Gonzo: On the Way Porn Lies About Women, but Tells the Truth About Men*
Oct 21st, 2008 by admin
TRIGGERING! Be forewarned!
From “Porn’s Dirty, Dangerous Secret” by Robert Jensen today on Alternet:
…pornography doesn’t draw on the emotions most commonly connected with sex — love and affection — because men typically consume pornography specifically to avoid love and affection. So, the pornographers offer men sexual gymnastics and circus acts that are saturated with cruelty toward women; they sexualize the degradation of women. While most of us would agree those are negative emotions, they are powerful emotions. And in a patriarchal society in which men are conditioned to see themselves as dominant over women, such cruelty and degradation fit easily into men’s notions about sex and gender.
When I offer this critique to men who are avid consumers of pornography, they often tell me that I’m wrong, that they watch gonzo and don’t see the kind of cruelty and degradation that I am describing. They tell me that that there’s no cruelty in a woman is being penetrated in aggressive fashion by three men who call her a whore throughout the sex. They tell me that when five men thrust into a woman’s mouth to the point she gags, slap a woman in the face with their penises, and ejaculate into her mouth and demand that she swallow it all, there’s no degradation.
In some sense, they are telling the truth — they aren’t seeing the cruelty and degradation because they are too caught up in the sexual arousal, and in such a state their critical faculties are derailed. They don’t see it because they are men in a patriarchal culture focused on their own pleasure. To see the woman as a person deserving of respect — to see her as fully human — would interfere with getting it up and getting it off.
…many men I talk to today tell me that after masturbating they quickly take out the DVD or shut off the computer to avoid really seeing what is taking place on the screen. To slightly revise a cultural cliche, when the little head’s work is done, the big head re-engages. When the sexual experience is over, men can think, and when men can see the reality of pornography’s contempt for women most don’t want to watch.
…* Heterosexual men tend to consume pornography to achieve sexual satisfaction without the complications of dealing with a real woman. * Pornographers deliver graphic sexually explicit material that does the job, but to do so they must continuously increase the cruelty and degradation to maintain profits.
Gonzo producers test the limits with new practices that eroticize men’s domination of women. Less intense forms of those sexual practices migrate into the tamer feature pornography, and from there in muted form into mainstream pop culture. Pornography gets more openly misogynist, and pop culture becomes more pornographic — many Hollywood movies and cable TV shows today look much like soft-core pornography of a few decades ago, and the common objectification of women in advertising has become more overtly sexualized.
Where will all this lead? How far will pornographers go to ensure their profits, especially as the proliferation of free pornography on the internet adds a new competition? How much eroticized misogyny will the culture be willing to tolerate?
When I ask that question of pornography producers, most say they don’t know. An industry leader such as Lexington Steele acknowledged he has no crystal ball: “Gonzo really always pushes the envelope. The thing about it is, there’s only but so many holes, only but so many different types of penetration that can be executed upon a woman. So it’s really hard to say what’s next within gonzo.”
What’s next? What comes after DPs and double anals? What is beyond a “10 Man Cum Slam” and “50 Guy Cream Pie”? I can’t claim to know either. But after 20 years of researching the pornography industry as a scholar and critiquing it as part of the feminist anti-pornography movement, I know that we should be concerned. We should be afraid that there may be no limit on men’s cruelty toward women. In a patriarchal society driven by the predatory values of capitalism, we should be very afraid.
Link, h/t to Donna Hughes’ DIGNITY Listserv.
*John Stoltenberg made the statement that “porn lies about women but tells the truth about men,” in his book Refusing to Be a Man.
Now await the obvious lies and denials that porn is just ‘fantasy’ and claims gonzo porn is a minute aspect of porn. In fact gonzo porn is fast becoming the largest aspect of porn and where did I learn this fact? Why from Stopporncampaign that is where.
Warning this is triggering - in fact as Robert Jensen rightly predicted double anal and double vagina penetration of women’s bodies are no longer ‘edgy. So what have the porners done - why of course now we hear of triple anal and triple vagina penetration. Oh and yes sometimes they occur simultaneously. I believe it is called stretching a woman. But hey this is all ‘good fantasy is it not?’
Robert Jensen is so right - because the male demand for porn is so great, it is not surprising these male misogynists do not even recognise male sexual cruelty and callousness because their training is such they are only concerned with their own sexual gratification.
It is called ‘blinkered thinking’ - the incapacity to actually see or recognise systematic male sexual violence against women. All these men see, as Jensen shows, is their sexual pleasure and their sexual gratification so that everything else becomes clouded and fuzzy.
