Walls of Flesh

My rationale, as simply as I can place it, is as such. I am twenty two years old. My own concept of sexuality is something that I am very much still learning to establish – in truth I think that for many people, at least truly healthy people, it is an ongoing process that blossoms with them as individuals, as they grow within the environment in which they live. However I am very aware of the fact that many people would disagree with me on this point, and indeed, many better educated, arguably more well adjusted individuals than myself. It's a debatable issue. This is what I am attempting to bring to the foreground when I bring the matter up in the first place. I don't know the answers but I think these are very VERY important questions.

The way I see it the fact is that sex, as an act, is something that is theoretically (or at least should be) pleasurable to both men and/or women. I am not claiming that it always is - however the key issue here is that, in a hypothetical world, enjoyment of the act of sexual intercourse is not biased towards one gender or the other. Do you agree? You are free not to, however, I feel like if our divergance of opinion stems from this point, there is not a great deal we can do about it. If you think that men (or women) simply just enoy sex more, well... we have bigger fish to fry than the following debate.

And so, we move onto stage two: the fact that, although sex is (should be) an action pleasing to both genders, individual sexual gratification (or masturbation) is an autonmous action of self gratification that does not involve a second party . All fairly mainstream there – certainly nothing too controversial. Now, this is the pointat which our own opinions could stem off in separate directions – personally, I believe that art both imitates and influences life. I think that it exists both concurrently and distinct from individual human existence – it is a result of ourselves insofar as we are products of our society, and at the same time, it shapes our own perception of normality. I don't think there are many teenagers of either gender who can honestly say that their perception of sexual intercourse was not influenced by the way in which the media, or pornography, portrays the sexual act. Find me just such an example and I would imagine they have lived in a vacuum for all previous years of their existence – a boon to sociologists, a curse to anyone hoping to evaluate the nature of a normal life within society. A “normal life” within “society.” The fact is (and you can debate this one, but you may as well debate “up” or “down”) that normality is defined almost entirely by the context in which it is considered – and society itself is as fluid and constantly changing as the language which develops to express it, as connected to its environs as a plant to soil.You could claim that a person would develop sexually exactly the same in an isolated unit as they would within the arms of a safe and “normal” society. I beg to differ. I think (and again, I may be wrong but numerous studies seem to agree with me) that sexuality is akin to personality and develops as a response to the environment in which you live. It's impacted every day, by who you see, who you meet, who you view in posters and adverts, the interactions you see in friends around you and those you watch on television. “Nothing about me is original. I am the combined product of everyone I have ever seen and ever met.” That''s sort of just how things are, at the moment. And sexuality (unless you're fairly unusual) is an aspect of the self. That much makes sense, surely?

So we can view sex as a none gender-biased expression of physical gratification. We can view pornography as a portrayal of this act – in itself, inherently (and I am discussing this not through the lens of society which naturally imbues such things with cultural and gender specific values) non-gender typal, but merely an expression of and stimulus to sexual gratification, by artistic or fantastical means. Finally, we can also say that the form which pornography takes in our society will have significant impact on the development of the sexuality of those exposed to it.

Now, given the previous points, I find it problematic to consider that a portrayal of the sex act, which is in itself an act of a) individual gratification or b) gratification as a result of two individuals enjoying one another in a sexual manner, shhould suddenly be socially accepted as being something inherently capable or intended to gratify people of one gender or the other. Obviously it is difficult to discuss this given the fact that (and again, feel free to disagree at this point because we could have a very fruitful discussion on this matter) the majority of pornographic material created today is created to gratify a predominantly male audience. Because money doesn't talk, it screams, and the pornography industry is fuelled by a male market – because society has deemed it acceptable for males, because it is considered appropriate for males, and becase, in a sad sort of teufelkreuz, the market and the product feed and construct one another. However, I don't see how it can necessarily follow on from this fact that men are mostly the only people capable of getting anything out of pornography. Surely the only logical conclusion to draw from this is that men are likely to get more enjoyment from pornography IN THE STATE PORNOGRAPHY IS IN AT PRESENT. No one at any point (and again feel free to correct me) has made any valid suggestion that women are somehow, inherently, less capable of enjoying pornography than men. If they are not enjoying it then perhaps the issue lies with the fact that pornography is not designed to tickle the average clitoris, rather than the fact that somehow, we're just not wired to enjoy any of the possibilities that the theoretical and artistic portrayal of sexuality may provide?

