Pornography Vs Reality

Warning: this post is about pornography, so be prepared for a massive feministing-style debate (I hope!).
When Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series appeared in the public consciousness, a lot of feminist commentators rightly took the series to task for its potential to negatively influence teenage girls in regard to the sort of partners they would deem desirable – overly-protective, stalkerish ‘bad-boys’ in this case. The prevalent view seemed to be that the books were sexist and potentially damaging to young women.
For the most part, I agree with this conclusion, but it strikes me as interesting that in this instance it is taken as a given that a fantasy novel can have a significant impact on a teenage (and older) person’s psyche. However, in many other cases feminists seem reluctant to draw similar conclusions about the possible detrimental impacts of repeated pornography use.
To make my stance clear – I consider myself an anti-porn feminist. This does not mean, however, that I am in favour of censorship (I doubt many people really are) or of shaming people for what they find sexually appealing. For me, pornography is in the same camp as lipstick, high-heels and conventional marriage – all are products of a patriarchal society (and throughout this post I will be referring strictly to pornography that is commonly viewed as objectifying and degrading toward women) and I believe we would be happier and more fulfilled human beings without them in our lives.

However, this does not mean that I think all people who wear high-heels or watch pornography are bad people – we are all subject to some degree of influence by the patriarchy and a person cannot be expected to separate his or herself entirely from the culture that surrounds us. You can still be a good feminist and wear lipstick or watch pornography – that’s your personal choice – but that doesn’t mean others should stop criticising the cultural forces that tell women that they are only beautiful if they plaster their faces with make-up or that it is ‘natural’ for men to find the current portrayals of women in pornography attractive – portrayals which I find to be (on average) unrealistic and misogynistic.
I think it is possible to make a valid criticism of pornography without seeking to portray individuals who watch it, or men and women who participate in its production, as ‘wrong’ or victims of the patriarchy.
My principal point is this – the more we learn about the brain, particularly in the field of neuroplasticity, the more we are discovering about its very integrated nature. It is incongruous to assume that repeated exposure to objectifying and sometimes degrading pornography (to men and women) would have no impact on the way in which one perceives the world, while reading a fantasy novel such as Twilight would. I see no reason why sexual fantasies should be deemed to be separate from reality – indeed, the complex interplay of electrochemical signals and hormones produced during sexual release would suggest that sexual stimuli have more of a chance of altering behaviour than other stimuli.
This does not mean that I believe every person who watches pornography will view women in an objectifying and discriminatory way. However, I believe that for some young men who watch pornography (still the leading demographic) there is potential for objectifying pornography to negatively influence the way in which they view women (as sexual personality-lacking objects, rather than autonomous, intelligent, sexual human beings), similarly to the potential the Twilight has to negatively influence the ways in which young women view romance.
I think, as a movement, we are currently very hesitant to take a position on pornography generally – which is completely fair enough, because there is a lot of variety out there. But in doing so, a lot of people seem to be ignoring the sexism and misogyny present in a lot of ‘mainstream’ porn and giving it a sort of ‘get out of jail free card’ by stating that sexual fantasies have little or no relation to real life. I call bullshit.
So my question is this: do most people believe that ‘mainstream’ pornography has the potential to negatively impact the ways in which people view women? (especially adolescents and young men).
In this post I have tried to make it clear that I don’t wish to shame anyone for what turns them on – that’s your business, not mine – but I think we need to continue to criticise the patriarchal memes within the majority of pornography and not allow it off the hook because it is simply ‘fantasy’.
Note: If you are commenting, please, please, please try to refrain from using accusatory or aggressive language. I am 19, and this is only the second time I have posted on the feministing community. Disagree with me all you want, but we’re all on the same side really (we’re all feminists!).