Porn - Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink (3 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank all of the contributors; they are the true authors of this anthology. Many of these people I have only communicated with by phone or email, but they already seem like friends. I deeply appreciate the quality of their writing and their good spirits in working with me on crafting this volume. Sometimes it may have seemed that I was the source of unending questions, feedback, suggestions, and perhaps, irritation. Nevertheless, the authors were, without exception, diligent, patient, and a pleasure to work with; I am grateful for their excellent essays. It is noteworthy to recognize their background diversity, too; they come from various academic professions, law, and even inside the porn industry itself, which had the effect of extending my own knowledge. I am grateful for that, as well!

Second, I would like to thank those who have directly or indirectly helped me throughout the production of this book, including my mother, Mary Turfe, and my brothers, Chris and Andrew Monroe; my cousin Ian Verhine; Nathan Bunker-Otto, my dear friend, and Jason at Vegas Showgirls in Saint Petersburg; Tom Brommage, Eric Berling, and Joe Ellin, for stepping in to help with other academic obligations; my students and colleagues at Saint Petersburg College and University of Tampa; and, especially, my wife Rhonda. I cannot imagine what life would be like without her loving support and willingness to promote my various projects, including a book about porn! Precious few wives would be willing to indulge their husbands’ spending long hours talking to porn stars, watching porn, and devoting weekends editing papers and writing about the jizz biz. I am fortunate to be so lucky.

Third, I would like to thank my publisher. Wiley-Blackwell has been behind this project from its inception, and shown remarkable enthusiasm for a project about an admittedly controversial topic. In particular, I recognize the efforts of Fritz Allhoff, Jeff Dean, and Tiffany Mok. Fritz, the series editor of the
Philosophy for Everyone
line, has shown unflagging confidence in this volume, the series, and in me. I especially appreciate his ardent desire to produce excellent books, and I thank him for his constant guidance, suggestions, and feedback in helping me attain that end. Jeff, the acquisitions editor for philosophy at Wiley-Blackwell, has also been a great source of help, enthusiasm, and ideas. Tiffany helped guide me through the business side of putting together an anthology, something about which I was woefully ignorant, and I could not have done it without her. Any editor should be grateful for such wise guidance!

Finally, I thank you, the reader: enjoy the volume! The next time you engage with porn, think about it!

Dave Monroe

Saint Petersburg, FL

DAVE MONROE

DIRTY MINDEDNESS
An Introduction to
Porn – Philosophy for Everyone

In the pages of this anthology, the reader will find a tantalizing spread of essays about pornography. Like “gonzo” videos, the essays within are broadly arranged by topic; this allows you to “fast forward” or “rewind” to the issues that turn you on. I am confident, however, that you will find each section stimulating, as every essay is uniquely delightful and intellectually arousing.

Some may wonder whether the world needs more writing about pornography; after all, there is no dearth of academic literature on the subject. Porn has been a topic in feminist, legal, and general ethical discussions since at least the 1970s. So what is the motive for producing this anthology? The answer is simple. We have, as a culture, become more dirty minded.Yet discussions of the porn industry and its attendant issues seem largely to be limited to academic or legal contexts, locker rooms or bedchambers. In other words, the ubiquity of the subject appears to outrun the scope of the discourse.This anthology seeks to broaden the conversation about pornography, both by expanding the range of questions about porn that academics might address and by opening the conversation to those who are most familiar with it – the creators and users of porn.

The contemporary porn industry and the hordes of porn consumers have never been larger. The explosion of porn on the Internet has expanded the industry in previously undreamt ways. Nude busty women, lesbian sex, and money shots are a mere Google search away; access to porn no longer involves skulking into the shady parts of town to visit the adult theatre or video store.What’s more, porn’s relationship to pop culture has changed since the “Golden Age” of the 1970s. Porn has lampooned or perverted Hollywood story lines since then (one thinks of memorable titles like
Edward Penishands
), but it is evident that the dynamic has shifted. Hollywood films, television, popular magazines, and literature are now frequently giving homage to the porn industry. There is scarcely a reality show on TV that does not feature some current or former Playboy model. Movies like
Zach and Miri Make a Porno
celebrate, rather than denigrate, porn. “Crossovers” are surprisingly common, as well. Once, having acted in porn was equivalent to branding oneself with a scarlet letter.Actresses like Traci Lords worked tirelessly to transition into doing mainstream films and TV. Now, however, there seem to be no such stigmas. The crossover runs the other direction, as well; Kelly McCarty, Miss USA 1991 and soap opera star, signed a contract with Vivid Video in 2008.

