This is a write-up of the Challenging Porn Culture conference, organised by London Feminist Network, that took place in London on the 3rd of this month. Apologies for the lateness of the post.
It felt like a privilege being at the Challenging Porn Conference in London on Saturday the 3rd. It was an interesting, moving and educational day. Prof. Gail Dines‘ opening presentation skilfully illustrated the aggression, sexism, racism and sexualisation of women and girls in advertising and pornography. It was the kind of media training and education I wish everyone would receive as survival skills in the image based world she described and deconstructed into words for us to digest. 
Dines said that while we have become familiar with reading and analysing print, most people have not yet become properly accustomed to the idea of and ability to critically ‘read’ images. Important to understand about the images is that they are created with an audience in mind. When it comes to images of women in porn, as well as those images of the beauty and fashions industries and in so-called “Lads’ Mags” that have been informed by porn, the poses adopted by women are designed to give a look of invitation and by extension, a look of submission and ownership to men. Also true of these images is that the women are usually young, toned and White and are used and presented as interchangeable in the media in which they appear.
An overbearing message that comes with such consistency (monotony) in images is that women who appear in image-based media in our culture are deemed ‘fuckable’. Those who aren’t, generally don’t appear. Our culture therefore dictates that women are either ‘fuckable’ or they are invisible. In choosing to be visible, and therefore inevitably ‘fuckable’ women and girls are deemed ‘sluts’. Such a naming, Dines suggested, is a cultural/social ‘rape’ of women’s and girls’ identities, leaving a choice between invisibility (an unimportance) and ‘sluthood’.
The discussion then turned to internet porn and we were informed that more than 13,500 porn films are produced every year, and as with any large industry a ‘dominant design’ emerges. Nowadays rather that so-called ‘softcore’ and ‘hardcore’ these dominant designs take the form of ‘feature’ (storylines, characterisation, couples market) or ‘gonzo’ (common features include gagging, choking, mascara running down face etc., made for men to watch alone). A shift towards these designs is apparent in the normalisation of gonzo which has seen people like Max Hardcore (he uses speculum torture, choking, etc.) go from the fringe to the mainstream of the industry in the space of 15 years.
Dines stressed the importance in understanding men’s sexuality, and recognising that it is socialised from the word go. Feminists are man’s best friend- (in opposing such socialisation) they fight for men’s humanity.
Dr Jennifer Johnson from Virginia Commonwealth University was next up and the first speaker to present on ‘anti-porn perspectives in academia’ and talked about analysing pornography as an industry and business.
Dr. Jennifer Johnson’s visualization of the porn industry as an unorganized scatter plot from the user’s point of view, immediately followed by the visualization of the industry as a highly interactive core with hundreds of tentacles to seemingly unrelated porn sites from the industry view was striking. It illustrated perfectly the goal of the porn industry: “to manipulate men for money” through the use of women as “tools”. Her presentation made it clear that porn companies actively and efficiently strategize using 3-5 minute “free porn” teasers in order to ‘convert’ as much of their ‘traffic’ into paying customers.
It was made clear that the relationship between the porn and its user is one of an industry and a consumer, nothing to do with free-speech or empowerment. To add to this were some shocking statistics that say that the porn industry itself estimates that 20% of their web traffic are addicts.
Dr Meagan Tyler from Victoria University then presented analysis of the mainstreaming of pornography focusing on research being done into what pornographers say about their own product through the trade news organisation AVN. As Suzanne Keppeler was quoted as saying,“The pornographer himself is more honest and astute about pornography than are the cultural experts engaged in defending it.” Studying AVN it becomes clear the violence is completely normalised in the industry made apparent by the fact that about a quarter of the video reviews in AVN news in the sample period of 2005 specifically highlighted violent acts. The only 2005 production that was reviewed and that carried a marketing caution (“stock carefully”) included “merciless beatings” of women trussed upside down like slaughtered cattle. The film ended up grossing USD$50 million. Now the bestselling videos each month regularly mention violence in their promotional material.
Dana Bialer from Brandeis University gave an interesting analysis of lesbian/queer porn. Such porn characterises its founding theories in subverting capitalism, representing diverse bodies, viewing pornography as a political move, and embracing sexuality and holistic living. All in all it often paints itself as an egalitarian, subversive, and positive movement. However, Bialer states that such a characterising is riddled with contradictions and hypocrisies and that lesbian/queer porn in fact exploits an already marginalised group.
