Listening to Dylan Ryan: Authenticity in Feminist Porn

Still (slowly!) working my way through The Feminist Porn Book.  Every piece in it has so much going on, I sometimes feel like "summing up" articles here just isn't doing it justice--but I'll live in hope that readers will be tantalized by little tidbits here to read the book for themselves.  Dylan Ryan's piece, Fucking Feminism, is a dense analysis of feminist porn artfully disguised as a lovely memoir piece.  It's downright tricky, this piece, because you're reading along about Ryan's entry into the world of feminist porn, and before you know it, you've read something that takes on many of the main themes of discussing feminist porn, addressing all sorts of anti-porn critiques without vilifying said critiques, or dismissing them outright; Ryan manages to give room for a lot of the complexities of these debates that are often left to the side.  At the same time, she's kind of "just" talking about how she came to be in porn.  And she does all of this in just a few pages.  It's a great stylistic choice, because the more varied stories are told about (feminist and not-so-feminist) porn, the better.

A central theme of Ryan's take on queer and feminist porn is that of "authenticity", which she acknowledges to be a complex concept.  Noting early on in her life as a porn consumer that the sex in much of porn wasn't the kind of sex she was having, or liked to have, and that the bodies (especially female bodies) in porn weren't like hers in various ways, she knew that she could make better porn.  One way to make better (and, as it turns out, more feminist) porn was to better represent sex and the bodies of performers more authentically:

The films Nina [Hartley], Annie [Sprinkle], and others made represented a sexuality that was open, honest, and without shame; they showcased sex that was fun and consensual. They had a sexual agency that I found arousing. It was the first time that I saw sex that resonated with me and that I wanted to emulate...[e]ven with these films though, I still had issues with the bodies: the differences between theirs and mine. I couldn’t relate to the curvaceous body type of Nina Hartley or Annie Sprinkle. At five-feet-ten and 145 pounds, I have been athletic and sinewy for most of my adult life. My breasts are small A cups, and my look is often more androgynous than girly. Like many women, I experienced the simultaneous intrigue and revulsion that can accompany pornographic film watching: of being simultaneously captivated and repulsed by the performers as they embody stereotypical female “beauty” and “perfection.”

 I suspect that many men also feel a similar "simultaneous intrigue and revulsion", at least at times, though of course men have a different relationship to women's bodies, and to their own bodies, than women do.  Still, it's great that Ryan gives voice to this idea. 

Ryan got a chance fairly early on to do some practical tests of her ideas, when Shine Louise Houston asked Ryan to be in what was to be their first porn film.  The film also starred Jiz Lee(!), whose piece in The Feminist Porn book I talked about here.  (The way these folks met and got together to make feminist porn, by the way, is part of the "context" of feminist porn that Lynn Comella wrote about in her piece in the same book.)  As she has continued to make movies, she has continued to consciously use authenticity as a touchstone, which is part of what makes her work, she tells us, subversive of the traditional paradigm.  She says:

When Shine and I first talked, we both believed that the majority of mainstream porn was inauthentic and not in agreement with what we knew to be true of our sexualities and the sexualities of those around us. “Authenticity” took on a somewhat mythological quality and became the Holy Grail in our vision for pornographic filmmaking: if we could achieve it, we truly would have transcended the existing constraints of the known porn world. We considered authentic porn our goal. Even now, this far into my porn career, I still reference the concept of authenticity as a sizeable part of my rationale for the porn that I make. It is a term that I use frequently to explain my position and identity as a porn performer. By situating myself inside my understanding of authenticity and explaining that to interviewers and interrogators, I also protect myself from some of the criticism that dogs other porn performers. Of course, what is “authentic” varies among individuals. When I say I’m making authentic porn, it means I prioritize my sexuality, which has allowed me a much less-criticized position than a female performer who may not have thought as much about authenticity in sexual representation.

In true feminist spirit, Ryan also talks about the limits of her ability to transform porn as a cisgendered, white woman:  

I struggle to blaze a trail for women while accepting my own whiteness and privilege. I “get” to be in porn, to raise my conceptual fist to the mainstream because I am close enough to the mainstream to even be let inside in the first place. This has been a bitter pill to swallow, but it reminds me that the deeper work of change to the representation of women in porn has to occur beyond me. It will come when we have greater inclusion of women of all body types, ages, and ethnicities in porn to counter the dominant imagery.

See! Told you she is taking on all kinds of various complexities!

She even manages to quickly sum up her shift from 'I'm not a feminist, but...' kind of thinking to identifying as a feminist, and as a feminist porn performer:

 It was at some point in those next few moments, on stage in front of hundreds that I came to see myself as so many others had already: I performed in feminist porn, I was a feminist porn performer. I was a feminist. In all those years of crafting my work to represent empowerment, awareness, positive female sexuality, women’s choice, I was representing feminist ideals about sex. After years of believing that all or most feminists disapproved of what I was doing with my life, it took a moment on a stage beneath a bright spotlight to realize that many feminists not only approved of, but appreciated, what I was doing. It was also the moment I realized I had been setting myself up, through all my choices, to be seen that way—as a feminist porn performer.

Ryan is the kind of writer who has clearly thought things out so precisely that I had to resist just quoting the whole text--as it is, I kind of failed, as you see from the swathes of quotes above. I recommend reading the entire article:  The details of Ryan's entry into porn and the way she navigates these complex conceptual puzzles is half of the joy of the article. The other half being reading what is essentially deep feminist theory that reads like a memoir.


Ryan has several interviews which convey some of the themes of her piece in The Feminist Porn Book:
Here's one on HuffPo. 

