Porn, empathy, and the misuse of the "disease" model
My previous post on bridging the porn divide on "rethinking a virulent anti-porn/sex work stance" attracted a great many comments at my blog and is attracting a few here at Salon. Amber Rhea put up a lengthy and thoughtful initial response at her place, and both she and Ren took issue with this remark I made in the original post:
I am keenly aware that porn can play a part in reducing our ability to connect with each other as full and complete creatures of light. Porn, it still seems to me, is the enemy of empathy.
That deserves some more explanation. Empathy, of course, is the ability to not only imagine what an other person might be feeling(sympathy), but actually to understand what an other person understands, feels, and experiences. Contemporary English often confuses empathy and sympathy to the point that even many scholars seem to disagree as to the precise boundary that separates one concept from another -- a point driven home to me in a few minutes of googling about this morning! Here's one possible definition, from an article for physicians:
The origin of the word empathy dates back to the 1880s, when German psychologist Theodore Lipps coined the term "einfuhlung" (literally, "in-feeling") to describe the emotional appreciation of another's feelings. Empathy has further been described as the process of understanding a person's subjective experience by vicariously sharing that experience while maintaining an observant stance. Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person's experience from within that person's frame of reference.
I like that last bit, and it's relevant to the experience that I think a great many men have with heterosexual pornography. One of the valid criticisms that gets thrown at Robert Jensen is that as a man writing about men's use of pornography from a feminist perspective, he centers men's experiences and reactions; his much-celebrated, much-criticized Getting Off contains relatively few women's voices. (Given that he was writing a book about how pornography impacted men, rather than an overarching cultural critique of commercialized sexuality, this seems like a fairly reasonable editorial decision to have made. The problem, if there was one with Getting Off, seems to lie in his fairly brief and caricatured descriptions of the women who work in pornography -- more certainly could have been done to hear what they were saying.) In any event, both Jensen and I come to the same conclusion: almost regardless of the conditions under which pornography is produced, the impact upon the men who "consume" it regularly is often a decreased ability to connect and empathize with other human beings.
Many sociologists who have studied the impact of porn on American men suggest that there is a connection between the frequency of its use and negative, even hostile attitudes towards women. Some studies -- the infamous UCLA Malamuth experiment chief among them -- suggest that for certain men (the young in particular), repeated viewing of pornography can serve as a "disinhibitor to violence." Of course, other studies reach different conclusions; as with so many other controversial contemporary issues, the "jury is still out." I'm willing to concede that we don't yet have sufficient evidence to suggest that "pornography" (a colossally broad category) always has a deleterious effect on even its most regular consumers.
It's very difficult, I realize, for me to separate my own experiences with pornography from a range of other possible reactions. I have an addictive personality. I was addicted to alcohol and drugs for many years, and have now been clean and sober over a decade. I am not an "anti-alcohol" campaigner, however. I know perfectly well that plenty of people have this remarkable ability to do what I could very seldom do: have one or two drinks and then stop. At family dinners and at cocktail parties, I am confronted with evidence that not everyone who uses alcohol uses it the way I used it -- so compulsively that it nearly took my life. I was addicted to prescription pills, too; on the very rare occasions in the past ten years where I have been given heavy-duty pain medication, I've always placed the bottle in the hands of a trusted friend or lover. Even now, frankly, I'd be uneasy about a bottle of Percoset in my medicine cabinet. And yet, I know plenty of people who use prescription pain meds as they were intended to be used.
It's easy to separate alcoholism from alcohol. It's easy to separate opiate addiction from pain medication. It's easy to make this separation because there are so many abundant examples of folks who use medication and alcohol in responsible ways. But as someone who was also addicted to pornography in my younger years, what I don't get to see -- in as obvious a way --are folks (men in particular) whose relationship to porn has no negative impact upon their lives. For me, alcoholism was a progressive disease: one beer became eight shots very quickly, so I learned I could never even have the first beer. For me, pornography addiction worked much the same way: I wanted "everlasting novelty", and was compulsive about seeking out new images. (And this was back in the days before the Internet!) I could no more imagine using porn for fifteen minutes a week than I could imagine having three sips of wine and calling it a night. And just as my addiction to drugs and alcohol fed my narcissism and destroyed my empathy (to the point that some folks thought I might be clinically sociopathic), so too my porn use did tremendous damage to my ability to practice authentic intimacy.