After all sexual degradation only occurs when men are depicted as sexualised commodities not when women are routinely reduced and degraded for men’s sexual pleasures. This is what the definition of human means because only one sex is defined as human and entitled to have their bodily rights and privileges protected. Women are not human and hence cannot possibly be sexually degraded by men for men’s pleasure because women are just men’s masturbatory objects - not even ’sex’ just masturbatory objects.
We need to be very afraid but at the same time we also need to deny claims porn is ‘fantasy’ etc. etc. Because porn is training men to accept that women are all masturbatory objects and hence sexually degrading and inflicting sexual torture on women by men is just a normal part of ‘male sexual expression.’ The profiteers and their cronies will exert immense pressure to silence anti-porn activists which makes it even more essential to keep speaking out and holding predominantly male porners and their cronies responsible for deliberately committing human rights abuses against women.
Gonzo for me is just putting into the public sphere the torture of prostituted women and girls which is classed as private.
One reason I am still living with PTSD is because I experienced or know friends who experienced what is now named “gonzo”. There is nothing new about the extreme violence that is done to prostituted women and girls. Just read about Roman porn, look at de Sade, see the Victorians.
All that is new is the technology that is used.
Greed and hate will always run the sex trade.
Gonzo is very profitable, for it is a pure hate for women. The ultimate wet-dream of profiteers in the sex trade.
I know how far men want to “stretch” the body. I know as I defroze that violence, as I am sick, I am slowly learning that I can cry.
My body knows as fear still hit my anus when slight pain comes. My body as restless in bed, I can’t lie uncomfortable coz every hole was forece into pain.
I know what it is to be just holes to filled.
That is my reality and the reality for far too many prostituted women and girls.
But it has gone for hundreds of years behind closed doors. It has happened to women and girls that are not allow to count.
It is labelled as private.
The violence that happens to prostituted women and girls will go onto all women and girls.
For when we give permission for a whole class of women to not have humanity, we are saying male violence is ok as long as it stay “private”.
I don’t know why I read this stuff, and worse still, why I read the “so called progressive” people’s comments on it. It works me up and leaves me feeling like crap.
“Evidence” “SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE THAT PORN IS VIOLENT” The stuff IS THE EVIDENCE, you ASSHOLE! I am honestly amazed that the nazis didn’t use this trick after the Holocaust became a “bad bad thing”. “Show us evidence that mass murder is violent”.
And there’s that other old argument, “some women like it”. If YOU wouldn’t be caught dead putting up with it, why do you think women would? Because they are not like you, that’s why; empathy breaks down when “they” are not like “you and me”, so “they” can be treated in ways that “we” can’t.
So in the end there’s only one way to know what is violent and unacceptable and what isn’t. On the one hand we start seeing the “other” just like “us” and apply the same standards. On the other, we bloody ASK them what they think is violent and actually LISTEN to what they say.
Sorry to spam you, Heart. This topic enrages me so much. I hate porn, I hate the men who produce it and I hate the men who consume it. And I fucking hate the men who fucking defend it. I wish I could “DP” them with a dildo, all of them, to make them see the “violence” that “doesn’t exist”.
Mary, you aren’t spamming, no apologies necessary!
I wish that using porn would be a deal breaker so far as every het woman on earth. These thoughts really gave me pause:
pornography doesn’t draw on the emotions most commonly connected with sex — love and affection — because men typically consume pornography specifically to avoid love and affection.
and
…In some sense, they are telling the truth — they aren’t seeing the cruelty and degradation because they are too caught up in the sexual arousal, and in such a state their critical faculties are derailed. They don’t see it because they are men in a patriarchal culture focused on their own pleasure. To see the woman as a person deserving of respect — to see her as fully human — would interfere with getting it up and getting it off.
Why would any woman want to be with someone like this? Who can’t see women’s degradation when they are sexually aroused? Who is okay with not seeing women as fully human when they’re getting off? This is hideous. And this is by far, most men we are talking about just as Jensen is saying here.
Also, who wants someone who uses porn to avoid love and affection? Which most men do.
My biggest question is, why does it take het women so many decades to be repulsed by this stuff and disgusted with it, such that they finally say, and mean, “DEAL BREAKER” to any prospective partner? Not to mention all the women who never get there.
Eh, rhetorical questions. This stuff is so disturbing.
Thanks Heart.
