When a psychologist promoting her new book is interviewed by a Playmate for Playboy radio, she’s challenged to answer the question at the root of porn’s very existence.
I was recently interviewed at Playboy radio for my new book The Men on My Couch, True Stories of Sex, Love and Psychotherapy. I was at the end of a media blitz, and enjoying the lull of familiar questions like, “Why did you write this book?” and, “What do men secretly want?”
I had all of my talking points memorized. At this point, I could do an interview in my jammy pants, before my first cup of coffee, as happened one morning when I had forgotten about an interview. The phone rang and I rolled out of bed and answered with a groggy “H–ello” to a booming voice on the other end that replied, “Good morning! You’re live on the X Show.” Yet, I pulled that one off with the clarity and ease that only comes with rehearsal.
I arrived at the Playboy studio and took a seat on the red velvet couch beneath a giant razzmatazz silver bunny emblem. Across from me sat a ginger haired Playmate. “So, do you think Playboy is pornography?” she asked, snapping me right out of my soporific daze.
Whoa, I thought, this is a sassy question to ask a female writer. Does she want to have some kind of “Playmate vs. the feminist” rumble?
Truth be told, I’m delighted by impertinence but as much as I love a good debate, I didn’t want to insult this inveterate magazine, as I was obviously there to sell a product to their audience.
So, I mustered a vague answer, something along the lines of, “Well, it’s certainly not in the category of what most people now consume on the Internet that is referred to as pornography.” And then I mentioned my co-writer, David Rensin, a long-time contributing editor to Playboy, as if to say, look, I’m friendly to your kind. I thought I’d slipped past and perhaps now she’d give me a break and ask about one of the characters in my book.
His chest swells with the possibility that a soft, luxurious woman chooses him, says “yes” to all of his frustrated impulses. Indeed, this is objectification.
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“Do you think Playboy objectifies women?”
There’s no way around it, I thought. She’s gotta know I’m gonna say yes. I am in some kind of gauntlet—with a salty sex kitten.
I answered with a categorical “yes.”
Then, I qualified my yes. I told her that when I talk with my male clients about their porn viewing habits, I’m curious about their personal relationship with the images. Pornography, whether you are for or against it, serves a purpose. Yes, we know that men are visual and that their bodies respond with sexual excitation to images of nudity and sex. We all know about the response of the penis. In fact, studies show that both genders exhibit sexual arousal to all kinds of sexual imagery. Getting turned on is clearly a natural, non-pathological response. But as a psychologist, I’m also interested in the response of his psyche. What does the self experience and express during sexual titillation?
Pornography taps into the realm of human fantasy. What is the psychological function of any kind of fantasy? It’s the expression of subverted parts of self: a blank canvas onto which we paint the content of our unconscious—most notably fears and wishes.
I told the interviewer that I noticed two popular themes in the sexual fantasies of the men I’ve worked with: women devalued and women idealized. It is because these women are not the real, up-close women men actually know that something very interesting happens. The mental distance of fantasy provides both contact with—and space from—one’s emotions. Porn, art, Playboy: it all allows for projection to take place. The contents of that projection are often what needs the most attention. Projection is revelatory of our core disappointments and greatest hopes.
I told her that the vast majority of pornography on the Internet contains themes of devaluation. Images of cum shots, gagging, gang banging etc. are popular. If the human body responds to a large range of sexual stimuli, then why is this one particular dynamic so profitable? I think it’s sort of a release valve for the natural anxieties men have about women. What man hasn’t been rejected by a woman? Who hasn’t experienced performance anxiety or felt inferior compared to her past lovers or nervous about approaching a woman? Who wouldn’t like to just bypass all of that for a moment and get off unfettered by such trepidations? Porn that devalues, restores a man’s “right” to receive pleasure: the male is cast in the glorified position, and all sense of inferiority is projected onto the female. This is the psyche attempting to master anxiety through a mechanism called eroticization.
I didn’t go into this level of detail on the radio, but as I made a general statement about devaluation, the interviewer looked pleased. She nodded her head with exaggeration as I spoke, encouraging me to continue my explanation.
“The images of nude women in Playboy are idealized,” I continued. Why would a man need to spend time gazing at a faultless physical form, one that is probably different than the woman lying next to him at night? Perhaps there is a part of a man’s psyche searching to revere a symbol of womanhood: a modern Aphrodite, a goddess to worship. The gracefully posed pictures of nude women in Playboy can be the sacred vessel of a man’s wishes. This Goddess of Eros only smiles, or looks back at him with desirous eyes. For a moment, he won’t be let down. His chest swells with the possibility that a soft, luxurious woman chooses him, says “yes” to all of his frustrated impulses. Indeed, this is objectification. A “positive object,” I called it.
The Playmate looked pleased.
“But do you think Playboy is harmful to men’s perception of women?” she said, looking for more.
I explained why we have this polarity in our perception. Why do so many men have these tendencies to devalue and idealize? In psychology, we call this mental rending “splitting.” When we can’t handle the emotional complexities of another person, we begin to split them into easy categories. Bad. Good. Psychoanalysis has referred to this for a long time, often known as the good mother or the bad mother, the good breast or the bad breast.