One from backstage at the Feminist Porn Conference (I think):


And another:


Note: This is one of a series of posts about articles in The Feminist Porn Book. The other posts can be found here.

Feminist Porn In Context

Note:  This is one of a series of posts about articles in The Feminist Porn Book. The other posts can be found here. 

Lynn Comella has a great piece in The Feminist Porn Book with the lovely (if academese-ish) title "From Text to Context: Feminist Porn and the Making of a Market" in which she gives us some of the historical of feminist porn as part of a way to contextualize current feminist porn.  Interestingly, this is done as a sort of response to some of the usual critiques by antiporn feminists, which are often "essentialist and reductionist".  Comella tells us:

Sex-positive feminists—those who make, watch, study, and write about pornography—are frequently accused by antipornography feminists of lacking any meaningful critique of the mainstream porn industry. And while antiporn feminists may occasionally acknowledge porn made by and for women, they typically do so only in passing before dismissing it as irrelevant. The reasons for this vary, but include the stance that pornography geared toward women comprises such a small segment of a much larger industry that its effects are virtually negligible, or that porn for women apes, rather than challenges, the dominant codes and conventions used by mainstream pornographers whose sole motivation, according to this narrative, is profit. The notion of “sex-positive synergy” challenges these arguments.

I must admit that the phrase "sex-positive synergy" makes me cringe--but "synergy" is being used as a technical term here:  Comella is making a case that the entire history of sex-positive feminism should be taken into account when examining feminist porn.  Feminist porn didn't arrive in a vacuum, and neither did it come simply as an aping of mainstream porn, as is often portrayed by antiporn folks.  It came as part of a cultural package that included other sex-positive facets of culture, including feminist sex-education efforts, feminist sex toy stores, lesbian feminist products and the like.  

Comella traces several threads of this cultural package which I encourage folks to read--I learned a lot about how many feminist porn creators came to be creating feminist porn--and the part that places like Good Vibrations played in all of this.  

In addition, Comella makes one of the most rigorous responses to Gail Dines, who is famous for armchair-analyzing things she doesn't know much about. Just a tidbit, to whet your appetite:  

The seminar Dines references—although did not attend—was one that I had moderated and helped to organize. In fact, joining me on stage were two feminist sex-toy retailers, Jacq Jones from Sugar in Baltimore and Mattie Fricker from Self Serve in Albuquerque, accompanied by Carol Queen from Good Vibrations, Diana DeVoe, a female porn producer, and Greg DeLong, the founder of Njoy, a sex-positive company that makes high quality, stainless steel sex toys. It was hardly the cesspool of women-hating “tricksters” and “predatory capitalists” that Dines describes; rather, the very composition of the panel reflects the kind of sex-positive synergy and entrepreneurship I’ve discussed throughout this essay.

I love that Comella points out that Dines was basically making shit up, while other feminists were actually doing feminist work.  I plan in the future, when folks who "critique" feminist porn by merely saying that it's aping mainstream porn, to quickly point to Comella's article, which soundly undermines such ideas with, y'know, facts and stuff. 

Bonus! Here's a talk by Comella with some of her research:
Lynn Comella, PhD from New View on Vimeo.

Allies of the Ada Initiative

Had the great fortune to take part in the allies track of the Ada Initiative's recent conference, Ada Camp SF.  The Ada Initiative, it their own words:

Open source software and data, like Firefox and Wikipedia, are the foundation of the Internet and modern technology. Companies like Google and Facebook depend on open source software, and popular web sites like Wikipedia rely on open data. Yet women make up only 2% of the open source software community and 10% of Wikipedia editors.

The Ada Initiative helps women get and stay involved in open source, open data, open education, and other areas of free and open technology and culture. These communities are changing the future of global society. If we want that society to be socially just and to serve the interests of all people, women must be involved in its creation and organization.

I can't sum up my conference experience easily, but it was powerful on various levels. This is the first time they've had an "ally track"--apparently in the previous two conferences, there were some issues with even well-intended men changing the tone significantly (one thing I learned at Ada Camp:  Even when men are trying to keep things equal regarding group conversations, they are often misjudging how "equal" things are), so the allies track was something of an experiment. For me, at least, it was a hugely successful experiment. Folks in the allies track had decided through email prior to the conference that women were explicitly invited to all sessions of the allies track, and that if we wanted a men-only session, it would be an exception. 

This played out well, I think. We had quite a few women come to our sessions, and as folks remarked then, it was more than helpful to have them there--it felt more like good teamwork when folks of all genders were talking about ally work.  That said, it was also nice to be surrounded by a bunch of smart men advocating for feminism in tech--I was outclassed a bit, because many of these folks were in some ways superstars of the open source tech world:  They're not only highly intelligent and logical, but they are also used to being advocates for open source, and the energy of that sort of advocacy carried into our interactions quite a bit.  

I hope to write a short series of posts about Ada Camp SF and the allies track, if I can get some of these very busy people to let me interview them, but until then, I'll share tidbits of my experience:

Random things I was pleasantly surprised by (in no particular order):

• The number of women who came to participate in the allies track.
• How smoothly an unconference can run, when everybody is earnest and open.  
• How many folks there who were not only highly motivated and passionate about open source, but were equally as motivated to change open source tech environments so that they are more diverse -- not only along gender lines, but also around race, class, queerness, etc.
• How many men with painted fingernails I saw. (I have my toenails painted at the moment, but nobody knew that, presumably.)
• Awareness of the gender spectrum was pretty great, I think; where it wasn't, folks seemed comfortable pointing it out, and folks running things took constructive criticism as constructive.
• The Julia Morgan Ballroom is feminist friendly. 
• The levels at which folks want to take the theory (of women-friendly environments, and of feminism) into practice, and want specific guidelines about the best ways to do that (which is what the Ada initiative does! yay!)
• How much community-building was going on.
• I doubt I've been in a room with that many feminists who were not female-identified. It was pretty rad.