The reason is that if they did say “deal breaker” they’d end up like me: single and lonely
Yeah, I read that article on Jensen’s website, Heart. I don’t understand how people can still deny that pornography is misogynistic, racist and violent. Somehow, either the men who jerk off to those atrocities aren’t noticing the violence because they’re so blinded by their selfish needs for male-supremacist orgasm or, on a pessimistic note, the violence, pain, misogyny and destruction just excites them even more, which is so awfully cruel.
Robert Jensen (like John Stoltenberg) is one of the few men I consider genuinely pro-feminist. Too bad that many men don’t read Jensen’s work. Men have to understand that they have to stop hurting us (women) with their awful pornography industry.
I really don’t find it fair, a culture that says that rape is bad but that cannot see all the institutions and customs that make rape inevitable. Pornography erases empathy in men, after their masculine socialization has already taught them to repress feelings toward women.
I agree with Rebecca when she says that Gonzo puts into the public sphere the torture of prostituted women and girls. Pornography is the very documentation of prostitution.
How much eroticized misogyny will the culture be willing to tolerate?
Yeah, I wonder…
My biggest question is, why does it take het women so many decades to be repulsed by this stuff and disgusted with it, such that they finally say, and mean, “DEAL BREAKER” to any prospective partner?
I think that most het women are disgusted by pornography, Heart. But I think that, when they see it, many of them simply don’t know how to express their feelings about it. The culture out ther is all about “yeah, porn is cool”(bullshit), so I think most of them fear being called a “prude” if they express any sort of negative feelings about pornography. And there lies the misrepresentation: this culture wants you to believe that porn is “sex” while it is in fact the degradation, humiliation and torture of women.
It was a deal breaker for me through most of college. EVERY SINGLE ONE LIED ABOUT IT. And not just lied–went to great lengths to hide it, talk some anti porn game, even went to therapists/groups upon my request (and in my presence) and I STILL found the shit–they were saving it on cd’s which were supposed to be “burned cd’s of music”–leaves little history on the comp. apparently. But I’m no fool. I could tell by the absolute worthlessness of them sexually. And how hard they tried to be so perfect with me–not a note missed. Very hurried to tear down another misogynist, acting so “tsk! tsk!”
Nothing like telling porn-users parents what he likes to watch tho….and to think one had an anti-porn mom.
That was fun.
MT^9–partnered and lonely feels waaay worse than single and lonely, IMO.
Yesterday I wrote a post which partly inspired by what you have written about gonzo porn.
I wrote it because I remembering how when I was prostituted that the way I treated like this “modern” practice of gonzo. So were many of the women and girls that I knew.
And more important I know that most gonzo porn is just the common way that johns who choose to be sadistic to prostituted women and girls will act wherever and whenever they know they will get away.
I will say from personal experience for those who choose to view gonzo porn as pretend or harmless it is real damage. It sells coz it is real violence - the men that choose to watch it need to see real pain, want real degradation - and need to believe the women want it, they are gagging for it.
For they are the same men that need prostituted women and girls to take huge amounts of pain and to say it is ok. Like gonzo porn, these men want prostituted women and girls to be just holes to be filled. If they are completely degraded then the men are more happy.
It must not be pushed under the carpet, for too many survivors are living with the mental and physical traumas from the violence and hate that men have put into them.
I for one, have major problems with PTSD. This is not depression, not a mental illness - it is a natural reaction to the violence and hate forced into my body and mind by men. I get PTSD because my mind and body is knowing how it feels to be forced to be degraded and sexually treated as a non-human.
I remember in every hole they filled. I remember in the sickness in my stomach. I remember as I have lost my voice coz my throat was attacked so much.
When we read or write of gonzo porn, always remember it is real women being tortured. Always remember gonzo is a new name for the torturing of prostituted women and girls that gone on for thousands of years.
I have had enough.
Just heard on NPR the other day about a video game manufacturer that quickly yanked an “offensive song” from the gang the minute Muslim gamers complained that it was anti-Islam. Wow, corporate America moves fast there, but just listen to all the women out there screaming about the horrors of “Grand Theft Auto” and it’s woman hating violence, and NOTHING changes.
Now I don’t object to being respectful of Muslims, but what about women? Muslims I think translating into Muslim men who complained. I actually don’t think as many women play those mindless video games compared to men and boys.
Gonzo porn, just another addition to the horror show.
Perhaps women need to massively boycotte any men who use any porn whatsoever. It should be an instant deal breaker on ANY first date!!!
Hell, yeah, pisaquari. Since porn is so cool, mainstream, even healthy, and everyone watches it, bring it up at Thanksgiving dinner. Have a nice little current affairs chat with mom, grandma, aunt Bessie and cousin Tina about the coolness of porn and how it’s enriched lives, his in particular. Then watch Mr Proud Pornsturbator reel in justified shame.
