If we are to discuss stereotypes that the patriarchy puts on men, then we can’t avoid one in particular. It’s everywhere from action films to male power fantasies to magazine advertisements. This is the image of the leering, tattooed macho man, muscles bulging, confidence always presented to the world. And, more often than not, there’s a pretty woman on his arm- ideally, one who caters to his every whim.
It’s the catering to his every whim bit that’s sparking the debate on pornography. While that might seem like a sudden jump, there’s always an implication that the ideal man gets all of the girls and has endless female attention on him. If one stretches that just a bit further, they naturally reach the realization that this lends some sort of entitlement to the average man’s relationships and media consumption. If a man is looking for a sex object and finds himself unable to get it himself, where else to turn than porn?
Certainly, all of us have been raised with some impression of pornography. When we were younger, though- around the age of puberty, when pornography is often discovered- chances are, we knew some very different things. The face of pornography nowadays has become increasingly violent and degrading, to the point where the porn we might have blushed hearing about is now considered ‘softcore’ if at least one person, usually the woman, isn’t being dehumanized. (Even in gay porn, there’s the expectation that the recipient of penetration has to be more feminine than the giver; someone has to take the ‘woman’s role’, even in a relationship with no women. This is a separate but equally fascinating conversation.)
People have varied viewpoints on whether porn is good or bad; I will not get into that in this article. What is irrefutable, though, is the metamorphosis of today’s pornography into something that no one can in good conscience defend. Don Hazen of the website Alternet reviews Robert Jensen’s book Getting Off. The details of how women are treated in the porn industry are disgusting, so I’ll refrain from including them here. A quote from this man’s review stood out to me, though. “Male attitudes are potentially being shaped by ugly and sometimes disgusting abuse toward women. And tens of thousands of young women are being seduced and intimidated into lives of extreme public humiliation on-screen.” His acknowledgment that male attitudes are being influenced by this is a demonstration of his taking accountability. It’s sad that that is admirable, but in a situation where men may not know something is wrong due to societal normalization of it, accountability is a powerful thing.
Robert Jensen’s own words reflect a self-aware narrative of why men have been taught they are entitled. He points out that some of the acts women are called upon to do are appealing to male viewers because they would never do them in reality unless forced. He goes further to say that the male power fantasy is being able to coerce women into pleasing them- being able to do so illustrates their own position of advantage over the woman. "Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a "real man" is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. A man looks at the world, sees what he wants and takes it." ‘Taking’ a woman is a reflection of the man’s success when held up to the magnifying glass that is the masculinity that has been fabricated for him.
When the male orgasm can only be reached by the knowledge that the porn actress is doing what they’d like their ideal woman to do- that is, submit to abuse and violence for the sake of male pleasure and power play- then we cannot deny that we have a problem. Jensen provides a good ending paragraph to this article with the following point.
"If pornography is increasingly cruel and degrading, why is it increasingly commonplace instead of more marginalized? In a society that purports to be civilized, wouldn't we expect most people to reject sexual material that becomes ever more dismissive of the humanity of women? How do we explain ... increasingly more intense ways to humiliate women sexually and the rising popularity of the films that present those activities?" Jensen concludes: "... this paradox can be resolved by recognizing that one of the assumptions is wrong. Here it is the assumption that the U.S. society routinely rejects cruelty and degradation. In fact the U.S. is a nation that has no serious objection to cruelty and degradation." If that is not a summarization of the environment that masculinity is left to foster and grow in, I’m not sure what is.
