How can regulating online content affect ways women use the internet, its impact on their sexual expression, sexual health practices and their assertion of sexual rights?
The invention of the Internet has revolutionized notions about what is private and what is public, as one can enter this public domain from the privacy of his or her living room. The female sexual organs are entering into this public sphere, but it seems the public can only stomach the pre-pubescent gloss of the uncomplicated slit. The discourse around content regulation must take into account gender-related concerns, as online content, in particular pornography, represents a primarily heterosexual, masculine ideal of “barely-legal” female bodies, which is dictating and limiting women’s sexualities. As tobacco companies have been found to be destructive to public health, so are the unrealistic images of women that both sexes are consuming, which women are going under the knife to replicate.
Up until recently, heterosexual women rarely had the opportunity to see others’ vaginas, and therefore had no means for comparison or critique. But now, with the expansion of the Internet and the mainstreaming and accessibility of pornography, this has significantly changed. A new norm and beauty standard is emerging, established primarily through porn actresses. According to surgeons, much like at the hairdresser, women are bringing in pictures from websites, asking to be altered so as to better resemble the images. However, many of the pornstars considered to be exemplary models of ideal genital aesthetics have been surgically altered themselves, or cropped in Photoshop. Therefore - to quote Judith Butler - the “norm” that is emerging is a copy of a copy, which, in fact, references no original. A defining moment was in the year 2000, when Americans took their first gasp as a pornstar named Houston filmed her labiaplasty procedure for subscribers and auctioned off the excess flesh on the Internet.
“Designer Vaginas,” as they have become commonly known, refer to an assortment of female genital surgeries that are used to create more pleasing genital aesthetics, a more youthful appearance, or, as some physicians claim, to enhance female (and male) sexual pleasure. One of the primary advocates of the procedures is Dr. David Matlock, who has “created” and patented the procedures Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation® (LVR®), Designer Laser Vaginoplasty® (DLV®) and the G-Shot® or G-Spot Amplification. He claims that, “Most patients say that they want to be like 16 or 18 years old again. With LVR we can accomplish this.” (1) Additionally, the G-Shot® actually “enhances” the female anatomy, reminiscent of Deep Throat or Freud’s wet dream of feminine normality, as it provides women with a deeper capacity to have pleasure from traditional penile penetration.
In all of this, women’s sexuality is being infringed upon and, at the very least, limited. How can diverse sexualities be expressed when new models of women are being arranged ten to a shelf? It is understandable that society needs certain fantastical outlets, and pornography might thus be understood to be a necessary tool. It becomes problematic when this “phantasy” becomes an avenue that men and women hold up as a realistic standard, and when the prevailing images of women include domination, violence and statutory rape.
References:
1. http://www.makemeheal.com/news/dr-matlock-breaks-down-vaginoplasty-laser-vaginal-rejuvenation/52 [accessed on February 27, 2009].
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Erika Szostak
J.E. Robertson
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Is there no limit to what women will do to artificially alter themselves to be acceptable to men?
I recently read "Female Chauvinist Pigs" by Ariel Levy and I highly suggest it. http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743249895
She touches on a good deal of these issues.
Also, as a side note. I just want to say that I, personally, have never known men who like this kind of pornography. Most of the guys I have known prefer what they saw their dad's looking at in the 70's. and early 80's. And I have certainly never been made to feel anything less than beautiful by my partners. Of course, most of the men I know are pretty liberal and highly educated, so...
The reason I find this new trend so disturbing, is that it is just so capitalistic. Selling us something that we don't need, we may not even like, and that certainly isn't healthy for us. They create the demand. Pretty soon, people are buying it. It becomes a part of our consciousness.
Huh?
Have you actually searched around internet porn even a little before writing this? There are big women, there are little women, there are old women, there are young women, there are women of every race fucking men, and women, and transsexuals of every race. There are women in charge, there are women that are slaves, there are women that are equals, there are women that are solo.
Internet porn has every derivation you could possibly think of, some that you never knew you wanted, but now you do, and some that you really wish you'd never heard of.
Just because Vivid Video and a few other big studios have created some "Superstars" doesn't mean that all men and women are buying into it. I've never seen a vagina I didn't like, and, aside from hygiene (of the cleanliness, not the shaving variety) or medical issues that might affect function, I can't imagine I ever would.
