attempt to do so. I’m also not sure that I agree with what all that is commonly referred to as “infantalizing”. Surely telling someone who engages in sex work entirely by choice that they are deluded and brainwashed and could never do what they do entirely by choice is infantalizing. However, acknowledging the male dominant/sexist culture that women grow up in, that supports the sex industry, and which has an impact on all of us - including sex workers - is not infantalizing anyone. It’s acknowledging a very real reality.
And you’re not part of the problem, Faith, I was referring to our friend above who made sweeping and indefensible generalizations about blacks and Jews and so forth.
Hugo,
Thanks for this post. I think some of the trouble *I* have with understanding the anti-side has to do with never having seen anyone who was doing the “looking for more novelty” thing. It’s honestly so far outside my experience that I’ve always found myself really leery when I hear that. The only place I ever heard or saw it was from conservative religious groups or religious websites, and it struck me not as real people’s experiences but as… how can I best say this?
You know how there are religious groups who say that if you’re gay and struggling, it’s because the “gay lifestyle” is morally bankrupt, wild, and lacking in intimacy? And how those people encourage the confused and hurting men and women who come to them for help and answers to understand their experiences as something like an obsession with attention from people of the same gender? And it’s a whole explanatory framework that doesn’t fit at all with the way most people understand what it is to be gay?
That’s what I always thought the “end porn addiction” groups were like too. I didn’t really think anyone had the addiction. I thought people had, say, curiosity or kinks they felt ashamed of, and went “oh God, now I’m looking at BONDAGE! But I think bondage is BAD! The porn must be controlling me!” and ran off to a group, rather than “Hey, I keep finding myself interested in bondage. Maybe there’s a long-standing interest here I feel I shouldn’t acknowledge. Let me sit down with myself and figure out if I’m OK with this interest I have.”
So I always thought that that “needing novelty” thing was not real, but a way of shaming people for becoming curious about things outside standard heteronormative sex. “Oh, I fantasized about a threesome. Shit, I must be emotionally unfaithful because I was erect for a few minutes!” “Oh, I fantasized about…” whatever, where that’s being measured against the non-kinky, the perfectly egalitarian, or the cuddling with the lights off and only and always expressing eternal love. Which… well, that is some folks’ ideal, sure.
But human minds, in my experience, don’t stay focused on just that. And I feel that a lot of the anti-porn stuff I’ve seen, both from the conservatively religious anti-addiction folks and SOME of the feminist folks, is an ideal that people won’t ever think about non-intimate sex, or the kinds of kinky sex their ideology prescribes. And to me, even if you’re ultimately less permissive than me, that’s unrealistic.
“Most of us don’t go to social gatherings where we get to see people using porn casually but not compulsively. We don’t get to see the men and women whose porn use brings them pleasure but doesn’t diminish their ability to connect with each other.”
And I do this. Some, but not all, SM parties will have porn playing on TVs. Most of us are interested not in it but in one another. The general reaction I see is not any kind of fixation or ignoring one’s partner but ignoring the TVs. (It may be that swingers are more apt to be interested in it, I don’t know. But the general reaction is “ho-hum.”)
As far as seeing how people masturbate to it, I can’t say I’ve seen that without having been in the room with the person… and for me when that was happening, it was usually not one or the other of us masturbating, but us having sex. I personally like the fantasy of sex in semi-public (though I doubt I’d actually enjoy swinging for real), so for me it was a way to imagine that we were in the room watching some other people and everyone feeding off one another’s energy, without actually going to a swinger’s club and likely not enjoying myself in the same way. In other words, it facilitated a fantasy I wasn’t interested in making a reality, and at least for me didn’t make me feel less involved with my partner.
And the particular person I’m thinking of here was a rather big fan of porn, at least among people I’ve dated. That he used it and liked it never interfered with our sex life… we both deeply enjoyed having sex with one another, we were and still are very close friends, etc. I remember worrying that the porn might create a problem, but he was totally into me and interested in me as a friend and a lover that now I have a hard time imagining worrying that porn would automatically be about this.
