Pornography. It's not a pretty word for something of which many partake. Despite many efforts of right-wing Christendom to squash the industry, it thrives. I believe this is, in part, due to the tabooed status sexuality has in our society, and the potential for secrecy in a sex-life steeped in pornography. But that is not the topic of this blog.
My main beef with porn, to be honest, is not whether it's "moral" or what have you; my central issue is the way it portrays women. Women are portrayed as squealing, moaning, passive idiots who will enjoy, well, everything men do to them. And let's not even get into the squeaking, bosom-heaving "lesbians" tearing through the porn market with their french-tipped nails (Come on, can you imagine getting one of those in your V-hole? It would be like fucking Edward Scissorhands.), or the abundance of waxed vajayjays that look prepubescent and serve to demonize pubic hair amongst heterosexual males. Women are "taken," "had," or "fucked." Women do not take, have, or fuck men. Not in porn. And a recent development in the kinky porn industry serves to reinforce this idea. Regard this:
http://jezebel.com/5731652/the-real-problem-with-a-hymen-cam
and this:
http://business.avn.com/articles/technology/Kink-com-To-Stream-Deflowering-of-Young-Virgin-Live-on-the-Internet-421228.html
The articles detail a live-streaming "event" in which a pornstar, who has heretofore not engaged in vaginal sex, will be ritually "de-flowered" (because we're all born with fucking bright-ass red roses in our vaginas) in front of a live, web-streaming audience. I have almost no issues with Nicki Blue, or her perception of virginity. She can choose to perceive her own V-card the way she wants to, and she can choose to "lose" it the way she wants (assuming we lose anything the first time we have vaginal sex). Because it's hers, part of her body.
But...
I reject the structure of the "ritual." Prior to the ritual's beginning, there will be a so-called "kink.com official hymen-cam" inserted into her vagina to validate the presence of a hymen. Nevermind that a hymen is a thin membrane that can be broken any number of ways throughout a woman's life and sometimes does not even grow. Three men are set to participate. Nicki Blue will be immobilized, BDSM style. The "viewers" will vote on which man's penis is to complete the "death stroke" into her rose-tipped orifice, and then the other two men will "join in" and "make her air tight," whatever the fuck that means.
This is insane. There are places in this world where women are executed if they don't bleed on their wedding sheets. To have a ceremonial, public "deflowering ritual" in which the virginity must be medically confirmed in the United States for the purpose of entertainment, masturbatory stimulation, and making bank is an insult to the women who are being killed for their lacking hymens all around the world, who have been killed in the religious history of the majority of US citizens (think: Old Testament). Not only that, but there are US citizens who have come here to escape places where "deflowered" women are executed. It's like going to a pub in Ireland and ordering an Irish Car Bomb.
It also reaffirms and symbolically plays out an idea that many women have been trying to eliminate from people's heads: that virginity is something that is to be taken from women and not given to men, that women do not control their own sexuality. Sure, one could argue that through her consent/incitement of this display she is giving her virginity to whatever man the viewers choose and thereby controlling her own sexuality. However, the fact that she is not choosing the man herself is a strike against that idea. In addition, to somebody who does not have a thorough understanding of BDSM dynamics and the nature of consent in the BDSM world, this scene will seem to condone violence and the ritualistic rape of virgins.
It is also possible to see this as the sort of "deep play" that Clifford Geertz talks about in his essay of the same title. (http://rfrost.people.si.umich.edu/courses/MatCult/content/Geertz.pdf) The idea that Geertz outlines is that many of the performances in society are done as a reflection of societal circumstances which serves to dissipate tension between neighbors within the healthy, "not real" parameters of a game. But this is a far cry from neighbors fighting their roosters in order to symbolically play out their own rivalries and thereby avoid village war. The "deflowering" of Nicki Blue is intended to be real, to be viewed as real, and not as a performance.
Since I also have scholarly background in contemporary art, I may as well share my art-critic brain's two cents. If the proceeds of the "event" were going to be given to, perhaps, V-Day or another foundation promoting the cessation of violence against women and girls or sex-positivity in places where the presence of virginity is a life-or-death matter, then I could see it as a piece of performance art rejecting mysogyny by making a statement about it. Sort of. Even with that idea, the definition of this performance as "art" is sorely tried. The only way this would make it into a gallery was if it was fake, a dance, or some other artistic form which was meant to allude to human sexual behavior. In other words, there would be no erect penises, no petetration, no orgasms, and, most importantly, no actual virginity being given or taken. Therefore, it wouldn't be the Kink.com Streaming Public Virginity Loss event of the millenium that is set to take place this month.
This "performance event" is pornography that is being given too much media attention in a world that is already fucked up for women and their vaginas. Do we really need such blatantly incendiary and backwards shit happening in the porn industry? I should say not. In my opinion, this is one BIG step back for the allegedly sex-positive and pro-feminist porn industry.
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