Why Porn Makes Me Feel Ugly

This is another off-topic post, but I had an insight onto the subject of pornography and women's body image that I thought was worth sharing.

A friend posted a link on Facebook to this NYmag.com article on computer-generated lingerie models (NSFW, obviously), and an inevitable long discussion ensued. It ended up focusing on the question of why women have such bad body image.

A guy on the thread suggested that porn is to blame. People obviously disagreed and the conversation is still probably meandering through the happy realms of hyperbole and over-insistence it was in when I left. In the middle of it, though, I stumbled on a fascinating insight.

Photo by striatic

I've dated several guys with porn issues and several guys without porn issues ("issues" here described as "excessive use," "use that makes them feel guilty," and/or "use to the exclusion of real-life sexual encounters"). Over the past few years, I've discovered that I can always tell when a guy I'm dating or friends with watches a fair bit of pornography, because after I'm around him for a while, I start to feel anywhere between objectified and flat-up ugly and undesirable. (This isn't the only tip-off, but it's a major one.)

Usually, I can't pinpoint exactly why at first. Inevitably, however, it boils down to the guy in question treating me like an object or a pet. Examples: We'll be kissing and he'll say something like, "Yeah, do you like that?" in a weird, overconfident voice you'd normally reserve for a cat; or he'll start to make offhand remarks about my body; or he'll string me along through literally dozens of vaguely sexual text messages in a way strongly reminiscent of e-maintaining. Guys who don't watch a fair bit of porn just don't do stuff like that.

The point is: Guys who have porn issues treat me like an object or pet, not like a woman.

Any time I'm viewed as an object, my sense of worth as a human being goes down. When my self-worth goes down, I try to regain it, and I crave approval from the guy who made me feel like crap in the first place. (The thinking is something like, "Well, if he can like me, then anyone can like me." Yeah, it's dumb, but I do it.) And to get his approval back, I usually try to become more desirable, which means more sexy, more pretty, more seductive, more like the girls in the porn that turns him on. (And that is often the only thing that turns him on, as this great Psychology Today article discusses.)

Photo by Abugayle Smythe Photography.
(Guys, Abby is the bomb. Seriously.)
Forgive the glamour shot, but I'd like
to make the point that porn should not have
the power to make me feel ugly.
But... well, it does.

Porn has been around since the dawn of human history, but girlie mags, pinups, erotic art, etc. etc. don't have the same impact that Internet pornography does. Internet porn allows guys to search for exactly what turns them on. It allows them to fast-forward to the sexiest bits. It allows them to see hundreds of examples of women who are exactly what their fantasies are made of.

I can't compete with that.

This isn't just a relationships thing. I've had this experience of feeling ugly and inadequate when I'm dealing with friends who have porn problems. It's just compounded when I'm in a relationship, and I can only imagine its impact in the context of a marriage.

Despite our culture's insistence that "porn is bad" and my church's overwhelming insistence that "porn is bad bad bad evil evil will eat your children BAD PORN," I've always had an open mind on the subject. I imagine porn has its time and its place... but it has a tendency to encourage the idea of women as eager, one-dimensional sexual objects instead of complex sexual humans with feelings and needs. I happen to be the latter, and being grouped in with the former tends to leave me pretty cold.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except to say that Internet pornography's impact is broader than we think and affects women in more ways than we want to admit. I'm interested to see what you all have to say about this... Please leave your comments--I'd love to get a discussion going!

Women's Issues, lol :)

Warning: This post is pretty off-topic for this blog. I was writing a short synthesis for a class (we do these weekly) and discovered, in the middle of writing, that I actually had something to say. I thought it might be of interest to some of my readers, so it's included below

* * * * *

Photo by Nono Fara

While going through the assigned readings for this week, I discovered a small, interesting, and disturbing trend of self-censorship and apology from and in relation to women writers. Donald M. Murray notes in “Teaching the Other Self: The Writer’s First Reader” about “what should be left out [of a piece of writing] as well as what should be put in." Murray was not speaking about women writers, but it made me think of trends from the pieces by Juana de la Cruz and Elizabeth A. Flynn, as well as in recent articles I’ve read in the past week, most notably a Huffington Post article titled “A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not ‘Crazy’” by Yashir Ali.

