Penn & Teller's Bullshit: The War on Porn

I watched the 'War on Porn' episode of Penn & Teller's bullshit today. It basically consisted of this: some uptight and obnoxious people condemned porn. They defended it. Big surprise. 

Here's where I critique their defense.

They cited a few studies that have failed to find any significant correlation between exposure to pornography and rape or general violence. Well, I'd want to see the studies, but that seems fair.

They made no distinction at all between what was good and bad in pornography and the adult industry in general. They made no mention of the many, many things that the adult industry does habitually and without even seeming to notice: requiring a certain body type, requiring a certain type of body grooming (long hair on the head, shaved every other kind of hair). These restrictions, in my mind, resctrict and demean women's sexuality, but they are also not limited to the porn industry. You see similar phenomena in advertising in department stores. 

Another example is the general perception that the one and only demographic that the mainstream porn industry markets to is heterosexual males, and if you are anything but that, you have to go to specific niche porn sources- this seems odd. There are frequently 'secondary' sites on these mainstream porn providers for gay male porn, true. However, there's almost NOTHING female-oriented. (Most general kink sites, for instance offer all M/f stuff, or occasionally F/f stuff...but F/m stuff? No wai!) Now, perhaps all their market research has shown that women aren't interested in porn, so they can't be bothered to make the investment. But the bodice-ripper industry seems to be doing quite well, so I can only assume that a creative porn producer could do quite well by creating porn that *gasp* met women's wants and needs in porn.

One of the points that was brought up in the episode is that porn encourages the idea that women will happily do anything that the man wants sexually. Penn & Teller blew right over this point, but I thought it was somewhat interesting. First of all, porn is pretty much fantasy, right? And in your fantasy, women are probably not going to tell you that they'd rather not do whatever you have in mind. Healthy adult minds can separate fantasy from reality. It's a beautiful feature of a healthy human brain. Similarly, the anti-porn advocate complained that women in these films were doing things that were physically difficult and that this was encouraging bad expectations- again, fantasy versus reality. Also, doing physically difficult things in bed, OH NOES!

On another note, at one point in the show someone was making the claim that porn made people violent in real life. Another 'expert' retorted "most people don't watch violent porn. Most people watch porn that shows happy people doing what happy people ought to be doing in bed." (Not an exact quote.) 

Look, I know Penn & Teller probably didn't mean to make a sweeping condemnation of BDSM in their show. Fine. Now I get to rip them a new one anyway.

1) Violent porn probably doesn't make you violent either. I don't have proof of a lack of correllation, but I have yet to see proof of a correllation. If you have it, hit me with your best shot.

2) If you intend to make a distinction between some of the nastier nonconsensual porn out there and consensual BDSM or BDSM-related fantasy stuff (because seriously, when it's all in a fantasy world, non-consensual erotica is fun and harmless. And usually comes with disclaimers if it's not the nasty kind of stuff.), please make it. Don't leave the viewer to make the distinction for themselves. They probably won't. In other words, please don't relegate people's kink to synonymity with moral depravity and the actual desire to inflict harm on other human beings without consent or consequences. It's just not nice. 

(Caveat: I'm actually not terribly familiar with what kind of nasty violent porn is out there, or how nasty precisely it is. Perhaps it's not nasty at all, but I can make some educated guesses and would suspect that there is some nastiness out there. If my guesses are not educated enough based on what I've written, please take the opportunity to educate me further.)

The thing that bothered me most about the porn critics on the show was that it didn't seem to occur to these people (based on the footage of them that was included in the show) that there might in fact be pornography out there that was sex-positive without possessing some of the rather misogynistic traits that much porn has. I firmly believe that, minus some of that crap, porn is a fine and dandy thing that doesn't degrade anyone. Anyone who believes otherwise doesn't have to watch. And if you try to make legislation that says I can't watch it because you object? Well, screw you.

Freakin' YAY

My birth control crap has apparently levelled out- I'm now actually able to have an orgasm (or 3...) again. Freakin' woot.

'Elder Porn' in Japan

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Family

I went away for a few days earlier this week on a business trip. It was mostly boring, but somewhat obnoxious in the coworker department. I realized that I desperately missed being around what I was originally going to call 'sane people' but decided to re-term 'insane people,' as I felt that was more complimentary.

Additionally, A & T are going away to Europe for two weeks. Naturally, I am going to miss them. But that's not really the point. They were complaining about the nature of the vacation they're going on (they didn't really get to choose) and so we started talking about all of the far superior ideas that we had for vacations with our close group of friends. This includes the three of us, S, and B- what I've been thinking of for a little while now as my family, but have not really said anything about for fear of being too presumptuous.

During this discussion, I said something specifically detailing that it should be the five of us going on a more relaxing and fun vacation together, and T responded with something along the lines of "Yes, we need to just take the whole family and do...(something or other, not important.)"

The whole family.

My family.

It wasn't that I hadn't been thinking of them as my family until now, as I mentioned. It was getting confirmation that the people who I think of as family think of me the same way. With that, it became official: I have a family again. This makes me all kinds of happy, for all kinds of reasons.

Later, of course, it hit me that, given I haven't had a family in many ways since I was 10, I'd forgotten what it was like. This caused me to collapse into sobs on A & T's couch, thoroughly worrying and confusing them (sorry!). But they held me and comforted me and generally were family.

It's nice to have a family again.

Man...

My analytics says that there are actual people out there who read this blog. I'm not sure I believe it. But just in case, hi and welcome.

Aaaand

And because I just hated to ruin my dramatic, tearful ending to that last post, I'm making a separate post with a list of things that I want to remember to bring up next time at therapy.

- I need lots and lots of validation. This ties into my insecurity around new people.