A few things that were surprising, but not quite as pleasant, exactly:

• The complexities of implementing something that feels simple, on some level (make tech communities more friendly to women), but kind of isn't.  Even people who really, really want to make this happen have some strong differences of opinion on how to do so, and sometimes feel at a loss as to what, exactly, practically, to do first.
• How hard a community embracing diversity in gender has to work to have diversity in other areas.  (There were a *lot* of white dudes in that room, just as an example.  The lack of racial diversity may have been only in the allies track, but I suspect that was not the case.)
• I really don't know enough feminist men. Ok, this isn't that surprising, but hanging out with some really brought it to the forefront. 

Linky Goodness:

• If you're an ally and have the means, Please Give the Ada Initiative some of your money.  
• Ada Initiative's FAQ
• Workshops and Trainings

 

UNICORN!

Rachel Kramer Bussel's Best Sex Writing 2013 is a particularly strong member of the pretty solid series where folks write about sex.  This edition has some of my favorite folks writing about sex (Patrick Califia, Melissa Gira Grant, and Madison Young!), but the piece I thought readers of this blog might be most interested in is Seth Fischer's Notes from a Unicorn, a memoir piece about being a bi-identified man.

Fischer's piece runs the gamut from sweetly comic to heartrendingly tragic.  He covers the traditional responses that bi-folks have to deal with upon coming out ("I don't believe in that! You're just not ready to come out as gay yet!"), and shows with personal experiences just how much harm such responses cause:

A year later, I sat at my desk with a knife, poking at my wrist. I had an impossible crush on a boy. Frank Martin and I were on the same basketball team. His locker was two over from mine, and I couldn’t help it—I was twelve or thirteen years old. I had twenty boners a day. It’s just the way it was—so when he changed, I kept sneaking a peek because I just wanted to see, because I could smell him, and it was amazing, and was it too much to smell and see?

And he caught me looking. But when he caught me, he wouldn’t look right back at me. Instead, he looked at the locker in front of him, and said, quiet enough so no one would hear, “I don’t give a fuck if you’re gay. I know it’s not your fault, but you better not fucking look at me like that ever again.”

I decided that day that I would choose to grow the part of me that liked women and kill the part that liked men. I poked at little parts of my wrist until they turned bright red, then I pulled the blade up and watched my skin turn back to its normal color, and then I pressed down again harder. But I couldn’t make myself do it hard enough, because I couldn’t stand blood, because I was too afraid to die right then. I tried to spell out words with the little red dots but they disappeared too quickly. I tried to spell out Frank. I tried to spell out tired. I took out a pack of stolen Kools and snuck outside and smoked cigarette after cigarette after cigarette.

Like several bi- or queer-identified folks that I know, Fischer even tried to convince himself that he was gay, since so many people kept telling him that was the only real possibility. Really, this article is worth the price of the book. 

What does this have to do with feminism?  I think that at least some of the difficulties that are thrust upon bi folks in general, and bi men in particular, are directly related to outdated notions of sex and gender norms.  (Of course, a lot of people reject "bi" as embracing traditional gender norms, and opt for a "queer" identification instead.)  And some feminisms are clearly pointing out that these sex and gender norms are often bogus, and aren't seen to be as malleable as they, in fact, are. 

 Fischer's heartfelt stories sadly show that both gay-identified folks and straight-identified folks are buying in to some of the traditional sex and gender roles when they reject the idea outright that anybody could be bi-identified. Stories of our actual lives are so powerful--how could anybody read this piece and still say "I don't believe in that" when someone they know comes out as bi?

Full disclosure:  I was asked by Cleis Press if I would consider promoting this book. I am totally happy to, since I was reading it anyway, and would have likely put something up about it in any case!

Some linky goodness:
Find the book at Cleis Press:

Goodreads

Amazon

BSW2013 website 

Rachel's personal website 

International Women's Football

Did you know there are women's football leagues in the United States? Neither did I, until I met an awesome woman (she was briefly my personal trainer) named Jen Deering, who plays as a defensive end in the WFA (Women's Football Alliance), who recently tried out for and got on the U.S. Women's Football team that will be competing in the Women's World Football Championships.  

So:  Badass. 

Like a lot of women who participate in high-level sports that have traditionally been male-dominated, she has to pay her own way, which is kinda patriarchal bullshit.  So, y'know, fight the patriarchy and help her pay her way, by checking out her Indigogo campaign:

I coach/train cross-training at The Perfect Sidekick - an LGBTQ gym in Oakland, CA and play football with a local WFA team - The Bay Area Bandits. I love playing football and earlier this year I attended a try-out for the U.S. Women's Football team to participate in an international competition as a defensive-end (that's the one on the end of the D-line that gets to tackle the QB!). And...I made the team, yay!!! 3 other friends and women who play football with me on our local team also made the roster! I couldn't be happier to share this experience with a few of my favorite people in the world.    Please help me make a life long dream of mine come true...to win a gold medal representing the U.S.A. as an international athlete in the 2nd International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Women’s World Championship. 

Pink Gun Oil

NOTE: Pretty much every link in this post is NSFW.

If you're not reading Erika Moen's new sex-toy review comic, Oh Joy, Sex Toy, you're missing out. (And, of course, if you haven't read her original memoir comic, DAR, you're doubly missing out.)  She recently reviewed her favorite lube, Pink Lube. Lube is a tricky, personal thing, and it was interesting to read about how much she likes this particular one.  One of Moen's strengths as a writer, especially as a person who writes about sex, is that she is fairly inclusive of various sexualities, genders, races, and body types, and she doesn't disappoint in her new comic about Pink lube.  But I'm not here to talk about how rad Erika Moen is--that would take up too much time.