We all feel the temptation to do this when we’ve been hurt. People tend to make generalizations when they’re scared. You know: men are assholes, women are bitches. This kind of thinking is dangerous. When my clients exhibit these beliefs, I look for that impulse to idealize as a lifeline. I want to access their hope, the hidden longing to adore.
Psychologists address this phenomenon of splitting by working toward what we call “integration.” This is the ability to hold onto the wish to view women as sacred in the face of an up-close reality: a woman with normal curves and breasts, and wrinkles and an edgy temper that at times, scolds and rejects. The real woman can be at once disappointing and hallowed. Merging these two concepts is difficult but is part of the foundation for a healthy relationship between the sexes.
The Playboy interview was one of my favorite publicity experiences. When it was over, the Playmate got up from behind her desk and untethered herself from a morass of wires to give me a big heartfelt hug. It was a real raucous conversation, and this real woman, Tiffany Granath, should be named, as she herself is certainly no object.
Read more on The Good Life: Are You Man Enough for Therapy?
Here is the problem with this article and pretty much every other one who tries to define what is okay and what is not with sex, usually porn; it tries to rationalize the hell out of something that is, by nature, irrational and carnal. It’s like trying to explain God, or humor, or art. Everyone has a different opinion of it, and even the same person’s perception on it can change over time. Sexual arousal is something that is felt, not thought. You can’t rationalize it. You can’t dissect it or you’ll kill it. I enjoy watching porn. I wrote… Read more »
A lot of the critique of objectification seems to be based on some very old and somewhat questionable assumptions. A lot of it reminds me of the old “Spirit vs. Flesh” dualism that has been such a huge part of Western culture, for better and for worse. (It’s ironic that so many feminists appear to be so close in agreement to Paul of Tarsus and Augustine of Hippo, men more frequently quoted today for their misogyny. Ought to make you think.) Some apparent assumptions: 1. Everything boils down to two sides, and there’s a big separation between the two sides.… Read more »
I guess my former comment to Archy was a little heavy on pointing out the categories on which most real-world dollars are spent… let’s see if the moderator get’s my connection between the way taboo behavior, and the inevitable way we are drawn to it, leads to a condition where shame is placed upon people. The human tendency to “objectively” qualify or create symbols to represent real things is at the heart of this good/bad black/white debate. There are 85 trillion or more shades of gray, but people argue about black v. white, because… why? Because it’s our nature. Likewise… Read more »
Erin, if you have known that our sexuality is scary, why can you just stop interacting with men sexually? I cannot understand it. Because from what I read, you really know about male sexuality. And you don’t like it because its so scary for you. So why do you keep talking about it? You don’t like our sexuality right? Just have sex with women because they don’t have our sexuality. End of problem. Because what you talk is MEN sexuality , not some men sexuality. You clearly have a knowledge of us as a GENDER, not as an individual. So… Read more »
Mike
Is that what you want? A porn industry that scares women so they give up men and choose another life style. Divorce and leave?
What will be left for men ? ONLY PORN.
I rather have my porn than have a woman that always scare from my sexuality. Luckily I have found special woman that accept me, emotionally and sexually. But if you cannot accept ANY men sexuality because its so scary and predatory, just have sex with angelic creatures name women right? Why danger yourself to have sex with disgusting, mean, predatory, scary, and threatening creatures like men?
“I rather have my porn than have a woman that always scare from my sexuality. Luckily I have found special woman that accept me, emotionally and sexually. But if you cannot accept ANY men sexuality because its so scary and predatory, just have sex with angelic creatures name women right? Why danger yourself to have sex with disgusting, mean, predatory, scary, and threatening creatures like men?” Amen, I’d rather jerk off to porn than have some control freak try shame my sexuality because it doesn’t suit her particular needs and she shows a misandrist view of the world in which… Read more »
“Is that what you want? A porn industry that scares women so they give up men and choose another life style. Divorce and leave? What will be left for men ? ONLY PORN.” Men are not a monolith. Not all men look at porn from the professional industry, not all men care that much about porn, not all men even desire porn. If the porn industry scares women away from men, then the problem lies solely with the woman for generalizing about men and quite frankly she doesn’t deserve to have a man because she’s misandrist n shallow. YOU CANNOT… Read more »
Archy Of course we can not understand men soly by looking at the porn industry. What we can do however is listen to men that tells us:” this is our fantasies. We had these fantasies long before porn existed.” I have read that in many comments in different threads in GMP. Men telling us that porn the way we see it online today is nothing else that what men fantazise when they mastrubate. If it is men’s fantasies to treat women like they are treated on LOTS and LOTS of porn in 2013 then that is scary. Very scary. But… Read more »
<Is that what you want? A porn industry that scares women so they give up men and choose another life style. Divorce and leave? There will be divorce and separation, with or without pornography. Most men are reconciled to this. Or at least they endure the divorce and separation without committing suicide or harming others. What will be left for men ? ONLY PORN. Is that supposed to be some kind of threat? Lots of men are reconciled with that lot as well. And even if this trend comes to predominate as you predict, it is not without precedent. For… Read more »
“Because what you talk is MEN sexuality , not some men sexuality. You clearly have a knowledge of us as a GENDER, not as an individual. So my advice is, just stop interacting with us sexually and have sex with women.”
