However, today I was reading about the Sarah Palin sex doll, and I was disgusted. The first bulleted point in the ad is "Sarah Palin makes sexism sexy." I remembered the Palinporn incident and wanted to try to figure out why my reaction to one of these incidents was a shrug and the other so much more severe.
I think it's because I thought of the porn as a parody. I assumed the title would be something about Miss Alaska or have a reference to the vice president in it, but I assumed Sarah Palin's name would be left out. They would have at least made an atrocious pun. (I briefly considered attempting one, but I'll refrain.)
Perhaps a porno featuring a look-alike of a male presidential candidate has never happened (Although Nixon seems like he was begging for it); I haven't done any research on that. But we parody everything in our culture. The parodies of politicial figures of SNL have been going on since the show came on (nearly 30 years ago), and the Clinton sex scandal opened the door for our leaders' sex lives to be talked about openly. (As opposed to Kennedy's sex life, which was an open secret that nobody talked about openly.) The SNL skits about Clinton weren't pornography, but they did tend in sort of the same direction.
The fact that there exists for purchase a Sarah Palin Sex Doll offends me because in our sex-soaked culture that would never happen to a male candidate. If Sarah Palin were a male vice presidential candidate, this would never have happened. I will admit, though, that I think the degree of absurdity and ridiculousness demonstrated by Sarah Palin probably does have something to do with it:
There's talk about whether people's remarks are sexist or not, whether a particular claim made about Clinton or Palin was sexist, but these days people for the most part know to watch what they say when a microphone is in front of their face (with occasional exceptions). You have to look other places for the nebulous remains of sexism. The existence of a sex doll of Sarah Palin, brazenly stating Sarah Palin's name in the title, screams sexism. I'm not saying it should be censored or that they should be stopped or anything. I'm not saying that Sarah Palin sex dolls are the problem, but they are a symptom that the problem is still there.
I think (hope?) this is the closest I will ever get to defending Sarah Palin.
11 comments:
McCain had no reason to pick Palin. She was chosen because she was sensational. She accepted that in multiple ways. She accepts her objectification. I think the difference between physical objectification and pornographic objectification is a pretty minimal one.
You open a wound with me when you say "am i as a feminist offended by this?" as though there was some ideology you're trying to adhere to. You're better than that. And, simultaneously you remind me of why i hate feminism. Why should feminism oppose pornography? Because it objectifies women? I just don't see how much of a difference there is between someone who works by showing natural talents like sexual skill versus, oh i dunno, computer knowledge. Because one is naked and makes people feel weird when they see it? Urgh. Whatever.
McCain is a Douche. We wouldn't even be here if he wasn't a fucked-up womanizer.
Feminism is an ideology whose tenets I, for the most part, accept. There is nothing that tells me that I, as a feminist, am not allowed to like porn. But pornography is a way in which our culture objectifies sex and turns women and men into objects. It reduces people to their genitalia. As such, I recognize that it is opposed to my feminist values and ideals.
However, saying "pornography" is unfair in the first place; it's a gigantic category that is anything but homogeneous. Some kinds of porn (rape) are so much more offensive than others (bow chicka-wow).
I just don't see how much of a difference there is between someone who works by showing natural talents like sexual skill versus, oh i dunno, computer knowledge.
I find that surprising. What are the qualifications to be a porn star? Depending on the porn you're trying to break into, it probably has something to do with hair color, skin color, size of various body parts (which one can always artificially enhance), and so on. This is not skill. Ron Jeremy became a famous porn star because of the size and utility of his penis. These days literally anyone can be in porn. I can't believe much skill is involved.
What I was saying about Sarah Palin actually had nothing to do with Sarah Palin. We live in a culture where a ridiculous female vice presidential candidate is made into a blow-up sex doll. To be purchased and penetrated. She is literally a sexal object. A toy.
What a female candidate must be prepared to accept says a lot about us.
Those women's sexual skills are about as natural as their tits and moans. That is to say, not at all. It frustrates me to hear you say that, since the main reason I oppose porn is because it gives a false representation of sex. Sure, everyone wants skill and aptitude in a partner, but the expectations that come with watching porn are unrealistic. For most people. Admiring people strictly for their sexual experience and "talents" is offensive and makes my stomach churn. I find nothing glorious or worthy of praise in porn or the people who participate in it, and any time I hear people say otherwise, I feel a little sick.
