by Maggie Hays
07/22/2007
What kind of a world is this, in which many women have to go through the pain of being penetrated vaginally, orally and anally by five to ten men a day in exchange for money -- which for the most part goes to their pimps -- and then all of this gets defended as "sex work"?
What kind of a world is this, in which the very same acts which are done to these women, whose bodies are being sold, are filmed or photographed and then all of this gets defended as "sexual freedom" or "free speech"?
What kind of a world is this, in which you cannot ask either of the two questions above without being called a "prude"?
Radical feminists who oppose pornography are often accused of being "anti-sex." Such a claim is false.
Those who defend pornography are often described as being "pro-sex" or "sex-positive." Such a description is inaccurate.
In patriarchy, the way we view sex is incomplete. Sex is also often described as being "dirty." Sexuality that is based on equality, affection and connection, and which rejects the domination/subordination dynamics of pornography is often considered unexciting or uninteresting by many people without them even giving it a serious try.
All this can only happen in a sexually repressed culture, a culture that is only sexually liberated on the surface -- not in depth -- and within which we have no right to try to promote a healthy vision of sexuality without being accused either of having prudish reactionary politics or of trying to impose moralities on people.
I am fully aware that some reactionary movements keep trying to impose their religious moralities on people -- especially women -- and their sexuality. And we should reject their right-wing conservatism.
But, as Robert Jensen said in A Cruel Edge: "To speak about what one knows and feels and dreams is, in fact, liberating. We are not free if we aren’t free to talk about our desire for an egalitarian intimacy and sexuality that would reject pain and humiliation." Indeed, I believe that the personal is political and -- if brought to the public debate -- healthy sexual politics would not only considerably reduce the sexual abuse that many women and children endure in this society, but would also help us all -- women and men -- to truly feel the fulfillment that sexuality can bring to us. Healthy sexual politics are, in fact, progressive.
This article has been written for anybody who is genuinely looking for sexual justice, real sexual freedom, and sexual fulfillment. It will also show what the people who refuse to look for these -- and who choose pornography, which imposes its narrow views of sexuality on them -- are losing out, on top of being selfish. Do not forget that these are only some suggestions. I'm expecting newer visions of sex -- going toward a similar direction -- from other people, to come in the future.
Industrial sex
The kind of sexuality which has been mainstreamed in our society is one that ought to be kicked from the mainstream and pushed to the margin. I will explain why.
It is the sexuality of pornography. The Greek root of the word "porno" refers to prostitution. Pornography is the documentation of prostitution.
The kind of sexuality which has been mainstreamed in our society is the sexuality of prostitution. It is a sexuality of disconnection. Disconnection occurs when a man buys a woman who is in prostitution: the john's goal is generally to be able to dominate and degrade a woman through sex in exchange for money; he typically tries to disconnect his emotional feelings -- such as his capacity for empathy -- from his sexual desires. This disconnection doesn't always work for the john but all he wants is to "masturbate into a woman." Disconnection occurs when a woman is being bought for sex: she routinely disconnects her mind from her body to be able to survive the commodification of her corporeal being, a commodification which would otherwise feel like a violation to her. This disconnection doesn't always work for the prostituted woman but all she wants is "not to be there." The prostituted woman is also sometimes trained by her pimp to "act" as if she were enjoying it, to simulate sexual pleasure.
The sexuality of prostitution is also often filmed or photographed and becomes "pornography." Pornography then prostitutes sexuality. Pornography consumers use the sexual domination and degradation of the woman in the film or image to masturbate to. They disconnect from real and meaningful communication with women. Some of them then act out what they see in this pornographic sexuality of domination and degradation on their wives and girlfriends. They therefore try to disconnect from real and meaningful communication with the women in their lives by being obsessed with reproducing the pornographic "fantasy."
