Thursday, March 23, 2017
Week Nine: Response 9.3
Can pornography alter one's sexuality, or is it an
isolated fantasy world that has little effect on its viewers? Does is “leak” into the real
world? Rely on the various
scholars, pornography producers, users and/or significant others featured in The
Price of Pleasure to frame your argument.
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The Price of Pleasure, is a documentary directed by Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun, which exposes the negative influence of pornography, and how it alters/effects sexuality. Although pornography impacts everyone differently, there is one common affect of pornography according to the documentary. The common influence that pornography has over the watcher is the skewed portray of sexual relationships as “male dominated.”
ReplyDeleteBy portraying sex as “male dominated,” it features the men as invulnerable, and it dismisses women’s sexual needs, as well as normalizes and promotes violence against women. Making sex male dominated is empowering to men and Harriet Fraad, states the negative effects of this type of pornography are that “no one escapes pornography encouraged to be have one’s sensual needs met.”
One of the most horrific ways that pornography influences sexuality is the representation of violence against women as normal. In pornography, women are depicted in humiliating ways, and are usually shown enjoying being degraded. Porn is always searching for “bigger and better” content to present to the masses, which is one of the reasons that it has become more humiliating and degrading for women. Well over 50% of porn films feature some sort of violence against women, whether it be choking, verbal harassment, ect, and that is an outdated number. Not only is violence featured in most pornography, it is encouraged, and it continues to get more openly violent against women.
In reality, pornography many not directly lead to violence against women, but it can defiantly play a factor. The documentary states that porn doesn’t necessary make bad people commit horrible acts, but preys on vulnerable people and influences them. For most people, porn affects the way we view sex (as male dominated), and porn has become the exemplary portrayal of ideal sex.
In this way, pornography does leak out into the real world, because it has been presented as the ideal representation of sex, and many people forget or fail to realize that porn, like most forms of media, is staged/fabricated.
Though it is artificial and scripted, pornography continues to be the ideal for sex, and has warped the way we view sexuality. It promotes and normalizes violence against women by presenting sex as male dominated, in which women are “vulnerable, used, degraded, humiliated, and men are always in power.”
Anisa S.
According to the Price of Pleasure, pornography has many negative affects on one’s sexual desire as well as sexuality. The documentary emphasizes the belief that pornography influences the viewer to perceive sexual intercourse and relationships as “male dominated.” By warping the viewer’s perception of pornography, it creates a commonplace for misogyny and a belief that degradation and violence against women are normal and even enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteSuperficially porn is vicarious and voyeuristic, but there is a deeper message that porn sends that desensitizes its viewers. It says that you can always have more. More sex, sex on demand, more orgasms, and experiences of no limits, at least for the male viewer. For the female viewer the experience may be a little different as pornography trends lead toward the humiliation of women. The documentary highlights the fact that pornography is prime influence on many acts of violence against women. Viewers of violent pornography believe women enjoy these deviant behaviors, which leads to acts of sexual aggression, violence, and controlling behaviors. This is not to say that everyone that views violent pornography will commit some kind of act of violence against a woman, but rather endless hours of viewing porn can influence one’s behaviors, leading them to sexual aggression. More than half of pornographic content shows women being degraded and numerous acts of violence against them; Hence the shifting of ‘the money shot’ from porn to reality TV. Because it is produced in such large quantities, it leads the viewer to seek more violence and more degrading content. This also forms a false narrative for the male viewer as to what sex should be.
Consequently, because of a warped perception, pornography does leak into the real world. Frequent pornography use is the cause of unrealistic expectations of sexual behavior. Those viewing porn commonly believe that if they are not performing the acts viewed in pornography, something is wrong or their sex lives is not exciting enough. In the world today children are turning to pornography to “learn” about sex, and because it is increasingly becoming more violent, this will have an overwhelming influence on their sexuality, sexual behavior and attitude toward women. It’s a tragedy that this is what children will grow up thinking sex should be.
Levi S.
