The Sexual Education of a Beauty Queen

by Taylor Marsh

  Does the pornification of our culture hurt young men? Absolutely, especially in a vacuum of dialogue, including serious conversations with women about how they feel about it.

  It brings us back around to Sexy Baby and the “meat curtain.” You can’t possibly keep up with a man’s expectations if he’s in a moment of his life where porn has become his visual fetish, as he devours it nightly, masturbating in volume to satiate a hunger that’s taken control of him. It usually doesn’t last long, especially once he meets a woman that delivers the sex along with the emotional component not found in pornography. There are some who can’t be satisfied with a flesh and blood female, but it doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. That’s an easy choice to make. Walk away.

  Sex trafficking and violence against women and children are serious issues, both of which are endemic in the international sex industry, much of which I have covered in my political writing that has evolved well beyond where I started as Relationship Consultant. Child pornography is another scourge of the sex industry, especially beyond the U.S., with real efforts being made, depending on the country, to keep predators away from children. Not only do the child pornographers need to be found, reported and prosecuted, but men traveling to sexual destinations to exploit underage kids trafficked into the sex trade should be identified and prosecuted. The world is a smut sewer for anyone trolling, with untold victims of sex traffickers, pedophiles, young girls and boys being sold, molested and used for horrific crimes. The international laws aren’t strong enough to stop this scourge that shows no end across our globe.

  What my perch inside the blastoff of the adult industry provided me was access to thousands and thousands of men. Guys who were opinionated and very comfortable giving me their views on all sorts of topics, including sex, relationships and politics. That I was online, writing as a political editor on the biggest soft-core site on the web when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke was a gift.

  What had to be one of the very first online sex surveys, however unscientific, was the one I did asking my readers what the presidential blow job meant: Was oral sex really considered sex, and did the president and his intern have a “sexual relationship”? The verdict on President Bill Clinton, when I asked, came back overwhelmingly in his favor. The guys didn’t think a blow job came close to an impeachable offense, even if he lied about it.

  I haven’t interviewed or met a man who, if confronted, wouldn’t first lie about cheating on his wife if he thought he could get away with it and sometimes even if he knows he won’t. The shame is just too great to admit it outright. A good example is Representative Anthony Weiner who got caught sexting pictures of his penis. Men want to skirt the consequences and the pain as long as possible, not just for themselves, but from seeing it in the eyes of the women who trust and love them. Few men have an affair wanting to get caught, unless it’s payback or a desperation cry. Louisiana’s diaper-fetish senator, David Vitter, hardly thought of the ramifications of his actions.

  Women responding to my survey on Clinton and Lewinsky agreed with the men over a blow job not being an impeachable offense, even if they were outnumbered a hundred-to-one by male respondents.

  I asked which of the following acts constituted the minimum requirement for a sexual relationship to have occurred: penetration, oral sex without penetration, kissing and fondling, heavy petting, cybersex, phone sex, with a final choice of all the above. Forty percent of my “Editor’s Desk” readers back in 1998 responded that any of the preceding acts would constitute a sexual relationship; 22% said oral sex without penetration constituted a sexual relationship; 15% said only penetration constituted a sexual relationship.

  To this day, it still boggles my mind that right-wingers, led by adulterer Representative Henry Hyde, railroaded President Bill Clinton into impeachment, all because of a consensual affair.

  “Men are only as faithful as their opportunities,” claims Chris Rock. Well, that very much depends on the man. Chris Rock is hilarious, and the statement certainly made me laugh when I heard it, because I’ve interviewed plenty of men for whom that’s exactly the case. However, there are even more men for whom that statement rings patently false. There are many more good men out there than dogs, including feminist-loving guys who want nothing more than a deeply committed relationship with one woman, including marriage. A punch line isn’t rebuttal evidence, though it reveals that you need to make sure of what you’ve got before you invest in it.

  You need to know whether a man thinks a relationship is exclusive or not, and whether he intends on a long-term relationship with you or is just dating you steadily and having a good time. There is nothing wrong with any of these options, but if you want one thing and assume that’s where you’re headed without confirmation from the guy, big trouble can result. Whether he thinks he’s in an exclusive relationship or not is a distinction that makes a huge difference, with actions often getting misinterpreted by the female more often than by the male.

  The interview I did for the New Republic, with Joe Matthews, titled “The Hugh Hefner of Politics,” back in June 2008 explains why I left DHD by quoting my self-published story on my soft-core odyssey:

  …she tells the story of a “strong and sassy authority-bucking female writer (me) who, while accomplishing a lot for her boss, would ultimately become the sequin-studded g-string that cut just a little too tight up Danni’s derriere.” Mixing the political with the prurient, she tried to make the website an outlet for those, like her, who believed that porn should be feminist, or at least socially conscious. But when Marsh couldn’t convince Ashe to kill a pictorial of a naked stripper on a school playground (“It was like holding up a welcome sign for pedophile fantasies”), she quit the same day. “There comes a point in time when you have to say: This is wrong,” she says. “And you walk out.”

