Tristan Taormino

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I was raised by a mother who was a feminist writer/theorist.  She basically deined feminism for me as the ability (and the choice) to look at the world through the lens of how women live in it; to analyze issues in terms of how they affect women; to try to change the world to make it a better place for women (keeping in mind that women may or may not be daughters, wives, and mothers of men). 

When I was a snotty teenager, I once yelled "fuck you!" at her during a fight, and she sat down with me and explained that I was being sexist, because "fuck" was a word invented by men to describe what they do to women.  On the other hand, she let me use the word "fuck" once in a game of scrabble, saying it was a perfectly good Germanic-rooted word used to describe the sex act.  So, yes, feminism (like Marxism and other isms) is an uncharted realm, filled with potential contradictions and subject to personal and self-serving interpretations.

Two points about feminism and porn.  The subjects of porn are often (as likely to be?) male.  Is a picture of a guy taking it up the ass the same as a girl taking it up the ass?  In a sense,  the guy is somehow being portrayed as female; in a certain way these pictures still put down women.  But the male subjects are commodified as much as women.  As with women, this affects the expectations of how even men outside the porn realm should look.  A shaved chest and underarms (presumably a gay esthetic) seems to be the standard for male actors in chick flicks (kind of a turnoff imho).So gay male porn demeans both men and women, while straight porn demeans only women.

The second point, is that the consumers of porn, whether gay or straight, are generally believed to be overwhelmingly male.  Porn is never going to disappear, so a feminist stance could be to try to equalize the consumption of porn; to encourage women to become equal consumers.  I think this is probably Taormino's stance, and I think it's a defensible viewpoint.  As a woman, I'm not indifferent to porn, though I think it's probably rare for a woman to become as obsessed with and dependent on porn as many men appear to be.

In short, Taormino in particular strikes me as being a feminist, though most porn industry women are presumably no more or no less feminist than the average woman and are strictly in it for the paycheck).  Regardless of the explicitness of TRP's sex scenes, I don't think his intention in writing them was specifically to induce orgasms in his readers.  Maybe that's ultimately the difference between erotica and porn:  the first is meant to be arousing, the latter is meant to cause orgasm.


Laura 

-----Original Message-----
>From: Bryan Snyder <wilsonistrey at gmail.com>
>Sent: May 21, 2007 12:13 PM
>To: 'davemarc' <davemarc at panix.com>, 'Pynchlist' <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: RE: Tristan Taormino
>
>First off, a great conversation with some people who, after all the
>P-content, I grew to respect intellectually and it was nice to be involved
>in a conversation not quite P-related even though I pretty much had my ass
>handed to me here in terms of factual evidence... lol.  My ending thoughts
>on this whole thing:
>
>Yeah - I pigeonholed her real quick and probably really unfairly, but I have
>a pretty hard line stance towards that whole prostitution/pornography
>thing... extending towards the advertising sectors and then extending to MTV
>@ 3 pm etc... maybe it's good for society but I tend to disagree.  Maybe
>it's all me... I always thought that I was pretty healthy sexually.. I'm
>pretty open (behind closed doors in the bedroom) to most things sexual.  I
>was shocked to see that I came off very prudish and almost like... a
>zany-right-winger (I re-read my posts)... very shocked.  I had to seriously
>sit and think about this like all weekend.
>
>I came to the conclusion that I'm ok with anything that one wishes to do
>that doesn't harm someone who is not consenting, which would logically mean
>I'm ok with all porn.  So I am... by nature of the first statement you know.
>I am privately as well... if a girl wants something I think is odd and I
>like her... I comply, no problem.  
>
>So what was my problem??  Obviously a little over defensive of TRP, which is
>totally laughable (lol @ self) since he wasn't being attacked.  
>
>First, I really only know porn as an internet thing.  I never had the porn
>in a VHS (I'm 27) that my older brother (don't have one) found at his
>friends house.  So to me, porn is something that can be accessed
>immediately, regularly and for free.  I think that matters to rest of my
>thoughts. 
>
>I think my problem is the porn creep and that, to no fault of porn, the
>creeping facilitates the "empty sexual experience" and creates (what I
>perceive as) a large population of fat, greasy, "sweat panted" men ignoring
>real women (and what it takes to experience real women sexually, what a man
>has to give out to ... um... get in) for the girls who will "do anything"
>which more often than not means "do anything" for the anonymous "him" (the
>viewer, the male in the shoot, the camera, etc).  I also think (read:
>"know") that the porn creep has infused itself with advertising (which
>clearly works, don't get me wrong... and if it sells it must be used... I
>get it) and that whole "sex-sells" approach has been pushed into music,
>books, TV, painting, photography, film etc...  because the creators,
>publishers and distributors of all that art still need it to sell.
>
>Now - all the women in films are not allowed to look normal  (I'm talking
>major films that hordes of impressionable teenagers run to witness every
>weekend night) and on the other extreme if someone wants to vicariously live
>through their rape fantasy... they can find that material in a matter of
>seconds (literally).
>
>While porn per se (and I hope and pray I used 'per se' correctly) is not
>anything that is bad, or morally wrong in my opinion but I think the idea
>that the reverberations are harmful is pretty right on, no matter where your
>political mind may lean. 
>
>I will still express that there exists an invisible, wide and subjectively
>blurry line where pornography is either tasteful or not... I mean, if one
>finds a rape fantasy tasteful because it is not real... does the fact the
>rape fantasy is acted and scripted make this person who has a desire to see
>it any more tolerable?  My opinion is pretty clear.
>
>But a great discussion that really made me do some self-searching on the
>issue... I was very confused as to what my problem was and regardless of
>collective agreement here, I'm happy to at least made sense of it for
>myself.
>
>Take care,
>B
>
>PS - I'm pretty liberal politically, socially and economically (both
>personal and social... lol) just in case anyone thought I was a bible
>thumper.  Are there any bible thumpers (no offense) on the P-List??  Their
>take on some stuff would be very interesting indeed.
>