I'm simply fascinated by the gendered marketing involved.  I went to the Pink site that she linked to (hey look, the comic WORKS, advertisers!), looked around a bit, and discovered that Pink is owned by Empowered Products, which also has a line of products marketed as Gun Oil.  Pink = for women, Gun Oil = for men.  Got it?  









Comparing the sites is a fascinating exercise in gendered advertising.



The logos:

The "Company Story":

PINK

COMPANY PROFILE

Founded in 2001, Pink was created by Empowered Products Inc, an international sexual health and wellness company. Using the feedback and life experience of women, Pink was designed to offer a unique line of intimate lubricants that could be used safely and effectively by women who desired added lubrication for intercourse, toys and foreplay, and also to provide products women could feel confident and eager to use to increase intimacy with their partners or for their own personal pleasure. From intimate lubricants to arousal enhancers, Pink provides a selection of differing weights and uses of lubricants, so each woman can find the one that best meets the needs of her body. All Pink product packaging is presented in stylish feminine bottles that complement the bedroom and invite use by both partners.

 GUN OIL (TOP SECRET)

Following a return from Kuwait, U.S. Marine platoon leader and founder of GUN OIL recalled soldiers using CLP liquid, that keeps firearms and other weapons clean and firing accurately, as a perfect personal lubricant when relief, better known as masturbation, was necessary to relieve stress. Knowing of CLP's long lasting properties, the founder greatly improved on this concept by changing the ingredients to a hypoallergenic, topically safe, user-friendly formula, ideally suited for heightening sexual pleasure when used for intercourse or personal use.

Working closely with scientists to come up with precisely the right look and feel, this team formulated a selection of unsurpassed GUN OIL products that always deliver a highly satisfying experience and elevate the vital expression of masculine fulfillment.

 I love that the "story" of the company for Gun Oil is about ONE MAN creating a company, and the story about Pink is that it was created FOR women, using "feedback and life experience from women".  At least the company story explains (kinda?) how lube for sex = GUNS. The sexualized-military stuff isn't hot for me, though I understand that I may not be their intended audience--it should be noted that Gun Oil is often marketed toward gay men (though this isn't really the case on their site).

 Also, apparently women want "education"...

While men want "Tecnical FAQs":

I'm not really bagging on Empowered Products --sounds like they make some awesome lube, and are marketing it toward men and women in the way that they think will make them the most money. I'm certain there are women who buy lube from the Gun Oil site (the silicone lube, which seems to be the same product, is available in greater quantities on the Gun Oil site, vs. the Pink site), and it's a positive step in a lot of ways to have lube marketed toward women; used to be lube was something you could mostly buy in a poorly-lit sex store, and now here is a site focused on selling products to women for their own pleasure. Can't complain there.  Also, I'll probably try the Pink lube because I like the packaging better than a big, penis-shaped fake bullet.  But still, I can't help but feel the the company is missing out on a bunch of us who would rather just buy lube.  Smitten Kitten does a good job of this--lube as lube for any gender.  And they sell Gun Oil and Pink lube!  Wouldn't it be cool if we lived in a world where the marketing of this stuff was more often as inclusive as Moen's wonderful comics? 

Received my copy of The Big Feminist But the other day, and finished it up last night. It's a consistently good comics anthology, and covers myriad topics of interest to feminist folks of various stripes (and polka-dots). One of its strengths is its inclusion of a few comics (and an afterward) created by feminist men.  I was going to do a write up of Barry Deutsch's piece, "How to Make a Man Out of Tin Foil", but it turns out that Bitch mag has already done that for me, and includes the entire piece here!  (Also, they review another piece, here.)

I highly recommend this book--it was a Kickstarter, but it looks like you can still pick it up here.  If you don't, at least try to borrow it from a friend!

Dating While Feminist: Okcupid Sadface

 From an okcupid profile:

-also, don't message me if you are a cis-dude who is a self-proclaimed feminist and has ideas about what "feminists" should and shouldn't think.

I get why some folks say this, but it still makes me sad.  Ah well, it's a small little balsa-wood cross that male feminists have to bear...

Men! Gail Dines Wants to Save You!

Still working my way (slowly) through The Feminist Porn Book, and still really enjoying it.  I used to be an academic, but no longer consider myself one, so I appreciate how the different writers selected for this book approach the subject from different angles; some of those angles are more traditionally academic than others, as is the case with "Emotional Truths and Thrilling Slide Shows: The Resurgence of Antiporn Feminism", by Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith.  Attwood and Smith are researchers who wrote this article in part to point out that antiporn feminist analysis has moved away from academic analysis (with, y'know, facts and stuff) and now relies more on the kinds of shock and awe tactics that the religious right has been known for using. 

