Appalled but Unmoved

I saw the other day that a 16 year old boy had been convicted for raping an 8 year old girl. People are appalled - and it is appalling and wrong. But it is perhaps not surprising. This is what happens when we live in a pornified culture. When we live in a culture that sells women, that degrades women, that makes a good deal of profit from depicting women as sex objects, constantly available, simply waiting for your cock (or any other passing object) to be inserted into their vaginas and rectums, we should not be surprised when our upcoming generations believe women wish to be treated this way. 'Underage' children* will access porn and will be affected by what they see. I remember seeing a friend's brother's porn collection when I was primary school age. Those images, and what they meant for me, stayed with me. When I told the men who used and sold me that it hurt, they told me it didn't, that I'd like it - just like the women in the films they watched said.

I don't believe they liked it either, judging from the expressions of pain on their faces.

Defenders of porn say it's harmless fantasy. But it's not fantasy for the women who are used in it ('actress' and 'model' seems too sweet a label for the truth: fuck doll). Or for the women whose partners watch it and want them to emulate what they see, totally ignorant of intimacy and equality. Or for our children who learn about sexuality and relationship dynamics between the sexes this way. Porn is not about equal partnerships of needs and wants. It is about assertion of power and ownership, lies and misinformation.

Most hetero porn doesn't depict safe sex - in any sense. Rarely do the men use condoms, and women are shown being penetrated both orally, vaginally and anally (higher risk of infection) by multiple men. Or the same man fucks multiple women, one after another, sans johnny. 'Bare back' as the industry likes to call it. How often does porn show lube being applied? Or any sort of nod toward the welfare of the woman. She is there simply to turn the man on: the man shown fucking her; the one wielding the camera; the one making money selling her and the man on his settee wanking over it at home. Her wellbeing, physical or emotional, just doesn't feature.

So with both boys and girls often learning about sex via porn, we have a problem. Women feel that their needs and wants are invalid - there is no place for them. Women in porn have no needs or wants other than to be touched any way, fucked any way, fulfilling the man's requirements and demands. Girls growing up feel a weight of expectation. Boys feel that 'being manly' involves treating women as sex objects, being dominant, and fucking women with neither intimacy nor respect. It's hard to learn intimacy and respect in a culture of aggressive porn, especially when it's so mainstreamed. Fisting, gang bangs and DPs don't really go hand in hand with respect. And the presence of a camera and an audience don't exactly shout intimacy.

Human worth is out of the picture.

We should stop acting surprised when men or our younger generation of boys treat women like sex objects in the real world and take some responsibility for once. After all, if we condone women being treated like that in magazines and dvds, and defend it, cash in on it and laugh about it ('boys will be boys!'), why wouldn't that change how men treat women in everyday life and how women think about themselves? We need some consistent thinking, some ownership of our part in this and some definitive action to stop the sexual objectification of women becoming further normalised. Until we are prepared to act, to do things differently, we remain appalled. But unmoved.

* I find it bizarre that when a woman turns 18 her status somehow magically changes so that her exploitation in pornography becomes legal... Does reaching a certain number agewise suddenly make a human being less worthy of protection and dignity? Likewise with the age of accessing pornography - at 18 does it suddenly become okay to join in the buying of and abuse of women in porn? I am not arguing here that minors should not be protected but rather questioning why the concern for human welfare vanishes when a minor becomes an adult in the eyes of the law.

On Being Human

I've just been looking through some anti porn websites... A new one launched recently, The Anti Porn Men's Project. Finally! A space for men who have the vision to see that porn doesn't just damage women, but it devalues men, too. It is unhealthy to define masculinity in terms of treating women like sex objects.

It's good to know there are other voices, albeit still a minority, campaigning against the mainstreaming of what are unacceptable and inhumane practices. Our society has taken something innately damaging and normalised it to the point where most people just accept it - with a shrug if not open arms. Pornography is not inevitable, somehow a necessary evil! When we treat it as such instead of taking a stand against it, we do ourselves and future generations a disservice. What does it mean if most teenagers' ideas of sex and intimate relationships are formed through the lens of pornography?

The bottom line is that we are dealing with something that dehumanises, that diminishes, which makes women throw away commodities - when she's been thoroughly used and abused and is too damaged to 'perform' anymore, she is cast aside, another nameless woman put in front of the camera. Pornography robs people of their humanity. In pornography, women are shown being dominated, humiliated, penetrated and double penetrated and triple penetrated - hurt - and as liking this. Women are shown as constantly gagging for sex.

Respect and dignity have no place in this picture.

The pornographer wants the viewer to get a buzz from this. Even the men in porn sometimes act surprised that the woman wants such extreme treatment (usually large insertions in her vagina or rectum). No wonder when women are raped so many people say she asked for it! Women in pornography are rarely depicted as saying no to anything. And when the viewer might be in danger of thinking something being done to the woman looks painful, she is often given a line saying it's fun, that she likes it.

