Carolyn Moynihan at Mercatornet previews of a feminist’s new book.
A British feminist is sounding the alarm about the effects on teenagers of easy access to pornography, saying that a skewed view of sex is becoming the norm in society and the idea of intimacy is dying.
Natasha Walter tackles this subject in a book, Living Dolls, due to be published early in February, which looks at the resurgence of sexism in contemporary culture.
Could a feminist be regretting the sexual revolution? Not a chance. Walter only regrets that the women who tried to emulate the wanton behavior of bad boys during the last few decades haven’t achieved ‘equality’. She thinks children’s ‘voyeuristic’ view of sex is bad for women because:
“This means that men are still encouraged, through most pornographic materials, to see women as objects, and women are still encouraged much of the time to concentrate on their sexual allure rather than their imagination or pleasure. No wonder we have seen the rise of the idea that erotic experience will necessarily involve, for women, a performance in which they will be judged visually.”
Moynihan takes issue with Walter’s new twist on the old feminist whine:
The fact that children are being introduced to “erotic relationships” of any sort … does not enter into Walter’s calculation of harm. And although she looks at the effects on adult relationships, including marriage, she makes no reference to the fundamental problem of cutting sex loose from marriage and how this has fostered uncommitted, self-interested and exploitive sex.
And so, although she distances herself from feminists who regard pornography as normal and [who] argue “that the way forward really rests on creating more opportunities for women in pornography,” Walter only rejects porn that produces or increases “inequalities” between men and women.
Walter says we must have a public debate on this issue. My contribution is this: If it’s true intimacy and lasting relationships we want, forget feminism and go to the source of the problems in male-female relationships: the divorce of marriage from children, and the consequent divorce of sex from marriage.
Unfortunately, it’s the same debate we had with feminists for the last 40 years.
A lot of feminists are anti porn, as most porn objectifies women. A lot of feminists are pro-porn, or have little to no problem with the concept of porn as both a freedom of speech/ expression of sexuality.
But the main point is you’re trying to blame feminism for bad, exploitive porn. Instead continuing to fight with feminists, why not put aside certain differences to obtain common goals. Both feminists and the collective you of this blog are against women being seen solely as sex objects. Pornography is so saturated in our society because sex sells and the media exploits it. Instead of encouraging people to be their individual selves, our society packages what “should” be normal for everyone sexually through porn, going to old stand-bys of sexism.
But instead of fighting sexism and media saturation of unhealthy sexuality, let’s blame feminists. That’s a lot easier after all.