EXACTLY. She wants men to change to suit HER. If she wants to be with men, and if men really are that bad, then both the man she dates, and SHE, need to change and reach a happy medium. But newsflash world, men are not a monolith!
I liked this article very much. I liked the delicate way Dr. Engler approached the subject as well as the way she explored the hidden depths of different sexual motivations. Such as separating each other into different categories out of fear. This makes a lot of sense to me and actually makes me feel more open to discussing this with men because it comes from a place that isn’t just tied into the animalistic pleasure that porn can provide. I agree with Dr. Engler that a vast majority of pornography contains themes of devaluation. Now, does that mean that if… Read more »
I found this last night in a mans online diary. it is unclear who wrote it the piece below, maybe Bert Hellinger. Read it and remember the words: ” she can not forgive him for using her”. “The woman can be satisfied with one love, utterly fulfilled, because she does not look at the body of the man, she looks at the innermost qualities. She does not fall in love with a man who has a beautiful muscular body, she falls in love with a man who has a charisma –something indefinable but immensely attractive –who has a mystery to… Read more »
The diary you quote basically tell than women are better than men. It is funny feminist want to have equality but what I heard and read from feminist is that they always tell that femininity that women have is basically superior than masculinity that men have. The diary you quote is a huge generalization. Maybe he ( the writer ) feel like the man, and assuming all men are like him, but not all men are like him. Me, for example, I’m not like the man he describe. I don’t fall in love with women because of her body, I… Read more »
You are right . Women are not better than men,
But the diary is worth reading because it a man that tries to come off porn.
http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=658.0
What’s your point in posting this Iben, seriously? The (presumably male) writer makes women sound like some sort of ethereal creature not of this world. Nothing new here, men have been writing stuff like that for centuries. So have women frankly.
Do you agree with his assessment? I don’t. I don’t think men are like that at all. I don’t think women are like he writes either, frankly. My ex sure as hell wasn’t.
Hi Jax I agree. I should not have posted it. It is taken out of context. Read this short diary. I recommend it. http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=658.0 But was wrong postiing it. I do not see women as better than men sexually. The best experiences I have in my life are sexual and given me by men. When I get old and look back at my life then I know that is what I will value most. i do not have children. But read the short diary. It is deeply moving and also disturbing because the man has problems NOT caused by porn.… Read more »
Why are people so intent on seeing men n women as monoliths? There is no such thing as male or female sexuality that is universal, everyone has a wide range of kinks n likes, dislikes, etc. Then there is the issue of monogamy treated as the holy grail of a relationship. NOT everyone wants to fantasize n love n desire only one person, infact some find it impossible. They may want to spend their lives with one person but fantasy may wander at times, it may very well be a healthy way for them to satisfy any polygamous feelings without… Read more »
What is all this crap about women shaving their genitals? I shave my face every day – I don’t feel oppressed or that I’m living up to any dehumanising cultural expectation.
As for war – ‘soldier’ is the ultimate objectified male.
Hi Ben
Health risks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/07/pubic-hair-has-job-stop-shaving
Hi Megalodon
I agree with you.
There is absolutely no reason why we should trust anything Ted Bundy said.
I was surprised when I read the interview, but though maybe he is honest.
I think he was the one he was before he read his porn magazine.
Megalodon
I said Breivik do not get any rehabilitation as far as I know. I forgot that he is permitted to study political science( to keep him occupied with something).
First he has to finish high school.
If men were subjugated in the same fashion……..we’d have something to talk about. Penis responsibility seems to be the appropriate measure here………….as the penis has been used as a weapon throughout time.
The vagina hasn’t been used as a weapon? Men and women both rape victims in war to dehumanize them.
Women rape me in war? I have never heard of female civilians attacking enemy soldiers and raping them. Yet women being raped by soldiers is extraordnarily common. There were thousands of reports of American soldiers committing rape in WWII for example and we were the “good guys.”
I have heard of instances of women sometimes being used as torturers of POW’s which may include sexual humiliation or perhaps even rape. I am also not denying that women commit sexual assaults on men but the rate of men raping women in times of war certainly vastly outnumbers the reverse.
come on Sarah- Thousands????? I’ve been reading history for 45 yrs and this is the first reference I’ve ever heard to US soldiers committing rape during WWII…. But dozens of references to them not committing rape as did the Germans, Russians and Japanese….
Rape has always been in war, part of the spoils of war were the women as the men often were just killed off, I think sometimes the children were killed off too from some weird stupidity about blood-lines, and probably occasionally the women were killed off too to just end that “people”.
Men n women rape people in war in the Congo and probably other places too, it’s seen as a way to dehumanize them. It’s STILL going on today.
“The rape of men is also common. More studies are coming out to show that both women and men are the victims and perpetrators of sexual violence in the DRC.”
ht tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo#Rape_of_men
Hi Archy
What is gong on in the Democratic Republic of Congo is totally unbelievable!
But we don’t really know much of about women raping men in other wars through history do we?
I am not a historian but I have never hear of anything like it in Europe.
And frankly I doubt it.
Most wars have the men fighting, the women at home so it’s far less common.
The vagina is rarely a weapon of war, but only if you count direct weapons. Birthing a son to go out and fight is a pretty powerful use of the body. If you told a Spartan woman that her womb was not a weapon she’d probably laugh at you while she kicked your ass. There are certainly lots of historical societies that treated the birth canal as a weapons production facility. I find it hard to believe that in all cases the women involved were not contributing to that social construct.