From the women used directly in pornography to the men and women who live in a society which accepts the selling of women for sex, everyone's a loser, if not financially then certainly humanly speaking. Money triumphs over humanity. And do we really want to be lining the pockets of pimps and pornographers?

Fucking Intimacy

I found in my former life that there was fucking, and then there was intimacy. Ne'er did the two meet! The concept of loving sex, in a partnership of equals, was completely alien to me. In the context of violence, choice is meaningless. I did what I had to do to stay safe, sometimes instigating sex even when I didn't want to in an attempt to avoid a beating. Or else I did what I was made to do, whether by physical constraint or threat of violence. I had no control over my body, what happened to it, who had access to it, who used and abused it. Treated like an animal, I became one - living on instinct, without dignity or respect. Rape and dignity, violence and dignity, pornography and dignity are not compatible.

Unable to remove myself physically from what was happening to me, I removed myself mentally: I numbed out. Even now, my memories remain scattered, a series of snapshots preserved in all their glorious technicolour, with huge gaping voids of time inbetween, lost. The things I do remember I'd perhaps rather not, but then the gaps disturb me too.

I can still struggle to link sex with intimacy. I can still feel very detached when I am touched, or very vulnerable. My default position is still one of wariness: of being hurt, of being used, of being humiliated again. I still cry occasionally in an intimate context. Awkward though that may be, I guess it's a good thing. Tears bring healing, and it's progress that I allow myself to feel, even if I sometimes wish I felt differently! Allowing myself to feel, to be fully present, in a sexual context is still something I'm learning. I've had to unlearn a lot of things about people and how to relate to them. Not all men are like the men I met in my previous life.

I believe that trust is earned. I don't give it away lightly. I do get scared about getting hurt again. A lot. But ultimately I know that I can't survive on my own, trusting no one. That way lies loneliness and addiction! It's not something I take for granted and it comes and goes at times, but it's just good to be alive and have a chance to do things differently, to be in my own skin, to state my own needs, or if I'm not sure what my needs are, simply to know that it's ok that I have them.

Know what I'm saying?

On Dreams and the Dreamer

I awaken, a tangle of confused thoughts and memories, of limbs and bedclothes. I feel the sweat trickling down my back, down my face. Soaking. The dream I was having is one of several, one of a rotation, a familiar set. These dreams...

They are a pushing out by my subconscious, a spewing out of matter pushed down and buried for my survival. When I dream like this it is a replaying, a reliving, of my past. It haunts me. The images may change but the scenario does not: I look down on a body, a body that belongs to me and does not belong to me, look down as my ex and the other men abuse it.

This body!

It may run but it can't outrun them, may resist but it doesn't stand a chance. Hopeless helplessness. My body. Me. I am the spectator, the voyeur, I am the fear and the shame, the pain and the terror. I am my feelings, in my body but too much, or else I am on disconnect, a floating mind, connected by the slightest thread.

I am and I am not.

Sensations so real in these dreams. Too real. Being touched and I don't want to be. Wanting to scream but nothing comes out. Trying to see but the darkness of a blindfold. Senses out of kilter, scent and taste and touch alive and overpowering.

My mind is letting in stuff, slowly, yes, but some of the blackouts, the gaps in memory, are being filled in. In all honesty, sometimes I'd rather not remember.

An image.
A sensation.
A snapshot.

Curiously, gloriously, split from my body, there but not there.

The pain and the darkness is a part of me, I choose not to live in it these days in recovery but I cannot stop it slowly leaking out of me, working its way out, the Unacceptable forging its way out. No amount of denial, no amount of distraction, will stop this. Unwanted? Yes. So painful my whole body aches with it. But necessary, absolutely. My body and mind healing themselves on a deeper level than I can understand. Being heard brings healing, being accepted brings healing, and I need to hear and accept myself.

Oh, and PS....

Just a footnote to my last blog... the gentleman I was speaking with who was voicing the opinion that a lapdancing club was 'just a bit of fun' used as his main justification that 'he's a guy'. Ok, so he is a guy - but so what? That doesn't mean he needs to act like a jerk. In fact, I find it kind of sexist to imply that he is a guy ergo he must view women as sex objects. This ignorance and appalling lack of coherent thought behind damaging and sexist practices never ceases to astonish me. For myself, I like to believe that a man is not ruled by his penis and does actually have the same ability for self control that a woman has. I believe they call it equality.

The Defence of the Johns

His is the voice of every single man who ever hit me; every man who ever touched me when I didn't want to be touched; every man who ever bought me. 'Lads will be lads... it's just a lapdancing club'. I can read the subtext, no problem. What's wrong with you? What a prude! It's just a bit of harmless fun.

Harmless fucking fun.

I don't think so. It is the buying of women, the sale of an inequality, the legitimisation of abuse. All justified in the name of a 'good time', all squared off by the exchange of money (though most of that won't go to the women being looked at, being touched).

