Watching Porn by Lynsey G

Author:Lynsey G [G, LYNSEY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: BIO000000, BIO026000, BIO025000, BIO005000
ISBN: 9781468315325
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2017-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

Being held by the stunning, smart, and very strong Kelly Shibari at Exxxotica New Jersey 2012

(PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)

CHAPTER 15

Other “Isms”

IN AN INDUSTRY WHERE BODIES are on display, it’s not just race that differentiates those bodies in the eyes of their beholders, or in the budgets of those who hire them. Virtually every difference is noted, categorized, and given a price tag. Larger bodies. Smaller bodies. Trans bodies. Disabled bodies.

To put it bluntly, pornography is an industry of objectification. It’s arguable that in a capitalist society, everyone objectifies him or herself by selling their labor, but there are few places where this is more baldly true than in the adult film industry. And I believe that there is nothing wrong with that. As Nina Hartley told me, “Humans objectify. Actually all mammals objectify … So to say that objectification is ‘wrong’ is just biologically stupid.” And, I would argue, it’s particularly silly to pretend that it should not be part of the porn industry.

Most of us have been warned of the evils of sexual objectification, particularly the feminists amongst us, but in the selling of sexual entertainment, objectification sort of comes with the territory. In order to price something in the marketplace, that something must be distilled into an object—even if that something is the image of a human body. Like Mandy Morbid put it to me in 2010, “[Porn] is work, and as a performer you are a commodity.”

Of course, this can be—and frequently is—a source of negativity in porn, but whether you believe that it’s positive or negative, there isn’t a way around the fact that there is an element of objectification in the human arousal process. We see the body of another person and get a thrill from the way it looks, just as much as—and sometimes more than—we appreciate the person living inside that body. And in pornography, when the souls of the people whose bodies we are watching are obscured by the distance and technology between us, that process is made simpler. “At the end of the day,” Ryan Driller told me, “I’m a penis having sex with most people’s crushes … the viewer, the people, the fans, don’t necessarily want to totally personify the performers because then they feel a little bad objectifying them.”

In pornography, each objectified body is placed somewhere within a complicated metric of supply, demand, and operating costs. In order to turn a profit in the age of Internet piracy, pornographers must make difficult choices about how much to spend on performers, and on what types of performers to hire in the first place. Producers tend to err on the side of content that has proven lucrative in the past, since their profits are by no means guaranteed. Very often, this means they shoot content that portrays fantasies that fall in line with what mainstream culture has taught us to value sexually—what feels “safe.” Namely, content featuring slender, white, cisgender females with big boobs, juicy butts, and flawless skin. This

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.