carole@rosevax.UUCP (Carole Ashmore) (09/23/85)
Well, I've been watching the porn debate for several weeks now, hoping someone else would bring up the points I'm about to make. No such luck. I generally like to keep my sexual preferences between myself and and my partners, but I really do feel that someone must drop a few facts on all you would be censors and wishy-washy defenders. I am female and I speak from personal experience and the experiences of friends and acquaintances. For purposes of clarity I divide what you have been calling pornography into A. Friendly sexually explicit material, e.g. pictures of naked people, pictures and descriptions of intercourse, oral sex, multiple partners, etc. B. Dominance/submission pictures and descriptions, sometimes including bondage, humiliation, degredation, and/or violence. Facts: 1. Many people, both men and women, enjoy A and find such sexually arousing. Very few people consider A degrading to anyone. More men then women like A. I do not know whether this difference is caused by nature or society; I suspect society. 2. A few people, both men and women, enjoy B and find such sexually arousing. It is a myth that all or most men enjoy B; many of them find it disgusting and cannot be gotten to try such or read about it even at the urging of a willing female partner. It is also a myth that all women feel disgusted, upset, or degraded by B. Many of them enjoy both reading and participation in mutual fantasy. As with A, more men than women enjoy B; again I suspect social pressures. 3. All of you have missed the point (or at least failed to comment on it) that B divides into two categories, male dominant (you've talked this one to death) and female dominant (suprise!). There is a considerable literature of female dominant pornography, bought and enjoyed by both men and women; many porn films contain 'turn about' scenes in which the previously dominated woman ties the man up and proceeds to dominate him. He is generally depicted as loving it. Many men and women who like this sort of thing enjoy only one aspect of it, that is he or she likes only to dominate or only to submit. Many other like both at one time or another. With partners who like mutual fantasy he may tie her up on Monday and she him on Tuesday. 4. Many of you have commented on the fact that women in type A material are depicted as 'loving it'; this is also true of men who are being dominated in type A material. I really feel here that the commenters have entirely missed the point. This has been seen as an attempt to convince all men that all women really want to be raped, tied, beaten, whatever. This last is not fact, but my own strong opinion: I feel that the fact that the people being dominated in type A material are nearly always shown 'wanting it' reflects simply a safety mechanism that seems to operate in nearly all people who like such games, namely that they can get turned on only with a willing and enthusiastic partner. Generally serves to save this sort of thing from degenerating into nasty stuff like rape and real violence. Thanks for listening to this rather long posting. The point of it all is, of course, that pornography degrades either no one, or both men and women, and really must be seen as an 'equal opportunity' literature, possibly of interest to the Moral Majority, but not to feminists and their male friends.