Flynn’s article, “Composing as a Woman,” opens with a quote from Adrienne Rich’s “Taking Women Students Seriously.” The very title of her piece suggests that women writers are not, by default, taken seriously, and the quote validates this when it advocates “listening and watching … for silences, the absences, the nameless, the unspoken, the encoded—for there we will find the true knowledge of women." Later, Flynn points out that, though women writers have contributed to the global body of literature from its inception, the academic world has failed to adequately research and analyze the voice and impact of women writers. “Women’s perspectives have been suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge,” Flynn says, and adds, “Men become the standard against which women are judged."

Both Rich and Flynn discuss silence as a major theme of women’s rhetoric (particularly Flynn on page 427 of her paper). It appears again in de la Cruz’s “The Poet’s Answer to the Most Illustrious Sister Filotea de la Cruz,” when she explains her discomfort with her written reply, saying, “if I knew all that I ought, I would not so much as write these words. Yet I protest that I do so only to obey you; and with such misgiving that you owe me … for taking up my pen with all this fear." Though hundreds of years have passed between de la Cruz and Flynn’s work, the thread of women feeling the need to censor and silence themselves appears as strong as ever, both in life and in writing.

Though there may be some interaction between the two, evidence appears strong that this authorial silencing is a product of cultural conditioning, not a cause of it. “No wonder some women are unconsciously passive aggressive when expressing anger, sadness, or frustration,” says Ali in his Huffington Post article. “For years, they have been subjected to so much gaslighting [casual invalidating of authentic emotional experiences] that they can no longer express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them."

Photo by Sukanto Debnath

This perspective and belief that women as a collective are still falling short of their potential as writers and rhetoricians strikes many men as absurd and over-reactive. When I bring up women’s issues, my boyfriend—normally an open-minded, thoughtful man—becomes exasperated and doesn’t understand what I’m upset about. Many male bloggers, comedians, and other rhetoricians express confusion at feminist anger and demands to be taken seriously. However, as a woman, I understand what the fuss is about. I’ve been subject to odd double standards when it comes to expectations of intellect and behavior. I’ve made opinionated comments in classes and been met with laugher, raised eyebrows, and sidelong remarks about my femininity or ability to be in a relationship (“Remind me never to date you,” comes to mind), and had, moments later, a man in the same class make an even more assertive comment to be met only with thoughtful agreement or disagreement. I’ve had men make comments to me about women’s rights and chivalry as if the two can’t simultaneously exist in the same world. And because of that, I, too, have automatically learned to censor myself.

I fight the desire to be silent, mentioned by de la Cruz, every time I take up my pen against a controversial issue or disturbing trend. Constantly, as I write about emotionally charged political or social issues, whether for a class or on Facebook, I find myself erasing the most honest sentences and replacing them with watered-down versions laden with smiley faces and LOLs. I don’t do this because I truly feel my opinions are too strong or blunt, but because I know that unless I tone things down, I’m going to be perceived as an aggressive, arrogant, man-hating feminazi (though none of those labels are the truth). Unless I water myself down or present my views in ways that are safe, soft, and feminine, I get lumped into the category of Angry Feminists and any male or co-ed audience I might have had stops listening.

Much like members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, I’ve so far managed to raise an issue without coming up with any solutions. But what can be done? Women have tried to push equality before. Politically, we’ve made progress: women can hold almost any job, frequently out-perform men in universities, and are a world away from 1940 in terms of legally protected equal rights. But when it comes to our opinions, we are still told to be silent and well behaved. We are still not allowed to make controversial statements without being lumped into the Angry Feminist box. We are still treated as if we’re sexually unappealing or unfit to be mothers if we don’t tone down our views to make them soft and palatable.

Photo by pedrosimoes7

“Women’s experience is not entirely a distorted version of male reality, it is not entirely elusive, and it is worthy of recuperation,” Flynn says at the conclusion of her paper. “We must encourage them to become self-consciously aware of what their experience in the world has been and how this experience is related to the politics of gender." In short, we must find a way to validate and encourage the exploration and expression of female experience, regardless of whether it fits our predefined notions of what it means to be a woman. A society where women are allowed to freely and fully share their opinions and experience without having their femininity or intellectual validity challenged is one I’d like to live in, but I’ll be the first to confess that, despite my hopeful ideals, I’m still not sure how to get there.

Update!

Hi, friends. I'm back, after a long hiatus. I shan't bore you with excuses.

This is one of my happy places. It has nothing to
do with anything, which seemed like good enough
reason to put it here.

Quick updates on life and personal development: 

1. The rice... get this... still looks like it does in the last update. I find this totally crazy and awesome and get a huge kick out of walking by the rice and seeing it just like it was months ago. So cool. Our thoughts are powerful.

