by Gail Dines
Sometime these sites reel in the user by tossing out a challenge to his masculinity, a sure way to get most porn users to bite. Nowhere is this clearer than on the animated incest site that tells men that incest is “an amazing way of learning about yourself and your dearest people!” But then the site tells the user that if “he is not yet brave enough to try,” then the next best thing is “our hand-drawn group incest stories based on totally crazy things real people tried.”29 The implicit question here is: are you man enough to take the first step and masturbate to images that are truly so deviant and transgressive that it takes someone really brave to do the real thing?
While these PCP sites may satisfy the user for a time, desensitization eventually leads to boredom and the need for harder-core and more extreme porn. The obvious next place to go is real child pornography, since here a real child is used and the truly illegal and hence secretive nature of the porn is only going to add an even greater erotic thrill for the, by now, somewhat desensitized user. Quayle and Taylor found in their study of men convicted of downloading child pornography that even the real thing becomes boring after a while, with men seeking out more overtly violent images involving younger and younger children.30 While this descent into utterly abusive and violent child porn is not a given for PCP users, these sites can only serve to whet their appetite for more images of real child pornography since they will always fall short of delivering on their promise of watching a real child turned into a “whore.”
But what about men who are not looking for a substitute to the real thing but rather prefer to have sex with adult women and yet masturbate to the PCP sites? It is clear from the sheer volume of traffic being generated on these sites that such men must be visiting them. Why would they go to these sites rather than the thousands of others devoted to adult on adult sex? The answer is the same for these men as it is for pedophiles: desensitization. Journalist Pamela Paul found that many of the men she interviewed had quickly become desensitized. Many expressed shock at just how rapidly their viewing preferences had turned to increasingly violent and bizarre porn genres—genres that they had previously found distasteful but now actively sought out.31 Many of these genres featured adult women—in scenes of urinating, bestiality, or heavy bondage—but for some men, children became the object of their sexual desire. David G. Heffler, a psychotherapist who counsels child pornography offenders, was recently quoted as saying that in his clinical work he has had many men who revealed that “after looking at adult porn a long time, they get bored. They want something different. They start looking at children. Then, they can’t get enough of it.”32
This slide from adult to child pornography flies in the face of conventional wisdom, as we tend to think of men who are sexually aroused by children as pedophiles who form a distinct and separate group from other men by virtue of their deviant sexual interests and behavior. However, after a thorough analysis of the empirical literature, feminist sociologists Diana Russell and Natalie J. Purcell argue that the research on pedophiles does not point to a model of two clearly defined groups (pedophiles and nonpedophiles); rather, there is a continuum: some men are clearly situated at either end, but others are scattered at various points. Furthermore, men’s position along the continuum is subject to shifts, depending on the particular constellation of their life experiences at any one time.33 Russell and Purcell note that although in the past, researchers pointed to unusual life experiences, such as the loss of a spouse, substance abuse, and unemployment, as contributory factors, recent studies suggest that ongoing use of pornography is increasingly playing a role in shifting men along the continuum.
In a March 2008 interview I conducted with seven men in a Connecticut prison who were incarcerated for downloading child pornography (and in three cases, for sexually abusing a child), not one of them fitted the definition of a pedophile. All seven told me that they preferred sex with an adult woman, but had become bored with regular pornography. Five of them had looked at PCP sites first and then moved into actual child porn. This backs up Russell and Purcell’s claim that for pedophiles and nonpedophiles alike, PCP sites “can serve as a bridge between adult pornography and child pornography.”34 Since there are currently no large-scale empirical studies available on this, it is impossible to point to any findings, but if Russell and Purcell are correct, and the anecdotal evidence suggests that they are, then the continued and increasing popularity of PCP will have devastating implications for child sexual abuse. First, the demand for real child pornography will increase, which will mean a greater number of children being abused for the purpose of production, and second, a greater number of children will be at risk of being sexually abused by men who use the pornography as a stepping-stone to contact sex with a child.
The research on the relationship between consuming pornography and actual contact sex with a child suggests that there are a percentage of men who will act out their desires on real children after viewing child porn. Quayle and Taylor found in their study of convicted child offenders that “for some respondents, pornography was used as a substitute for actual offending, whereas for others, it acted as both blueprint and stimulus for contact offense.”35 While the actual percentage of child porn users who also sexually victimize children varies from study to study, with some putting the number as low as 40 percent, and others as high as 85 percent,36 the weight of the evidence is that masturbation to images of sexualized children is, for a significant proportion of men, linked to actual child sexual abuse. A government study conducted in 2007 of convicted child pornography offenders found that 85 percent of men convicted of downloading child pornography had committed acts of sexual abuse against minors, from inappropriate touching to rape.37 An article detailing the findings was submitted to the Journal of Family Violence, and then pulled by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. According to an article in the New York Times, many experts in the field are angry that the findings have been suppressed.38
In addition to the psychological literature on the effects of child pornography on individual men’s behaviors and attitudes, we know from the research conducted within media studies that people construct their notions of reality from the media they consume, and the more consistent and coherent the message, the more people believe it to be true.39 Thus, the images of girls in PCP do not operate within a social vacuum; rather, they are produced and consumed within a society where the dominant pop culture images are of childified women, adultified children, and hypersexualized youthful female bodies.