And for me, my own use of it tends to be a couple of things: Back when my computer was in my bedroom, I’d make screen savers out of still pornography I liked, set the computer to run it for some amount of time, and then set it to turn the monitor off. So I would go to bed, the computer would automatically play something, I’d masturbate, and then around when I was done, it would shut off automatically and I’d go to sleep. I can’t imagine being frantic enough about it to stay up, or something.
Er I forgot the other thing in the couple of things!
The other thing is just that I’m endlessly fascinated by representations of sex and the erotic, so I collect a lot of things I find interesting and weird as much because it amuses and intrigues me as because it sexually excites me. There are a lot of people on the ‘Net who do this too. I don’t know if for them it’s more directly sexual or not, but for me it’s kind of cool to look at, say, early photography of sex and the like just because it’s intriguing. Same with images of random fetishes for me: “Oh, people are into THAT? I never thought of that, but those two/three/eleven make it look like fun…”
Maybe I was not clear about how I feel about porn. I of course don’t want to watch women being victimized or violated and it is, I think, particularly upsetting to watch women in a situation where they are contributing to their own exploitation by reveling in what appears to be straight abuse. I don’t, however, think that all pornography is centered around a message of degradation and abuse. Women enjoy sex too and if one is emotionally and psychologically balanced then it should not be impossible to make a determination between the negative and harmful aspects of porn and the pleasure associated with watching two people make love.
Would it not then be fair to say that porn is as degrading to men as it is to women because it makes them out to be abusers who have zero regard for any of the human aspects of another individual?
“Most of us don’t go to social gatherings where we get to see people using porn casually but not compulsively. We don’t get to see the men and women whose porn use brings them pleasure but doesn’t diminish their ability to connect with each other.”
Funny thing, in one of the dance clubs I frequent is a lounge area with a beamer as the DJs like to show some clips or films sometimes. One of them put on a 70s Swedish porn film (without sound, obviously) last week and it was the best communication device I had come across in a while. Within minutes I was dubbing the film with a (strangely Swedish looking) girl. It was a fun game that preceded our connecting on a more, ahm, intellectual level ;)
Elizabeth,
I’m really uncomfortable with this statement of yours, here: “watch women in a situation where they are contributing to their own exploitation by reveling in what appears to be straight abuse.” Exploitation is something a more powerful person does to a less powerful one, usually through coercive means. I think the word begins to lose its meaning when we suggest that people can “revel” in exploitation or in abuse.
Also, the idea that women “revel” in being abused honestly sounds an awful lot like the rhetoric used to justify battering women. Freud claimed that women’s “masochism” (not in any way an accurate word, IMO) means that they like ill-treatment, and that’s why it’s OK to actually abuse them.
Yes, some women do like treatment that can look violent — and yes, I do think there’s something to the worry that Joe Random Consumer could not understand the difference between a scene that someone *acts in* or *consents to* and enjoying real violence. But I find it really disturbing that you talk here about women enjoying abuse.
“Within minutes I was dubbing the film with a (strangely Swedish looking) girl.”
Hilarious. :D
Also, Elizabeth, I think it’s very important to remember that while things like BDSM pornography and gonzo pornography exist, and that both of these concern many anti-pornography activists, a lot of anti-porn rhetoric ignores that these are not pornography’s most popular genres. So far as I know, the most popular recent film was “Pirates,” which is not gonzo, not BDSM, etc. Gonzo and BDSM porn do have their fans, and if we assume these are worth the concern invested in them, that is something to worry about. But the way anti-pornography people often talk about them strongly suggests that porn without extreme themes is the most popular stuff out there, and that just isn’t true.
“For me, and I think most people, what we call “pornography” feeds a fantasy rather than giving us a number of steps to follow the way a cookbook does.”
Yes, THIS. I obviously haven’t talked to all the men in the world, but for me it’s much more about making up some (usually very simplistic and unrealistic, but) story in my head. Something about the person, act, etc. depicted catches my interest, and I’ll make up a simple fantasy in my head to go with it. It’s not usually “this is showing me exactly what to want.”
“It takes talent and skill to make us ache for King Lear or fall out of our chairs laughing at a Tom Lehrer song, but any bubble-head with silicone implants or an outsize schlong and a willingness to get naked can make us hot and bothered.”
This too. I mean, I do think that it’s possible to feel physical attraction to anything, even something you find silly or stupid. But what I’m going to choose as fantasy fodder won’t usually be that. And I think people have this idea that no one has choice in the matter.
