Two things this week – a couple of things you should check out in the world of sex news. The first is an incredible (or incredibly awful) job as a porn censor for the UK Government, the second is a book of sex advice that I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying…
The bad: become a porn censor
Ever fancied getting paid to watch porn? And be part of a project so broad in scope it is literally impossible to actually achieve? Well, now you can do both of these things, by becoming a porn censor for the UK Government.
In case you’ve missed it, the Digital Economy Bill lays out the UK Government’s plans to classify All The Porn On The Internet, and then force websites to age verify users in order to access it. The focus for me until now has been the massive cost involved in doing this (it would be prohibitively expensive for me to do here, for instance) as well as the privacy implications for users (would you like the government or a third party to have an easily-hackable database of all your porn tastes?). Now that the bill is looking alarmingly likely, a number of people are trying to highlight just how ridiculous the initial aim – getting the BBFC to classify porn – is.
Obscenity lawyer Myles Jackman explains in the New Statesman:
“According to the BBFC’s annual report for 2015, the board classified 983 films for distribution in the UK, and 1,143 hours of online content for video-on-demand.
To put this in context, hundreds hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. The demand that the BBFC should be able to make a judgment on the vast amount of video uploaded to a vast range of sites across the world is extremely ambitious.”
‘Ambitious’, here, being a polite word for ‘impossible.’ It’s explained rather beautifully in this spoof video and site from the Open Rights Group. If you like the sound of an impossible challenge, contact the BBFC and apply to become a censor. If this all sounds awful to you, click that ORG link and help them fight the bill.
The good: ‘Enjoy Sex’ – sex advice and reassurance
So I’ve been reading this book: it’s about sex, and it’s about how to have sex in a way that’s enjoyable. That is normally the kind of book I would run very far away from, because advice guides are often full of prescriptive sex advice: do this here, at this time, say these things, etc. This book’s different, and it’s brilliant – Meg John and Justin’s ‘Enjoy Sex‘ is the kind of common-sense advice-cum-reassurance that even I, an otherwise jaded slag, can genuinely get something out of. Full disclosure: I am friends with Meg John and Justin so I am naturally biased, but the main reason I’m biased (and am friends with them in the first place) is because they have taught me tonnes about sex, and the ways in which we talk about it. I’m heavily influenced by their advice and writing, and this blog is (I think) a better place for the lessons I’ve learned from them. Anyway. To the book.
I might write a post a bit later on about the various ways I’ve been struggling recently. But the long and the short of it is: I suck at sex at the moment. I am not very horny. And the relationship I have with my body right now could best be described as ‘we’re on the rocks.’
“As well as there being multiple reasons in the mix every time we have sex, it’s likely that some parts of us will and some parts of us won’t. This is true for most decisions that we make in life, such as whether to go to a party, whether to take on a certain job, or whether to meet someone for a coffee. For example, if it becomes clear that we might have sex tonight, part of us might be drawn to that because of being horny and wanting the connection to another person and the stress release feeling it’ll bring. Another part of us might resist it because we’re a bit tired, we’re not quite sure exactly what we want to do, and we’d also like to finish the book we’re reading.”
Now that I’ve written out that quote it sounds so obvious to me, but recently I’ve been fighting back and forth with myself feeling wrong/bad/weird if I’m not my usual horny self, or like I’m desperately letting my old self down if on this particular occasion I just want to curl up and read a book. That’s why I’m calling it advice and reassurance rather than straight-up advice: sometimes you know deep down what you want, but you need someone to take you by the hand and say ‘yep, that’s OK. You’re OK.’
That is what this book is.
It’s 30% off in Smiths at the moment, or grab it from one of the other book places on their website.
