I write chick porn, and I’m proud of it.
It seems like most women prefer to call it Erotic Romance (ER), shying away from anything that sounds like the evil “P” word. On the other hand, compare the average ER e-book to what a guy might call “a good fuck book” and tell me that the intended use in either case is different.
My point is that it doesn’t matter what you call it, or at least it should not matter. I agree that the word “porn” carries implied pejorative meaning. Aside from pulling women’s chains, that’s one reason I call ER chick porn; I want people to think about this.
I think people are fooling themselves if they think what they call ER is somehow morally and artistically superior to “The Schtupping Sisters” or “Convent Call Girls” or something similar. I’ve read books labeled “porn” and I’ve read ER and the only difference seems to be that in the former case the authors (usually men but not always) don’t understand very well what women want, think and feel, and in the latter case the authors (usually women but not always) don’t really understand what men want, think and feel.
I have seen a fair amount of commentary written by women stipulating in excruciating detail how ER is NOT porn, mainly revolving around some version of the “artistic merit” argument. With due respect, that’s the real problem; people keep trying to define “porn”. Nobody’s successfully done it yet, which is one reason why the Conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court has slapped down COPA (the Child Online Protection Act – thank your local religious conservative for that one) at least three times.
Get real, people. Sexually explicit material is entirely a matter of personal taste. If you like “Tropic of Cancer” in spite of the sexual content, or even because of it, then it’s great art; if you don’t like it because of the sexual content, it’s obscene (which it was legally labeled when first published, along with “Catcher in the Rye” and a few others). The same goes for any other writing (or film or photo or any other media).
Saying that a sexually explicit book is porn is like saying D/s, bondage, whipping, slave collars, enemas, and asphyxiation are perverted, sick, and obscene.
No, they aren’t.
As any well informed practitioner of the above delights will inform you, the only rules are: safe, sane, and consensual. Period.
And the only rule in literature is, “Do you like the story?” Period.
But Porn is a cancer on our society, right? Porn causes rape and debases women, right?
For my next illusion, I will appear to debunk the primary myths about sexually explicit material:
1. Porn causes or is responsible in some manner for rape
2. Porn causes men to objectify women
Exhibit 2: http://www.netspeed.com.au/ttguy/refs2.htm
Exhibit 3: Any Erotic Romance ever printed
If one follows the above links and then carefully reads the information presented, it becomes evident that at the very least there is no viable evidence linking pornography to increased crime rates, and in fact there is at least some coincidental evidence indicating that increased availability of pornography is related to significant decreases in the incidence of sexual assaults against women and especially against children; in Denmark, Sweden and West Germany, legalization of all forms of sexually explicit material was at least coincidental with measurable decreases in the incidence of sexual assaults against women and children, even as the overall crime rate increased.
(By the way, in some of the most sexually repressed societies on earth (i.e., the Middle East), production, distribution and sale of sexually explicit material gets the death penalty.)
Additionally, there is at best mixed evidence linking the use of sexually explicit material to the objectification of women.
Finally, compare both the graphic descriptions of sex and the perspective of the authors of any female-oriented sexually explicit writing (your typical ER book) to that of any male-oriented sexually explicit writing. The differences primarily represent the differences between men and women generally; men want to get to the point, and get the job done, and women want to embellish and take their time. Neither perspective is wrong.
So get off the porn wagon, people. It’s just sex.
No comments:
Post a Comment