There appears to be fire in my belly.
I was in a distracted state all through Tai Chi yesterday (extra long session) and didn’t feel settled or improved afterwards. I think my head was in an angry state yesterday (I did all the washing up, cleaned the bedroom, though you wouldn’t be able to guess, and generally angsted about the house).
Anyway, that’s needless preamble. Basically a couple of discussions with Fanny about certain people and certain forms of feminism got me thinking about men’s part in things.
Essentially, this revolves around an invitation I’ve had to take part in a Q&A at after an anti-porn film showing at a local cinema, organised by someone close to me. I turned it down, on the basic of a lack of confidence in public speaking (still an issue) and not being certain of having a strong enough point of view to be the male representative at what I expected to be a potentially aggressive crowd (I know, I know, I’m stereotyping feminists as being man hating, which I don’t think is true, but I am aware of how quickly I can turn people against me, what with my ability to place my foot in my mouth and confrontational way of phrasing things. That or I’d sit there terrified and add nothing, being completely overwhelmed by strength of feeling and the quality of thought, perhaps more likely).
Anyway, that’s a pointless aside.
Well not really, because yesterday I got worked up, and changed my mind entirely.
Now I want to do it. And I know why.
It’s because of one of the only ways we’re going to change the world, make the goals of feminism achieved.
We need to look at the other side of the coin.
When we had the proto male feminist group meet, Arnar was talking about how important it is to get men talking about rape, and I agreed. But the importance has only just really sunk in.
Let’s think about porn.
Now, apparently, most men use it, if not pretty much all men. It is a standard method of ‘getting off’ and improving the mastubatory experience, or perhaps it is the masturbatory experience, just mediated and celebrated.
Now, to me, as I’ve mentioned before, it occurs now, that that experience is alienating, dehumanising and objectifying. The images involved are not people, they are simply images of people, simulacra if you will (and I will), and that means that it builds up a relationship with sex whereby the source of arousal, is an object, a static, passive thing.
It’s a short hop to treating women like that, which is what happens, throughout society. It seeps out of the porn and into the media in general (or perhaps the other way round, it’s hard to tell), this objectification of femininity, the creation of it as something passive and weak, compared to the male gaze, the masturbator, the owner and destroyer. The source of power is the man, in these binary structures, imitated and reinforced by the use of pornography.
Now, with a little push here and there, a lot of reading, a hell of a lot of thinking, and people to discuss this openly with, I have come to these conclusions. What I never had was something telling me I was wrong, it was evil and it was doing these things. It just took time to analyse and think about.
This is what is needed. To campaign vehemently against porn and the structures it creates, is important, but it is only one part of it.
What we need to engage with is men. The men who use porn, often hidden away in silent, dark corners, or occasionally talking about it with that mascu-centric competitive attitude.
Men don’t talk about sex properly. Well, most don’t. Men have to talk about it as conquest, competition and dominance. Over each other, and other women. That’s the language used, much more often than not.
Men need to find spaces where they don’t feel threatened, and where competition over masculinity is not crucial. I don’t know how to create that, but it needs to be done. And it’s not going to happen because of a huge load of women protesting something that they’ve become addicted to.
Cognitive dissonance will make it so that those people who simply tell them to stop, will be disregarded.
Dialogue is needed, dialogue between men, and with men. I think most men would actually come to similar conclusions to me, given the vocabulary and the space to express how they relate to porn and sexuality in general.
More freedom to communicate would mean more open and honest assessment of the power structures that men live with in. I think it could only lead to a greater realisation of what gender is, of how it makes us act in certain ways.
Personally, and I take this as an act of faith, I think an open and healthy approach to sexuality throughout society, would lead to a world where degrading porn would be entirely unnecessary and undesired, but where ‘healthy’ porn could be freely available. I don’t know what that would look like, as it would be impossible in our society, because the whole attitude towards sex, gender relations, and power in general is so entirely fucked (if you’ll excuse the not quite a pun).
Let’s think about rape.
We live in a society where rape happens all the time.
There’s a spectrum of behaviour, effectively condoned by the media and most peer groups, whereby male dominance, through aggression and invasion, is the norm. Men assert their ownership over women by gripping them, holding them to them, and ‘protecting’ them from others. Territory, ownership, power, dominance. This is all part of how it works, according to the standard structures.
Its no wonder it leads to rape.
Now, there’s a lot of great work being done. Raising awareness, ensuring that victims are supported, that rapists punished, and warning potential victims of the dangers. Don’t get unlicensed cabs, look after your drinks, don’t walk around alone at night.
It’s all important, and hopefully this kind of education will, over time, increase awareness, reduce incidents, and increase prosecution rates.