There will always be people in this world that can easily be led by any latest fad that's stupid and shiny, but that doesn't mean that those folks are a representative sample of the American populace. It just means that a few companies found a way to make some money with women that look young and perky and those companies are pushing a lot of advertising dollars back into the web. There is other porn out there, and people are making quite a bit of money off of what Lissa R references as "just bad porn." I don't think (a lot of it) is bad (some of it is nasty, of course, but I've been to horrible restaurants too), I like it quite a bit.
I think this is more of a failure of parents and teachers for not teaching sufficient marketing and advertising literacy than it is a success of companies brainwashing the populace.
Thanks for your feedback. I happen to agree with most of your points. I wasn't suggesting that most men and women WANT these "ideals". My point is that most men and women don't, but the PREDOMINANT representation of women is of "barely legal' bodies who are being dominated and brutalized.
I am aware of variations. However, most of these variations fall under other equally objectifying categories or fetishes. Like Saartjie Baartman, who was paraded and put on display BECAUSE of her large labia and dark skin.
Most men DON'T want what is being sold by a minority of people and their narrow aesthetics. However, it still exists, it is still out there...and quite frankly, when I am doing my research on reproductive health issues and I type in "vagina" into Google, I am tired of seeing photos of naked young women being violated.
The "PREDOMINANT" representation of music in this country is top 40, light rock/pop, and classic rock. That doesn't mean that it's any good either. Last time I checked, no one with an informed opinion on music enjoyed repetitive radio either. Defining any media by that which is marketed to uninformed, apathetic, ignorant, and/or unintelligent consumers is a faulty argument at best, an intentionally misleading argument at worst.
I've never understood the objectification argument, or, to be more honest, I've always seen through it. It's porn. The purpose of porn is to exercise a base instinct, not to form an empathetic emotional connection with the characters, settings, and situations, which is the purpose of most other forms of cinema (potentially excepting comedy). You can't have a meaningful emotional connection with someone that you see fucking on screen for 20 to 40 minutes. Even really good TV takes up to a half season for viewers to really identify with characters. So, everyone in porn is objectified, men and women equally. If you want to see misogynistic porn, compare the porn of the 70's and 80's to today, which you seem to imply as more wholesome or at least more acceptable. Mainstream porn of the past is drastically more misogynistic than today's variety. Porn today is approaching empowering to women, if it's not there yet, which often, it is.
As for your comment on violation, that's really only a term that should be used for rape, whether merely of the body, or of the mind and soul, as in the case of pimps "tricking" a girl to prostitute herself. If you feel that this is what porn is, then 99.99% of porn should be found offensive by you, and I'm kind of wondering why you've chosen to start not just an entry, but an entire blog about it, when you should just be telling us all how evil it is, if that's how you really feel about it.
I would be happy to write a longer more in-depth article tackling all these very important issues, but you need to give me a few days.
But for starters, I am on the fence about how I feel about porn, philosophically. Should I damn it all? Should I accept it? I agree with you. Society needs fantasy. These images are not "real." I guess the main difference I was trying to note was that because of the internet, women, heterosexual women, have more access to pornography. I am not sure how many ladies there are who would have braved the back room of the video rental store. And the only other option is the old-school on demand porn channels when staying a hotel, which is infrequent. Even when I was conducting research on an essay on a similar subject, and I went to buy a pornographic magazine, the man in the bodega snickered at me and asked me why I was buying it.
Many heterosexual women have most likely not frequently seen much porn before the internet, and likely have never seen another woman's vagina either, unless they are a physician ‘or have friends who are willing to strip down and spread 'em. I am not saying that men sit around in the locker room, checking out one another’s junk. I am just saying, the female sexual organs are more of a marginal and mysterious site, and not as easy to view.
Women (and people in general) are eager to classify things. We live in a society where there is a huge amount of pressure on women to look like the airbrushed models we see on magazine covers. So now that women are viewing porn, who may not have viewed it before, I think it may have a different impact, and perhaps the "obviousness" of the fantasy is not as clear. Just like it STILL doesn’t sink in, no matter how aware we are that the magazine covers are NOT the way REAL women actually look, that we shouldn’t strive to emulate them.
The deeper question is how much of our true selves do we give up to please "others" even though they only live as a construct in our minds. Not just hunks off of or gross additions to our bodies but the essence of our very selves have been offered as sacrifice to the god of acceptance. And he/she is never satisfied.
