I am currently engaged in a bit of a debate with an activist from Object UK at Tiger Beatdown. I do not wish to hijack the comments there over my personal opinions, stances and grudges with Object UK and their paradigms, so I left out part of my argument about porn, mainly because again, it would be narcissistic to turn the discussion into my views and personal opinions.
However, there is this nagging feeling I get when I have to defend porn in a supposedly feminist debate, particularly because I seem to be unable to conceptualize succinctly exactly why I see porn in such a positive light. Since I cannot do it succinctly in a comment thread, then, I am writing a post here.
I already wrote, a couple of months ago, a post about why I consider pleasure to be still a radical notion. I explained why I named this blog “Red Light Politics” (in brief: because of what Amsterdam’s Red Light district represents). So, when Object UK speaks about the “pornification of society” as if it was a bad thing, I want to scream until I am blue in the face: YES, I WANT MORE PORN. I want our society to be more pornified, with more open discussions about sex, media and our sexualities. I want porn not to be a dirty word for creepy people. I want people not to be ashamed of watching porn, discussing porn with their partners, supporting the artists who create the porn (who put their bodies at the service of our desire, I might add). I want porn not to be a bad word that shames people. I want porn to be a healthy option for people to express their sexuality.
I do not want anymore of this current heteronormative, malecentric, heterocentric porn, though. I want less of it. I want less dick and more of everything else. However, I do not see porn as a necessarily evil, disgusting media, as Object UK seems to think it is. I want sex workers to be afforded the same level of respect that therapists are afforded. I want sex work to be treated with the same level of regard than any other form of therapy is. Part of the feminist discourse is about respect for our bodies and our health and if we regard sexuality as inherent to health, then why is sex work dissociated from it? Why is a sex worker who is providing a service that might be argued improves someone’s health (mental and/ or physical) treated as something less than?
I consistently write about trafficking, oppression of sex workers and practices that dehumanize them. However, the answer is not to further remove sex workers’ autonomy by making their profession illegal. The answer is to elevate the profession from the margins and integrate it into a social model that does not view sexuality as inherently bad or damaging.
Under the excuse that the current mainstream porn is objectifying towards women (which it undeniably is), Object UK presents a discourse that works towards making porn and sex work illegal. That is not the answer. The answer is to make the current flavor of mainstream porn a thing of the past, promoting diversity and inclusiveness of different sexualities, genders, bodies and preferences. For that alone, I want more porn. More discussions and more representations. Prohibition will certainly not lead to any of this.
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