The post title is seriously the only reaction I can muster to Naomi Wolf’s recent article “Is pornography driving men crazy?” Just “Oh, honey.” I mean, what else is there to say? Okay, you could do a thorough analysis of how badly Ms. Wolf is misunderstanding the brain chemistry involved, but first you’d have to get past the bemused head-shaking phase, and I’m just not there yet.
What baffles me the most about Ms. Wolf’s doubtless sincere and well-intentioned nonsensical horseshit is the assumption that pornography is something only men enjoy, and thus that “extreme” sexuality is also a male problem. I just… I literally can’t imagine where she’s getting her data, if it’s not prime-time sitcoms. Does Naomi Wolf not know more than, like, four women? Does she only know women who were raised in New Yorker cartoons?
To clarify, “extreme sexuality” means “any sex that Ward and June Cleaver weren’t having”, or alternately, “anything that would get you murdered on Law & Order: SVU“. Anything kinky, freaky, rough… any sex you can’t get advice for from Cosmopolitan. Naomi Wolf seems to honest-to-god believe that only men are into kinky sex, because only men like porn.
Oh, honey.
Oh, honey.
Ms. Wolf, do you know what a kinkmeme is? Do you know how strap-ons are selling these days? Do you know what M/M romance novels even are, much less who writes them? Have you read Katharine Gates? Or even Susie Bright? Or fucking Fandom!Secrets? What dusty antiquarian archive are you excavating your assumptions from, that you can sit there with what I presume to be an absolutely straight face and ask “Is pornography driving men crazy?” Every word in that question is based on a wrong assumption except for “is”. You don’t know what pornography is, who’s consuming it, how it’s affecting them, or what crazy is.
[Note to anyone using this post as a jumping-off place for their own research: if all you read is Fandom!Secrets, you will rapidly come to the conclusion that pornography is driving women crazy. This is sampling error; do more reading.]
@TitForTat: I’m one of the many fanfic writers who mostly goes on a kink meme. I’ve written an internet character getting raped, tortured, snuffed and humiliated in all kinds of ways because “everyone loves seeing him in pain”. But if I (or any of my fandom friends) were to see the actor in real life, I would squeal like the fangirl like I am and very shyly ask for one of his awesome hugs. Oh! And for added fourth wall breakage? *He knows about the fic and loves it.*
@titfortat hate to break it to you, but my stories about being “sexually murderous” are 1) physically impossible — we don’t have animals capable of swallowing people alive 2) they’re about animals, dammit! I refuse to believe in sentient animals getting the idea from my stories that I post NOWHERE. If someone is that concerned about a story, they can do like Charlie Sheen and call the MPAA. Or, you know, call someone actually useful, like the FBI. If you’re that concerned about things “being taken the wrong way” DON’T PUBLISH. Or supervise who gets your bloody comic. Like most… Read more »
@TitForTat: Two things:
1. No, it couldn’t. Why would it? There’s a lot of whip porn out there, and not that much gun porn; if you’re right murders involving whips ought to be way more common than they are.
2. Why would it be our fault if a not-so-stable individual does something? Is it the Beatles’ fault that Charles Manson read all that stuff into their songs?
@Cheradenine
That’s the great thing about life, we get to agree or disagree with each other. Thanks for your input.
@TItfortat, I disagree completely and utterly. Not only is freedom of expression important, but you’re fundamentally not responsible for the actions of an unstable person. Someone sufficiently dissociated from reality will find “encouragement” to act out violent behaviours from reading the phone book or a takeaway pizza menu. Someone in touch with reality, pretty much by definition, knows the difference between fact and fiction. There are no links demonstrated between pornography (“violent”/”perverse” or otherwise) and violent behaviour, despite many attempts to prove one. Quite the opposite, in fact. What correlates with actual instances of sexual violence? Repression and sex-negativity: [Researchers… Read more »
By the way, I feel the same way about some of the perverse violent imagery that is out there today.
@Cheradenine
Really, just a naughty story? What if the depraved content is about being sexually murderous? You dont think that could have an impact on a not so stable impressionable individual? I stand by my belief that some perverse things need to stay in your head and if they dont you could potentially be accountable if something happens because of them.
@TitforTat, uh, there’s a pretty huge gulf between “writing down a naughty story” (no matter how depraved the content) and “forming a murderous and/or mass-suicidal cult”.
If something stays in your head (or just goes on paper as a story or a drawing or whatever), it’s not harming anyone(DMB)
Sorry but its not staying in your head if it goes on paper. You can incite all kinds of stuff by revealing certain thoughts. It may not be you pulling the trigger but you sure as shit had a hand in it. Remember Charles Manson or Jim Jones?
Note to anyone using this post as a jumping-off place for their own research: if all you read is Fandom!Secrets, you will rapidly come to the conclusion that pornography is driving women crazy.
Congratulations, you nearly made me spit coffee on my keyboard with that one! 😀
@elissa, I firmly believe that people SHOULD depict things that cannot be done in real life. It provides a cathartic outlet for “Things That Are Bad” (TM). Those who cannot understand that reality is not fantasy, deserve to be punished. Personally, I find vore more disturbing, particularly as that seems actively hard-wired into people’s brains (particularly women). Non-consensual sex is instinctive (an evolved strategy), for many men (okay, less than a third of men. am Trying Not to overgeneralize 😉 ). This is not to say that it’s acceptable, just that it makes sense that people would be drawn to… Read more »
@Noah Brand Great example re: the new Australian laws, I’d totally forgotten that. And there’s the legal precedent that any item “depicting” a child is child porn… with a lack of clarity as to what exactly that entails.