And that may be true to the experience of people who have addictive responses like those Hugo describes. But just as I, fortunately not being an alcoholic, can say I vastly prefer white wines to red and might mildly enjoy a heavy red wine with my dinner but won’t love it, I can say that something that might cause an immediate response won’t necessarily be something I choose to look at for much longer, to structure a fantasy around, etc. I think the idea that people, at least those who aren’t addicted or Pavlovian about this, can have preferences and interests and make choices about what to look at really gets lost in some of the more simplistic discussions.
trinity–excellent point. i don’t know if it’s common or not, but i find that as someone who recreationally uses pornography, i have definite tastes and preferences, the same as with other things i enjoy but to which i am not addicted. the wine analogy was perfect.
anyway, this was a thoughtful post, hugo and i appreciate that you’re trying to expand your outlook on this issue.
I don’t understand how there can be a solid connection between someone finding satisfaction in being abused and it being okay to abuse. They are actually two different ideas.
Just because an individual seeks abuse (which is what some workers in the porn industry seem to do) does not give another the right to abuse but it does not change the psychological issue with the individual seeking abuse that compels them to put themselves in a situation in which they can allow others to exploit them or where they can exploit themselves.
One major problem that I have is the comparison between porn and domestic violence. Women who find themselves being abused by their spouse or another family member or friend certainly do not enjoy it I would hope. But there are individuals who will intentionally place themselves in situations where they are being abused and used and they find satisfaction in it because of an unhealthy self image and/or deeper psychological problem.
Some women and men are truly victims of abuse that they did not invite. They may have found themselves in a dangerous situation before they knew what was happening. This idea extends to many groups, i.e. children, the elderly. Those people present a completely different perspective then what I am discussing here. Some people that are victims of abuse are victims of their own naivete, I do not suggest that this gives abusers free rein I simply see it as unfortunate.
“Maybe I was not clear about how I feel about porn. I of course don’t want to watch women being victimized or violated and it is,”
Clearly, but it is extremely difficult to tell if a woman is being victimized or violated in porn. You really need to know a great deal about the woman, her history, and why she is performing to have any real idea at all as to whether or not she is being victimized or violated. Assuming, of course, that it isn’t already obvious. I have seen porn in which it was totally clear that the female performer was being victimized. Hell, as I’ve said on my blog, I’ve actually seen porn in which the female performer was burned almost completely from the waist up and was being gang-raped by a roomful of men. That particular image was one I happened upon completely accidentally and it is one of those things that is now, unfortunately, burned into my psyche.
“Women enjoy sex too and if one is emotionally and psychologically balanced then it should not be impossible to make a determination between the negative and harmful aspects of porn and the pleasure associated with watching two people make love.”
Of course. However, porn is not usually about “making love”. I’ve seen exactly one site that has scenes that even come close to being “making love” and that is a site run by lesbian and bisexual women for women. There are no men involved whatsoever. The majority of mainstream porn is made by men for men and it is overwhelmingly exploitive and misogynistic. Internet porn in particular.
(Disclaimer: I’m not saying I believe that all sex should be about “making love”. I’ve personally “made love” a grand total of twice in my life.)
Faith, I don’t know your definition of “making love” but I doubt that you can accurately claim it sets a precedence for anyone other than yourself.
The gist of my comment was meant to convey my opinion with regards to women being victims of porn. Porn is not a power in and of itself. It is not an entity that must be reeled in and caged, that will never happen. Our culture is borderline pornographic. What matters is recognizing that porn does not victimize people, people victimize themselves by inviting upon themselves, maybe innocently or unknowingly, the abusive aspects represented in porn.
“Faith, I don’t know your definition of “making love” but I doubt that you can accurately claim it sets a precedence for anyone other than yourself.”
I’m sure that people’s definition of “making love” will vary. I very seriously doubt that you’re going to find many people - at all - who would define what occurs in most porn as “making love”. What occurs in porn is generally fucking, plan and simple. Nothing wrong with fucking, but it certainly isn’t “making love”.
“It is not an entity that must be reeled in and caged, that will never happen.”
