Roxy's taking a break,
but she'd like this book
Three stars
by Helen Kim
The Stanford Daily
April 18 , 2003
Some men are excited by pornographic depictions of women having sex with, say, eels and pigs, according to David Loftus, author of "Watching Sex." In a later chapter, Loftus quotes a man who says, " 'Just as sometimes a MacDonald's hamburger and fries is OK, so might a quick hand job be OK.' " I'll be sure to ask for a hand job next time I grab a burger and fries!
Loftus' book is full of amusing, horrifying and curiosity-piquing quotations from nearly 150 men who watch porn. Serving as a counter-polemic to feminist anti-porn arguments, he provides an "inside" look at what the men who actually buy and use porn think. However, his book is no more than a collection of anecdotes; no hard evidence exists to substantiate pro-porn arguments and weaken anti-porn ones. Loftus ambitiously interviewed men of all ages, occupations and all sexual backgrounds -- from middle-aged gay professors to young bisexual married men and straight male college students.
Topics in the first half of the book included: lesbians in porn, sharing porn with others and initial exposure and reactions to porn, while the less amusing and more serious ones of the latter half dealt with men's perception of porn as reality or fantasy and the effect that violence in porn has on men and men’s treatment toward women.
So why do many men like to see two women touching each other more than a woman and a man doing the same thing? Well, according to the author, some feminists say men’s interest in lesbian sex exemplifies a need to "pry into and degrade every aspect of women's lives," especially because they imagine themselves having access to all women, including those who are not interested in men.
Overall, most of the gay men that he interviewed showed more respect for the women in porn than straight men did. The fans of bondage and violence (including one man who liked to have sex with his girlfriend, whose labia was clipped back with laundry pins, with arms and legs tied, eyes blindfolded, and hot candle wax dripping on her breasts), turned out to be horny straight dudes. Those freakin' horny straight men make me sick. I couldn’t believe that that girl would put up with all that. Maybe some of the women who allow themselves or volunteer to be in submissive positions are also to blame.
Now onto the more serious topics of violence and its implications: While one of the men interviewed pointed out that his analysis of anti-porn arguments in the feminist press lacked substantial evidence, I wonder where the evidence for each of the book's anecdotes could be found. For instance, Loftus focused too much on whether men who watch violence in porn will be led to commit actual acts of violence. He touched too much upon whether porn causes or leads to violence and not enough on violent porn's contributory effects on actual violence.
While reading various men's self-proclamations that violent porn did not make them engage in violent sex, I could not help but remember the scientific research I read in my communication classes. Just as media violence is a contributing factor to real violence, so is violence depicted in porn. Some of the men even said that violent porn does not breed rapists, but that rapists are the ones who seek those types of porn. This whole cause-and-effect argument can go on forever, which can lead to a shift in blaming and lack of attention to solving anything. One of the men Loftus interviewed even argued that regular media depict violence and maltreatment of women more than does porn; however, if true, does this mean that the violence that exists in porn can be ignored?
Perhaps this just means that we need to try harder to either show less or no violence, or when we do, to also portray the victims' pain and not justify the violence, so viewers would not be encouraged to imitate or accept it and be desensitized to violent acts.
On that note, most men (except for the totally psychotic abnormal pigs) seem to know that porn (with the exception of amateur porn) is not real and that the actors are being paid to perform. However, just because they can distinguish reality from fantasy does not mean that fantasy won't have any negative effects. As one interviewee wisely noted, "when pictures, thoughts and ideas get into your head, they never get out."
Writer's note to the cute men at Stanford: Please do not let my sassiness get in the way of your wanting to include me in one of your amateur porn videos.