Elf Sternberg

I'm trying to parse this sentence, in an article about The Feminist Porn Awards:

The vast majority of explicit material is made for a male audience; at best, it is degrading, and at worst it is often physically harmful to the women featured in it.

I'm trying to figure out what the writer is saying here. Is she saying, "The vast majority of explicit material is degrading to women"? Or is she saying, "Explicit material made for a male audience is, at its best, degrading to women"?

If it's the first, I can see how someone could make that argument. It's an arguable position. I think it shows a deep misunderstanding of the marketplace of porn, and what porn is, who makes it, and who consumes it.

But it seems to me that she's making the second, which I would argue is not only not true, but it's deliberately and viciously androphobic. The assumption is that male pornography consumers (and creators) can only be expected to be degraders of women, and nothing more.

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I also find the rest of the article degrading, as a man. The idea that "'depicting a woman thrust up against a nightclub wall by a man and [redacted] hard' is degrading" is degrading. I wouldn't mind being thrust up against a nightclub wall and [redacted] hard myself, by either a hot man or a hot woman. It's not the act, it's matters of consent and context.

"Sex is the sewer drain of a healthy body, sir. Any use of the sexual act other than procreation is a waste of vital energy. Wasted seeds are wasted life. Masturbation is the silent killer of the night." Dr. John Harvey Kellogg Well, okay, that's the quote from TC Boyle's novelization of Kellogg's life, but apparently all of these are taken from Kellogg's book Plain Facts for Young and Old.

I was reminded of Kellogg and his obsession this morning, when several sources, most notably Violet Blue, drew my attention to probably the most wrong-headed and ill-informed article about the online kink community ever written: ABC News' Susan James's Therapists Say Kinky Sex Is on the Rise.

It starts out with the worst definition, a "paraphilia" is a "socially unacceptable sexual practice," and then contrasts that with "teleoiphiles." First, the word paraphilia is simply wrong here; it implies that kink is a "requirement," not a flavoring or recreational extra. Susan James claims that if you like kink, you can't have it any other way.

But worse, she contrasts "paraphilia" with "teleoiphilia." Have you ever heard the word "teleoiphilia?" I did, when I was considering becoming a psych major many years ago. It is not an antonym for "paraphilia." It's an antonym for "pedophilia." Her first on-topic paragraph starts by tarring all kinky people with the broad brush of accusation: We're not just weird, we're dangerous, we haven't gotten the message about what's normal or we don't care about what's normal, we'll be inappropriate all the time so you had better watch out for your children.

James's reportage is utterly incompetent, designed to be sensationalistic. She quotes from a "sexpert," Susan Quilliam, who apparently did the current revision of The Joy and Sex, (My opinion on the previous work is not a kind one, and given what little she's allowed in this column, I doubt I'll find the third edition any more enlightening. Go buy The Guide To Getting It On instead) and writes: Creating a "safe" arena for experimentation is critical, she said, and couples should have special words, should they be uncomfortable, to call for "an immediate halt to the activity." Huh. That never occurred to us before. Thanks, "sexpert." If only there was a word for that, and if only we'd been using it twenty years ago.

James's pet sexpert makes irresponsible connections, and James eats them up uncritically. Did you know, for example, that you might start off a swinger and end up a cannibal? It's true! You start out with one perversion and, according to Quilliam, you'll end up at "one of the fastest growing perversions on the Internet — cannibalism." Quilliam, meet Dolcett. Meet fantasy.

Even worse, she talks to a documentarian of the kink scene, but someone who's not kinky himself apparently, and takes this quote from him:

After the pain threshold is crossed, they describe a type of ecstasy called 'flying." It is no longer painful and gives an entirely sexual as well as psychological, transcendent place. Flying is bigger than any drug.

Okay, anyone who's ever read any of my flogging stories knows damn well that I've described the "pushed past pain" point several times, both as a top and a bottom, and describing it as drug-like both demeans it and sensationilizes it. This is language chosen to arouse the anti-sex forces, to legitimize the concept of "erototoxins," and to legislate against us.

The stupid, it just irritates. She goes from singular, criminal examples (like the Hans Miewes case) to a general "It's everywhere! On the Internet! It's not just bad for children! It'll get you! Run for your lives! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" All psychologists know that paraphilia are the result of childhood trauma. And sado-masochism [sic-- what's wrong with her dictionary, anyway?] is never fantasy or light, and eventually your dominatrix will toss you on a spit and roast you alive.

And she makes the claim that once you've tried something kinky you can never have "normal" sex. Because, you know, people who love hot sauce can't stand ice cream or a decent burger without one, right? I'm reminded of Kellogg again, and his obsession with keeping "stimulating" foods away from teenagers because, so his logic went, if they were stimulated in one thing they might become stimulated in others, and that would lead to the victim "dying by his own hand," as Kellogg tried to make wit.

The entire article makes sex out to be this Big Scary Thing, and kinky people are playing with the Big Scary Thing in Dangerous Ways, and maybe They Must Be Stopped.

Grrr. Hulk Smash.