13 Comments
In this fast moving world with access to the internet around the world, what is the Porn Censor going to do, make us into a Chinese State blocking the internet? Yes safeguard the vulnerable but stop interfering in people’s right to watch porn, even kinky porn. Even respectable people like the release and I do credit the internet with the ability for women to say I like sex, I enjoy sex, I enjoy watching sex
Interestingly open rights group opposes copyright and DRM (they see this as censorship too – their website explains why) . Yet the porn industry doesn’t seem to mind lobbying for the right to keep this kind of censorship. Copyright is also a minefield when determining fair use vs free speech vs sharing. They have no problem supporting blanket laws and trammelling peoples rights when it protects their profits , no matter how complex the issue or how impossible it is to enforce. but god forbid anyone try and protect chikdren from hyper sexualized culture and women from exploitation – this is just ‘impossible’ so no one should be allowed to limit it. Its impossible to prevent rape and murder. Should we not bother making that illegal? Profits before people is all the industry cares about . And open rights group doesn’t support the porn industry dependence on copyright to exist.
Well the porn industry *can* still exist without copyright infringement, and there are many ethical porn studios doing exactly that – see pink and white productions (Crashpad), MsNaughty, DreamsofSpanking, Erika Lust, live cam sites like Chaturbate or clip sites like Clips4Sale – none of them has a business model that relies on high volumes of content ripped from elsewhere.
While I don’t agree with the idea that copyright and DRM is censorship, I think ORG’s contribution to the fight against the DEBill is incredibly helpful.
All those sites rely on censorship. You can’t just copy the feeds from sites and remove the ads or re stream them freely It is copyright censorship that makes that illegal. And any person who is in those films has no right to have them removed . copyright censors that right. No matter how traumatic they find it after the fact. As many young porn actresses do. Some who have written about the PTSD they have suffered from industry selling their work after they change their mind. The law of profit trumps their mental health. The porn industry and copyright lobby are part of the most abusive forms of survailance capitalism in existense. Exploiting com modifying culture, knowledge and human intimacy.
Sorry I don’t understand at all. You seem to be saying that it’s bad you can’t just copy porn but simultaneously saying that it’s bad for porn performers that they can’t erase their work from the internet if they change their mind about doing it? You think porn is bad but you also want to be able to copy it all without ads and keep it? Sorry, I just genuinely don’t understand the point you’re making.
You are correct. I am against the feminist newspeak that porn is or can be feminist. It is exploitative and normalises sexist attitudes in my view. Just because lots of women enjoy it doesn’t make it feminist. . I am also against censorship. The way to stop the abuse of women in porn (or at least massively reduce it) is to make it not profitable. By abolishing copyright that would make the profiteering of exploited women non viable. And censorship would not be needed. But even without that your own argument ignores reality . we already censor porn that is abusive and illegal. You must surely say its very complicated to tell if footage is real abuse/rape or not. You don’t trust people to judge what is or isn’t porn. OK. So do you think we should not judge anything incase we get it wrong? You seem to be saying we just allow ALL porn because you don’t trust anyone to judge what is it isn’t porn? But we always judge what is or is not appropriate for children. And we censor it. How about tweets that appear as threats, you can’t tell if its abuse , or consentual or satire so should they be allowed to continue? Is free speech absolute for just for porn or for all forms of self expression? I think it makes no sense to say we shouldn’t censor stuff because we may get it wrong. Unless you really do think all censorship should be abolished or that judges (and all justice systems) should also be abolished – because they too make mistakes.
For me , I see all porn as abuse. Not just abuse of those who ‘work’ in it , but of society and culture and women who must endure its normalisation , and be silenced about its impact on their every day lives. As well as men and young children. Just as I see child pornography as abuse, I don’t seek to censor it. I seek to prevent it from ever being made. That means breaking the motivations for producing it. It isn’t always financial. But often it is. And the wider porn industry is dominating driving force is making money. And exploiting women in a patriarchal society is what gets people off. But its no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society. The fantasy and reality of abuse as pleasure isnt absolute, or separate from our culture. should be challenged not encouraged. Porn does the opposite. It normalises, exploits and encourages misogyny then excuses itself and us by telling us its an innate part of our sexuality. This continues to go unchallenged , even by feminists. And capitalism itself is anti feminist. By definition it exploits inequality. That’s what capital gain is. Any support of it is an anti feminist act.
