A productive use of my work day

[vostoklake]

"I don't think it's impossible for someone to come up with porn that is good for women. I haven't seen anyone do it" says Ariel Levy in her interview with Judith Orr in the September SR.

There are two major problems with this statement. Firstly, Ariel offers no definition of "porn" - does she mean all commercially produced erotic material? If so, her statement that "no one is asking what women want, what women find erotic" is nonsense. Marketing firms are not squeamish about exploiting women's erotic fantasies to sell their goods.

Most obviously, I can't believe Ariel hasn't noticed the well-built shirtless men on the covers of romance novels or in chocolate biscuit ads. There is even a growing niche market in selling erotic material specifically aimed at (gay or straight) women's pleasure. If on the other hand she is using a more restrictive description of porn, she should specify what it is.

Secondly, is she talking about the act of consuming porn, or the act of producing it? Certainly, like everything else under capitalism, socialists should be examining the sex industry from the point of view of production. We should be pointing out prostitutes and strippers are among the most exploited and oppressed workers of all, and fighting for their rights. We should also be challenging the middle-class ideology that becoming a professional erotica writer or making boutique sex-toys is a route to empowerment for all women.

I heartily agree with Ariel that there should be a full and frank criticism of the sex industry, and I appreciated her comments on exactly what the job of a worker in the sex industry is. But the impression given by the interview overall was that Ariel seemed more interested in the images produced by the porn industry rather than the material facts of how porn comes into existence. This led to the dead-end in 1980s feminism where some women's sexual choices were declared a manifestation of "patriarchy" and campaigned against by people like Andrea Dworkin.

The danger with focussing on the consumption end of the porn industry is that it focusses on women (and men) as passive consumers - even victims - of images. The focus for socialists should surely not be on women who choose to reveal, enlarge or remove their breasts, but on the medical and media industries who profit from and exploit these personal choices. We should not approve of these industries any more than we approve of McDonald's - but at McDonald's, I would suggest it's more useful to try to organise the workers than condemn the choices of those who eat there.

We should certainly resist the commodification of our sexuality and the oppression of sex workers with all our might. I wonder if Ariel is aware of the communities of women (and men) online who write and distribute erotic material free of charge for each others' enjoyment. Many young women with internet access get the sex education they are deprived of from sources such as these, where there is no divide between producer and consumer. Here we can see a glimpse of how a future society free from commodity logic might operate.

Comments

[tofulope.livejournal.com]

Ha! You think that's angry! It actually seems remarkably level-headed and reasonable, but maybe that's because my anger knows no bounds atm.

Seriously, I like. I take it you're going to send it?

[laputain.livejournal.com]

I'm angry (that for an organisation which rejects patriarchy theory, the British SWP seems to take a line disturbingly close to moralism on the sex industry sometimes), but you know that when I'm really angry I grit my teeth and become exaggeratedly polite and formal. :-)

Yes, it's going in to SR, not that I think many people read that journal these days.

[maudlinrose.livejournal.com]

... but, hello, lots of women like porn - has this person not seen the internet?

[laputain.livejournal.com]

If this woman's not a total doofus, then perhaps by "porn" she means mass-marketed exploitative garbage along the lines of All Girl Tit-Fucking Slut Jamboree Vol. 8 etc. That was a question I was trying to highlight.

[tofulope.livejournal.com]

I was reading this (http://themariablog.livejournal.com/4781.html) a while ago which makes one of those distinctions. I think it's an unhelpful definition - it may well have been what her little feminist circle thought in the nineties, but its not the distinction the average person would make today. Nevertheless, it may (or may not) have been what she had in mind.