Comment to Marcus Williams
Hi
I agree ,it is good to be sensitive to the other about body hair.
But today woman have started to remove hair permanently with laser. Genital hair.
Determatolgcist tells us that they will lose some their feelings in that area as well. Sex will be less pleasant.
That is not a positive trend.
In some cultures women have removed all genital hair long before porn came on our screens,but today I fear porn makes women remove it permanently with a high cost in loss of pleasure.
Determatolgcist tells us that they will lose some their feelings in that area as well. Sex will be less pleasant. Source? I don’t claim to be an expert, but the only such warnings I could find with some preliminary Googling was that there might be some short-lived impact on pleasure due to redness and swelling that goes away shortly after each treatment. I didn’t find any reports of permanent “losing some feelings” due to laser hair removal. Consider, too, that laser removal is but one way of removing the hair, and I imagine it’s far from the most common, though… Read more »
Marcus,
You said porn isnt mind control.
On the surface it may not seem so.
But educate yourself deeper:
Book: Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity
Book: The Porn Trap: The essential guide to overcoming problems caused by pornography
And you will see just how much porn re-wires the brain, the mind, the body, the penis, and the sexuality.
Wow. So, porn rewires the penis as well as the brain? That’s pretty incredible.
If porn is really that powerful, then we could actually use porn to “cure” people of homosexuality.We could turn hetero people gay. We could totally make people do anything we wanted.
Maybe we could use porn to reprogram people to use their turn signals when they drive. (Associate orgasm with turn signals. A signal is a signal, right?) Or to sort their recycling better. Or to wipe off the exercise equipment after they use it.
Ah, the great totalitarian dream of mind control…..
If you are interested you will find facts about this online. Porn has been used in prisons to help peo sexual persons change . If the man( or woman) had sex with say ten years old, he is slowly ….gradually given material with more and more mature girls or boys. The idea was to help the inmate develop sexually and mastrubate to images of persons that is adult. If this succeed or not I am not sure. You will all about it online. Sexuality is partly learned phenomena. Do you live in America? Are prisoners permitted to watch porn videos… Read more »
If the man( or woman) had sex with say ten years old, he is slowly ….gradually given material with more and more mature girls or boys. The idea was to help the inmate develop sexually and mastrubate to images of persons that is adult. I don’t know how this went in Norway (I’m guessing based on where you’re from, but correct me if I’m wrong), but that would never fly here (U.S.). Even if it were considered an effective technique, the implementation, at least as it sounds from what you describe, would require providing child pornography as part of the… Read more »
No. It is not done in Norway. But I read about it. I AGREE with you. What they do to sex offenders here I don’t know. But we have no Megan’s law. I can live next to a former sex offender of children without knowing it. The mother of a 8 year girl that was raped .tortured and killed 13 years ago fight now back at our system because the killer will be released now this spring. after years. I wonder what kind of therapy they gave him. The centence is 19 years,but 70% of all prisoners can leave after… Read more »
Everything I’ve read says there is no therapy that can “cure” a pedophile, anyone who claims otherwise is deluded.
The only effective therapy I’ve heard of for pedophiles who are released into the community is “chemical castration” (drugs that eliminate the sex drive) along with constant supervison to ensure they stay away from children. Pedophiles who don’t want to go back to prison may have enough incentive to stay away from children that they won’t reoffend, but there is no way to change their fundamental sexual attraction.
From what I have read, “chemical castration” has had mixed results in reducing the recidivism of sexual offenders. Not saying it is entirely ineffective, but there are serious questions. Also, the effects seem to vary based upon categories of sexual offender. That is, offenders like regular adult rapists respond different than clinical pedophiles, etc.
Not all pedophiles abuse children, and not all child sexual abusers are pedophiles. You don’t have to lock them all up for fear of abuse but find ways to stop their first abuse if it ever happens, you may be able to divert them to healthy adult relationships. I don’t fear the person that fantasizes about kids, I fear the person that wants to HARM kids.
That sounds quite terrible, Iben. However, if a man who murdered 77 people in Norway only gets 20 years, I cannot be surprised that a man who murders 1 person gets an even lighter sentence.
Hi Megalodon This is hard on the mother. She can meet this man in her little town. He is educate as a baker in prison. It was two men that killed her daughter and another little girl. This one man was seen as a person that could be rehabilitated. A bystander . but he never helped the girls. I understand the parents despair. The other man lives in the same institution as Anders Behring Breivik and will not be released. It is not a prison . It is an institution for the most dangerous criminals ,with diagnoses. it means it… Read more »
He will not get out. We have laws that can keep him institutionalized forever. I know he will not get out, and that he effectively has a life sentence. However, his official sentence is still 20 years, and the government will have to hold periodic proceedings to continue his imprisonment indefinitely. I doubt it will be hard for the government to do so, but I still find it vexing that they must go through this absurd gesture of proving a mass murderer should not be released. Of course, we have some experience with situations like that in the U.S. Infamous… Read more »
Are prisoners permitted to watch porn videos in your prisons? Are crimals doing time for sexual crimes permitted to watch any kind of porn in American prisons? Videos. Videos that is leagal outside for everyone. The answer to all these questions is “No.” Even if the pornographic material would be otherwise legal for free people, prisoners would not be allowed to possess it. Almost all American prisons and jails prohibit pornography and most sexually explicit material as contraband. When people send mail to prisoners, they are not allowed to write or include pornographic or sexual material. Prison authorities read and… Read more »
Iben, is there actually a published study about trying to change or redirect the sexual attraction of pedophile prisoners? That would really seem to go against the prevailing evidence.