2. I have a boyfriend. (I know. Weird.) He's amazing. Like, really, very, incredibly, wonderfully amazing. I don't know if it'll last (major differences in beliefs and me being looney tunes and all that), but either way, it's been a beautiful experience and has taught me a lot. More than I wanted to be taught in some cases... but I think that's what I'm secretly after. And anyway, it's all worth it if it means having him in my life. Not to get sappy or anything. (If this does look like it's going to last a while, I'll definitely be doing some bloggy experiments dealing with the relationship. Not on him, of course -- I try to keep my guinea pigging to myself -- but on me and all my weird, irrational views regarding commitment and relationships. Because, seriously, they're messed up.)

Midsommer pic! Best day of the year... And one of many
reasons I've been so royally failing to update.  Totally worth it. ;)

3. I'm graduating college in about two months. The only way I can think of to sum that up is !!!!!!!!!!!?! !!!!!!!!! !!!! !! ?!?!?!?!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! ??? ....... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not sure if I'm more excited, scared, or relieved at the prospect, but my feelings are full of a lot of unnecessary punctuation. I have no idea what's coming next but it's going to be great.

4. This whole being-an-official-grownup-in-two-months thing has done a serious number on my optimism and ambition. I've gotten all stressed about paying bills and making wise career choices and stuff. What is that? Time to recapture that beautiful bubble where the universe takes care of me. Stay tuned for updates.

Truth or (is) Dare

My favorite PostSecret this week:

Such a good idea. And so, so, so intimidating. It's tempting to say all that significant stuff anonymously -- I think that was one of those fads that went around Myspace back when people used Myspace -- but that also defeats the purpose, which is connection, not merely catharsis.

There's also the issue of forcing this on people. The idea of taking connections to a deeper level sounds great in theory, but in practice, you may end up seriously stepping on some toes. (It's sort of like how not everybody likes hugs. Heck, I don't like hugs from the wrong people, and I'm a hugger. You don't want to force this kind of thing where it'll be unwelcome.)

So am I going to do this? Maybe. Not today. But if and when I do, I'll keep you posted. Till then... it's something to think about.

Happiness is...

I have a cat asleep on my feet. 

Images by CarbonNYC, meddygarnet, Snap®, j_silla, emrank and Carrie'sCamera.

Question(s)

How can I make this blog more relevant to you?

I find when I'm reading other people's blogs I get tired when they get long-winded and intensely detailed, mostly because at that point I find they stop being relevant to me. And blogs should be about the reader.

So, in terms of experiments, personal development, personality exploration, etc., what would you like to see? What do you want to know more about? Kokology? Personality types? I'm going to keep with the experiments, but in terms of that... what do you think would be interesting? What have you found most interesting so far? (Let's face it, I need structure and feedback, otherwise it just becomes a journal and I already keep one of those.)

About Me. How trite.

     This post is going to be self-indulgent narcissism. I had two experiences lately that made me think it was necessary. Read on if you care, don't feel bad if you don't. 


     First, I heard through a reliable grapevine that someone I know had said that they know me "maybe a little too well." This was surprising, as I don't feel they know me particularly well; I don't think I've ever even had a truly honest/vulnerable discussion with them. (We won't go into the concept of knowing a person "too well" right now. I find it cynical.) Second, through another reliable grapevine source (what's that, a grape?) I was told that a close friend said they feel like they don't know anything about me. It was surprising at first, but really, I get it. I totally get it.


     It may not be apparent through this blog, but in real life, I don't talk a lot about myself. I'm not a total recluse, of course. I converse, I express opinions, I hug people absurdly much. But I don't talk about me. I click "Don't Post" when I take Facebook quizzes because I don't want to clutter up anyone's Wall and I feel obnoxious when I start saying things like, "I'm the kind of person that [whatever]," because it's a freaking verbal tic for some people. And I'm not especially predictable. (By which I mean I'm weird, dudes. One of my most cherished dreams is to attend a Star Trek convention in totally screen-accurate clothing, I get legitimately depressed when I don't have a cat and I think the thing where you can measure the distance you've walked in terms of Middle Earth is brilliant.) 


     What with one thing and another, I guess this has led to odd conceptions about me.


     So here it is. This is stuff you might not know that you should. It won't be comprehensive and it may be spastic, because this is hard for me to explain... I'm acutely self-aware and wordy, so me explaining me is kind of like an engineering genius trying to explain some basic principle. It just gets awkward. And really, how much can you learn from a "Tell me about yourself"? Does anyone know how to answer that?