But that’s only one side of the coin.
What we really need to do is get men, all men, everywhere, to ask themselves about how their behaviour, in relation to women, could lead to rape. Could make someone else consider rape to be fine. Men do this, men like me, men like my brothers, men like my friends. And it happens, by all reports, alot.
Do we discuss it?
No. We discuss sex as conquest, congratulating each other on landing particularly fine specimens. Dehumanising even the one’s we love and care about. It happens, it’s disgusting, and it needs to change.
And it can only change by getting men talking about it. Not defensively, but openly.
I’ll open up, and tell you something I’m ashamed of, and part of my history, and something that I think informs the way porn, and the media shape our view of sex, and particularly the role of power in sex. (A lot of this may be unpleasant for the more sensitive among my readers, so you may not want to continue).
When I was young, early teens, masturbating vigorously constantly, fantasising, looking, furtively, under the cover of darkness, and the weird and upsettingly commodifed world of sex, particularly as bought to me via late night covert use of my parents internet connection. I guess I quickly grew a taste for some of the more unusual things, but just because of the need for more variety, something to make it constantly change. Hundreds of images one after another, a torrent of flesh, bodies, pretty much detached from any real sex, per se, just flesh, willing and available at a click of the button.
So that’s the fuel. And in the mornings, and once I was in bed. More of the same, but my imagination this time placing people into the same positions, imagining, long before I’d had any experience of sex, all manner of weird and unusual practices, anything I could find a name for I could read about and a lot of it was being advertised to me. So I plugged in the people I saw in the world, using my imagination, they’d be in the position of the people in the images, and take part in these elaborate yet fleeting fantasies.
I only remembered this this morning, but I used to be in the habit of fantasising about having anal sex with, particularly, the girls at school I didn’t like. The ones who made me feel like a weirdo and an outcast (until at least the age of sixteen, I was a geeky bookish type, unwanted by the in group of people, I was weird and introverted and an easy target, though this eased up as I became more confident and loud). They’d be enjoying it, but it would hurt.
Power.
They had power over me, in the real world, because they had the friends, and they would make me feel like shit, so, in my fantasies, I would take that power away from them.
And that was how I got myself off. Fed by porn, and loneliness, and hate, and an inability to interact with people.
Thank the universe, and myself, for growing up enough to realise that this was wrong, for learning to treat women as humans before I actually went out and lived out those fantasies.
I guess I never thought about it until today, but was I on a road to becoming a rapist? I have no doubt in my mind that I was thinking the same thoughts.
And I think a lot of men have these thoughts, and most, hopefully, realise they are entirely inappropriate. I never lived out anything, in fact, as with my porn addiction, I was disgusted by the whole thing when I wasn’t engaged in it. But for those moments, I’d be lost in it. And that would, undoubtedly, seep out into my day to day thoughts.
Men, and boys, need to be able to open up about these things to each other. And not start competing and fighting over who’s watched the most extreme porn, or wanked the most times in a day, but actually talk about the feelings this material, these thoughts, what they express and represent. Why do they feel the need to engage sexually with these images, with these static and passive beings? Why do they let that seep into their lives?
And how does it affect them? Us?
I still, today, know that my mind has been scarred and shaped by the the porn I have seen. Certain images, still exciting to my minds eye, remain burnt in, unforgettable. I wonder whether they still have a hold on me. I wonder how much my sexuality is still bound up with those forays into the extreme while my mind was still young and new.
Through communication, honesty, and openness, I think I have overcome. I can have a healthy relationship, I can have sex, interesting and unusual, but still open and honest. Never forced, always, without doubt, consensual. Always with love, care, and feeling. Mutual, joining and whole. With awareness and communication this is possible.
It’s all the better for it. Sex without porn, without thought of porn, can be spiritual and communicative. A sharing of something incredible.
I’m glad I grew up, but I can’t help think what I could’ve become.
And we need everyone, all men (and all women for that matter, I just take it for granted that feminism is already fighting to ensure that) to become open enough to talk about and engage with these realities, and start humanising everybody again.
In order for society to grow up, it is the men who must make the next move, and it can’t be forced, it must be willingly made.
Men need to open up, and I want to start campaigning to make that happen.
—————-
Now playing: Turin Brakes – [The Optimist LP #02] Underdog (Save Me) [foobar2000 v0.9.4.3]
via FoxyTunes
Interesting stuff.
Relevant link on men and gender justice.
A bit garbled this one so I hope it makes sense. I hope I haven’t repeated stuff I’ve said in earlier comments, either – if I have apologies!