Most other research about clinical pedophiles or other “minor attracted” persons suggests that their sexual attractions develop by adolescence and that their attractions are usually static and not liable to change.
I don’t know.
A short time I worked in prison and therefor I read a lot about it.
But I know nothing about phedofiles . Our experts say the correct word is phedo sexual.
Unfortunately it seem to be an endless stream of these cases here, and maybe in the US as well? Mothers and father…
Nobody can help it if they are turned on by children and fall in love with children.
But they have a responsibility about how they deal with it, as far as I see it.
This is old,but interesting :
http://www.sexual-offender-treatment.org/2-2010_04.html
What is so special about pornography that it can not affect our brains when practically everything else we do every do? Tell me! If you were raped. Do you think your brain is the same afterwards? Do you think soldiers that comes home from Afghanistan has the same brains as before they left? Why do athletes use mental training like visualization and tell us that it is powerful tool because the brain can not rally tell the difference if they run the track or only visualize it? I am sure you have heard of all the techniques they use. What… Read more »
“What is so special about hardcore cruel violent videos?” Look at how you discuss porn, you don’t discuss porn as simply just people having sex which is what the overwhelming majority are simply watching, but you talk about hardcore, cruel, and violent videos that very few people are actually watching. If you take the last 20 hours of what I have watched on tv, movies, etc, and compare it to porn, then you’ll probably have about 15 hours of violent movies (Ironman 3, just watched The Last Samurai 20 minutes ago), and 20 of 20 hours of the porn I… Read more »
You know more about porn than me Archy. But others than you tell about a cruel world out there. I have watched maybe 120 minutes total in my whole life, but seen pictures on the photo changing MyOpera. Porn is forbidden there but often somebody put in photos . It is from Asia. Once I became curious and looked at all pictures in a series. It was five young men and a woman. They had fun in the beginning and she was was a actor like them. But then things developed, they became more and more cruel. They women looked… Read more »
For porn and me it’s just the basic lust I am using, I avoid the romantic feelings since they make me lonelier. You can find porn that has more lovey dovey intimacy but I prefer to see just sex, or sensuality vs a storyline. I save love for romantic movies that make my heart flutter or real life. 😛 Porn’s basic use is based on lust and sexual arousal, it’s hard to bring romance into it as I find romance hard to just see, for me romance has to be built over time where I know someone, know about them,… Read more »
@Archy, I think you’re naive about the actual sales of violent porn. Perhaps your definition of violence is off. Not to completely debunk your whole statements. You make some important points, particularly that people often do point out extreme cases to make a statistical argument. But violent, sadistic, and rape-fantasy porn is the norm according the dollar figures spent. Human sex slavery is second only to the Drug trafficking industry, and we face, in reality, not in just my opinion as so many people seem to speak, something like the economic challenge faced by the American Southern States prior to… Read more »
Sex slavery is not violent porn, it’s violent real-world sex. What is the dollar amount of violent porn sold + the % of viewers of free or pirated content?
If 1 in 12 are perverse, than 11 of 12 are not. The majority would not enjoy violent porn would they? Roughly 30% of men AND women experience violence in relationships, it doesn’t mean the majority of men n women partake in violence in their relationship.
“But violent, sadistic, and rape-fantasy porn is the norm according the dollar figures spent.”
Dollars spent is a crude measure of porn consumption. I have consumed enormous quantities of porn over 14 years and during this time I spent about $200 total on porn (a few magazines, 3 dvds and spent some money on a website). Over the past 8 years I have spent no money on porn. The most popular genres of porn are not violent. Go to fucktube, youporn to see what’s popular.
Considering how much free porn or practically free porn is out there, counting the dollar figures could be very misleading. I’m thinking just in terms of dollars and cents, a porn shoot with a lot of equipment is going to be more expensive. Good, comfortable leather can be really expensive….
What is so special about pornography that it can not affect our brains when practically everything else we do every do? Tell me! I agree with you, Iben, that in that sense, porn affects brains like everything else does. A living brain is not a static organ, and every experience you have affects it in the sense of having an impact on subsequent thoughts, feelings, and memories. This is why I don’t think the “porn changes the brain” arguments carry much weight, because it appears to be based on the assumption that if changes in brain activity can be detected… Read more »
Right now in the A&E section of the GMP, there’s a list of great summertime reading in the field of erotica.
I’m guessing reading those things changes the brain as well. I’m so confused about what objectification is and is not that I can’t tell if reading erotic fiction is objectification or not. Maybe when a man reads it then it’s objectification? I just don’t know anymore.
