I find other criticisms of porn much more trenchant. The porn industry chews up young women and spits them out; the conditions of the industry coerce women to do things that they don't want to do and that take both a physical and an emotional toll. That's a persuasive criticism IMO. Mainstream porn reinforces the idea that women are their bodies and that those bodies are commodities, to be acquired by men and used for sexual purposes: mainstream porn revolves around woman as object. That's a persuasive criticism. Compared to that, "their bodies are unrealistic" is not very persuasive. The deluge of bodies on television, at the movies, and in magazines does far more, IMO, to normalize unrealistic bodies for women than porn, which big as it is still occupies only a niche in comparison to the rest.

Oh Vanessa, thank you so much for not just posting this but for your commentary on it! I *also* felt somehow betrayed by Naomi Wolf, because her work meant so much to be when I was beginning to self-identify as a feminist and that article just seems really, really shallow and wrong. She says she's not "advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality" yet her discussion of her Orthodox friend's relationship with her husband sounds rapturous, almost reverent. And it DEFINITELY reminded me of the "Modesty Survey" that talked about how women shouldn't, like, show off their mid-drifts. She seems transported with the thought that no one but this woman's husband sees her hair, opining "She must feel so hot." What? Is she thus implying that porn is negative because it makes women feel less "hot" and, as such, we'd ALL be better off if we just covered those things up?? I...I want men to see my hair. I guess that makes me loose?

I think it is very telling that the end of the interview is with a MAN who says that sex isn't a mystery to him anymore. Again, it brings the focus back to only her husband gets to see her hair: what are men thinking and feeling and expecting and wanting from women's sexuality and sexual needs?? No thanks, I'm not playing that game.

Well, I have always been an anti-porn, pro-sex feminist, and I can kind of see both sides of the story. I think porn, not just mainstream porn, but all porn does kind of cut-down on the quality of enjoyment society takes in sex. For everyone. And I think Wolf probably was talking about leaving more to the imagination when she was referring to the Jewish woman. But that's not to say more traditional, conservative views of sex are better. To me, it's kind of all the same shit with different faces. In one culture, women cover themselves as to not be seen in a sexual manner. In another culture, women get breast implants and starve themselves to show as much as themselves as possible. However, the result is the same: a goal to please the status quo of a patriarchal society. Burkha or bustier -- it's all the same to me.

I am really relieved to read that women under 50 are beginning to see that Naomi is to be seriously held to scrutiny. Her first book was so important that it bought her a pass and that is not good. She has really not held those first strong insights. I do not consider her a political or cultural feminist.

I love how "traditional cultures" only means one thing. I guess I was hallucinating all those cultures in various parts of the tropics in which women and men walk around with minimal amounts of clothing?

This is just a dispute over whether women should be public property or private property.*

So who do we root for?

(*Not my idea, but can't remember who originally said it.)

OK, I'm over Naomi now.

I don't think that's what it's about. It's also about putting the onus on women to somehow magically restore whatever "mystery" and "charge" sex has lost. It's about women being made the caretakers for a culture's sexuality, and our freedoms being interpreted only in light of that sexuality. There are plenty of reasons I like to have my hair down: the way it looks is pleasing to me, its curliness signals my ethnic heritage, it's comfortable, I can use it to signal cultural allegiances (by dying it)), etc. But all of those meanings are being flattened out into whether more than one man has visual access to my hair. We should not allow Wolf to position the options as only facets of the same phenomenon--exposing my hair to many men, exposing my hair to only one man--and thus to erase their other meanings. Wolf is reading women's choices as if they have meaning only within the context of sexual objecthood, but that doesn't mean she's right.

There's a world of difference between the mainstreaming of porn and it being acceptable for women to walk around without covering themselves up.

Sexual mysteries, my ass. Some people might enjoy that, but personally, I am for letting it all out. When I had my own apartment, I walked around nude or near nude most of the time. When my boyfriend was over, he was free to put on as much or as little as he wanted. The sex was wonderful. Now, had it been a new or recently aquired partner, I would probably not do that, but not so that sex is a mystery.

Sex can be sacred or it can be on tap or it can be both, with the same partner(s).

I might agree with her that porn has changed how women care for their pubic hair, but seriously, if I hear another woman complain that no pubic hair makes her feel like a child, I will scream. Childhood verses adulthood is not solely determined by pubic hair.

