Dear Not,
I just don’t know what people expect when they wrench someone’s computerized pate open and start poking around Dr. Penfield-style in their bookmarks. On the upshot, I guess it’s a good thing you found out your ex-boyfriend’s a bit of an inflexible hotheaded homophobe before you asked him to gob on a frozen fish stick and shove it up your ass, right?
I speak from experience when I say I understand what it’s like being a socially attentive woman into profoundly freaky shit. Oh and here’s why I think you like this kind of porn: it appears to be non-consensual, making it thrillingly taboo. I have found now that it’s so widely available my tastes have begun to shift in an oddly restrained direction. I was watching a film from the ’40s last night and the contour of a woman’s breast through a virtuous little blouse gave me quite a tingle. What do you think of the women on the other end of these images? Does a woman’s willing and profitable cooperation in depictions of sexual degradation make her a misogynist? Porn performers are a varied bunch and as individuals have diverse sociopolitical viewpoints—including none at all—but the bottom line to me is consent, and that’s complex too. Even if the woman involved in its creation is not enjoying herself right then and there (it is a job after all, and most jobs suck), she was not dragged to set and forced to gag down eight huge cocks and if she was, well that’s illegal. If that sort of stuff worries you, then visit sites like www.naughtyalysha.com and www.sexycouple.com, where you have women who are not only fully responsible for their debasing self-depictions, they alone prosper from them and they seem to very much enjoy this kind of play even when the cameras aren’t rolling.
These things considered, I’m hard-pressed to call everyone who appreciates images of women who willingly and zestfully expose themselves this way for riches and pleasure a misogynist, nor could I freely call those on the other end of the transaction misogynists. To me, the mere act of participating as a purveyor or patron of extreme sex imagery does not provide adequate corroboration. Some people might actually argue the more misogynist attitude comes from your exboyfriend who without consent exposed a woman’s innermost desires then flung disapproving epithets at her.
It’s undeniable that the popularity of hardcore sex acts in porn often involves a lot of hiding of heads in sand and decisions based on increased recompense. Demand does inform choices, as it does in all kinds of labour situations. Still, even people involved in the most mundane pornography can be extremely politically and socially conservative. It’s not simple. Neither is desire. We all have our kooky things that get us juicy, NAM, it’s when we can’t separate them from reality or we force our will on people without their consent that we should start worrying.