Your argument relies on denying the agency of porn performers, effectively saying that no one can choose to be in/make porn. It denies the existence of producer/performers and independent people like some of those in my example. I do now understand your argument, but it’s a very basic one that has been debunked many times over. If I have time at some point I’ll try and write a post that covers more bases.
I don’t deny people choose to make porn. I just deny those choices are made in a vaccumm that doesn’t harm them and others. I made lots of ‘positive’ choices when I was younger that I have now come to realise where harmful and destructive to myself and others . They were only a choice in so far as I was cultured to believe so by patriarchy. If that is agency, so what? There’s lots of things we shouldn’t be allowed to do just because we want to. And by the same token aren’t you denying the harms porn does to women and girls and boys in how it portrays women as objects to be abused for their pleasure. Including the sites you listed. But more than that porn is prostitution. With a camera. Whether you think that should be legal or not doesn’t change the fact it was born of a system that deemed women as subordinate humans who could be bought and sold for men’s use. Feminists have been trying to change that attitude. Any agency a small number of women claim to have has allowed them and their male backers to trample on the necks of the majority who don’t. The porn industry has set back feminism. And the election of the most openly misogynistic president by 53 percent women voters after a period when easy access to porn has exploded on the internet, where it is now a daily part of our lives and conversations, where children are accessing it at younger ages, often by accident, tells us porn certainly isn’t helping change attitudes toward women. It normalises misogyny. Rotten fantasy like rotten adverts , changes our attitudes and behaviours.
A feminist march denies the agency of women who don’t believe patriarchy exists and want to walk the streets in peace. But does that matter?
Hahaha ok it’s you, again isn’t it? You’ve snuck back in under a different name to trick me into thinking this might have been a convo worth having. My bad for falling for it.
No, it’s because you sound like an MRA: you’re incredibly rude, your arguments are poor, you *demand* my time and then ignore/refuse to engage with what I’m actually saying, instead continually moving the goalposts. And, as I have explained before (another point you refused to engage with!) I don’t think either of us is likely to persuade the other. So it is a waste of time – mine and yours.
I have lots of interesting debates here with people who disagree with me, but you’re not just disagreeing with me: you’re rude and entitled. I’m up for debate, I’m not here to be a punching bag because you hate the porn industry and you want someone to listen to you.
My wife and I have been married for 3 years now and we’re hitting a bumpy patch in the road . The sense of not feeling comfortable 100% is starting to enter like I’m loosing trust or something and she’s pretty prude I will say she only likes to have sex until she gets her nut then I have to hurry up and get mine and she hates it in the butt as well ( only done it one or twice ) but me I love a dildo in my ass absolutely love it makes me moan and groan like no other buisness and I really really fantasize about being pegged by my woman . Seeing her sexy ass naked with a strap on on is so hot to me but I kno she wouldn’t do it cause I’ve hinted to her about a year ago that I wanted fucked with a dildo and she replied with ew no that’s nasty and she thinks it’ll turn me gay but she probably didn’t think I was being serious but I was 100% serious . Does anyone have any advice on how to approach there woman and talk about this subject ? And am i the only one scared to death to bring it up to her ( even thought were in a dry spell from sex ) I read some of these stories and it’s everything I want ! Some help me !!!!
Hey, so there’s some advice here: https://www.girlonthenet.com/2015/10/11/how-do-i-get-my-partner-to-like-marmite/ But I’m a bit worried about some of the things you say so here’s some quick tips too:
1. Pegging (or any kind of anal play) doesn’t make anyone gay any more than shopping at Sainsbury’s does. It’s just a thing some people do, and others don’t.
2. If you’re struggling to communicate stuff like this with your wife, it’s often best to start with a more open conversation about what both of you want, rather than homing in on a specific thing and then getting upset because she doesn’t want that specific thing. Asking what she likes, opening a conversation by telling her what you do enjoy or saying that you’d like for both of you to get more from sex – both those things are good places to start. There’s a book that might help you explore this stuff – either just for yourself or together with your wife, that I think is excellent https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enjoy-Sex-How-when-want/dp/1785780808