Women’s presence as a definition of success: how porn-culture affects society?

Women’s presence as a definition of success: how pornculture affects society?

Image can be a very powerful thing. It can have impact on our behaviour or sometimes, even change our views, depends of a content of image and general aesthetics. And it is not only a poster or an illustration, which I am talking about, but also the image of ourselves- our appearance. Now, why do visuals influence people so much, and what images have the biggest impact on us? Freud theory might be a good way to find out, scopophilia: ‘(from Greek σκοπέω skopeō, "look to, examine" and φιλία philia, "tendency toward"), is deriving pleasure from looking.’(Scopophilia, 2016). Freud claimed that scopophilia is something that we experience from an early age and can make us interested in art but it also can turn in kind of obsession what Lucian Freud called "a burning and tormenting curiosity to see the female body” (Scopophilia, 2016). L Mulvey in her book called “Visual and Other Pleasures” says: “ Freud isolated scopophilia as one of the erotogenic zones [...] he associated scopophilia with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze”. (Mulvey, 2009, p.53) That shows how empowering sexuality can be, and power in a sexual way can be described as a synonym of success. The thing I want to focus on is a women’s presence as a definition of success. I would like to analyse how did it change through the years in a context of feminism and objectification.

In the past men and women’s presence were dictated by a strict set of rules they need to follow, and those rules were very different from each other and dependent on gender. A man's presence was all about his power towards people in every sphere- sexual, economic, social, physical. A woman’s presence was a contrast to that. As John Berger in his book called “Ways of Seeing” wrote: “Woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. [...]

Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.” (Berger, 1793, p46) Then he explains, why women needed a constant control of their own attitude and behaviour, because how they appeared to others (mostly to men) decided about something that was successful to them. A female image seemed to be one of a very few male’s weaknesses and because men were the only ones that officially held the power, women needed to use their charms to get a man in order to success. That is why they object themselves and turned into a sight, which is strongly connected with dehumanisation. “ Kant notion of objectification [...] focuses largely on instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a mere tool for the lover’s purposes.”(Feminist perspectives on objectification, 2015), according to that this quote there is no surprise in fact that females started to fight about their human rights and equality with men in every aspect. One of the major things they were trying to get rid of for so long, was objectification and canons of female beauty they needed to follow. Comparing the past with nowadays, world made a massive progress, in equalization in various spectrums. But it is not enough progress to say that we are equal, especially in a sexual aspect.

Current generation is surrounded by sexuality almost everywhere: starting from music video clips through television programmes, advertisements and magazines, ending on Internet. We can name it a sexualisation of culture or even soft-porn culture. And it is mainly based on ‘perfect’, erotic female image. Those things that feminists fought for so long, such as sexual equalisation and casting aside a narrow image of female beauty, seems to mean less and less in this generation. A very good example

of it might be growing popularity of ‘glamour modelling’, which is a naked modelling without showing genitalia. In her book “Living Dolls. The Return of sexism”, Natasha Walter observed behaviour of young glamour models. She had interviewed one young girl, who was posing for many men’s magazines only in her bottom underwear. She seemed to be very proud of what she is doing, and described the photos she is posing to as ‘classy’. She has also told why did she chose such a profession. She said that not long ago she was stucked in her house with parents, wondering what is the best option for her to be a successful and famous woman if she doesn't have any talents. She claimed that glamour modelling was the right option for her, and to prove that, after only eight months she is at the top of her profession. Surprisingly her friend agrees with naked modelling and even moreshe is very supportive:” ‘Women are now in much more dominant roles in society, and they can say, you know what, I’m doing this for myself. It’s something to be proud of,’ she said. And how does that make other women feel? [...] ‘ Well, if you’re happy with how you look, why shouldn’t you be happy with how other women look? Cara chooses to do this work, and it’s in a magazine that people choose to buy- you don’t have to buy it.’”(Walter, 2010, p28). Unfortunately more and more women are heading towards sexual industry in order to success. There is a myth in society, which is saying that working any kind of sexual industry is a part of sexual freedom and liberation of women. And that myth is widely expanded.

