Women and Pornography: Exactly Who is Being Exploited?

Pornography is a hot topic no matter how you present it. Not only is it one of the most lucrative businesses in this country - and others - but it remains one of the most controversial. The very nature of this industry makes it controversial on so many different levels, to so many different individuals and groups.

Even without the controversy, anyone who uses the Internet owes a degree of debt to the business of porn. Whether you realize it or not, pornography on the Internet has driven some of the biggest developments in Web-based technology as the people involved in it seek to deliver bigger, bolder, and badder content to an audience willing to pony up billions upon billions in fees each year. Enthusiasts don't simply want to read salacious text or view still images, they want to interact. As one Web pioneer has said, "The first group to bring us computer-based scratch and sniff capability will no doubt be the purveyors of porn."

Yet it is not only impossible to divorce the controversy from pornography, it would almost be counter-productive to do so. Part of the appeal, for those who enjoy this kind of material, is its taboo nature - something to engage in privately, furtively, with the full knowledge that others we care about like a spouse, a boss, or our parents would heartily disapprove. Common sense and every marketing study ever done shows us that we are much more willing to spend big dollars on secret, illicit, or outright illegal or unsanctioned vices than we will on common ones. The guiltier the pleasure, the bigger the price tag.

Of the hundreds of arguments against the prevalence of pornography in our society, one of the loudest and most frequently voiced is that any content of this nature demeans women. It is perhaps the only point upon which both feminists and Christian fundamentalists agree.

But is this argument legitimate?

Pick any 10 X-rated films to watch as objectively as possible and ask yourself if women are any more exploited than their male counterparts. More than 30 years after "Deep Throat" and "Debbie Does Dallas" became household terms and women learned that they had the right to enjoy sex as much as their partners, the typical sex movie of today does not seem to have evolved much, except in terms of technology used. Plot, personality, or personal responsibility continue to be afterthoughts if considered at all. It's a rare video that depicts men and women as anything other than lust-driven sex objects willing to do whatever with whomever in the pursuit of momentary pleasure. Nothing is left to the imagination because imagination is almost always sorely lacking.

While the female roles may range from innocent maiden to super bitch, the guys often come off as burly buffoons whether intentionally or not. The result is often more camp than anything else. This is true even in the growing number of sexually oriented videos made by women like Candida Royale and actresses-turned-producers who insist they can make better films that will appeal more to the female market. Regardless of who makes the movie, you get surgically-enhanced women dressed in seven-inch heels and often little else and men whose wardrobe is always forgettable.

"Don't ever tell me girls are exploited in porn," writes "Harry", a former actor who says he appeared in just under a dozen sex videos back in the 1980s. "Maybe that was the case years ago, but women stars of these movies make hundreds, maybe thousands for a day's work while lots of the male actors make nada. In the only movie where I got equal billing with the gal, she was paid at least $1500 cash for the same afternoon of shooting where they paid me $100. I knew guys who never got paid at all 'cos the producers think the sex is enough payment. Men can be real stupid about sex."

Harry's story rings true when compared with public interviews done with some of today's goddesses of the sex industry, like Jenna Jameson who have built significant fortunes and fan bases around their appearances in "blue" movies.

But Ellen Janny, a Brooklyn, NY writer and blogger who has studied the evolution of erotica and pornography in American culture, is quick to add that just being paid well is not a good indicator of whether someone is being exploited.

"After fifteen years of research, I'm inclined to say that who is being exploited by the porn industry is not the female actress but the audience. Our busy lives make it hard to give our sex lives the time it deserves so many, especially men, resort to pornography to help get them in the mood quickly. What they get in exchange for their money, however, is almost always poorly done schlock that doesn't promote anything loftier than a quick orgasm. There are exceptions, but they are rare.

"When politicians and clergy and the public rage against the evils or pornography, I think they miss the point entirely," Janny adds. "Sex is part of life. It's a basic need rated close to sleep, security, and exercise. To have 99.9% of all adult films portray both men and women so poorly, to mislead the audience, is the real evil here. Making love is beautiful; porn almost never is."

Beth Salomon, also of Brooklyn, is an author of erotica who says she once believed that pornography was something no sane, healthy person wanted to see. She refused to date any man who admitted to watching adult films and confesses she used to lecture men about the objectification of women in X-rated movies.

"But I was wrong. Pornography itself isn't bad even though most of what is produced as adult films is miserable material. I don't think the answer is to condemn all pornography, but to find a way to present the subject matter more realistically, more lovingly, and much more in a way that men and women can share together as a positive experience. I've met enough adult film actors to say that I don't think women - those here in the U.S. anyway - are misused or exploited. Nor should any woman be insulted by sexual subject matter," writes Salomon.

She adds, "Medical and sex experts all agree that the most powerful sexual organ is the brain. The trouble with most porn is that it doesn't come even close to stimulating the brain. Let's fix that error rather than just toss out all adult material as evil."