Duke Porn Star and the Porn Industry: Empowering or Degrading?

This Time article argues that the libertarian feminist Duke porn star, Belle Knox, is not as empowered as she claims. I think the author dismisses her claims as teenage naivete prematurely without providing depth to the larger question of whether or not sex work, especially in the contemporary pornography industry, can empower women. This question raises larger issues about what empowerment for women means and prompts the limits to autonomous self-expression.

When people discuss pornography as empowerment, they are stipulating that it combats the patriarchal thought that women -- especially white women -- are pure and should be pure, and that sex acts pollute her as a fallen woman, or a slut. This social control of women's sexuality indicates power relations more than it signifies some simplified process of our culture determining its own sexual norms in an absence of oppressive structures. One must simply see who labels whom and how this justifies systematic discrimination and even violence. For two examples: (1) systematic discrimination limiting economic freedom: this Victorian-era ideal reinforces that women should remain in the private sphere as homemakers and thus remain financially dependent on her breadwinner husband in the public sphere  and (2) violence: justifying sexual assault if she dressed in a certain way and is perceived to commonly engage in casual sex, you know she wants sex with anyone as women are seen as either pure or totally depraved. In this line of thinking, pornography thus empowers women by embracing female sexuality and sexual pleasures in a symbolic, political effort to elevate their status and destroy this frame. In a sense, this thinking asserts that pornography dismantles patriarchal influence on women's sexuality.

However, due to its constant, reaffirming images of objectification, subordination, and abuse of women, the porn industry relegates women to be objects for heterosexual male pleasure -- not autonomous agents expressing their sexual desires. Furthermore, it likely influences how people practice sex and could perpetuate violence against women, for as Gloria Steinem pontificates "Pornography is the instruction. Rape is the practice, battered women are the practice, and battered children are the practice." Thus, as a paradigm of run-of-the-mill pornography, I argue that Belle Knox's work does not empower her or women generally. She acts in videos that normalize and eroticize male dominance and female submission, such as a man ejaculating on her face. Furthermore, despite her arguments for sexual autonomy and self-expression, she discusses only three perceived options: go to college and be saddled with extreme debt from student loans, go to college and work in the sex industry to pay off the debt, or not go to college. This implies a sense of unwillingness and pressure to perform sex work. It does not suggest that she pursues the job as an autonomous act of self-expression.

Nevertheless, I hesitate to assert that recording sex acts and publicizing the footage necessitates degradation, even if one does it for pay. Is there a way for one to perform a sex act that embraces women's sexuality and shows female pleasure in a way that establishes them as agentic and capable of subjective experiences? Furthermore, if the porn actress chooses to eroticize submission or abuse, does this combat the social control of women's sexuality? I am inclined argue that this sexual expression is informed by the patriarchy and reinforces it, as no decision is made in a vacuum; however, this obviously limits how one defines genuine autonomy and self-expression.

Understanding Intersecting Forms of Oppression using Models and Sets

A classmate asked me to expound upon my final statements in class today in a blog post because they were presented a little nebulously.  This post is an attempt to clarify from my point of view, specifically from the view of a mathematician.  

We can differentiate different aspects of our identity into categories.  This post will use the examples of Class, Race, and Sex.  We can treat these categories as sets, having certain elements that correspond to an individual's identity.  Furthermore, we can assume these social sets are partially-ordered sets (aka posets) under the binary relation of privilege.  There is a "greatest element" in each set, which is the most privileged element.  For the simplicity of an example, we can use three elements for each set: Class = {Lower, Middle, Upper}, Race = {Black, Asian, White}, and Sex = {Female, Intersex, Male}.

Any type of model that we create will have to make assumptions about the group it describes and hence will have to choose an element from each social set; this will create a new set which describes the assumptions for a model.  Since the topic of our analysis is oppression, preliminary models require choosing one non-privileged element of a social set, while assuming privileged elements for all other social sets.  This essentially means that to start with, we only examine one variable at a time.  Thus, the set of assumptions for preliminary models follows as such: { {Upper, White, Female}, {Upper, White, Intersex}, {Upper, Black, Male}, {Upper, Asian, Male}, {Lower, White, Male}, {Middle, White, Male} }.  There are 6 models here, and we can call this set 'x'.

Now, we move to the topic of analyzing intersecting forms of oppression.  This task is not as simple as analyzing two preliminary models because assumptions contradict.  For example, let us look at the black female.  The preliminary model for blackness assumes maleness.  The preliminary model for femaleness assumes whiteness.  As we can see here, an assumption for each model contradicts an assumption in the other, rendering these models incompatible.  Thus, we must now go past the preliminary models and create new models, new sets of assumptions, that are not constrained to contain only one non-privileged element.  This expansion results in the following set of expanded models for the intersection of two oppressed groups: { {Upper, Female, Black}, {Upper, Female, Asian}, {Upper, Intersex, Black}, {Upper, Intersex, Asian}, {Lower, Male, Black}, {Lower, Male, Asian}, {Middle, Male, Black}, {Middle, Male, Asian}, {Lower, Female, White}, {Lower, Intersex, Asian}, {Middle, Female, White}, {Middle, Intersex, White} }.  There are 12 models here, and we can call this set 'y'. The set of expanded models for the intersection of three oppressed groups is as follows: { {Lower, Female, Black}, {Lower, Female, Asian}, {Lower, Intersex Black}, {Lower, Intersex, Asian}, {Middle, Female, Black}, {Middle, Female, Asian}, {Middle, Intersex, Black}, {Middle, Intersex, Asian} }.  There are 8 models here, and we can call this set 'z'.

