Girl on the Net

Is there such a thing as ‘feminist porn’? I’m genuinely surprised to learn that some people think there isn’t. It’s quite a philosophical question, encompassing as it does the definition of what ‘porn’ actually is, and prompting me immediately to wonder: if there’s no such thing as feminist porn, what would self-pleasure look like if the whole world was feminist?

Recently Kathleen Richardson (a trans-exclusionary radical feminist who campaigns against sex work, porn and sex robots) claimed there was ‘no such thing’ as feminist porn. She’s not the only one – search Twitter for the phrase and you’ll find others making the same claim.

They are wrong.

In a feminist world, would there be no porn?

Porn is not inherently feminist, or empowering, or any of the other stuff you’ll sometimes hear anti-porn folks offer as a straw man. I don’t expect you to drop by any of the major porn sites, in 2019, and be wowed by the inclusivity, diversity and ethical practices on display. However, while ‘most porn isn’t feminist’ is a fair enough point to argue, claiming there’s no such thing as feminist porn is an extraordinary and radical step: if true, it means that no feminist can ever create porn. If you make porn, you cannot be a feminist and if you’re a feminist, you can never make porn. It also has other – more ludicrous – implications.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Richardson is right: there is no such thing as feminist porn. Getting rid of porn is one of the key aims of feminism, so in a feminist world there would be no porn. ‘Porn’ being quite a difficult thing to define appropriately, but let’s go with a broad definition for now: porn equals any material that is primarily created to arouse. In a feminist world, according to Richardson, none of this would exist. No nude images, no sex videos, no hot selfies shared between two people, no erotic writing, etc.

If this is the case then I have one important question: to what would we masturbate?

I’m serious. What are we wanking to in this world without porn? I’m assuming we haven’t just stopped wanking altogether. Wanking has proven health benefits, so unless you’re extremely religious or a member of a hardcore anti-masturbation movement, you probably aren’t arguing that we end masturbation. I don’t know many feminists – even radically anti-porn/sex-work ones like Richardson – who claim masturbation is inherently bad, their focus is usually on the inspirational material. So in their feminist utopia, out to what are we rubbing one?

Perhaps the answer is that we’re wanking to the images in our heads. It’s what I do most often, for sure. I like porn, but I don’t tend to watch it when I’m alone, because as a general rule the people who live in my head are far more compliant and depraved than those on screen, so most of my porn-watching is done with my partner. So maybe in this feminist utopia, everyone is just wanking to their private fantasies, and never turning to external input to supplement them.

This, I think, is where our vision of Utopia collapses under the weight of its own implausibility.

Because if this is really what Richardson is after, she’s asking us to suppress an impulse almost as powerful as wanking itself: the impulse to show and tell people about our fantasies and desires. We’d enjoy our fantasies in private, but never allow these rich and powerful experiences to spill out of our heads and into the real world. For this to succeed, people must voluntarily refrain from doing something humanity has enjoyed ever since the first homo sapien daubed a cock and balls on the wall of a cave.

Humans use communication tools to tell stories. And, because sex is important to humanity, one of the key things we communicate about is sex. Pictures, words, photos, camcorder, phone, webcam, virtual reality… every single communication tool humanity has developed has been used to tell the hot stories, as well as the funny or emotional ones (and sometimes all three at once). Whether that’s non-fiction stories about our sexual escapades, or fictional stories about the fantasies we’ve dreamed up. We do it to entertain people, to inform them, and – of course – to arouse them. If Richardson’s porn-free utopia ever comes about, she will have achieved something that no one – no religion, no government, no campaign group, no war – has ever managed to achieve since the dawn of time: stop humans telling stories about sex.

If you truly believe there’s no such thing as feminist porn, and you want to live in a feminist society, you’re asking humanity to stop doing something we have done since long before we developed writing. Let’s face it, you might as well be telling us to stop wanking altogether.

The only feminist porn is porn you cannot buy

Perhaps when people say ‘there’s no such thing as feminist porn’ what they really mean is that commercial porn can never be feminist. The exchange of money will always taint the interaction, and make it so that those creating the porn are technically coerced, because they wouldn’t have created this content if there were no money involved.

Let’s go back to our feminist world: there’s no commercial porn, because money renders the act of making porn un-feminist. So commercial porn is banned, but if you want to take some saucy pictures and share them with your friends for free, you get a pass. We’re masturbating to the images in our head, and the stories we tell each other for free, using whatever tools we have available (pictures, words, films, VR, what have you).

Question: in this world, what do I do for a living? Am I allowed to write about sex, like I do now? Or may I only do it as a hobby, rather than the job I’ve worked hard to turn that hobby into? Or, as is surprisingly often the case with anti-porn folks, does my work get a pass because I am using words as the medium rather than video/images? Does the main issue come from colleagues over in video and image porn, because they’re getting their kit off?

It’s not really important which of us will be out of a job, all that matters is that some of us will be. In this feminist porn utopia, creating art is only a legitimate job if you are doing it for a reason other than arousal. We can use any and all mediums to make a living by telling humanity’s stories – including those which may be violent or frightening or challenging in some other way – but not the ones that arouse.

If feminist porn does not exist, then in a feminist society our sexual fantasies may either be shared for free or never shared at all.

Porn can change, as well as reflect, society

Feminists have a huge part to play in the discussion around porn. Let’s face it, even the most heartily pro-porn advocate has to admit that there are many elements of the mainstream porn industry that are exploitative. There are videos that are deeply misogynist. Racism in porn is a huge problem. As is ageism, fetishisation, dehumanisation: if society is fucked-up in some way, that element of fucked-uppedness will be reflected in our porn. It would be bizarre and – frankly – magical if porn managed to do what no other genre of entertainment has done, and managed to avoid reflecting some of society’s ugliest impulses right back at us.

If feminists want to tackle these problems, as I hope we do, then we have a lot of different tools at our disposal. We can call out bad practice where we see it, and we can campaign against racist, sexist, ageist and other -ist tropes where they appear. We can be honest with ourselves and each other about the problems that arise in the porn industry, and work together to tackle them. Importantly, though, we can also show how it could be done better. We can make porn that lives up to our ideal, in which everyone is equal and treated consensually, with respect and care. We can support those who are creating porn that lives up to these goals.

If feminist porn does exist, as I believe it does, then the world looks nothing like Richardson’s: a sexless universe where we are only allowed to apply our creativity where there are no boners or nipples involved. Instead it looks like something created by Royal Fetish XXX, Crashpad, Jiz Lee, Pandora Blake, Bright Desire, Four Chambered Heart, many of the fab streams on ManyVids, Clips4Sale etc: a world where sex is a part of human life, and all humans are equal.

Porn is a genre of entertainment, like any other. It’s a means of communicating what we do and – crucially – what we want. Just as storytelling is an infinitely human way of reflecting our experience, so it’s also an important tool in changing the world. Building on our experiences to create a more equal society. Porn can reflect the way society is, and paint pictures of the way we would like it to be. I think feminism has a huge part to play in the discussion around porn. But if our solution is simply ‘stop people from watching it’ then we have fundamentally misunderstood not only porn but human nature.

You’re dismissing the methods by which humans change society in favour of telling us to stop being human at all.