Furthermore, celebrity sex tapes are increasingly available to the libidinous celebrity obsessed public. Non-industry performers are getting in on the act, too. Popular, and controversial, videos like the
Girls Gone Wild
series feature not adult actresses, but rambunctious college-aged girls willing to flash for cash. Similarly, “amateur” porn is an emerging trend on the internet – couples film their coitus and broadcast it for others to see.The rest of us, in startling numbers, are tuning in to watch.

With porn’s new dimensions come new issues to discuss.What are the ramifications of this pornographic proliferation? What moral dimensions are there to the explosion of technology and the availability of porn? How does porn potentially affect our relationships with others? Are there special ethical concerns that present themselves when amateurs act like porn professionals? How does the virtual bombardment of pornographic images affect our psychology? Does porn offer any social benefits? Do old legal concepts about porn hold up under a new cultural paradigm of dirty mindedness? What are some contemporary issues in gay porn? These and other novel issues are discussed within.

That is not to say, however, that this volume fails to address the classic issues constellated around porn. Concerns about the nature of free speech and whether porn falls under that concept, the putative artistic value of porn, gender issues, discussions of possible harms related to porn, are all covered. Thus, the reader interested in standing academic debates about porn will not be left feeling as if they have taken a cold shower.

Porn – Philosophy for Everyone
is also a “crossover” book. Inside, you will find essays written not just by academic philosophers, but lawyers, psychologists, and other scholars. Our contributors come from around the world; we have Canadian, British, and Australian writers as well as American.The jewels in our crossover crown, though, are essays written or contributed to by porn industry insiders like Dylan Ryder, the Fabulous Mz. Berlin, and Roger T. Pipe. Their provocative first-hand insights about the porn business are not to be missed!

So, we who have created this anthology invite you to go behind the green door, get a little dirty minded, and think with kink! We have no doubt that you will be seduced by the tantalizing topics thrown under hot light by our authors, and be intellectually aroused. Enjoy!

In the second part of this introduction, I offer you a tour of this volume, and briefly discuss some of the issues addressed therein. I hope that you are satisfied with the spread, but of course would not object if at the end you yearn for more!

We start with a foreword by Gram Ponante, who is “America’s Beloved Porn Journalist.” I am delighted that Gram wrote the foreword, as I did not want just anyone to kick off the volume. Gram is well connected in the industry, and thus has an insider’s view of the porn business. Moreover, he is known for his critical observations and sometimes trenchant commentary regarding what he sees. He takes a philosophical approach to his work, in other words, and thus is naturally sympathetic to this anthology. As such, he is the perfect person to write the foreword.

After the foreword, we move into our first unit, a kind of foreplay to prime us for the rest of the book. I have subtitled the section Sundry Sexy Thoughts because, unlike the forthcoming units, there is no shared underlying philosophical context. Nevertheless, the essays within are alluring on their own.We start with an essay by Dylan Ryder, a contemporary porn dynamo, and yours truly. Our offering takes up the prudential question of whether a porn performer’s individual life is necessarily worse off by virtue of being in the porn industry.We argue that it is not, and that there is no essential connection between the Jizz Biz and the quality of one’s life. In making our case, we draw distinctions between various ways of valuing human lives, and argue that the common-sense view that porn stars have worse lives than “normal” folks conflates, or confuses, moral value with welfare; i.e., quality of life. Next is an essay by Andrew Aberdein, a lighthearted chapter exploring the historical connection between pornographic and philosophical literature. There is a history of porno-philosophical writing and imagery, he shows us, mostly aiming to contrast rational versus irrational forms of persuasion. He offers us a shocking, and hilarious, example of femdom representations of Aristotle and Phyllis. His essay ends with an argument attempting to show that the porno-philosophical connection raises problems for contemporary arguments against pornography.