I’m really really weary of people saying that the sex industry will never ever go away. I’m really really weary of people using the word never at all. You have no possible way of knowing whether or not the sex industry will always exist. This statement also bugs me because it can be so easily applied to so many other issues surrounding sex and sexual violence. One could easily argue, “well, men have always raped women, so you might as well just accept it!” or “well, people have always abused kids, never gonna change!” Sorry, but I’m simply not going to take such a defeatist attitude.
“Our culture is borderline pornographic.”
Ok…and?
“What matters is recognizing that porn does not victimize people, people victimize themselves by inviting upon themselves, maybe innocently or unknowingly, the abusive aspects represented in porn.”
So, if someone feels victimized by porn, or actually has been victimized by porn (as in being forced to perform or harmed by performing in porn), they are the ones guilty? This statement seems to reek of victim-blaming. It also seems to reek of dismissively accepting sexual abuse of women.
Elizabeth, I have a really serious problem with the idea that people “seek abuse.” Abuse is violent, manipulative, obsessive control. People do not seek to be socially isolated, seek to be verbally belittled for disagreeing with someone who wants control over them, seek to be kept in line with threats of intimidation. They do not seek to be coerced into doing things they don’t want.
You seem to be drawing a distinction between seeking “abuse” and seeking “domestic violence.” This doesn’t make any sense. There are abusive relationships that are not domestic ones, yes, but there is no dynamic of abuse that someone can look for.
I have no idea what you’re even talking about, but I can only imagine that you’re trying to say that some women like BDSM or rough sex. If that is what you mean it’s totally bizarre to me that you keep using the word “abuse.”
What in the world do you mean here?
I agree to being totally put off by Elizabeth’s use of the words “inviting abuse.” And I think the attempt to make a categorical distinction between domestic violence relationships (in which Elizabeth seems to think that women are “innocent” and do not “invite” abuse) and abusive relationships related to porn (in which they “invite” it? By agreeing to be in porn?) is ridiculous.
I feel a little differently about the term “seek.” People do seem to have an uncanny ability to re-create disfunctional relationships. Often repeatedly. I think what bothers me most about the term “inviting” is that it suggests that the abusee is issuing some kind of invitation, and thereby bringing on abuse/conduct that the abuser would not have engaged in but for the invitation. And THAT is ridiculous. Someone could “invite” all the abuse in the world but if the person they’re with (be it romantically or professionally) is not inclined to abuse, then there won’t be any abuse.
For me, “invite” even more strongly than “seek” suggests that the person being abused is causing it to happen.
If someone is being victimized through rape or physical violence then they should contact an authority. The women and men in porn are paid contracted actors. They have sought out work in pornography. They are not victims of an industry that they are not fully and consciously participating in. If someone has been raped or violated, this is something very different and should fall more appropriately in the realm of criminal activity which is not what I have been discussing at all.
Trinity, you should go back and read my comments more closely. I don’t think that I have ever said that people seek domestic violence.
Elizabeth:
I don’t know how much we can do about the psyche of any one model or actor in porn. Beyond that, I don’t know how much we should do about the way people think and feel. I start from the position that everyone, including models, actors, and other people who make pornography, shares a common humanity and deserves a basic level of respect and protection.
That means in practice that while I cannot do much about a person who seeks out or accepts abuse, I can make sure people disposed to abuse do not harm unwilling people. And when it comes to the people in the business of selling pictures and performances, we know we can modify their behaviour, and we know how. If you want to have a website today with naked people on it, you have to assert in pretty unambiguous terms that you didn’t include any photographs of people under 18. If the people have sex, you need to keep records with their proof of age documents. If you don’t do this, you can forget about getting paid, and you have to do this because the law says so. If the law said you had to get a signed consent from each model or actor, signed with the publisher’s or film maker’s representative outside the room, then the producers might not want to follow it, but the companies that control the flow of money across the Internet would almost certainly compel them to.
This seems to me a basic standard. We will probably still have arguments about whether women (and men) make bad decisions about going into pornography because, say, it pays better than Wal-mart, and we can discuss whether we should worry about people who strip, act, or pose for that reason more than we worry about people who go into logging or fishing or mercury mining for the same reason. And, yes, we can still have arguments about what looking a pictures and movies of naked people, or people having sex, or people having degrading sex does to the people who look, and whether we can do anything about that, or whether we should do anything about it. But it seems to me that the first things come first, and before we tackle any of the other issues, it makes sense to make sure that we take the most basic measures to assert the human rights of people who perform in pornography, and to insist on doing so first.
