Is this the price for good behavior?
A long time ago, back when I was much more invested in the feminist blogosphere than I am now, I and several other awesome people critiqued a particularly propagandistic and creepy anti-porn "documentary" called The Price of Pleasure. Well, Renegade Evolution recently noticed something and posted about it:
Wow, how did I know Gail Dines and Robert Jensen were lying sacks of shit? Oh yeah, their lips were moving! Remember WAAY back when Stop Porn Culture promised the world That their Fair and Unbiased “documentary” THe Price of Pleasure was NOT for Profit, NOT for entertainment, and ONLY for educational use???? Huh. Then why is the fucking thing in my Net Flix Insta Watch Choices???? Nah, no profit motives there, eh?
I don't really have a comment on it being on Netflix other than that I wouldn't put profit motive past these creeps at all, and I've pretty much said all I have to say about the content of TPoP elsewhere (really, click the link... you'll find more than you ever need to know about my opinion of the bullshit), but I did think of something, seeing her post, that I hadn't before, so I thought I'd mention it...
I've been recently reading a few books about brainwashing techniques, deception and liespotting, and the like. And with eyes opened from doing a bit of that research, I took another look at that title, and marveled that I hadn't thought of it consciously before. Let's look at that:
The Price of Pleasure
What does that say? It doesn't say "The Harm of Pornography." It tells us something has a price. What does it say has a price? Not porn watching. Not "porn culture" (another term I've seen some anti-porners like to use.) Not unrealistic social ideas about sex and sexuality. Not rape culture. Not porn itself. Not acting in porn. Not watching too much porn, or even watching any porn at all.
What has a price?
Pleasure.
Period. Full stop. Pleasure itself has a price. If we're being extremely generous, knowing the topic is pornography, we might grant them the freebie that this can be narrowed down to the sexual kind of pleasure.
But look at what that still turns out to claim, or at least to strongly imply: Sexual pleasure comes with a price.
I don't think that implication is an accident. It may or may not be conscious; having paid way too much attention to these people than they deserve before, I think some of them might claim there's another kind of sexuality that's at least possible, and that that kind of pleasure passes muster. But whether it's an intended implication or a word-oops, I do think it says something.
And what it says, I think, is something like: "You can't have pleasure until the way you get it doesn't hurt people." And that's got some black magic in it.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable. No one wants to exploit others, and no one but a real creep wants to get off on other people's real exploitation. (Some people who kink on humiliation might like the idea of it in fantasy, but that's different.) So it sounds reasonable to say, "Wait a bit to get your rocks off, Joe. Let's just handle this problem here and then you can go on and have your yays."
But the thing is, that's got a real whiff of mind-control tactic to it. The whole idea that someone can't have fun until they fix something is really damaging, whether it's the idea that they earn their fun by working to make the world better and have paid for their orgasm once they've worked hard enough or the idea that they have to teach themselves how to get off on something different than what they normally like and so earn the right to their pleasure.
Pleasure, sexual or not, is something basic that we need in order to function properly. It's true that the world and the others around us don't owe us pleasure simply because it sucks when we're sad. And yes, it's true that some pleasures are bad. Even if the pleasure of killing someone, say, is the most awesome thing ever, I don't deserve to feel it just because I should get to feel good sometimes.
But life should be peppered with small pleasures. We need that to be mentally healthy. And if we're not asexual, one of those pleasures our life should have in it, now and then, is sexual. That doesn't mean other people owe us sex, no, or even owe us smut or porn. But it does mean we should get to enjoy not just consensual sex when we get it, but also sexual fantasy and sexual thoughts that we might have. We get to have fantasies, and we should get to have them without destructive guilt.
Saying that pleasure itself has a price is priming people to give up their mental health for your grand Cause.
And that's not okay. Presuming that these people are right about what's good (and I think they're not, but that's a different topic):
Being Good is great. Sacrificing your mental health for an impossible standard of Goodness is not. And that's what these people are asking others to do.
And that's not okay. That's dangerous. That's emotionally violent.
And that's the harm. These people appoint themselves The Good Guys, and humans being perfectly normal and having thoughts and feelings becomes Bad.