The next unit,The Pornographic Mind, consists of essays focusing on psychological considerations relating to pornography, especially those regarding the audience.This seems a natural starting point; porn appeals to
something
within our psychology, or else it would lack the massive popularity it enjoys.What happens to our mind when we are porn spectators? Are our beliefs about the mental states of porn performers veridical? Is there a kind of rebelliousness against social norms going on in our minds when we view certain kinds of porn? These fascinating questions frame the issues in this section.The unit starts with a delightfully irreverent and entertaining essay by Anne K. Gordon and Shane W. Kraus, evolutionary psychologists. They performed empirical studies about the scope of belief in porn audiences about the genuineness of female orgasms in porn films.Their study reveals that men are more likely than women to believe that girls in porn actually get off, and conclude that, among its other putative negative effects, porn makes men bad lovers! Next is an essay by Theodore Bach, who explains the scope of porn consumption on the model of psychological simulation. Briefly, we use our own mind to model that of another individual, like an engineer would use a model airplane to simulate its activity. According to Bach, it is likely that the porn viewer engages in this kind of mental modeling; one thinks and feels as if he or she is actually experiencing the depicted sex acts.The upshots of this fact, he argues, are some potentially negative social implications. The final essay in this unit is written by Casey McKittrick. He addresses some of the psychological issues present in the gay “barebacking” video subgenre. “Barebacking” is an erotic celebration of condom-less anal sex, and represents a substantial minority seeking to reclaim a loss of intimacy resulting from the AIDS epidemic in the gay community. The exchange of semen in gay sex is labeled as paradigmatically “risky” behavior, which results in a taboo in gay porn against condomless sex scenes. McKittrick explores Freudian psychological bases for the motive to produce, participate, and view bareback videos, while remaining neutral with respect to attendant moral implications. I am excited to include his essay, as precious little philosophical literature addresses male homosexual pornography.

The next section, Between the Sheets, deals with ethical issues relating to porn. While some consideration is given to the classical arguments about the exploitation, objectification, and harms that seem attached to the adult entertainment business, the focus of this section is on unusual topics, such as whether masturbating to porn constitutes cheating in a monogamous relationship.That being said, the first essay, by Tait Szabo, is a defense of the porn viewer’s freedom to watch porn without moral guilt. He argues for his thesis on the basis of John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, which roughly states that unless our actions result in genuine harm to others, we are free to pursue and enjoy whatever we wish. Szabo attempts to show that porn does not result in the sorts of harms anti-porn arguments generally posit; thus, we have no basis to condemn it, and are free to guiltlessly enjoy it. Next is an essay by Fiona Woollard. Her arguments focus on the question of whether self-gratification via porn constitutes a breach of monogamy norms. Is the moral outrage or feeling of betrayal that commonly accompanies catching your partner masturbating to Jenna reasonable? Woollard considers two possible grounds for that outrage; she categorically rejects that solo use of porn is a kind of infidelity, while conceding that some porn is damaging to relationships because it reinforces harmful attitudes that undermine loving partnerships. However, she notes, this is not true of all pornography. Darci Doll, in the unit’s final essay, offers us a cautionary tale drawn from celebrity sex tapes. Doll argues that there are benefits of taping one’ sex life, particularly in the case of celebrities who use it as a vehicle to fame, but that associated pitfalls ought to give us pause before consenting to make “private” porn. Doll is careful to distinguish morally legitimate ways of producing and distributing private sex tapes, and warns that the benefits of releasing sex tapes frequently accrue to the wrong people, if anyone.

As we hope the law follows morality, our next section centers on legal questions and philosophy of law and pornography. The authors of these essays take issue with some classic questions, such as the nature and definition of “obscenity” and the limits of free speech. If “obscenity” is not protected by our right to free speech, just what counts as “obscene”? Is there some objective way of defining it, or does the term merely denote a subjective kind of judgment or response? The first essay in the Talking Dirty section takes up this issue. Jacob M. Held argues that the concept of obscenity is insufficiently defined to ground legislation limiting our freedom of expression.This obscurity results in the inability to take interpretation out of the hands of individual judges, who are forced to rule on cases with no clear standard of the obscene. As a result, we citizens cannot have fair warning of what obscenity laws prescribe, and thus such laws fail to realize the form of law that being subject to rule of law requires. Following Held, Mimi Marinucci argues that we ought not to cave in to censorship laws, not because there is nothing wrong or harmful with porn as it stands, but because allowing more expansive censorship laws threatens other avenues of expression. Censorship serves the interests of the dominant culture (male, in this case) and so should be avoided. Rather than worrying about censoring porn, she suggests, we ought to support the production of more socially responsible kinds of pornography, including feminist porn. Lastly, J. K. Miles advances the claim that defending porn on the grounds of free speech or free expression is a failed cause. He argues that certain relevant differences between political or religious speech and porn suffice to distinguish the cases enough that porn is disqualified from protection by constitutional rights to free speech. One difference is that public displays of porn, unlike public speeches about politics or sermons, would
coerce
the audience into behaving in a way they may not want to – that is, watching porn. Speeches and sermons do not force you into an act against your will, whereas public displays of porn would.Therefore, porn would attempt to persuade without rational consent.This fact, Miles argues, takes porn out of the sphere of protected speech. However, he suggests that the freedom to use porn could be defended on other grounds.