This is about porn.

I've been thinking recently about what it is that allows me to call myself a "sex positive feminist." Sure, I like sex. I think people should have sex. I don't think that all sex is rape, nor do I think that there is anything fundamentally unfeminist about sex.

I've been thinking about the impact of the label "sex positive" has on my idea of specific "feminist issues" (an idea I have trouble with as it is, mind you.) Does an identity as a sex positive feminist change my view on abortion? Does it suggest that I ought to be more in favour of abortion as unwanted children are a basic consequence of unprotected sex? No, because being in favour of sex doesn't make me in favour of unprotected sex. Unprotected sex is dumb. Period. That's not to say that I don't understand why people have unprotected sex, nor is it to say that I haven't had instances where I've thought about skipping out on a condom.

However, the question of pornography is the one that's given me the greatest pause recently. To one extent, I've made peace with my personal ethics by only looking at porn of the drawn/animated/written varieties, even though I'm assured (by men, might I add) that women in the business are a) "in control" (whatever that means), and b) better paid (than men, I assume.) Let's be clear, though. Better paid does not mean not exploited. "In control" (of which we'll take the narrowest of definitions, and say that they have a veto over what might happen on set - though who would, lest she not be paid that "better pay") may mean that no one's holding a gun to her head, but doesn't mean that she's in the business for the fun and the glamour. Paris Hilton being a porn star is not the same Sally Wilson of Terre Haute, Indiana moving to New York to be a Broadway dancer and ending up making skin flicks to pay the rent.

This is not to pay any disrespect to any woman who enjoys what she does in the porn business. With them, I have no quarrel. It'd just be nice if for-women-by-women were splashed across more porn, and if I could believe the words that allude to that, but don't say it.

The theoretical, ethical issues that I have with porn, however, remain. Let this not be construed as my being against porn on principle, or being against the sex trade, this is more a litany of reservations.

First, the overwhelming majority of porn is created for a male audience. The resulting product caters to male tastes, the actions portrayed pander to male enjoyment and arousal, which leads men who consume a lot of pornographic material to believe that that's the way that sex ought to occur, and further more, that women are as easily aroused as porn stars pretend to be. To extrapolate an example, most influenced by this of course are men/boys with little sexual experience, who most often have sex with women/girls with little sexual experience, leading more women to enjoy sex less.

Women, I believe, have the right to enjoy sex.

Secondly, the portrayal of women in porn, even that that is drawn/animated/written, is so ridiculously antiquated that it scares me. Women solely as the object of desire. Women solely as the providers of pleasure. Women solely as subject to the whims of men. Porn perpetuates those stereotypes. Women have a right to be seen, in porn and in life, as better than that.