And I really hate all the hand-wringing about girls kissing for the male view. You know what? Doing that helped me realize that I am bisexual. I always knew, to a certain extent, but it helped me see that kissing a girl could feel as right as kissing a boy.

"If you associate orgasm with your wife" says Wolf, you will have a better sex life like a Pavlovian dog, but does this mean that masturbation is wrong? Sex outside of marriage? That sex always has to end in orgasm?

Back in the days of sex as a mystery, people didn't know how to deal with the naked bodies of the opposite gender, nor how to please their partner, nor all the things possible in a bed. Oh oy, let's all go back to before men knew about the female orgasm! (ok, people as whole have known about them forever, but individuals haven't)

Um, okay -- but this is not the current New York magazine cover story. It's a really old article -- if you look at the bottom of the second page it says it's from October 20, 2003. The actual current New York cover story is about some wankeriffic dude who's the host of a cable finance show, as you'll see here:
http://nymag.com/nymag/toc/20070604/

OK. One more thing.

If watching porn is making men bored in bed, and making it seem like there's no mystery to sex...

...maybe men should stop watching porn. And if they don't want to do that, then they don't get to bitch about being bored in bed and suchlike. But I'm sure as hell not going to cover up my hair because it doesn't jibe with their fantasy lives.

Argh!

I got irritated with Naomi Wolf when I read (Mis)conceptions, in which she appeared to discover the Women's Health Movement (like, thirty years late). She wrote the book as if the over-medicalization of childbirth was something no one had ever questioned before.

I have little (no?) patience for the "return to modesty!" argument that otherwise thoughtful women journalists & scholars resort to, somewhat inexplicably, after making pretty astute feminist assessments of American culture. (For example, Kristin Luker's "When Sex Goes to School," which ends up opining for the days when women were "protected" by 1950s standards of behavior).

Wouldn’t it be more practical (and fun) to simply promote the realistic images of women (and men) in sex culture than simply repress it altogether?

Amen, Vanessa!

I have a problem with "pornography" being seen as entirely, unredeemably, negative. Erotic narrative and imagery can be either good or bad (and we could argue endlessly about what "good" and "bad" might consist of). While unquestionably it's power has been abused by the mainstream media as a way of selling a specific idea of sexuality, that doesn't mean ALL porn/erotica is cardboard, unrealistic, or has nothing to share with us about human experience.

It's also about putting the onus on women to somehow magically restore whatever "mystery" and "charge" sex has lost.

I'm definitely coming from the perspective that more knowledge and conversation is better, even if that means a little less "mystery" in our culture in general. Lack of knowledge is pretty much never empowering, in my opinion.

I think porn, not just mainstream porn, but all porn does kind of cut-down on the quality of enjoyment society takes in sex. For everyone.

Why is that? I certainly understand the criticisms of mainstream porn, and frankly I have no interest in it as the overt mysogyny makes me uncomfortable. But is it so hard to imagine some kind of alternative pornography that would be help people's sex lives, or at the very least, get them through the droughts? The motto I live by is when my fellow progressives share an opinion with the fundie wacko right (eg, unilaterally anti-porn), that's a warning something's wrong.

Argh, how ANNOYING.

Vanessa, you hit the nail on the head. This is all about how we can please MEN, and how to make sex more tantalizing for MEN, and how to make women more desirable objects for MEN. Well, if that's what all the hubbub is about, why on earth should I give a rat's ass? There's no benefit to ME to helping straight men, as a whole, find sex more tanatlizing... so... why do I care? Just because I'll get the feeling that I'm hotttt stuff? Hell, all I need for that is a decent push-up bra, a manicure, and a bottle of champagne.

Seriously, why don't more women ask this question?

Here's what irritates me just as much: this piece is emotionally immature. It depends on the idea that women can somehow manipulate men into feeling or acting a certain way, simply by changing how we dress. Um. If it were that simple, don't you think we'd have a woman president by now? Wouldn't we have used our charms to get equal pay (I mean ACTUALLY equal, not that bullshit allowance crap that depends on finding a rich, weak man to marry you)?

When will we get over the idea that women have any control over men??? My mom taught me when I was a teenager that the only people we can change or control are ourselves. And you know what? As soon as I internalized this and learned to accept the fact that I can't change other people, I found myself way less stressed out and more able to simply live life. Naomi apparently wants to keep women stuck in that childish mindset that we're somehow able to CHANGE how men act by something as simple as the clothing we wear. Oh come on. Really?? REALLY???

