Once, not even that long ago, I was a total moron and posted something on my older, stupider blog, like
i *heart* porn! and then listed a bunch of half-assed, ill-informed reasons why.
I really don't know who the fuck I was kidding though, because I remember watching porn regularly with my then boyfriend and frequently feeling incredibly sad, hurt, inadequate, and scared. But rather than voice any of those feelings, I just kept announcing
i *heart* porn! like it was some badge of honor and proof that I was a totally "cool" and "open-minded" chick.
I did everything I could to convince myself that porn was great and feminist and empowerful and that only ignorant prudes couldn't handle it. Sadly, I fell for it for far longer than I care to admit. I even had an
I *heart* Porn! lighter that I'd received from a friend's husband which I sported proudly at every happy hour. I was such the asshole.
Needless to say, the lighter and the friends and I have long since parted company.
As my feminism has evolved and I've become more involved in the movement to end violence against women, my views on pornography have evolved as well. I've listened to women's stories, become better informed, and with that knowledge comes responsibility. I've since gone from
*hearting* it to
HATING it, and here's why:
Once she started giving her own answers to questions and trying to explain her years of coercion, she discovered that reporters were reluctant to rush into print. Her story was depressing, not glamorous or titillating at all. Because she had been passed around like a sexual trading coin, sometimes to men who were famous, there was also fear of lawsuits.
Only in 1978, when she was interviewed by Mike McGrady, a respected newspaper reporter on Long Island where she had moved with her new husband, did her story begin the long process of reaching the public. McGrady believed her. In order to convince publishers, he also put he through an eleven-hour lie-detector test with the former chief polygraphist of the New York district attorney's office, a test that included great detail and brutal cross-questioning. But even with those results and with McGrady himself as a collaborator, several major book publishers turned down the manuscript.[...]
One wonders: Would a male political prisoner or hostage telling a similar story have been so disbelieved? Ordeal attacks the myth of female masochism that insists women enjoy sexual domination and even pain, but prostitution and pornography are big businesses built on that myth. When challenged about her inability to escape earlier, Linda wrote: "I can understand why some people have such trouble accepting the truth. When I was younger, when I heard about a woman being raped, my secret feeling was that could never happen to me, I would never permit it to happen. Now I realize that can be about as meaningful as saying I won't permit an avalanche."
The Real Linda Lovelace - By Gloria Steinem
Excerpt From Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography
Awhile back, I wrote a letter to the editors at
Bitch about Linda Boreman's story which they never published*. It was in response to an article they'd published highlighting the empowerfulness of sex work and neglecting to note the dangerous, enslavery side of it. The article made note of
Deep Throat being the highest grossing porn film of all time, but didn't bother to mention that Linda Lovelace/Boreman said that anyone who watches that film is watching her rape.
Fancy that - a
feminist magazine failing to mention porn's connection to rape when they have an
actual, real-life example. They wouldn't want to bring anybody down or diminish sales by pointing out that a movie that millions of men have jerked off to
was the filmed rape and torture of a real, live, woman. Like Linda said,
"I just thank God today that they weren't making snuff movies back then."Another reason I hate porn is because of the people who thrive on it. Those pillars of society and beacons of women's liberation who search the 'net for such empowerful film subjects as "
free pics of hot incest", "
girls treated like dogs porn", "
shits in a girls mouth", "
free porn snuff videos", "
xxx incest free", "
father and daughter porn xxx pictures", "
girls pony sex porn", "
hot underage girls being raped pics free vids" and so on, all of which are actual search terms perverted fuckwads have used in the last 24 hours, disappointed I'm sure, to find my blog instead.
I wish more people would wake up to the reality of porn and realize what it is they're actually contributing to; that they're perpetuating the myth that women enjoy objectification, subordination, and abuse. They are
creating a demand for a product that
by it's very nature ensures that
thousands upon thousands of women and children will be raped, tortured, abused, and enslaved, world without end.
__________
* Interestingly, they published only one letter about the article and it was positive. They laughingly noted in the Letters to the Editor column how they'd expected to receive more negative feedback and had been surprised to get just the one positive letter. So I resubmitted my letter via email and post yet they still never published it. I'm not saying they were intentionally silencing dissenting voices or anything, but that's what it felt like.