Feminist Porn: Sex, Consent, and Getting Off

98 thoughts on Feminist Porn: Sex, Consent, and Getting Off

1. I’m a pro-female American male, a believer in women; I wish men could not vote.
   I’m kinda surprised by the aricle, but I’m listening carefully, and think I get it. Any and all choices women make that poetentiate their freedom are good.

   I’ve gotten in the mind-set of thinking that pornography usually victimizes women. This because is it is men, lowly ones, who seem to avail themselves of it, this I admit bothers me.

   Respectfully, A student when it comes to Feminism.

2. My problem with the pro-legalization of prostitution position is that while I believe that it might work in a decent way at some point, I think the facts are showing that the people who are most set to profit from it are those who already dominate the market. In other words, the pimps, criminal organizations and traffickers, who now get it a lot easier to set up a legitimate façade, shown by the fact that the Netherlands has become quite a hub for illegal trafficking.
   Now, I’m all for de-criminalizing the prostitute, but the business at large is such that the power of a prostitute in relation to the ones that dominate the business is so skewed that I doubt much positive effect if we would legalize prostitution outright. What would be needed would no doubt be massive initiatives to clean up the sex business from the criminal organizations who revel in the exploitation of women and give sex workers some measure of agency.
   Of course, there are also class issues in this, as in I believe there are classes of sex workers who are fully able and willing to create empowering structures to support them, but at the same time, there are a lot of down-and-out women who would have to be massively supported to create such positive change for them.

   Okay, now I’m guilty of the “waaa, but prostitutes are so PROBLEMATIC”-way of reasoning. So to be clear, I support the decriminalization of the prostitute, but I think for actual change to happen, that also needs to be followed by massive(ly funded) measures from law enforcement and social services, for the majority of prostitutes to truly profit from it.

   And of course what is even more needed in the long run is to change male culture and gender relations. Radically. Because now I think it really does fit into rape and objectifying culture.

3. But the Nerd Pron site mocks me for thinking it is porn.

4. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the list of feminist porn sites. I have been dying for something like this recently and will check them out.

   And you are right that “sexuality is not neat and clean.”

   I’m a sex worker with lots of conflicted feelings about what I do.

5. I just went through that list and must say I’m disappointed. Almost none of those sites feature videos and almost all of them are STILL aimed at a male audience. Sorry, but menstrual blood sounds like plain old kink to me, along the lines of golden showers and such (I’m a pro domme and I offer these services to my male clients). The others, like furry girl and nerd pron, are serving a male audience as well. Men love the-girl-next door. Besides, putting yourself through college with sex work is not that uncommon.

   I guess I was hoping for some things aimed at turning WOMEN on, not just “women of all shapes and sizes” turning men on. But then again, you did say “feminist” porn, and I guess in that sense I’m happy to see a list of stuff that’s much friendlier to women than BangBros and Rap Video Auditions and such.

   But can somebody point me in the direction of porn that is made for a female audience? I don’t care if a chick has hairy arm pits. I want to see some hot MEN.

6. Yes, yes, yes! Oh, sorry, did I sound excited?

   Having an epic discussion back at my own blog on what the real purpose of pro-sex feminism is, and I am so glad to see this here this morning.

   Somehow, the word “the prostitute” in the above comment gives me squicky-feeling and strikes me as quite objectifying itself. Sex workers are not things, and many of them will be quite willing to talk to you about what they want. Some of them even blog and comment here.

7. Wow; that’s a great list of feminist porn sites!
   What’s disappointing to me, however, is that it’s women seeking out feminist porn as an alternative to mainstream porn and not men.

8. I realize that this isn’t the main topic of your post, and I apologize if this derails things. I also appreciate how inclusive you tried to make your post when you talked about different feminist stances on these issues.

   That said, isn’t it problematic that the woman you spoke to that night had to choose between being a sex worker and working in a grocery store? Perhaps you’re simplifying the story for us, or she simplified her reasoning for you, but if you look at those two choices as they’re presented (less than living wage and no childcare vs. being a sex worker), it doesn’t sound like she was presented with a number of equally valid options. Anyone who wants to be the sex worker absolutely deserves the right to have hir rights, safety, and health guaranteed. That’s part of feminism. But isn’t the point of feminism also to create a society where women don’t need to make choices like that? Women shouldn’t to turn to sex work because it’s the lesser of two evils.

   Maybe your juxtaposition was intentional, but I can’t help but be startled by the difference in the two stories you tell in that first paragraph: 1) a woman who chose to became a sex worker because it was better than working at a grocery store and 2) a woman who had the privelege to go out and make a purchase that assisted in owning her own sexuality.

9. This is an amazing post with so many right-on points. Sex & kink policing is out of control, as it always has been, and creates ill feelings towards sex from the many feminist women with “unfeminist” kinks like rape/incest play, etc. There was a post on Feministing recently about “Virgin Drops,” a strange lube that causes the vaginal walls to contract to give the illusion of a tighter, “virginal” pussy. The writer went on to say that Virgin Drops feed into womens’ hatred of their vaginas. While I don’t plan on purchasing Virgin Drops, it angered me because I feel that the writer is policing womens’ kinks – I’m sure many a feminist woman has a virgin fantasy and absolutely loves her vagina and thinks would be a fun addition to her sex life.

   Thanks for this post.

10. We should be creating a society where women do not have to turn to sex work or stripping out of economic necessity. Women should get paid a living wage for doing regular jobs, like working in a grocery store. Only if these women had the option of doing something else, would sex work truly become a choice. Right now women are coerced into objectifying themselves by a capitalist patriarchy that keeps women of low socio-economic status in the gutter.

    Just for the record, radical feminists are not against sex. They are against coercion and rape culture. They are also not against sex workers or any other women.

11. “Don’t women, and all people, have the right to control their bodies, access their sexual desires, and to enjoy safe and consensual sexual pleasure? And while the porn and sex/adult industry is currently geared towards men and definitely objectifies women, forgets women’s pleasure, and supports an oppressive rape culture, I see a bigger solution than attempting to censor or criminalize sex.”

    Yes- and women will be able to enjoy safe and consensual sexual pleasure, in the bedroom and outside it, when we eliminate the oppressive rape culture, part of which makes stripping and sex work economic necessities and normalizes objectification and degradation of women.

12. Same old tired arguments, IMO.

    “But I LIKE porn/bdsm/stripping/burlesque!!!1!”

    Fabulous, but that doesn’t make it feminist. If you are depicting a woman/transperson/child/man as an object of pleasure — not a real human being– it ain’t feminist.

    Now, pantyhose and makeup are not feminist either, but plenty of women have to wear them to keep their jobs. Women do plenty of things that are not feminist to survive, it sucks that they have to or FEEL they have to. Some women even like those trappings of stereotyped femininity. But that doesn’t make those things feminist.

    I don’t know why I think I can convince you all if Andrea Dworkin can’t.

13. “Sex & kink policing is out of control, as it always has been, and creates ill feelings towards sex from the many feminist women with “unfeminist” kinks like rape/incest play, etc.”

    What? Please cite some references. I find it hard to belive that feminists are policing your sex thoughts. Our technology isn’t that good yet.

14. Bushfire, well said.

    I’m not interested in a world where women have to stifle or ignore their own desire. (Uh, definitely not. Hee.) I’m not looking to criminalize sexual pleasure or condemn people for their (consensual, adult) behaviors.

    I’m interested in a world where women don’t have to make coerced choices. Where better education and social supports (healthcare, daycare, etc.) allow women to choose careers that they want, that will enrich them and take them where they want to be. I’m not talking about privileged people who participate in burlesque because it’s “fun” and “edgy” and gets them off; I mean women like the one profiled above. What are her dreams ? She made the right choice to feed and care for her family, but at what cost ? I would rather we tore down this male-dominated sexual model and built a new one.

    I imagine that in some utopian future, where women are truly free, some women will choose to participate in sex work. Good for them- we have to be sure that our utopian visions include them and their freedom to choose. But right now, I can’t help but see stories like the one above as evidence that society is failing women like her, and that we could do more.

15. I want to thank everyone for keeping this conversation respectful and honest. Seriously, it was refreshing to log in this morning and see really genuine comments.

    I really appreciate hearing views from all side and I agree with many of you that there are severely fucked up social and economic factors that encourage some women to enter the sex/adult work industry. And let’s not, in our conversation, as U.S. feminists often do, forget about the NON-consensual sexual slavery and child trafficking that comes out of the culture and economic pressures of many developing countries. These are not problems that can be “fixed” easily, but I do believe that sex work will always happen, legal or not. In my opinion, changing the face and audience for this work will make a difference in how women in pornography are portrayed and the options women have both in viewing and performing in pornography.

    For those of you looking for more diverse porn: Some of the links I posted where intended for a mixed audience, not just for men, and Good Dyke Porn obviously has the queer women’s community as their niche audience. No Fauxxx and VegPorn both have sexy heterosexual and bisexual men in their artist list. Here’s a site, Trixie’s Houseboy, featuring a male model that cater specifically to heterosexual women. Though no one brought this up, I’ve found a disappointing amount of ethnic and racial diversity in feminist/alternative porn, so I’m sorry the models in the links I sent were not very ethnically diverse.