1. I am deeply codependent. While I mostly consider myself an independent, self-sufficient woman, I would not be okay without my best friend and parents. My best friend is currently on a mission and I have been kind of turning into jelly without her. I honestly don't know what to do with myself now that she's not with me all the time. Seriously. It's freaking me out. And though I can function without my parents (they did their jobs well), I'd rather not. They're ridiculously cool people and I'd feel like less of myself if they weren't around.

2. On a similar note, my parents are one of my top priorities in life. Granted, they're not perfect and they've done some stuff I disagree with, but ultimately, they're number one. I may be playing number one right now, begging them for money and calling every five minutes with some question I should know the answer to, and I'll eventually move away and create my own life... but if something comes up, they're the most important.

3. My long-term relationship deal breakers are: 1) Cat allergies/hatred, 2) Willingness to live near my family when we have kids, 3) Understanding of marriage as a fluid, egalitarian partnership that requires extensive adaptation, 4) Interest in things other than me. (I am not a romantic and I don't want to marry one.) Most important personality traits are confidence (confidence! confidence! confidence! not arrogance!), humor (in terms of both "sense of humor" and "good humor"), intelligence/education (both required) and honesty (probably not radical honesty, but I want to be able to go, "Wow, that woman has gorgeous legs" and him to go, "Yeah, doesn't she?").

4. This may be a shock, but I do have "a relationship" on my mental horizons. However, between you and me, it's going to be a long time coming. I just don't have time or patience for meeting and flirting and dating and trying to navigate all that crap right now. Actually, I probably won't ever have time for it. If there is a great guy for me, we're either going to have to fall into a very natural, confident friendship that can develop from there or God's going to have to drop him on my head like a piano. I don't believe in dating: it sets up all sorts of ridiculous expectations and societal norms and standards when really, I just want to dive into getting to know someone who strikes me as outrageously cool, and if we end up making out later, well, didn't that work out nicely? And it's incredibly hard to find a guy I'm into. But yeah, like everyone else, I daydream about finding Mr. Awesome and making gorgeous babies together and living in a farmhouse with an orchard out back and home schooling my kids and raising frogs just for kicks and having about a thousand cats and dogs in the barn and the wickedest tree house ever and a gargantuan library all less than an hour's drive from a large city. (Okay, so maybe my daydreams aren't quite like everyone else's. But they rock.)

5. I don't feel lukewarm about people. Ever. People relevant to my life, that is... people living in Azerbaijan don't really spark a response other than "Wow! Like, Azerbaijan!" But people I know, I either love love love love love or I HATE, and there is nothing in between. A couple people hover back and forth between the columns, but there is no neutral ground. I don't like or dislike; if I like you I might as well love you. If I dislike you, I wouldn't care if you fell off a cliff, except maybe to reflect for a moment on the frailty of the mortal condition. This horrid coldness aside, I love far more people than I hate and I love a lot of people other people can't stand. This no-lukewarm-affections thing causes a lot of problems with people's girlfriends. Those girlfriends need to get over it. (Note to world: "love deeply" and "will try to get into the heart and/or pants of" are two different things. Separate them. Philia, agape, yes! Eros, no! For serious.)

6. Jane Eyre is my favorite novel. "Vem Kan Segla" is my favorite song. Jane Eyre is obvious; it's brilliant and complex and addicting. "Vem Kan Segla" is not, but I won't tell you why I love it.

7. I am mostly Mormon, partially agnostic, slightly Buddhist and slightly nature-centric (though not inasfar as it involves mosquitos). I see no discrepancy in any of this and find people resolutely committed to one belief system to be a little bit frightening. I am mostly Mormon because Mormonism makes a crazy amount of sense (seriously, study it; it's brilliant), agnostic because I don't think you can really know no matter how much you believe, Buddhist because Buddhism produces the results I expect from other faiths, and nature-centric because there's nothing that stirs my blood quite as much as doing dances to the sun gods.

8. I have very screwed-up views/feelings regarding men. This is odd, because my dad is an amazing guy who I respect enormously, I have pretty cool granddads, I like all of my uncles and a ton of my cousins are exactly what I think men should be. Tracing back, however, I can also point the blame to a few verifiable creeps the women in my family have dated or been married to (all divorced now, huzzah!) and a few verifiable creeps I have dated. (I attract creeps. It's uncanny. And I don't know how I'm doing it.) It's a horrible continuing cycle and I'm trying to overcome it, but it's a constant challenge.

