Is the media stealing my sex life?

[DeirdreOfTheSorrows]

I've name-changed, because this is about sex and feelings and personal stuff and I'm probably pretty identifiable in my normal guise. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, either - but it's been on my mind for a while and I wonder whether anyone might be able to shed some light on it for me. I wonder whether I ought to have posted it in Feminism, too! But let's see how we go.

For a good few years now I've been feeling that my increasing awareness of of porn culture, and media stories about violence, sexual violence and cruelty of all sorts, are impinging on my ability to feel comfortable and secure in my own sexuality. I've never experienced violence myself, and porn hasn't been an issue in any of my relationships, so it's not a flashback type of situation - simply that my associations with sex are increasingly becoming mixed up with nasty and upsetting stories and ideas rather than my own (probably rather tame) experience.

Just as background, I wouldn't ever have thought of myself as a competitive sadder - I think I've got a pretty realistic idea about the way in which certain stories gain currency and play out in the media, and I think I can distinguish between empathy for a tragic or terrible situation and getting caught up in an emotional binge.

But for some reason I'm really struggling to maintain a sense of my own sexual self in the face of story after story of sexual violence or exploitation or coercion. It's as if I can't find the kind of easy lustiness I had when I was younger any more, and my brain can't switch off from stories about other people's dreadful experiences, or my political feelings about pornification, or MN threads in which people have shared how sex was used as a weapon against them, even though I'm in a relationship where sex should be perfectly safe and equal and unproblematic.

I really don't know what to do about this. One can't just stop knowing these things, and withdrawing from engaging with them would seem to be a dreadful cop-out. But how do I find a way to regain some innocence and spontaneity about my own sex life, rather than letting it be overshadowed by things which should be a political, rather than an emotional, part of my life?

I feel the same way you do, OP. I'm single and I hate the thought that most men of my generation grew up with and see no harm in porn and can't see how insidiously women-hating our culture has become. I hate the thought of inadvertently getting into a relationship with someone who gets off on the thought of women as objects that are there to have sex on and to sexually degrade. I just don't actually know if there are any men out there who don't think like this. Even men I am close to and love very much fundamentally just don't get how misogynistic our world is.

I was talking about porn recently with a feminist woman friend of mine and a mutual male friend and the guy tried to claim that porn is good because it's educational, and that porn is just normal sex and the "extreme" stuff is very much in the minority . And this is a well-educated man who in every other respect seems pretty decent.

I so totally see where you are coming from op, I have been having a lot of conversations with my DH recently about how the world seems like such a terrifying place at the moment, how worried we are about what our children (both the boys and the girl) will be facing and just generally how depressing it is to know that so much hate and abuse and misogyny exists even though it's 2012

But what really helps me is my DH being 100% on my side, he agrees with my worries and my fears. And when we talk about our young daughter he says that she has an amazing role model in me, that he knows I will teach her to scream bloody murder if she feels threatened or abused. And I know it's not as simple as that, but it helps to know he feels that way, that we will guide our children together and do our best

I am married to an amazing man and I am trying my best to raise a future generation of amazing men, there is such a long way to go but because of this I don't feel it is impossible that future generations will be better. Even my teenage boys discuss porn with me and how it is damaging

When it comes to sex I will admit I have always been into sex that is not always 'vanilla'. But when I am feeling the way you do what makes me feel better is sex that is just about us reconnecting, not sex that involves toys or lube or lots of positions or experimenting (though I love those things too) but about holding my husband close to me reaffirming our love, watching the adoration in his eyes worshiping each others bodies (that are far from perfect and pornified) and just enjoying each other. When that happens porn and misogyny and the outside world just don't matter and i am reminded that sex is so much more than a race to find more and more different ways to 'get off'. I will not let the outside world rob me of those experiences, sex can be meaningless (and fun!) but it can also be meaningful and wonderful and special and that is what I hope all my children discover as adults

Oh dear, I'm sorry if that last post was tmi

I should learn not to post when I'm feeling all floaty on morphine

Don't apologize. You're right about sex being fabulous when not constrained/guided by porn/just one persons desires. It's just surprising how many people think men should lead sex still. Whilst thats the case there will be trouble

This thread and Cailin's posts are really amazing.

I don't agree with sgb about porn, there is nothing in porn that is about women enjoying sex in my mind, porn seems to be entirely about the use of women for a man's benefit and shows no consequences of some of the things done to the women which undoubtedly injure them physically and emotionally. It is exactly because it is meaningless that it is damaging.