A couple of things spring to mind here. One, congratulations one of the most honest pieces of writing I’ve read anywhere. I think you’re too intelligent to have gone that way but what you say makes a lot of sense.
Two, I think a lot of the language men use to talk about sex is to hide their embarrassment. Some are aware of the difference between this talk and real life though, some are unable to express their feelings honestly but are able to do so through humour. As a woman, you meet them, the people who take the mick out of you about having big tits or whatever and I can tell, at once, where they are using humour to hide genuine admiration. I don’t mean just sexual admiration either, I mean where they like you as a person but are not quite sure how to deal. I can’t believe I’m the only woman in the world who is able to do this, although I do sometimes wonder if I’m the only woman who bothers.
I worked in a harsh, mostly-male environment for several years. It was the most un PC environment I’ve ever been in. Interestingly, it was also the place where I was shown more genuine respect as a human being then anywhere else. While there, the fact I was a woman, though often referred to and joked about in conversation, also had less effect on the way I was seen and judged by my peers – or their actions towards me – than anywhere else. I was literally, just another guy, who, coincidentally, had boobs and a high voice and since the boobs and high voice were the things they took the piss about in the same way that the guy with the big ears was called “Ferengi” and didn’t give a toss. I suppose it was because if you’re all under pressure, you don’t have time to deal with sensitivities so you just bring the most embarrassing, different thing about a person
The only male there who I felt genuinely did regard me as little more than a sex object, was actually the only one who was PC. So we need somewhere in the middle, where women are more ready to understand that sometimes if somebody is comfortable enough to make a joke with you that’s a little close to the bone (it doesn’t have to be sexual per se just about you generally), it can mean they hold you in very high esteem rather than the other way around. So we women, we need to move too. We need to stop looking for offence, stop behaving like people in soaps and behave like rational human beings… because you know, it’s really not so hard to spot the difference between situations where a man is viewing you as a sex object and a display of furtive respect. I dunno, maybe I’m just a weird one.
So while there are undoubtedly me doing it wrong at the moment – for example the bunch in Notting Hill, talking about how much Anna Scott “wants it” when she’s having a quiet dinner just out of their eye line – there are other men, having similar sounding conversations but with a different intention behind them and that, to me, is a start.
However, you’re right, men do seem to spend a lot of their time turning their conversations into a game of “the most important man in the room” they do need to be more open… about everything, not just sex. Again, I have a friend who can talk quite luridly about women but at the same time, he so clearly admires the people he is describing, is usually a little bit in awe of them, in fact that I don’t find it offensive. Some men sleep with a lot of women but have clearly found each experience wonderful and remarkable, as one particular philandering rogue put it when I asked about hurting people. “You have one night stands with the good time girls, you don’t sleep with people you’re going to hurt.” There is a grey area here. Like the rest of life, I guess.
So yes, the men who simply regard sex as a conquest, a notch on the bedpost, they suck but it’s normally so obvious when they’re chatting me up that I’m not remotely interested. Others, well, you know they’ve been around but you still would… I’m not putting this well but I guess it’s the attitude that’s important more than what is actually said.
Finally, porn. Very interesting what you say about objectivisation, anonymity. Have you noticed that many pictures of finely honed male bodies are just that, the body. Again and again the head is not shown. There isn’t really porn for women, I’ve noticed, it’s mostly just hunkswiththeirshirtsoff dot com kind of thing… But the few times I’ve dabbled in “porn” I’ve noticed that I literally, put something over the face and just look at the six pack. I also notice something in my head which is aware of the difference between, nice body I’d like to run my hands over in a passionate frenzy (phnark) and a man I want to look in the eyes and do unspeakable (and very enjoyable) things with. I have to know the latter and even as a woman who considers herself reasonably enlightened and should know better, I am almost certainly objectivising the former. The latter is a spiritual experience, the former is just something to concentrate or enhance a physical sensation, a way to make wanking more interesting.
Perhaps porn will only be PC when computers can produce that spiritual experience in a virtual environment. In the interim, I’m not sure all porn is wrong but I do know that a lot of attitudes ARE in both genders. Yes. Men do need to grow up. Porn is just a blind, a distraction from the real problem which is that both men and women need to see each other first and foremost as just people.
Go for it and good luck!
Cheers
BC
Oh bollocks I missed a bit, where I was talking about the pressure environment. You bring the embarrassing stuff in the open and make jokes about it, you defuse it because you need to pull together with your colleagues and you can’t afford to let the gaps between you make an environment which is already stressful. any more so.
Cheers (again)
BC
I really like this post. It’s a very interesting confession, accompanied with a lot of mature insight about an immature situation. From own experience, it always feels good to look back and realize how unbelievably wrong you were, because it just means that you have grown so much.
