Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry (26 page)
Read Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry Online
Authors: Melinda Tankard Reist,Abigail Bray
Tags: #General, #Social Science, #Sociology, #Media Studies, #Pornography
Melissa Farley
Pornography Is Infinite Prostitution
1
Pornography is an act of prostitution
The first time I heard Evelina Giobbe
2
explain that “pornography is pictures of prostitution,” a light bulb went on in my mind. Of course. How had the two gotten separated in the first place?
Prostitution is sexual violence that results in massive economic profit for some of its perpetrators. It is a gendered survival strategy based on the assumption of terrible risks by the woman in prostitution. Sexual violence and physical assault are the norm for women in all types of prostitution, regardless of its legal status or physical location.
3
Although the real lives of those in prostitution and pornography are often indistinguishable from the experience of incest, intimate partner violence, and rape – human rights violations are obscured when pornography is falsely differentiated from other kinds of prostitution, as if they’re not at all connected. Pornographers and their public relations people will fight to the death to deny the overlapping parallels of prostitution and pornography, but johns (punters) and comedians know there’s little difference. Jay Leno joked, “Did you hear about the porn convention that is going on right now in Las Vegas? They say that you can mingle with porn stars at the convention. Yes, and they act just like everyday normal whores” (NBC Tonight Show, 17 January, 2007).
People laughed at the joke, but what made it funny for them, I wondered? The misogyny? Because he winked at what johns were getting away with: pretending to be just porn viewers when in fact they were really just good old johns? Did the audience experience complicity with Leno in his dehumanization
of women? Did the listeners feel some kind of guilt or shame that made them laugh uncomfortably?
A john interviewed for a study of men who buy sex explained, “Yes, the woman in pornography is a prostitute. They’re prostituting before the cameras. They’re getting money from a film company rather than individuals” (Farley, 2007b, p. 147).
A survivor of prostitution further explained, “Pornography is prostitution that is legalized as long as someone gets to take pictures …” (Simonton and Smith, 2004, p. 355).
The same kinds of violence against women are perpetrated in both pornography and prostitution: verbal abuse, including racist verbal abuse, contempt, degradation, physical and sexual assault, and acts that are identical to torture as defined by international legal conventions.
A survivor of pornography and prostitution described their sameness, explaining that she had been physically hurt, raped on camera, and pressured to do more extreme sex acts on film, such as anal sex, just as women in prostitution are pressured by johns to perform more extreme sex acts (Simonton and Smith, 2004).
The conditions leading to entry into pornography are much the same as the conditions leading to entry into prostitution
The same factors that compel women into prostitution, compel women into pornography. These include:
Poverty
Vulnerability to deceptive job offers
Racism
Lack of educational and job training opportunities
Childhood physical and sexual abuse
Childhood neglect
Sexual harassment
Abandonment
Culturally mainstreamed contempt for women and girls
Seductive manipulation by sexual exploiters who are businessmen
Most women in the sex industry were sexually abused as children (Silbert and Pines, 1983; Nadon et al., 1998; Widom and Kuhns, 1996). The pornography replicates the sexual abuse, with psychological as well as physical coercion as the perp’s means of control.
As in prostitution, women are coerced into pornography by threat, deception, or the threat of violence. After an agreement to perform one specific act of prostitution for the camera, many women tell us they are physically coerced into performing another and often more dangerous sex act.
The pornographer/pimp uses the camera as his tool of intrusive degradation. For example, she may be secretly filmed while using the toilet, with that footage used as pornography (Morita, 2004).
Women’s economic desperation serves as a means of coercion into pornography. One woman explained that she was about to be evicted from her apartment when she saw an advertisement for nude photos. “The owner of the ‘nude photo agency’ offered me a place to live and a lot of other work if I did film. At that point in my life, I really didn’t have any other options” (Simonton and Smith, 2004, p. 352).
Pornography Is Infinite Prostitution
1
Pornography is an act of prostitution
The first time I heard Evelina Giobbe
2
explain that “pornography is pictures of prostitution,” a light bulb went on in my mind. Of course. How had the two gotten separated in the first place?
Prostitution is sexual violence that results in massive economic profit for some of its perpetrators. It is a gendered survival strategy based on the assumption of terrible risks by the woman in prostitution. Sexual violence and physical assault are the norm for women in all types of prostitution, regardless of its legal status or physical location.
3
Although the real lives of those in prostitution and pornography are often indistinguishable from the experience of incest, intimate partner violence, and rape – human rights violations are obscured when pornography is falsely differentiated from other kinds of prostitution, as if they’re not at all connected. Pornographers and their public relations people will fight to the death to deny the overlapping parallels of prostitution and pornography, but johns (punters) and comedians know there’s little difference. Jay Leno joked, “Did you hear about the porn convention that is going on right now in Las Vegas? They say that you can mingle with porn stars at the convention. Yes, and they act just like everyday normal whores” (NBC Tonight Show, 17 January, 2007).
People laughed at the joke, but what made it funny for them, I wondered? The misogyny? Because he winked at what johns were getting away with: pretending to be just porn viewers when in fact they were really just good old johns? Did the audience experience complicity with Leno in his dehumanization
of women? Did the listeners feel some kind of guilt or shame that made them laugh uncomfortably?
A john interviewed for a study of men who buy sex explained, “Yes, the woman in pornography is a prostitute. They’re prostituting before the cameras. They’re getting money from a film company rather than individuals” (Farley, 2007b, p. 147).
A survivor of prostitution further explained, “Pornography is prostitution that is legalized as long as someone gets to take pictures …” (Simonton and Smith, 2004, p. 355).
The same kinds of violence against women are perpetrated in both pornography and prostitution: verbal abuse, including racist verbal abuse, contempt, degradation, physical and sexual assault, and acts that are identical to torture as defined by international legal conventions.
A survivor of pornography and prostitution described their sameness, explaining that she had been physically hurt, raped on camera, and pressured to do more extreme sex acts on film, such as anal sex, just as women in prostitution are pressured by johns to perform more extreme sex acts (Simonton and Smith, 2004).
The conditions leading to entry into pornography are much the same as the conditions leading to entry into prostitution
The same factors that compel women into prostitution, compel women into pornography. These include:
Poverty Vulnerability to deceptive job offers Racism Lack of educational and job training opportunities Childhood physical and sexual abuse Childhood neglect Sexual harassment Abandonment Culturally mainstreamed contempt for women and girls Seductive manipulation by sexual exploiters who are businessmenMost women in the sex industry were sexually abused as children (Silbert and Pines, 1983; Nadon et al., 1998; Widom and Kuhns, 1996). The pornography replicates the sexual abuse, with psychological as well as physical coercion as the perp’s means of control.
As in prostitution, women are coerced into pornography by threat, deception, or the threat of violence. After an agreement to perform one specific act of prostitution for the camera, many women tell us they are physically coerced into performing another and often more dangerous sex act.
The pornographer/pimp uses the camera as his tool of intrusive degradation. For example, she may be secretly filmed while using the toilet, with that footage used as pornography (Morita, 2004).
Women’s economic desperation serves as a means of coercion into pornography. One woman explained that she was about to be evicted from her apartment when she saw an advertisement for nude photos. “The owner of the ‘nude photo agency’ offered me a place to live and a lot of other work if I did film. At that point in my life, I really didn’t have any other options” (Simonton and Smith, 2004, p. 352).
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