I mean, don't get me wrong, I WISH we women had that kind of control. Fuck, mind control? I'd take it if I had to wear sheepskin the rest of my life and keep my hair its natural color and tie it in a bun every day. Small problem with this scenario: it's a fantasy.

Maybe Naomi should write the producers of Heroes...

Also, I gotta say, the kind of guy who is going to look at a naked woman whom he's been dating and who is hot for him and say to himself "Meh. She doesn't look like my porn" is just too immature to be allowed to have sex. It reminds me of that silliness in High Fidelity when John Cusack's character is so dismayed to find out that women don't actually wear silken matching push-up bra and panty sets every day. My God! Women are human beings! How will my erection cope with such a realization?

Wouldn’t it be more practical (and fun) to simply promote the realistic images of women (and men) in sex culture than simply repress it altogether?

That's about the best quote I've heard in quite a while.

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

If he thinks I'm a cow, I don't want him. If he can't love me for who I am, can't see my naked body and think it's beautiful, then what would I want with him?

Jen Loves Ponies,

Well, you pretty much hit it on the nail, but personally I have to disagree with you about the girls kissing girls for boys thing.

It just drives me crazy to see that kind of behavior, it's very demeaning to women who actually DO want to kiss other women, and not just for the boys. (Ofc, there are women who want to kiss women with other boys watching because it's their kink, and that's 100% fine).

I just wanted to throw it in, that sexual activity as an exhibition (as in seeking approval, not a particular kink) is something that we should never encourage. I'm bisexual, too, and I take my relationships with women very seriously, and I could have become rich already from the -nth time I've heard, "ooh, can you kiss a girl while we watch?".

ARGH!

I'm confused...Dworkin died over two years ago...

HBO had an episode of Real Sex recently that documented the amateur films submitted to the Boston amateur porn festival. It was more film oriented than porn. What was interesting is that most of the people in the movies looked nothing like mainstream porn stars. They all seemed to embrace who they were. More of that in the world would be nice.

I don't think shaming women into hiding their bodies is the answer. Can we have some middle ground please?

Though I have to agree that the majority of pornography today is geared towards a male audience, it's ridiculous to assume that women don't get the same pleasure from it.

I take strong issue with the following from a post above:

"The porn industry chews up young women and spits them out; the conditions of the industry coerce women to do things that they don't want to do and that take both a physical and an emotional toll."

It is a thinly veiled conservative bias that allows for the assumption that adult women do not have the intellect or the strength to embrace their sexuality and have a positive involvement with sex work. I have worked closely for the past year with men and women in the sex industry, including those involved BDSM/kink pornography and have yet to encounter a single person that feels shame or coercion involved with their career choice. I’m not saying that the industry is perfect – but considering the number of successful adult industry stars that have been able to brand their names and become multi-million dollar forces (think Jenna Jameson and Belladonna), it definitely presents an opportunity for success for the female stars.

Sex positive pornography, that doesn’t shame or demean, exists for both men and women and it’s ridiculous for someone like Naomi Wolf to ignore the possibility that women can enjoy it.

Jayney, as vulture already pointed out, this article is NOT actually from this week's magazine. It was published in 2003. I'm curious as to why that comment got lost in the shuffle, but I think that while we can certainly discuss the ideas contained the article, we do have to recognize its date.

Wow. Thanks for pointing that out vulture; I came across it through google news last night, which says that it was published on May 26, 2007. Very weird, sorry about that y'all...but regardless, it's still an interesting piece by Wolf to dissect : )

Jeff, when a liberal agrees with a conservative, the outcome is called moderation. And I'm not agreeing with Wolf, I'm just saying I see both sides of the story, where the come from. And I'm suggesting that pornography breeds sexual laziness as a habit. I know people who can't get off without porn, a lot of people. Porn, like communism, can be a very good thing, but, often, it just isn't.

Ikkin, heh. That's the first time I've ever heard anybody compare porn to communism, and it has totally made my day.

There's something important at the heart of this which Vanessa is ignoring. I've two comments:

"Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer."

Why is this insulting? I think her point is that there has been a cultural change. Roughly: over the age of 25 most men's formative sexual experiences would have been with a live woman, under the age of 25 most men's formative sexual experiences will be wacking off to pretty unrealistic and disturbed internet porn.

We can argue the specifics, but in general this is perfectly true. If this doesn't affect your sexual confidence and security compared to women of the earlier generation, then you clearly haven't thought about it enough, because it should.

