Men and misogyny are two separate things

Last week, The King's Tribune published a piece by Justin Shaw called Porn is Bad. Yes, you're right! It is a hilariously witty title. Because HAHA that's what feminists think! Shaw argues that feminists who are critical of porn are hysterical, screechy, and, generally, stupid. Did you know that what our arguments all boil down to is that "porn is bad"? Yes, it's that easy. Forget violence, objectification, oppression, feminist film theory, powerraceclassgendersexism, because all we've really been saying, all this time is: bad. Men are bad. Porn is bad. The end. We are just a bunch of stupid, simplistic, misandrist, jerks.

Shaw specifically targets an article written by Dr Meagan Tyler, Porn: just a bit of harmless fun?, which argues that most discourse on pornography in Australia (where Tyler and Shaw live) revolves around setting up a "straw-man version of anti-porn campaigners as ideologically driven, extreme feminists or religious loons." I guess Shaw was inspired by Tyler's piece as he appears to simply reinforce all of her points.

Shaw does what many people do when presented with a critique of systematic oppression: remove all context and make it ALL about them, as individuals who exist inside social bubbles, far removed from the influence of society and culture and governments and media. There were dinosaurs and now there's porn. It's called evolution, folks.

Rather than understanding feminist arguments based on what they actually say – which is that rather than individual men or men's "natural desires" being the problem, the problem has to do with privilege, socialization, media, imagery – Shaw manages to boil it all down to this:

"Everywhere I look, women are telling me that I'm bad. Well not me, personally, I don't think, but men in general. Our sexuality, at its very best, is bad and, at its worst, is monstrous. Men and our sex drives must be guarded against because we are made even more dangerous to women by our consumption of any kind of porn. We must be controlled, because female sexuality is the only right moral way to be, we are just penis-driven morons."

Justin, you are SO right! You were born with an all-natural love for fake boobs and rape fantasies. You were born a sexist and there's nothing you can do about it. And also? Women are all born with some kind of innate, perfect, "moral" sexuality. "WE" (the great, big WE who represent all women) are good and you (men) are bad. That's totally a feminist argument! Feminists of course are all about sweeping generalizations and gender binaries.

This goes on and on. According to Shaw, women see porn through "women's eyes" (which are not as trustworthy as men's eyes, by the way, being so clouded by morality and all), and cannot possibly understand that men are simply different-brained and, therefore, naturally inclined to be turned on by sexist imagery.

Shaw proceeds to explain to all of us clueless women that there are actually different kinds of porn. And that the porn he likes is ok. So we've gotten our knickers in a twist for nothing.

Since Justin has helpfully explained to us the facts and truths about porn (because the lady-brain simply can't grasp such a thing), he moves along to answer the question that, supposedly no one has ever been able to answer in the history of feminism or academia:

"The bigger question, one that the female academics seem unable or unwilling to answer is Why Is Porn?

I'll let you in on a secret. Men like looking at it because, and here's the kicker: we masturbate. I'm guessing that the same is true of women who watch it, but not being a woman I wouldn't presume to speak for them."

So move along, folks, nothing to see here. Men masturbate, ergo they watch porn. One can only assume that, before porn, men didn't ever have orgasms alone and one can also go right ahead and assume that women who masturbate also only figured out how to enjoy themselves once industrious men invented pornography (you're welcome, ladies!).

Based on Shaw's argument, I think we can reasonably conclude with this: feminists hate masturbation. THAT'S why they hate porn (and men. and sex. but mostly penises. badwrongyuck.).

But wait! Understandably concerned that we're still unclear on these simple, straightforward, and true-fact points, Ben Pobjie felt obliged to write pretty much the exact same article the next day. So that you don't need to strain your special and delicate lady-eyes, I will summarize the key points for you, in a non-offensive and femmy way so the womenz can read too (we like lists, yes?):

1) Feminists hate porn because they've never watched porn. Sorry to break it to you, porn-researching feminists, all those images of objectified female bodies and cum-shots you think you saw? Wrong-o. You didn't see anything.

2) You just don't get porn. As we learned from helpful Justin, feminists don't understand porn. We don't get that porn is just people having sex! BOOBS YOU GUYS. Boobs.

3) Porn opens minds. Because fake lesbian sex. Without porn probably no one would even know that some women like to have sex with other women. Thanks, porn! And naturally, lesbians have sex with each other so that men can have orgasms.

Now, both Shaw and Pobjie will probably tell you that HAHA they're joking! Get it, silly? Because the best way to deflect criticism and deny misogyny is to respond by saying something creative like "feminists don't have a sense of humour" or "oh haha, but that rape joke was a rape joke."

But the thing about this kind of humour is that it isn't funny. Or rather, it isn't a joke. This is actually what people who support the porn industry believe. This is what the men who wrote these pieces believe. What dominant discourse tells us is that pornography is a 'normal' part of male sexuality and because it is framed as definitive of sex and sexuality, we can't criticize it. It's like criticizing people for breathing. I mean, it's just what humans DO.

Whoops! Not what 'humans' do, actually. It is, of course, largely, what men do. Regardless of the fact that some women watch porn, the sex industry is largely driven by men. Men make up the majority of consumers and makers of pornography. And, therefore, it has come to define male sexuality. Not only that, but because men (specifically, white men) are still viewed as 'the norm' in society, pornography has come to, simply, define sex.

It isn't that pornography actually equals male sexuality, it's that our culture has been so saturated by porn and pornographic imagery that we have learned to view sex through a pornified lens.

As long as male sexuality is positioned as naturally misogynist, it isn't patriarchy or violence or objectification that feminists critique when they critique the sex industry, it is simply that we hate men in their natural state. Because you see, men are 'normal'. Everything they do is 'normal'. If they do it, it's 'normal'. And who can argue with 'normal'? Certainly one can't argue with nature? And, conveniently, anything that happens is somehow 'natural' (and therefore, immune to critique) simply because it exists.

This is strange because I don't see people giving up on war and murder and, like, cancer. But those things happen. According to the logic of everything-men-want-and-do-and-think-is-fine-and-good, these are simply natural things that happen to human beings and, therefore, are perfectly fine and everybody just sit down okay?

I'm just not quite sure why our culture works so hard to normalize sexism as something that is an innate part of being male. If we can imagine that it's possible for people not to murder one another or imagine that there could be an end to war or child abuse or whatever other kinds of behaviour we've agreed, as a society, is unacceptable or at least undesirable, why are we so avidly working to preserve sexism?

Why are we so unwilling to see porn or prostitution as something invented by a society that is not egalitarian? Just because you get an erection when you see a woman being objectified onscreen doesn't mean women deserve to be objectified. And I am not saying that because I have a hate-on for erections, or masturbation, or penises, or even sex. It's because I can separate men from misogyny. I don't believe that your erection is dependent on my subordination.

And you know why? Because I don't believe men are born sexist.