Sarah Jenks
In:Site Reporter

Color Digital Print. Photographed by Maggie Carson Romano, a graduate student at the University of Washington studying photography. Romano has been exploring the idea of pornography in her images, specifically interested in the movement of people who make porn of themselves, and their desire to leave a record of such an intimate act on the internet. “I see that it is so available and rampant on the internet that people don’t react anymore.” Romano is trying to get the viewer to react by creating images of sexual acts without explicit imagery.

I was parting my house on a cool morning in late spring, and before I could even turn to lock the door, I was greeted by the sight of two randy sparrows indulging in some breakfast sex on the fence post. It seems even the birds and the bees are here to remind you that sex is everywhere. According to social theorist Jean Baudrillard, author of Seduction: “Nothing is less certain today than sex, behind the liberation of its discourse. And nothing today is less certain than desire, behind the proliferation of its images.”

But, just because images of sex are certainly everywhere, does not mean they are certainly there for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

“It’s a valid and enjoyable form of entertainment.”

“I think it’s disgusting. I think its extremely degrading towards women, also to men, but especially to women.”

It’s no query to determine which of the above opinions on pornography is by a female, Nari Kalafian and which is that of a male, Zack Bennett. But even these binary perspectives of pornography have been exhausted to the point of cliché.

This is not to invalidate either perspective. Yes, much of the pornography available is degrading towards women, with increasing violence, male domination and more crude versions of taglines “girl takes it from behind”.  But even as a feminist I’m not rearing to join the anti-porn picket lines, in fact I want just the opposite. I want more.

The problem with visual depictions of sex is not that it exists; it’s whom it exists for.
“I feel like its not made for women oftentimes,” said Melia Preedy. This was the general perspective held by the men and women interviewed. Preedy added: “I don’t understand why the porn stars are hot and the men are not. ” Those interviewed also cited that the point of view, determined by both the camera angle and types of sexual acts, tends to be that of the man.

According to Family Safe Media, an aggregator of statistics on pornography, only a third of sex site visitors are women. Of those female visitors, 70 percent try to keep their cyber activities clandestine. This was apparent even when I was interviewing women about their thoughts on pornography, as the preface “well I don’t really know, since I don’t watch it” was all too common.

In addition to viewership being largely for men, and by men, the production is also male dominated. According to the same aggregate statistics, other than Christine Hefner of Playboy Enterprises, the CEO’s of the major corporate companies for production of adult-oriented content are all male.

This creates a number of dangerous dynamics: Firstly, when men create the majority of the sex-based content available, the only exposure to sexuality and perspective of sex we are inundated with, is that of a male. For women who do engage in watching pornography, they shape their own sense of sexuality around an outlet that tries to feed the male sexual appetite. Hence, female sexuality becomes about what men desire from them, rather than what they desire from sex.

By this standard, “Freud was right: there is but one sexuality, one libido- and it is masculine. Sexuality has a strong, discriminative structure centered on the phallus, castration the Name-of the-Father, and repression. There is none other,” according to Baudrillard.

Secondly, the lack of women’s pornography reinforces lingering Victorian assumptions that women’s sexual hunger is not as great, or requiring of visual satiation. In this case, defining female sexuality is based around being less sexual.

Thirdly, there is the façade of female sexual empowerment in pornography. I call it a façade because women are the participants in the act, not the creators of the production. Porn stars have the illusion of seductive power, but they are actors, and the sexual scripts they follow are out of their control.

Finally, it condenses male sexuality into stringent categories of interest, while simultaneously perpetuating stereotypes that men should be the ones in control. Meanwhile, it gives them no insight to what real women actually do want from sex. Since watching porn is an inevitable educator of bedroom behavior or expectations, it becomes detrimental for all parties.

This  conundrum can be visualized tangibly in the organization of a sex store, Castles, located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. Essentially, the store may as well been color-coded shades of pink and blue by its sharp divide: the products that encourage one to partake in sex; lacey lingerie and pink or purple sex toys, is there for women. Meanwhile the elements that are directed at the viewing of sex; DVD’s and magazines, lined by images of busty blondes, is there for men. As a result, women are encouraged to be the participants in sex acts, while men are the directors and consumers of that sexuality.

Watching sex isn’t the issue; it’s only watching sex that men desire. It’s identifying your sexuality through a medium with such a narrow scope. And it’s assuming that women should be participants but not controllers of porn.

“Let’s have women behind the camera half the time, showing women’s interests half the time,” said Cindy Simmons, a communications professor at the University of Washington who was on the “fringes” of anti-porn activism during her college years.  “All are better off if we have equality in how we represent sex in the media”

HBO series Sex and the City was one of the first shows to break these boundaries, opening up female depictions of sex. However, the show has a purpose based around discussion, and only goes so far in producing content for the purpose of female arousal.

Censorship is not the answer, diversification is. Yes, that means more porn. Women should not be just the actors in porn; they need to be the creators. And they should not be making porn for men, but for women.

As for the time being, single women only have the Seattle rain to count on getting them wet.

Image 1: Color Digital Print by Maggie Carson Romano. Romano is using pinhole cameras to take long exposures of an entire sexual act, and recording it on a single image. She is passing out the pinhole cameras to couples that volunteered to take part in the project. “It is a pornographic act, but the graphic image of the act is being erased in the way it’s recorded.”

Image 2: Stereoscope Black and White Film by Maggie Carson Romano. Here Romano is exposing the entire sex act on one negative, using a pinhole camera.  The split image gives the illusion of three-dimensional space when viewed through special glasses.