by Marty Klein
In the real world, a very large percentage of adult American men (up to half) look at porn; a very, very, very small percentage of adult men watch a lot of violent porn; and a tiny percentage of adult men engage in sexually violent behavior.
WHAT IS THE “VIOLENCE” IN “VIOLENT PORNOGRAPHY”?
If we’re going to talk about “violent porn,” we need a vocabulary and some data.
Rebecca Whisnant, for example, claims that in most porn, “hostile and humiliating acts against women are commonplace,” and that “aggression against women is the rule rather than the exception.”20 If true, this assertion is of great importance—but she offers no evidence. Similarly, Dines says that “body-punishing” sex is now the norm, harming actresses every day21—despite an almost total lack of complaints by actresses themselves.
Periodically, an item in the news (or someone running for re-election) encourages another assessment of “violence on television.” Estimates of its occurrence always vary wildly, depending on how “violence” is defined: news shows? War movies? CSI? Documentaries? Westerns? Horror films? Gone With the Wind? Ghostbusters? It’s an interesting call—and the definition of “violence” is the primary determinant in how much violence studies have found.
The same is true with measuring “violent porn” (and porn that’s “demeaning to women”), which according to activists is the most common kind. Consider these activities commonly depicted in porn:
Two women and one man having sex together
Two men and one woman having sex together
A woman masturbating while someone observes
A woman involved in fellatio while on her knees, her back, standing, or sitting
Intercourse with the woman on her hands and knees, entered from behind
Cunnilingus (and yes, a woman has to spread her legs and expose her vulva to facilitate this)
A woman shown with partially or completely shaved or waxed pubic area
Anal sex (male penis or finger or female finger, female anus)
Spanking (man spanks woman or woman spanks man)
A man stimulating a woman vaginally with a dildo or vibrator
A man stimulating a woman anally with a dildo or vibrator
A woman tied up and enjoying sex with several men
Sex between older man and younger (over 18) woman
Older woman seduces younger (over 18) woman or man
Man ejaculating on woman’s body or face, with her encouragement
Man bending woman’s legs way back as he slides his penis into her vagina while she’s on her back
Which of these should be coded as “violence”? Various anti-porn activists say most or all of them. Virtually all porn consumers would say none. Certainly, 100 percent of people who do these things consensually in real life would say none. Hence the wildly different estimates of how much “violent porn” and “porn demeaning to women” there is. (And again, scientific evidence suggests that the behavioral impacts of watching so-called violent porn on most men is negligible.)
To put it another way, someone’s opinion about what’s violent or demeaning in porn says more about their concepts of sexuality than it does about the porn they’re describing. And because so many women enjoy these activities in real life, the opinion that these activities are demeaning or violent is hardly universal. Women (or men) who don’t like some or all of these activities shouldn’t do them—but no one can say that they’re inherently violent or demeaning to all women.
We should be troubled by any analysis insisting that the portrayal of consenting fellatio or masturbating for a lover (to select just two common acts from the list) is inherently demeaning.
Finally, let’s remember that many adults play sex games. Pretending to pressure a lover to do what you both enjoy (while he or she pretends to resist) is probably the most common one (it’s called teasing). So are biting, hair-pulling, or holding someone down. When consenting people do these things they aren’t violence or disrespect, whether at home or on the screen.
Indeed, Professor of Psychology Ana Bridges—no fan of porn—found extreme violence to be rare or non-existent in her sample of 50 top-selling porn videos, whereas “more mild and playful” acts (pinching, biting, slapping, spanking, hair-pulling) were more common. She coded the majority of these as consensual, but nevertheless is concerned they might send the message that people enjoy such things—as if she needs to protect people from their own sense of enjoyment if it differs from hers.22
Ironically, research by Meagan Tyler—who was specifically looking for violence against women in pornography—found a similar result. Examining 98 Editor’s Choice Reviews in Adult Video News, she found three-quarters contained no violence, and that none involved torture, weapons, kicking, attempted murder, or dismemberment—depictions that anti-porn activists say are common. Astonishingly, Tyler contradicts her own data, concluding that “extreme and violent pornography is permeating the industry.”23
To know if porn is depicting a consensual sex game or a character coercing another character, you’d have to watch enough of the film to get the context. Anti-porn activists generally don’t. You’d have to ask the director and actors what scene they think they’re playing. Anti-porn activists generally don’t. Apparently, some don’t even care: R.E. Funk believes all penetration is a form of violence,24 while Jensen condemns depictions of “unusual” sex acts like anal sex and facial ejaculations regardless of consent or female enjoyment. Jensen even condemns sexual acts that are “uncomfortable” or leave a woman sore25 (oops, there goes the honeymoon).
* * *
What exactly is the problem with depicting coercion for a viewer’s entertainment? Everyone agrees that most adults enjoy films and TV shows that depict coercion and violence on a regular basis. World theatre, cinema, and literature (including the Bible) have portrayed such themes since these respective media began—because these are important and entertaining themes for humans to engage.