    And apologies to “radical feminists” if I wrote something offensive. I tried to articulate, to the best of my understanding, the work of the 60’s and 70’s feminist superstars that got this debate started. So often, their work, especially Dworkin’s, is misinterpreted and I do see value in the work that was done there. In my opinion, it set the groundwork for pro-sex feminism in many ways. I couldn’t find in the post where I actually mentioned “radical feminists,” though. Probably because I see myself as a radical feminist and a member of the pro-sex feminist community. I don’t see those two ideals in conflict, personally.

    Keep posting! I’m looking forward to reading your comments. And please be respectful! You’re doing such a great job already!

16. I agree with Friction.

    So far, “feminist porn” seems to be about women reveling in the glory of their own bodies and sexuality. That’s great, and I’m glad they get off on it, and perhaps it’s inspiring to me in a “gee, I wish I was that comfortable with my own body” kind of way, but it’s not the same thing as being turned on. It’s more like “porn for feminist men” – along with “by women for women”, which still leaves me out.

    As a mostly heterosexual woman, I feel that I have internalized the male gaze to the extent that now I am supposed to be (and sometimes am) turned on by naked women and expressions of female sexuality. What about men expressing their desire to sexually please others? What about men reveling in their own beautiful, natural bodies for the enjoyment of others? If porn and sex work were really about the full range of sexual expression and not about rape, domination, and the continuation of patriarchal norms, then there would be just as many men featured on feminist sites as women. I think this is why so many women turn to gay porn, because it’s the only place to find naked men. But gay porn still marginalizes me, as a women, as just a visitor to the world of male sexuality. And gay porn has it’s own body-image issues.

    But for some reason, hetero men don’t seem to get the same enjoyment out of taking it off for women that many of the feminist porn producers espouse. I believe they have not been trained to see themselves this way, as women have been trained since birth. An no matter how progressive and gloriously un-photoshopped feminist porn is, it’s still women seducing the camera, not men.

    IBTP

17. What is the point of calling yourself a “pro-sex feminist,” if not to differentiate yourself from “other” feminists? Who are what? ANTI-sex? I really hate the labels “pro-sex” and “sex positive” feminist.

18. And I always find it so funny- we’re not fighting about sex, not really. I would assume that plenty of us on both sides are having it. We’re fighting about literally everything else around it- the framing, the politics, the pressures, the practices, who gets it, who gives it, who owns it- everything but the sex itself.

    I’d agree with SarahMC that “sex-positive” and “pro-sex” are terms that set up an opposing camp which doesn’t really exist.

19. I do think that pornography that include consensual sex between adults, including rape fantasy, incest taboo, BDSM, and other “kinky” sex should be legal and can be deconstructed and even embraced by feminist pedagogy.

    I am curious as to how the above-mentioned could ever be embraced by feminists. I don’t mean that to be a rhetorical question. While I am familiar with Dworkin, MacKinnon, etc., I’m am not at all familiar with the counter arguments. Any thoughts, links, or suggested reading would be appreciated.

20. shy:
    If porn and sex work were really about the full range of sexual expression and not about rape, domination, and the continuation of patriarchal norms, then there would be just as many men featured on feminist sites as women.

    Yes, I think so, too. And I think that the media would take a much wider variety of forms. Even some “feminist” porn that I’ve seen (and modern burlesque, etc.) includes behaviors and dynamics that come from non-feminist (or anti-feminist, I’d argue) porn culture. There is alternative stuff out there, but so much of it echoes the mainstream “women are sexy objects” tone that I find myself questioning it.

21. I believe that when feminism works against sex trade workers we are in fact upholding the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. The idea that someone is less than because of their profession diminishes these women. On my blog I regularly try to point out that by not supporting these women feminism devalues their lives and leaves them even more open to attack. This is nothing more than collusion with patriarchy and it diminishes us all as women. Why is it then when sex trade workers are murdered their stories are not decried by so-called mainstream feminism. We simply need to decide that all women matter.

22. You didn’t mention radical feminists, KaeLyn. The thing is, the post came coincidentally right after a blow-out on I Blame the Patriarchy regarding whether or not burlesque is a feminist act. A radical/sex pos dichotomy came out in the comment thread and many of the same commenters there have now come over here. You’ve inherited a rowdy crowd, although thus far we have been civil.

23. mike peters:

    I’m a pro-female American male, a believer in women; I wish men could not vote.

    I’m not sure how that last part fits in there, but that’s a separate issue.

    I’ve gotten in the mind-set of thinking that pornography usually victimizes women. This because is it is men, lowly ones, who seem to avail themselves of it, this I admit bothers me.

    No. If some form of pornography victimizes women, it’s because either the production method involved some form of victimization (trafficking, abuse, etc.), or because of misogyny in the representation of the acts, or because of some way it interacts with the larger culture. It’s not victimizing merely because “lowly men” (is this about feminism or about D/s?) are getting off on it.

    SarahMC:

    it’s women seeking out feminist porn as an alternative to mainstream porn and not men

    I think some subset of men do, especially if we’re defining “feminist porn” in the way Friction above complains about, as porn that’s still primarily about the desirability of women.

    I’m not able to view them at the moment, so I’m going off the descriptions, but a lot of the sites showcased in the post seem to be more about feminism-as-subculture-as-fetish than anything else. If that’s not your thing, it’s not your thing.

    (As for me, mostly I’ve given up on anything commercial.)

    What is the point of calling yourself a “pro-sex feminist,” if not to differentiate yourself from “other” feminists? Who are what? ANTI-sex?

    “Sex-critical” would be the term I’d use.

    I’m still iffy about the term “sex-positive feminism” for myself, so I use the terms “feminist-positive sex” and “positive-sex feminism” instead, to emphasize that it’s about making sex and sexuality *better* for people, not just more frequent.

    As for “pro-sex,” my typical understanding of that term is for folks who *aren’t* feminist about their sexual cheerleading, like Dov Charney and his ilk. But that usage might be more idiosyncratic.

    Evan:

    I do think that pornography that include consensual sex between adults, including rape fantasy, incest taboo, BDSM, and other “kinky” sex should be legal and can be deconstructed and even embraced by feminist pedagogy.

    I am curious as to how the above-mentioned could ever be embraced by feminists.

    Which ones? There are a lot of very different topics being conflated there. I don’t see BDSM, for example, as necessarily non-feminist, though certainly there can be some examples (e.g., Goreans) that are.

24. And amen to that, Bushfire! When I sat down with Cara last week and asked what to avoid…she definitely said that this topic would cause a maelstrom. I still felt like this is my area of interest and expertise and that it is a conversation feminists need to stop avoiding or slamming back and forth with anger.

    So I knew going in that it could get out of control and I’m doing my best to monitor the thread. But I’m so impressed with how civil and respectful everyone has been thus far. Thanks for being one of those people. I’ve really appreciate your comments and I hear you that to transform the sex industry would require a total radical overturning of the male-dominated adult industry. It does sound Utopian, doesn’t it? 🙂

25. Renee:
    I believe that when feminism works against sex trade workers we are in fact upholding the Madonna/Whore dichotomy.

    If feminists did work against sex trade workers, I’d agree. But feminists have been working for sex trade workers for a very long time. Feminists have agitated for better labor conditions, better (and universal) health care, domestic violence laws, access to rape kits, women’s shelters, etc. They’ve fought against laws that target women for prostitution and ignore “johns.” They’ve fought against putting addicted women in prison and instead tried to provide treatment and escape. Many feminists have spent their lives giving voice to the most oppressed and targeted groups of women, many of whom are sex workers.

    Feminists are “women-positive.”

26. @Other orange…I am sorry I firmly believe that many feminists treatment of sex trade workers others them and creates them as less than. Continually moralizing and criticizing diminishes them as women. It further seems to have a vested interest in silencing and not validating their specific experiences, much like it does to WOC.

27. Continually moralizing and criticizing diminishes them as women.

    Moralizing and criticizing does not diminish anybody. I can criticize you because I disagree. Or I may believe what you do is immoral. So we argue: I criticize you, you criticize me, and we debate. So long as we’re respectful and cordial, robust debate is healthy.

    On the other hand, while I believe prostitution is immoral, I support and advocate for rights of sex workers. I see no conflict here. I believe strongly that people have the right to engage in behavior that I find inappropriate, immoral, or even repulsive. Perhaps that’s the attorney in me coming out. But so many commenters here seem unable to unwilling to separate moral/social criticism and enforcement of legal rights. Conflating the two stifles debate and does nothing to help feminism or sex work.

28. KaeLyn, I have thus far been impressed as well. My blood pressure has yet to strike through the roof, which is an EXCELLENT sign these days.

    Bookworm, I love the idea of “sex-critical.” Of course, every time this comes up, people criticize the “sex positive” label saying that it makes the other side seem “anti-sex.” But the alternative is also true — saying you’re “anti-porn” would indicate that the other side is pro-porn. Some people on the sex positive side certainly are, but definitely not all. I would nto consider myself pro-porn.

    Renee, I think the issue you and other orange are getting into is the idea of which feminists. Some feminists advocate for sex workers. A possibly larger number advocate for criminalization. And some don’t do a whole lot for sex workers one way or the other. So really, you’re both right, unless either of you is making an all argument.

29. just wanted to list another awesome site: twobigmeanies.com. it’s a boy/girl team, features consensual, kinetic and sexy BDSM. i know the folks that run it and they are definitely feminist and respectful and do good work.

30. jfpbookworm:
    Which ones? There are a lot of very different topics being conflated there. I don’t see BDSM, for example, as necessarily non-feminist, though certainly there can be some examples (e.g., Goreans) that are.

    Rape and incest fantasy, specifically.

31. Renee, which feminists are working against sex-workers’ rights?

    I can have issues w/ prostitution and STILL work for sex-workers’ rights. So many of the “sex-positive” feminists seem to think feminism means never challenging, deconstructing, or criticizing anything a fellow woman does. As Joe said, so many commenters here seem unable to unwilling to separate moral/social criticism and enforcement of legal rights.

32. “Continually moralizing and criticizing diminishes them as women.”

    I sometimes moralize and criticize JOHNS, and I’ve heard other feminists do the same. Whenever I criticize prostitution I am criticizing those who buy rather than those who sell.
    But it’s always interpreted as a criticism of the women, no matter what’s being said.

33. Whenever I criticize prostitution I am criticizing those who buy rather than those who sell.

    I don’t think your position is maintainable. If it’s wrong to buy, then it’s wrong to sell and vice versa.

34. “And let’s not, in our conversation, as U.S. feminists often do, forget about the NON-consensual sexual slavery and child trafficking that comes out of the culture and economic pressures of many developing countries.”

    I have to admit I take issue with statements like this that imply these sorts of things only happen in developing nations. We are not exempt from these things either. I think Bob Herbert wrote a few columns about 12 year old girls forced into prostitution and how they are punished rather than helped by the law. Same goes for economic pressures.

    My impression is that most feminists argue for the decriminalization of prostitution and the shifting of focus to the johns. Some argue for legalization. I really honestly don’t hear anyone arguing that we should be arresting/locking up prostitutes.

35. Joe:
    I don’t think your position is maintainable. If it’s wrong to buy, then it’s wrong to sell and vice versa.

    I think, examining the dynamics, it is a reasonable position. There are many women who choose sex work as the lesser of two evils, so to speak- they make a choice to participate because their kids are hungry, they need to support themselves, other options are closed, etc. (I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a single feminist on earth who would criticize Afghani women, for example, who have turned to prostitution in war-torn streets.)

    But as far as the men who are buying ? I can, and will, criticize them. The difference is in the power- in a male-dominated world where men could choose not to buy sex, and still do, I hold them responsible.

36. other orange, correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand your position as saying that men who buy sex are wrong because they benefit from the power dynamic that forces women into prostitution in the first place. If that’s true, would you oppose men who buy sex from upper-middle class, white, educated women who are merely looking to make some extra cash? (I’m intentionally conjuring up a stereotype to make a point.) In my view, that shouldn’t change a thing because my objection is to buying and selling sex per se. I’m wondering what you think about that.

37. I write erotica. I can’t speak for visual porn.

    BDSM is neutral. It doesn’t have to be male-dom/femsub. If you adhere to the idea that the dom is there to make sure the sub has an incredible experience, it’s not even sexist.

    The question of incest fantasies arose.
    One of my personal favorites involves a threeway with identical twins. This is not at all uncommon for any orientation.

    Rape fantasies are harder to cast as feminist. The best explanation for the “Oh no. No. Please. Don’t…stop,” type is that it allows the social barriers inhibiting desire to be breached. I’ve written a couple stories of dubious consent, where what was coming out of someone’s mouth was “no, no no,” but what they sent telepathically or chemically (enhanced senses could smell it) was “Yes, please.”

    If you want books written by women for the pleasure of women and sold through female owned and operated companies, online romance: Ellora’s Cave, Torquere (GLBT), and Liquid Silver are all good bets.

38. If that’s true, would you oppose men who buy sex from upper-middle class, white, educated women who are merely looking to make some extra cash?

    That’s assuming that the power dynamic which forces/coerces women into prostitution isn’t in play if she’s privileged. It is. It is more apparent in the struggles of women in more dire economic situtations, but it doesn’t evaporate for any woman.

    Why would an educated middle-class woman, looking to make extra cash, end up in sex work in the first place ? In part because women are taught from the cradle to think of themselves as sexual objects and their bodies as sexual currency. That’s part and parcel of the power dynamic.

    Until all women are free, none are, is what I’m trying to say. When every woman can make a choice free from a coercive patriarchy, I’ll be happy to change my view on sex work.

39. And, Joe, I’m not truly arguing that buying sex is wrong while selling sex is just peachy- I’m just saying that when I examine both sets of motivators and pressures, one gets my empathy and the other doesn’t.

40. “If it’s wrong to buy, then it’s wrong to sell and vice versa.”

    There’s no reason why this is necessarily true.

41. “If it’s wrong to buy, then it’s wrong to sell and vice versa.”

    There’s no reason why this is necessarily true.

    Would you elaborate on this? Selling and buying enable each other. If it’s wrong to buy, then the seller is enabling a wrong act. If it’s wrong to sell, then the buyer is enabling a wrong act. I don’t see how you could separate the two.

42. I don’t see how you could separate the two.

    Joe (not to cut into your conversation with SarahMC) but as I mentioned above, there are very different forces driving the buying and the selling.

    It’s fine to sell a hammer, but it’s wrong to buy one for the purpose of bludgeoning somebody with it. That’s not a perfect metaphor, but you get my point- buying and selling are not always perfectly equal acts (at least not out in the messy, messy world.)

43. “Feminist porn” is an oxy-moron. 99.9999% of porn enforces misogny. “I guess I was hoping for some things aimed at turning WOMEN on, not just “women of all shapes and sizes” turning men on. ” AMEN!

44. I’m coming to this thread a little late but I wanted to respond to some of the comments from the beginning regarding the lack of feminist porn.

    I workblog at Babeland (feminist sex toy store) and talk to people about porn all day. I can say that, refreshingly, more and more people (women, men, etc) come in looking for anything that isn’t mainstream porn. Women feel objectified, men are tired of it and want to see real pleasure. It turns out, a lot of people are tired of porn as we know it.

    The good news is that there are people stepping up to give these people what they’re looking for. Below is a list of some films that both Babeland staff and customers love – hope it helps for those out there that like their porn to move.

    “Straight”
    Urban Friction
    Anything by Candida Royalle
    Afrodite Superstar
    Edge Play
    Comstock Films (Matt and Khym, Xana and Dax)
    Stories of O
    Eyes of Desire
    Chemistry 1-4

    “Queer”
    Crash Pad
    Pornograflics
    Wild Kingdom
    Eroctavision
    The Bi Apple
    Sugar High Glitter City
    Hard Love/How to Fuck in High Heels

45. Pingback: Good post on sex-positive feminism on Feministe « The Eclectic Hedonist

46. Joe, the buyer and the seller are motivated by two different things.
    The buyers have all the power.

47. Feministe is one of my daily blog reads, so it was a pleasant surprise to see me linked here, and as always, interesting to see my autonomy being abstractly discussed. I wrote a little bit about doing porn from a self-aware, feminist perspective here, and there are a few points I’d like to add to that. To claim that a woman cannot make the choice to perform sex work, whether that is supposedly due to social pressures or moral imperatives, is problematic in a few ways. For one, it assumes that there would *need* to be a coercive agent in place for a woman to do such disgusting, degrading things for a living, and that assumption is broken the first time a sex worker sees her job as something other than disgusting and degrading. As an analogy, being a sewer diver seems like a terrible job to most folks and many of us couldn’t see ourselves every making the choice to do it without being under some damned serious duress, yet there are people out there somewhere that see it as a viable career choice. I’d certainly never be a sewer diver but I don’t have any qualms about running my own porn site. The other problem with this line of reasoning is that it also blurs the line between women who are doing sex work voluntarily and those who are forced into sex slavery, and that is extremely dangerous. Not only does it shift the focus away from those who are actually being trafficked, it paints all non-trafficked sex workers as victims, every last one of them, no matter how extraordinary their circumstances. $pread blog has a number of good posts on the topic, and here is one.

    As a final note, I find it interesting that Friction perceives my site as being aimed at a male audience, since that’s not my intent. I’ve long been aware of this distinction, and it’s interesting, because the difference between intended message and interpreted message is so massively subjective that, for me, I haven’t found a clear and satisfying answer to that. To analyze that statement is tricky, because you have to define what it means exactly to aim towards a male audience. When I’m going about the daily business of running my site, I don’t “aim” at a male audience. When I’m planning shoots and buying outfits, I don’t think “hmm, what would a man like?”. When I’m marketing and promoting my stuff, I don’t speak to dudes (“I want some cock!”), and I avoid any derogatory, sexist narration (“I’m a filthy little slut!”). When I’m shooting my stuff, I don’t think “if I spread my ass guys will like this shot!” and I don’t think “let’s go find some girls to make fake lesbian porn with” (indeed, the girls I shoot with are my lovers and girlfriends, and while some of the shoots are cheesecake, some of the shoots are *ahem* very genuine…oh, and my boyfriend’s in a few shoots too). It may very well be the case that although I don’t aim my marketing towards men, it ends up bringing in men — but I think that has to do more with the fact that the majority of porn consumers are men than the fact that I market towards men. I do have a fairly sizable number of female subscribers too, certainly more than the industry average of <10%.

48. KaeLyn, I gotta say, when I saw that you had written on this topic, I expected a shitstorm. It is so cool to see an actual, civil discussion on the topic, where we all assume that, for the most part, everyone is committed to doing the best thing for women, instead of laying into each other like some kind of Jerry Springer throwdown/patriarchal wet dream. This is so necessary.

    All the fighting around the subject, and the intensity with which people on both sides of the debate will condemn people who disagree, have made me really reluctant to engage other feminists on the topic in much depth. I know that anything I said about my personal experiences would be exploited and potentially mocked by a lot of feminists. That is not how feminism is supposed to operate, but somehow we’ve gotten there. Not what I’d call a “safe space.”

    Anyway, without going into the personal stuff, my view is that some people on the “pro-sex” (I agree that’s a flawed title) side of the debate (I’m lookin’ at you, Carol Queen) tend to ignore people who don’t have as much privilege as they do (trafficking, representations of people of color, etc.), and that they tend to underestimate the cultural implications of representations of bodies for the general culture (not just the individual sex workers involved). In my view, there’s a feminist critique to be made of anything that fetishizes what is normatively considered attractive, and even anything that fetishizes the gaze… and, um, of capitalism. Interestingly, I’ve also found that some people on this side have been incredibly unwilling to listen to what men have to say about what porn means to them… In my experience, feminist men are much harsher judges of porn than feminist women are.

    On the “radical feminist” side (I think this is a flawed title too–radical just means “going to the root”–it doesn’t indicate a specific stance on porn), there seems to be some judginess going around when it comes to women’s choices (not from everyone, but from a minority), and often a simplistic negative take on bdsm and kink… Sometimes recognizing power dynamics and playing with them/challenging them is a lot more radical than pretending that sex is (or should be) all Enya, clouds and puppy dog tails.

    And both sides (well, our culture in general) could stand some serious dissection of the meaning of “consent.”

    It’s freakin’ awesome to see a conversation about this subject that isn’t all about yelling at each other. In fact, from these comments, it kinda seems like maybe most feminists think a lot more alike than different on this topic.

49. To claim that a woman cannot make the choice to perform sex work, whether that is supposedly due to social pressures or moral imperatives, is problematic in a few ways.

    I could not argue that women don’t make choices; I would simply argue that women don’t make choices in a vaccuum.

    Plenty of people are as self-aware as you, and conscious of the impact of their choices. It still remains that this world is framed for men. Whether or not you yourself market for men, the porn market itself is aimed at, and structured for, men.

    (I really do appreciate you sharing, by the way. Sometimes this debate rages on, with neither side getting true input from the actual participants, so- thank you !)

50. Re: Economic coercion

    I absolutely agree that every person on earth should earn a living wage. Unfortunately that is not our current universe. My question for those of you who would criminalize prostitution on the grounds of economic coercion is: What is the alternative? The woman in the anecdote said it was sex work or working in a grocery store. If you criminalize sex work then her options are (1) work at a grocery store with insufficient money to cover expenses or (2) continue working as a sex worker facing the risk of a criminal record, no protection under the law (leaving her vulnerable to further exploitation) and no legal benefits (no workers comp, health insurance, disability, etc.).

    Re: Anti-Sex Worker “Feminists”

    There are some people out there calling themselves feminists that treat sex workers very poorly. I don’t consider anyone who denies the agency of any woman feminist…but others might.

    As for links: Here’s a good over all picture

51. I’m a little leery of calling Betty Dodson an advocate of feminist porn. In the 1960’s-70’s, she was a little too close for comfort to the purveyors of pretty nasty, misogynist kinds of porn (folks like Berth Milton, Sr., for instance). I think she’s played both sides of the fence over the years.

52. I don’t know why I think I can convince you all if Andrea Dworkin can’t.

    “But I don’t like my children, madam!” (c) Becket.

    That is, to say, I can’t say I like a lot of what Dworkin said, and she isn’t my feminist avatar.

53. I’m against laws that persecute women involved in sex work- too often, arrest and prosecution skews against women of color and poor women. Not to mention that the men involved (pimps, johns, whatever their role) often go completely free. Criminalizing women who have already been coerced into sex work is not the answer.

    So what’s the alternative ? Better social programming- healthcare and child care so that women’s options are opened. Better education, starting from pre-K and elementary; including comprehensive sex ed that doesn’t devalue female bodies. Better social supports like shelters, job training, counseling and addiction treatment centers for women who entered sex work because of abuse, drugs, or other issues. Community education to take the stigma and shame off of women who enter into sex work.

    And no, we’re not going to get all of that tomorrow. But I think working for and demanding change in all of those areas would move us towards a healthier society in general.

54. I haven’t had the time to read all the comments yet but, with regards to the porn element of the post, surely it all depends on the context. It seems to me that people often fail to differentiate between pornography as a concept (ie.material designed specifically to titillate) and the reality (girls gone wild at the base, rape porn and bestiality on the outer margins).

    There’s no question there should be more sites run by and aimed toward women, but at the same time it’s nice to see something alternative for men too. I dig looking at naked women as much as the next guy or dyke but mostly don’t bother with anything specific because the look and ethos of most of the content in the porn ‘industry’ is so repulsive. I know this sounds largely selfish so far, but there should be more porn featuring normal looking, assertive women. And there’s no reason why an alternative network of gender neutral, respective, sex positive, kinky pornography can’t grow if people are willing to support it.

55. Who are the “anti-sex worker feminists”? I’ve never met any. I don’t see any here. I do think sex work is degrading and I don’t agree with the “sex-positive” crowd, but I still think that sex work should be legalized and made safer in any way possible. To eliminate the need for sex work I think we need to pay women a living wage for other work, value women’s work, provide child care, etc. If women have many options and still choose sex work, then they should be safe doing it.

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57. But for some reason, hetero men don’t seem to get the same enjoyment out of taking it off for women that many of the feminist porn producers espouse. I believe they have not been trained to see themselves this way, as women have been trained since birth.

    I agree with this. I do believe that men do think of their bodies as beautiful perhaps not in the same way that women view their bodies as beautiful: a lot of guys do work out to achieve what is the male ideal of a great bod – .

    But I think that one reason why men are less likely to want to take it off is because they have an additional issue that women simply dont have….if you think about it, the issue in question becomes quite obvious. It’s a simple question of anotomy.

58. I completely agree with Bushfire.

    And Timothy, some men are “well hung,” while some are not. In the same way, some women have “good bodies” (i.e. those that most men want to look at, in our culture) and some do not. Obviously, not all women are interested in taking their clothes off for men; most women are insecure about their bodies and how they are perceived. I don’t see why men would be any more insecure about their naked bodies than women are.

59. Bushfire — there are lots of feminists who want prostitution illegal, or want the Swedish model where prostitution is illegal only on the buying side — which sounds great at first glance until you consider the fact that the more you prosecute Johns, the less safe working conditions get as known brothels and such are no longer viable options, and the women would therefore still be working in the shadows in order to actually make money doing what it is they do. (Correct me if I’m wrong — since stripping and porn performance are legal in most places, I assumed that by “sex work” you were referring exclusively to prostitution.)

    Now, whether or not your stance is anti-sex worker is up for debate. I’m pretty neutral on that front, but some sex worker advocates would say that having a stance that all sex work is degrading is anti-sex worker because it denies any chance for agency. But setting that aside, by your apparent standards, many feminists are anti-sex worker. While I know that some people see Renegade Evolution as polarizing (I rather enjoy her blog without entirely agreeing with it), she does blog about these feminists regularly — and I have to say that I was personally also unaware of the very strong anti-sex worker sentiment out there in some quarters before I started reading her.

60. Well said, Cara.

    Thanks to everyone for this great thread. Let it be remembered that, on this day, July 23, 2008, feminists from many perspectives actually listened to each other on the topic of pornography and sex workers rights.

    I was nervous to post this and I’m so glad I did. Thanks for welcoming a guest blogger to your space and hearing my request for a civil and productive conversation.

61. Seriously KaeLyn, you are like fucking MAGIC or something. I’ve been sitting at this thread staring with my jaw hanging open all day. IN A GOOD WAY FOR A CHANGE. Usually when I’m left with a gaping mouth on any thread on any blog, that’s not good news . . .

    All I can say is congratulations to all involved. Give yourselves a hand.

62. And Timothy, some men are “well hung,” while some are not. In the same way, some women have “good bodies” (i.e. those that most men want to look at, in our culture) and some do not. Obviously, not all women are interested in taking their clothes off for men; most women are insecure about their bodies and how they are perceived. I don’t see why men would be any more insecure about their naked bodies than women are.

    SarahMC, I agree with everything you’ve stated there.

    When I said that there might be another issue with men wanting to pose nude for women, I was, in my mind, really thinking about softcore porn (I am not very familiar with US porn and hardcore porn.)

    I made the assumption that any man or woman who would be willing to pose for a nude shot of themselves would:
    (a) have what society says is a “great” body
    (b) is attractive to the viewers

    Therefore, assuming that both man and woman who would pose for such a shot already have great bodies and are considered attractive…I’m just thinking that the man has the additional worry of whether he is “well hung” or not.

    True, you might say that the woman in question might have a similar worry about the size of her breasts, but I am reminded of something I read a long time ago, that went something along the likes of:

    For a naked woman who was incredibly gorgeous, but had small breasts, people would still find her attractive and gorgeous and heterosexual men would still drool. Her attractiveness is not diminished by the small size of her breasts.

    For a naked man who was incredibly gorgeous, but had a small penis, people would laugh and make jokes about the small size of his willy. If he was particularly muscular, people would say that he was overcompensating for being so small.

    I’m not sure I can find the perfect examples, but I guess a somewhat similar example would be Kiera Knightley and Jude Law. Even though Kiera has what some people consider to be small breasts, she is still considered a “babe” and many guys do think of her as such. However, when Jude Law was caught in the nude, I see many posts abound about how tiny his penis was, including really humorous limericks and poems about it as well. Also, while Kiera Knightley can even joke about her own breasts and saying that they have always been small, I don’t think Jude Law jokes about his small penis size much.

    A poster here (or was it Feministing), once said that the issue of mens’ penis size is about equal to the issue of womens’ bodies when it comes to sex….I certainly see that this is a more reasonable statement than saying penis size issues is equivalent to breast size issues.

    This is just my opinion of course, and just one of the reasons why I think that men may worry more about taking such shots compared to women.

    I certainly agree with the above posters who have said they have internalized the message that women’s bodies are beautiful (whereas mens’ are not). I have met many women who have said they prefer looking at females/female bodies because women are just so much prettier, beautiful curves, great skin, etc, but thankfully I have met women who are just as interested in looking at male/male bodies as well.

    I think that if women want to look at hot naked men, where the view is for women (as opposed to just for gay men) they should be able to do that, without judgement from anybody. In regards to those women who are just as interested in looking at male/male bodies, they have told me that sometimes they will just say that they prefer to look at female/female bodies because people will call them “desperate” or “sluts” for even liking to look at naked men. (I am unsure whether this is the case in the US or other Western countries…in Asia, this attitude is very prevalent), which is kind of sad and unfortunate.

63. THis is an impressively calm thread

    I also would like to separate the fact of pleasure from what the effect might be. I agree that many women enjoy things that aren’t feminist. This isn’t a problem for feminism, because the job of feminism is not to make everything women do enjoyable. The job of feminism is to critique and work against gender hierarchies (and all hierarchies). What bothers me is the idea that since we can’t escape enjoying it, it MUST be feminist. Much like the discussion of sex work and how hard it can be to escape/avoid for some, it is our society that makes it impossible to escape how pleasure works for us.

    It doesn’t mean we must forgo pleasure, but it’s worth analysing it (if we are up to it) and not pretending that in itself it is going to alter society. I can see how the criticism can feel and sound judgmental, and surely when poorly done it probably is.

    But I don’t find that many “sex-positive” analyses of sex are convincing -it’s either that sex is private/psychological/hard-wired, and thus not up for analysis or debate (and any sensible feminist should see the echoes of those kind of arguments – they have been used to perpetuate hierarchy from time immemorial), or it’s that it MUST be feminist because it feels good.

    Also, I too was struck by the idea that because a woman said she had no alternative but sex work the analysis hsould be that sex work is good? it is feminist?

    lastly, the funny overlap between the discussion of pleasure and the discussion of sex work (which didn’t sound like pleasure in the case of the stripper) -which I think the earlier post contrasting the privileged purchaser of a dildo and the exploited seller of pole dances made clear- pleasure sounds in many cases to be an aspect of privilege in sex work. If pleasure is dependent on privilege, then it can’t be a force for overturning privilege..

64. “Feminism has a love/hate relationship with sex.”

    “And while the porn and sex/adult industry is currently geared towards men and definitely objectifies women, forgets women’s pleasure, and supports an oppressive rape culture, I see a bigger solution than attempting to censor or criminalize sex.”

    note to the world: pornography ≠ sex

    I am anti-pornography for feminist reasons, but I am in no way anti sex. I find this whole post so frustrating on so many levels, that it would take me about five years to even begin to scratch the surface. You don’t mention any kind of feminist theory about how concepts of “choice” are so, so problematic in patriarchal society, and particularly regarding sex work. You mention Andrea Dworkin, only to shoot her down, without telling your readers, who may not be aware, any of her, or other anti-pornography feminists, arguments against pornography. You act as if pornography is a completely alternative, underground thing, when it is completely normalised and mainstream in today’s society. You talk about sexual fantasies and sexual behaviour without mentioning at all the impact that this proliferation of pornographic ideals has upon the construction of sexuality.

65. This drives me crazy, so just for the record: whatever else Andrea Dworkin may have been, she was, as far as I know, trans-positive. Someone else will have to find the quote in Woman Hating where she says (and I paraphrase), “It may well be that trans people wouldn’t exist if we lived in a completely unsexist world. But for the time being trans people live in a state of emergency, and they deserve our help, including full state funding for any and all medical procedures they may need to survive.”

66. I find it interesting that your list of feminist adult sites are mostly those that cater either to a queer audience or to men. I’ve been making what I consider to be feminist porn for straight women since 2000.

    Since then I’ve been involved in various discussions and arguments about whether what I create is truly feminist or not. Then we get into theories about what truly constitutes a “feminist sexuality” and whether getting turned on by stereotypes harms the sisterhood and so on.

    I just wanted to put my head above the rampart and make a few points:

    * A lot of women enjoy porn – stats suggested 1 in 3 of all porn surfers are female.

    * Women should have the right to enjoy sexually explicit material – whatever their tastes. And they should not be accused of false consciousness because what turns them on is politically incorrect. When it comes to fantasy and masturbation, politics can be a major turnoff.

    * A lot of porn is misogynist, cruel, distasteful and downright awful. That’s not to say that porn in and of itself is bad. It’s my belief that feminism has a place in the porn industry to make it better. Simply dismissing it as “objectifying women” doesn’t help.

    * The porn industry needs to work harder to ensure all performers are given respect and treated right. I actually wish there was some kind of sex workers union for performers. That said, plenty of female porn stars love what they do.

    I could go on… but I think I’ll just go and write my own blog post…

67. It’s something I struggle with a feminist who draws porn. I strive for certain things, and right now, my most popular illustration is the one that I have the most reservations about.

    Among the things that concern me is avoiding making women seem unwilling, avoiding drawing women who looked traditionally pornographic or surgically altered, creating erotic situations that I would personally enjoy, creating situations that are erotic without relying on traditional depictions of sex in pornography, creating emotion and even romantic involvement between characters, and, most importantly, showing faces.

    In the picture that concerns me most, I made the decision to colour the man involved the same shade as the bed sheets, rendering him part of the background. The reason this bothers me is that this is a traditional way of making him anonymous so that the viewer can put themselves in his place. The point of my pictures is not to make my characters blowup dolls, but to humanise them and explore their sexuality and my own. I feel I failed with that picture, and I’m a little disappointed that this picture is my most popular.

    But I try to draw all kinds of people and situations, and my work is based primarily on personal fantasies. I consider it an extension of my own sexuality, and as a consumer of erotic art, I want to be the change I’d like to see. I don’t want to be part of the problem.

68. KaeLyn-

    This is a great post, and a great thread to go with it. Well done! After just having spent several days at a sex workers conference it was quite interesting to find out..gee..in many ways, I’ve been sort of right-in a general sense- of what actual sex workers want out of people…which included everything from , yep, more options to merely being left alone to do their thing. However, being considered criminals or demonized? Not high on any of their lists… neither was being painted as some poster girl/guy victim.

    But yeah, can porn be feminist? Is there feminist porn? I certainly think so.

69. I cant agree with the statement that feminists have a love/hate relationship with sex. I think this only feeds the stereotype that feminists are generally anti-sex.

    I’ve never met a feminist who was anti-sex, just anti-porn.

    I have to agree with Cate on a lot of things. I’m not anti-porn, but I can also agree that porn does not equal sex, especially because mainstream porn only represents the fantasies of men and usually ignores women’s pleasure.

    I also agree with her statement on how porn can influence sexual fantasies. Most men involved in BDSM are dommes, while most women are submissive. I can’t believe this just comes along naturally, but rather think that it’s a result of the ideals of pornography, where the man is dominating and the women’s job is to pleasure him. Because submission of women is valued and seen as sexy, I think more women will have sexual fantasies of being submissive because of how their sexuality is influenced.

    I don’t think submission fantasies are bad, nor domination fantasies. But why isn’t the desire to be domme/sub more balanced for men and women?

70. Wow, I’m impressed, too, at the civility in this thread. Can we bottle this and sprinkle it over every debate on sex work?

    Like Friction and Shy and a few others here, I too went looking for the guys. I don’t have a problem with the sites KaeLyn listed featuring mostly women. But where are the men?

    And I mean *men,* not boys. A couple of these sites do show men. They’re quite young. No Fauxxx, for instance, is specifically soliciting male models, but they’re calling for “boys.”

    This might cater to a very small subset of hetero women, but it looks much more like they’re following certain conventions in gay porn.

    So where, please, is the porn featuring attractive *men*? I don’t think we can speak of real feminist porn until there’s serious turnabout, with women authorized to enjoy the visual pleasures of adult male bodies on our own terms – to look, as well as be looked at.

71. Katlyn, in my knowledge and experience, there’s actually not that much of a gap between the genders within BDSM, especially when you think of the ongoing joke about how many male subs are out there looking for a female domme. However (!), there’s a big difference when you get to what gets represented in the media, especially the mainstream media.

    Specifically, when women are shown as the domme/top/Mistress/whatever in mainstream media, it’s often played for titillation-type laughs. If they want shock value, they either go for M/f, or straight to gay kinky men. Because, as a friend of mine put it “it’s the reversal of what’s expected of depicted sex to have a female top, but is a bit too literal to show a male one”. When you get into BDSM itself, there’s more of a range of gender roles to be seen, though a lot of it is still M/f, at least partially due to some of the more vocal, specifically sexist groups.

72. “Bushfire — there are lots of feminists who want prostitution illegal, or want the Swedish model where prostitution is illegal only on the buying side — which sounds great at first glance until you consider the fact that the more you prosecute Johns, the less safe working conditions get as known brothels and such are no longer viable options, and the women would therefore still be working in the shadows in order to actually make money doing what it is they do. (Correct me if I’m wrong — since stripping and porn performance are legal in most places, I assumed that by “sex work” you were referring exclusively to prostitution.)”

    I’m sad to hear that. I think that feminists should do whatever will help other women, even ones they don’t understand.

    “Now, whether or not your stance is anti-sex worker is up for debate. I’m pretty neutral on that front, but some sex worker advocates would say that having a stance that all sex work is degrading is anti-sex worker because it denies any chance for agency. ”

    I guess it was unfair of me to say that. Thanks for pointing out I made an all-or-nothing statement- I do think a lot of sex work is degrading, because it is coerced, but I can’t make any statements about “all” of it. That said, I think it’s hard for women to really have agency in a world where their bodies are sold for consumption. It’s not anyone’s attitude that “sex work is degrading” that denies that agency, it is the patriarchy.

73. Timothy:

    A couple thoughts here:

    I made the assumption that any man or woman who would be willing to pose for a nude shot of themselves would:
    (a) have what society says is a “great” body
    (b) is attractive to the viewers

    I don’t see any reason to believe this. Sure, the folks who would be able to make a living out of it are probably more likely to be conventionally attractive, but these days all that’s actually required is a camera and a distribution mechanism.

    For a naked man who was incredibly gorgeous, but had a small penis, people would laugh and make jokes about the small size of his willy. If he was particularly muscular, people would say that he was overcompensating for being so small.

    I think there’s a conflation here of the sort of prurient gaze that porn is trying to appeal to, and the hyperscrutinization of celebrities’ bodies. (The Jude Law example probably also has a lot to do with his reputation of being a bit of a douchebag.) I suspect that in a porn context, the people that aren’t interested in the less-endowed model would just seek out alternatives.

74. I cant agree with the statement that feminists have a love/hate relationship with sex. I think this only feeds the stereotype that feminists are generally anti-sex.

    I’ve never met a feminist who was anti-sex, just anti-porn.

    Yeah, I wish that this were true, but it’s not entirely. Now, are there more feminists who are anti-porn than anti-sex? ABSOLUTELY. But I’ve had enough of these discussions to know that there are plenty of feminists out there willing to validate only some sexual activities and strongly examine and criticize only others — often assuming that, say, if they themselves have never had a desire for rough sex, it must be inherently degrading and abusive, women must not really like it, and sexual behavior must carry over into other parts of the relationship. I would call that anti-sex — no matter how many times a person tries to argue that rough sex is prevalent in porn and that influences desire, etc.

    I think that once you get into calling any sex act inherently degrading, or once you start “questioning” only some sexual practices and not others (for example, women who really enjoy receiving oral sex are fine, but those who really enjoy giving it to a man are put under the microscope and are supposed to think about the influence of the patriarchy on their lives), it starts becoming anti-sex.

    Now when it comes to porn, I actually disagree with KaeLyn on rape porn and think that is something entirely different than playing with nonconsent with a consensual partner, where you work out the rules and come up with a safeword and everything. I have, unfortunately, actually seen rape porn. I was doing a search for legitimate information regarding rape, found that, and had one of those “so deeply horrified that I can’t stop looking” moments and it will probably stay with me forever. That shit is not about “play.” It is about making it look as much like real rape as possible, and it is advertised as “real rape,” and that this is what makes it hot, even despite a tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the page which says they don’t condone nonconsensual sex. I personally see a very big difference between getting off on playing with a taboo fantasy while knowing that you’re in controlled circumstances and not really hurting another human being, and getting off on the idea of someone actually being raped. I’m not exactly sure how one goes about legislating against it or if that would even solve the problem — but I definitely do not see any way in which it could be considered feminist.

    My point is that while I’m using a very narrow example here, I don’t think that one’s perceptions of how something is portrayed in porn must necessarily carry over into how one views the ways that sex acts are carried out in real life, because there are significant differences. Some people don’t necessarily see this.

75. was niave and classist for us to engage her in this conversation

    Uh, why? Why is it classist to ask someone in a job why they are in that job and whether they like it? How can I rise above my assumptions about class and job – which is what is truly classist – if I’m not allowed to talk to people of whatever class and whatever job about their experiences? I’m missing something.

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77. Cara:
    I think that once you get into calling any sex act inherently degrading, or once you start “questioning” only some sexual practices and not others… it starts becoming anti-sex.

    I understand what you’re saying; but you’ve followed that statement with a strong criticism of rape porn. (A criticism with which I agree- I feel like rape porn is dangerous, and not about shared pleasure.) There are plenty of people in our media-saturated world who believe porn and sex to be intertwined, and also plenty of people who take their cues about sexual behavior from porn.

    The behaviors and rituals and roles of porn have seeped into common culture, and therefore into common sex. Consequently, I don’t feel like there are any practices which are above scrutiny and examination. (I’m not saying we shun and judge people for their desires, no way. I’m just saying a closer look is not necessarily a condemnation. It’s just a closer look.)

78. Personally, I’ve been a sex worker for three years. I’ve been in movies, stripped, was a call girl, and now I’m a professional dominatrix (which has always been my love). I believe that this is a great launching pad in terms of deconstructing how feminists should view pornography from a political and social perspective. But, I always wondered why more feminists haven’t spoken up on how they view pornography from a sexual perspective (and not just fem porn).

    That’s because (and, as a self-proclaimed feminist, I have gone down this road) I believe we compromise our own sexuality with feminist values. To me, I believe it is unfair to fashion our kinks and desires based on feminist notions. I do believe in using these same notions and values to improve the conditions of sex workers, in this point adult film performers, specifically-that way taboo pornography such as rape porn can deliver on the fantasy while condoning a safe working environment for all of those involved.

    Quite honestly, I’ve been on both sides of the fence about women’s desire, fantasies, etc and if they are truly being spoken to through pornography. My opinion is this: one of the only reasons why we (women and you men out there who are being nice) feel this way is because of the stigma that not only the media has created but we have created too. I have news for you: There are tons and tons and tons of types of pornography out there… for everyone. Men, women, transgendered! “Mainstream” pornography is mythic and the only reason that we continue to believe there is mainstream porn is because there are not enough of us consuming (which means buying and owning) the type of movies that can turn us on. Women’s desires are no different than men’s in terms of what we fantasize about-and if there is a so-called difference, then we are being told what to fantasize about, and that ain’t right. If Jane Doe is into rough sex, rape fantasies, tentacle fucking an alien from planet Mars, or fake tits and blonde hair then who the fuck cares? Let her enjoy herself without having to feel the weight of feminism creeping into her thoughts. Let’s face it-patriarchal societies exclude us from having our own sexual desire altogether. Let’s be progressive and take it back, whether we like what we are into or not.

    Feminists should not be anti-porn or anti-sex… they just shouldn’t. And if you are, then help us sex workers, producers, directors, filmmakers, and patrons by visiting websites like

    http://www.sexinthepublicsquare.org
    http://www.sweat.org
    http://www.swop.org
    http://www.spreadmagazine.org
    …and many many others.

    and get involved by helping us establish conditions that are safe and consensual for performers, crew, and so on.

    And, yes indeed, watch the porn that turns you on (though I don’t know too many that involve real tentacle aliens, Jane… there’s always Hentai!)

79. Cara: “My point is that while I’m using a very narrow example here, I don’t think that one’s perceptions of how something is portrayed in porn must necessarily carry over into how one views the ways that sex acts are carried out in real life, because there are significant differences. Some people don’t necessarily see this.”

    Stuff that happens in porn happens in real life. It happens to the person who performed the act. It is real life. Porn workers are people. That image getting violently DPed is a person, that happened to her.

    Anna Logue:”To claim that a woman cannot make the choice to perform sex work, whether that is supposedly due to social pressures or moral imperatives, is problematic in a few ways.
    For one, it assumes that there would *need* to be a coercive agent in place for a woman to do such disgusting, degrading things for a living, and that assumption is broken the first time a sex worker sees her job as something other than disgusting and degrading.”

    Women can make choices, and (though I must admit I have only scanned parts of this thread) I don’t think anyone was arguing otherwise. However what women cannot do is make choices in a patriarchy free environment, right now. The happiest porn star in the world will be reviled/lauded for her actions. She’ll be at risk of having her kids taken away. She won’t be able to run for public office. I’m sure you can think of other damaging consequences.

    The most feminist-friendly porn you produce could be used in ways that degrade women. Because it exists in a patriarchy. Again, I suppose I applaud you for doing what you think is right, but some of us will continue to think of porn as being inherently non-feminist. Neutral, maybe. Not feminist though, not now.

80. It might also be interesting to look at the issue from the ‘demand’ side of the picture. The reason the porn industry has such a pervasive detrimental cultural effect might also be explained because of the demands people who pay for porn express. I think people who have healthy view on sex would never view pornography as something strictly necessary to them, so they naturally would be less inclined to pay for pornography that conforms to their healthy view of sex.

    This leaves those with a less egalitarian view, those who aren’t getting sex anyway for good reason as those who drive the demand for more demeaning and perverted porn. Why popular culture so readily follows their lead in accepting demeaning porn as something normal I have a hard time with. My guess is that economics fetishizes that which sells best, so when it comes to sex, the only thing they see selling is the bad kind. This is a self reinforcing system, since demand is also shaped by what can be expected to be supplied.

    Pop culture is a business of looking at what sells, not what people like to do in their privacy. Besides ‘normal’ sex being out of the picture that way, there is also the fact that the huge majority of consumed porn isn’t actually paid for (certainly on the internet). Porn producers do not cater to the general populace, they cater to those willing to pay for porn.

    Solutions must be sought in how popular culture copies bad ideas that sell just as well as good ones. This involves a shift from seeing trends as a supply as it comes from producers to trends which are demands as they are generated by consumers.

    I was surprised abbywinters.com didn’t make the list. While it doesn’t advertise as a feminist porn site it certainly deserves that title in my eyes. All videos are unscripted, so you won’t find much bias in how the sex is portrayed, just women who genuinely seem to enjoy themselves. It doesn’t feature any males anywhere though (even the staff), which is a minus. It steers away from the porn beauty ideal by featuring naturally shapely women prominently, although not beyond a certain hidden standard.

81. I understand what you’re saying; but you’ve followed that statement with a strong criticism of rape porn. (A criticism with which I agree- I feel like rape porn is dangerous, and not about shared pleasure.) There are plenty of people in our media-saturated world who believe porn and sex to be intertwined, and also plenty of people who take their cues about sexual behavior from porn.

    The difference is that I’m criticizing something that is nonconsensual. The porn may have been consensual as made, just like in role-playing a similar fantasy. But you don’t see the consent and negotiation part in the porn. If someone were to take their cues from rape porn and therefore rape someone, that would not be okay — acting out such a scene consensually and with safeguards in place I do not feel is in any way similarly wrong, which was my point. I also included the word inherently for a reason. Some sex is degrading, and people get off on that. Other consensual sex can be degrading, but not in a way that is erotic for one of the partners.

    The behaviors and rituals and roles of porn have seeped into common culture, and therefore into common sex. Consequently, I don’t feel like there are any practices which are above scrutiny and examination. (I’m not saying we shun and judge people for their desires, no way. I’m just saying a closer look is not necessarily a condemnation. It’s just a closer look.)

    Yes, but the problem is, as I said above, that in practice only some sexual acts get scrutinized. And if you don’t fall into someone’s completely subjective definition of “vanilla,” you’re up for scrutiny as being a fucked up patriarchy lover in certain circles. Again, I’ve never seen a woman be criticized by feminists for enjoying receiving oral sex (nor should she be criticized for it!). But I’ve seen the blowjob argument erupt a million times.

    Stuff that happens in porn happens in real life. It happens to the person who performed the act. It is real life. Porn workers are people. That image getting violently DPed is a person, that happened to her.

    You’re absolutely right, and I see that I phrased that poorly. But I did use the word portrayed for a specific reason. My point is that in porn, you don’t usually see the women preparing themselves with lubricant, or discussing with the male performers what they’re going to do and not going to do in advance. You don’t see the points where they stop and start again because something becomes uncomfortable. It happens, but it’s not in the porn. That was the differentiation I was making there between “porn” and “real life.” They’re both reality, but one is a highly edited reality. The sex that happens in your bedroom is not edited in advance. So, when a person watches “rape porn” that was consensually made, they don’t see the consensual part. When they enact a “rape fantasy” with a partner, they do see the consensual part — if they don’t, it obviously is really rape. I apologize for any confusion and hope that makes things a bit more clear.

82. Cara, thanks for elaborating.

    And Leon Symone, I appreciate what you’re saying, but personally I’ve never felt like feminism has put a “weight” or a stop on my desires. On the contrary, feminism taught me to value and take joy in my own body and the honesty of my sexuality. I think there are some highly problematic issues in the way that our culture treats women and sex; I don’t want to let go of my feminism in the bedroom.

83. I always wondered why more feminists haven’t spoken up on how they view pornography from a sexual perspective (and not just fem porn).

    Because if you say porn has caused you pain, someone will come down on you for being a no-fun neurotic sex-hater prude.

    And if you say you’ve had positive experiences with porn, someone will call you a traitor to your gender who can’t legitimately be called a feminist.

    I think people are reluctant to talk about their personal sexual perspectives because both sides of the debate are so quick to judge anyone who has had an experience that doesn’t fit their agenda.

    Basically, I think it comes down to old-fashioned culturally conditioned sexual competition between women. We’ve been socialized to measure our worth by our sexuality, and this debate brings all that up for us. We all want to feel like we’re sexually “good,” and we flip out when that’s questioned. It cuts to the heart of our ego and self-worth.

    Conversations like this do make me hopeful about feminists learning to have discussions about porn that don’t include throwing stuff, but I think in general it’s important to recognize that we’re talking about something that’s super sensitive for people.

84. Because if you say porn has caused you pain, someone will come down on you for being a no-fun neurotic sex-hater prude.

    And if you say you’ve had positive experiences with porn, someone will call you a traitor to your gender who can’t legitimately be called a feminist.

    So true, Ashley. And in my opinion, very sad. On both sides. I think that even though we’re at a great start with these kinds of conversations here, that’s a very long way away from rectification.

85. I would categorize myself as one of those love-em-or-hate-em ‘male feminists.’ I’ve long been interested in the divide of modern feminism re: sex work. I firmly believe in sex work as a means for liberation. I think that we live in a terribly sexually repressed society, and maintaining an open dialogue about sex can only be good for women and men both. I think that finding and linking us to a nice collection of positive porn was quite a treat indeed! I think that mentioning (but ultimately not linking to) Suicide Girls was definitely smart… I think that the overall attitude of the website had some interesting positive effects… Breaking free of the more traditional porn model/actress aesthetic was probably a Good Thing – would we have the atmosphere of NoFauxxx without SG? I’m not sure, but I do think that SG (and the popularity of SG) overall had some influence in the pornosphere accepting a wider range of models/actresses. But knowing some of the stories about what’s gone on there? No, ultimately not positive. But, perhaps some good things happened along the way.

    Point two – no mention of Nadine Strossen? “Defending Pornography” is a good read.

    Point three – I don’t know how I never came across Furry Girl before but thank you thank you thank you.

86. Hazel Stone, thank you. That was such a great comment on this whole issue, and why I’m anti-porn.

    Cara, I don’t know how to do that neat in-comment-quote thing, so I’ll just copy and paste this bit that hit me: “You don’t see the points where they stop and start again because something becomes uncomfortable. It happens, but it’s not in the porn. ” I have three points to make on this.