Yet I'm the one who's being charged with being extreme, unreasonable for daring to object, suggest there might be another way of looking at this. !!!!. Fearful of being termed prudes for not joining the cacophany of voices in support of the selling of women, too many women choose to be liberal about the oppression of their sisters. I have felt that pressure myself! Young and naive, I joined in the laughter of my companions at pornography, at some of its more extreme images (fancy putting that in her pussy and arse! You'd think it'd hurt but she loves it, she's smiling!) - until I found myself at the wrong end of the camera, being hurt, being used, being sold, torn apart - smile please! - and realised what this stuff means for me.

If she can be treated that way, as a collection of holes, as a piece of meat to satisfy men, so can I, so can every woman. It would be foolish indeed to think that people who regard lapdancing and pornography as the norm don't carry that mindset with them in their everyday dealings with women. To regularly look at material, or go to places, be that a lapdancing club or a brothel, where women are treated as less than, changes you.

Away from the pimping, the beatings, away from being a prostituted woman, I still rub up against people who think that way all the time. For me, it touches on old nerves, reflecting as it does that throw away attitude of the johns. It takes me back. I cry, I shake, sometimes I vomit.

Perhaps if these people could see the aftermath, see the reality of what they do to the women they use, they might grow a conscience. Maybe, maybe not. I don't feel too trusting of that right now. Sometimes people don't want to see the truth. It gets in the way of the fun, of the orgasm. I guess all we can do is keep putting the truth out there. We got rid of bear baiting, didn't we? Perhaps someday women's rights might catch up.

On Hangovers of the Emotional Type

My scars have come to my attention again, now I'm dating, seeing a new man. He notices and is curious. I'm not used to the questions. I had the same scars from my ex when I prostituted myself, but the johns couldn't have cared less. Fixated by boobs and holes, those staples of pornography, I doubt they even noticed.

Maybe not. They couldn't have missed the self imposed gashes on my arms, a desperate attempt on my part to survive, to live with the unlivable, to be me in my body, be me in the wreckage of my life. They wouldn't have wanted to know, anyhow. After all, isn't that the whole point of pornography, of prostitution, that it's the guilt free buying and using of a woman as a sex object? No place for hearing the woman's story, hearing her emotions, asking how it makes her feel and how she comes to be here - it would get in the way. The punters demand a guilt free, truth free experience, whether it be cumming in the face of the prostitute they bought or knocking one out over the shiny pages of a magazine, the woman's humanity another step removed, just to be folded up and put into a drawer.

The punter finishes and is free to continue with their everyday life. Not so the woman he uses! She lives this, she knows, has reaffirmed on a daily basis that her only value comes from being a receptacle for his spunk, a spectacle to be held open and abused and penetrated and sold. She doesn't matter: her pain, her feelings don't matter; what matters is him, the punter, his pleasure, his kicks. The only thing that matters about her is that she is available, that she is mute, that she displays nothing but pleasure and gratitude for whatever he chooses to do to her, however painful or sadistic. Rough anal sex? No problem - I love it. Double penetration? Feels so good! Ass to mouth? Fisting? Being pissed on? Can't get enough.

As if. Each time she is abused, she shrinks a little, becomes less. Every time he abuses her, he grows a little, becomes more. His power grows as hers diminishes. Boundaries no longer exist. Those sexual acts she didn't want, that hurt her and humiliate and debase her happen one by one. Her 'no' lacks power and the ability to remove herself from the situation to safety. You hear those words coming out of her mouth, asking for more, moaning with pleasure, saying she likes it, his words, but in her mouth. He is the puppet master. Take it from a woman who knows, the ultimate humiliation is being made to thank your abuser, to ask to be abused more. I cut, I drank and I drugged, I dissociated, I cried myself to sleep where there were nightmares waiting just to pick up where he left off.

With my ex, I knew what was expected. The violence, and the threat of it, was constant. I was told to smile for the photographs, to say that I liked it for the camera. Sometimes it was clear that I wasn't there by choice - there were welts and bruises, and violence on film (and that sells well in some quarters) but not always. It's easy to ignore what you don't want to see. For the user of pornography, he has behind him the weight of a society which condones and normailses his buying of women as laddishness. A society which, furthermore, says, don't worry about her, she loves it, is liberated by it, empowered by it, makes good money from it.

3 years out, and the bruises are gone. The wounds have healed into scars which will be with me for the rest of my life. But it's the mental scars that hurt me the most. My PTSD's been bad again of late, and it's not always easy to live with my past, the abuse. It continues to impact on my present, the emotional hangover of being sold which society continues to choose to ignore. It's a tricky trap to get free from. All I know is that as much as it hurts, trying to move forward is the only option. It's a beautiful thing to be with someone I care about. I'm going to use every means at my disposal to leave that shit behind so I can actually enjoy what I have.