The only trouble you may encounter is that Gail Dines loves the sound of her own voice and she hates everyone else's. It wasn't long into the program when she quoted some statistic or other and sealed it off with the words, "It's not up for discussion." To her credit, Leslie Cannold managed to hold in the majority of her frustration as she leaned forward and said, "Well I'm sorry, but this is a discussion", before brilliantly crushing Dines' definitive declaration.
It is thankfully rare, but you will still meet the occasional feminist who does nothing but damage to the entire women's rights movement. Dines believes we should literally sue the pornography industry for cultural damages. She thinks that rather than holding SlutWalks, we should avoid the scary word and instead hold "Perp Walks" to spread the "rapists cause rape" message. I don't think there's a human being in the world who wouldn't say she's missed the fucking point.
But to say that all pornography is damaging to society, as Dines does, is more than missing the point. It's pure and simple ignorance, is what it is.
Dines has made a career out of watching boring commercial pornography. She seems to deal only with paid-viewing porn, and she seeks out the violent and degrading pockets of pornographic material in which surgically-enhanced women are mistreated by generic fellas with big reliable penises. Which, if nothing else, is desperately heteronormative thankyouverymuch. Quite frankly, I don't give a shit about that stuff. It's pretty sad to hear about the women who work in porn two or three years before suffering anal prolapse because they've been banged up the arse too many times, but look, that's their own damned problem. If you don't want to receive anal sex, don't consent to it. This shit is only damaging if we let it damage us. The fact is, the more agency women have in their sex lives, the more power they have to say "Haayall no, you not stickin' that in there."
Further to that, porn itself is one of the pathways by which women are gaining agency. It's not just men in overcoats watching this stuff any more. Women mightn't use porn in such numbers as men, but they do watch it. And the less prudish and clueless they are about sex, the more free they are to be clear about what they do and don't want.
Speaking of what people want, I feel I must quote the great xkcd:
Clearly Dines either hasn't heard this one, or is at least pretending she hasn't. There is porn for all your needs. You like fatties? We got fatties. You like milfs? We got milfs. You want twins? Twinkie boys? Tiny titties? Big ladybush? Close encounters with Bigfoot? Senior administrative nurses? Name your poison, cos we got it covered. Most of this is stuff you will never get the opportunity to try in real life. That's why it's precious. It's human expression, for better or worse. It's part of us. And it's only getting more diverse. Beautiful - in an occasionally disturbing kind of way.
The fact is, pornography only dictates your sex life if you never actually have sex. I've spoken to men who profess to only like thin girls with big tits. Those men are VIRGINS. They are not acquainted with female anatomy. They do not yet know that most thin girls with big tits have surgery scars and ribs like a xylophone, because you can't see that shit in commercial porn.
To anyone who thinks porn is doing damage to society, I say: sex is natural, sweetheart. Go have some. You'll feel better.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I've got the conch!