7 Ways to Create a Sex-Positive Critique of Porn

One of the most common responses to the anti-porn critiques of pornography is that they’re sex-negative and all too often, that ends up creating a “no we’re not/yes you are” argument. And yet, whenever I read the anti-porn side of things, I’m struck by how often sex-negativity is woven into their claims, although in all fairness, that’s not always the case.

I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that bothered me by the way that Gail Dines keeps talking about gagfactor.com, a website that focuses on men facefucking women. And then it hit me- there are two parts to it. First, Dines is trying to foment a moral panic. And second, she  simply doesn’t understand sex.

I can explain the first point better if I start with the second one. As someone who has been studying sex in all its wide and varied forms for over 20 years (my goodness, that makes me sound old!), I can attest to the fact that for any sexual act, there are people who enjoy it and people who are squicked by it. There’s a certain privilege inherent in being part of the majority- if you enjoy penis/vagina intercourse, you can be pretty confident that lots of other people share your taste. And it’s important to also remember that there are people who feel just as much disgust about your desires as you might feel about something less common. No matter what the act, some people love it and some people would never dream of doing it.

So what that means is that some people really enjoy being facefucked. I’ve spoken with plenty of people of all genders who enjoy it, whether with a partner’s penis, fingers, a dildo,  or other toys. It’s not for everyone- some people dislike fellatio, or deepthroating, or messy sex. Some people find it triggering, especially if they have experienced sexual assault. I’m hardly trying to suggest that everyone likes it. In fact, my guess is that a fairly small number of people enjoy being on the receiving end of it. I am suggesting that if someone gets turned on my it, there’s nothing wrong with that.

For the people who enjoy it, there are lots of possible reasons. It might be because they enjoy the sensation, or feeling submissive (although that’s not a requirement of the activity), the letting go, succeeding at the effort involved in learning to do it, the fact that it can get messy, some combination of the above, or something totally different. Any or all of these are perfectly fine reasons to do something, as long as both of the people doing it (or in the case of group sex, all of the people doing it), are enjoying themselves, getting what they want, and having their emotional, physical, and mental well-being cared for.

Now, I have a lot of problems with gagfactor.com and, in fact, I share some of Dines’ concerns. To put it simply, the site makes it very clear that it’s all about objectifying and humiliating the women. I wouldn’t even have a problem with that if it was apparent that the performers were acting out their fantasies and having fun. A lot of people have objectification and/or humiliation fantasies and there are perfectly safe and sane ways for folks to explore them. But it’s not clear to me from the site that this is what’s going on. Granted, I’m not willing to spend money to get a subscription and find out, so I could be misinterpreting things. But I doubt that the full scenes are significantly different from the promotional blurbs, if only because a bait-and-switch tactic rarely succeeds for long.

Having said that, where Dines shows that she doesn’t understand sex is that she doesn’t allow any room for people to enjoy facefucking, or humiliation play in ways that are, in the parlance of the BDSM community, safe, sane and consensual. The problem with sites like gagfactor.com isn’t the sexual acts they show, it’s the lack of visible consent or respect for the performers. Kink.com does a nice job of interviewing the performers afterward to show that they enjoyed the shoot, and that’s a business model that I’d like to see more sites adopt. The more a scene revolves around pushing boundaries and/or less common sexual or kink practices, the more valuable it is to show the consent and enthusiasm of the performers, in my opinion.

Also problematic is the fact that some people will model their behaviors on what they see in porn, although I think that everyone who blocks access to sex-positive, inclusive, and comprehensive sex and relationship education are the real culprits there. When we don’t see the negotiation, communication, and practice that go into exploring fantasies, how are people supposed to know that if they want to try something, there are things to talk about and figure out first? How is anyone supposed to know that some activities require practice and skill to do them safely? And how are people going to learn the difference between consensual, negotiated and bounded fantasy play and real-life humiliation and abuse? This is especially relevant for cisgender heterosexual men, given the momentum of sexism that pushes them towards disrespecting and abusing women.

But the solution isn’t to ban or restrict porn because the real source of the problem lies elsewhere. Instead, we need more and better relationship and sexuality education. We need a more nuanced language to talk about and teach about consent. We need better role models to demonstrate how to negotiate sexual relationships. If porn gets used as sex education, that shows that there’s a vacuum waiting for something to fill it. What would it be like if there were something better to do the job?

If Dines and her allies could make room for people to enjoy any sexual act without shaming them (as long as the aforementioned consent and well-being were honored), I’d be more than happy to talk with them about the challenges and problems that porn brings. And I know that some of their supporters will say that they do exactly that. But here’s where my first point comes into play- Dines uses people’s sex-negativity and disgust about sex to foment her anti-porn campaign.