One of those who believed in it was a girl name Ellie, which previously mentioned Natasha Walter, spoke with and wrote about that conversation in her book. Ellie was a well-educated woman, who really wanted to be an actor. When she found herself in a poor financial situation, following the promise of power and money, this young girl decided to be a lap-dancer. She was surprised when she found out, that reality was completely different. “She was shocked to discover quite how demanding and dehumanising she found the work. In the situation of the club, women became more like dolls than people. ‘There’s something about the club- the lights, the make-up, the clothes you wear, those huge platform heels, the way that so many women have fake boobs,’ she said. ‘You look like cartoons. You give yourself a fake girly name, like a doll. You’re encouraged to look like dolls. No wonder the men don’t see you as people.’” (Walter, 2010 ,p7). Some people can claim that those are the choices that those girls make, and we shouldn’t treat those girls as victims of this culture. They want to have money and power and to get those, they shows their naked body. In a very particular way. It might be only an illusion of power, which comes after treating girls instrumentally.

Against the sexualization of our generation, and those women who are promoting soft-porn culture is New York magazine writer, called Ariel Levy. She wrote a book called “Female Chauvinist Pigs” where she’s talking about growth of soft-porn culture, calling women who stand hand in hand with men to promote narrow version of sexuality, with the title of her publication. The book caused a lot of comments and argues between females. (Female Chauvinist pigs, 2016) Kate Taylor has an opposing opinion to Levy. In her Guardian article she says: “[...] reason for the rise of raunch is that women are rediscovering the joy of being loved for their bodies, not just their minds. [...] Instead of desperately longing for the right to be seen as human beings, today's girls are playing with the old-fashioned notion of being seen as sex objects. This is not terrible news. In fact, to me, this is the ultimate feminist ideal.”

(Taylor, 2015) Taylor seems to see the world as equal for men and women in every aspect. She can’t notice anything wrong in previously mentioned love for the body. It’s again pleasure of sight, scopophilia, which she recommend for all women to use, in order to get what they want, and acclaim those who already use it. Then she adds: “I've worked for GQ and the Sun, and in neither place did I see women being exploited. Does Bell have any idea how much money women make when they take

their clothes off? How much freedom and independence these girls can earn in an hour? [...] Look at lads' mags from a different perspective and you see that what's being exploited are men's sexual responses, to give money to women.

It has always been like this, and it always will be, because men's achilles heel is that they go to pieces when a woman drops her top.” On the end she says: “Old-style feminists never understood this, but their way is not the only way to achieve equality with men.“(Taylor, 2015) Taylor is showing a completely different point then Levy does. She is speaking about women who through their sexuality can take the power over men and at the same time trying to convince the reader, that this behaviour can be another way to achieve equality with men. But when both genders keep fighting over power then equality can never be achieved.

All of what has been mentioned above are so expanded, that we can see more and more examples of sexuality being shown everywhere. Nowadays, where the Internet is such a huge part of people’s life and due to accessibility of it, the internet is the most popular method of expanding the culture. Almost everyone can access the visual reality. There is no surprise in fact, that porn culture has a big influence on us. It is natural, that almost every human being wants to feel sexually attractive, but because of erotic images everywhere, people are turning the term: attractive into something very particular and narrow, which can be extremely harmful for females, especially young girls. This is not true, that due this culture, most of the girls will become lap-dancers, prostitutes or glamour models in order to success. Yet it is easy to see, that erotic culture has a big impact on them, while it promises success.