“Brain damage” can only be defined in comparison to a) an “average” state of the brain or b) a state of the brain that we have defined as “normal.” In terms of how little we know about the brain compared with how complex it is, either one is a somewhat dubious standard to use. Probably the best that we can do at the moment is define average ranges for various things and talk about unusual versus usual. That’s hardly a moral judgment, though. In a lot of cases, it’s a historical and cultural one – if you’re gay or left-handed… Read more »
Hi Marcus William It will be hard for me to find a reference in English. Professor Ole Fyrand( Ole Lennard Fyrand) at the University in Oslo. Norway. He wrote in Norwegian and the dear man developed Altzheimer. I can not send him an e-mail. His explaination was something about how the hair roots in that area is a part of sensation system . I can not explain it. Laser kills hair roots and interfer with nerves. I am not a doctor, but I have read that if you put your hand over a woman’s vulva lips and all , the… Read more »
Typo on iPad
Fyrand born 1937
Women will never understand why men watch porn, because they are not visual, while we are visual. Yes you couldn’t understand what is really exciting and arousing seeing naked bodies, well because you never know how it feels to be a man, to feel aroused just by slightly looking at women breast, you don’t know how it feels. I ask you this, if porn for men is really about how men feel alienated with women, how we fear women, how we want to devalue and idealize women, why gay men also like to watch porn? Do gay men feel alienated… Read more »
You have no idea what turns women on. The very sight of a singular part of a man’s body can make me crazy for days. We just are sluts if we admit it.
It’s the elbow, isn’t it. I KNEW it!
Hi John
I am sorry this is your personal experience.
But you see lots of women like men,and desire them intensely.
Their skin color is intoxicating,their smell makes me feel safe. And to be penetrated by a man you want is mind blowing
Once I had a night with a woman. She was sensual and wild. But my body was only waiting for penetration. I missed a man. I am not a lesbian
So please speak for your self and not for all the women in the world.
.
Did you censure my comments or do you have technical problems?
The problem with breasts is that they exist in the same visual window as the face. This is why we have the two second rule, before objectification kicks in. Below the waist, there is no two second rule – objectification is almost instant. I would never be able to stare at a man’s crotch directly and especially not while also holding a magnifying lens.
Probably not with a magnifying lens. However, there are surreptitious ways of staring at a person’s features, whether those features are above or below the waist. Staring from a certain distance, certain ways of tilting your head, wearing sunglasses so that the person cannot discern where exactly your eyes are focusing, etc. Plus, if the person is sitting or lying down (say at the beach or the pool), staring “below the waist” does not require the staring person to conspicuously move their heads downwards.
I’ve never heard of the two second rule. It actually sounds like an awfully long time for a quick glance. One thousand one, one thousand two. I would feel like I was staring if it was for more than a fraction of a second if I was in a conversation with the person.
A man might get away with a little longer glance if he were to express interest in her necklace….
Hi Flyingkale You do not sound at all creepy to me. And I never use that word about men. I do not see them as creepy.((apart from one that once attacked me physically in a sexual way). Women do not read everybody as an open book. Don’t worry. But many see emotions in other persons eyes. I have known men that are very good at that as well. We can not read each other that easily. If we could , then persons like Ted Bundy would never find victims. Do not stop interacting with women. Just find the right arena,the… Read more »
Frankly, as other commenters have pointed out in older posts, “objectification” is just the modern, PC feminist version of “living in the flesh/the sinful temptation of lust.”
In the end, like Marcus once said, it results in more don’ts than do’s, and has the overall effect of demonizing male sexuality.
I think you’ve got it wrong. Rather, objectification is something that the viewer might do in his mind—it happens no where else—and it’s a component of fantasy. Engler’s not saying fantasy should be forbidden. It’s a good idea to realize when you’re fantasizing, that’s all, whether it’s about a woman you’re considering making a pass at, or your wife, or the waitress or someone else who serves you. It can get easy to objectify the bus driver, receptionist, bank teller, sandwich artist, and every other person that I interact with. We have roles and sometimes I reduce people to their… Read more »
Hi guys. Just to clarify, I’m using the word “object” in a unique way. In psychology jargon, an object is an internalized representation or thought form that is influenced by our external relationships and internal wishes and feelings. The word object here is not pejorative, it’s neutral.
When I talk about these two “object” themes, (there are many more than two but this is merely an article) I am referring to the personal relationship with porn and how the viewer perceives the material—not the material itself. The stated themes are extremely common in my interviews.
I’m using the word “object” in a unique way. In psychology jargon, an object is an internalized representation or thought form that is influenced by our external relationships and internal wishes and feelings. The word object here is not pejorative, it’s neutral. A distinction without a difference. When the interviewer asked you if Play “objectifies” women, she certainly did not mean it in the allegedly anodyne, psychological jargon sense. She was using the term in the political and moral sense that is employed when people indict pornography and its users. And even if we qualify “object” as being neutral, you… Read more »
When people say it’s easy to objectify…it sickens me. WTF is wrong with you people that you see objects and not real life people in front of you? I say thank-you to the bus driver, talk with them, treat them like a friggen human. I talk to soldiers, police, everyone I can when I am not super shy, even the women I saw at the wet tshirt contest once were all women doing something, not objects doing something.
