Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Back in October Erotic blogger Remittance Girl brought up some interesting points about sex-positive/feminist critiques of erotica

Nobilis pointed me in the direction of Figleaf’s “The No-Sex Class: Men, Women, and Gangbangs in Porn” which led me to “Once more into the breech” by Amanda over at Pendragon.net, which led me to “On Porn, Sex And Pincushions” over at Echinde of the Snakes.

Although each of them stray in their topics a little, all of them are worth reading, as they all deal with the subject of porn tropes, and how those play out in the reality of society, sex education and the bedroom.

These are all very sex positive people who have, in their turns, problems with certain depictions of sex in porn. I’ve dealt with this subject a little myself in a couple of posts on non-consensual sex in erotica and the semiotics of semen.

I think I must agree with Amanda and Echinde that because of a woeful lack of sex-positive sex education, a lot of young men and women are learning about sex from the porn industry and – I’m sorry if this makes people angry – but they are not responsible sex educators. That’s not their job and, with some notable exceptions, like the Tony Comstock films, education is not much of a byproduct of porn.

Neither is written erotica an educational tool. The assumption is made, and rightly so, I think, that once you are reading erotica or watching porn, you already know a decent amount about sex. Certainly I do not put myself forward as a sex educator. However, a lot of these articles demand, subtextually, that porn SHOULD act as an educator by virtue of its reach into the groins of millions of boys and girls out there. The truth about porn and erotica is that they are seldom vehicles for changes in thinking. They are much more likely to be sexually framed reflections of the society in which they are made or written.

There’s more. Read it here.

I think most feminists (and certainly Amanda, Echidne, and me) think that rather than saying porn and/or erotica providing accurate education sex educators should provide sex education. Because, seriously, we don’t have to worry about the Road Runner cartoon’s depictions of gravity. Thanks to education and considerable experience our expectations in reality aren’t influenced by what happens to the coyote. If we could assume the same experience and education it would be the same for sex.

I think she put it extremely well: to the extent porn has a pernicious influence it’s because viewers have no other sources of education and, frankly, relatively limited opportunities for experience.

As for the notion of getting off on dominance or submission she makes another really excellent point: a lot of this stuff really does have a half life. And to build just a bit on her point, if women grow up in a culture that assumes the avenue to authorized sex is submission and self-effacement so deeply that marriage erases your own family name then yeah, it’s not going to be too surprising that submission as release is going to work itself into fantasy.

But in this case I’m pretty sure most feminists (Amanda, me, I’m not positive about Echidne) would say that whatever turns you on in bed is fine as long as you don’t confuse it with the rest of your life or, worse, try to enact your personal turnons into law. For instance a fantasy about Grand Inquisitors could be hot. A reintroduction of the actual Spanish Inquisition would… not.

In other words it’s not so much the responsibility of sexual fantasy-facilitators such as porn and erotica to educate. But it is the case that without somebody doing education porn is going to wind up teaching a lot of people that, oh, say, positions that maximize camera angles are preferable to positions that maximize sexual stimulation.

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For a different perspective see also Katherine Chen, guest posting at Em & Lo about what she learned from porn that she didn’t learn in sex ed. For instance

• “My mom always classified every single sexually active female as either a prostitute or a “dumb animal” who had nothing better to do with her time. I would have probably agreed with her, if it weren’t for Asia Carrera”
• “...the fact that the porn star Belladonna had semi-retired in 2007 because she was concerned about contracting STDs like herpes had a much bigger impact on me than my sex ed teacher insisting I memorize the side effects of every genital infection out there”
• “...even I realize that the scenarios of porn films are unrealistic — they’re fantasies that most viewers understand can’t be replicated in real life. Even if you “set up” a scene with your partner, it’s just not going to be the same.”

• “...whenever I finally do get around to having sex myself, I’m pretty confident that, like the best porn, I’ll have some good moves, I’ll use a condom, I won’t be self-conscious, and — most importantly — I’ll have fun.”

This is the second of two posts by Chen, the first being about how poorly served she was by her first, badly managed encounter with sex education.