16 notes

The idea that pornography is intrinsically exploitative and sexist is bizarre: pornography is just “stuff fucking”, after all. The act of having sex isn’t sexist so there’s no way pornography can be, in itself, inherently misogynist.
So no. Pornography isn’t the problem. Strident feminists are fine with pornography. It’s the porn industry that’s the problem. The whole thing is as offensive, sclerotic, depressing, emotionally bankrupt and desultory as you would expect a widely unregulated industry worth, at an extremely conservative estimate, $30 billion to be. No industry ever made that amount of money without being superlatively crass and dumb.
But you don’t ban things for being crass and dispiriting. If you did, we would have to ban the Gregg’s Mega Sausage Roll first - and we would have a revolution on our hands.
No. What we need to do is effect a 100 per cent increase in the variety of pornography available to us. Let’s face it: the vast majority of porn out there is as identikit and mechanical as fridge-freezers rolling off a production line.
And there are several reasons why this is bad for everyone - men and women equally. Firstly, in the 21st century, children and teenagers get the majority of their sex education from the internet. Long before school or parents will have mentioned it, chances are they’ll have seen the lot on the net.
But it’s not just their sex education - which is a series of useful facts and practicalities, and the basic business of what goes where, or what could go where, if you’re determined enough - that kids are getting from the net. It’s also their sex hinterland. It informs the imagination, as well as the mechanics.