I appreciate their take on things, in part because they zero in on something that has been bothering me for a while about antiporn analysis, but something I was unable to pinpoint myself:  Antiporn feminist analysis has as an underlying feature the idea that there is good, normal sex that good, normal people have, and there is bad, abnormal sex as is portrayed in porn.  This isn't anitporn feminists' explicit argument, of course, but as Attwood and Smith point out, it's implicit in their change of methods from more academic/scientific methods to methods which are used to get an emotional rise out of folks.  They point out that antiporn folks most often now do a comparative sketch of sexual development, comparing 'normal' sexual development which may or may not have included seeing your older brother's Playboy magazines, as up against current sexual development, which now includes easy access to modern-day porn.  In their analysis of Decca Aitkenhead's ideas, they note:

"In her address to a presumed audience of coupled, heterosexual women, male sexuality is naturalized as inquisitive, but in danger of taking a wrong turn if subjected to the wrong kinds of images at too early an age. Aitkenhead calls upon her readers to reflect on their own experiences of life with men who were schooled in the quaint transgressions of the Kays catalogue, and to envisage the tortured imaginings and sexual mores of future generations of men who, as children, have seen the excesses of bukkake. It is this mangling of what had seemed genuinely yet innocently transgressive in the halcyon days of the 1970s that renders contemporary pornography so potentially threatening, made all the worse by being too easily obtained...This complex narrative of nostalgia and futurology is a central theme of these accounts where pornography is acknowledged as an already existing feature of the landscape, but one that has developed outside the knowledge of “ordinary” adults and needs urgent redress."

Of particular interest to readers of Feminist Allies, however, may be Attwood and Smith's analysis of how antiporn feminists like Gail Dines see themselves as out not only to help women, but to "save men":

The “domino theory” of the passions is invoked here along with a search for increasing levels of stimulation that leads inevitably toward more misogynous and damaging material. Pornography programs men’s sexual instincts and can have only one possible trajectory—to ever more encounters with sexually explicit imagery and toward more and more “extreme” material. Men’s sexuality is figured as totally plastic, intrinsically so—a barely constrained appetite that has to be civilized and ought to be kept away from the inflammatory influence of sexual media for its own good...

...[t]he view that underpins this approach can be usefully compared to the “crystal clear set of guidelines” about sex, set out in evangelical Christian and other conservative antiporn campaigns: “sexual pleasure is for men and women to enjoy inside marriage,” but those who fall from grace and are willing to repent can be forgiven. Under the guise of a politics based on gender equality, antiporn feminist writings are increasingly modeled on this religious approach to porn, though using a medical model of “healthy sex” and discourses that encourage men to see themselves as addicts, or the victims of “grooming” by pornographers or popular culture, as “abused,” “consumed,” and desensitized.

I dig this analysis in part because it shows that many antiporn feminists are using one of the most egregious of patriarchy's fables about men:  That men are animals who can't control themselves sexually in the face of some skin being revealed (or, in the case of modern porn, in the face of seeing people enjoying anal sex, for instance).

They manage to fold in a brief criticism of Robert Jensen's work, which is always a bonus for me--Jensen is a darn good writer, and it's clear to me that his heart is mostly in the right place, which makes the stuff he says all the more frustrating.  Smith and Attwood point out that much of Jensen's analysis of porn is rooted in the idea that there is 'good, normal sex' and 'not-so-good, abnormal sex'.  Good sex is never public, but is always a deep, private experience:

This view of good sex as private rather than public, and clearly linked to love rather than to gratification, is also found in Robert Jensen’s work. Jensen argues that sex should involve “a sense of connection to another person, a greater awareness of one’s own humanity and sometimes, even a profound sense of the world that can come from meaningful and deep sexual experience."

Of course, some sex can include all of that, if we want it to. And some folks will really want to!  But some folks won't want to, or won't want to all of the time!  We are human beings--we create our culture, consciously and unconsciously; we create our sexual culture as well, and as such, there just isn't a normal/abnormal dichotomy that somehow exists apart from what we create. Sure, we can't make up any sexual ethics we want out of whole cloth--we have to consider our interdependence with other human beings and all of the ethical stuff that implies--but we can't look up 'healthy sex' in the dictionary and just do that; no such definition exists, and one definition certainly won't apply to all people.

And I want to thank Attwood and Smith for nicely pointing out that one thing that underlays much of antiporn analysis is the idea that there is some sort of writ-in-stone sexual morality that we need to 'get back to'.  There are good criticisms of some sorts of porn, but in general, folks like Dines and Jensen aren't doing it, and they are implicitly depending on conservative, normative tropes that are not based in the reality of beings that create what is normal.

Masculinity Is Not One Experience

The realization that the black men that I loved — my father, my brothers, my friends — men who certainly enjoyed some measure of privilege relative to me, were themselves deeply entrenched within a system of racist and hegemonic patriarchal values that called itself ‘masculinity,’ was very troubling to me. I understood then that the masculine cannot be constituted as one category, or one experience. --Muna Mire

Men Doing Feminist Work: Adam Horovitz

The Beastie Boys are kind of well-known these days for having learned some feminist lessons early on  in their careers, and with trying to make up for mistakes in their past. And I had heard a lot about all of that when Adam Yauch passed away recently.  But what I hadn't known was that Adam Horovitz and Kathleen Hanna are longtime partners, or that he did so much over the years to support Hanna during her illness, some of which will be revealed in the upcoming documentary about Hanna, The Punk Singer.  I never thought this blog would quote Entertainment Weekly, but here goes:

The Punk Singer is no dry polemic and it’s not just for hardcore fans of the music. There’s good laughs, and, my, what a romance. The movie revisits the early days of Hanna’s relationship with Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz, whom she married in 2006. The scenes of him at her side through her illness and the literal loss of her voice paint such a warm portrait of a working partnership. Punk Singer producer and good friend Tamra Davis, who’s married to Mike D., agrees. “I would read back in Bikini Kill press ‘They don’t like men, they don’t like men.’ And I really wanted to make sure that this film didn’t ever have that opinion because that’s not what that message was ever about. Kathleen and Adam have this incredible love story.”   

 Hanna’s eyes well when she talks about her husband’s devotion to her throughout these trying several years. “He’s so awesome I want to scream it from the mountains,” she says. “I mean, dude hooked me up with an IV for eight months every day.”