Every culture also features sporting events that are dangerous for participants and that attract large crowds of spectators. In our own era, sports including NASCAR, ice hockey, football, boxing, MMA, rugby, motocross, and bull-riding attract spectators specifically there to witness violence, injury, and occasionally death. This is also true for those attending spectacles like cockfighting, dogfighting, and Pamplona’s bull-running. And, of course, many of television’s most popular shows are violent.
Activists who don’t like the reality that many people enjoy watching such material should blame the wiring of the human nervous system, not pornography.
Here’s a final inconvenient truth: millions of healthy men and women (gay, straight, and bisexual) like to pretend they’re involved with violence, coercion, force, and aggression when they make love in real life. Are we not allowed to watch portrayals of these pretend experiences in porn?
To repeat: The rate of rape has gone down as the availability of porn has gone up. That effect has also been documented in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Croatia, China, Czech Republic, and Japan.26 Whether or not Americans live in a “rape culture,” whether that culture is being increasingly glorified or pornified, there is no epidemic of actual sexual violence since free porn flooded America’s homes, universities, and offices.
Instead of blaming porn for a non-existent epidemic, people should be wondering what we can learn from the good news about the recent decade-long decrease in the rate of sexual assault.
WHAT DO PORN CONSUMERS SAY?
Debates about the effect of porn on consumers are almost always missing something: the voices of porn consumers themselves. Given contemporary sensitivities about excluding any voices from cultural discussions, this omission of porn consumers’ voices is both notable and meaningful.
As a result, porn consumers in public policy discussion exist only in stereotype—variously lonely, horny, secretive, addicted, beauty-obsessed, compulsively masturbating, aggressive, selfish, alienated from their partner if they have one, and
from social reality if they don’t. The “porn consumer” has joined other stereotypical sexual characters who may not speak for themselves, such as the pedophile, the fetishist, and the curious child.
Sociologist Alan McKee says “there is a systematic ‘othering’ of pornography consumers in academic research and in public debate about the genre. They cannot know themselves; they cannot speak for themselves; they must be represented.”27 Psychologist Feona Attwood notes society does this “as part of more extensive programmes of myth-making about sex and technology.”28
Like the stereotyped and publicly “othered” gay community of 30 or 40 years ago, porn consumers are continually culturally disappeared, as if they aren’t thoughtful parents, caring spouses, or selective media consumers, and as if their reactions to porn are simple and monolithic, and that porn has the same functions at all times for all audiences, regardless of age, class, relationship status, etc.
According to many studies, porn users often say that porn enhances their real-life sexual relationships; in several studies users—and their partners, by the way—are more likely to report positive relationship impacts of porn than negative ones. These positive impacts include improved attitude toward sexuality, greater variety of sexual behaviors, and improved quality of life.29
Not surprisingly, many studies show that porn consumption does not appear to be linked to negative attitudes toward women.30 For the most part, porn shows women enjoying sex and pleasing their partners. Why would we assume viewers of such scenes would feel worse about women?
Another arena is which porn users’ voices are missing regards the question, “Is porn a form of infidelity?” While some women feel it is and others feel it is isn’t, very few male users think it is. While sincere people may disagree on this question, the public narrative is typically “these selfish men commit adultery via porn, their poor wives are betrayed, and men don’t care that they’ve done this awful thing.” This is at great variance from the typical men’s narrative; again, why is that voice of experience—which could actually provide emotional comfort to women—disappeared in this way?
Porn users’ voices are also conspicuously missing when anyone discusses the common idea that porn use makes men dissatisfied with their partners’ bodies, leading to a decline in women’s self-esteem. While women’s fears are often quoted (and reified by anti-porn activists as an accurate perception of male porn users), the media (and of course activists) almost never check with men themselves about this. Research31 and my own clinical experience make it clear that few males actually feel that porn use makes them more critical of their partners’ bodies. If men’s voices were part of the social dialog about this, much female anguish could be soothed. But again, that would challenge the radical narrative—the Oppression Paradigm described previously—that porn use oppresses all women, particularly the partners of users.
If you ask most porn consumers about their porn experience, most would say it’s fine—not the centerpiece of life, not their reason for living, merely “fine.” They would mostly sound like normal people: If they’re in a couple they mostly have affection for their mates. If their mate knows they watch porn, she isn’t traumatized by it, nor has she threatened divorce over it. And if their mate is upset about their porn-watching, these average porn consumers are more likely to be regretful than defiant.
In other words, most porn consumers are ordinary people who don’t fit the popular consumer-as-selfish-victimizer narrative (or the secondary narrative of being addicted, manipulated victims themselves). And that’s why their voices are excluded by anti-porn activists.
