Madonna’s brand of feminism helped shape the attitudes of third wave feminists, prompting such proclamations as that of Elizabeth Wurtzel in her 1998 book Bitch, “These days putting out one’s pretty power, one’s pussy power, one’s sexual energy for popular consumption no longer makes you a bimbo. It makes you smart” (Wurtzel, as cited in Baumgardner & Richards, 2000, p. 141).
Sarracino & Scott (2008) cite Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” video as a prime example of this sexual power, where she posed as a peep-show performer.
Yes, she seemed to be saying, you can view my performance, you can even thrill to my body, but in doing so you give me control over you…The audience…must pay to keep open the panels through which they gaze… The power…is completely unshared. It is Madonna’s alone (p. 95).
Another strong media presence to push the sexual envelope was radio talk show host Howard Stern. Stern’s show, which was nationally syndicated for many years and is still available on uncensored satellite radio, regularly featured adult film stars as guests. It was Howard Stern who gave porn star Jenna Jameson the publicity that would eventually lead her to have the most successful career of any adult film star.
Jenna Jameson has become famous for ‘crossing over’ into mainstream pop culture, by appearing in guest spots on the E! Channel and in films like Howard Stern’s Private Parts (Sarracino & Scott, 2008, p. 105). Her industry peers laud her abilities as an actor (Morgan, 2006), and her autobiography was a bestseller in 2006 (Levy, 2005). Her unique career has made her a much-discussed figure in the study of porn’s increased public acceptability.
One of the things that might make Jameson more likeable in the mainstream is that her work does not feature blatantly cruel treatment of women, and she typically looks like she is enjoying herself onscreen. Surprisingly, her films also tend to contain themes of female self-empowerment (Sarracino & Scott, 2008, p. 108). In 2005, Jameson starred in a remake of The New Devil in Miss Jones where the main character’s damnation is based on her failure to take control of her personal, professional, and sexual life. This theme is actually quite popular in high-end pornography, and would seem to suggest there is some progress being made in these areas (Sarracino & Scott, 2008, p. 112).
Gays and lesbians have helped pave the way to changing the range of what is represented in porn. LGBT activists have used pornography as an important tool in their activism as sexuality is central their politics. Now feminist porn has emerged, and is growing with companies such as Candida Royalle’s Femme Productions. Today, there are even Feminist Porn Awards.
Feminist porn is characterized by things like beautiful settings, attractive lighting, more seduction with less mechanical-looking close-ups of penetration, more real orgasms, and more average body types.
Of course, most importantly, feminist porn does not feature women being treated badly. A history of porn would lack integrity if it did not acknowledge the existence of a deplorable side to pornography.
Merriam Webster offers three definitions for pornography:
1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction <the pornography of violence>
(Merriam Webster, 2009)
The 'dark porn' that falls under the third definition has little, if anything, to do with the first two definitions. It is not sex that is being sold here, but the truly obscene: violence and degradation. Dark porn actor Bill Margold offers this insight:
My whole reason for being in the Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up… I believe this. I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds (Margold, as cited in Sarracino & Scott, 2008, p. 117-118).
Gory horror films sell the same brand of ‘pornography,’ even when explicit sexuality is not a factor. If porn is becoming more mainstream, does this mean that the darkness of violent porn will follow suit? One could say that it already has.
Going back to the comic books of the midcentury, we could follow the trail of sensationalized violence up through the ‘slasher movies’ that have been selling out box offices for decades.
The overall effect on society is difficult to measure; however no study has proven that porn causes increased violence toward women (Jensen, 2007). In fact, strangely, between 1993 and 2005, rates of reported sexual assault dropped anywhere from sixty to eighty-five percent, despite the increased availability of porn via the internet (Sarracino & Scott, 2008) (D’Amato, 2008). It has even been suggested that this decrease in rape may be attributable to internet pornography (D’Amato, 2008), but no one has convincingly proven any correlation between the two.
Please stay tuned to this blog for parts 4-6 of Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism and neo-burlesque. As always, thank you for reading!
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