Okay, that’s more for the guy who porns proudly and without shame, but it’s still a fun fantasy, don’t you think?
And you’re right, it’s better to be alone and lonely than lonely in a relationship. At least on your own, you can find healthy, meaningful and fun activities and people who are good for your well-being to fill your life. In a relationship and lonely is so hopeless and life-draining.
By the way, I read the Jensen article a couple of years ago, if it’s the one I’m thinking it is, and it’s true that porn, gonzo porn in particular, tells the truth about men. And that truth is sad at best.
After having dated a porn-user, I would NEVER again date someone who was into porn and I agree with the person who said “I could tell by the absolute worthlessness of them sexually” - porn users are terrible partners sexually since they’ve “learned” about what women supposedly “like” via porn.
I actually had this now EX-boyfriend, trying to POSE me - taking my hands and trying to place them on the bed and put me in a certain pose as if I was some sort of mannequin which he could manipulate into the position he wanted. Can you believe it?! I was thoroughly repulsed and even if he had lied and told me he didn’t use porn, it would have been obvious by his trying to replicate porn in his own sexual behavior with me. It completely alienated and repulsed me.
I told him to either give up porn or me. We broke up not too long afterwards and in hindsight I’m very glad that we did. I don’t think he could have been unconditioned from the porn even if he did give up using it and I wouldn’t have wanted to continue to deal with the feelings of utter repulsion that I felt with him sexually. I can’t explain exactly what it was like, it felt like an attack on my being on such a visceral level.
Sex is supposed to be pleasurable, so it would start out that way and then WAM, his porn-influenced behavior would surprise me, I didn’t expect him to act in this way and it was like an attack out of left field; doing something pleasurable and suddenly having someone splash you with cold water that left you shocked. And yet he couldn’t even realise what he did was wrong. Cause the porn stars he grew up watching supposedly “liked” being treated like that. He was totally brainwashed and I wasted countless hours arguing with him. Truly wasted time since he never changed his mind.
I will not ever waste my time with someone like that again. NEVER. I would rather be celibate for the rest of my life than experience that again. And that is the argument that porn users try to use against women - ‘you’ll never have a man because all men use porn’.
Of course, it’s not true that all men use porn, but many do and many others will lie about not using porn. So women who want relationships with men are always at risk of encountering porn addicts/apologists.
Le Chat Noir, in addition to the posing as if there are cameras present, how about when they check out on you mentally and emotionally during sex, when they go into their heads to watch the imprinted movies playing there? Being with them then is creepy. Being reduced to a blow up sex doll is a creepy feeling. I’ve always been somewhat sexually adventurous and experimental and the only times in my life that I’ve ever felt dirty and ashamed after sex was after having sex with a man who checked out on me in that way during sex, even after having plain ol’ missionary position sex with my ex who I’d been with for a decade.
If all men do indeed porn, then no thanks, I’d rather not have one at all. I prefer to enjoy sex…during and after, too.
PS: I don’t know why this is in italics and the toolbar isn’t allowing me to undo italics.
Yeah, Cool Aunt, I’m about to 86 this groovy tiny MCE plug-in that’s supposed to let us format comments. It also interferes with trackbacks I think. But, I fixed yer problem.
I would NEVER again date someone who was into porn and I agree with the person who said “I could tell by the absolute worthlessness of them sexually” - porn users are terrible partners sexually since they’ve “learned” about what women supposedly “like” via porn.
Le Chat Noir- I totally agree.
And I’m sorry you had to go through all this. I could relate to many of the thing you said from past experience. Porn users are so brainwashed and they sometimes hurt women without noticing it.
Pisaquari- I’m sorry they were hiding it from you; this is terrible.
“Since porn is so cool, mainstream, even healthy, and everyone watches it, bring it up at Thanksgiving dinner. Have a nice little current affairs chat with mom, grandma, aunt Bessie and cousin Tina about the coolness of porn and how it’s enriched lives, his in particular.”
Haha-I wish CA!
My sister and I both have a rule: if he’s watching it, let the females closest to him know. Dads are no good tho–one even told me by having the “no porn” rule I was TAKING AWAY HIS SON’S RIGHTS.
sheeeyut up.
“I can’t explain exactly what it was like, it felt like an attack on my being on such a visceral level.”
Spot on–visceral is a very good word for it.
Thanks Maggie. Fortunately, I’ve never had to “get over” a porn user. The disgusting-ness of it is so definite and clear that I usually help them pack their bags. No hard feelings. Just get the hell out.