"Not to mention that, once again, it’s about “what we have to offer.� What about what sex has to offer us? Why is, once again, our sexual satisfaction based on men’s approval of our sexuality?"

Whan men want and their expectations don't matter only if you want to play the lesbian seperatist card. There's nothing wrong with lesbian seperatism, but it's not someplace most heterosexual women are willing to go. If you want to give heterosexuality a try, then - like it or not - you are going to have to deal with what men think a satisfying sex life is. If men have completely screwed up expectations, then this is going to affect women's sexual satisfaction, and you can't just wish this away.

I disagree with the interpretation of her Wolf's comments. She's not saying that male satisfaction is both a necessary AND sufficient condition for good sex; she's saying that it is a necessary condition, and, at that, one that is unfulfilled in the porn culture.

If either partner is not enjoying the experience, how it is good sex? Please, let's not get to the point as feminists where the definition of good sex is something enjoyed by women, whether or not men are, too. That's just exchanging one bad system for another.

After the article was originally published, a bunch of letters to the editors in response were published as well, among them ones by me, Susie Bright, and Rachel Venning (co-founder of Toys in Babeland), among others, just to offer some additional viewpoints to the ones already in the comments here.

Mouneh, I'm no conservative, and no sexual conservative either. I'm a feminist and a sadomasochist. My problem with porn is not the sex, it's the commodification of the sex.

Interesting that you should mention Belladonna. She broke down and cried about the things she had been pressured to do during her career. But when the emotion of her reaction threatened her career, she said that she had been manipulated. Or, take Melissa Ashley. She took some time off from the industry after some male performer forced his cock into her ass over her protest, on film. IIRC, she blogged about it as a very traumatic experience, though she pulled up short of calling it rape.

(and I'm leaving out Linda Borman, Shannon Wilsey, and Traci Lords)

Your experiences with people in the industry are your experiences, and you can interpret them any way you want. But I am not willing to assume that 1) they feel they can be candid with you; or 2) that you have a representative sample.

Finally, about BDSM porn -- why is so much of it marketed using creepy misogyny? I mean, really over-the-top misogyny? I'm not afraid of hard S/M. I do hard S/M. I just don't hate women and don't want to have to wade through crap about women as property to see a video of a male top doing heavy S/M with a female bottom. But that seems to be most of what's around. In fact, not to put to fine a point on it, as a sadomasochist, I'm a little tired of BDSM porn making me look bad.

“it's ridiculous to assume that women don't get the same pleasure from it.�
Didn’t you just say yourself that it’s geared towards men? It is only ridiculous to assume that women do get the same pleasure from it. What percentage of women enjoy watching other women depicted as stupid, mercenary, and worthless “whores� and “bitches�?

“Sex positive pornography, that doesn’t shame or demean, exists for both men and women�
Yes, it does exist ( I can think of Comstock films) but it’s not even 1% of the pornographic content available either on the web or on the shelves of adult video stores and by no means can it be considered mainstream.

"She claims that all porn this day and age does is demolish straight women’s sex lives because they can’t live up to porn’s image of the 'perfect body' and satisfy their more-or-less bored partners."

That's all porn does? Even explicit yaoi manga with no female characters in it?

Meanwhile, a while ago I read another excerpt of her stuff (maybe from the same article?) in which she was going on and on about how her hair-hiding friend had a better sex life than couples who have sex right away.

As if those are mututally exclusive.

Aren't a whole bunch of women out there proud to both hide their hair in public and have sex with strangers (following both super-modest-dress and arranged-marriage-wedding-night customs)?

"I have a problem with 'pornography' being seen as entirely, unredeemably, negative."

Same here, especially since some of my ancestors would have considered my driver's license photo pornography.

"Erotic narrative and imagery can be either good or bad (and we could argue endlessly about what 'good' and 'bad' might consist of)."

Not to mention argue endlessly about what "porn" and "erotic" might consist of. My favorite definition goes like this:

Erotica is what turns me on.
Porn is what turns you on.
Smut is what turns them on.

:)

"I'm definitely coming from the perspective that more knowledge and conversation is better, even if that means a little less 'mystery' in our culture in general."

Right on, no matter if it's a little less "mystery" about anatomy or astronomy. ;)

"'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?'"

"Why buy the bull when you can get the horns for free?"

:)

"We can argue the specifics, but in general this is perfectly true. If this doesn't affect your sexual confidence and security compared to women of the earlier generation, then you clearly haven't thought about it enough, because it should."

