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.