And, because our posts crossed, what Trinity said.
Faith:
My porn and misogyny posts are pretty goods ones; actually (IMHO), glad you found them insightful.
And yep, I’ve referred to myself as a professional object and being used…but I’m a weird cat, we both know that, in so much as that IS my actual kink- but it does not extend into my daily life and context sure as heck is important. Other sex workers/porn people I know? They don’t share my wiring-at all-in fact; to some it’s abhorrent. I mention the term use on the whole, not just for me specifically.
As for porn in crowds/ mixed company…most of the clubs or parties I go to, there is porn on the TV…but I run with an odd crowd.
What Trinity said here: “Yes, some women do like treatment that can look violent”…raises hand. Like to give it in return too. And?
And yes, “Pirates”, a non-gonzo non-bdsm film is the highest grossing porn movie Of All Time, Ever, and its similar themed sequel is the most pre-ordered porn film of all time.
I’m going to post a video blog entry on porn and whatnot later this evening (oddly enough, I just got home from work, making porn) and some of it is basic shop talk, some of it, well, stuff that, as a porn performer, annoys me. Feel free to watch it if you want, even engage…..I won’t bite anyones head off in comments, not allow head bitting in general.
Elizabeth,
Then let me ask you one more time: what in the world does “seeking abuse” mean?
I’m not the only one who didn’t understand it.
“I start from the position that everyone, including models, actors, and other people who make pornography, shares a common humanity and deserves a basic level of respect and protection.”
Yes, THIS… and really, even if we do know that someone is involved in porn or BDSM or anything else because she feels she doesn’t deserve better, the solution isn’t to avoid watching films she’s already made, it’s to help her get out, or to help her assert herself and do work she’s OK with or likes. And I think that helping, too, has to come from a place of respect. It’s only by respecting someone as an individual with a life all her own that we can ever help anyone.
Trinity, if you can find the time read a book called “Nine and a Half Weeks” by Elizabeth McNeill. It is well written and delves into the psyche of a woman who seeks abuse.
Elizabeth,
I probably won’t read that one, as the movie disgusted me completely and utterly. But maybe the book is better at explaining why any of that relationship even happened the way it did, I don’t know. But yeah, as the film was the stupidest nonsense I’ve ever seen, I think I’ll pass on a few hundred pages more.
Movies are usually entirely different from books, sometimes to a point beyond comparison. At any rate, at least your curiosity is satisfied.
I am bemused by the notion of pornography-consumption as an “addiction”?
What are the withdrawal symptoms: are they physical - jittery nerves, hot-and-cold flushes, hallucinations and the like; or are they purely psychological - anxiety, desperation, a sense that a life without porn is meaningless?
If there are no withdrawal symptoms, however, I suggest that the word “addiction” should not be applied to porn-consumption and that the latter would be better described as a compulsion or, better still, a habit of which one is sometimes ashamed.
“People do not seek to be socially isolated, seek to be verbally belittled for disagreeing with someone who wants control over them, seek to be kept in line with threats of intimidation. They do not seek to be coerced into doing things they don’t want.”
Actually, Trinity, unfortunately I’d have to disagree with you there and agree with Elizabeth. Some women do unconsciously seek out abusive partners due to a previous history of past abuse, particularly women who have been abused as children. This does not mean that the woman is “asking for it” or actually truly deeply “wants” it. It is a very deep psychological dysfunction caused by her previous abuser. It doesn’t make the abuse acceptable, nor does it make women naturally masochistic as some men would like to believe. Abuse is always and forever WRONG.
“and really, even if we do know that someone is involved in porn or BDSM or anything else because she feels she doesn’t deserve better, the solution isn’t to avoid watching films she’s already made, it’s to help her get out, or to help her assert herself and do work she’s OK with or likes.”
The solution is to do BOTH of those things.
Tom, trust me — addiction is primarily about the way in which the brain gets wired to respond to a stimulus, and the pyschological and physical panic that result when withdraweal happens. Read the work of psychologist Pat Carnes, whose writing was enormously helpful to me in my recovery.