Actually, my sexual confidence and security has been affected a lot more by knowing how I look compared to my classmates and coworkers than by knowing how I look compared to porn stars and other celebrities.

I bet even meeting our society's beauty standards as much as *you* do in your everyday clothes, never mind as much as porn stars do naked, is impossible for some women and teen girls in our society. Should you hide yourself for the sake of their confidence?

My sexual confidence, security, and desire hasn't been affected by the images of women's bodies in porn, as I never touch the stuff. It's been affected by growing up in a sexist, misogynist culture, though. It's been affected by my friends having been raped and sexually abused. It's been affected by seeing middle-aged men cheat on/abandon their wives for other women. It's been affected by "women's magazines" whose entire raison d'etre is explaining how to give a better blow job. It's been affected by "Girls Gone Wild" ads, as the realization that my sexuality and desirability make me a target of creepy manipulation and derision by many heterosexual men.

But Naomi Wolf is really arguing that the most pressing sexual problem for women is that men get bored because we don't have boob jobs? And that the way to combat this pernicious scourge is to cover our hair? Is she serious?

Wildstarryskies-
I agree with you that the expectation that all women are bisexual exhibitionists is annoying. What I meant was that it isn't all 100% evil- it was a similiar thing that helped me realize I was indeed bisexual. That doesn't mean I still do it, but it did help me come to terms with myself as a bisexual. I think it can be a safe way for women to experiment and realize things they may be repressing.

So... annoying, yes, but not quite the demonic activity I think most people cast it as.

If this doesn't affect your sexual confidence and security compared to women of the earlier generation, then you clearly haven't thought about it enough, because it should.

Wow, lee. Do you even realize how wrongheaded and demeaning this comment is? Not to mention you apparently hold the view that the average male doesn't lose his virginity until age 25... I can promise you this isn't the case.

If you think that the point of our comments here is that men's sexual satisfaction DOESN'T matter, you're not paying attention. Period. Your comment is borderline trollish. As commenters here are (sadly) CONSTANTLY reiterating, this is not Feminism 101. We shouldn't HAVE to explain the entire history underlying porn and sexuality and the commodification of women's sexuality into a thing to be had and possessed and enjoyed by men, and the historical COMPLETE ignorance of and lack of concern for women's sexuality.

This is a FEMINIST website. That means we're concerned with issues from WOMEN'S perspective. When we see that perspective lacking, particularly in a place where it's traditionally been ignored or worse, as in the context of sex and sexual satisfaction, we point this out and we discuss it. If you're not a feminist, fine, but you can't come to a feminist website and fault us for being feminists. I mean, that's just ridiculous.

And your argument that we "should" have our CONFIDENCE affected because of MEN'S views of us is misogynist. Period. My sexual confidence has NOTHING to do with whether the average male on the street would jerk off thinking about me. Why on EARTH should MY CONFIDENCE depend on something as stupid and fucked up as that??????? Does your confidence depend on whether or not I'd want to fuck you? Because if it does, then you need to grow the fuck up and stop basing your self-worth on what random strangers think.

God in Heaven, this is so stupid. In the real world (which I suspect Ms. Wolf would need the Hubble Orbital telescope to see) porn does not actually demolish any women's sex lives. This is because of Fact Number One about porn: porn is not made for men who actually know women willing to have sex with them. Porn is created for and marketed to all the millions upon millions of guys who don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of ever getting in bed with any woman.

Sure there are exceptions. On occasion water runs uphill, too. In the main, however, you can rely upon Fact Number One like you can rely on the law of gravity.

I wonder if anybody reading this ever read James Tiptree's great short story "The Women Men Don't See." Those guys who consume all those billions of dollars worth of porn are the flip side, the Men Women Don't See. Out of sight, out of mind; what the vast majority of male porn consumers do and what they think and what they feel means absolute zero to all the women who aren't themselves in the business.

I've found Naomi Wolf is kind of like shopping at Target:

Very Much A Mixed Bag. You find some great stuff there, but one often wonders if it's worth wallowing through the attendant detritus.

I love Susie Bright's comment from the letters:

This generation has been raised on abstinence, body shame, and AIDS-cautionary moralism, in which sex is linked to death, poverty, and dissolution.

This has been driving me nuts for years. You can't raise kids to fear sex and then expect them to immediately have a well-adjusted attitude towards it at adulthood. This doesn't excuse any behavior, that still needs to change, but it's not like the source of neurotic sex attitudes are a big mystery.