Via Jezebel, I see that Violet Blue has written an essay about why women don’t watch more porn that shades into pressuring women who don’t to feel bad about it, as if not enjoying a genre made mostly by men mostly for men makes you a prude. I know that’s not her intention, and maybe it’s just my mood, but I wasn’t really persuaded by her piece, because she breezed over the hard questions, choosing instead to make women who are turned off by porn feel bad about it, like they’re brainwashed by messages about how women are asexual. Continuing to beat back the slim and vanishing minority of feminists who think that non-misogynist porn is impossible is a strategy that’s increasingly reading like a strawman to me, especially when I read stuff like this:
I’ve also heard, plenty of times, that porn degrades women. That argument always makes me wonder about gay male porn, which lots of women appreciate for all its hunky hotties in flagrante. If heterosexual porn degrades women, does gay porn degrade men? What about porn made by women—is that degrading, too?
Why does she think that straight women watch gay porn? Or that there’s a tiny but growing market for feminist porn, enough that there’s an awards show for it? The popularity of gay porn and the growing market for feminist porn aren’t evidence that porn isn’t misogynist, but evidence that women (and straight men who are the main audience for straight feminist porn) are so turned off by the sexism they see in mainstream porn that they seek alternatives. Or some women do, and others just flip off the computer and find other ways to fantasize. The proliferation of alternatives doesn’t do anything to counter the argument that porn degrades women, it seems. It just creates a space to say that it doesn’t necessarily degrade women, which is a statement of possibility, not an observation of what’s really out there.
But women are very capable of avoiding stuff that’s brutally misogynist and indulging stuff that’s sexist, but not so bad that they can’t compartmentalize and enjoy it. That’s true of Hollywood films, music, and I’d argue, in porn. Contrary to what Violet says about the cheesiness and costumes, my experience is that stuff tends to proliferate in porn that’s aimed more for the “couples” audience, and it often is there to signal that this is all in good fun, and viewers won’t be subjected to scenes with violent overtones or name-calling. But even with the availability of stuff that you can kind of guess won’t be overtly misogynist, women still don’t consume as much. Why?
On one hand, that’s like asking why men don’t read more romance novels. You can usually tell when you’re in the intended audience, you know. Women aren’t stupid. But actually, something Violet said got me thinking.
And yet in my research and experience, the biggest roadblock for women (and men) to enjoying explicit imagery is the fear that they don’t “stack up” to the bodies and abilities of the people onscreen. Erotic models and actresses bring up a whole range of adequacy issues, from breast size to weight, from what you look like “down there” to the adult acne we all periodically fight.