Wives and girlfriends are also often trained in this pornographic culture to "please their man." So many of them just lie there (during sex) and disconnect -- either from the pain of having their body being used for sex or from the boredom of not enjoying the sex or not getting what they really want intimately -- and "act" as if they were enjoying it, i.e. simulate sexual pleasure. This is not to say that things always happen this way for everybody; it is to say that they do happen in this way to some people in our culture and it is not uncommon.
"Industrial sex" is sexuality which has been put on the market as a commodity, through prostitution and pornography. Although capitalism enhances industrial sex's profits for the corporate pimps who control it, it is patriarchy that primarily causes industrial sex. When sexuality is turned into a commodity, it is devoid of its connection to meaningful emotions and intimate communication between people, and of its humanity.
Patriarchal industrial sex influences many people's lives. People in this culture often disconnect from meaningful emotions, such as genuine human contact and intimate passion. Many become obsessed by physical appearances, body parts and particular sexual acts instead of trying to see the humanity in others. On the one hand, love often becomes an uninteresting thing for many men, as they have been culturally trained to find it unattractive or less attractive than industrial sex. On the other hand, women have been more socialized to find love attractive. Thus, the word "love" gets routinely misused on women as a way for men to get what they want: "What will this woman do to please her man if she really loves him?" "How far can she go for him sexually if she loves him?"
This culture is all about "What does she look like? Is she hot?", "Did you get any sex? how much of it?", "How much can she do?", and "Have you ever tried this or that?" instead of being about "How much do you intimately communicate?", "Did you find a way to sexually connect your emotions with somebody?", and "How much did you see the humanity of your partner during sex?"
In a patriarchal culture obsessed by physical appearances, body parts and sexual acts, the loss of humanity and desensitization to violence are then understandable. In patriarchy, when sexuality is turned into a commodity that is devoid of any humanity, the marketed sex cannot be tender or egalitarian so it has to be degrading and eventually it has to be rough; it has to hurt; it has to hurt the ones who are on the "inferior" side of the "gender" hierarchy, i.e. women. Men who create the demand for pornography by consuming it, get desensitized by the product and become bored by it when it merely displays degrading sexual acts they've already seen over and over again; so they want the material to change; they want it to be crueler, rougher; they want it to hurt women.
It is also worth pointing out that in our patriarchal and capitalist image-based culture, sexuality, just like many other things, to be important or meaningful has to be made into an image. As Rebecca Whisnant said at the 2007 conference on "Pornography and Pop Culture"," in an image-based culture, "Everything has to be made into an image, and we derive our conception of who and what we are largely from the images that surround us." So the questions are: Why do you need sexuality to be made into an image? Why do you need a sexually explicit media to shape your sexuality?
Many men use pornography because it gives them an illusion of power and control, and it also gives them a way of having sex without having to deal with real emotions or connect with other human beings. But men have nothing to lose in giving up on pornography -- and on buying women for sex -- and they have everything to win. Many men have not been socialized to truly communicate with women and search for an egalitarian sexuality, so many of them do not know how good it would really feel. So they get their sexuality influenced by the standards of pornography. Many of them masturbate to the material and then feel ashamed right after it because they increasingly lose their empathy, humanity and capacity for a true emotional connection to someone else. But then they later go back to using pornography because they forgot about that short moment of shame and want to get off on the illusory sense of power again.
Men have nothing to lose, everything to win, in rejecting domination or cruelty (which both get them further away from their humanity) and wanting an egalitarian sexuality that would be based on real meaningful connection, mutuality, empathy, and affection. Men are not fulfilled by patriarchal industrial sex, a sexuality of disconnection. By refusing a sexuality based on equality, they are relinquishing their humanity and getting further away from any significant communication with the women in their lives.
I also definitely think that people would be more free if they did not let images control their sexuality. They would get the opportunity to genuinely connect to each other.
Industrial sex in patriarchy also censors women's sexuality by putting it into a mold so it can fit men's patriarchal sexuality. When you oppose pornography, you sometimes hear people say: "What about the women who enjoy pornography?", and "What about the women who get off on being dominated?"
