Kittens, I am so excited to introduce this cross-post to you. The Fornicating Feminists are a group of Smith College students running a very new, very kick-ass community blog about “our recent musings on sexual encounters in college.” From their mission statement:
Our mission is to examine the gender dynamics in the sexual milieu of college life and reclaim female sexuality to be equivalent (although not identical) to male sexuality.
We hope that this will be a positive forum for women to discuss sexual issues. Our main goal is to have fun!
Not to mention, the concept of sex in this porno was so limited and mechanical – what do you even need another person there for? There was no human connection whatsoever, which as I’ve said before, is the part of sex that appeals to me most and provides the most fun and pleasure. To not even have the actors’ bodies connecting – except where a camera can view them slamming into each other – was bizarre and disconcerting. Is this really a normalized vision of what sex is?
I was surprised. I didn’t expect to love, or even like porn, but I also didn’t expect it to make me never want to have sex again. Probably that won’t last, but seeing porn for the first time was a HUGE turn off for me. All I could think (aside from, GROSS) was, “Is this really what guys are expecting? Is THAT what I’m supposed to do? And if so, I have probably been a huge disappointment to every partner I’ve ever had. I’m boring and not at all sexy and never will be.”
Now, I know this is not true. I don’t have any desire to be with someone who can’t appreciate my individual appeal, and I was proud that the next thought to cross my mind was, “Damn, no wonder so few guys have managed to give me an orgasm, if this is their instruction manual. That would never work for me, and that’s their problem, not mine.”
Other thoughts, anyone?
Lots of Love,
The Librarian
Great topic!! I wish more people were writing about porn. There’s so much to say…
I’ve talked with a lot of guys about porn, and most of them swear that they’re not into that “plastic” looking stuff, or that they’ve watched a wide variety of porn.
But what about women who watch porn? I wish someone would do some research. What bothers me most is how much I LIKE porn. I wish I was disgusted by it. Instead, I totally disagree with the type of sex being had, and find it offensive, but it still turns me on. Annoying as hell.
I go to Smith with these women, and comment on their posts, which is what led me to this. Some of this comment draws from previous comments I have left on Fornicating Feminists.
I think that, as I have mentioned in comments at FF, that when we consider pornography and feminism we must consider how pornography and the sexuality it presents is a direct product of the male gaze. The female sexuality it shows is not female sexuality in its natural state; it is a performative, shallow kind of sexuality that conforms to the male conceptualization of female sexuality. Feminist pornography cannot exist because it simply reinforces the cultural ideal of female sexuality as something to be viewed through a lens, separate from the emotions of the viewer.
Women are conditioned to see our sexuality in the same way that men view it; think also of how women’s bodies are used to sell anything from alcohol to shoes. The male body is powerful or funny, but the female body is merely “fuckable,” a sexual designation defined and controlled by the male gaze. Female-controlled pornography cannot be feminist for it too plays into these very same desires – the erotic charge of performance.
I am against this conceptualization of female sexuality. I am against the commodification of human sexuality and desire. There are huge elements of privilege at play in pornography, but if a system exists in which oppression is possible – the violence against women found in so much male-directed pornography, for example – then this system must be destroyed.