Well, you know what?
Fuck the Good Guys, if that's what the Good Guys have in mind.
Wow, how did I know Gail Dines and Robert Jensen were lying sacks of shit? Oh yeah, their lips were moving! Remember WAAY back when Stop Porn Culture promised the world That their Fair and Unbiased “documentary” THe Price of Pleasure was NOT for Profit, NOT for entertainment, and ONLY for educational use???? Huh. Then why is the fucking thing in my Net Flix Insta Watch Choices???? Nah, no profit motives there, eh?
I don't really have a comment on it being on Netflix other than that I wouldn't put profit motive past these creeps at all, and I've pretty much said all I have to say about the content of TPoP elsewhere (really, click the link... you'll find more than you ever need to know about my opinion of the bullshit), but I did think of something, seeing her post, that I hadn't before, so I thought I'd mention it...
I've been recently reading a few books about brainwashing techniques, deception and liespotting, and the like. And with eyes opened from doing a bit of that research, I took another look at that title, and marveled that I hadn't thought of it consciously before. Let's look at that:
The Price of Pleasure
What does that say? It doesn't say "The Harm of Pornography." It tells us something has a price. What does it say has a price? Not porn watching. Not "porn culture" (another term I've seen some anti-porners like to use.) Not unrealistic social ideas about sex and sexuality. Not rape culture. Not porn itself. Not acting in porn. Not watching too much porn, or even watching any porn at all.
What has a price?
Pleasure.
Period. Full stop. Pleasure itself has a price. If we're being extremely generous, knowing the topic is pornography, we might grant them the freebie that this can be narrowed down to the sexual kind of pleasure.
But look at what that still turns out to claim, or at least to strongly imply: Sexual pleasure comes with a price.
I don't think that implication is an accident. It may or may not be conscious; having paid way too much attention to these people than they deserve before, I think some of them might claim there's another kind of sexuality that's at least possible, and that that kind of pleasure passes muster. But whether it's an intended implication or a word-oops, I do think it says something.
And what it says, I think, is something like: "You can't have pleasure until the way you get it doesn't hurt people." And that's got some black magic in it.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable. No one wants to exploit others, and no one but a real creep wants to get off on other people's real exploitation. (Some people who kink on humiliation might like the idea of it in fantasy, but that's different.) So it sounds reasonable to say, "Wait a bit to get your rocks off, Joe. Let's just handle this problem here and then you can go on and have your yays."
But the thing is, that's got a real whiff of mind-control tactic to it. The whole idea that someone can't have fun until they fix something is really damaging, whether it's the idea that they earn their fun by working to make the world better and have paid for their orgasm once they've worked hard enough or the idea that they have to teach themselves how to get off on something different than what they normally like and so earn the right to their pleasure.
Pleasure, sexual or not, is something basic that we need in order to function properly. It's true that the world and the others around us don't owe us pleasure simply because it sucks when we're sad. And yes, it's true that some pleasures are bad. Even if the pleasure of killing someone, say, is the most awesome thing ever, I don't deserve to feel it just because I should get to feel good sometimes.
But life should be peppered with small pleasures. We need that to be mentally healthy. And if we're not asexual, one of those pleasures our life should have in it, now and then, is sexual. That doesn't mean other people owe us sex, no, or even owe us smut or porn. But it does mean we should get to enjoy not just consensual sex when we get it, but also sexual fantasy and sexual thoughts that we might have. We get to have fantasies, and we should get to have them without destructive guilt.
Saying that pleasure itself has a price is priming people to give up their mental health for your grand Cause.
And that's not okay. Presuming that these people are right about what's good (and I think they're not, but that's a different topic):
Being Good is great. Sacrificing your mental health for an impossible standard of Goodness is not. And that's what these people are asking others to do.
And that's not okay. That's dangerous. That's emotionally violent.
And that's the harm. These people appoint themselves The Good Guys, and humans being perfectly normal and having thoughts and feelings becomes Bad.
Well, you know what?
Fuck the Good Guys, if that's what the Good Guys have in mind.
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