So Horovitz is pro-feminist in his professional life, but he's also doing what is sometimes the most important feminist work for men to do, in his day-to-day life, in his relationship with his partner. The filmmaker thought this supportive relationship was important enough that Horovitz is the only man on camera during the entire movie:

 “It wasn’t a given in the beginning,” Anderson said. “I think a lot of people would expect that because of this story of Kathleen -- 'President Feminist' -- that Adam is not going to be in there. First of all, I know what a cool, amazing and supportive relationship they have. There was no assumption whether he would be in or out, but over the course of filming it became really apparent that this is not only Kathleen’s husband but it’s also her best friend. “

The film's site is here.

A clip from the movie, which I can't wait to see:  

Listening to Sinnamon Love

"I was naive about the sexual liberation movement, and had never considered whether or not my decision to flaunt my sexuality on screen was a feminist act. I had never wondered whether fighting for the right to be both mother and sex worker was part of a greater fight for the rights of women around the world. I certainly had never given thought to whether my choice to be tied up, disciplined, and fucked by men and women on film contributed to sexual freedom.All I knew was that I alone was responsible for my body, my life, my sexuality, and my bills. It never crossed my mind that someone might tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my body or my sex".--Sinnamon Love, The Feminist Porn Book

As I talked about in my post on Jiz Lee's contribution to The Feminist Porn Book, I find that listening to folks who work in and produce porn to be one of the best ways to understand how so many of the arguments from anti-porn feminists just don't hold up.  Once we listen to the folks who are actually doing this kind of work, it's easier to understand that this work can be inextricably intertwined with not only straight-up feminist work, but also social justice work around race, class, queerness and the like.  

Sinnamon Love has been in the industry for almost twenty years and, as a black woman, she has the nuanced, complex insight into the industry that one would expect from somebody so experienced.  Racism is rampant in porn (as it is in film, and society in general, of course), and Love gives us all sorts of insights into how her work from inside the system has helped to fight the good social justice fight around race, and in doing so she touches on how "feminism" sometimes needed to take a back seat because of the intense need to de-stigmatize black women's sexuality:

 "I’ve set a goal to enjoy my work so that my fans will enjoy it as well. I find myself more concerned with the representation of black women’s sexuality than making a statement only about my gender. Perhaps this is because so many people fight the good fight on behalf of (white) women and so few are fighting for black women like me. For example, there are countless examples of white women’s sexualities portrayed in porn, but very limited images of African American women. And when you do see black women in porn, they are often stereotyped or demeaned."

As she began to better recognize the negative elements in her workplace, she began to fight them, utilizing feminist ideas and methods (for instance: she became a producer!).  And, as was echoed in Jiz Lee's piece, agency is all-important as regards doing this kind of work:

"There is no doubt in my mind today that I am a feminist....[f]or me it is about agency. My black feminism is about helping women like me to be able to claim their sexuality in the face of decades of mis-education of African American women who were made to believe that they must choose between education, marriage, and family, or sexual freedom...I suppose, if I were to label who I am today, I would call myself a black feminist pornographer. Instead of accepting work merely to insure the bills get paid, I purposefully work for directors and companies that portray black female sexuality in ways that I feel are expansive, progressive, and interesting."

I encourage y'all to read the entire piece in The Feminist Porn Book, as it is packed with so many insights that it was tough to pick the ones I wanted to talk about here.  She covers 19 years in the industry in just a few pages!  It's also a thoroughly "positive" piece, talking about the practical ways that Love has worked to change things in the industry.   

Links:
Sinnamon Love's site
The Feminist Porn Book

 

Listening to Jiz Lee

I’m wearing a bright pastel blue suit I hand-dyed myself to match the suit worn by David Bowie in his music video for “Life on Mars.” I’m a dapper version of Bowie, standing for photos with a golden glammed-up Adrianna Nicole in one of the biggest and most outlandishly decorated homes I’ve ever seen. Adrianna has handpicked her co-stars, creating scenes from her personal fantasies. She reclines on a white chaise lounge, gold lamé legs wrapped around me, wide eyes hungry. My large, flesh-colored strap-on cock juts out from the fly of my David Bowie blue pants and my hand pushes forcefully into her mouth. It all feels so good. Warm, wet, incredibly intimate. My fingers probe her wide mouth. I could do this for hours.--Jiz Lee, The Feminist Porn Book

Reading the opening of Jiz Lee's article in The Feminist Porn Book makes me wonder:  How is it that anti-porn feminists can so easily disregard the experiences of a person like Lee, who has consciously taken on porn as part of their exploration of self, utilizing their body as a "canvas for art"?  Sure, Lee's experiences in porn (and in life!) may not be run-of-the-mill, but they are the result of conscious choices that have led to, according to Lee themself, a set of positive growth experiences, along with being part of simply making art. 

I often hear anti-porn feminists declaring that positive experiences by performers in porn are not only few-and-far between, but irrelevant--it's the general masses of porn performers who are being harmed, they say, and happy, successful porn performers are the exception that proves the rule. I know there are issues, serious issues, with sex work in porn--similarly there are serious issues with work in nursing, in sweatshops, in teaching. I also understand that sex work is different (for some!) than other kinds of work, in important ways. But I would rather listen to the sex workers themselves.  I'd rather listen to them tell me how it can be different, how the negatives and positives of porn play out for them, than assume that I know, or should judge whether folks should do porn for work. 