"Perhaps women secretly want to be dominated and degraded," patriarchy says to us. There is then one question: Is patriarchy wrong and pornography tells lies about women, or is patriarchy right and pornography tells the truth about women? My answer is that patriarchy is definitely wrong and feminists are right when they say that pornography tells lies about women. Here are the reasons why:
-- Most women do not use pornography and do not want or enjoy being dominated or degraded;
-- Although different women like different things, pornography typically portrays some sexual acts that most women do not want, enjoy, or look for;
-- Some women try or do sexual acts they do not really want or like just in order to "please their man"; some women also simulate orgasm for the same purpose;
-- Pain and pleasure are two different things for women (just like for men), not the same thing;
-- Some of the women who do take pleasure in some of the sexual acts that most other women do not want, enjoy, or look for, do not want to experience those acts in a degrading, humiliating, painful, or violent way; and
-- The few women who are submissive and do enjoy being dominated or degraded are not fulfilled by this kind of sexuality in the end.
I will explain the latter. I started pondering on that question recently. I acknowledge that there are indeed some women who do enjoy being sexually submissive in this society. It is not surprising. In a patriarchal culture within which domination and subordination are institutionalized, it is no wonder that some women get culturally trained to enjoy being dominated and to take pleasure in inequality. However, I believe that every woman has some basic self-esteem somehow, even one who says that she is the most submissive one.
Pornography says that women have no self-esteem: "Women want to be dominated, degraded, hurt and humiliated; this is how they are fulfilled because they have no self-esteem," So pornography does lie about women. I will explain why.
I thought back to all the times in my life when I was exposed to pornography -- a few times in the parental home when I was a teenager, then through boyfriends or acquaintances, then in the anti-porn books that gave content analyses of mainstream pornography, and also at a feminist anti-pornography slide show in Boston last March -- I asked myself: "Has any of this pornographic stuff ever sexually aroused you at all?" I was very glad to know that, for the most part, this material did not arouse me but made me feel sad and angry. For instance, the pornographic material I saw at the slide show and read about in Robert Jensen's book Getting Off definitely DID NOT arouse me. It was degrading. It was aggressive. It was violence. And although after reading a few anti-porn books I did notice my own desensitization -- like I somehow knew what was going to happen in the porno scenes being described and I was no longer surprised by the cruelty, misogyny, and degradation that were in the material -- I still was not aroused.
However, I do admit that I felt disturbed about being aroused by a few pornographic images or writings I had at some point seen or read in my life. I felt pretty bad about being aroused by them. For example, I remember a pornographic drawing that my first boyfriend had shown me once. It was in one of his magazines. I'm not going to tell you exactly what was in the image but I can tell you that it was about a woman being in a sexual position of inferiority and enjoying being dominated (it was not violent or aggressive though). I remember I was anxious and bothered at being aroused by this drawing, but I couldn't get it out of my mind for a while. Nonetheless, I did not really want to experience what was in that drawing in real life. The "arousal" reaction also happened to me while reading a few descriptions of pornographic materials which were in some earlier feminist literature, and I really felt some sense of betrayal at the realization of my arousal. It was obviously making me feel nervous. Obviously, just because something is arousing, that doesn’t mean that it “feels good.”
For sure, it is easier for the men who use pornography to want to act out what's in it than women, as men are in a position of power and they do not have to worry about their self-esteem being damaged. And it is also very true that pornography is often used by men who show the material to their wives and girlfriends to try to undermine the women's resistance to some sexual activities.