And success is something so attractive that it makes more and more girls try every possibility to be noticed. The most common method of self-advertising is a selfie, which is: ”a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media” (Oxford, 2016). Elisabeth Day wrote an article for Guardian where she is talking about growing popularity of selfies. She writes: “Dines argues that although men can "gain visibility" in a variety of ways, for women the predominant way to get attention is "fuckability". And it is true that a lot of female selfie aficionados take their visual vernacular directly from pornography (unwittingly or otherwise): the pouting mouth, the pressed-together cleavage, the rumpled bedclothes in the background hinting at opportunity.” (Day, 2016) She notices the repetition of old rules, where the men got attention in any way he would like to, while women still focuses on appearance in order to success. Women now know, that sexualisation is something that is considered as new beauty, and as J. Berger wrote: “ Those who are not judged beautiful are not beautiful. Those who are, are given the prize.” (1973, p52). Prize can have different dimensions, it can be previously mentioned financial success, and it can become a form of social acceptance, respect or attention. We should have freedom in our choices, but we should also pay attention to the fact how our choices influence other people. The expansion of nudity and pornography makes young females worried about their body. It is a natural thing for teenagers as they are going through a massive change, but sex culture makes females feel anxious about their bodies even more, before they become an adult. The main thing that a lot of females are insecure about is shaving. Natasha Walter in her book was trying to explore this subject and due to this, she interviewed some teenagers about their attitude to this topic. She writes: “When I interviewed young women [...] I was struck by one apparently trivial fact- that all of them agreed that they would never want to have sex if I hadn’t depilated their pubic hair. [...] ‘That is definitely tied into porn’ said another. ‘We know what men will have seen and what they will expect.’” (Walter, 2010,p.108) . Even though hair on our body is completely natural, most of women shave because of pressure from society. But this is not the only

reason, Phoebe Waller wrote an article on a website Bustle asking some women to know why are they shaving; answers were various, some ladies claim that it makes them feel cleaner, as they are darkhaired, some do it because they feel that it is more feminine or they think that it is a norm. There is a quote from one lady called Julie, who says that having hairy legs or armpits was something normal back in 70’s/80’s, but currently she feels pressure from her girlfriends to shave. Right after comes another quote from a 19-year-old Beth who says: “I personally stopped shaving last year, because I suddenly thought, 'Wait, WHY am I doing this?' I literally couldn't think of one reason, other than, 'Because it's what my mom does, and what my girlfriends do, and what Kate Middleton does, etc.' And that seemed stupid. Thinking about it, it's ridiculous that men can proudly parade their armpits and leg hair around, while women — who are naturally endowed with the same hair — feel ashamed and embarrassed. Although not shaving can specifically be about challenging these patriarchal ideals of what women should look like (which I completely agree with!), my reason for not shaving is much more simple: It's time-consuming, razors are expensive, and simply put, I am perfectly happy with the natural state of my body.” (Waller, 2015) That proves that not all of the females tend to follow this ‘trend’, yet a lot of them feel society’s pressure. Depilation is only one case of changing an appearance under the fashion, but another, much more worrying thing is growing popularity of plastic surgeries of intimate parts. Natasha Walter in “Living Dolls”, says that in an episode of Embarrassing Teenage Bodies a girl went to a doctor to consult an appearance of her labia, as she was embarrassed by the fact that her labia minora was slightly bigger then, as she thought, it should be. The doctor wasn’t even trying to persuade young women that her genitalia were completely normal, instead he convinced her to have surgery. As Walter says: “ The comments left on the programme’s website showed how this decision to carry out plastic surgery [...] made other young women feel intensely anxious. ‘ I’m fifteen and I thought I was fine, but since I’ve watched the programme I’ve become worried, as mine seem larger than the girl who had hers made surgically smaller! It doesn’t make any difference to my life, but I worry now that when I’m older and start having sex I might have problems!’ said one girl.” (Walter, 2010,p108). That shows how big influence a porn culture has on young women and that the main recipient of women’s actions is still a male. Women speak about liberation and equality, while it seems like the world has stuck in old rules based on gender roles.

People needs to be more aware of impact that porn-culture have on our life and social connections. It does affect everyone differently; some people treat erotic culture as something that helps them to be successful in some way. That part of us, especially women see this culture as something that helps them celebrate their body and sexuality, something that is freeing, liberating and empowering. Also something that helps them financially or socially. And there might be nothing wrong about it, except the fact, that if this culture keep focus mainly on a narrow version of sexuality and particular way of perceiving the human body it will create a lot of anxiety in people's minds. It will make people survey themselves constantly in order to win a prize. In the end this liberal world seems to be nothing more than a repetition of old rules transformed into modern times. We need to remember that we are all born in the same way, and there is no point of taking power over other people in any way. Certainly, most of us want to be successful, yet there is many different ways to get things we truly desire. If we are going to keep objectification so expanded and desire of taking power over any gender so huge, we are never going to be equal. And equality is the only thing that this world truly needs.

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