My Take on Things.

I've been reading discussions on some of my other favorite feminist blogs debating the pornography issue today, and I think it's about time for me to do a little bitching, if you will. I have alluded to my opinions in my previous posts, but I'm feeling like it's time to get serious... so here I go. First of all, to me, feminist porn is the following:

1. Made by women with women in mind

2. Depicts actual female pleasure

3. Portrays all body types

4. Doesn't necessarily show models with overwhelming bodily enhancement

As far as point one goes, mainstream pornography today is dominated by men. It is owned, directed, and shot by men. Think about Playboy. Every spread in that magazine shows exactly what Hugh Hefner thinks is sexy: big boobs, usually long,

blond hair, ample makeup. Let's face it, pornography is a HUGE part of society, whether or not we want to admit it. If we allow men to control every aspect of pornography, we basically allow them to decide what men want to see in women. Women need to be more involved in the porn industry because we can't, nor do we want to, be held to the porn industry's idea of what women should be.

Not only are men's interests sometimes in contrast to women's interests as far as porn goes, in most pornographic productions, women do not experience any sort of pleasure. The main purpose of mainstream pornography is male pleasure. But do we really want sex in real life to be that way? Is it that way? I have heard that pornography makes more sense to be aimed at men because they are stimulated visually more than women, but I'm just going to simply say this isn't true.

Going back to point one, women come in all shapes and sizes. We are not all 00's with double D's. We don't all get every inch of our bodies waxed. We don't all have long, blonde hair. We don't all like wearing heels 24/7. Some of us have tattoos, some of us have piercings. In short, we all have different ideas of beauty, and those different ideas should be embraced. This is where the oppression of women comes into the porn world in my opinion.

To the anti-pornography feminists, no, banning pornography is not the answer. I do agree that porn doesn't always have women in mind, but we should start looking to the Internet because it might be our hope for reforming the industry. If we ban pornography, we only allow it to be stigmatized, and we only allow for women to be suppressed. This could be an opportunity for us to change many of the issues in society surrounding women's equality, and the Internet is giving us more options than ever. Society is changing exponentially so let's change our ideals right along with it. Ignoring pornography as a key part of it is like trying to pretend that change doesn't happen. It's not progressive. Please, let's be progressive.

Hello Readers!

I wanted to send out this quick little note for two reasons:

1. One of you sent me a question about whether or not I was saying in my most recent post that it was illegal for the owners of SG to remove images from the site in 2005. I wanted to clarify for any of you that might have been wondering about this also. I did not mean to say that this action was illegal. My argument was based purely on the fact that the site promoted itself as a place where its models were in control of the content in their photo spreads for the purpose of presenting alternative beauty and situations that made them feel most beautiful. Removing the photos was infringement upon the creativity and freedom the models were supposed to be able to have on the site. That's really what made the site so popular to begin with. So in my opinion, that's not only morally wrong, but it allows pornography to still be controlled by men and prevents women's interests from being in the porn world. I hope that this helps you all understand my position in the last post.

2. For any of you who might be reading the blog on a daily basis (if any of you are), I wanted to let you know that this evening's post will be the last for the next few days. It's going to be a busy weekend of studying and paper writing in the college scene. I hope to be posting again by Monday or Tuesday.

Thank you for reading!

SuicideGirls

As you can see, I put a link to SuicideGirls on this site, and while I think the site's intentions are good, it seems that it really hasn't met the goals it initially set out to. The site's "About SG" page makes the following claim:

"With a vibrant, sex positive community of women (and men), SuicideGirls was founded on the belief that creativity, personality and intelligence are not incompatible with sexy, compelling entertainment, and millions of people agree. The site mixes the smarts, enthusiasm and DIY attitude of the best music and alternative culture sites with an unapologetic, grassroots approach to sexuality."

Another claim the site made for some time was that the site was owned and operated by founder "Missy Suicide." While it is a nice token for the site to try to reform social norms of beauty by allowing the models freedom to express themselves in ways they think are beautiful and post personal journal entries, it seems that the SG empire doesn't strive for this as much as they state. According to allegations against the site made by former models, not only does the site censor their journals entries, it is also not necessarily run by Missy either. In fact, the man listed as the president of the site, Sean Suhl, has been known to have much more control over the site and the images depicted on it than the models or the other women working for the site. One former model, Sicily, also claims that Suhl is verbally abusive to his models, calling them "sluts," "whores," and the like.

In 2005, the controversies above caused some major problems for the website. Due to rumors that government agencies were starting a "war on porn," the site removed images from the site that portrayed models in BDSM situations. This, along with other infringements on models' freedom like those listed above caused over thirty models to quit the site.

What is interesting to me about this dilemma is that despite the fact that all of this has happened, SG still has a large following, is still asked to be involved in so many companies and causes, and that major celebrities are still willing to promote it. This site that was made to promote alternative feminist beauty, but in reality does just the opposite. It promotes male dominance and oppression of women through Suhl's power in the company, treatment of the models, and censorship of the site. I don't understand it. I will leave the link up for you to explore the site and make your own opinion of its "feminist pornography" if you so choose.