Without doubt, pornography lies about women, because, as Sheila Jeffreys pointed out in her extraordinary book AntiClimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution:
"If a girl responds sexually to her own degradation, when she is being used as a 'thing,' sexual arousal is unlikely to be a positive experience for her. Sex and self-loathing are linked. A distrust of sexual response is likely to develop from an unwillingness to experience the feelings which are associated with shame." (p.243)
I believe that these few women who do enjoy being dominated or degraded do not get a positive experience from it and are not fulfilled, contrary to what pornography says about women and girls. I believe that even if they enjoy the degrading experiences, those experiences hurt their self-esteem, in addition to driving them further away from their own humanity. By losing their humanity in enjoying being used as a "thing," women are not fulfilled. A sense of self-loathing is very likely to occur just after the "quick pleasures of the pornographic" are gone, and depression will probably ensue if the degradation is experienced over and over again. This is why women and girls should refuse the domination/subordination dynamics of pornography; they would feel a lot better in their bodies and minds by rejecting them. Only equality and humanity in sex can enable you to make a genuine intimate and affectionate connection, as well as improve your sexuality and your well-being.
Also, I noticed that I was not the only anti-pornography feminist who happened to have felt sexually aroused by a few pornographic images. As Jeffreys noted:
"To deal with the problem of the eroticising of our subordination we really need a new language, and a new way of categorizing our sexual feelings. There is a cultural assumption in a post-sexual-revolution society that sexual arousal is ‘pleasure.’ This makes it particularly painful to experience pornography, which clearly shows the humiliation of women, as sexually arousing. We feel guilt at having taken pleasure in or ‘enjoyed’ the oppression of women. The literature of the libertarians has no word or category for sexual response that is not positive, no word that would allow us to describe the complexity of our feelings in such a situation. This is not an accident. Part of the repertoire of techniques for political control is the control of language. It is hard to ‘think’ about things for which no word is available. Women are not supposed to think in a way which is not positive about sex. In the absence of a word which could distinguish negative sexual feelings or experience the libertarians are able to label feminists as ‘anti-sex’. They have a one-dimensional view of sex as inevitably good. Thus only two positions on sexuality are acknowledged, pro-sex and anti-sex. A feminist approach to the question of desire requires the invention of a new language. We need to be able to describe sexual response which is incontrovertibly negative." (AntiClimax; pp. 303-304)
I am anti-pornography primarily because it causes harms to the women and children inside and outside of the industry. I am also anti-pornography because it shapes people's sexuality with its patriarchal industrial sex and because pornography cheapens sexuality. I am not anti-sex. Those who are described as "pro-sex" when they defend pornography, are described as such merely because they are defending "sex" as it is currently narrowly defined in the eroticization of the domination/subordination dynamics of our patriarchal society. Being sexually aroused by a pornographic image does not mean getting pleasure from it. We have been historically and culturally trained somehow to find domination and subordination sexy.
When I was being aroused by a pornographic image, I felt bothered because I have self-esteem. In a way, I sort of knew that I could have taken pleasure in inequality, but I did not want to because I knew this wouldn't be a positive experience for me to enjoy being used as a "thing." I had no desire to enjoy being dominated because I knew I would feel very bad after that. I refuse to capitulate to patriarchy. I am not anti-sex. I simply know that the "quick pleasures" of a pornographic sexuality could only make me feel depressed in the long term, on top of moving me farther away from any meaningful connection. My sexuality would have been cheapened and I would have felt dehumanized... If we do take pleasure in our own inequality as women, I do not believe that it fulfills us: something is missing in our sexuality and we feel sad.
Plus, I learned how to deconstruct that arousal to the few pornographic images I had seen or read about. I first thought about a vision of a sexuality which included communication, connection, affection, humanity and equality. I then conjured up in my mind again that pornographic drawing that my first boyfriend had shown me years ago and which I had felt embarassed about being aroused by. Then what? That pornographic image didn't even arouse me anymore! It looked stupid, unexciting, uninteresting and meaningless compared with this new vision I had of sex. I pushed that porn image out of my mind... I am free. No patriarchal industry is going to censor my own sexuality. I do not want my sexuality to be controlled or shaped by images. I want to have my own sexuality. Women's sexuality has historically been censored by patriarchy. For centuries and centuries, almost exclusively men have written about and represented sex in this world.