Over the years there has been a shift in mainstream society regarding the way girls look. Girls’ clothes now mimic sexualized clothes for women to such a degree that communications scholar Mardia Bishop argues that “the majority of clothing available for elementary school girls at the local suburban mall is from the porn industry, which I call ‘porn’ fashion.”40 Wearing thongs, low-slung jeans, short skirts, and midriff-revealing tops, these girls now appear “hot.” Chris, one of the men in the Connecticut prison I interviewed, told me that he had stopped going to the mall because “looking at the girls aroused me and I couldn’t stop looking at them.” To this Greg added: “I do respond to the sexuality of their dress that they don’t even know they’re projecting.” Both of these men were talking about prepubescent girls.
This cultural shift toward sexualizing girls from an early age is bound to have real social consequences. Not only does it affect the way girls see themselves, it also chips away at the norms that define children as off-limits to male sexual use. The more we undermine such cultural norms, the more we drag girls into the category of “woman,” and in a porn-saturated world, to be woman is often to be a sexual object deserving of male contempt, use, and abuse.
Conclusion: Fighting Back
Ironically, pornography has become almost invisible by virtue of its very ubiquity. It seeps into our lives, identities, and relationships. We are so steeped in the pornographic mindset that it is difficult to imagine what a world without porn would look like. It is affecti
ng our girls and boys, as both are growing up with porn encoded into their gender and sexual identities. I opened this book by stating that we are in the midst of a massive social experiment, and nobody really knows how living in Pornland will shape our culture. What we do know is that we are surrounded by images that degrade and debase women and that for this the entire culture pays a price.
What can we do about the porning of our culture? I wish I had a magic bullet but I don’t; we are up against an economic juggernaut. Fighting the porn industry demands that we resist both as individuals and as part of a collective movement. At the moment, most resistance happens at the individual level, and this is a promising start. I meet young women who refuse to date men who are users of porn, parents who teach their children media literacy skills, teachers who develop sophisticated sex-education programs, and men who boycott porn because of the ways it affects their sexuality. Absent a wider social movement, these individual forms of resistance make the most sense.
The pressing question, then, is how to unite these individual acts of resistance into a movement. In 2007, I helped form the group Stop Porn Culture (SPC), whose goal is to educate the public about the nature and effects of porn. SPC consists of activists, academics, teachers, anti-violence experts, parents, and students. The major educational tools we currently use are two slide shows. The first one—Who Wants to Be a Porn Star?—I cowrote with Rebecca Whisnant and Robert Jensen. The show comes with a fifty-minute script and over one hundred slides and covers many of the main points made in this book; it introduces people to the concept of a porn culture as well as showing the content of the contemporary porn industry. This show is now being given across the country (as well as in Canada, Scotland, and England) in colleges, anti-violence groups, student groups, and community centers. The slide show is an effective tool for raising people’s consciousness and can be obtained free of charge from Stop Porn Culture ([email protected]).
The second slide show—Growing Up in a Porn Culture, written by Rebecca Whisnant—focuses on how the porn culture harms children and youth. Geared toward parents, teachers, and anyone who works with children and youth, this show not only explores the media world of young people, but it also offers advice on how to talk to this age group about the hypersexualized culture we live in. This show can also be obtained free of charge from SPC. On the SPC Web site are links to other feminist anti-porn sites, readings, videos, and resources. Twice a year SPC runs a seminar and training workshop for those who want to learn more about the topic or receive training on how to present the slide show in public venues. Information can be found at http://stoppornculture.org/home.html.
Movements typically begin small, and grassroots education is one way to build an effective vehicle for change. But this movement can’t only be about what’s wrong with the world. It also needs to offer a mobilizing vision that will excite and entice people to join. We need to offer an alternative way of being, a way to envisage a sexuality that is based on equality, dignity, and respect. Part of this inevitably means organizing against the commodification of human needs and desires. Women and men must throw these industrial images out of our bedrooms and our heads so that we can develop a way of being sexual that does not dictate conformity to the plasticized, generic, and formulaic sex on offer in a porn culture. Such a sexuality cannot be scripted by a movement because it belongs to individuals and reflects who they are and what they want sexually.
A movement that resists the porn culture needs to include men as they, too, are being dehumanized and diminished by the images they consume. Men’s refusal to collaborate with the pornographers will not only undermine the legitimacy of the industry, it will also drain it of its profits. For too long women have been the only ones fighting this predatory industry, even though we have long argued that porn also hurts men. What resistance to porn offers men is a sexuality that celebrates connectedness, intimacy, and empathy—a sexuality bathed in equality rather than subordination.
