Inequality in “Porn” (Vulgar versus Virtuous, and no in between)
November 7, 2022 ~ Publishing this nearly a year and a half after originally writing it, I dedicate this piece to Queen Naima. Happy Birthday, my dear love, mentor, and chosen sister. Thank you for all you have taught me about accepting, embracing, living into, embodying, and integrating my own sexual power and prowess. You are a beacon.
February 16, 2021,
9:36 pm
Cody, Wyoming
from a note typed on my iphone notes app
Why are women either allowed to openly share and meet the demand for sexual energy and expression and become reduced to sex objects only ... OR ... to completely refrain from sharing sexual energy and expression (and getting paid for it!) in order to remain fully human women?
How is it okay for men to watch porn — and from my limited qualitative experience, if they have access to the internet, many do — and not only accept, but need "THOSE" women featured in pornography to be making porn so they as men can get off on it, but it's not okay for those same men to accept women who they "know" (or idealize as "virtuous") sharing ... forget supporting themselves with ... sexual energy and expression?
It's more than okay (read: encouraged; NECESSARY) for anonymous and porn-star famous women who are featured in porn to express sex and get paid for it, according to men who consume porn, but it's not okay for their wife or friend or girlfriend or daughter or mother or grandmother or friend or coworker --- for anyone they personally know --- to share sexual energy expression and retain the legitimacy of their complex identity of which sex expression is only a part.
((AND GET PAID FOR IT, especially in an empowered way, for instance with sites like onlyfans where the content producers are in control of all the content shared as well as accepting payment (with no middle men) for the supply they provide to meet a demand. ))
Herein lies the problem with porn, and how porn dehumanizes women:
It’s only okay for depersonalized (not "real”) “famous,” OBJECTIFIED — reduced or exalted to purely porn status/stars — women to share and broadcast themselves sexually and receive compensation, because they are not real women. They are not complex, living, breathing women; they are reduced simply to sex objects.
By the current consciously or unconsciously accepted paradigm, to share sexual energy on a media platform and get paid for it means, suddenly, that sexual capital is all you are.
To share sexual energy and media with the world — and god FORBID SUPPORT YOURSELF WITH THE MONEY ONE EARNS FROM DOING SO — is to be reduced to an inhuman sex object, no longer worthy of all the other dimensions and identities of being a woman.
How is it fair for men to DEMAND ... and therefore FULLY ENDORSE AND SUPPORT ... these nameless and/or famous objectified women doing porn — cause SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE IT FOR THE MILLIONS OF PORN CONSUMERS WHO LOVE IT AND NEED IT AND WATCH IT — but not allow "REAL" women, WHOLE women, COMPLEX women, women who are part of the living fabric of their lives — friends, wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, mothers, grandmothers, friends, coworkers, caregivers, neighbors, acquaintances, mentors, teachers — to share and benefit from sex expression?
Because the current narrative says that if any of these "real life" multi-dimensional women took part in what we call "porn" --- the publication and sharing of sex expression and acts --- it would dehumanize and reduce them to nothing but sex objects!!!
If it is okay for anyone to make (and profit from) porn --- to share sexual expression and capital (and receive compensation for it) --- then it has to be okay for everyone who is of the age and ability to consciously choose and consent to it to make (and profit from) porn. And to do so in a safe and empowered way, if they choose. And if there’s a male reading this who wants to pretend he doesn’t watch porn, or represses that part of himself such that that urge and need comes out in different, less direct ways, that’s fine. Pretend and repress away.
For the rest of you who are well aware you watch and enjoy porn, or at least know a lot of men who do, consider these women --- who make money making something you watch and get off on --- are real, multidimensional people.
They ARE daughters and friends and girlfriends and wives and sisters and mothers and grandmothers and artists and readers and hikers and doctors and chefs and badasses and teachers and students and leaders and dreamers and visionaries.
The takeaway I propose from this point is not to then only focus on all these other identity aspects of women who partake in porn instead of their sexual aspect.
No.
It's to focus on it all.
