Porn Didn't Hurt You, Patriarchy Did
Originally Published on https://tryst.link/blog/porn-didnt-hurt-you-patriarchy-did/
Scrolling through TikTok you’re likely to come across videos of people discussing porn as a threat to public health. Certainly, not in those words (although sometimes directly so), but more ubiquitously in the form of people drawing conclusions between porn use and some kind of “dysfunction.” On my own FYP I’ve seen videos of young women discussing how porn is ruining their relationships (with cishet men). How their boyfriends are ‘porn addicts’ and, as such, they struggle to maintain healthy relationships with them.
On the surface, this talking point is seductive. It can easily woo the mainstream, and even informed, viewer because its central point is the safety of women and cishet men being bad. These are two things many of us can get behind, however, this rhetoric is misleading.
The example goes: “I left my boyfriend because he was a porn addict; he wouldn't stop watching porn even when I asked him not to.” It’s easy to make this into an argument about un-honored boundaries by cishet men. But if we take a second, take a breath and allow ourselves to be curious, we can ask, why can’t someone’s boyfriend watch porn? Now, I’m never one to die on a hill defending cishet men, and let’s be clear, as we continue to unpack this you’ll see my defense is of sex workers, BUT, to lean into the argument at face value: what is the issue with partnered men watching porn?
"This talking point is seductive. It can easily woo the mainstream, and even informed, viewer because its central point is the safety of women and cishet men being bad. These are two things many of us can get behind..."
When I ask women this, typically the responses are centered around toxic monogamy culture, the idea that their partner should never be attracted to other women, especially not sex workers. Toxic monogamy culture is a practice where monogamy has been implemented, interpreted and upheld in ways that are harmful mostly through ownership of women by cishet men. While we can easily see possessiveness as a trait of patriarchy, it is also frequently internalized and upheld by women in relationships with men. Contrary to toxic monogamy ideology, we do not own our partners’ sexualities, nor do we own their thoughts and fantasies. Our partners, even in monogamous relationships, are allowed to experience attraction. Certainly, there are boundaries around enacting said attraction but attraction itself does not end by proxy of being in a monogamous relationship and this reality doesn’t diminish a person’s capacity or sincerity in their love for you. As such, it is okay for our partners to watch porn.
Further, the idea that this is a ‘porn addiction’ is not informed by actual frequency of use or any kind of withdrawal symptoms. It comes, in part, from the second half of the argument which is, “I asked him to stop and he didn’t or couldn’t.” The easy response to this is, he didn’t want to (nor should he have to because he is allowed to have erotic experiences outside of you, with himself). The more nuanced answer is, because of the expectations of toxic monogamy culture and potentially his desire to assuage any conflict with you, he agreed to something he did not sincerely want. His desires did not change but what did change was the context in which he engages them. Now, he’s in a position to be deceitful. This makes the context of engaging porn feel more compulsive, even though the desire and behavior is not. But the requirement to hide, delete browser history, do it in secret, etc, alongside the normal urge to watch erotic content and masturbate, creates an energy that feels like ‘an addiction,’ even to him. But it’s not an addiction, it’s secrecy and shame.
"Our partners, even in monogamous relationships, are allowed to experience attraction. Certainly, there are boundaries around enacting said attraction but attraction itself does not end by proxy of being in a monogamous relationship."
Another part of the argument is that men should not be watching porn because porn shows violence against women thus, any man who watches porn must enjoy ‘getting off’ to violence against women. There’s much here to unpack.
First, how are we defining violence? Often, this talking point is pulled directly from radical feminists who believe that all sex work, porn included, is rape. That no woman would choose this work and as such, all porn is sexual assault. We know this to be false. And further, we know that sex work is not uniquely exploitative, rather that all labor under capitalism creates conditions for people to be exploited. If anyone wants sex work, or any job like hospitality, waitressing, etc. to be less dangerous, a good starting point is creating the conditions for everyone to have their basic needs met and access to resources like childcare. But I digress.
If it’s not that, then many folks say that porn involves ‘violence’ because it may include activities like choking and slapping. As both a porn performer and frequent viewer, I can tell you that all porn does not include choking and slapping and choking and slapping being categorized as violent is loaded. Anti-porn people believe that there is only one right way to have sex and that all other ways are deviant. That kink and BDSM are the wrong ways to have sex aka, are violent.
