I see a whole range of things happening in our world of cheap, ubiquitous, highly-stylized porn. First, I’m relieved to discover that Dworkin’s original prediction - that easy access to pornography would cause an increase in rape and other sex crimes - has not come true. In fact, the opposite has taken place. Rape and other sex crimes are on the decline, though, it is impossible to say whether easily accessible porn is the cause of this or correlated or completely unrelated.
Second, I agree in part with Wolf’s column, especially where she says:
When something is always present, constantly available, it loses some of its value.
As a prosaic example: when I was a child, every Christmas morning, my father would bake those Pillsbury orange danish-in-a-can, and we would fight over who got to put the orange icing on, and we’d scarf up three and four if we could get away with it. We only ever ate them on Christmas morning, so that orangey baking pastry smell is tied to Christmas in my brain. Then, when I was in high school, my dad started baking them more often. Once a month, and then once a week. They inevitably lost their Christmas specialness. When I went off to college and later got a place of my own, the orange danish only appeared for Christmas morning, and that specialness re-appeared.
That’s a very simplistic, easy to relate version, but I think it parallels what she’s speaking of. When sex is always on display, when it’s available at the click of a mouse button, when you can look at all the vaginas and penes your eyeballs can track, sex is no longer about a special connection between two people. It’s not even a fun romp. It becomes as commonplace and mechanical as sneezing.
Most of us recognize that there are precious few divisions between the public and private parts of our lives anymore, and most of us are unhappy at how blurred the line between childhood and adulthood is. I think the universal accessibility of pornography has created a similar situation in relationships, and because men tend to enjoy the visual stimulation it provides more than women (tend, I say. There are no absolutes), this skews the dynamic of heterosexual relationships.
Sex is always on display. It is discussed even in areas where it was once forbidden. About the only realm I haven’t seen it frankly addressed is politics.
This brings me to my third point, and that is, I don’t believe men are aware of just how much their general taste in porn is reflected in their comments about and behavior towards women.
I think it’s delightful that so many of the male members here have staunchly declared that a live woman always trumps a pre-recorded one, that the intimacy of a relationship is preferable to the convenience of a video purchase. But there must be something to the underweight, over-tanned, breast-implanted, waxed genitals, fake nails, and overacted ecstasy of the actresses in popular pornography, because that genre has taken over the mainstream of porn and generates the kind of sales that could fund a medium sized country.
When men discuss these things, when comments are made on the desirability of women - “real” or otherwise - they cleave closely to this strange canon so beloved in modern pornography. Is she skinny? Does she have big tits? Will she have casual sex? Even better, will she consider a threesome or a little girl-on-girl action?
I’ve seen comments on this board that lead me to believe consideration of a woman very rarely passes beyond the scope of whether or not the woman under consideration could get a job on a porn flick. Worse, any physical flaw, is picked out and mocked. And while the men making such comments may only be a small percentage of the board’s population, that talk is tolerated, if not tacitly encouraged.
If some men can so cavalierly rate and dismiss women and the rest take little notice, is it so unreasonable that women sometimes feel that they can’t win? If she chooses not to go the “porn star” route, her sexual worth to men is dismissed by the overall culture of sexual imagery. If she chooses to go the “porn star” route, then the only part of her that matters is her sexuality and its availability.
I think that plays a strong role in sex in our culture becoming something about as special as scratching one’s nose.
It’s the women who feel they cannot match up (at least in Wolf’s article). I don’t know that porn=decreased sex drive for men. I don’t think that Dworkin is correct in her thinking that men would become rapacious consumers of sex with real partners. I think some men are just plain more comfortable in the non-threatening world of porn. Not all men, perhaps not even a majority of men, but some are.