Anyway, I was just talking to a male friend about this subject, and how boys are all still under the same game. Competition where the one that is able to detach the most wins; the one with the dirtiest thoughts, the less respect for women. The biggest macho.
Meanwhile, anyone caught showing feelings of an almost human nature, is despised. My friend got caught in that game of course. I don’t know the details of his mental imagery or how far he went. All I know is that his changing environment, aging, and experiencing other points of view, made him realize a lot of things, and realize how fucked up it was.
Some don’t get to change, and we wonder if it’s even their fault because it starts at such a young age, and it’s a problem of the whole culture. Women are involved too, and the fact that a woman thinks that the man is $·$·%$· because he hurted her, just proves that she put herself under it at the same time the guy was taken advantage. For women behaviour: blame soap operas and tales about prince charmy? I don’t know. The problem is still there.
I don’t think porn itself is bad. I like porn!
I was a kid for a long time, really. I was a bookworm, and lacked social skills, but that somehow made me focus into my own world that did cause some strange mind patterns, but I recognize I was pretty oblivious about “adult stuff”, for a long time.
I remember being thirteen when a notebook fell on my arms, where there was a series of personal questions, and everyone was answering anonymously by writing it in the notebook. One of the questions was “do you masturbate?”.
My reaction being: “What is that?”, which of course was hilarious for the rest of the year, for the hundreds of people in my school. I was a ten grader who didn’t know what masturbating means, not even as a concept.
I had more important things to think about, like science, english, music, and my favorite tv show.
Yeah, I might be the dream daughter for any mother and father…. meh. That is an example of how late things occurred for me. When I discovered porn, and sexual interest, and sexual experiences, I did it with extreme curiosity, and also eventually went into very unusual things.
I like porn. Just like BC, I do objectivize the people in there. I’m not looking for role models for love making, I am just trying to give my brain a good dose of endorphins, and woudln’t even think about treating a real person like that. I don’t plan on having porn replacing any aspect of my real life either.
I think the difference relies on how immature you were when you were exposed to all of these things. At that time you were not able to tell the difference between one thing and the other. You do now, and it’s hard to get rid of those things imprinted in your memory from that time. But I believe you have reached a level of inteligence, experience and insight, that will prevent you from being affected by your earlier distorted experiences.
The problem is that there are many kids undergoing the same as you. Will they acomplish the level of maturity required to analyze the information presented to them? I think there’s not one single weirdo like me who is oblivious to these things. They will see, they will know, and they will use them as a base for their structuration of ideas around sex and relationships, and that is terrible.
Sexism is not men’s fault, it’s a society problem, which was much worst before, and it’s getting better, and hopefully will get better in the future. That’s my hope.
It involves both men and women, so don’t be afraid of the feminists hating you.
Great post Alex.
-Nessa
Hey babychaos, what is “PC”? My brain fuel is gone and can’t figure out by myself!
great post. don’t have anything to add, but i appreciated what you’ve shared here.
crazyasuka: i think pc means politically correct. :)
Thanks all. Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond. Been very busy again, and wanted to take everything in.
Justin, thanks for the link.
BC,
I absolutely love your positivity here, I think it’s something incredibly important to remember. When thinking about the screwed up stuff in the world, it’s easy to forget that most people actually have good intentions. A lot of social interaction is about a certain set of rules and expectations, many of which are outdated and to an extent innappropriate. Some of this needs to be challenged, but also, it doesn’t mean the people who do this aren’t genuinely respectful underneath. It’d be nice if everyone could be more open and honest about these things, but it’s much better to be a respectful someone who appears a certain way than to mask the really disturbing stuff, the lack of respect and invasiveness, behind a veneer of nice polite kindness. That’s actually often a common feature of some of the sleaziest and inconsiderate guys I know. That shallow appearance of respect and attentiveness that masks a complete lack of humanity.
Which is definitely not good.
On the other hand, society can be fairly hostile to women, in subtle and unsubtle ways. And not everyone can see through the apparent behaviours to the hidden respects. And in itself its a fairly fucked up way to be. I think it’s actually a very british type of thing. It’s almost like the stiff upper lip or reservation. You can’t express actual feelings so everything has to be jokes and humour.
I love the humour, but I think we need more openness all round, and barriers need to be broken down. It makes sense in context a lot of the time, but it can be risky, and anyone more sensitive to these things is going to get hurt fast, and people need to be wary of that before joking around (I definitely do…my tact is renowned for its almost total absence).