Consent is sometimes complex (can women who have a dearth of options for employment be consenting to do porn in the same way that men, who have more options, consent?), but Lee's experiences opens our eyes to the cases where the consent is not only fairly obvious, but fundamental to what they are doing--specifically, in queer porn. Lee says: 

For example, the decision to shave my legs for queer films, like Superfreak, was my own. The key is that it is a choice, not an ultimatum...[c]hoice, or performers’ sexual agency, is one of the main differences between queer porn and mainstream genres...[I]f there’s one thing that makes queer porn different, it’s respecting a performers’ choice—the choice to safely fuck how they want and to look how they believe is sexy.

Lee's article is a perfect example of what listening to folks who do porn can do to one's ideas about working porn--I was always aboard with queer porn's politics (among other things!), but Lee solidifies things for me, because Lee is taking "the personal is the political" very seriously, as I think all feminists ought to do:  Where sexual identity and gender identity (among other identities) intersect with porn performing, there is much to be learned, Lee thinks, and I take them at their word:

My mixed identities have led me to conclude that there’s no right or wrong, no definitive experience, no one way of looking at the world. Nothing is black or white, and that fact is even clearer when you’re gray.

I think their article alone is worth the price of The Feminist Porn Book. 
 
Links:
Lee's site.
The Feminist Porn Book.

First Steps in Yoga Pants

There are a lot of things that Nathan Graziano gets wrong in his recent article about his own struggles with lusting over women in yoga pants, but there are also some things that he is beginning, at least, to get right. What he gets wrong is covered pretty thoroughly in the twittersphere, but one of the things that strikes me most directly are his naive assumption that women wear yoga pants, in some sense, for him.  He just can't quite believe that they wear them for comfort: 

 And when I ask women about yoga pants—hoping they’ll tell me the trend will pass—most women tell me that it isn’t that yoga pants are fashionable, per se, but they are comfortable to wear. As a claustrophobic guy, I couldn’t imagine being comfortable in anything that tight, but I’m going to suspend my disbelief and assume they are, indeed, comfortable.

But baggy sweatpants are also comfortable, so I can only assume there’s more to it. There is an implicit game here—the age-old tease where women flaunt and men look.

Where to start?  Lots of folks don't find sweatpants comfortable at all--people who do yoga, for instance, find that sweatpants don't work so well--it helps to have something that is flexible, but also close to your skin; and, hey! some women like how that feels while out shopping, too. Just imagine. 

The above assumption isn't just a naive assumption, though--it is tied to a lot of the other assumptions that Graziano makes throughout his piece; assuming that women are doing something for men is directly related to the fact that he feels kinda douchey when he finds himself having trouble not staring.  It's directly related to his gender essentialist thinking ("men are pigs").  It's directly related to an over-simplistic nod to "biological components".  

All of this stuff makes folks who have done quite a bit of thinking about gender, and about feminism, cringe (ok, at least it makes me cringe, and lots of people object on twitter).  And all sorts of criticisms are justified. Hopefully he'll listen to some of the criticism and grow a bit (men who are feminists are needing to do this, pretty constantly, I've found).  

That said, I think there are some places where he's on the right path, if only a few steps down that road.  I recognize this could be "give me a cookie" territory (there is a tendency to give any man who has even the slightest feminist leanings more credit than needed), but I also think it's important for men to encourage other men to think these things through. So, here's my encouragement.

I was grateful for this passage:

Let me start by saying that women have every right to wear whatever they want, where they want, without having to be leered at and objectified. Intellectually and philosophically, I know this. And the ex-Catholic in me tries his best to recognize the lechery and look away as the minutes and miles tick off on the treadmill’s dashboard in front of me.

I know that acknowledging that women have every right to wear what they want is a low bar, but I like that he explicitly pointed out that he's discussing his issue, his problem (even though he goes off the rails and calls women "complicit" later on). 

I also appreciate how he ended the article:

And there I am, running like a gerbil on the treadmill. At 37 years old, I’m trying to ward off any impending middle-aged flab, trying to remain strong and youthful.
About ten yards in front of me, an attractive blonde with a high ponytail is doing step-aerobics in black yoga pants.

I stare and fear she knows, so I glance down at the dashboard on the treadmill. It reads, 29 minutes, 3.1 miles. Yet, somehow, I’m still going nowhere.

 To me, this acknowledges a reality that a lot of men feel--men who are trying to not be misogynist assholes, and yet still manage to be:   

@daniparadis @athenagenevieve @anne_theriault yeah, you're never going to get me to stop calling misogynists 'assholes', sorry
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) February 20, 2013

Valenti makes it clear that she respects folks who want to educate this guy, but wants it known it's not her job--and I (of course!) agree completely. I think it's the job of other men, most of the time, actually. So here I am. I understand and support folks like Valenti who want to call this guy an asshole; I also think that almost all men who were raised in patriarchal society start out as "assholes" of this type (or worse!), and I want to acknowledge here when men are also working on it. Maybe not fast enough. Maybe not hard enough. But there he is, noting that he feels like he's "going nowhere", while trying to get to a place where he feels less douchey. I'm going to put that in the "plus" column for men trying to undo their own training. 

(That said, I also think this is the kind of watered-down feminist-ish bs that the Good Men Project is sort of famous for putting out, right?)

It Was Rape: New Documentary by Jennifer Baumgardner

First off:  I am well aware that as a man, "reviewing" a documentary film about specific stories of rape is something of an "iffy" premise--so I'm aiming at just talking about the film, how it made me feel, and why I think the feminist and pro-feminist readers of this blog would be interested in seeing it, with a nod to what a film like this means for feminist and pro-feminist men.  That said, I do feel the need to mention that this is a film with high production values (although there is one interviewee for which the sound seems to be a bit off).  Oftentimes films that have amazing content are also difficult to watch (for me!) because of poor sound/film quality, or poor editing--not this one.  This film is rock-solid. 



