After completing much research recently on the porn industry, I had to ask myself if women engaged in pornography because they have no self respect or if they believed their ability to partake in such an industry actually empowered them? Regardless of any public mention of morality in the industry, pornography has been, and remains to be, quite a money-maker. Just as Scamp magazine suggested back in the late 1970's, it is a "man's companion." Why is it OK for men to be in pornographic films and rarely ever brought up in moral discussion, unlike the women? Over the years it has become increasingly more commonplace for porn stars, women especially, to become more vocal about their careers. However, where are the men's voices that participate in this industry and why do they not receive flack like the women? Answer - because they are men...and men can be sexual. Women, on the other hand, are "bad" for involving themselves in such an immoral industry.
These thoughts brought me back to the week when we discussed the "good" and "bad" girl images. We have not come very far in the last 60 years. The good girl is still polite, not openly sexual, dresses conservatively, avoids random sex and alcohol, and strives to make her man happy. This has been, and continues to be reinforced as an ideology we have adopted as an American culture. We perpetuate this ideology all of the time through our advertisements (when is a man going to be "swiffering" the kitchen, or cleaning the toilet?) and movies, TV shows, etc. Specifically, in the porn industry, we reinforce the "male gaze." We discussed this pretty thoroughly in class and examined some examples in photos. Not that I am a big pornographic film watcher or anything, but of the films I have seen, I have noticed a reoccurring theme. Typically the film begins with the woman by herself. The camera moves up and down her body, much like the way a man watching might look at her. Soon, a man enters the room. He walks in confidently and usually already nude. Almost always, the sex does not begin right away. Instead, the female begins to perform some sort pf pleasurable act on the man. We never really see her look to the camera, it always at the man.
So what? Why does any of this matter? For me, it is the irony that lies within these artifacts. Crystal and I showed the class a video of porn stars highlighting important events in women's history, something that we, as women, should be proud of, right? Personally, it offends me that these women, who probably know nothing about women's rights and are reading from a script, would even associate their "profession" to what historical female figures fought for. Do I think women have the right to be open about their sexuality and that fact that they enjoy sex? - of course! We are ALL human, after all. Despite my opinion, however, these women who specifically do porn because it empowers them, are actually perpetuating the vicious cycle of women's desires to only please her man. It is an ongoing contradiction of what some of us want to go against. It is a choice, just like many other things in our lives. It is the association, however, of pornography with empowerment that serves to discredit these women who speak of women's rights.
So...would you say my argument is reinforcing the idea of the "good girl"? Can there ever be a happy medium? Or are we doomed to constantly oppose this behavior with a new argument only to find we have once again reinforced it? Just some food for thought.
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