Elsewhere, I think that the spiritual experience in virtual scenarios is still dangerous. I think it’s all about the comodifcation and easy access. It builds a relationship where buying, or simply consuming this stuff is so easy, that that’s how you can start to feel about sex in general. It fosters an unhealthy attitude to sources of sexual pleasure. Maybe. Add in the addictive nature and the ahem, intensity of the experiences associated with it, and you get something that really gets its teeth into your brain, and generally speaking screws it up.
Maybe not for everyone, but definitely for the impressionable, and I don’t know how easy it is to not.
Add to that an industry that seems generally fucked up, misogynistic and exploitative, and the whole thing becomes hard to sanction.
As an idealist, I tend to think that there is a possible world in which peoples attitudes to consent, sex, women and everything, then you could have non-exploitative and objectifying porn that wouldn’t mess with people. But I’m not a total idealist, I can see that it’s so unlikely, and we’re nowhere near it. But then, I never condone censorship, so I guess I’m just hoping to change to a world where it’s unneccessary. Where people are open enough to not need it. And people are educated enough to know the problems, and the gender issues behind it.
So, to say the least, it’s complicated.
Not sure if I’m still making sense or contradicting myself. As usual I’m trying to work everything out as I go along. Constant building in differing directions, trying to make sense of it all. It’s not entirely working. (My brain is still dead today, very dead).
Gah, hadn’t finished.
Nessa,
It’s great getting more perspectives on this. If you can explain more about your relationship about Porn without feeling uncomfortable, then go ahead. I think maybe coming to it later and with more of your mind sorted beforehand, is going to help. But then, if it’s still as you’re discovering your sexuality, then how is that going to effect it. It’s kinda hard to really trace this stuff back, I mean, I kinda go in for some weird stuff, and I find it hard to pick apart how much of it is relatively innate, how much is from stuff I’ve looked at when young, how much is media in general, and how much is porn. Like, the development of personal sexual tastes is crazy, and nobody really talks about it, so it’s hard to get.
I just know that I was seeking out weird shit on the internet, a lot of which is content that bears no relation to my real experience or what I’d really want. It can be like quite a lust for more and more material, but without the actual lust, it’s more like hunger. I guess I’ve got quite an addictive personality (cf the boozahol) and so maybe that’s just that, but I reckon it distorts stuff. Is that making sense? I doubt it.
So it’s not just the objectivisation of porn that makes it bad, it’s the way that reflects onto general perceptions, which I think is fairly subtle, unmeasurable but important. I’m sure someone could argue that as a woman, its going to be more empowering for you to take charge of your sexuality, and in your position as the oppressed (if you will) then that’s fine.
That kind of argument doesn’t sit well with me, as it reeks of double standards, but then, in your circumstance, I imagine you (with your rather precise self analytical tools, you do seem to be good at understanding yourself, which makes for great blogging) are probably very likely to be able to maintain the dividing line.
The common thread between both of these views, is this idea of their being an importance of intention and self awareness. Those who are aware of these things are better suited to deal with these situations. Which is why it’s terrible to get into it at puberty, when you don’t know who or where you are, even though you strongly cling to the structures that can maybe tell you.
If you’re ‘taught’ at a young age to be a consumer of objects (images, videos or whatever) as your main source of sexual gratification, and these objects happen to be women, you’re going to grow up with that dynamic in mind. That’s what it’s about. It’s about that structure being endlessly recreated, unless other things correct you and you take the time to think about things, or something kicks you in the arse and wakes you up to reality, then that attitude may never change.
And that basically means there’s a lot of potential danger in the whole thing, at the very least.
I’m totally tangled up in this now, and so confused. I’m convinced I’m writing circles around myself.
And thanks a lot sulz, and all, it means a lot that you’re getting something out of this. I was pretty terrified when I was writing and submitting it, but I feel like I’m learning a lot, especially the discussion it’s kicked up on and offline. Even if quite a lot of it is quite challenging.
There’s more to dig out here, I assure everyone. Thanks for help and let me know if I’m making any sense here.
Jumble jumble jumble.
Very true about spirituality and well… consuming I guess also about the effect on the impressionable. Also with you about the porn industry. You’ve only got to try and find porn for women to suss that out! There’s not really any good stuff. There are arty things, finely buffed male bods showing off torsos and sometimes a little bit more but these are mostly aimed at gay men. As for the rest, I don’t really want to watch some other bird getting off I want it to be filmed the way I’d see it if I was the woman doing the shagging. Maybe I’m just odd.
I do absolutely agree with you about being open, although a lot of people find that really hard without the humour… and also I think there may be a little of the British sense of the absurd in our continued resorting to jokes and not being serious. That said, it’s amazing how much more open you can be, without offending people, if you can manage to make it funny.
And to confirm, PC is, indeed, Politically Correct.
Cheers
BC