Because activists characterize ordinary consumers as using a product that:
Makes them violent—which most of them are not
Reflects their selfishness toward women—which most of them are not
Causes them to reject their partners—which most of them do not
Proves that they’re selfish or weak—which most of them don’t feel they are
Unlike cigarette smokers, most porn users are not trying to quit; unlike gamblers, they don’t tell people not to start. If they do have personal problems, porn consumers rarely blame them on watching porn (particularly consumers over 30, who have acquired some sexual experience and perspective).
So while real-life, satisfied porn consumers have plenty to say, anti-porn activists aren’t interested. Lacking intellectual integrity, activists apparently don’t feel obligated to talk with these men—although of course, they continually quote female “victims” of porn use at length. “I have listened to women tell me about being raped and brutalized by men who wanted to re-enact their favorite porn scene,” says Dines.32 One wonders how many such claims she has actually listened to, and why she values these more than scientific data. Nevertheless, note the assumption—that the average guy’s “favorite porn scene” involves “rape and brutalization.” Is there any doubt that someone who would rape his wife has deeper problems than the porn he watches?
And so on the rare occasions that porn consumers are referenced, they’re caricatures—pathetic losers or selfish bastards who care nothing about hurting their poor wives and girlfriends. According to both research33 and my own 35 years of clinical work, many of these consumers are actually empathic, good guys.
SO WHY HAS SCIENCE IMPACTED THIS DEBATE SO LITTLE?
Why do Americans swallow the most apocalyptic vision of pornography, when they know that their own husbands don’t rape anyone, and their own sons are fairly respectful of women (well, no more disrespectful than they are to men, anyway)? What does it mean that people believe that the effects of porn are so much worse than they are?
According to social psychologists at Western University in Ontario, the popular media “report” negative effects of porn that aren’t supported by the research they’re quoting. Reporting “no effects” or “mixed effects” makes for boring or confusing copy, so they tend to either not report those studies or to oversimplify them. These researchers found the media over-rely on a set of tired assumptions about porn, including the common tropes of “porn addiction”; that watching porn is a form of adultery; and that it harms relationships, intimacy, and health. Note that the first term doesn’t exist in the DSM-5 (the diagnostic manual of the mental health profession), the second is merely a personal opinion (often presented as a self-evident fact), and the third is backed by virtually no data.
The public discourse about porn and its effects is not about making women safer, or helping them feel safer. Rather, it’s about delegitimizing (1) men’s use of porn and (2) women’s lust, while encouraging women to feel like disempowered victims. It’s also about feathering the nest of activists and activist organizations. It’s a conservative response to the fear of technology and change. It exploits the political reality that porn watchers as a consumer group do not and will not control the narrative of their own activity. Because of shame and social opprobrium, the normal political process (“I’m a car owner and I vote!”) doesn’t work to balance social conflict about this product or its consumers.
Some couples do have problems that appear driven by porn use. Some men push their partner to do sexual acts she does not want to do. Some men push their partner to watch porn when she’d rather not. And some men explicitly compare their partners to porn actresses—usually (though not always) unfavorably.
But these difficulties are not about porn. They’re about anger, power issues, and poor communication. They’re about a lack of respect or empathy. They also reflect some women’s lack of assertiveness in the face of disrespect or selfishness (puh-leeze—this is not “blaming the victim”; it’s noticing that some women don’t take care of themselves and their needs).
Such conflict is not unusual in couples, and the vehicle is generally something other than porn (like money, in-laws, or parenting). Problems like these can be dealt with productively, especially if people don’t get distracted by the porn (or the in-laws or whatever) and keep their mutual goals in mind. If the
problem is actually about sex rather than porn, that can be worked out—if people are willing to talk honestly about sex. Unfortunately, not everyone is. And as we’ve seen, many activists are more invested in the narrative of male sexual exploitation of females than in helping people communicate and get along.
“Polysemicity” is a fancy word for the common phenomenon that the same thing can mean two different things to two different people. For Laura, being a stripper represents a pathetic collapse of self-worth and the loss of her professional dreams. For Susie, being a stripper is an assertion of self, of control of her own sexuality, and of saving enough money to go to nursing school. Jane can look at stripping and say, “If I were stripping, it would be a horrible experience,” but it isn’t for Susie. Maria can say, “If I were stripping, it would be a real feat of emotional strength,” but it isn’t for Laura.
Anti-porn activists insist that everyone’s experience of watching porn must be like theirs would be. And anti-porn activists insist that every woman’s actual experience of the fantasy activities depicted in porn—deep-throat fellatio, being spanked, a threesome, whatever—must be as awful as they know it would be for them. And so Dines can say, “Porn is the most succinct and crisp deliverer of a woman-hating ideology.”34
What kind of sadistic, unloving world does Dines inhabit? How is it that Rebecca Whisnant sees so much coercion wherever she looks? How is it that such activists meticulously misread the affection, playfulness, exhibitionism, teasing, desire to be dominated, or sheer eroticism that virtually all porn consumers see in most pornography?
