On the Air

I was in the car with my dad today, listening to the radio, when a local NPR show called Radio Boston brought up a topic that caught my attention. The discussion was about pornography. A woman had caught her boyfriend, typically loving and respectful, watching aggressive, violent porn. The questions the show raised included "Should the woman be concerned?" "How should it affect their relationship?" and "Can fantasy and reality be separated?" It raised a very distinct and separate question for me: What about the porn itself? Is it ok?

From the passenger seat, I launched into a very animated expression of my thoughts on the subject. Suddenly, I stopped. The host was rattling off a telephone number where people could call in and contribute to the conversation. I grabbed my phone, typed in the number and took a deep breath while it rang and rang. An operator picked up and asked me my name. Emma. Where was I? Boston. "Yes," she said patiently, "Where in Boston?" I looked frantically at my dad. I had no clue where we were. My parents moved here after I started school in the fall. I didn't know I could get more specific than 'Boston.'

"Dad! Where in Boston are we?" My heart was pounding in my eyeballs. "South Boston," he told me.

"Um, I'm in the South Boston," I relayed to the operator, totally flustered. She asked me to summarize in a few sentences what I wanted to contribute. I hit the bullet points:

-19 year old feminist

-culture encourages acceptance of everyone's differences

-this is good but makes us passive to "sexual tastes" that encourage violence and unhealthy perspectives concerning women.

To my surprise/terror, they patched me through. I was on the radio, being a feminist IN FRONT OF MORE PEOPLE THAN JUST MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS.

(Here's a recording of the segment)

When I was done talking, they took a call from another Bostonian, a man who viewed violent/aggressive porn as totally ok as long as it was consensual (duh) because men have so much trouble being monogamous and porn acts as a pressure release valve in their relationships.

Gag.

I wanted to fire back and tell him sarcastically how glad I was that degraded and abused women could help him satisfy his all-powerful, all-important Male Sexual Appetite. I wanted to scream at him: "If you need offensive porn to stick around in real life and be in a relationship, maybe we don't want you in our relationships." But it was too late. I was off the air.

I sat in the car, sweating a mixture of of terror, pride, and regret. I felt like I had been too diplomatic. I was so scared I would step on toes that I didn't get to the heart of the issue like I'd wanted to. Instead, I sort of danced around my point like I wasn't exactly sure what I thought about it, like it had all just occurred to me.

In reality, I had thought a lot about this issue and knew exactly what I believed.

When we got home, I went to the radio station's website to see exactly what program I had been on. It was all a bit of a blur. Still mad as hell at myself for not being as articulate as I had hoped, I decided to post a comment on the segment's page, detailing exactly how I felt and what I would have said had my brain been full of more coherent things to say and less adrenaline. This is what I wrote:

There is a level of taboo that both keeps women from admitting they watch porn AND allows their degradation and abuse in porn to be acceptable. The bottom line seems to be "If it turns a man on, it's acceptable." 1. There's no REAL discussion about what turns a woman on and 2. What validity is there in an argument that uses sexual release as a justification for demeaning, violent behavior? Imagine the same argument but replace race as the issue: if people got some kind of release from watching people of a certain ethnicity being treated with brutality, it would be seen as evil, wrong, and unacceptable. When women are the victims in question, it's simply seen as "sexual taste." I personally think a little "sexual boredom" is something people can deal with if the alternative is indulging an industry that exploits women and promotes violent behavior towards them.

The porn industry and the way that it has exploded into our lives via the internet presents a very dangerous problem. Boys are being raised on this stuff, expecting real-life women to be as hairless, noisy, and eager to be tied up and abused as the ones they see online. I know that the violent acts in most aggressive porn are consensual, but that is not the issue. If they aren't there is no question about how wrong they are. The issue is the message that that kind of exposure sends: one of domination and subservience and worst of all, enjoying it. I understand that some people have preferences that lead them in this direction, but that does not justify perpetuating an over-sexualized, obedient image of women.
I'm a freshman in college and I've talked to guys my age. They watch porn young. 11 years old seems to be a fairly average age. As they grow into sexual maturity, this is what they learn. This is their debut into their sexual lives. The "fantasy" is the first thing they know. Isn't that bound to affect the way they see women, sexually and overall?
And not to mention the fact that there is very little fuss made about how women mature sexually. That seems to sit permanently on the back burner.
Imagine the roles reversed for a moment: young girls, teenagers, women of all ages indulging in male-massochistic porn, male-directed domination and violence because it turns them on. If fact, watching it is encouraged to relieve female sexual boredom. Just to say something like that in the context of our culture sounds funny and unnatural. Obviously the scales are not balanced. And seeing as it would take far more effort to raise consciousness about the inattention paid to female sexual desire and diversity in women's sexual preferences, I say we just really think about the impact that violent porn can have a start discouraging it.
We (hopefully) teach our kids that violence is wrong. Every parent/teacher/lawmaker knows that when there is an exception to a rule, that rule is weakened, less important. Porn and male sexual gratification are some exceptions to the violence rule. We are essentially saying "Being violent is wrong. Being abusive is wrong. Binding and gagging someone to the point of helplessness is wrong. Unless it turns you on. Then, go right ahead."

I'm so glad I called in, but I'm a little bit (a LOT bit) disturbed, haunted in fact, by the passive way I behaved on the show. I'm not a wishy-washy gal when it comes to these issues. But as soon as I realized that there are people out there that wouldn't agree with me, people that would write me off as a "feminist" (with the bad word connotation it has revoltingly and unbelievably accrued) and discount what I was saying, I FREAKED OUT. That was scary as hell. Nobody argues with me on my own blog! So what did I do? I clicked right into the place where male chauvinists and sexists want me to stay, sounding noncommittal and diplomatic and, worst of all, unsure. All I can think of now is an issue many feminists (with the good, proud, brave connotation) have addressed: the fact that some women in power positions phrase their instructions and opinions as questions, rising in pitch at the end, to make sure they don't sound too bossy or bitchy. I'm smarter than that. But just listen to the recording of the segment! Listen to me dance around what I actually want to say! God forbid I offend anybody! Lord knows I've seen and heard enough offensive stuff. If our culture can dish it out, it should certainly be able to take it! At the end of the day, if I'm not disagreeing with somebody, I'm not doing my job. That's why I posted on the segment's page. That's why I'm posting this. Gotta love second chances.

I may not have been as eloquent as I would have liked to have been, but I'm damn proud of myself for getting on the air about this. And if you ever want to experience the magic of instantaneous pit stains, call into a radio show.

-E

(from "the South Boston")