One of the best ways to rally people behind a cause that has very little merit is to get them to not think about the details. And the easiest method to do that is to get them angry, scared, ashamed, or disgusted. These are all very difficult emotions and most people have very little practice at sitting with them, exploring what causes them, or articulating what it is that triggers them. In particular, disgust is an effective way to manipulate people because it’s really easy to blame the icky thing for how we feel. When someone wants to pass a law to restrict people’s actions without having to actually discuss the benefits, risks, and costs of those behaviors, disgust is an compelling tool to use. For an excellent read on the topic, check out Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law.

Gagfactor.com is an especially easy target for disgust, for reasons beyond the site’s clear focus on degradation. Messy oral sex squicks a lot of people and anyone with a sensitive gag or vomit reflex is likely to feel their gorge rise when seeing the site or hearing a description of it. The sympathetic vomit reflex can be seen as a survival-enhancing response in certain situations:

In groups of apes, group or sympathetic vomiting has been observed after one animal becomes ill after eating. Since the other animals in the tribe have likely eaten the same things, sympathetic vomiting may be used as a survival tactic. (from this site)

That means that this perfectly understandable and perhaps advantageous physiological response makes people susceptible to Dines’ moral panic techniques. If she can trigger disgust and then convince her listeners that their discomfort is because there’s something inherently wrong with porn, she gets a lot more support for her crusade. That’s a lot easier to do in a big crowd because each person will pick up on the disgust of the people around them, even if they wouldn’t have felt much of it themselves. And that makes it much easier for her to create a moral panic.

So why do I think that Dines’ strategies are sex-negative? Because she deliberately works to trigger disgust about a sexual practice in order to manipulate people into rallying to her call. Rather than opening up a dialogue about the real reasons that some porn is problematic or asking how the performers on the site feel about their experiences,  she uses tactics that depend on and deepen sexual shame in order to sway people to her point of view. And that makes them sex-negative. Facefucking is not inherently abusive, violent, or misogynistic any more than intercourse is inherently respectful, pleasurable, or egalitarian. As with any sexual act, it’s a question of whether you want to do it, how you do it, and how you feel about it during it and afterward. When Dines makes it sound otherwise, she reinforces sex-negativity. It doesn’t really matter whether she deliberately chose this strategy or happened to discover its effectiveness by accident.

So all of this has me thinking: what would a sex-positive approach to the question of porn entail? While I don’t think that this is a complete list, it’s a start. Note: these are not in any particular order. I think that each of these is just as important as the others and the fact that I have to present them in a linear fashion does not reflect on how I would prioritize them.

1) We would not judge a website’s or movie’s merits based on the sexual acts depicted. We would understand that we need to draw a distinction between a performer’s consent to and/or desire for a given act and how we feel about it.

2) We would strive to remember that our reactions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, reside within ourselves and that someone else can have a very different response. It’s the difference between saying “I enjoyed that” and “that was great.” Or “I feel disgust when I watch that” and “that’s disgusting.”

3) We would feel free to question whether the performers were well-treated, respected, and compensated for their erotic labor. We would trust them to speak about their experiences and not doubt their authenticity. And we would remember that people in any industry have stories of horrible experiences and of amazing experiences, so we would look for overall patterns, rather than highlighting a few individuals.

4) We would not hold porn to a different standard than we hold other industries to. We would remember that some of the problems within the porn industry are the result of capitalism, not sex, so we would resist blaming porn for them.

5) We would not shame anyone for their sexual desires or fantasies. Ever. We would base any assessment of their practices on whether the participants’ pleasure, health, consent, and well-being had been attended to. We would invite them to share their stories, trust what they tell us, and try to set aside our judgments and triggers.

6) We would offer people facts and research to bolster our arguments, without resorting to misinformation, lies, emotional manipulation, or moral panics. We would remember that the a collection of anecdotes does not qualify as data.

7) We would remember that porn is a vast and complex genre and we would find ways of talking about it that don’t ignore that diversity. We could do this by avoiding making sweeping statements that don’t reflect the experiences of many of the performers, producers, and viewers.

There’s nothing in this list that requires anyone to enjoy porn or ignore the challenges that it can bring. Like any other industry, porn has a lot of problems and I think it’s worth looking at them and seeking ways to address them. But until and unless Gail Dines and her allies change their tactics, I will continue to view their actions as sex-negative.

I’m sure that there are other steps we could take to develop a sex-positive critique of porn. I invite you to add your suggestions below. What did I miss when I made my list? I’d love to hear from you.