Sex can be anything the people engaging in it want it to be. It can, and does, include whatever is consensual and brings people pleasure (or money!). Sometimes that includes choking and slapping, or lots of other fun activities that are violent, in the best ways possible. Porn is reflective of that. Further, anyone who’s against ‘violent’ porn is welcome to watch porn that does not include that, there is no shortage of options. If you want to see different types of porn, look for it. There are creators who don’t have sex with cishet men or don’t have penetrative sex at all. There are porn scenes that are just dry humping and kissing and couples, real or fake, telling each other they love each other. If you want relationship sex porn, it exists.
"Anti-porn people believe that there is only one right way to have sex and that all other ways are deviant."
I’ve seen videos of men talking about their ‘porn addictions’ as to blame for their sexuality. In one video, a young man discussed how he initially started watching ‘regular’ (ie. b/g) porn but over time was coerced by the porn (lol) into ‘deviant’ types of porn, like watching transgender women. He mentions that the porn led him into desiring ‘disgusting’ things, but he couldn’t stop watching it because porn is that addictive. The truth: that young man is attracted to trans women. But having sexual experiences, desires and identities that are not cisheteronormative generate shame because of systems of oppression. So, instead of grappling with the transphobia and internalized shame, people blame porn and sex workers.
In all of these examples there is one common theme, whether the person using these talking points is aware of it or not. It’s Christianity. From the man who likes trans women, to the radfems who believe all porn is rape, to the young women who believe their boyfriends should only be attracted to them. Christian, ‘traditional’ values around sex and sexuality are at the center.
In fact, the entire concept of ‘porn addiction’ is faith-based and was developed by a male counselor, with no human sexuality training, who developed and disseminated this idea on the framework that any sex/sexual desire outside of ‘traditional’ (ie. monogamous, vanilla, cishet sex within a marriage) values is shameful. His entire approach was that there is, in fact, a ‘best’ way to express sexuality; that people need to be told what kind of sex is wrong/bad; and to pathologize fetishes, and in more extreme cases, queerness.
The reason that unveiling the framework behind anti-porn rhetoric is important is not only to begin to disrupt it, but to begin to connect the dots that all anti-rights rhetoric has a shared source. All anti-rights rhetoric – abortion, trans issues, fucking climate change, etc – is rooted in Christian nationalist ideology and the goal of affirming white, cis, het, patriarchal idealism and capitalism et al. It is to solidify the power of white men. To believe in ‘porn addiction’ and thus, to be anti-porn, is to support the belief that sex, and by proxy sex workers, are bad. Period. And the unfortunate piece is that Christian rhetoric doesn’t need you to be a Christian in order to successfully make its way into your belief system. It’s seductive enough that, guised as ‘protecting women,’ Christian rhetoric shows up in even the most liberal and sometimes, leftist spaces.
While the impact of this rhetoric hurts everyone because – the hope to control sexual expression impacts all of us – the worst effects fall on the most marginalized, like sex workers. We see the direct harm of this ideology in instances like the mass shooting in Atlanta in 2021 where a white man targeted massage parlors specifically because he said they contributed to his ‘sex addiction.’ More broadly this ideology informs things like banking discrimination and the attacks from payment processors. Bills like FOSTA-SESTA and KOSA; porn bans that require viewers to verify their age before accessing porn; or the new bill introduced to outlaw all sex work in the U.S. as ‘coercive.’ Someone’s casual opinion that porn is bad, directly contributes to violence against sex workers and civvies, too.
Moreover, actively rejecting and disbelieving in ‘porn addiction’ is the starting point for restorative space to address people’s actual distressing relationship to porn, sex and sexuality. Anti-porn ‘authorities’ approach ‘treating porn addiction’ through pathologizing the client and suggesting harmful interventions like having your partner track and surveil your porn use generating shame and perpetuating the idea that part of the problem is a lack of willpower or respect for their partner. Other interventions like online forums under the guise of support groups become a space for collective shame and increased hatred of sex workers by proxy of blaming sex workers for their ‘sex addiction.’
Moving away from this framework allows therapists to address what’s actually going on without pathologizing the client. Often, at the core of a ‘porn addiction’ is an attempt to manage undiagnosed depression or anxiety and a ton of sexual, often religious, shame and trauma. The antidote is seeing people as whole, complex humans with varied sexual needs that are valid and worthy of exploration, alongside trauma processing, mental health treatment and potentially acknowledging we’re all doing our best to cope with our depression which likely stems from living in a capitalist, whorephobic hellscape.
So, the next time you hear someone talk about a porn addiction, allow yourself to be curious about how sexual shame is at play. Ask yourself who benefits from labeling and pathologizing. Ask yourself how we can support people’s sexual selves. And most importantly, ask yourself how you can support porn performers and sex workers who are creating porn that turns you on and represents that kind of sex that you want to see in the world.