Going out on a limb and slight tangent here…
The reliving cycles of abuse thing, or ending up in less than ideal situations wrts to jobs or partners is not a uniquely female condition…it happens with men as well. There is always, within any discussion about porn or sex work in general, an utter lack of focus on men. And this is not to say “what about the men”, but rather to ask WHY, in these conversations, is it assumed that men can be in porn, be involved in BDSM as submissives, be subject to “activities which appear violent” and their participation in such things rates a big fat nothing…they’ve made a choice, yet if it is a woman, suddenly, game on, we must examine! And people can talk patriarchy all they want, but a common theme is “patriarchy affects men too”…so I am not sure why with a man, it seems to be a choice, but with a woman, it’s a “choice”(?)
If a man chooses to get tied up and flogged in his private life or on film, that usually rates a “meh”. If a woman does it…oh gads…ISSUES! If a man prefers to tie someone else up and flog them in his private life or on film, wooo…
sadopatriarchyfootsoldiersomething. If a woman does it…oh gods…internalized something something ISSUES!
Why the double standard?
Hugo-
You must be psychic. Trinity, myself and others were just discussing Carnes. I’m glad he was helpful to you, but…woah.
Question- porn addiction…is it the porn itself, or is the usage of porn a sign of something deeper / indicator of other things going on?
Carnes’s solutions are problematic — his description of the problem, vivid and comforting. Addiction is always a complex interplay of forces; as the old AA book puts it, it’s “an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind”.
Since most addicts who start recovering find that the “disease moves laterally”, it seems likely most of us have some sort of organic/psychologically acquired illness. Porn is not to blame, any more than alcohol is to blame for alcoholism or gyms are to blame for exercise addiction or football is to blame for gambling addiction. (I never got the gambling addiction, praise God. It’s the only major one I dodged!)
My dad is a (recovering) gambling addict…it’s all about the rush, apparently.
Hey Elizabeth and Trinity!
I am a woman who has sought abuse in the past!! and it was only on realising what I was doing, stopping and working through constructively that I could start to break free. I was sexually abused as a child, violently, and that effected my choices of men and my sexuality for many, many years - it still does because you can never escape the influence of what happened to you and your healing process. So glad someone (Elizabeth) around here will talk about this and how it impacts on so many men and women. Trinity, what Elizabeth is describing is very, very real. I have seen it i myself and many women along my journey of therapy groups (sorry I can’t talk about men these groups are single sex). Injuries to the soul are just that, and they make people go on repeating those injuries, sometimes for a life time and very often without people being aware of why they keep walking into abusive situations. And that is most definitely not saying they are asking for it (something I have been accused of on this site before). It’s more like saying if potential for abuse is there then the injured soul (not the person’s mind) will think abuse is what it deserves and that its role is to facilitate the abuser. It happens to the best and nicest people.
Matey,
What do you mean by “sought abuse?” Do you mean that you asked for beatings or insults, or what? Because that just plain doesn’t make sense to me. I can see someone thinking that she doesn’t deserve better, but I can’t imagine people going “hey, you know, I really miss that guy who molested me, how can I find people who resemble him?” So what is it? What is attractive about an abusive personality?
For me, the one time I was in a relationship with someone who was abusive, what attracted me was not the person’s abusiveness, but a kind of charisma. The person was, during good periods, constantly telling me how sexy I was, how exciting being with me was, just how wonderful I was over and over. It was so refreshing to be called fantastic and wonderful that I ate it up, and when the person started acting out of proportion nasty to me during bad times, I wrote it off, because I figured that the “you’re the most wonderful person ever” stuff was the real opinion, and the snarly belittling was just “a bad day” or whatever.
So “seeking abuse” doesn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t revel in the person calling me names or risking my safety. I didn’t revel in threats and attacks. I reveled in “I see you walk in, and I’m amazed how sexy you are and I can’t contain it. I’m lucky to be around you.”
The problem was that the thing I reveled in was either a lie, a tactic for control, or just some weird thing whereby my partner sprang from idealizing me totally to thinking I was a worm. I didn’t go looking for the meanness, I fell in love with the flattery!