But this raises the obvious question: was my lack of empathy rooted in the porn itself, or in the addictive way I used it? Can the two be separated? Most of us don't go to social gatherings where we get to see people using porn casually but not compulsively. We don't get to see the men and women whose porn use brings them pleasure but doesn't diminish their ability to connect with each other. Indeed, my experiences of talking to other men about pornography began in Twelve Step and pro-feminist men's groups -- settings in which there was an assumption that pornography would almost invariably be spiritually, politically, and psychologically damaging. And while I was aware that many men spoke of using porn without negative consequences, I had a presumption that they were as I had once been: in a state of denial. Like most recovering addicts, I had to fight a very hard battle against a smug sense that I "knew" that no one could use porn without harming themselves or their families. I extrapolated from my own experience, and the experiences of men with whom I worked in recovery or in gender studies circles, and assumed that "almost every" man would be the same. And when I came to Robert Jensen's work, I immediately identified with his experiences and his views, so fundamentally close to my own. Talk about empathy! It was as if Bob Jensen was my twin brother.
I hate pornography addiction and the harm it does. I abhor sex trafficking and the abuse of women and children around the world. I long for a world in which sexuality is used to bring about life-affirming connections between people, rather than driving them deeper into despair and alienation. But of course, I am more and more aware that many of those who do work in the sex industry, and produce pornography, share those same views. Just as a vintner longs to have his or her wines sipped and savored rather than frantically guzzled, many who do work behind and in front of the cameras clearly believe that they are bringing healthy pleasure to their viewers, and hope that those same viewers use what they see responsibly. I know in my heart there is no place for pornography in my life today. But despite remaining very clear on that subject, I'm more willing now to hear the diverse voices of those who work in and around the sex industry. I realize that where porn is concerned, I'm guilty of confusing my hatred of addiction with the hatred of the substance itself. I hate the disease of alcoholism, but I don't hate Seagrams or Anheuser-Busch; can I not make the same distinction between the disease of pornography addiction and the producers of at least some kinds of visual erotica? Can I start to acknowledge that while there is much within both mainstream and "gonzo" porn that is violent and degrading, other varieties of pornography may be redemptive, beautiful, and life-enhancing for user and performer alike? I think I'm getting to the place where I can say, "Yes, it's a more complex issue than I have previously acknowledged."
The trafficking of human beings for sex is an appalling global crisis. Most of the victims of this crisis are women. Those of us who call ourselves feminists ought to be devoting considerable energy to fighting against sexual enslavement. But we may need to consider the possibility that our most important allies in that work are those who work in the sex industry by choice. Though I have not yet made up my mind about legalization of sex work, I'm willing to consider the possibility that bringing porn and sex work out of the shadows and under the scope of careful, fair, feminist-centered regulation may be a particularly practical way to fight against human exploitation.
Empathy for the victims of sex trafficking and empathy for those who are caught up in sexual addiction cannot come at the expense of empathy for those whose experiences do not match up with our own. If we impose the same victim narrative on the Vietnamese child prostitute and on someone like Ren, we've had a failure of empathy. Addiction to porn made me, Hugo Schwyzer, less able to connect with other people and to see their full humanity. Heaven help me if, in the act of struggling against pornography, I allow myself to lose my empathy for those who views and experiences are radically different.
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Comments
I think you're on the right track with acknowledging the complexity of this issue. That being said, I want to add this to the mix: Pornography has changed radically since the invention of the Internet, so much so that the societal and psychological landscape it travels on is significantly different than years ago.
I'm with you in that addiction in general is negative, and I certainly tend to agree that addiction to pornography can negatively affect people's attitudes towards each other and cause lack of empathy. Moreover, I think it can cause a sense of insecurity in couples and a need to "perform", rather than simply share intimacy.
Perhaps the next step is to draw a distinction between TYPES of pornography. Certainly there is a difference between the "home-grown amateur" pornography perpetuated on the Internet and sex trafficking and forced performances and prostitution. Ben and Tina from Iowa City (I'm hypothesizing here, but they probably exist) who decide to show their sexual escapades online for titillation might not be the sexual norm, per se, but neither is their fetishism innately harmful, in my opinion, unless their relationship suffers as a result.
