Velvet Verbosity

Remember that book Forever, by Judy Blume? Remember how utterly scandalous it was at the time that Judy had the nerve to write about two teenagers having sex? When I hold that in contrast to what we accept from the porn industry, knowing full well that our teens are seeing it, my brain makes a little cracking noise. The two lovers in Forever discover sex with each other. It is a beautiful and moving story of sexual discovery and awakening between two young people who love and respect each other. Parents did not want their young impressionable teenagers reading this book. My school banned it and suspended kids found with it.

We got around this by distributing the book in a brown paper bag. By the time it made its way to me, the bag was thin and wrinkled and the binding of the book had disintegrated. This story of two virgins learning about their bodies was hardcore stuff that our parents and teachers didn’t want us reading. Yet most had Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler right under their beds. That was ok. In fact, it was “understood” that it was a right of passage for boys to sneak their fathers skin mags to share with their friends so they could learn about the female body and sex. Boys will be boys.

Remember, pornography is only a bunch of images and fantasies. It has no effect whatsoever on real life. So the explosion of its availability should not cause us concern whatsoever. I wonder, what then drives growing trends such as blow-job clubs among young adolescent girls. I wonder whatever gave them this idea, or what they get out of it. I wonder how they have come to believe that servicing a guy in this way without any reciprocation or respect is good for them. I wonder.

In my research for this post, I found an amazing post, that coincidentally covers both Judy Blume’s book Forever, the trend of girl on boy casual oral sex, and pornography. It’s long, but well worth the read.

Let me interrupt this post to say, SEX is not a dirty word. I repeat, SEX is NOT a dirty word. Sex is a beautiful, natural, wonderful act! We humans are incredibly blessed in this department because our brains evolved to include emotion and reason and intelligence, and we get to have sex because we want to and choose to, not just because we are driven to procreate. And sex is so much better because of it. It can be infused with eroticism, and fantasy, and love, and intimacy, and discovery along with the pure pleasure.

The second thing I want to say is that not only do I not hate men, I love men. Truly. All my life some of my closest friends and companions have been men.

So when I’m against pornography, or the sex industry in all of its forms, I am not against sex and I’m not against men. I’m against the diminishing of sex. I’m against a devolution of men and women. I’m pro-humanity. I’m pro-women and pro-men. I’m PRO SEX! Between real men and real women, people with minds as well as bodies. I’m pro-girls and pro-boys who should get the opportunity to discover sex in their own time, with each other, on the same level, like in the book Forever. And I truly think that the pornification of our culture is robbing too many of our children of that opportunity.

It needs to be talked about, and in a way that makes sense. Not in a sexual freedom vs. sexual repression way. Not in a right vs. left way. Not in a men vs. women way. In a genuine, open, inquisitive way that is relentless and unforgiving in the search for the truth about pornography and the sex industry.

The following is an excerpt from a 2004 article by Robert Jensen. Read the full article here.

The only resistance is collective, and the pornorgraphers want to squash it

When I critique pornography, I often am told to lighten up; sex is just sex, people say, and I should stop trying to politicize pornography. But pornography obviously is political. Telling men stories about sex in which women are three holes and two hands, not people, is
political. It offers men a politics of sex and gender. And that politics is patriarchal and reactionary.

As with any political issue, successful strategies of resistance to injustice and oppression must be collective. There cannot be personal solutions to political problems. If we avoid engaging political problems in public and hope to make the best of things in private, we fail. Pornographers know that, which is why they want to make sure no collective remedies for women (through legislation or the courts) are considered, let alone enacted. But they also would prefer that none of these issues even be discussed in public. In recent years, their strategies for cutting off that discussion have been remarkably successful. When we criticize pornography, we typically are told we are either sexually dysfunctional prudes who are scared of sex, or people who hate freedom, or both. That works to keep many people quiet. The pornographers desperately want to keep people from asking the simple question: What kind of society would turn the injury and degradation of some into sexual pleasure for others? What kind of people does that make us — the men who learn to find pleasure this way, and the women who learn to accept it?

The pornographers want to label any collective discussion of the meaning of intimacy and sexuality as repression. They want to derail any talk about a sexual ethic. They, of course, have a sexual ethic: Anything goes. On the surface that seems to be freedom: Consenting adults should be free to choose. I agree they should. But in a society in which power is not equally distributed, “anything goes” translates into “anything goes for men, and some women and children will suffer for it.” Any society that claims to take freedom seriously must engage in a discussion about power, and take steps to equalize power. That means taking steps to end men’s domination of women.

There are many controversial questions in the pornography debate: What is the nature of the relationship between sexually explicit media and behavior? Under what conditions can the consent of people involved in acts that may be detrimental to their own well-being be questioned? What harms of speech acts can trump free-speech concerns?

But there should be nothing controversial about this: To criticize pornography is not repressive. To speak about what one knows and feels and dreams is, in fact, liberating. We are not free if we aren’t free to talk about our desire for an egalitarian intimacy and sexuality that would reject pain and humiliation.

That is not prudishness or censorship. It is at attempt to claim the best parts of our common humanity — love, caring, empathy, solidarity. To do that is not to limit anyone. It is to say that people matter more than the profits of pornographers and the pleasure of pornography consumers. It is to say, simply, that women count as much as men.

Amen.