9. I rarely notice how I'm feeling emotionally until I have physical symptoms. I'll be feeling great about how well I'm handling a stressful situation, and then in a calm moment, I'll have a panic attack (which, by the way, suck). Or I'll think I'm coping pretty well and then I'll start gaining weight, which is a signal that something's not right (normally it's like, "Hm. I think losing an inch might be nice" and it's gone the next morning. Yes, I realize how fantastic that is). Or I'll rise to an occasion and then the second the weekend hits I'm in bed with the flu. And then, when that happens, I'll go, "Oh. You know, I was kinda stressed about that one thing." I've been working on this the past year, and though now I can tell you how I'm feeling most of the time, I still get the physical symptoms if I don't nip stuff in the bud. It's half awful and half convenient.

10. I am basically a secure person. I have no body image issues. I know you don't believe that, but seriously, my biggest thing is the fact that I don't like how dry my cuticles get in the winter. I know I'm smart, I know I'm socially awkward sometimes but most of the people I really like are socially awkward so I don't care, I know I can fake poise when I need to, I know I'm a thinker, I know I have faults but I'm okay with most of them, I know I can be sexy when I want to (though I usually don't), I know a lot of people who love me, I know I'm capable of a lot, I know I'm creative and I know that I've got a bright future. This doesn't mean I don't have insecurities. My gut twists up in knots when people read my creative writing (Little Princess about killed me) and I rarely tell people about things that matter deeply to me emotionally (see "Vem Kan Segla" above). But other than that... it's all good. I know I'm cool, I know you're cool... so why is half the world spending their lives talking down on themselves?

11. The "I rarely tell people about things that matter deeply to me emotionally" thing above is because I know you won't get it. Usually whenever I try to open up about stuff that means a lot to me with other people, they don't get it. Either don't understand it or they don't appreciate it, and you have to do both. I'd rather keep it all to myself forever than try and share it with someone who doesn't understand how sparkling and magical it is, because holding it to the light in a bad environment is like trying to keep something precious out in the elements. It won't stay beautiful if it's exposed. I don't mean this as a value judgment or condemnation --- we all have different perspectives and what is holding my world down could mean nothing to you. But unless it will, I'd rather just keep it to myself.

12. I hate it when people invade my space. People dropping by without calling once in a while is cool, whatever, but people who consistently do this who aren't close friends tick me off. (Which means this will be irrelevant to most of the people reading this blog.) People who touch my computer tick me off. People who ask to borrow my pens... I hate people who borrow my pens. (Does no one but me get how personal pens are? They're like... familiars.) I hate it when people pry about personal subjects, even if they're coming from an understanding standpoint. (Prying and asking are two different things. Asking is okay. Asking after I've said no or throwing labels like "good" or "bad" or "appropriate" at me is not.)

13. "Appropriate" is my least favorite word in the English language. It's usually tossed around by people who are so scared of being inappropriate that they feel the need to shut down everyone around them. Those people can go jump off a cliff. (Please see 5.) Unfortunately, I'm occasionally one of them. (Not quite Emerson yet. But someday...)

14. If I don't write a lot, my brain gets clogged and my brain stops being awesome. Not necessarily even creative writing or journaling. It can be writing the same word on a page over and over, or song lyrics. But I have to write something every day.

15. I get a huge kick out of being professional. I really love being cool and professional with difficult people, and rising to the occasion miraculously for customers and going the extra mile for people. I also love being calm in a crisis and handling insane situations like they're nothing. It's such a rush. Probably a power rush, which makes the motive less than pure... but everyone benefits, so I don't really care.

16. I. Miss. The. Ocean. So much. I love huge scenery, not because I want to conquer it (I know that a lot of people get a thrill from that, but I have zero desire to defy nature or my own physical limits... it's cool and all but it doesn't nourish me) but because I love to sit and be aware of its supremacy. And the ocean is the hugest scenery there is, and it's always moving and it's a mystery and it's powerful and I know I'm nothing up against it. I love that, maybe because I feel like such a match for everything else in life.

And... I'm really just rambling here... there's a lot more but you're probably bored (or didn't get this far). People are essentially self-centered, which is why it kinda surprised me that anyone cared how well they knew me at all. Again, I don't mean that as condemnation; it's just the way we're wired, and it's cool. It's human. I like human.