This is a huge issue that's been percolating for many years. Again, I thank you for raising it in a controlled fashion and with open-mindedness. It's a good discussion to have, I think. Looking forward to more on the topic.
Best,
Elliot
You've clearly put a lot of thought into this and are struggling to bring a balanced view to something you don't have a balanced experience with - that's admirable. It's not a simple topic. What I always seem to come back to re: the question of whether porn is 'good' or bad' is the attitude of its consumers towards 1) female sex workers of all stripes and 2) females in general. And where I always end up is this: a man cannot say, in good faith, that porn is not harmful if he is not willing to emotionally and psychologically, publicly and vocally support his daughter, sister or mother on the pole, in the movie, on the other end of the 900 line. A man that consumes porn but reserves the right to want the actors in that porn to be 'other', and to treat them as 'other', is a man that is fooling himself about the negative effects of porn.
Except that Sandra missed a key feminist point when she said "a man cannot say, in good faith, that porn is not harmful if he is not willing to emotionally and psychologically, publicly and vocally support his daughter, sister or mother on the pole, in the movie, on the other end of the 900 line. A man that consumes porn but reserves the right to want the actors in that porn to be 'other', and to treat them as 'other', is a man that is fooling himself about the negative effects of porn. "
I think that some of corrections needed in this statement begin with a "man or a woman" that cannot support the "choice" of the beloved woman in his life to make her living this way ......
There is a lot that is bad in the porn industry. But until women recognize that men and women are fundamentally different biologically, true equality cannot be achieved.
And until women understand that there are innumerable types of women in the general class known as "women" , we'll never get together on the important issues.
Sorry to hijack this into a different topic, but the entire "feminist thing" has been rubbing me the wrong way on this board for a while. I need to post it myself, and the sex industry would be included in the overall theme.
Carry on now.
One might also want to ask how this man-or-woman would feel about putting him- or herself on the other end: on the pole, the line, the camera, or the guy with a $100 bill in his hand.
So then I thought about people I know who have done just that. I know some pretty well because I designed web sites for them, others have been just acquaintances. One prostitute who became a sex therapist, several dominatrixes, a female print and photo pornographer. Some of the dominatrixes went on to become published non-porn authors and in one case a teacher in a university.
All of them were people who were definitely in charge of their own lives. If there was any exploitation going on, they were the exploiters, not the exploited. I'm not saying anything bad about them here: I have liked and admired them all. The point I'm making is that they were in control of the situation they were in.
So then I started thinking about the economics -- the monetization of sex. Now, this is a curious thing: unlike potatoes and bicycles, just about everyone is born with sex and walks around with it. If you want to do something sexy with another person, unless it's a pretty odd sort of thing, there are millions of people around who are potential partners. Yet (mostly) men pay billions and billions of dollars for -- mostly -- not even actual sex but representations of it. Isn't that odd? What's going on? I get the idea, from the addiction thing, from the report of loss of empathy, that some of it might actually work not to excite sexual feeling but to dampen it. And maybe the same for empathy. Carrying a lot of empathy could be pretty painful, and sex does seem to work, often very powerfully, to provoke affection.
Hugo and Sandra, I think the porn topic is not a single entity and talking about it as a whole instead of in pieces is tricky. The fact of the hardcore vs soft distinction makes it such that if you talk about it, you may be talking at crossed purposes with any given participant in the discussion, who may think you're talking about something else. And even sex workers is not a good term because they are not all of a kind--there's a huge difference between someone who writes erotica, someone who answers a phone line from a secure location, and someone who walks the streets of New York getting in strangers' cars. To blur these large categories and then try to derive useful generalizations seems to me a bit like treating grocery lists, blogs, and doctoral dissertations all as something for which we might develop a single, unified "recommended writing style".
In spite of the terminological obstacles it created for itself, Hugo, I thought the piece asked some interesting questions. And I liked the analogies to alcoholism vs alcohol. Gambling has a bit of the same quality. For example, the fact that some people are more prone to addictive behavior than other is definitely a factor that complicates things, and it raises questions about where the locus of the problem is. Some statistical number of people are allergic to peanuts, so does that make peanut-based products the problem?
This goes to the core question of how free our society should be.