I know that was almost entirely off topic and probably full of typos.
Seeing as this has turned into a discussion of the porn industry, feminism and the like, and not at all about politics at all anymore:)
I find that the porn industry, is just that and industry. Being an actor in a film, a model in a picture, or doing something else I’m not aware of is a job. To me, it is no different than working at mac donalds, waiting tables, or anything in the consumer market. It is a service you provide for money. You’re whoring your time, energy and effort. Any way you look at it, when you do something and get paid, no matter if you liked it or not, you did a job.
And I’m going to be an adult and not think about what kind.
Now, as for a question of if porn is degrading. Yes, it is. If you don’t enjoy your work. Just like I find cleaning up the occasional accident with a child or ill person, caring for the sick, and I mean sick, you know the stories. Its true I’m equating acting in a pornography with cleaning things that require a lot of bleach, but what in the porn industry doesn’t? This is only one part of my job. If you find that after you do something, you are not proud of what you have done, then you prolly shouldn’t be doing it. Sometimes we don’t have a choice, or much of one to make a difference. And this is where the sadness in porn lies. Not in the acts themselves, or how someone is depicted. It is in the manner that they chose this line of work. This is where feminism lies . ( I keep wanting to type pr0n). If you are using your body, be it farming or fucking, you are doing something worthwhile to someone, i.e. they are paying you. If for example, you are a woman, you might not get respect, or equal treatment in the “workplace”( or their friends basement with a sound crew). Then there is of course the issue of how women are seen in porn, as objects. Well personally, I don’t see women any more than I see men * giggles* as objects. Being objectified is what they have signed up for. This doesn’t make it necessarily right, but both sexes have always been seen for pleasure, not just women to men…. need a reminder, google images Pompeii and Priapus, with safe search off, who wants to protect children!
Anyways, sex for sale is no different to me than working any other place. But just like any other work place, it should ( but isn’t) about mutual respect.
Yeah it seems to be that everyone has generally ignored my first paragraph...
Porn and the objectification of women are two different things. Porn may facilitate the objectification of women, but guess what: just because someone's getting screwed doesn't mean they have no rights. I've never worked in that industry, so I guess I can't say for sure, but something tells me that in order to induce someone to work for at most twenty years in what apparently some regard as a taboo field, and then following their career, must immediately retire because they may have no additional skills - or will not be able to work a 'normal' job for recognition issues, the perks (so to speak) have to be pretty fucking good.
It's weird to see such a leftist group of people get so right about an issue as straightforward as this.
It seems like the objectification of women in general has decreased over time. Now, I'm not an expert on history, but I'm pretty sure porn didn't exist until sometime last century. I'm not saying the women's right's movement sprang from the loins of Playboy, but it would seem that if porn consumption has increased in the past few years (and it has - substantially - from the internet) that we might see some sort of effect in some sort of way.
If anyone can give me a statistic that suggests (even circuitously) that the objectification of women has increased since the inception of internet-based pr0n, please do so. But, just so you know, you're going up against wage gap decreases in offices on my end, and the fact that nearly (if not more) than half of the workforce at my job is female.
I'm interested to see the results of this discussion, but first we need to define the parameters so we have some sort of static comparison.
deleted post was me, i got hasty.
I am writing this in the spirit of good-natured debate, but I am afraid that it mightn't necessarily come across in text. And I'm really sorry, but it's really long. /disclaimer.
Dave: I don't think we disagree as much as it seems. That might be my fault; I usually come off a lot more militant that I mean to. I'll get to that in a second. What I do disagree with is this: It seems like the objectification of women in general has decreased over time.
When I say objectification I'm talking about reducing wo-/men, or pieces of wo-/men to sexual objects, allurements, body parts, things without reference to the whole person. I'm thinking of most television commercials/movies/music videos/pornz I've ever seen. I don't think "decreased" is the right word. I think today's objectification is no longer (and perhaps never was) just for women; it is less suggested (Marilyn Monroe) and more visual/declared/obvious (Pamela Anderson); and it is much more pervasive than it was in the past (via the interwebs). Of course the fact that we see a lot of nudity is a reflection that our culture has become less...puritanical?...but I guess what I'm saying is that the change in objectification from, say, the mid 20th century and objectification in 2008 is a difference in quality and not quantity. Degree and not kind.