    1. Quite often the “uncomfortable” bits are in the porn, particularly in the proliferation of “gonzo” style porn that’s getting more and more common, even perhaps beginning to dominate. Bukkake, DVDA, and a million other denigrating and painful acts get shown, and for these to get shown they have to happen, and they have to happen to a real woman.
    2. The fact that the female actors almost inevitable discomfort in filming these scenes doesn’t get put in the porn doesn’t justify it much. It is because this discomfort factor is cut out of these depictions of painful acts that so many women are forced to think that this is the norm. As but a brief, and certainly not the worst, example, women in pornography shave regularly, so any stubble or razor burn is airbrushed away. Mainstream society doesn’t advertise this airbrushing, only the hairlessness, and thus painful beauty procedures, such as Brazillian waxing, become the norm for women. Another quick example – as Deep Throat became so, so popular, so did instances of throat rape, and women being told by magazines like Cosmo, Cleo et al to “practice on banana” to train their natural gag reflex to withstand pain and discomfort.
    3. There is a lot of horrible, horrible stuff that doesn’t get put in the porn, but this doesn’t make it any less real. All of the memoirs of porn actors, right across the spectrum from Linda Lovelace to Traci Lords to Jenna Jameson, that I have read mention the physical, mental and emotional pain that they have suffered through their work. The fact that this stuff isn’t in the porn doesn’t make it any less real, and doesn’t make it any less of a by-product of pornography.

    And romble? Strossen’s Defending Pornography is awful. Not the most ludicrous pro-porn book I’ve ever read (Wendy McElroy’s XXX: A Woman’s Right To Pornography would have to win that category), but she makes the same-same mistakes of equating pornography with sex, and suggesting that pornography is some marginalised, put-upon part of our society, rather than acknowledging the mainstream position it actually holds.

87. as far as sex workers go, its hard for me to see it clearly. The sex workers who are coerced into it, either directly by another person or by the way society is seem to me to be the majority of sex workers, though I’ve met a handful of women who made the choice to do sex work with fully agency and because they enjoy it. I see the ones being coerced as being exploited. Though I also see men very low on the socioecomic ladder exploited in a somewhat similar fashion. I do not mean to equate the two, I’m trying to make as clean a point as possible but am not all that great with words. People who have to turn to sex work remind me of the people I have known who have done very dangerous, backbreaking and inhumane labor. They, mostly but not all men, do not have anything of “value” in our system other than their backs and as such are exploited for that part as surely as women are for their bodies.

    Thats why I see it mostly as an economic issue as I lack the knowledge to delve too deeply into the woman’s side of it, I’m not a woman and though I read a lot, i think it will take me a few more years of reading and talking with my wife to have a breakthrough. Finally on this, I don’t see what the fix is. A stripper will always be more “valuable” than a clerk or cashier, what exactly will change that? We will never be at a place where the person taking your order at burger king is making more than a stripper and even if we had universal healthcare, daycare, job training etc there would still be women who felt they had to be a stripper or do sex work.

    As far as the porn goes, how does one propose changing the taste of entire population? I’m not sure how much is left but what has driven porn to the extremes is the novelty and taboo of it, people, men and women, will alway want to see what is taboo or what they cannot see/have in real life. Sites such as bangbus, efukt, etc will always be with us as they will always cater to some people, even consenting adults/couples/poly relationships. Should we simply try and reduce the number of viewers these sites get?

88. Cate, to answer your comments in order:

    1. Yes, they do happen to a real woman — as I acknowledged. But what you see as uncomfortable/degrading/painful is not necessarily uncomfortable/degrading/painful to another woman. Example: to me, fisting looks painful as hell. Other women not only don’t find it painful, they rather enjoy it. (And as a side note, I’d say that if fisting doesn’t hurt a woman, it seems unlikely that properly done DV would.) Some women would find being spanked very degrading. Others get off on it. And so on. Yes, it’s true that the women in the porn might not always genuinely enjoy the acts they’re performing — but it’s deeply problematic to assume that you because you find something uncomfortable/degrading/painful that every other woman would as well. Just as it’s deeply problematic (and frankly, stupid) to assume that because you see something in porn, every woman (or man) will like it.

    2. I think you’ve missed my point — the point is that discomfort can happen in just every day run of the mill sex. You might need to add more lube — so you stop and do so. Your legs might get sore in a certain position, so you switch positions. And so on. They do the same stuff in porn, which you don’t see — my point being that some people seem to think that the way the acts are depicted in porn — the edited finalized version that you see — are necessarily the ways that they are conducted when people engage in them in their bedrooms. If people aren’t stopping when something becomes painful (and that’s not your thing . . .), that’s obviously a huge problem, but I hugely doubt that it’s the norm that some try to argue it is. (And “throat rape”? Are you actually referring to oral rape, or just calling any at of deep-throating rape? Because the context to me suggests the latter, which is, um . . . )

    3. I didn’t argue otherwise. The points I was discussing were related to the impact that porn has on the average person and their sexual practices, and also the perception that what you see in the porn is a true representation of all that went on while filming it. (This covers both sides — porn that looks pretty might have been very unpleasant to make, and vice versa.) I’m not arguing that the impact of making porn on the women who do it doesn’t matter — not at all. Women who have experienced pain both physical and emotional while making porn must have their voices heard and taken into account when discussing the issue. I’m simply saying that this is a multi-faceted issue and my argument was related to a different one than you’re getting into here.

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90. This has been a really fascinating thread to read especially as someone who has a lot of conversations about porn with people every day.

    I just wanted to throw out there another idea that is always interesting to me during these discussions. We’re having a lot of conversations about what is degrading or unpleasant for sex workers and those in the porn industry. What sometimes gets left out is how many people all over the world spend their lives working in jobs where they are uncomfortable or degraded. A significant amount of people in the world work at jobs that they hate because they need to make money. How many people get to do what they love or at least not feel humiliated in their work. Could it be that some people who make porn are actually happier in their work than, say, a mine worker in South Africa? It might be possible.

    And yet we separate out sex and sex work. Is it that drastically different? I don’t know the answer but I think it’s an interesting topic to consider during these types of conversations.

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93. I was recently doing some research on prostitution rights and I realized how difficult it must be for policy makers to come up with a concrete decision. i do agree that sex workers should be able to make their own decisions, and that women should be able to engage in sex work if they so desire, free of the abuse and demands of bosses or pimps. But the bigger issue is society’s views – I get really worked up over people’s opinions of sex workers. I am not sure if this attitude will ever really change, because it’s almost easier to treat these women as if they are not real people, that way they do not seem as threatening.

    I enjoy your posts though, very intelligent and well-written.

    -Harlequin

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95. Thanks for the mention in your list of feminist porn sites. Ahh, the never ending debate. I appreciate being included.
    Much love,
    Bren

    http://www.gooddykeporn.com/

96. Pornography has been in our culture in one way or another for a long time. But with the internet and other technology it has become much more common. I worry about the effects it has on the watchers. Not denouncing the watchers as immoral as I have been one. Most boys these days will start to look at porn at a relatively young age it is natural that a teenage human being both girls and boys but probably stronger in boys a curiosity about sex, what it is what its like. Unfortunately porn is not a very good place to learn these things. And by being the first sexual outlet for a lot of boys it can really mold what they desire. We all know that we have a desire for women, unless we are gay, and we all know that we have a desire for sex even before we know what it is. Now thanks to porn we have 15 years desiring to cum on a girls face something that is clearly not instinctual and few men would have even thought to want twenty years ago. Pornography these days is a part of mainstream Hollywood. So the sexist values of Hollywood and American Capitalism, which is “patriarchal” as well as racist and classist and ethnocentric, come out in porn especially because porn is exclusively about sex. Unfortunately there is not much we can do to control the content of porn just as we the people have very limited power in all the elements of our capitalist society. I worry that it may be a crutch for boys to develop meaningful relationships, that may or may not include sex but are based on love. I have no objection to blowjobs in a close relationship or marriage a woman should want to please her man and a man should want to please his woman. Thats why sex is called making love. But I worry about kids who dont think blowjobs are sex and pressure girls into performing this act which when it is one sided and by itself can seem pretty demeaning. Thats another crutch, boys before they engage in a ny sexual encounters will know exactly how to fuck from all the pictures theyve seen. But will they be able to make love? Ultimately I do not see porn being used by adults as a sexual outlet which it was more that way in the past as a harmful thing. Whether it harms the female performers or not? Well a lot actually do get paid well and want the job perhaps it feels like being used I dont know? More importantly I worry about boys growing up in the first generation to grow up with access to internet porn videso not the more innocent Playboy mags Ive watched porn myself and I dont think im a bad person but maybe it has effected my thinking in ways I would rather have not been molded. We are all born a blank slate we desire food sex social interaction and a sense of belonging but for the most part we dont understand these desires and our minds start out as a blank slate so what we watch is important

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