  That’s the long and short of it, with a What in the hell is wrong with you people? implied. I just didn’t get why Ashe couldn’t see how crazy wrong it was to publish the photo shoot showing Tawny Peaks naked on an elementary school playground in broad daylight.

  Gloria Steinem went undercover as a Playboy bunny trying to get the dirt on Hugh Hefner and how he treated the pretty girls working at his Playboy clubs. She famously wrote about it in a 1963 piece, “I Was a Playboy Bunny,” which became the movie A Bunny’s Tale, starring Kirstie Alley as Steinem. ABC, NBC and other sites, including “Frontline” for PBS, which included an interview with Danni Ashe, have focused on the Internet porn industry many times. People are titillated by an industry they see through body parts, sex acts, women’s exposure and men’s crudest nature. But there is also a world of erotic equality and sexual desire being mined by other companies trying to expand the nature of what’s offered to men, women and couples. Utilized as companion tools for enjoying sex, these shopping marts of wonderful sex toys, creams and tools can make sexual fantasies sing. You can screen out the ugly and find the fun, believe me, and depending on what you want, it can be worth it for you both.

  Being at DHD was a grueling stretch for me and has never been easy for me to write about, but the education also became my liberation. I’d discovered the world that I’d been tipped off to as a little girl when I discovered Candy in our garage attic. There was a whole world out there I was being protected from, except that I wasn’t. Kids are inquisitive and always find a way to root out the truth.

  The coverage of who watches pornography has changed a lot, as has the image of the person who enjoys smut. In 2010, a report was released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Office of Inspector General, and covered by CNN, revealing that during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, “Securities and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers.” The SEC OIG report covered five years, with the employees monitored making between $99,000 and $223,000 per year. One senior attorney at the SEC “downloaded so much pornography to his government computer that he e
xhausted the available space on the computer hard drive and downloaded pornography to CDs or DVDs that he accumulated in boxes in his office,” according to CNN’s report.

  “Revenge porn” has now popped up, too. It’s a porn site where women’s pictures are uploaded, without their permission, by former boyfriends or others who want to get revenge. In February 2013, as reported in the Houston Chronicle, GoDaddy.com shuttered a site when John S. Morgan, a Beaumont, Texas attorney, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two dozen women who had been “cyber-raped” by a website posting explicit photos without the women’s permission.

  The first state to ban “revenge porn” was New Jersey, with California following in October 2013, making it a misdemeanor. The California legislation was described in the Guardian as the act of posting “nude images” of another person “with the intent to cause substantial emotional distress or humiliation.” It also requires “personal identifying information” of the other person pictured. New York has now stepped up, the next state to take on “revenge porn.” The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative found that 80% of revenge porn victims had taken the photos and videos of themselves, with these images called “selfies.” The New York law would include “selfies,” making it a crime to distribute these photos or videos as well, with California moving in that direction as well.

  When the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial burst onto the national scene in 2013, it did so because of a disgusting Instagram photo and viral video of the “rape crew.” Student athletes Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond were convicted of brutally raping a sixteen-year-old female, who was drunk and incapacitated, the details horrifying. Was this animal act the result of the pornification of America or the American sports culture that too often protects violent predators? The Penn State child sex abuse scandal also comes to mind, with the men’s club protecting Joe Paterno, but also Jerry Sandusky, whose crimes went unreported for years.

  The Trojan condoms U.S. Sex Census included one study that was conducted online in March 2011 in ten major cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Houston. It was found that 19% of Americans say they have engaged in sexting, and 19% say they have had “online sex.” Ten percent of the people surveyed said they had discussed sex on Facebook or Twitter. The survey also found that 15% of men were likely to discuss their sex lives on Facebook and Twitter, compared with 6% of women.

  The same Trojan survey found that 31% of men described themselves as “sexually liberal,” while only 16% of women did. A car rated highest as the “most sexually exciting place” to have sex, at 48%, followed by sex in someone else’s bed, at 33%. When asked where they’d like to have sex but haven’t tried yet, 33% of men wanted to try having sex on a plane. This means standing up and making it quick, which is likely why women didn’t choose that response. For women, 26% want to try having sex on the beach or in the sea.

  That women like erotica in different ways than men isn’t news. What women have always enjoyed is getting off on romantic tales of a hot man swooping in and devouring a woman. This has always been the case, as seen through romance book sales, which have been taken to new heights and exploited in the Twilight movie series.

  E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey has proved that women can be ignited in a flame as hot and kinky as anything porn can do for a man. It’s not a sophisticated story, and some reviews have taken on the writing itself, which misses the point completely. The scenario that’s whipped up between Anastasia and Christian is irresistible to women who have never dined on romance novels, while offering an entry into pleasures unimaginable to many. The simplicity and awkwardness of the storyline mimics our own clumsiness when our heat for a man boils out of control. The sadomasochism and “kinky fuckery” quickly dissolve into love, then marriage, offering legitimacy and a transition into the known for readers. It includes adventure and a dangerous intruder that threatens the lovers’ world. Christian and Anastasia even take turns playing hero. The tied-up romantic ending is a bit much, but it gives women a safe landing.