It Was Rape - Trailer from Jennifer Baumgardner on Vimeo.


A new film is (hopefully) coming to a film festival (or campus) near you:  Jennifer Baumgardner's It Was Rape.  Before I heard of this film, Baumgardner was already known to me as the author of one of my favorite books:  Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics.  (And I really do mean it's one of my favorites--I reread it again from time to time, even though it's from 1997.)  Come to find out she was already famous way before that--as both a filmmaker and an author--you can see a 15-minute preview of her film I Had an Abortion, here on her site.  Baumgardner continues her streak of powerful, personal, intelligent work with It Was Rape.

Diverse Stories

One of the most fantastic things about this film is the incredible diversity that Baumgardner achieves within a one-hour running time, while still managing to give us deep details about the lives of the survivors she interviews, and weaving in (through creative film making and editing) a subtext of the sort of things we all should be talking about as regards rape.    At the same time, the film does convey very particular stories, all of which are about rape, but also very different from each other; Baumgardner includes not only straight-identified white women (whose stories are more often told), but also queer folks, people of various ages, people of color (including, and this group of folks is so often overlooked, an indigenous woman), and people from different class and educational backgrounds.  There are a few exceptions--these folks all seem to be all cis-gendered women (though I could be wrong), so we don't hear any stories from trans women, or from cis- or trans men; also the film centers on folks in the United States.  But given these limits, we have to admit that no set number of stories in an hour will convey all stories, and acknowledge that Baumgardner has clearly made a strong attempt at inclusion and diversity.

Conversations

I have had conversations with friends (too many friends) about them having been raped.  The conversation is never the same, though they often hit some of the same notes.  And that's one of this movie's strengths:  It allows us to be part of the beginnings of conversations with women who have been raped, and to be encouraged to have conversations with others.  These interviews are the beginnings of conversations that we all should be having with people in our lives--friends, sisters (and, I'd argue, brothers) and parents should all be talking about and listening to these sorts of stories.  The intimate nature of the interviews, including Baumgardner's questions being heard off-camera from time to time, makes the film difficult to watch, but of course at the same time that is what makes it so powerful.  Something in the way the film allows us to enter into these stories.  A mix of straight-up just listening to these women as well as short shots of visualizations from time to time made me feel like these women could be friends of mine, and I'm listening to them tell their stories.  As Baumgardner says toward the end of the film, this started as a film about speaking out, and ended up being a film about learning to listen. 

For Allies

Which brings me to the "allies" part of what I felt during the film.  While hearing any stories about rape can help feminist allies to begin to understand and dismantle rape culture, there are specific messages for men to be had in this film.  As a man who acknowledges and fights against rape culture, it's difficult to watch a film about rape without feeling really shitty about men in general.  I don't think this is an unhealthy reaction, though it's likely not healthy for this to be the only emotional reaction;  such a reaction perhaps indicates a deeper understanding of rape culture, and how men perpetuate it.  It can sometimes be difficult not to empathize so much with these women that I begin to lament if there are any men who really "get it", including me.  (Of course, men who have been raped understand more than most.)  Rape culture has deep, deep roots, and this movie digs down deep to expose some of them in a way that all men, and allies in particular can learn a lot from.

For instance, one of the women interviewed said something that resonated deeply with me:  She said that, if she could, she would ask her rapist to be strong enough to share his story, to help end the cycles of violence, to talk about what he felt during the time, and after, he raped her, because, hopefully, he would want things to be better for women and for men.  And, while I know that this film will reach out to so many women to help them feel less isolated in their pain, anger and suffering after having been raped, I also deeply hope that all the men who see this will begin conversations with their inner selves, and with other men (and women, and folks of all genders)--I think men need to do the work to dismantle rape culture, and I think listening to these stories is one step toward that.  

I'm not a film critic or a film maker, but I put the call out to male film makers out there who want to do some work in dismantling rape culture:  Please, please, please make more movies where men talk about how traditional masculinity, growing up in rape culture, and other factors have helped to create rapists.  (This is not taking away responsibility for being rapists, but instead is an attempt to look at all the causes.)  Or, if she felt like a sequel of sorts, I would welcome Baumgardner herself to take a shot at such a film:  Even though I think more men need to do more work in this regard, I'm certain the world could handle two such documentaries!   

There are, luckily, some films which do touch on rape culture with an audience of men in mind:  The Men's Story Project documentaries include stories about ending cycles of violence (full disclosure--I took part in this project).  Galen Peterson's piece, The Violence of Masculinity, is a strong call out for an end to violence by men, for instance: 




And perhaps there are many more films about rape than I know about aimed at men, attempting to work at eliminating rape culture! Names/links to such films would be more than welcome in the comments.

I applaud Baumgardner's film, and am very grateful for the strength and bravery of all of the women in it for telling their stories. 

Notes and Pleasant Surprises

Some related links, including links to sites by folks interviewed in the documentary:

• Activist blogs started by interviewees:  
• Raped At Tufts 
• fuckyeahfeminists 
• An article about violence in an indigenous community, written by one of the interviewees:  "Tiny Little Laws"-- A plague of sexual violence persists in Indian Country — while law enforcement turns a blind eye.
• The Film's official site. 
• The Film's Facebook Page
• Buy the film.  
• Screenings. 
• And interview with the film maker at Bitch Magazine. 

Can a Film About Rape Have a Great Soundtrack? YES I also want to say:  How does a film about rape come off having such a great "soundtrack"? It's fabulous. It did feel a bit odd enjoying Amy Ray's Let It Ring as the credits rolled, after hearing so many stories that are difficult to hear.  I wonder if the soundtrack might be sold for fundraising?



 Also:  Mercy Bell!