I also think having more than one sexual partner is not all that natural if you consider STIs which cause infertility, birth defects, illness, occasionally death and without condoms and medicines and testing existing would cause reproductive difficulties for promiscuous people and their children meaning there is a natural mechanism which discourages promiscuity! I'm not trying to argue in favour of monogamy there either btw but I don't think the issues are all that simple and I think the "it's not natural" is used often with "for men to respect women" added on the end and is essentially a piece of rape culture.

I also don't think it is only the last 10 years there has been an influence of nasty porn, it is fairly tied to the Internet and I'm 28 and it badly affected me from around age 7, exactly how cailin explains.

There was a horrible culture of sexual bullying and rape culture in my schools and it came from magazines to start. "Sexual position of the month" and all that handmaiden stuff etc being read by primary school girls. Not being allowed them at home/coming from a house where I wasn't taught to behave as a handmaiden didn't help me without an explanation of the culture outside and in the home.

I fell foul of the "frigid" stuff and in the absence of education about rape culture from home I learned from school what was "expected". It has harmed my life so much. I was assaulted regularly by a boy in my class at high school from about age 11/12, it was so humiliating and confusing, I didn't really understand what was happening.

The rest of the class/year joined in with the bullying with all the "frigid" stuff, mocking my lack of "knowledge" etc. When I sought help from the teachers it was brushed under the carpet, eventually by year 10 I started walking out of the class but I had still worked out and internalised what was "required" of me as a woman.

offred that's dreadful. My heart goes out to you. I can't believe people can let shit like that happen. You're not on your own sadly.

Offred: Monogamy is not natural at all. It was invented by men and imposed on women in order for men to control women's fertility.

As to porn, it is not monolithic any more than newspapers are: you could hardly claim that the Sun and the Independent deliver only one kind of message in one kind of way. For some women, seeing some types of porn have been a helpful reminder that it's not just the young, slim and white who are sexual beings, for instance.

ANd it's worth remembering, even though there is plenty to criticize in present day culture, that women in the developed world are still a fuck of a lot better off than we have ever been. We can vote, drive, earn money, access contraception, report men who assault us and (sometimes, anyway) see them prosecuted and jailed. We can live alone, if we want to; have and raise children on our own, go wherever we want without needing the permission of a male owner.

That's not, of course, to ignore the things that are wrong (glass ceiling, the resurgence of religion, the worrying increase in old misogyny dressed up in junk-science clothes that Cordelia Fine calls 'neurosexism') but things could be a lot worse.

Oh and Calinn's post was excellent - I do agree that what bothers some women is the clash between the recent'Nice Girls Don't Have Clits' past and the current 'Real WOmen Take It Up THe Arse' cultures and finding out where we ourselves want to be.

Monogamy is not natural at all. It was invented by men and imposed on women in order for men to control women's fertility.

I would love to know how this works.

I wasn't arguing in favour of monogamy sgb or saying it was "natural". I said I thought things were more complicated and there are "natural" mechanisms involved which also work against promiscuity in terms of reproduction.

And I wasn't saying porn was monolithic, there are always exceptions and nuances BUT mainstream porn is not about women's enjoyment, part of my point is that porn about women is niche.

So niche I have never ever seen it, mainly because I've had porn inflicted on me by various men and some women for whom rape culture is integral to their use of porn and that actually I believe this is the mainstream porn use.

Offred: I'm not sure about that at all. Promiscuity doesn't have that much to do with whether or not a person catches an STI; plenty of monogamous people get them from non-monogamous partners, and I have had over 100 partners and never caught anything nasty. Not even crabs.

Tiredof: Basically when human beings shifted from nomadic to agricultural lifestyles and the connection between fucking and babies dawned on them, men started wanting to ensure that they were only rearing children that had come from their own sperm; to make this happen they had to stop the women they had decided were 'theirs' from getting impregnated by anyone else. They also had to convince women to 'like' this concept. Hence centuries of bullshit insistence that women don't much like sex, that they want 'love', that they are the naturally chaste gender, blah blah blah. OK that's a very simplified version, but that's how it all works.

Excellent OP, and some interesting clarification from sgb

From my side all I see, is increased sexualisation of kids, and industries aimed at making women unhappy with what they look like and giving men unrealistic impressions of what sex is like.

It's horrible, and it's got worse.

[Yes, I'll concede that in many ways women are better off than they were - occasionally being believed about rape, and a bit less victim blaming, but mostly we're a sleazier, instant-gratification society]

In terms of evolution which is the "natural" part of the argument then sti's have a lot to do with promiscuity! That's my point. I don't think the "natural" argument carries much weight anyway as I said but if you are making it then I think it needs to be considered holistically!

i know exactly what you mean OP and hoopdeloop,in my 20s I just assumed it was all enough, and now you would be thinking 'suspecting' this doesn't compare with some form of porn I wouldn't want a part of anyway, so it's like all men have become baser than I can cope with. or something like that. :-/

Thanks sgb. I thought you meant something like that.

CailinDana's post+1

I think women now tread a tightrope. The only thing worse than being a slut is being a prude and women are (i feel) manipulated between the two.

To clarify I just think "natural" is irrelevant when it comes to sexual relationships, I am not trying to argue for monogamy or demonise promiscuity. I think arguments about what is natural are normally used as a weapon in order to take away individual choice. I know to a certain degree sgb you mean to remove barriers to choice created by rape culture but I just don't think the "natural" argument holds water as it many "natural" arguments can be made, most of them used by people promoting the abuse, use and subjugation of women. I also think sometimes you come across too far the other way as assuming monogamy is an objectively poorer choice because you've decided it is an unnatural state based on it not being obviously natural IYSWIM. People should have relationships that make them happy, for some that's monogamy, for others that is not.

When we talk of porn, it's mostly the porn aimed at men, made for men, by men we think of and how degrading it seems to women. There is porn out there for women, I don't know for sure (haven't seen it as always costs money to view) but I would guess it is less degrading to women. I wonder if some of it degrades men? Anyone seen any? I suspect it is also less degrading to men generally but may well be so in some cases because, when you think of it, the people who make the porn and the people who 'star' in the porn are the ones who are most messed up and warped probably due to past negative experience with sex and relationships. It's less of a surprise then that they don't do much of the showing the kind of thing that most people would have less trouble viewing -ie sensual, loving, emotional stuff.

'Natural' does not always mean good. Sarin is a 'natural' but deadly poison. It's a null and void argument.
Getting back to media, I don't feel personally as affected by what I would generally see, I thank my lucky stars that I have not been as affected as some have. I know I'm not in a bubble, so I know I have come across men who are affected, thereby exposed to aspects of them that I have not liked. But that's when you ditch and move on, not all men love porn and some of the men that don't like it have other issues anyway that are just as great.
Age and experience bring it's sexual liberty and comfort, once you have worked out what you like and where your boundaries are you know what shit you won't put up with, which is nice :-)

I'll certainly concede that one of the problems with 'porn for women' is that it costs more and is harder to access. I could rant for hours about why that is, though again I have hopes for improvement in the future because of the way technology is freeing up the media: you can start a magazine or write a book or even make a film without corporate finance behind you; it gets easier to do so all the time.

Oh, you all came back to this!

Thanks for the continued thoughts.

Just re. porn, can I just say how utterly frustrating it is to me to see the arguments about whether or not porn is ok for women met (not just here, but frequently elsewhere) by this idea about making 'better', less misogynistic porn?

Couldn't we just stop trying to see sex only in terms of an external, visual, stimulus, and start trying to place more emphasis on developing and giving status to the kinds of imaginative and emotional interpersonal skills that would help people genuinely connect with the actual person they happen to be in bed with?

I just don't see how the answer to the commercialisation and commodification of sex is going to be in varying the 'brand' of the commodity. And I don't think it helps work out what sex means to me to have the image of someone else having sex in my head, even if it's a jolly, unexploited feminist image (which I would suspect is pretty unachievable anyway).

Completely agree Deirdre!

What Deirdre says about seeing sex only as "external, visual, stimulus" I think is what concerns me. Sex is also sensual! And sacred (well for some people).

But my concern is that these aspects of sex are being hidden ironically because pornography shows "everything". In a way that is the definition of "pornography" - nothing is private and everything is on show.

I saw a new BBC4 show about teenagers being trailered the other day. A teenage girl is laughing because she is looking at naked women on her boyfriend's phone. Her friend asks her why she is laughing, and she replies "because they are fatter than me!" Is this the level of stupidity currently acceptable?

I think we just need to understand ourselves and help our children understand what is actually going on, help them be clear and honest and respect themselves and others through all this.