You might think I'm splitting semantic hairs, but I don't think so. I think the objectification of women is one way our culture expresses sexism. I think there are others, and I am trying to distinguish between them.
If you had said the subjugation of women has decreased, I would agree. I think this might be what you meant when you said the wage gap has decreased. The fact that we have any female VP candidate, and that Hillary Clinton came very close to being the first female presidential candidate of a major political party is evidence that fe-/male disparities in education, employment, perception of competence, leadership, etc., have happily decreased dramatically. I don't think complete and total equality has been achieved yet, but that's okay as long as it's a forward moving process.
[[I didn't mean to ignore your first paragraph. You said that Sarah Palin accepts her objectification. I said, "What a female candidate must be prepared to accept says a lot about us." I didn't develop the thought like I should have, but what I meant is that IF Sarah Palin, in accepting the role of candidate for vice president, must accept the sexual objectification (i.e. palinporn and sex doll) she receives, AND a male candidate does not have to be prepared to accept the same thing, THEN this is a disparity between male and female candidates that points to sexism. Her exceptional objectification because she is female is an indication to me that our culture is a sexist one. Since Palin is one of only TWO women ever to win a nomination for vice president (another sexual disparity not related to objectification), I can't really give any objective data about the sexual objectification of female VP candidates. Except to say that Geraldine Ferraro does not have a sex doll that I can find. Neither does Hillary Clinton. Yet.]]
I just realized that that's probably not the part of your first paragraph you were talking about, but I'm proud of the argument I made, so I'm not going to delete that paragraph.
On disagreeing less than it seems:
As for the other part of your argument, that porn and objectification are not the same thing, I agree. I think you're absolutely right. For my own part, what I actually said was that "pornography is a way in which our culture objectifies sex and turns women and men into objects."
I didn't mean to suggest that I think female porn stars are being taken advantage of or harmed or anything of the kind. They are adult women who have made a career choice, and a lucrative one, I'm sure. I am criticizing pornography as a product and phenomenon of our culture.
I also don't mean to suggest that porn, media, tv, or movies CAUSE the objectification of women. They are examples. Outlets. Public forums for objectification. Objectification happens in much more mundane ways too, like whenever a wo-/man is sexually harassed or assaulted or raped. These are all symptoms of the same problem. Porn isn't at fault. Even if I knew how to operationally define "objectification" (which I'm sure someone somewhere has done), I don't think you'll find any evidence of a causal relationship between the innovation of pornography and the objectification of women. Objectification predates porn by probably centuries.
There are/were a lot of feminists who think that porn causes violence against women, and I disagree. There has been research to correlate watching porn with acceptance of violence against women, and as far as I know, the results are something like this: watching porn was associated with increased acceptance of violence against women ONLY when it was VIOLENT porn. So it's more likely that violence begets violence, rather than porn-in-general begets violence. I could probably cite something to prove it, and I will if you want me to, but for now I'm done.
Mayhap in grad school I can write a treatise on pornography. I like talking about this. I miss our talks.
I think I do agree with you on a lot of points. It really does just come down to semantics when its between you and me a lot, but realistically:
You're saying it's a cultural deal? So whats the solution? I just don't get how you're jumping to such a wide implication but offering nothing as a starter idea.
But I just pet a friend's puppy, so my sensitivity to those things might be impacting my judgement process. Allergies be damned!
Solution to the world's problems: puppies and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
The solution is not something I or any other single person can come up with. A sexist culture produces sexist people, and those sexist people help to perpetuate the sexist culture. I think having and showing women as realistic role models in all fields is part of it. I think men who support women and advocate for equality are a big part of it (which is why I love them). I think the legislation we have now and may have in the future regarding discrimination, equality of pay, etc. is part of it...change happens slowly. I mean, what's the solution to the racism that still occurs? Probably exactly the same things. Who knows?
I never meant to say "here's a problem and I have the answer." But pointing out the problem is still important (to me).
non sequitor rules the day, what kind of puppy?
The breed was marijuana.
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