As Rebecca Whisnant also brought up at the 2007 conference on "Pornography and Pop Culture", "What would real sexual freedom look and feel like -- the kind that everyone can have, instead of the kind that amounts to freedom for some at others’ expense? We need to richly imagine, and encourage others to richly imagine, another world: one in which no woman or girl is ever called ‘slut,’ ‘prude,’ ‘bitch,’ ‘cunt,’ or ‘dyke’; in which no woman, man, or child ever has to fear rape or suffer its damage to their spirits; in which men do not control their own and other men’s behavior by the threat of being seen and treated as women; and in which lesbian love and connection is not reduced to a pornographic fetish for men. In this world, every woman and girl sees her own body as beautiful, no man or boy is made to see his as a weapon, and people take part in sexual activity only when (and only because) they expect to enjoy it and to be honored and fulfilled therein. It can be painful to think in this way, because we become more acutely aware of just how far away we are from this better world."
A New Vision of Sexuality
I often daydream.
I daydream about a better, more just world. A world that would be free from inequality, misogyny, racism, homophobia, sexual oppression and violence; or these would be very rare. A world within which genuine sexual freedom would exist, as well as sexual happiness and fulfillment.
In that world, most humans would have been socialized to genuinely communicate with each other.
In that world, most humans would have recognized that prostitution hurts women and that pornography is harmful to everybody.
I could include a lot more details (about war, capitalism, globalization, poverty, etc. that wouldn't exist or be rare in this new world and why) but, for now, I am going to talk about this world only in the realm of sexuality and intimate connections.
In that world, the cultural construction that is called "gender" (that is to say our socialization to "masculinity" and "femininity," not the biological difference of our sexual organs) would have been stopped being institutionalized to people from childhood on, and most humans would have recognized that "gender" is detrimental and unequal. So we would be free to be male and female human beings, instead of having to be "men" and "women" and conform to the narrow conceptions that "gender" offers to us.
I personally believe (even though not everybody will agree on this) that any human individual -- male or female -- is capable of being sexually attracted to both sexes. I am personally attracted to both sexes. I do not believe in sexual categories, even though I respect the choices that different people make in being attracted to any members of any sex they want -- same or opposite.
To create this better, more just world, male humans would need to stop using pornography, stop buying women in prostitution, and stop going to strip clubs.
To create this kind of a world, we would need to genuinely regard every human as equal to others, regardless of their sex, race, sexual orientation and social status, including in the domain of sexuality (i.e. during sex).
To create this kind of a world, we would need to reject phallic supremacy. I do know that many male writers, researchers and thinkers (including Sigmund Freud, for instance) have historically institutionalized our sexuality and made us internalize those pernicious ideologies about "biological" superiority and inferiority. But we need to reject them all to be equal to each other. Humans need to stop internalizing the belief "that the possession of a phallus means superiority;" they need to reject that sort of ludicrous and malignant idea.
To create this kind of a world, we would need to stop defining sex as "penetration." As Andrea Dworkin once pointed out, in this sexist and male-centric patriarchal society, sexual intercourse is typically depicted as being merely the "penetration of the vagina by the penis." Yes, penetration does occur during intercourse, but it is not the only thing that occurs. During vaginal intercourse, for instance, the penis is immersed in the vagina and enveloped by it (the engulfment of the penis by the vagina occurs during intercourse). Not recognizing this fact is one way of censoring women's sexuality in this culture. Why is intercourse never defined as "the male human and the female human joining together"?
To create this kind of a world, we would need to accept the fact that sexual intercourse is not necessarily the paradigm of all sexuality. It is true that sexual intercourse enables us to reproduce. But many people in this culture have fully acknowledged that sexuality is not merely to be experienced in the realm of reproduction, and that we do not have sex only in order to reproduce -- we also have it because it is pleasurable. So, why would we be primarily focused on the act of intercourse when we have sex (I mean "experience sexuality" by "have sex"), and treat all other forms of sexuality as "not real sex" or as mere precursors to intercourse? I believe that sex is not merely intercourse. A kiss can be sexual to me; an embrace can be sexual to me; caresses can be sexual to me; and so on. It is entirely true that sexual intercourse can be very pleasurable when both partners genuinely want it -- not when one partner has to say "yes" just to please the other. Male and female human beings -- stereotypes about male ones notwithstanding -- do not always want to have intercourse when they want to have sex. They sometimes just want to touch, cuddle, fondle, kiss, etc. each other for hours. We would need to try to find a new language for that, as well as for intercourse -- which, when both partners genuinely want it to occur in their bodies and minds, would be true eroticism.
