so here's the article i wrote in support of pornography for my school's newspaper. it ended up being less an argument for porn as just a glimpse into my feelings about it. the issue comes out today. i am only a little nervous about the backlash.
My dream in life is to be a porn star.
Thats misleading, so let me back up a bit. I belong to an adult website called Suicide Girls. Its a pay site; I guess you could say its a porn site. But instead of paying to see only marginally attractive, bottle-blonde girls with fake tits and fake tans ridden hard and put away wet, Suicide Girls offers up classy photosets of real life alterna-girls.
Most are tattooed, most are pierced, and all of them look like their having a great time. For the most part, models on the site arrange their own photo shoots, with photographers they trust. The girls get to decide on the theme of the set, what they wear, how they pose. And there are never, ever, any penetration shots allowed.
This is the kind of porn Im dying to do, though it would probably be better classified as erotica, more like classic pin-up art from the 40s. To me, it is art. The girls just happen to be naked (but hey, you can see that in any classical art museum).
A lot of people have told me that its a horrible idea to get naked on the internet. Those pictures can never be taken down (once a model sells a set to the site, the company permanently owns the copyright). What if someone from school sees them? What if the information leaks to an employer later on in life, and I lose my job because of it?
The answer is, I really dont care. I take pride in any art that features my image. Anyone who walked into the darkroom in Robinson during the fall of 2003, or peeked a look at the photos outside of Angela Wests office the next spring could have seen nude black and whites of me, albeit without any naughty parts showing. And if an employer would reverse their judgment about me based on an art project I was involved in, then theyd be doing me a favor. I wouldnt want to work there anyway.
Harsh opinions regarding women who participate in pornography are unfair to those women. People who condemn these women tend to assume false consciousness: they believe the women are only doing it because someone is forcing them to. They believe that, if porn stars really understood what was going on, they wouldnt want to be a part of it.
But consider the job market (from now all the way back to whenever it was that porn first appeared): women have always had a harder time earning a living than men. This isnt hyperbole, its the truth, and you can research it if you dont believe me. Men have always had an easier time selling their labor, in whatever form, for whatever reason. The porn industry offers women a chance to sell the most marketable commodity they have, their bodies, and for a damn good price. This isnt really any different than what the rest of us do. Most people sell their bodies in return for wages, in some sense. Dont believe me? Well, I promise it isnt your brain thats making those lattes at Starbucks for $6.50 an hour.
Im not interested in arguing morality in regards to the subject of pornography. Certainly, it isnt for everyone. But it is, undoubtedly, a huge market (somewhere in the billions of dollars a year), and as such, its a market that isnt going away any time soon. Its also a market that has existed for as long as thereve been markets (dont forget that pornographys more hands-on twin, prostitution, is referred to as the oldest profession). Again, its obviously not going anywhere.
It seems to me that, rather than decrying the crumbling state of our society and blaming it on something as old as the hills, we would affect more change by using our purchasing power (or downloading power, for that matter) to encourage better forms of porn. Most of whats out there doesnt do it for me. But instead of letting the market tell me I have to buy its shoddy product, Ive bought something that does do it for me (in this case, membership to the aforementioned Suicide Girls website). By being selective, only purchasing or downloading the kind of product you really want to see, producers will take note. Money talks. They pay attention to trends. Encourage the industry to make better porn, so we can all get off.
My dream in life is to be a porn star.
Thats misleading, so let me back up a bit. I belong to an adult website called Suicide Girls. Its a pay site; I guess you could say its a porn site. But instead of paying to see only marginally attractive, bottle-blonde girls with fake tits and fake tans ridden hard and put away wet, Suicide Girls offers up classy photosets of real life alterna-girls.
Most are tattooed, most are pierced, and all of them look like their having a great time. For the most part, models on the site arrange their own photo shoots, with photographers they trust. The girls get to decide on the theme of the set, what they wear, how they pose. And there are never, ever, any penetration shots allowed.
This is the kind of porn Im dying to do, though it would probably be better classified as erotica, more like classic pin-up art from the 40s. To me, it is art. The girls just happen to be naked (but hey, you can see that in any classical art museum).
A lot of people have told me that its a horrible idea to get naked on the internet. Those pictures can never be taken down (once a model sells a set to the site, the company permanently owns the copyright). What if someone from school sees them? What if the information leaks to an employer later on in life, and I lose my job because of it?
The answer is, I really dont care. I take pride in any art that features my image. Anyone who walked into the darkroom in Robinson during the fall of 2003, or peeked a look at the photos outside of Angela Wests office the next spring could have seen nude black and whites of me, albeit without any naughty parts showing. And if an employer would reverse their judgment about me based on an art project I was involved in, then theyd be doing me a favor. I wouldnt want to work there anyway.
Harsh opinions regarding women who participate in pornography are unfair to those women. People who condemn these women tend to assume false consciousness: they believe the women are only doing it because someone is forcing them to. They believe that, if porn stars really understood what was going on, they wouldnt want to be a part of it.
But consider the job market (from now all the way back to whenever it was that porn first appeared): women have always had a harder time earning a living than men. This isnt hyperbole, its the truth, and you can research it if you dont believe me. Men have always had an easier time selling their labor, in whatever form, for whatever reason. The porn industry offers women a chance to sell the most marketable commodity they have, their bodies, and for a damn good price. This isnt really any different than what the rest of us do. Most people sell their bodies in return for wages, in some sense. Dont believe me? Well, I promise it isnt your brain thats making those lattes at Starbucks for $6.50 an hour.
Im not interested in arguing morality in regards to the subject of pornography. Certainly, it isnt for everyone. But it is, undoubtedly, a huge market (somewhere in the billions of dollars a year), and as such, its a market that isnt going away any time soon. Its also a market that has existed for as long as thereve been markets (dont forget that pornographys more hands-on twin, prostitution, is referred to as the oldest profession). Again, its obviously not going anywhere.
It seems to me that, rather than decrying the crumbling state of our society and blaming it on something as old as the hills, we would affect more change by using our purchasing power (or downloading power, for that matter) to encourage better forms of porn. Most of whats out there doesnt do it for me. But instead of letting the market tell me I have to buy its shoddy product, Ive bought something that does do it for me (in this case, membership to the aforementioned Suicide Girls website). By being selective, only purchasing or downloading the kind of product you really want to see, producers will take note. Money talks. They pay attention to trends. Encourage the industry to make better porn, so we can all get off.
fightfordawn:
you shouldn't be worried about the back lash, it's a very intelligent article and i'm sure you have the wits to defend it.