I think you have answered all your questions within your post. IMHO, all is about the intent and the use of pornography, and how the user and participants think about themselves in the end. I really don't beleive there is a right/wrong answer -- no pro-porn, anti-porn stance that covers the all of the subject completely.
You are correct that addictions are narcissitic in nature -- they overwhelm the addict as well as all who interact with that person. I have no idea how to go about "curing" an addictive personality, but it seems almost like ADHD in that it is purely beyond the addicts normal capacity to do a "little" of anything.
I imagine if you enjoy working out, you work out excessively. If you enjoy running, you would run excessively. We do not have the same negative image of these pursuits as we do of alcohol, drugs or porn because in general, the effect is personal rather than communal.
No doubt, a narcisstist has trouble empathizing. If you like, I wrote a post with an empathy quiz -- if you have time, read through the comments as some are very interesting.
Back to porn, if you were able to stand in another person's shoes completely, would you be excited by the other peron's pain and humiliation? Is there ANY "pleasure" or excitement given by understanding what the person involved may be experiencing?
My thought is that there is a mixed response. Men are aroused by the visual more than women. IMHO using select porn images may be useful to create fantasy or arousing images for both sexes without harm to anyone.
Now, consider porn where there is an aspect of violence, or dominance, fear-inducment that is sexually stimulating due to the "control over another person" aspect of sexual experience.
Stand in the shoes of the participant to see if this experience may be at all pleasurable for them. I have no single answer to the experience of this aspect of sexual experience. I think if you are able to uncover how you feel about the image versus the real life experience, aa well as what you think about the other person's experience of the event, much could be learned about the nature of porn stimulation for yourself personally. Some people are excited by having control over others, some people like being controlled.
Again, what is the end result of the real and imagined experience? Was the participant harmed in real life? Do the images make the voyeur want to act out the same? There is not doubt then that this person's experience of porn has the potential to harm others in real time.
There is no way for society to control each and every person's reaction to images or experiences. Still we can do our best not to put others in harm's way. There is no easy answer to this issue, but you know enough to uncover YOUR feelings and experiences with porn. Perhaps this can help you uncover the inner source of your addiction -- I imagine from what you have written that you have tried. Maybe over time, something will "click" for you?
I really wish we understood the mechanisms of addiction. All of our lives would be enriched as a result!
I think my empathy is rare and that many women that I have dated want to take more of me regardless of how I feel about it. I've been lied to and thwarted so many times regarding contraceptives that I feel like I can't find anyone who I can trust to connect with, perhaps briefly, maybe a year or a week, but not for 18 years unless I can explicitly decide for myself beforehand.
Why do men turn to pornography or prostitutes? I am sure that there are many disregarded causes of sexual repression in men. I hate to be thought of as a multipurpose tool. If only it were so simple that I could easily spot the creeps because they were looking at me with singular intent. But I am so trusting and simple, I feel like a ridiculous joke because I am so desperate for human contact, interchangeable with cars and real estate or other securities. My lust and affection are disposable.
I've never been with a prostitute, but I can imagine the inner workings of johns are similar to the porn addict. I feel devalued and my prime is washed away with so many paper towels. Is it true that my empathy is being perverted all the while, until I find others as disposable as I feel? Is another non-personal industrial entity sapping yet more of my vitality? Is this yet another media playing on my fears and insecurities in order to commoditize the expression of my very soul?
Such cynical opportunism is dumped in the water supply when I am the most parched - cyanide in my well. I can never find a glass half-full on the internet no matter how hard I try. That search for novelty often tends to cul-de-sac on the wrong street in Hollywood. You click on a picture of a beautiful happy-looking person and then you are humiliated.
Why is it so? As powerful as the drug companies' lobbyists may be, the sex industry is a force to be reckoned with, I suppose. I know there are many effective contraceptives for men which have yet to be released, in some cases for decades. Imagine all the part-timers, freelancers and innovators there would be if there weren't so many workin' hard to keep the payments up and stay out of debtor's prison et cetera.
My secret fantasy is that one day I will be able to have lovers of mutual respect. That I could wake up in the morning and take a pill and have no worries about disproportionate freedom and autonomy. That I can make my own decisions in life and really get to know someone and know that they really love me as a person before chancing having kids with them.