Hugo:
I haven’t read any of Carnes’ books, but can you tell me what you mean by his “description of the problem?” Because from what I’ve seen of the way he “describes the problem,” there’s an awful lot of pathologizing of people like me:
http://trinityva.livejournal.com/896400.html?thread=5280144#t5280144
A large glut of that test is basically pathologizing sexual behavior and desires that go against monogamous vanilla heteronormativity. That’s really worrisome to me.
I don’t doubt that there are people for whom nonmonogamy is a soulless compulsion, or SM is an endless spiraling need for a more intense high, or the like. But I have to say that having spent most of my life around or in those communities, the vast majority of people are pretty darned normal. I think there’s a serious problem when these things, rather than an unhealthy attitude toward them, are seen to be signs of addiction, full stop.
I think what Renegade is saying about men and the reliving of abuse is really interesting and spot on in terms of an inequality in discourses on that subject. Perhaps if more men who have suffered abuse felt able to speak out they could talk about the long term effects their experiences have on them and their sexualities. I’ve known at least two and from where I was sitting the effects were pretty devastating, but don’t feel I can speak for them.
And I am not ‘infantilising’ women or putting them in a ‘victim’ role in my views above, far from it. And I certainly don’t feel that way if someone makes those observations about the kind of behavious I have been involved in. Reliving is a way of surviving and making sense of what happened and we do that the best way we can. Like a safety valve it stems pressure which may otherwise dangerously explode. I think maybe it’s just a shame that porn use or worse (options which compound past danger or represent new danger) is so often the only option available to survivors.
I’m not saying all porn is bad, just that I think, sadly, alot of it is a result of these processes and I think it can be very destructive indeed because it runs on the currency of abuse.
I just keep clear of all porn because to me it seems soulless and empty and those are feelings I have had quite enough of. I also can’t see why anyone would need it.
Carnes nailed me — and of course, I read him at a time when I was first willing to acknowledge my sexual compulsivness (1995, I think). And of course, I identified less with his checklists than with his descriptions of the feelings an addict had. Yes, I engaged in non-monogamous promiscuity, but I also felt the same compulsive feelings inside of “vanilla” heterosexual relationships. I treated sex compulsively whether it was in the missionary position with my second wife or with four strangers in a hotel room. It wasn’t the act itself and it wasn’t the presence or absence of commitment that made the sex “feel” addictive. It was me.
“what I don’t get to see — in as obvious a way –are folks (men in particular) whose relationship to porn has no negative impact upon their lives.”
I’m right here! For me, porn has had a definite positive impact on my life, and my use of porn has had a positive impact on those around me.
But, I might suggest that the reason why you actually get to see the responsible alcohol/meds users, and not the responsible porn users, is because society still has this fucked-up attitude towards sexuality in general, and towards depictions of sexuality (i.e. porn) specifically, whereas medication and alcohol are widely accepted - heck, alcohol abuse is still too widely accepted in many cultures!
One final thing - I see further down the thread that BDSM/gonzo porn gets mentioned. I just want to make it absolutely clear that the porn that I have found beneficial in my life has been bondage or sadomasochistic porn.
Hugo,
Fair enough. I don’t mean at all to suggest that you, or anyone else, weren’t sexually unhealthy. I’m just saying that, looking from the outside in, it sure seems like there’s an awful lot of castigating people for being perverts in that movement. It seems to me there’s got to be a more productive way of talking about what addiction is, how compulsion is damaging, etc., without that being a discussion of what you do and without things outside the norm being automatic markers of a problem.
On the “seeking abuse” thing:
A thread at my place about it.
Hopefully this should explain that I’m not saying that some survivors don’t fall into bad patterns, and am only saying that calling falling into bad patterns “seeking abuse” strikes me as totally wrongheaded.
“So “seeking abuse” doesn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t revel in the person calling me names or risking my safety. I didn’t revel in threats and attacks.”
Trinity,
I’d respond further, but I’m not sure that it’s truly appropriate on this thread. I’m also not comfortable commenting at your place. Suffice it to say, there is an abundance of information out there on the psychology of abuse victims and the different manners in which they -unconsciously- seek out abusive partners (and, yes, even consensual SM relationships) if you wish to learn more about the matter.
I just received a link to this site in my inbox: