Trigger warning: This article discusses sexual assault and rape.
No one wants to talk about porn. From a young age, we are shamed and taught that masturbation is dirty and taboo, so by extension the entire industry that facilitates our self-pleasure is hard to talk about. However, when we ignore society's seemingly innocuous masturbatory rituals, we also ignore the consequences that derive from what pornography teaches us.
Human rights violations exist in pornography. Pornography not only normalizes sexual violence against women, but can also cause people who were not initially predisposed to sexual violence to become sexually violent.
I would like to add a disclaimer; in this article, I will only focus on heterosexual and cisgender pornography often depicting mostly white actors. Pornography itself is as diverse as the human sexual appetite, and unfortunately, the research that has been conducted mostly focuses on this type of pornography. While the conclusions I reach may also be true of other types of pornography, I cannot claim to make the same conclusions about gender and sexuality for non-cis-hetero or white communities.
As University of Michigan law professor CatharineMacKinnon explains, "Pornography is the largest form of sex education in this country. It's how men learn about their own bodies ... The subordination of women is what they are learning to sexualize ... People who support pornography minimize or are ignorant of the impact." In a lot of ways, this is true. Pornography is how a lot of people learn about sex, and it serves as a gateway for many people's primary sexual experiences. The average person is first exposed to Internet pornography in their early teens, and about 80 percent of 15-17 year olds have seen hard-core sexual images.
Adolescents learn more about sex through pornography than they do from their parents or in schools, and this is a problem. Most porn creates unrealistic expectations about the human sexual experience, especially for heterosexual cisgender women, though this phenomenon certainly exists with cisgender men and the trans, intersex and queer communities. The sex we see in pornography becomes normalized for us, and unrealistic expectations are created for men and women in the bedroom about the acts we should or should not be performing, and about what our bodies should or should not look like. This also includes what sexual acts are accepted and consensual.
A common plot of some porn follows this model: Man approaches woman looking for sexual intercourse, woman rejects his advances, man forces himself on the woman, woman ends up enjoying the intercourse.
When breaking it down so simply, we recognize this as a glorified and unrealistic depiction of rape. Any time a woman denies consent and is forced into sexual acts through one way or another, it is considered sexual assault. However, the porn teaches us that "it's okay that she didn't give me consent, because, in reality, she wants it." Adolescents who are learning about sexual experiences through pornography are learning that "no" doesn't mean "no," and in fact, with persistence and physical aggression, "no" will usually mean "yes."
When I initially began researching the effects of pornography on violence against women, I was doubtful that the type of pornography outlined above could actually affect our perception of consent. In order to explore this phenomenon, I sent a sample of this porn, in addition to a poll, to my college-aged peers both on and off campus asking them to tell me what happened in the porn. Only two of the 30 responses would call it rape, though all recognized it was non-consensual and an unrealistic representation of what would actually happen. We must call this depiction of sex rape and recognize it as such. This type of pornography teaches false realities of rape and therefore normalizes sexual violence against women.
Furthermore, violent and degrading porn depicting non-consensual sex not only promotes and normalizes sexual violence, but can also cause sexual violence. Section 5.2.1 of The Meese Report explains that people who watch violent and degrading pornography perceive victims of rape and sexual assault as "more responsible for the assault, as having suffered less injury, and as having been less degraded as a result of the experience. Similarly, people with a substantial exposure to violent pornography are likely to see the rapist or other sexual offender as less responsible for the act and as deserving of less stringent punishment." The Meese Report explains that violent, degrading and non-consensual pornography normalizes rape culture.
People who are not initially predisposed to sexual violence are more likely to become sexually violent after they watch this type of pornography. Dr. Diane E. H. Russell explains the phenomenon using the term "Masturbatory Conditioning." After watching a violent and degrading film and masturbating to it, people become classically conditioned to become aroused to a rape stimulus, making people who were not previously predisposed to rape aroused by these images. When we allow this type of pornography to exist, we are promoting and normalizing sexual violence in our society.
David Cameron, Prime Minister of England, has proposed a solution. England, which has a law that bans publishing images of rape, simulated or not, will edit the law in order to criminalize the ownership of rape porn, which could be punishable by three years in jail, much like the law as it exists in Scotland. Cameron has been targeting websites that have this type of pornography, saying, "These images normalize sexual violence against women - and they are quite simply poisonous to the young people who see them." Cameron, however, has received criticism for this regulation and law because it is a form of censorship.
Pornography can be immensely empowering for all people; it provides people with a sexual outlet and a means by which to experience solo sexual gratification. However, we need to address the consequences that arise from pornography and the lack of reality in pornography. However, how much do we really know about pornography? In reality, the research that exists is limited, partially because no one wants to talk about masturbation and pornography. If we do not generate conversation about the subject, we will allow pornography to produce and promote an unacceptable rape culture in our society.
Allyson Blackburn is a freshman who has not declared a major. She can be reached at Allyson.Blackburn@tufts.edu.
