Read #163

Polly Barton: Porn

“Porn, and masturbation in general, are subjects about which people are taught to carry a lot of shame, and fear of others’ judgement.”

“Talking about porn, is not talking about the thing that’s the problem, which is patriarchy and misogyny…”

Starting from her own position of “tortured ambivalence… ” toward porn, Barton embarked on nineteen conversations with a random(ish) set of (anonymised) adults ranging in age from early twenties to early eighties, about their use of, and thoughts about, porn. They were all people that Barton had some form of “in” with – friends, friends of friends – that sort of thing…all people she could email with “the idea” initially to see if they would be interested in taking part. The resulting group crosses genders, sexualities, parenthood or not, I don’t think anyone had any strongly held religious views, and nationalities – Barton has friends from her times living abroad. It might just be my own prejudices playing in, but I did get the feeling that I was hearing a lot of “the educated class” talking here – as in there was no one that stood out as working class, in what I was reading, and no one who positively identified themselves that way – whether that has any relevance, I don’t know. (And in reading back the introduction I see Barton herself identifies both ethnicity and class as intersections that would readily benefit from more in-depth investigation)

She describes what she thinks may be her general underlying reasons for writing this book, as “… a fascination for the clandestine, an inability to leave alone the things that one is not supposed to probe.” She reviewed her own “knee-jerk” reaction to the word itself, creating a concern that publishing anything with that word in the title may damage future prospects…and then also how doing so might lead people to think she was a connoisseur of porn, which she says she isn’t, before acknowledging the whole self-referential mess and embarrassment she was embroiled in. She worried it would make her a “bad feminist“. She also identifies a very specific trigger for her wish to explore the topic: a male, not a stranger to her, but not a romantic attachment sent her a text out of the blue that said “I am watching porn”. It was her inability to quantify this message, his reasons for sending it – and to her – and her reactions to his doing so that spurred her on. It most definitely was not the same as texting her to say “I am watching football”. Why wasn’t it?

What is learned:

…everybody is convinced that pretty much everyone else is watching porn: especially women talking about men, although it becomes clear – within this group at least – that women are just as likely to watch it, and just as likely to feel embarrassed about doing so. But none of this was judgemental – it was very matter of fact

…porn consumption (and the “pornification” of society) has exploded since the invention of the internet – yes, there was VHS for a while, but really its the internet. That’s not to say porn has only existed for the last 30 years, we know that is nonsense, but the ease of access to it has exploded. It is a multi-billion dollar industry (and the industry bit is where the ethical difficulties tend to come in). Many of the conversations touched on the ethics, without ever reaching conclusions…probably because that’s how ethics work, and where individuals stand on them are hugely different in life rather than just porn

…which also helps, to go some way towards explaining an apparently more relaxed attitude in younger generations to its existence, and also an apparent willingness to discuss and accept use of porn, with partners, within a relationship – not many saw it as “cheating” – some saw it as a way of opening up the relationship, the ability to talk and explore what turned each other on

…it is not just porn that is a difficult conversation between friends and / or partners – masturbation, sexual preferences and proclivities, but also certain illnesses are seen as more “difficult” conversations to have – and we know that there is great work being done in some arenas, male mental health for eg – to try and get the understanding out there that there is widespread “permission” for such conversations

…that what people see as “OK”, is fluid – it may change with time, relationship status, whether they become parents, health (their’s or their partner’s)

…there’s always another “kink” that you had not thought of…

…no one seems to have much truck with the Andrea Dworkin position of all porn being violence, although in the closing chapter Barton does go – surprisingly to me, for the first time – to Audre Lorde’s essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power“, which talks about the difference between pornography and what is truly erotic, describing porn as the polar opposite of eroticism because it “represents the suppression of true feeling.” Again, Lorde was writing in the 70s & 80s and I think that makes some difference.

I keep thinking back to the conversation with the woman (seven), who said she “didn’t think anything about porn” – she is mid-thirties, in a long term relationship with a male – where she referenced disengagement, a “sort of blankness“, which she ascribed to reading and studying Dworkin, and how she found herself horrified by the end-position of Dworkin’s “radical feminist” approach was that she was on the same side as the political far-right, which the woman just felt couldn’t be correct – she also made a link with the type of argument some feminists are making that takes them straight into TERF territory, which again she knows is not where she wants her feminism to lead her – “not wanting to fall into that trap… radical feminism once again touching on a fascist position“. In short, this woman had far more to say on porn that was of interest to me, because she started from the political, the social-power dynamic and worked her way back into the subject from there.

“…we all know that power dynamics within sexuality and desire and pleasure are a complex and valuable thing… and (sometimes) not a bad thing in itself. Then you have to try and separate misogyny from the power dynamic thing. Which is really bizarre… It is really difficult to square the positive and negative aspects of power dynamics in your head, which is important for people to explore…”

She later discusses (and Barton agrees) being in a same-sex relationship, as she had been, she found the power dynamic was absent, which she surprised herself by missing, noting that she was, “reliant on non-equality in a way” because “sex is not neutral.“

It is worth finishing with a couple of the broader societal / contextual thoughts that these conversations have led Barton to crystallise and express:

“What I have come to realise about porn over the course of these conversations is that what scares me the most about it… is the way that the shame and the silence and the guilt and the awkwardness surrounding it … work to produce a sense of passivity, a lack of agency and responsibility… of course, in this porn is not a standalone phenomenon, but is part of a capitalist socio-economic context … dubbed ‘the pornification of the world.’… where the productive apparatus endeavours not only to sell us products but to create needs, and ultimately induce addictive behaviour.”

“When we have fully accepted the implications of living in an invisible supermarket, we may well end up accepting the inevitability of the trajectory that we’re on as a society…” but in order to do that we owe it to ourselves to do it consciously, “maintaining a sense of agency and responsibility… I still believe that this consciousness is preferable to burying our heads in the sand.”

“What would sex look like without porn, we don’t have a control group,” quoting Maggie Nelson.

There is nothing salacious here, it is all a pretty serious set of conversations with people being given a safe space to discuss what they do and think about porn: and really the point of the book, is that it – these conversations – exist and are recorded. That in itself is enough, for now.