Sexuality, as much as all the other rich and complex parts of our being and identity, is intrinsic to being human.
Our animal bodies ARE INHERENTLY SEXUAL.
SEX MADE US, and we make it.
To pretend sex is not somehow part of our expression, of our being, is to deny part of who and what we fundamentally are.
And yet to make sex the only aspect of our identity should we choose to express it openly is to deny every other part of our humanity.
I propose integrating sexuality into the personal by allowing for consenting multidimensional women and humans to openly meet a demand for (and receive currency in exchange for) sexual energy and expression WHILE REMAINING legitimate in their other, multidimensional identities.This means women are allowed to openly share and be supported by their sexual energy and expression WITHOUT being reduced to just sex objects.
This means women can partake in and benefit monetarily from porn and remain fully human; this means acknowledging someone's profession in sex media further adds to and makes richer their humanity rather than negating it.
What I’m saying is, if you watch porn and wouldn’t support your friend or girlfriend or wife or cousin or classmate or sister or mother or grandmother or teacher doing that if they wanted to, then you are unconsciously (or consciously) confirming women cannot share sexual energy and capital and retain the multidimensionality, legitimacy, and respect of all their roles and characteristics as a human in society.
You are unconsciously insisting the only way a woman can share sexual energy on some form of media (and get paid for it) is if that’s ALL she is.
And if she wants to be anything else — a President, an explorer, a wife, a mother, a business owner, a writer, an astronaut, a physicist, a therapist, a horsewoman, a carpenter — then she must refrain from openly sharing her sexual energy — and ESPECIALLY from getting paid for it — as doing this makes all other identities null.
If you wouldn’t be okay with your partner sharing sexual energy and expression with the world (and getting paid for it) IF THEY WANTED TO, but you feel entitled to receive that sexual value and expression from other women through porn (for whom reduction to a sexual object is permissible), you should deeply examine this. When a woman openly shares and publishes (and may choose to receive compensation for) her sexual energy and expression, she must be allowed to remain multifaceted and VALUABLE in ALL facets of herself, not instantly only valuable and legitimate as (read: reduced to) a sex object and worthless/invisible/delegitimized as everything else.
...The flipside, which contributes to the sector-ed off/taboo/relegated to the underworld/shadow (rather than integrated) status of porn: For a woman to be valuable in her rich multitude of facets and dimensions and identities and roles, she must mostly pretend her sexual energy doesn’t exist, and certainly not express it for money.
In short, women who are respected as legitimate in their other professional, familial, communal, artistic, sacred roles are not allowed to be sexually viable and powerful and open (and perhaps get paid for it) and remain legitimate and respected.
And so sexual power and expression and embodiment disappears from these social realms and identities altogether, and becomes completely relegated to the secret world of pornography where sexual identity is all there is.
In short, a woman is allowed to have ONLY sexual capital/legitimacy, OR all the other kinds of worth and legitimacy reflected by her being .... BUT NOT BOTH and ALL. If you think it’s okay to watch porn and wouldn’t allow your partner to make it and make money off it if they wanted to — to be empowered in sharing sex media in exchange for financial currency — I encourage you to ponder this glaring discrepancy, at least in theory.
I am not proposing the answer to such inconsistency is to stop watching porn (good luck, how’s that one usually working out???) ...
But instead to allow women who share sexual energy and expression in the form of media and get paid for it to remain FULLY HUMAN and be celebrated, acknowledged, and respected in all roles and aspects of themselves ... In fact, to be paragons of the transparent integration and conscious rejoining of human and sexual energies, to allow sex to be celebrated as part of the person rather than something that only can be consumed through dissociative depersonalization that pretends "only people I don't know and value in my real life" do this, but I personally get to enjoy it.
The women who make and make money off porn are real women and real people.
Are you real enough to realize that if you believe any woman you personally know sharing sexual energy and expression and getting paid for it would make her less of a legitimate and real person, then you're personally enjoying something at the cost of depersonalizing and objectifying every woman you watch doing it?