Queer porn still normalises violence and disconnects itself from any awareness or discussion about inequality of gender, race, class etc. Its framework is devoid of appreciation of intersectionality; specifically with regards to capitalism. It ends up painting the savvy, exploitative pornographer as a feminist revolutionary. One example given was the move of the pornographer Tristan Taormino to work on queer porn for Vivid Entertainment.
The next session was entitled ‘Living in a porn culture: young women speak out’. Jennifer Hayashi Danns (co-author of ‘Stripped: The Bare Reality of Lap Dancing’) spoke about her time as a former lapdancer. Jennifer said that while working as a lap dancer she felt that she was making an informed choice, and believed that empowerment was to be found through ‘being sexy’. After working for a while however, and experiencing the expectations and demand of the ‘customers’ she developed unhealthy relationships to food and her body resulting in her undergoing cosmetic surgery. She claimed that the catalyst for her leaving came when she fell in love, making lap dancing feel sexual in a different and more unpleasant way.
Jashmin Patel and Lia Latchford from Imkaan spoke to draw attention to the online abuse of women and girls in vulnerable situations via social networking sites.
Nell Beecham, Women’s Officer at York University discussed the effects of pornography on lesbian and bisexual women, highlighting the fact that lesbian porn endorses inequalities in power and control as a norm in lesbian sex rather than principles of equality.
There was a long list of representatives of activist organisations –including this project- present to speak about their work in the ‘focus on activism’ session.
First up though was Ane Sto from the seriously cool Norwegian feminist group Ottar who started mobilising against the prostitution industry in Oslo in 1981. They took direct action against the men fuelling the prostitution industry by spray painting ‘johns’ on buyer’s cars while another activist kept them talking on the curb. It took 20 years to criminalise the buyers and decriminalise the women involved in prostitution in Norway but feminists such as those involved in Ottar managed it, as did other groups in Sweden.
Linda Thompson was there representing SWAP and unveiled a great looking new project aimed at young people called Porcupine, (because pornography is a prickly issue). The focus is on supporting young people in resisting porn, its influences and encouraging them to speak out against it.
Marai Larasi of Imkaan discussed the role of pornography in informing and shaping attitudes that perpetuate racist stereotypes. This was a real highlight as Marai pinpointed a number of important points on how to engage more young black women in feminism. Also importantly she noted that a lot of us are too out of touch with what is happening in young people’s culture and that as a group, feminists are not sensitive enough to the different pressures on black women in terms of expectations regarding their appearance.
However, she emphasised the need not to single out Hip-Hop culture as the only/main proprietor in sexist, racist and pornographic imagery and stereotypes, due to the potential of doing so to alienate young people. She called for activists to educate themselves about youth culture and to engage with young people about the media they are consuming. Having grown up on rock, metal and punk music as a teenager, I was very glad that she pointed out that hip-hop is not the only form of popular music infested with sexism and the glorification of (sexual) violence towards women; something I have only unpicked in the past few years.
Anna van Heeswijk discussed OBJECT’s campaigns and strategies. Of key focus was the need for activists to get creative. She painted creativity as key in getting messages across. The voices of women who had experienced the lap-dancing and prostitution industries first-hand were given a lot of exposure through distributing testimonies from women in men’s toilets, and films of testimonials narrated by actors were made for different campaigns as well.
Not only the strength of the people in the room to face up to the reality that porn is, but also their strength in sharing their painful experiences was inspiring. I was moved more than once during the day, especially by Rebecca Mott’s brave and personal speech during the activist session. This conference was a great way for us and others in the UK to get to know various groups, academics and organisations on an international level. I hope it will also spur working collaborations, which will enable us to think together on how to collectively challenge the porn culture that is now such a powerful element in our societies. A huge thanks to all of the speakers and organisers.
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I am gutted! I would have come if I’d known there was a conference. Is there any recording of the proceedings?
I received an email from LFN (the organizers of the conference) yesterday who confirmed that they are hoping the presentations and conference video will soon be up on the website. This will be some time early in the new year.
Does anyone know whether they are planning to make this an annual event?
A really accurate summary of the conference — thanks for this! It’s useful to mull it all over again.
this article features some of the points Gail Dines made at the conference earlier this month
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/12/21/3396048.htm