It would be interesting to know what kind of porn these "elite" guys consume. It may be a chicken-and-egg question for sure (did porn cause the attitudes or did attitudes demand the porn?) but regardless, there's a problem if one part of society is telling them it's okay to eroticize mysogynistic practices, and another part of society is telling them they're the scum of the earth for it. Which is it going to be?
I've talked about the sexualization of women to a large extent, but have not said anything about the sexualization of men, so I'm going to shift gears a bit here. I think doing this and then returning to my original complaints with mainstream pornography will help sharpen my position and my arguments.
While doing research on Peta's "Furless" campaign I came across a news story according to which Levi Johnson (of Palin Family Saga fame) is going to do
a full nude spread for Playgirl. I don't mind this, just as I don't mind the Peta "Furless" ads (other than that they seem to involve far more women than men, curiously -- do more men wear fur clothing than women, or are they trying to catch the eyes of the apparently numerous lesbians who wear fur clothing?). To examine why I don't mind, we can employ as a reference one of the
male models used in a previous Peta Campaign (ha, ironically this is safe for work).
Obviously we see some skin here (and as a male, I'm quite pleased that the model sports a fairly attainable body shape -- I was expecting Ahnold physique or something -- I do suspect some photoshopping though).
But let's look at what we don't see:
We don't see five women ganging up on this guy and urinating on him.
We don't see a woman shoving a dildo where the sun don't shine at several hundred repetitions per minute. Nor do we see Howard Stern asking him to shove a dildo down his throat to test his gag reflex.
We don't see a woman calling him a "stupid jock"; a "menstrual flow felcher"; a "douche inhaler"; uh, whatever other terms you could call a dude that would have typically negative connotations, all while spanking him until his skin is reddened, indicating observable physical injury.
I suspect Levi Johnson's experience with
Playgirl will produce images very much like this Peta ad (albeit with fuller exposure). This is where one problem lies in the porn discussion; when we say "porn", we've typically got this cute vision of what Levi Johnson is doing. However, in the context I've been discussing porn, I'm referring to the "things we don't see" in the Peta ad above. If those things did happen to Levi Johnson, and the images were played ad infinitum for twelve year old girls to see for the next twenty years straight, you bet your arse I'd feel uncomfortable raising a son in such a world.
One might point out that men's sexual needs are different from women's, but, come on, if we're not going to accept derogatory terms being thrown at women in the office place (which still happens too much), why should we let this happen, let alone celebrated, in
any industry?