HRAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!
If I see an ad on the internet featuring a photograph of a woman's torso, and only her torso, I look at what it's for. Generally, if it's for a porn site, I say, "Oh, porn," and go back to what I was doing. It's only when it's for a dating service that I begin to be upset.
If I'm watching TV and I see a woman being, say, chained up and bitten on the neck in a sexualized way--let's call her, for the sake of argument, Juanita Drake--I generally find it erotic and arousing. If I'm watching TV and I see a picture of a woman--let's call her Gena--tied to a cross and getting her legs broken, I'm generally horrified. (Let's be specific: I cringed.)
And what if that act is perpetrated by a man with whom she has previously been intimate? Does it become sexualized?
FUCK NO. KICK HIM IN THE GODDAMN BALLS, GENA!
Of course, she'll have to heal her legs first...
There is a difference between fantasy and reality; not to be obvious, but one's real, and the other isn't. And people know that one is not the other. There is a difference between eroticism and pornography; one is tasteful, the other isn't. But lack of taste is not the same as lack of merit. Both pornography and eroticism are useful if one wants to get off, and both are created towards that end.
These are two legs of my objection to the objection to pornography. Let's review that: In my opinion, porn? Is a good thing! It makes people happy, and if that's happy in the pants, well, at least it's *some* form of happy. So here's the three branches of my argument:
A) People are stupid, but they're not THAT stupid. Unless they're about five, they know that seeing it on TV does not mean it is realistic. Unless under the heavy influence of one or another substance, grown men do not try to jump off of building and fly like Superman; they do not try to set their own bones; they do not dress up in loincloths and try to wrestle lions.
If people are abusing their spouses, it's far less likely to be because a porno vid told them it was okay, than it is to be because their parents did so.
B) If you can't draw the line between porn and art, then it is morally reprehensible to try to ban one or the other. The people who work in the porn industry are still called actors and actresses; the people who write regency romances still call them sex scenes. What exactly is the difference between Anita Blake and Ron Jeremy? (Besides that Anita has more sex.) And if you can't tell the difference, then the idea of giving up the right to create one? Is the right to create *any*.
If you can't draw the line, don't try to black out one side of it.
C) WHO THE FUCK DECLARED THAT ONLY MEN COULD LIKE SEX? This is the one that really gets me, really gets me FUCKING PISSED OFF. I haven't really experienced that problem where my husband (or, in my case, boyfriend-with-whom-I-am-intimate) thinks I should do things I find disgusting because he saw them in a porno and liked the idea. I HAVE experienced that problem where I want it a lot rougher than pretty much anyone I'd be willing to date is willing to give it to me, though. I haven't had that problem where my BWWIAI's sex drive outstrips my own (until recently, and there was wonky medication involved in that one). I HAVE had the problem where mine outstrips his, though.
People look at porn and say, "It's targeted to men, so it degrades women's sexualities, and women in general." I look at porn and say, "Women's sexuality is degraded, so most porn is targeted to men." IF YOU FIX THE ONE, THE OTHER WILL FIX ITSELF.
I have spent significant amounts of time thinking about my sexuality, and why it is inclined toward the beat-me-up, take-me-over type sex. I have two main theories.
One is that I have very little sense of self-worth, so I need to feel valued; if my partner gets off, I have objective proof of value; most of the kinds of sex I like are focused on my partner getting off (while still not having it be boring for the non-get-off-er.)
The other is that I? Am fucking *lazy*. And also not that certain of myself with regards to reading other people, and not that good at coming up with new social ideas. (Witness my inability to have a date which does not involve food.) All of which leads to me feeling awkward as hell in the dominant position. "What do I do? I have, like, three ideas here; sooner or later, you're going to get bored, and while you're awefully pretty, this isn't really doing that much for me. Can I *please* go back to lying down and letting you do all the work?"
Our text for class, Martha Nussbaum's Sex and Social Justice, examines the concept of objectification, and points out that there are some forms of objectification which are positive.
I would add to that, that not all objectification is sexual in nature. What is the difference between sexual objectification, found in most pornos, and emotional objectification, found in most bodice rippers?
For that matter, what's the difference between the emotional objectification found in bodice rippers and the social objectification found in the 1950's housewife who felt she had to pick up a husband while at college? I haven't done the research, but I'm *sure* the average age at which American women get married has risen; since I doubt we've been miraculously falling in love later, we were probably getting married without being in love. Note, though, that marriages in those days tended to last longer than marriages do in these; there's something to be said for objectification.
I like my books. I really do. Nora Roberts, Mary Jo Putney, Amanda Quick and Jennifer Crusie all make my life a shinier, happier place. But let's look at this, shall we? Nora Roberts has that thing for the Irish; Putney has a thing for tall; Quick has a thing for hulking (which I must admit, I share) and Crusie has a thing for dark. Seriously; that's just what I've noticed reading through their books.
Let's be more specific; let's look at Jennifer Crusie, since I've been on a reading spree for her lately, and also since she's from my home state and I'm biased. (Disclaimer: They're really fabulous books. You should, at the very least, read Faking It regardless of your taste, and the one that came before it, Welcome to Temptation, if you're at all into romance novels.)
C. L. Sturgis is dark and brooding; Nick the-Mechanic-and-also-best-friend is dark and slim; Davy Dempsey is tall and dark; Gabe, bless his soul, is dark and also HUGE and also grumpy. We love them all, we really do, and Crusie does a really good job of making them into *characters* as well as figures... but all the same. Guy shows up, starts taking care of all of "her" troubles--whoever she is--, finds he really cares for her frequently more than she cares for him (she has to be convinced, usually via cunnilingus), likes her friends, likes her family, and eventually gives up everything he has--or at least the thing he values most--to be with her, because she's just that important to him.
Again, I love these books; but that level of emotional attractiveness is to the heroine of a romance novel is to the reader of a romance novel, as ridiculously high physical attractiveness is to the Invisidick in a porno is to the watcher of a porno: a ridiculously high expectation sweeps the protagonist off his feet, and leaves the consumer temporarily sated with what is clearly labeled a fantasy.
The dichotomy of those expectations--in men and porn, physical beauty, in women and romances, emotional beauty--with reality--physically and emotionally mediocre except in extreme cases--is NOT caused by the number of these films and books sold. Rather, so much of these films and books are sold BECAUSE that dichotomy is and was always going to be real.
What is healthy and necessary to feed our body is not necessarily what tastes good; that's why we have chocolate. But chocolate does not and can not feed our bodies, and to that end we have real food. If we eat more chocolate now, it's not because chocolate is advertised more, shown more, and available more; it's because of a more general cultural trend towards the satiation of "real" needs--"real" being in quotation marks to remind you that this is an analogy, not because the needs AREN'T real--with psychological needs.
Such as the need for an occasional sweety.
This post is not friendlocked, because I want people to respond. I want people to argue with me, to tell me I'm wrong; and I want people to argue with those people, and tell them they're wrong. I want discussion on the idea that women--gasp--can actually like sex! And I want it LOUD and I want it FURIOUS. Because I finally saw something that snapped me over the fucking edge.
Also, why does LJ's spell-checker have the plural of loincloth in its dictionary, but not the adjective "sexualized"?