  On her site, Ms. James labels her trilogy “provocative romance.” Talk about imaginary marketing to hit a mainstream audience. It is a romantic story, but it’s also more than provocative, when a man has a “red room of pain,” and women willingly walk in and put themselves into his hands, first signing his nondisclosure agreement and contract, which includes all sorts of demands. Yet women of all ages have eaten it up and keep coming back for more, with spinoffs coming in a contagion of e-books as fast as writers can think them up.

  Never before has an erotic romance trilogy relied so heavily on condoms in a way that made them sexy, beyond their practical protection imperative. Christian is never found without one. In August 2012, the Wall Street Journal blogged about Trojan brand’s Vibrations line, which the company Church & Dwight said was doing big business, thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey. From the Journal: “On second-quarter earnings call, CEO Jim Craigie says he’s pleased with distribution and sales of the Trojan brand’s Vibrations line of sexual devices, which we believe has been aided by the popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey novel.”

  The novel is talking about sex and blasting past boundaries in a way that is relatable for a larger number of women. Whether it’s “mommy porn,” a conversation starter or something for the decency police depends on your frame of mind. Blunt, empowering and feminist conversations about sex are now getting mainstream coverage. At the Sundance Film Festival, sex was selling big in early 2013, starting with Lovelace, starring Amanda Seyfried. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon’s Addiction scored the “biggest domestic deal ever for a Sundance title,” including P&A (prints and advertising), as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Whether traditional press will be able to digest what’s unraveling is a crap shoot, even if online new media is taking advantage of a language and subject matter that older, traditional media cannot.

  Amanda Hess of Slate.com put it this way: “It’s great that companies like New Sensations, and outlets like CNBC, are helping to legitimize women as viewers of pornography. But female interest in the genre is nothing new, and the collective fantasies of half of the human population can’t be served by one narrow niche. ‘Porn for women’ is not for all women….”

  The worst article on the subject landed in late January 2013 from ABC. The blaring headline descended back into the “shame” label: “Romance Porn Lures More Women, With Loss of Shame.” It goes like this: “For decades, the female market has eluded pornographers, whose all-male lenses zoomed in on body parts and had little context or dialogue. But today, with cultural and technological shifts that make pornography more acceptable and accessible, Noelle has a fan base that includes women — lots of them.”

  The popular site Jezebel took ABC’s version of events very personally, as did I. Women should care how our sexuality is being talked about when the word shame is being hoisted on us in headlines, this time in the second decade of the twenty-first century, no less:

  It’s awesome that some women are into Noelle’s porn. But blanket statements about what women currently and historically jill off to are getting really old. Calling Noelle’s work porn that “lures women without loss of shame” implies that women can only shamelessly enjoy porn that’s “romantic” and that all women were too afraid or turned off by other forms of erotica until now. It also insinuates that men are only into more hard-core porn and couldn’t possibly enjoy emotional erotica. Filmmakers like Noelle should definitely be profiled, and it’s worth noting that there are different types of pornography out there, options that are easier to privately explore, thanks to the Internet, and appeal more to some segments of the population. But why does it always have to be framed as “ladies be watching the porn”?

  It’s interesting to me that the conversation is being couched as it is today. The adult industry exploited the financial possibilities of the web first, as it did before that with home video. There were pioneers like Candida Royale,
to whom I could link when covering the industry, because clicking on her site wouldn’t freak my readers out and lead them into a body part extravaganza. Royale calls her product “Erotic Cinema” and highlights female directors in the genre.

  This has been around for more than twelve years, likely before E.L. James started thinking about Anastasia Steele or Christian Grey, whom she says were inspired by the Twilight movies. Women aren’t porn’s “new market,” as Candida Royale proved years ago, and she was hardly alone.

  Slate.com talked with Jacky St. James, a screenwriter, director and publicist for New Sensations, in January 2013. Asked what she felt was the biggest misconception about porn for women, St. James answered: “Women weren’t sexualized by Fifty Shades of Grey. They’ve been watching porn and reading erotica for centuries. It’s shocking to me that there’s suddenly a consciousness that women are sexual. We’ve always been that way. Fifty Shades has allowed us to make it more of a talking point. And that’s the only positive thing I can take away from that f—ing book, because I thought it was horrible.”

  What Fifty Shades of Grey has done is put liberated characters and an intensely erotic plot into an era where our major reality is the pornification of modern culture and the reality that labiaplasty is the third most popular cosmetic surgery, because women want to look like porn stars to please men. Fifty Shades is the opposite bookend to hard-core pornography.

  What remains unknown is whether the millions of women who put the trilogy into the publishing history books, which inspired the Hollywood film version, will come out and see the film. DVD sales and on-demand options should break records. The other aspect is whether the filmmakers will be true to the books. An NC-17-rated Fifty Shades is assured if the screen version follows the heart of what E.L. James created.

  Will women go for a 9 1/2 Weeks-type film, the 1986 screen shocker with Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, based on Ingeborg Day’s memoir, and bring their men out to see it? Possibly, because women put the fantasy of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele on the cultural map and they remain intensely engaged on every report on the film’s development.