- I can't bear to have people mad at me. Even if it's a stranger honking at me in traffic, I tend to get mad back, but then spend the next five minutes obsessing that maybe it was, in fact, my fault.

- I need to feel needed to feel as though a relationship is valid or good.

That's all of I can think of for now.

Therapy

I started therapy on Monday. It was...surprisingly good. Ok, the summary.

1) Talked about family stuff- just sort of the iceberg, and what I could think of. She responded in generally sympathetic ("It sounds like you had to grow up really fast.") and useful ways. ("So it sounds like what this has lead to is some calibration issues in your own relationships, not knowing how you're supposed to relate to people." Which is exactly right. I hadn't pinpointed that exact perspective, but that's exactly right.)

2) Talked about being poly. She didn't respond in a way that was spectacularly awesome, but neither did she respond in a way that was unhelpful or derogatory. Plus, I'm not really conflicted about poly. I think it's unequivocally awesome.

3) Talked about kink. Talked about being kinked for hypnosis, which led to interest in BDSM, and she had VERY RIGHT things to say about the relation (the relinquishing of power within certain boundaries, whether they are explicit or implicitly psychological) and even knew the word scene! WIN.

4) Talked about eating. She said she had some ideas. Great.

So all in all, it was very good. Then I went home, called a couple people before a date with T, because I had a fair amount of post-stressful-incident energy, so I called folks and got some of that out. Then I went to A and T's place, where T was still exercising and sat on the couch and read- and at some point some of the stuff, specifically what my therapist had pointed out about 'calibration issues' actually hit me. It wasn't profound stuff. It wasn't really new stuff. But it hit me like a ton of bricks. I actually think I got kind of lightheaded.

I just get so angry when I think about this shit that I've gone through. (Oh, and by the way, yes, there are people who have gone through far worse than I have. This is my version of bad. And since it's my blog, you don't get to demean my version of bad.) I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve to still be dealing with it.

I didn't deserve to lose my childhood at age 10.

I think that's what gets me worst. That precocious, trusting, nerdy, bubbly little girl- who would have had a rough enough time anyway- got hit with this shit, never got to properly grow up, never got to be who she could have been. Instead she ended up me. And hey, I like me. But I'm bruised and broken and callused and hard and stupid and stubborn and fragile and uncertain- and she might have been some of those things too. But maybe not all of them. And yes, maybe she'd have missed some of the great things I am- and no, there'll be no dramatic list of those because thinking about the positive things I am is way harder than thinking about the negative things I am- 

But y'know what? I wish I could know what that little girl might have grown up like in a whole family with a reasonably sane version of normal.

I wsh that little girl had gotten what she deserved.

Snuggle Party

Friday night was wonderful.

There were games with The Interests (I've decided to just call them A (the male interest) and T (the female interest)  for short.) and a few friends, which were great. There was also every intention to get to sleep on time.

But after gaming, I declared that it was snuggle party time, and A, T and I piled onto A & T's bed and snuggled. We cuddled together, chatting, laughing, and generally being affectionate. We even rotated positions so that we all took turns being in the middle, (T complained somewhat about this, but conceded that perhaps other people deserved to be in the middle as well.) and T made some wonderfully tantalizing comments about bondage. ("I have belts that I'm saving. Pesky cords can cut off circulation.") 

When I was being snuggled in the middle (OMGWTFBBQ SO NICE) things started becoming more focused on neck kissing and stuff that was generally oh-so-slightly more erotic than just snuggling. A kept tormenting me by lightly biting my earlobe, which he knows drives me nuts. When I complained about this to T, she responded that this was a new and exciting definition of the word 'torment,' which just sent shivers down my spine. (According to some people, when T says things like this, I flush five or so degrees warmer. I can only imagine that I did so at that time.) Getting my neck and ears kissed from both sides has got to be one of the more wonderful experiences I've ever had. At one point, having vaguely plotted to attack the sides of my neck simultaneously, they joked that this was not much of a surprise- that they should have run to grab some ice. I made some half-hearted 'oh woe is me' protest, and T promised to keep my mock objections in mind for the future. 

Entertainingly, when T and I originally started dating, A went out of his way to tell me that no, he was not interested in threesomes, thanks so very much. Which is fine. But he seemed to be having a mighty good time for someone who has no interest in threesomes, which I gave him a hard time about. (I think threesomes sound like a fabulous idea.)

A wanted me to stay over with the two of them- not in a sexual way, in a nice sleepy way. T wasn't really given enough warning to be prepared for this, so it didn't come to pass, but I'm hoping that it will in the near future.

I also told T that I love her- with no hope of a reciprocal response at this time, just because I'm bad at not saying things. When I mentioned to A that I felt this way, he sqeezed me tight and said "I'm glad I met you." This makes me smile just thinking about it.

(So then I biked home and even with all that, took forever to bring myself to orgasm. I think that my birth control is having sexual side effects, i.e. difficulty orgasming. This is unacceptable, as I approve highly of orgasms and like to have as many of them as possible. I'm making a doctor's appointment to change my pill.)

Approval

I had a realization about approval-seeking the other day. I do it a fair amount, particularly in certain relationships. I want people to approve of what I'm doing, though I've never known what to think about that.

One of my best friends in the world is someone that I crave approval from- I want to know that she thinks I'm doing smart things. I have recently specifically avoided telling her about becoming poly, and have just recently realized why. I knew that I was avoiding it because she would not approve- or more accurately, because she would be concerned. I wasn't sure why this was so bad until I realized that, between her concern and my attention-seeking, telling her something that I knew would concern her put her in a position of power over me that I wasn't comfortable with. It's not that I think she'd abuse it, it's just that I don't want to give her that psychological power.

Interestingly enough, my female interest is also someone that I appear to naturally seek approval from. And someday, I'd be interested in giving her that power- explicitly- to do as she would with.