The problem is that once someone’s cracked down on the “extreme” stuff, they start moving further and further into defining “extreme” until you arrive at the actual definition, which is “anything remotely non-vanillanormative.” Witness, for example, the Australian government’s recent declarations that female ejaculation is a myth and therefore an “extreme” fetish, and that the only people who like small breasts are pedophiles, so any image of small breasts is de facto child porn.
But I think we here can all agree that as long as no one’s getting hurt, whatever kinda porn floats your boat is cool.
I do agree.
Wanted to toss out the idea of violence as an exceptional case, and if anyone believes it requires special handling. Most, aside from those that are not comfortable with pornography period, can handle the sexual stuff. But many of the “most” are still quite horrified and squeamish when violence mixes in with sexuality. I don’t necessarily mean consensual BDSM portrayals, more the fake staged “reality” violence genre – faked non-consensual titillation. That seems like the harder sell, even to the choir.
People like Naomi always end up going there in the end.
elissa,
Do you want to ban Rei now? *cocks head* [sorry, that is a total strawman, but it was also my first rx] I believe what most people confuse is the idea of strengthening…. it’s more or less violent, more or less rapey, based on emotional content (at least in the context of the story. See George RR Martin’s Daenerys.) Sure, you Could put a ball gag in someone’s mouth… but that doesn’t “strengthen” the response, IMNSHO.
@elissa People who seek extremes, seek extremes. Whether it’s base-jumping or porn, certain personality types will be drawn to extreme things for what they are — but the cause is inside them, not in the porn, parachutes, pharmaceuticals or whatever.
I do agree with the general consensus that vanilla porn is not a gateway to snuff porn, and that it’s often an artifact of exploration as to what one settles in on, if at all, as that niche that best suits and fulfills that desire. I do think there may be a case to be made for violence in visuals, and how frequency and individual disposition could lead to the searching for greater degrees of that violence – though this could be said pretty much about any human activity. But sex and various forms of gratification do influence our pleasure… Read more »
@DMB, that’s a very good point. It often takes people a while to sift through and figure out what really turns them on and in some cases, wrestle with the implications of being honest with yourself (and possibly others) about your likes and dislikes. That’s usually a process of trial and error and life experience, plus a little introspection and self-awareness.
DMB
Exactly! I love me some peanut butter, just dont give me any crunchy stuff. Just plain old smooth peanut butter and lots of it. 😉
Thing is, I know someone who ran a porn shop. Nobody got habituated to nothing — they knew what they wanted, and they got it. And they were consistent about what they got. The person what wanted porn about people sneezing to orgasm — didn’t suddenly want bondage. Just had to say this made me laugh! And in my (admittedly more limited, anecdotal) experience, this is pretty true. People can sometimes grown into new desires, obviously, or be inspired to try something new by a new partner. But the idea that we are wired to get tired of what’s familiar?… Read more »
““Porn makes men require more extreme porn” Also not testable, unless you can satisfactorily operationalize “More extreme” as a variable. Gonna try here: “more extreme” means something that fewer people would recognize, at first glance, as being pornographic. Robot babies pissing oil in diapers. Extreme pictures of feet. Vore. Pictures of humans being dissected. Thing is, I know someone who ran a porn shop. Nobody got habituated to nothing — they knew what they wanted, and they got it. And they were consistent about what they got. The person what wanted porn about people sneezing to orgasm — didn’t suddenly… Read more »
Clarence; Ditto seeing nothing in the spam que, but I do have a few more things to say about your two other links. Firstly, I’m ignoring the fact that this particular blog seems to be really, really determined to think that all of the worlds social ills are caused by women, or will be caused by women, or sluts suck. My problem with the first link is that these studies focus entirely on women. Men, and what they may do that may lead to a divorce, is all but completely ignored. I have a problem with this, because it seems… Read more »
aliarasthedaydreamer: “I do think it’s possible to have a relationship with an activity that’s unhealthy, and feels like more commonly reported addictions. See: everyone who ever feels like a game is controlling their life and feels powerless to stop their relationships from suffering because of it. This kind of “addiction” might spring from some other lack of substance, but I don’t want to dismiss everyone who’s felt like they have a problem with [activity x].” There is definitely a distinction in the research and clinical communities between physical addiction (e.g., heroin) and psychological addiction (e.g., gambling), but some of the… Read more »
@trichquestions My apologies for any disrespect, there was none intended. I was using the phrase “patients” in the context of someone being diagnosed (and then treated) for a disorder in the DSM – the word choice was intended to point out how diagnosing someone (from a medical/ healthy normality model) labels them a “patient” or “ill,” not that that was the view I hold myself. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about the diagnostic/labelling/medicalisation issue is the power of the terminology used to potentially offend, ostracise or damage treatment outcomes. I think the DSM model of “healthy normality” (ie… Read more »
@Clarence: Hmm, nothing in the spam queue and nothing deleted…not sure what happened? :/
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