The Price of Pleasure most certainly is an eye-opener to the world of pornography and how it affects our daily lives. The documentary goes to show how much pornography alter’s ones life (specifically men that were interviewed) and how it changes their view of women. The men at the convention were staring at the women on the stands like they were objects, not real beings. That is one of the main issues regarding watching porn, it alters your understanding of what is true and what is faux. Women in porn are hairless, large-breasted, and have not outer flaws, this then makes men think all women are like this. FALSE. Also, the men when asked if they would date a porn star, they almost all said no, and yet they continue to watch this for the ‘fun’ of it. Porn is very inaccurate because of the way women are seen always orgasming without men doing anything, how they enjoy being dominated and most of the time being choked, slapped, or bounded is a turn-on. Porn is a business and is continually looking for new viewers. This then leads to specific videos for viewers with obscure fetishes that lead to more degrading of women. In one of the scenes, a woman was being given anal and then made to do oral sex. She agreed only because the money was good. Women are doing things just to support themselves, and this makes the viewer consider their current situation and why pornography is the choice they’ve made. Not only this, but racism in porn is still very prevalent and continues the stereotypes that many minorities are trying to erase. Mainstream media doesn’t allow these types of things, so why can porn get away with it? Pornography most certainly leaks into the real world and blurs the line between reality and fantasy.
ReplyDelete-Skylar A.
The Price of Pleasure uses interviews with scholars, performers, producers, and consumers, as well as audio and video clips from pornography to paint picture of porn’s effect on its viewers. The thesis certainly seems to be that porn negatively affects societal understanding of healthy sex and that increasing violence and the male-oriented perspective of porn may contribute toward misogynistic attitudes and violence toward women.
ReplyDeleteI think there is certainly something to the validity of these arguments. It would be difficult to argue that viewing violence as a normalized act doesn’t contribute in some way to the viewer’s perception of violence as normal in real life. The same argument is made in the context of most straight porn scenes showing a male-dominated world and insisting on the sexual gratification of the male performer with little regard to that of the female. One should wonder how this could not affect its viewers.
I wish to provide another perspective – one that is given almost no screen time. While I agree with this general premise that seeing something normalized on screen affects one’s understanding of what is normal, I see at least one large issue with the thesis presented in this film. The film presents the idea that porn affects culture. A competing viewpoint which is glossed over by one interviewee is that porn reflects culture. Surface-level observations of this are obvious: Ridiculous porn scenes in which performers impersonate cartoon and movie characters (Avatar, Batman, etc.). The film tries to paint a causal link between consumption of violent pornography and a rise in real life violence. Beyond the fact that the overwhelming majority of research does not support the claim that violent crime increased in coordination with increased porn consumption, even if it were true the filmmakers’ arguments could just have easily been used to show how violent, misogynistic American porn consumers’ tastes have influenced how porn depicts sex.
Other counterarguments to the films thesis, which I will not expound on here, include the lack of viable statistics to back up the filmmakers’ thesis (as well as multiple surveys which provide results opposite to the theirs), and the larger culture pornography exists in, specifically the lack of sex-ed in schools and the closeted nature of sexual subjects in the public sphere.
Gregg H.
The Price of Pleasure is a documentary that analyzes pornography and the various points of views upon its use, meaning, and representations. The unregulated world of pornography provides users with almost every sexual incident one can imagine. The fact that pornography has no limits desensitizes individuals to sexual and gender assault and violence, racist sexual stereotypes, and situations that mimic children’s pornography. The documentary reveals the ways in which it influences both men and women upon their own worth, desires, and morals. In regards to men, it displays that they are the majority of viewers and how much pornography leaks into their perception of women, sex, and respect. One interviewee that kept their identity private stated, “I like aggressive sex, like really forceful sex you know like a regular hardcore film. That’s where I probably learned what regular sex was anyways so that’s why I probably have sex the way I do.” This reveals how much pornography has warped our societies perception of reality and fantasy. As the result of this, many individuals like the man who was interviewed, end up acting upon their fantasy or choice of sexual acts because of the endless amount and variety that porn offers. When someone is interested in a certain thing and has the ability to access more of it, they will eventually become accustomed to it and are willing to replicate it. Another example of how porn leaks into the lives of people is when a woman with a significant other was interviewed and said that she supported the pornography industry because of its ability to spice up her relationship. The woman’s point of view supports how women porn stars and a portion of sex positive women in general also view pornography and it’s representation. In some aspects, pornography is empowering to women because they are able to get paid, feel in control of the work they’re involved, and have a representation of power in certain aspects. However, most pornography does not represent women as the source of dominance or power but rather reinforces the notion that regardless of their choice, men are still getting what they want one way or another. Overall, pornography has its pros and cons and needs to be analyzed within the context of its content.
ReplyDeleteClarisa G.