Freethinking for Dummies

Pornography and Feminism – Why Woman Should Be Able to Watch Porn if They Want To.

NOTE:  I borrow heavily from a similar post on my personal blog, but hey, they are both my blogs so why reinvent the wheel?  WARNING: the descriptions of sex acts and the language there is explicit. If this bothers you, then I’d suggest avoiding it.

I’ve been wanting to do a post about pornography for a while now, but I just haven’t had the time.  This is a subject that I really haven’t had many discussions about with others, especially my female friends.  I am a firm believer that women have as much of a right as men to enjoy pornography if they wish.

One of the blogs I follow is Our Porn, Ourselves that has the tagline, “Women like to watch porn. Deal with it.” In their Origins section of the blog, they have the following to say:

For women who are pro-porn and all those who support us. WE are the answer to anti-porn feminists. All genders welcome.

A little further down we find:

We women are tired of people trying to control our sexuality by telling us what we should or shouldn’t like sexually (porn) based on what someone else thinks is best for us. It’s like keeping women in a perpetual state of being children about sex. And women who say they are feminists make it worse by discounting all the women who find porn to be an empowering sex toy. Or if not, to at least give us the benefit of the doubt that we can make that decision for ourselves, thank you very much.

Bravo!

The notion that porn is somehow bad for women is outdate (if it was ever valid to begin with).  Today there are plenty of women within the professional porn industry like Nina Hartley, Annie Sprinkle, and Sharon Mitchell who are dedicated to both producing porn for both women and couples. as well as advocating for the workers in the adult film industry, especially woman.  Sharon Mitchell, for example, is currently the Director of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which she established in 1998.

These are woman who came into a male dominated business and took control of their lives, bodies, and careers.  They made sex, and watching sex, acceptable and enjoyable for women and couples alike. They are successful not only because they performed sex on screen, but because they worked their asses off to succeed business.  Just because it happens to be the business of sex doesn’t make their achievements any less admirable or important.

For people, especially feminists, to try to tell other woman that they shouldn’t watch, engage in, or support porn is as deeming to women as any possible degradation porn it’s self could be.  Real equality for women must include the right to choose to watch, support or participate in pornography if they wish.  It is a part of human sexuality that by extension makes it a part of female sexuality.  The desire to watch pornography is no different than the desire to engage in BDSM, water sports, role playing, strap-on, or any other “alternative” sexual activity.  Of course some of the very same people who rile against  pornography probably find these activities degrading to women as well.  What they fail to see is that it isn’t their choice.  By insisting that women are somehow unconsciously degraded by these acts is to call the very women they claim to support stupid, shallow, and weak minded.  What an insult!

April 2, 2011 - Posted by James Walker | Feminism, Social Justice | feminism, feminist, porn, pornography