A sexuality based on equality ultimately requires a society that is based on equality. While we fight for a way to define our own sexuality, we must not lose sight of the bigger picture: women still face economic, political, and legal discrimination. Porn is embedded in this wider structure, as nowhere is the practice of inequality so starkly obvious. In porn we are one-dimensional objects who want nothing more than porn sex. What we actually want is equality in all areas of our lives so that we no longer have to fear erasure, poverty, loss of reproductive rights, or men’s violence against us. As long as we have porn, we will never be seen as full human beings deserving of all the rights that men have. This is why we need to build a vibrant movement that fights for a world where women have power in and over their lives—because in a just society, there is no room for porn.
Acknowledgments This book has been many years in the making and could not have been written without my students. They have generously shared stories, insights, and ideas, helping me to navigate the pop culture world of young adults. Along the way, I have had some great research assistants and would like to give special mention to Amy Beth DiMasi, Dana Bialer, and Megan Byra for their excellent work. Wheelock College, always a place of support, helped to fund this project. Thanks to two great editors, Gayatri Patnaik and Joanna Green, for all their work and skill. Janina Fisher’s support throughout the project cannot be measured. I am especially indebted to Diane Levin, Leslie Lebowitz, Jackson Katz, Rebecca Whisnant, Lierre Keith, and, of course, Rhea Becker for offering insights, advice, and, when needed, comfort. My sister Ruth deserves a special mention: she is a true sister in every sense of the word. Researching and writing about porn is not easy, and over the years a number of people have become my support system. For over fifteen years I have had Robert Jensen as a friend and coauthor. His knowledge and understanding of the topic have greatly enriched my thinking and his humor keeps me sane when the porn seems too much. My son, T, makes my world joyful. And to David, the person who has been by my side my entire adult life, thank you for all that you are.
Notes
Introduction
1. Quoted in Betsy Schiffman, “Turns Out Porn Isn’t Recession-Proof,” July 21, 2008, http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/07/turns-out-por-1.html (accessed January 2, 2009).[back]
2. I refer to the user in the masculine since the majority of porn consumers are men. While it is impossible to give an accurate breakdown of male and female consumers, Mark Kernes, senior editor of the pornography trade magazine Adult Video News, stated, “Our statistics show that 78% of the people that go into adult stores are men. They may have women with them, but it’s men, and 22%, conversely, is women or women with other women or women alone.” Mark Kernes, interview with Robert Jensen at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, January 7, 2005. In my January 2008 interviews with porn producers at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, I was told that that the market for gonzo is almost always men.[back]
3. “How Internet Porn Is Changing Teen Sex,” Details, n.d., http://men.style.com/details/features/full?id=content_10357 (accessed September 12, 2009).[back]
4. I did not look at gay porn as it has its own specific representational codes and conventions.[back]
5. Some of the sites asked for age verification, but all this required was clicking on the “I am over 18” button.[back]
6. http://www.gagmethenfuckme.com/index.htm?id=leonxm (accessed June 12, 2007).[back]
7. http://www.gagfactor.com/videopreview-scarlett.html (accessed May 23, 2007).[back]
8. http://tour.analsuffering.com/home.html?nats=NoAdvert:revs:AS,0,0,0,0 (accessed June 12, 2007).[back]
9. http://www.talkingblue.com/DVD/124371D1_Anally_Ripped_Whores_dvd.htm (accessed June 12, 2007).[back]
10.Although there are many parents working hard to protect their children from porn, given its ubiquity, it is almost impossible to avoid. The Internet filters are becoming increasingly sophisticated, but I have heard from parents that their computer-savvy child can easily disable them. Mor
e important, parents cannot monitor their children twenty-four hours a day because they use computers at friends’ homes and libraries. The much bigger issue here is that to put the responsibility on parents is to ignore the role that culture plays in socializing children.[back]
11. http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html (accessed April 4, 2008).[back]
12. Robert J. Wosnitzer and Ana J. Bridges, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography: A Content Analysis Update” (paper presented at the Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco, May 24–28, 2007). [back]
13. Ibid.[back]
14. Holly Randall, “Pushing the Envelope.” XBIZ, October 25, 2008, http://www.xbiz.com/articles/100930 (accessed February 9, 2009).[back]
15. The term gonzo comes from the type of journalism pioneered by Hunter S. Thompson wherein the journalist actually places him-or herself in the story. According to P. Weasels, “the purest definition of gonzo is filmmaking in which the camerawork is a representation of the cameraman’s senses, and in which the camera is an acknowledged participant in the scene; the person behind the camera does not necessarily have to participate in the sex, but often does.” Today, the term is used by the industry also to describe the more hard-core porn discussed in this book. See P. Weasels, “The Quick and Dirty Guide to Gonzo,” n.d., http://www.gamelink.com/news.jhtml?news_id=news_nt_101_gonzo (accessed March 2, 2009).[back]