Which do I think is the bigger, more profitable industry, male or female surgeries?
Well,
I think it is difficult to compare. But, to adopt a saying from sex reassignment surgery, "It is easier to poke a hole then build a pole." I suppose in this case I mean that if making protruding genital bits protrude further was something that was easy to accomplish, then the culture around such practices would probably shift. I am sure that many more men would consider doing this, if the results were effective.
For women. The results are effective. The genitals are made smaller, more minimal and more streamlined. However, are they effective for women or their male sex partners? Designer Vaginas are often a positive outcome for men, and they don't even have to go under the knife. For women, I have no doubt that the results of being "tighter" are pleasurable, similar to if the man were "larger," but with the surgery, there is the off-chance of nerve damage or chronic pain for the woman. Women are used to this, monitoring our reproductive cycles and sexual functions so as to facilitate comfortable sexual partnerships. For example, women accept taking the pill, or getting an IUD so that the man (and woman) can enjoy not having to wear a condom.
Maybe to better answer your question, I can talk about safe sex practices. This is a subject that has periodically outraged me. Why has the male pill not been further developed? Why do women readily accept altering their hormonal cycle, when, along the way there have been approved versions of the pill that had serious adverse effects, like cancer and severe hemorrhaging. Why do we accept the bleeding, the cramping, the weight gain, the mood swings and worst of all, the loss of sexual desire? But we still take it.
Would men do the same? I think not. If there was a pill that was guaranteed to make you gain 15 pounds and have temporary impotence problems, I highly doubt that even the most liberal man would take the responsibility to suffer those blows for the sake of partnership. Why should they do anything, when we are used to doing everything for them?
Maybe this was off-subject, but I guess what I am saying is:
There is less need to sell comparable services to men, when women are willing to do the dirty work themselves to meet the same goals in sexual union. This is the way it has been. Perhaps it will change. we have countries like Norway and Sweden with their paternity leave, and it seems that men are starting to get on board when it comes to what was once a "women's issue."
Of course men have similar insecurities...of course their sense of sexual prowess is essential...but when it comes down to actually doing something about it, the technology just doesn't exist. And if it did, why do it, if their are his and her's versions?
It makes me think that men are really, in their cores, disgusted and frightened of women, and of putting their "junk" into our "junk," so much so that the only way they can bring themselves to do it is if they can tell themselves that what we've got is not some hairy mystery, but a clean, tight, unused, and totally non-organic place that cannot in any way harm or defile them.
And that sucks.
Again, I think a lot of this has to do with women's need to be the epitome of beauty. Something like this is started in Pornography and when females find out that males have a sexual interest or consider it a point-of-beauty or an extension of personal care, they pursue it.
By the way, have you noticed that most of the males are "bald" as well? What does that say?
No question about the designer vaginas for me; I think it's detrimental to women's mental health. Again, it's not a black and white issue, but I'd rather women just learned to accept their bodies.
@ incandescent, I love your points. But I tend to think that the examples you're giving are examples of how the patriarchy and the hyper-sexualization of our culture hurts men too, not just women. Great discussion though.
Thanks again for all of your great feedback.
Incandascent, thanks for sharing some of your perspective with me. I guess I might have come across as a bit harsh..I was not trying to imply that it was the "patriarchy" that was the reason there is no male pill. I realise that it is more difficult to make effective...however, I also think that there could have been greater strides made if there was more of an impetus.
Maybe I am basing my opinion on my own experiences and stand up comedians. It seems an old joke that men always BEG to do it without condoms claiming "but baby, I can't FEEL anything with it on," and women smirk and say "well, welcome to the club." I mean, aside from allergic reactions to latex, most women I know would rather use a condom, but it is often the men who complain.
Anyway, you're right. This is all about choices...or at least, making the best choice we can given the options. Is it better, as a woman, to stand your ground and not compromise on issues that you feel are sexist, or to try to have a partnership with a person whom you love, who might also be male? Love is about give and take, I only wish that there were more equal options on the table. Aside from biology, it seems the majority of the options fall on the woman's lap. I mean, I know a few very cool men who have opted to get vasectomies, but while they can be reversed, that choice seems a bit on the risky side, if you do want to have children down the road.
I know that men are insecure. I don't mean to suggest they are not. I guess until science comes up with comparable options for men, this is all just heresay.