In contemporary 'mainstream' and 'underground' porn, with very minor exceptions, the represented sexual act is over whenthe male actorsachieve visible orgasm, usually onto the body of the female, the predominant choices being the buttocks, breasts, face, or the three orifices mouth, anus and vagina. Thus the porn scenario begins with one or more males that are sexually aroused or are in the process of sexual arousal, and end with their genital orgasms, the female/s being the tools for achieving that gratification. Fromthis perspective, contemporary mainstream porn indeed does represent a sort of compressed version of patriarchal domination/use of females by males. It is a reflection of the classical patriarchal power relations, in which female humans are used(owned, loaned, exchanged)by male humans as tools for the achievement of certain goals. A sublimated homosexuality, in which "labor, products, including the motherearth were objects of exchange between men.
...homosexuality was the basis of the verypossibilityof the sociocultural."
Here is as good as any a place to ask the following:
if porn, hard and soft, is a tool for conditioningof the populace into 'harmful
and wrong' practices, and this conditioning is to be eliminated, what will follow? I think that
as the existinghumans will be left to their own devices, the vacuum from porn will be filled
bythe otherbranches of the patriarchate. Thus not only one sourceof conditioning must be
eliminated, but another source must be put in it's place, to generate 'good' information, about
empathy, caring, mutual self - respect, etc.
This begs various moral issues, including 'how do
we decide who is right and what is good', but quite apart fromthose, we must askthe
following question:
if social and individual character is formedby conditioning from sources
like films, books, plays and music - how come in fascist, communists, Muslim and similar
'clean' and/or 'traditional' societies, where only 'good' informationis available and
'bad' information is forbidden, including porn - the resident humans performon regular basis
hideous and pathetic deeds quite beyond the levelsof crueltyand hypocrisygenerated in the
societies of thefree world,where 'bad' informationis not forbidden?
My answeris porn is a reflection of the Deep, which exists beyond the worldofbehaviorists, and beyond the view
of humans reacting like inanimate matter to specific stimulus. Everyindividual
has a history, and therefore manylayers of the personality, each
containing scars whichhave not healed, but Gail Dines, Robert Jensen, and Ann Russo, 'Pornography: the Production
and Consumption of Inequality', Routledge 199822 Luce Irigarai, 'Ce sexe qui n'en est pas un' p168
(Bulgarian edition)around which protective mental tissue has formed. But in this metaphor,
behind the protective tissue the wounds are enflamed, theykeep the whole organism poisoned
permanently, and eachof this type of
humans must resort to ingenious tricks and magical medicines to keep
from completed collapse.
Schizophrenics, psychotics, hysterics, all these have not succeeded
in this quest. Everyone else, who can
functionin some way socially- has achieved some sort
of working, oftenneurotic,balance. Neurosis is a standard condition in the patriarchy:
"neuroses aresociallyproduced on a mass scale", and
are "theresults of a home atmosphere that is patriarchal and sexually suppressive".
Wilhelm Reich names anddescribes the basic character types into which the neurotic psyche
freezes. A more thorough investigation would lead perhaps to a clear
summaryof the types of mainstream and underground pornography, which
are used by corresponding types of social and individual characters.
The visible patterns in the porn being sold are reactions to the market.
These reactions of course are not mechanical, automatic reactions that are found in
nature, but are reactions of humans - reactions which are formed by the emotional
and mental structures of the humans - the character structures. Fromthis point of view, the visible shapes ofporn are the results of
a combinationof the influences of the character structures of the consumers, the directors, and the actors. What the
consumer wants the porn industry provides. But why does the consumer desire that which
is being provided? Is it due to the influence of previous porn? Of the influence of patriarchal information currents? Or is it because
the offered pornreflects some basic individual desires? To provide answers, we must investigate further let us concentrate
onthe properties of 'porn', which separate it from 'sex', and also the properties of 'using porn
for masturbation selfgratification' as different from those of 'participation in a real time sexual act with a partner'.