Porn is a tricky thing. On the one hand, you can’t legislate people’s fantasies, especially when pornography may be the one sexual outlet they have. As sexual liberator, educator or tension reliever, it can be a positive thing. But, it can also be a destructive thing: ruining relationships, setting up unrealistic expectations, perpetuating misogyny. Certainly some porn is better than others — but who’s to say which is which? The topic can really pull sex-positive feminists in two opposite directions!
We recently received two comments that highlighted the latter, more nefarious aspects of porn. Even if you’re a conscientious consumer of adult material, it’s worth it to regularly consider its darker aspects and how they might be affecting our world…and your own sex life:
Yes, gagging blowjobs are only the last 15 years and you can directly attribute that to the Max Hardcore series of XXX videos. Max (or whatever his real name is) actually spent time in the federal pen because of his videos combination of implied violence (forced blowjobs with gagging and puking), peepee play (him using the actresses as urinal targets) and actresses who dressed and acted in ways to appear way younger than they actually were. Apparently some state governments didn’t like those combinations and shut him down with federal charges, killed his original website, tried, convicted, and sent him to jail. He’s out now but his influence on gagging porn unleashed gagging oral on the rest of the industry and amateur videos while he was incarcerated.
— Cyberdolphnow, in response to Wise Guys: Gagging During Oral — Hot or Not?
Why do men rush things? All we women want is for our men to make us feel like our pleasure is important to them and that they want to spend hours pleasuring us because we’re worth it. Right now I feel unloved. I feel like his sex toy. I feel unattractive and unworthy of more than just a few hurried moments of pleasure. It hurts me to the core. Which does so much damage to my self esteem and confidence. I wish I were brave enough to tell him. But years of abuse have made me keep everything to myself. I just wish things will get better…..I turn 30 next month , this is NOT how I envisioned my sex life at this stage of life. BTW, porn ruins relationships. Men who watch it are made to think women’s needs are secondary. And men aren’t taught how to love a woman instead of objectify her. I really feel for you all in the same boat as me. It’s truly painful.
— Sarah, in response to My Husband Won’t Even Try to Give Me an Orgasm
What do you think of porn?
Let us know in the comments below.
On the first comment, there are some weird mentalities out there that get a rush from abusive looking acts in pornography which I’ll let the psychologists figure out. Is it extreme, to my sensibilities yes. Did the pornographer go to jail specifically for the porn, I guess so which I disagree with unless he used actual underage actresses or actually assaulted them. We don’t convict actors or directors that simulate murder (and don’t actually murder anyone). That said, it’s disturbing to me to simulate things that don’t look consenting because even at its kinkiest, that’s what sex should be.
On the second comment, this is a communication and partnership issue that’s common and has very little to do with porn. Long before photography and video porn, men have mistaken their own pleasure responses with what women want and since we live in a repressed puritan led state where sex education boils down to boys have penises, girls have vaginas and don’t ask any further questions, no wonder so many men grow up confused. Now if they author has brought this up to her partner and he doesn’t want to change, then that is a different entitlement or narcissistic issue that means he is not a good partner. Either way, porn did not create this, it just happened to match the way society viewed things (sex is dirty, portrayal focuses on men’s pleasure, not women’s, women are subservient, blah blah blah). The only way to correct that is to stop the cycle by being open with your children about boundaries and consent and have a real sex education talk and for adults to make porn that emphasizes women’s needs too and for everyone to learn how to communicate better.
Max Hardcore went to jail on obscenity charges. It involved shipping porn DVD’s across state lines. His actresses were all of age, but usually portrayed as underage.
Whether the action was consensual is a subject of some debate. He is widely reviled within the porn industry. He is considered coercive, manipulative, and violent in the way he treats actresses. Then again, he has iron-clad waivers in which the actress explicitly agrees to everything that will take place, as well as taped exit interviews in which he reaffirms that everything that took place was consensual and according to the agreement. So any discussion about whether it’s consensual is moot – there’s no consent more affirmative than a notarized contract. Actresses have accused him of rape, and he’s rebutted by releasing the exit interviews in which she says she’s totally cool with what just happened. THAT part of his business was unassailable, so authorities went for obscenity charges instead, and they nailed him.
The moral of the story? Don’t fucking commodify your body. And when I say “moral” I’m not talking about purity here. I mean it’s a dumb thing to do. You’ve turned yourself from someone who has total physical autonomy, to someone who owes a paying customer a satisfying experience. No one cares whether their Wendy’s employee really feels like flipping burgers, and no one cares whether porn actresses are really enjoying themselves either. She’s on the clock and this is the business she signed up for. And it doesn’t end there! Ten years go by – you don’t want that kind of attention anymore, you don’t want strangers peering into your asshole anymore, you just want your sexual privacy back. Well, too bad. Hundreds of guys today are going to vicariously take you every which way. And do you know how much porn actresses get paid for that? One to two thousand dollars. A bad deal if ever there was one.