No Porn November. Thoughts and things.

If you don't follow these things on the internet, it's November. And among other initiatives (nanowrimo, Movember)  some people have decided it is No Porn November.

This is worth talking about. Why not? 

Feminism and pornography have had a long and fraught relationship, and it looks like a discussion that will go on for a long time. 

Part of the problem (as always) is a terminological one. There are many different kinds of pornography, as there are many different kinds of feminism, so most arguments that aren't absolutist are straw-mannish. 

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You can say:

 "feminism is just about equality", and "pornography is just about expressing sexuality"; or 

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 "pornography exploits women" and "radical feminsm demonises male sexuality" ; or 

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"feminism celebrates female sexuality" and "pornography is just entertainment"; or

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"pornography is only damaging in the absence of society providing good comprehensive sex education" or "feminism has a duty to object to demeaning and dehumanising portrayals of women in fiction";

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"pornography misrepresents sex, and damages people's capacity for wholesome and respectful sexual relationships" and "third wave feminism is about folding women's traditional sexual power into capitalism rather than dismantling traditional oppressive gender norms"; or

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"Toxic masculinity is present in almost every romantic comedy, but it’s seen as cute, not problematic." or "Porn makes men terrible in bed" 

All of those arguments are being made, and it's difficult to deal with any of them in a useful way. 

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Much like the abortion debate, the problem with pornography and its relationship to womens sexuality is a highschool debating problem. Neither side accepts the other side's definitions, so the debate is less a debate than a pair of shadow-boxers in a mirror maze.  

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One side is arguing that foetuses are people with rights, and the other side is arguing that foetuses are accumulations of cells, and the other side is arguing that women should have control of their own lives, and the other side is arguing that your control over your own body should stop short of murder, there's not a lot of common ground. 

Sex positive feminism has an embattled relationship with pornography, which either forms a bad set of expectations and habits about what sex should look like, and what pleasure for women actually involves, or else celebrates and destigmatises sexual expression, widening people's horizons and validating their kinks and quirks. 

Many people have a guilty relationship with pornography, uncertain about how much it impacts their real sexual imagination, or worrying that it is an inherently exploitative or degrading industry for many of its performers. 

As always I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. I make jokes about pornography, because it's (at a conservative estimate) between 4% and 37% of all the material that's on the internet, and so it's clearly an important part of the landscape we live in. Whether it's a treacherous ravine or a glorious mountain glade is a matter of perspective. 

My general sense of it is that sex (and the objectification of people as sexual vessels) is a natural human urge - like gambling. Wherever you have people, these games will emerge, and that's a natural and probably more or less healthy expression of human nature. 

But pornography as an industry, like gambling, when it meets with the insatiable drive of capitalism, grows behond all healthy measure and begins to cannibalise and distort the natural urges from which it arises in the name of profit. 

So if you want to do no-porn-november, go right ahead. If you don't, ditto.