Archy, I think you’ve mentioned you live in a small(ish) town in Australia? When you live in a major urban area, frankly it is just exhausting to try to have a meaningful personal interaction with every one of the dozens or hundreds of people you run across each week. I always try to be polite and respectful but I admit I don’t give much thought to what the bus driver might be thinking or whether that guy on the street is having a good day. If I did that, I’d just burn out. I got involved in a long comment… Read more »
Well for me if I have no time I still see humans. If I see a woman with a great cleavage, I see it as a beautiful woman with great cleavage and not just the object of cleavage. You don’t have to spend more than .5seconds to understand they’re a human, you see a human, you continue on your way. If you see someone who’s only worth is their job then that is a problem. For me I just see humans, the only objects I see with breasts are mannequins at the mall (which usually remind me of the movie… Read more »
I think you must be an usually good person in that case, Archy! I think when most men notice cleavage, they notice cleavage and I don’t think they give much thought beyond that. In fact, men have said as much in other comment threads that I recall — “it’s just a physical reaction” “it doesn’t mean anything, I can’t help looking” etc. I’m not saying it’s bad to notice cleavage, just that I don’t think many guys give much thought to the woman behind the boobs in the normal course of the day. They are just walking along thinking “blah… Read more »
For me I notice eyes first (probably partly to do with my risk assesment) then her face/smile, then on to the body/boobs/etc, clothing especially (electric blue dress is a magnet!), jewellery, etc. I do have that physical reaction, it’s sorta like noticing without realizing, your body is attracted and slightly turned on before you really realize it but for me I still know it’s a woman I am attracted to, and her face is what wins me over first n foremost anyway. A great smile can stop my thoughts dead in it’s tracks n throw me off, it’s weird that… Read more »
I’m not saying it’s bad to notice cleavage, just that I don’t think many guys give much thought to the woman behind the boobs in the normal course of the day. There really is not much of a way for guys to get to know anything about the “woman behind the boobs” unless they initiate communication with this person, which is a bigger, overt transgression upon her personal space. Or start stalking this person, which is supposedly an even worse transgression. With those methods off the table, I do not see any way that staring guys are supposed to familiarize… Read more »
How dare you reduce a woman to her philosophical or ontological thoughts. That’s just one part of the larger, holistic person. Is that all you men think about — thesis and antithesis? Dialectics? When will men start to treat women like actual people?
I said I didn’t think it was wrong to notice cleavage. I think it is a normal reaction that most men don’t think about that much. If a guy looks at my cleavage, I doubt he’s thinking about anything other than my cleavage, that was my point to Archy. I don’t freak out about it — I might feel embarrassed or I might just shrug it off. He sees me as a set off boobs, and I see him as a set of eyes looking at my cleavage. I don’t think about him any more than I think about any… Read more »
I said I didn’t think it was wrong to notice cleavage. Perhaps you don’t think it is “wrong,” but you seem to suggest that it is somehow bad or regrettable that “guys” do not usually “give much thought to the woman behind the boobs in the normal course of the day.” Presumably, you think it would be better or preferable for male persons to give more “thought to the woman behind the boobs.” So am I just wondering how male persons are supposed to go about doing that? Especially in a crowded, anonymous setting in which initiating direct contact is… Read more »
mostly it’s my own issues – I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention. Also, I developed breasts early and so my breasts were always a source of embarassment.
Hopefully time will heal that adolescent wound.
Where did my kickass comment go :O
@Sarah— I am in agreement with you…. Especially in NYC, you have to be careful who you talk to…. If they are lost tourists on the subway, okay— no problem…. If it’s a woman, then no problem…. But, yes, strange men who try to start up a conversation, I am very wary— and, you’re right, Iben, it’s a certain hungry or too eager look in the eyes that repels me…. It makes me wonder if they are thinking that it’s a smiling Lucy Liu or Kelly Hu off the cover of some lad magazine walking toward them or if they… Read more »
I find the photo for the article somewhat disturbing. I keep thinking about how I once had an outbreak of athlete’s foot fungus in the webs of my fingers, so….ewww.
I think the author’s argument about the simple splitting between idealization and devaluation is a useful one. It’s clearly the case that porn images are to some degree vessels into which people pour their hopes, fears, desires, etc. It’s the fact that idealized images are not realistic that makes them so popular. However, what continues to amaze me is how many articles about pornography, even about the consumption of pornography, never mention masturbation. There is now this growing acceptance of discussing porn, analyzing what the images do and don’t do, how porn shapes people’s lives, but still the same old… Read more »
At some point, someone will need to explain what the difference really is between masturbating alone in private with a magazine, versus alone in private without a magazine. If doing it with a magazine is demeaning, but the images in one’s head are essentially the same either way, then aren’t they both demeaning? Is the crusade against porn in some ways a crusade against masturbating? One pornography critic who has responded to that question is male feminist John Stoltenberg (who was Andrea Dworkin’s “partner”). He says “Yes” to all of your questions in his book “Refusing to Be a Man.”… Read more »
Wow. I guess that’s where some of the logic ultimately will take you. Maybe that makes sense to Stoltenberg, but it sounds like a totally repressive and unsustainable way of life to me. That essentially means no masturbation whatsoever, and no sexual fantasies whatsoever, unless you can arouse yourself with strictly abstract notions of gender equity or can simply masturbate with a completely empty mind. Presumably you should not masturbate with your hand at all, because then the hand might be merely a proxy for the objectification of women. Pure thought, unpoisoned by fantasies about women’s bodies, without physical manipulation… Read more »
but it sounds like a totally repressive and unsustainable way of life to me.
wello, to you and me.
however, THAT is deeply arousing for a few humans
Indeed – good article below on Dworkin and Stoltenberg, aptly titles “The Prisoner of Sex”.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/
I’m theorizing that the dopamine rush is just as strong and addictive for those that make it their life’s work to masturbate to the hatred of pornography.
