Hey you, Porn Consumer. Yes, you. Do you think women are entitled to wages equal to men? Do you think women can be good bosses and co-workers? Should women have the right to choose to end pregnancies? A study from Ontario’s Western University, culled from more than three decades of data from U.S. government surveys, and published in the Journal of Sex Research, suggests that people like you somehow manage to take a gender-egalitarian view rather than think women are mere objects to use and ejaculate upon, as radical feminist theory would have the world believe.
“According to radical feminist theory, pornography serves to further the subordination of women by training its users, males and females alike, to view women as little more than sex objects over whom men should have complete control,” reads the abstract of “Is Pornography Really about ‘Making Hate to Women’? Pornography Users Hold More Gender Egalitarian Attitudes Than Nonusers in a Representative American Sample.” And don’t get me wrong — having complete control over one’s sex object is pretty awesome. But that doesn’t mean that those fantasy images of women in pornography translate into real life, the same way that I don’t expect the Cenobites to come and rend my flesh each time I play with that curious box I got in an antique store.
A research team led by post-doctorate fellow Taylor Kohut pored over 35 years of surveys to find that watching porn does not make one go sour on women.
“Composite variables from the General Social Survey were used to test the hypothesis that pornography users would hold attitudes that were more supportive of gender nonegalitarianism than nonusers of pornography. Results did not support hypotheses derived from radical feminist theory. Pornography users held more egalitarian attitudes—toward women in positions of power, toward women working outside the home, and toward abortion—than nonusers of pornography.”
There are, of course, problems with the survey. The study was not specifically targeted but was in fact culled from an existing series of surveys that asked a wide variety of questions. It did not drill down. It did not take into account online pornography. In addition, the average age of respondents was 45, which removes a significant (perhaps the most significant) portion of the porn-watching public and the chunk we would most want to make sure doesn’t have negative attitudes toward women as a result of watching porn.
But it’s encouraging to have this little bit of validation for something we already know: Just like I might get a little pleasantly spooked when watching a horror movie, I don’t think Mr. Babadook is really gonna get me. And just as I sometimes like my partners utterly subservient semen surfaces (and they like me to shut the fuck up and get on with it), those aren’t the views we carry into the world. I am happy to be relieved of this burden.
(images taken from “Tales from the Edge“)
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