To create this world, we would need to stop being obsessed by physical appearances and narrow "beauty standards". Many female human beings often feel bad about the shape of their body, and they shouldn't. Also, in this world that I daydream about, plastic surgery would be understood as unnecessary as female human beings would appreciate their bodies just the way they are and wouldn't get their judgements shaped by boyfriends and a male-supremacist media culture.
To create this world, we would need to stop being obsessed by body parts. We would need to stop objectifying people when we think about sex (such as breasts, buttocks, vagina, etc. or shape of torso, buttocks, penis, etc.) and see the other person as a whole, see the whole humanity of that person on the inside and the outside. There is nothing wrong about touching a particular part of someone else's body as long as both partners genuinely want and enjoy touching that particular part or being touched there -- not when one partner has to say "yes" just to please the other. But there is everything wrong with being obsessed with body parts and objectifying another human being.
To create this world, we would need to stop being obsessed by particular sexual acts. Fulfilling sexuality is not so much about sexual acts as it is about partners connecting to each other. Humans would need to stop misjudging other people -- especially female ones -- for the sexual acts they refuse or accept. And they would also need to stop choosing a partner on the basis of which sexual acts s/he does and stop choosing to mistreat or leave a partner only because s/he refuses a particular sex act. We should understand the importance of connecting to each other.
About sexual acts, I believe that everyone should accept these three important rules:
-- If a human being (female or male) never wants to try a particular sexual act, not even once in her/his life, this is her/his right. S/he should never be pressured, coerced, mistreated, constrained to compromise, asked endlessly, or misjudged by a partner because of that;
-- If a human being (female or male) has already tried a particular sexual act one or more times, but never wants to try it ever again in her/his life, this is her/his right. S/he should never be pressured, coerced, mistreated, constrained to compromise, asked endlessly, or misjudged by a partner because of that;
-- If a human being (female or male) genuinely wants to try or enjoys a particular sexual act -- not when s/he has to say "yes" just to please the other -- but does not want to experience this particular sexual act in a degrading, humiliating, painful, or violent way, this is her/his right. S/he should never be treated violently or roughly, then.
I know that different people like different things. However, I believe that being obsessed with particular sexual acts is wrong. It is more important that partners intimately connect to and communicate with each other and appreciate one another on the basis of how much they can relate to each other.
To create this kind of a world, we would need to utterly reject the sexual dynamics of domination/subordination and sadism/masochism, as they take us further away from our humanity and real sexual fulfillment. Preserving equality in sexuality is very significant and healthy, as it enables partners to genuinely make a connection to one another. Sexuality is less pleasurable and, in the end, meaningless and depressing without that connection.
I daydream about a better, more just world.
In that world, male and female human beings would be socialized to genuinely communicate with each other. Though acknowledging their bodily difference, male and female humans would no longer believe that they are biologically different mentally, behaviorally or intellectually.
Very often in this better world, two humans -- who would both have grown past puberty -- would meet and notice each other. A couple of humans, for instance, would perceive that they are affectionately attracted to one another, because they would be able to communicate with and relate to each other even more closely than with and to any other people. They would also take more time to appreciate one another. They would talk to each other about their interests, their dreams and their hopes. They would choose each other because they would have a bright passion for one another.