Good point. There is a not uncommon self-denial kink. I can see the Stoltenberg scenario played out as a dom/sub role play. (For all I know, “stoltenberg” could be the name of an actual BDSM scenario.) Perhaps I should have said that such a way of life is not really my kink.
Excellent comment, wello. Masturbation is conspicuously absent from discussions of porn – particularly those that blame porn for all manner of brain damage. It’s not as though people weren’t masturbating and getting endorphin rushes from masturbation until porn came along, and the stuff that happens *in* porn has been happening in people’s fantasies way longer than the Internet came along to offer easy illustrations. It seems to me if you’re against porn on the grounds that “it changes the brain”, you have to be against masturbation and “unillustrated” fantasies, too.
I keep thinking that maybe sometimes the debate about porn is really unconsciously a proxy debate about masturbation. We can’t talk about masturbation openly, but we can talk about porn, so let’s use one to talk about the other. We can’t talk about death, but we can talk about which flowers are best for a funeral and which ones are inappropriate. Maybe that way we don’t have to deal with the fact that everyone dies, and we can pretend that not everyone dies. You know, everyone “dies,” everyone “does it,” if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge.… Read more »
“But, still, if the internal fantasies are basically identical with and without porn, then what exactly is the moral or political difference?” For me, the people in my mind aren’t real. They might be images of people I’ve seen, but in no way am I making them/paying them/pressuring them to do anything for me. The women and men in porn are real people but often aren’t treated well either in the industry or outside it. Given that corporate porn’s main goal would be to be sold-to make money-I’m not convinced that there isn’t potential exploitation of workers. I try to… Read more »
What about animated pornography then?
What you say makes sense to me. It seems like we could make some reasonable distinctions based on this. What I’m hearing is that for you a big issue is the ethics of the porn production. So, presumably, if one could be a discriminating consumer of porn and choose “certified fair trade cruelty free” porn, so to speak, then you wouldn’t see much of a problem with someone masturbating to that porn? In a lot of cases, the images on the screen would be practically identical whether the performers well well-treated or not, so then it’s not really a case… Read more »
Fundamentally objectification refers to the act of taking away a person’s ability to make decisions, have wants and needs, and their own internal life. So ignoring these, or treating them as less important as certain qualities, bending them to your own will, wants and needs is certainly objectification. There can still be a focus on positive qualities, even on their personality, but just because you admire a woman’s compassion, you could still objectify if you ignore her own reasons for being compassionate. Some men are shocked when a woman is nice to a Bum, but mean to the guy who… Read more »
Homosexual men who never attempted heterosexual activity. Celibate men who never engaged or attempted sexual activity with other persons. I’m sure there are other examples.
Or were these just rhetorical questions?
Rhetorical questions to suggest those kinds of men may want to degrade a woman.
Do women objectify men when they are using vibrators? After all, one could argue they are reducing men to their genitalia, right?
Quite.
At least in men’s titilation the women aren’t so disembodied.
Four legs good, two legs better, as ever.
A huge amount of objectification is subjective. If a woman feels objectified, it becomes objectification regardless of the man’s intent. Quite frankly the most objectifying comments I’ve ever seen have come from other women who talk about objectification and treat porn stars like they are abusing themselves for doing such acts. The way they speak literally removes agency from these women in porn they are trying to save, it’s disgusting. But back to the point it’s subjective in how you see it….sex can be objectifying yet not to others, a zoomed in breast can be objectifying to some yet not… Read more »
I can tell you from experience that not all porn viewing necessarally has to do with sex. True story, I’m sitting in the local watering hole enjoying happy hour, shooting the bull with some regulars about anything and everything when this one guy starts talking about this Japenese sounding thing called Bukaki or something. Sporting my usual dazed and confused look, he proceeds to show me on his smart phone. Now, sometimes I’m truly amazed how, at 58 years old, I can be so ignorant of the world we live in! On a cell phone no less, there’s this naked… Read more »
“What man hasn’t been rejected by a woman? Who hasn’t experienced performance anxiety or felt inferior compared to her past lovers or nervous about approaching a woman? Who wouldn’t like to just bypass all of that for a moment and get off unfettered by such trepidations? Porn that devalues, restores a man’s “right” to receive pleasure: the male is cast in the glorified position, and all sense of inferiority is projected onto the female. This is the psyche attempting to master anxiety through a mechanism called eroticization.” I suppose it’s also possible that many men have legitimately been mistreated by… Read more »
I don’t think I would be comfortable going to a female phsycologist to talk about issues with women. In fact, I specifically chose a male one, and I KNOW I wouldn’t appreciate my most private thoughts being material for some book by said doctor!
The Onion has a good little article on objectification.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/teenage-girl-blossoming-into-beautiful-object,31061/
“I told her that the vast majority of pornography on the Internet contains themes of devaluation.”
Source?