Surely the more enlightened way of viewing matters would be to admit that yes, porn at the moment (as in 90% of it, as in all the big US companies, as in Vivid entertainment and Wicked Pictures, as in 10 billion dollars a year, as in angry men and ditzy women, pneumatic breasts, smacked out lonely people fucking for a camera) is not very arousing to women. It's probably not all that arousing to many men as well – it is an example of the commodification of a product required by the market. It's like wafer thin ham as a response to the need for meat; it's like sequinnned halter neck tops in response to the need for clothing. It's an example of a basic need (warmth, shelter, food, sex) being taken and shaped in a certain direction by the people whose best interests are served by it taking on such a format.That's what living in a society does. It takes individual needs and throws them back at a person, in a distorted mirror, reflecting them in a way which best represents the needs of people as a whole (das volk, der mensch) because that's simply how we operate. It's not an inherently bad thing, it's just not an inherently good thing either. It has no inherent moral value. Like a reflection, it relies on the image we place before it – and the vessel we choose to bear that reflection. The way we choose to bounce it back. Just because, the market cries out for male oriented porn, and the market says that men want eg Big boobed blonde bitches, why should we therefore use this as evidence that this is what men actually want and that people who don't enjoy this aesthetic probably just don't enjoy porn? Surely it makes more sense to see the current state of pornography as failing. If it can't arouse over half (the half with vaginas) of the population how the hell can it be doing the right thing? Surely it should change to fit us – we shouldn't all sit around quietly bemoaning the fact that we simply just don't seem to really “get”what's being shoved at us, we should be asking why (creating?) our own pornographic material that is sexy and DOES do what we want it to do. It's meant to serve us, we are not meant to serve it!! But for some reason, post third wave feminism bla bla bla lets add as many suffixes to that term as humanly possible, seems to have quietly accepted, even in the case of intelligent, indepdendent, enlightened women, that for no reason at all this particular (very important) space should be conceded.

Perhaps, really, we should just view porn as being akin to any other form of art – a reflection of the society which it portrays, as influential as a face in a mirror – which lets face it, is a very fucking influential thing indeed. I live in hope that we can take that reflection and use it to represent a more free and open world for all people, in which something as beautiful and special and personal as sex can be allowed to develop in it's own way without being judged and harshly shaped to conform to the values of a society oppressed by the web of vast interdependency. But maybe that's just me. But again, I'd rather people didn't write off the concept before it was even considered by saying that “somehow, we're just not capable of enjoying sex in the same way as the opposite gender.” Says who? Say a few debatable scientific studies skewed by the lens of the media that have far more impact on individual beliefs than is right or fair. So we make such sweeping generalisations about women. They don't like to watch sex – it just isn't in their nature. Already we are presuming that female sexuality fits into a specific box, a specific context – that it can only be enjoyed in a certain fashion. And following on from that, who are we to say that if women DO prefer to enjoy sex from a “fantastical” element rather than as a result of actually enjoying the action of it, that for some reason that is a good, natural thing?? Again, nothing in the sex act – simplest, most healthy expression of, a penis and a vagina meeting consensually, nice to meet you, how do you do – is biased towards one party being more predisposed towards (or entitled to) enjoyment than the other. If we start considering that this is the case, or equally, that the neutral portrayal (reflection) of such an act in pornographic material is somehow entitled to lean in one direction or another than we enter very dangerous territory, in which sex is no longer free domain for individuals to expresss themselves and their emotions on their own terms, but rather merely as instruments of environmental factors. I don't know about you but I'd rather keep my sex as mine and whoever I choose to share it with – not just another arm of the machine.

“The Sadeian Woman” (Angela Carter, 1977iissh I think) is a very controversial book amongst the feminist movement. Andrea Dworkin, for example, condemns Carter's use of the sexual language defined by the arch-misogynist, De Sade, reasoning that it is simply impossible to argue for any form of female sexual emancipation via the logic of one who did so much to degrade the feminine subject.. However, Dworkin also considers pornography as being inherently incompatible with positive female sexuality – a belief shared by many feminists and frankly one that I find somewhat disturbing as I do not subscribe to the idea that the depiction of sex, regardless of it's nature, is somehow offensive or derogatory towards women. In my eyes it is only a small step from here to the extremely dangerous assertion that the sexual act itself is somehow one that inescapably involves subjugation of the female. The problem is of course that in considering all pornography as instrumental to the repression of female sexuality, and a dangerous tool of objectification, one is forced to take the stance that it is impossible for women to find pornographic material sexually stimulating – or that those who do are somehow, wrong, cuckolded, tricked. This is a dangerous position to take, akin to dictating to women which of their sexual fantasies can be deemed acceptable – a form of forced control over what is an experience that must be defined by the individual. It scares me that certain branches of the feminist movement would be keen to subscribe to this view – which essentially requires conceding sex to be entirely the domain of masculine misogynism. What an appalling thought! It is true that sex can on occasion be a weapon, a tool of repression, or degradation – but it can also be one of the most beautiful and equal expressions of compassion, intimacy and respect, and to decry it as being capable only of the most base and unegalitarian satisfaction seems to me to be asking us to sacrifice an awful lot.

Nevertheless it cannot be denied that there is a distinct gender imbalance in terms of the nature of the portrayal of sexual activity in pornographic material. Although, theoretically, it can be stimulating to both male and female, pornography as a commodity is primarily marketed towards men. Fantasies played out on screen both construct and pander to socially ingrained ideas of what is acceptable – they are in an almost unique position, as they help to shape what they portray, and are a result of what they influence. Given this fact, it seems to me that it is time we become more actively concerned with the portrayal of such an inherent aspect of the human experience. By engaging with these concepts at an artistic level we can help to shape their nature – and where is there any aspect of life which bears such close scrutiny as the close scrutiny of the act of life itself?