Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin who writes critically about pornography. To say that being anti-pornography is a culturally unpopular view is to put it lightly, and he doubtlessy spends a lot of time getting attacked as a collaborator with the reactionary religious right, though nothing about his actual writing would suggest that he is. He’s posted a column here entitled “Pornographic Query: Is a DP Inherently Sexist?” in which he considers whether “the sexual practice in which two men penetrate a woman anally and vaginally at the same time — a”DP,”or double penetration in the vernacular of the pornography industry” is inherently sexist. Here is an excerpt:
So, is a DP inherently degrading and sexist? In the minds of the men who want to watch them, I think the answer is yes. That is, men understand and experience it as a degrading and sexist practice. That’s why it’s sexually exciting, precisely because of men’s assumption that women don’t want it — because it’s degrading, something that has to be forced on women who don’t want it.
Please note: This conclusion is not based on a moral or political judgment of mine about the practice. It’s based on the moral and political judgments of the men who want to watch DPs. Lest we float too far away from the real world of pornography, let’s remember how DP movies are marketed to men. I put”double penetration”into Google, and this was the first site with text that explained DPs to potential consumers:
“This blonde slut is in serious double penetration hardcore sex. She is getting her pussy and asshole destroyed by two fat cocks that will enter her holes and make her cry. Her pussy and asshole were tight a long time before, but now this slut is ready and willing to do anything like double or triple penetration hardcore sex scene. Her holes are destroyed and she cannot be satisfied with one cock so we give her two cocks for the beginning!”
There may be DP movies marketed with less overt misogyny, but this is typical of the material I have seen. Again, I think the pattern is important.
My main goal here is to refocus our attention. When this question about the nature of DPs is posed to me by men, their focus is implicitly on women: Is a DP inherently degrading for a woman and therefore sexist? The more important question: Is a DP inherently degrading in the minds of men? The only conclusion I can reach is that men think of a DP as a way to degrade women. Based on my analysis of men’s use of pornography, I believe men see a DP as something dirty and degrading that is pleasurable to watch women submitting to.
Jensen published another essay here, entitled “The Death of Empathy.” Here is an excerpt from this work:
The student said that he watched gonzo pornography regularly and thought I had distorted the reality of such material. None of what he watched, he said, sounded like what I had described. “The stuff I like — it’s just movies of people who liked to party,” he told me.
I asked him to tell me more about what he watched. As he talked, it became clear he was describing exactly the kind of material I had discussed, and I could see the realization emerge in him: My assessment of the rough and degrading nature of that pornography was accurate, and he had simply never recognized it. When he mentioned a type of sex he liked to watch in pornography called a DP — double penetration, in which a woman is penetrated vaginally and anally at the same time — it really started to dawn on him: In these scenes, the sex was defined by men’s sense of control over, and domination of, women.
I pressed a bit more. What kind of things did the men call the woman during this sex? I asked. As he started to reproduce some of the terms — all names meant to demean and insult women — it became impossible for him to avoid the conclusion that the pornography he had been consuming is not just sex, but sex in which men act out contempt for women.
At that point, he stammered, “But I don’t hate women. I love women. I wouldn’t use pornography like that.”
That contradiction wasn’t going to be worked out in the moment. Instead, I told the student that I wasn’t arguing that he hated women but was simply pointing out he had been getting sexual pleasure from pornography that expressed hatred for women.
Pornography and its relationship to sexual freedom are contentious issues for feminists. Jensen is a man who is writing primarily about pornography and men. If the subject area is of interest, read these pieces in their entireties and see what you think.
–Ann Bartow
One of the things Gloria Steinem points out in her essay about Linda Lovelace is that “liberal” men were mad about Deep Throat and saw it over and over. They told themselves that Lovelace was a beneficiary because she had special abilities to receive pleasure. The truth, of course, is that Lovelace was a literal prisoner and loathed every moment of it.
The number of women victimized by sex trafficking who get coerced into performing in porn is something the Supposedly Liberal Dudes prefer to ignore as well.