Porn Perspectives

Naughty Joe Francis

Girls Gone Wild got busted for failing to document the ages of the girls performing in some of its videos (the perrenial classics "Ultimate Spring Break," "Girls Gone Wild on Campus Uncensored," "Totally Exposed Uncensored and Beyond," and "Girls Gone Wild College Girls Exposed/Sexy Sorority Sweethearts" were specifically targeted).

Under the law 2257, producers, distributors, and pretty much anyone who handles the images are required to keep extensive records verifying the legality of performers' ages. I'm frankly surprised GGW was only fined $2.1 million--the Justice Department these days is pretty intent on age verification, at least that's what the strenuous record-keeping required by the law would indicate.

As my earlier post on GGW indicated, I'm appalled at how this company takes advantage of intoxicated--and apparently underage--girls. Take that, Joe!

Book Report

I just finished reading Maria Elena Buszek’s book Pin-Up Grrrls, which is an adaptation of her doctoral thesis in Art History at the University of Kansas.

The introduction absolutely riveted me. From the first paragraph, I couldn’t put the book down. Buszek, in a much more intelligent, well-researched, and thorough manner, basically reiterates the conclusion of my thesis. How supremely satisfying it was to read things like:

“…although feminist thinkers have consistently drawn upon women’s sexuality as a site of oppression, so too have they posited the nurturance of women’s sexual freedom and pleasure as an antidote to the same” (p 4),

and:

“Part of [the] challenge has been the drive toward creating representations that disrupt the patriarchal subjugation of women yet retain the right to use familiar conventions of representing women’s beauty and desirability to make this disruption more accessible” (p 7).

Refuting the idea that feminist painting, feminist sculpture, feminist pinup, or feminist porn are oxymoronic:

“…these are all media and genres used and appreciated primarily by men, about which nothing is inherently sexist, but which have all been both kept from women and used to create images that inscribe, normalize, or bolster notions of women as inferior to men” (pp 4-5).

While this is true, the same media “have been and may be strategically used by women to subvert the sexism with which they have historically been associated” (p 5).

Exactly!

The rest of the book was much less engaging; Buszek exhaustively traces the pin-up from its inception to the modern day, tying the imagery to both women’s position in society and to the evolution of feminism. The most interesting aspects of this history were things we can read elsewhere, and ultimately her point could have been made in about a quarter the number of pages. Still, it's great that such a comprehensive examination exists, especially since it is used to support an important fundamental tenet of feminist sexual ideology.

Overall, this book is overly academic. I say this from the point of view of someone who strongly believes in the importance of changing the general public’s perception of sexualized images of women. I'd doubt anyone except the most diehard feminist academics or pin-up fans would have the patience to wade through 350 pages of descriptions of art. And at that point it becomes a preaching-to-the-choir situation. The intro and conclusion are very much worth reading, however…I’d love to see Buszek adapt her intro as an article for popular publication.

I’ll end with a quote from Joanna Frueh’s book Erotic Faculties, which pretty well sums up the aforementioned ideology: “As long as I am an erotic subject, I am not averse to being an erotic object” (p 7).