History of the Feminist Pornography Debate

Being that this site is in its infancy, and I am suspecting that most of you who have ended up may not have planned on it, I think it might be appropriate to give a little bit of background on the feminist pornography debate. Starting in the 1960's and continuing through the 1980's, feminism experienced what is now known as the "Second Wave." Unlike the First Wave which focused mainly only on legal inequalities that suppressed women, the Second Wave began to focus on social inequalities also. This included family, the workplace, sexuality, and reproductive rights. Coming with examining sexuality, feminists began to diverge on the issue of pornography. Radical, right-wing feminists started the anti-pornography movement. This cause held that pornography was degrading to women and lead to rape and violence. Feminists like Andrea Dworkin took examples of violence on the set of pornographic films like that from the movie "Deep Throat" to argue that pornography was harmful to even those involved in it.

On the other hand, the sex-positives argued that this was not the norm and that pornography is empowering and important to women. One part of this argument was that even though most mainstream pornography was at the time for men, there was nothing inherently objective about it. Sex-positives also argued that pornography could be made for women's tastes. As the links on this blog prove, today, the Internet is allowing for more of this pornographic material by women for women. Sites like ishotmyself and suicidegirls allow users to upload their own self-made material for the sake of empowerment and self-expression. Not only do these sites aim to give women a mode of liberation, they value the process of reforming mainstream pornography by depicting all body types.

This history is short and not all-encompassing, but I hope it helps you understand the purpose of this blog. If you would like more information on the feminist pornography debate, check out the links on the right side of this page.

Empowering?

Sure, she's hot, but she doesn't really get it.

In surfing Feministing today I noticed a post about bikini model Joanna Krupa posing for Playboy magazine. The article the post was written about is on the Fox News website which wasn't surprising to me at all for various reasons, but that's a different story altogether. The article was based on Krupa's anti-feminist comments in response to the photo shoot. She said

“I think [feminists] suffer from lack of knowledge and tunnel vision. How many of those self-important, so-called ‘feminists’ have been on the set when a celebrity shot a Playboy spread? There you go. What is feminist about discriminating a photo shoot just because it involves female (partial) nudity that happens to give men pleasure? Pathetic.”

She goes on to argue that posing nude is an empowering experience that "self righteous feminists" can't appreciate because of their "tunnel vision." Well, I argue that this is not necessarily true. I personally believe that, sure, posing for Playboy probably is an empowering experience, but as Feministing points out, that experience is only allowed to a very few women with very particular body types and overall looks. Now as we know, I am certainly pro-pornography as far as the feminist movement, but mainstream pornography and Playboy don't really allow for an honest depiction of women. They both tend to feature surgically enhanced models with enough makeup to make them unrecognizable. This just encourages pornographic material made by men simply for male satisfaction. And it's not to say that I believe men shouldn't be allowed pleasure. If women deserve it, so do men. My issue stems from the fact that Playboy only caters to male pleasure. The photo shoot process doesn't even allow for feminine sexual liberation. Sure, the model gets to expose herself, but she is directed by men. And if the process is liberating, it certainly has no level of sexual gratification for the model.

Playboy and mainstream pornography are going to be what they are because that's what men want, but seriously, it's time we give women what they want when it comes to both getting naked in front of the camera and viewing the final results. So Joanna, I'm glad you had fun, but just for your information, my "tunnel vision" goes a little deeper than you understand.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! As I dug through the masses of information that I've been thrown on the Internet in my Cultural Citizenship on the Internet class this semester, I learned something about myself. Being a raging liberal in my own right, I have always been an equality fanatic, but in learning about cultures on the Internet, feminism began to pique my interest. I first studied feminist blogging after watching a panel of women from Feministing speak about their experiences on the blog. In fact, that experience is what makes starting this blog so exciting for me. Now for the part where I decided to focus my attention on porn. In feminism these days, there are two opposing views on the fate of pornography. The anti-pornography feminists argue that all porn is objectifying to women and that the only way to solve the issue is to completely ban it. Sex-positives, on the other hand, argue that pornography in certain forms can be a way for women to express their sexuality. I would label myself as sex-positive. In my opinion, banning pornography only digs the hole deeper for women in the sense that it prevents women from entering yet another male dominated area of society. Just because pornography started with men doesn't mean it has to end that way. And really, let's be honest, we're all human. So this is where the Internet comes into play. We all know just how dominant porn is on the Internet. In fact, a friend of mine told me that pornography is 80% of it. In this medium for once, women are allowed to play along. Many pornographic websites like ones I have linked to on this blog are made by women for women. Yup, that means content that is appealing to... feminine tastes. There are so many opportunities to move forward sex-positive feminism on the Internet. I'm hoping that this blog can be a part of that movement even if it's just to enlighten those of you who were searching the Internet to find actual porn and ended up here. But anyway, no matter why you're here, enjoy!