Then those two humans, feeling strongly attached to each other, would both want a more intense form of connection. That particular way to relate to each other would be called "sexuality" -- be it intercourse or another form of sexual activity. They would suddenly feel a vibrant desire to relate to one another through sex. They would tenderly touch, kiss, embrace, cuddle, fondle each other, etc. They would also have intercourse if they both genuinely wanted to join themselves together in that particular way and if they both found it joyful. Both would find in sexuality this particular way to communicate with each other. "An intimate way of connecting and communicating between two people who are emotionally attracted to one another" would be the definition of sexuality, and this kind of sexuality would be mainstream in this better, more just world.
Those two humans, through sexuality, would see each other's humanity, recognize themselves in one another, and feel the bliss of being able to make a radiant connection to each other. They would unite, couple, fuse, incorporate and link themselves to each other intimately. This union would fulfill them.
In that world, no boredom would ever come in the intimate life of any human couple, not even over time. Those two humans, for example, would know there are many different ways of connecting to each other: through talking, through touching, through kissing, through cuddling, through genital sex, etc... And they would also know how to find the right way of connecting at different times in their lives because they would live in a world where human beings would have been socialized to genuinely communicate with each other in the first place.
These are only primary suggestions, of course, for a newer, healthier vision of sexuality, one free of any of the "gender" hierarchy, sexual objectification, domination/subordination, sado-masochism dynamics of pornography and this culture, one that is based on humanity, equality, communication, mutuality, respect and affection.
Conclusion: Industrial sex is still here
Then I wake up from my daydream and I notice that patriarchal industrial sex is still here, and we still have a lot of work to do because many men and some women, unfortunately, are still letting pornographic images control their sex lives.
I am not saying that the kind of sexuality which I have described above -- the egalitarian one -- has never happened to anybody in this world or is not happening to some couple somewhere right now. I am saying that this egalitarian sexuality should be mainstream in our culture, but it is censored from us and rarely talked about in this sexually repressed culture.
We have everything to win -- men and women alike -- in rejecting pornographic sexuality. We have everything to win in kicking it from the mainstream and pushing it to the margin. We have everything to win in repudiating domination, subordination, sadism, masochism, degradation, violence and cruelty. We have everything to win in regaining our humanity, empathy, equality, and capacity for communication and connection. We have everything to win in rejecting patriarchy and taking a genuine political position against misogyny, racism, homophobia and sexual violence. And we have everything to win in standing up for a healthier vision of sexuality that would fulfill all our intimate lives.
So if you are genuinely looking for sexual justice, real sexual freedom, and sexual fullfillment, and if you truly oppose any form of discrimination and violence, go tell the pornographers and the pimps that they are unfairly shaping people's intimate lives. Go tell Hugh Hefner he is not "the hero of sexual liberation" but the "hero" of sexual enslavement. Go tell Larry Flynt that he is not "the hero of the First Amendment" but the "hero" of compulsory silence. Go tell Max Hardcore that he is not an "artist" but a torturer. Go tell John Stagliano that all pornography is "a psychology that I don't think is healthy."** Go tell all the pornographers that you don't want them to influence your private lives and cheapen your sexuality anymore. Go tell men to stop using pornography, stop going to strip clubs, and stop buying women for sex. Tell all pornography users that they are clearly getting a poor substitute as a sexual experience instead of what sex could really be if used as a way to make an intimate human connection.
If we do not start creating that better, more just world, by politically opposing pornography and prostitution, we all lose. Women and children certainly lose more due to all the sexual oppression, coercions, rapes and other forms of violence and abuse that pornography is linked to. But, I can tell you that men are not winning by using pornography and women in prostitution. And even if some men are beyond hope and will still deny that fact, they are losing their humanity by creating the demand for patriarchal industrial sex and I don't believe that the "sex" industry genuinely fulfills them.
It is also worth pointing out that those who defend pornography are clearly the ones who are "anti-sex." They are the ones who are reactionary and repressed. A feminist opposition to pornography is pro-sexuality and progressive.
Maggie Hays is the creator of the website AgainstPornography.org. She has recently become a radical feminist. She is a student and she also helps different women's support projects, both in her own community and in neighboring ones.
Note:
**See Robert Jensen, Getting Off, South End Press (2007) for that quote.