The number of elements in a set can be denoted by absolute value bars and is called a set's cardinality.  Because sets x, y, and z have no overlapping elements, we can see the total number of models created by finding the union of these three sets' cardinality, namely | x U y U z | = 6 + 12 + 8 = 26.  A simpler way to calculate this is just through knowledge of combinatorics: | Class | * | Race | * | Sex | - 1 = 3 * 3 * 3 - 1 = 27 - 1 = 26.  Why do we need to subtract 1?  Because there is no need to take into account the default model, namely {Upper, Male, White}; this model is already how we view things and thus is not included in the creation of any of our sets.  We defined a model as requiring at least one non-privileged element.

All of the above is by no means an actual, strict way of analyzing intersections but rather presents the basic concepts at hand.  It is just an example.  Obviously, there are more categories than just Class, Gender, and Sex, and each category actually contains more elements than given.  Regardless, we can see that models cannot be 'additive.'  Any metric for oppression is defined under a certain model, and since no two models are compatible, an understanding of a metric is not transferable between models.  From a mathematical point of view, addition is just an binary operator that maps two elements from a set onto another element in the same set (for example, under the set of integers, the addition operator takes the arguments 3 and 4 and maps them to 7).  A way of understanding that oppression is not additive is that since different metrics of oppression arise from different models, they cannot be placed in a set under which the addition operator is defined (at least in any reasonably coherent way).

One last thought about class

I think Aditya left us with a great closing statement today on the inadequacies of individual models to describe the lived experiences of multiple forms of oppression; however, I wanted to briefly comment on the qualitative/quantitative debate we had circulated. I feel that while we may concede that a poor, homosexual woman will experiences more instances (in sheer number) of oppression than say a middle-class heterosexual woman, that is just not enough to describe the reality of oppression for that woman. Instead, I think Spelman and Crenshaw encourage us to not only look at the quantity of oppressive acts, but also on the quality of them both individually and in tandem. I think Schaeffer is right in that we can assume that individuals and groups in more oppressive categories experience "more" (instances of) oppression, but without looking at how the instances overlap and interact with each other qualitatively we miss a big part of understanding that person's (or group's) oppression. Thus the study of oppression of marginalized or largely forgotten groups requires both a quantitative and qualitative study.

I am not a geisha

Y'all-

Here's the article I mentioned in class, written by a friend of mine, Carlina Duan.  Actually, the entire Michigan in Color series has been phenomenal, if you're interested in reading more.  As I recall, Tallyn posted an articles from the series written by one of her friends a while back.

https://www.michigandaily.com/opinion/michigan-color-i-am-not-geisha?page=0,0

interesting article on intersex babies and rights

http://www.vice.com/read/the-group-campaigning-for-better-intersex-rights

Oscar winner addresses sexism in acceptance speech

(SPOILER ALERT)

So immediately following some arguments with my dad and brother, who just were not understanding the significance of the Bechdel test, Cate Blanchett comes out with a comment addressing sexism in her acceptance speech for Best Actress. Check it out here. Not the best video maybe, but at 0:16 she gets into it.

Next family movie night: I think we're watching Miss Representation!

~ Brooke

Sex With No Body: Gender and Sexuality in "Her"

The Oscars are tonight and the internet has been flooded with predictions about who will win and what the nominees will be wearing. And although I am excited to see who will take home Best Picture or Best Actress, the film that has struck me the most this season probably will not win either award. Spike Jones' Her has been echoing through my head since I first saw it in January as it raises important questions about the future of technology, the fickleness of love, and, most interestingly to me, what it means to have a sexual orientation.

Okay, I am going to try to not spoil anything about the movie, so the the basic plot is that Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) lives in the not-so-distant future (2025) in a world where operating systems have become artificially intelligent and even have the capability to adapt and evolve. If you couldn't tell from the trailer, Theodore falls in love with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), his OS. 

The movie makes interesting points about gender performativity; Samantha is female, although she has no body (Theodore decides he wants a "female" voice when he has to choose between two genders). Her name is spelled in pretty cursive when she "calls" Theodore, she giggles softly at his jokes, and she “plays” the role of the female when they have phone sex (which gets pretty steamy), but is Samantha really a female? This question ties in with our discussion of how one chooses to separate sex and gender and particularly when they don't (butch lesbians vs. FTM trans folks). Samantha does not even have to consider "matching" her sex with her gender because she has no biological sex, yet she still performs one gender clearly. Even as she continues to "evolve," she never seems to take on a more complicated approach to gender that does not fit within the binary. But is Samantha, as an OS, taking on the position of a third sex? Also, what are the implications of Theodore's sexual orientation? It is never implied that he is anything but heterosexual and, as previously mentioned, he never thinks of Samantha as anything but female, but is being heterosexual even applicable when there is no body? 

All I can think about is Catfish. In today's world, people fall in love online without ever having seen each other in person and the people they fall for can later turn out not to be the sex and/or gender they originally told their "partner" they were. Then, of course, the people who have been catfished are distraught and cry and make for great television. But why does it even matter? If you're in love with someone, does it not transcend gender? Is our heteronormative culture so ingrained within each of us that we sacrifice true love for the sexual orientation we have always thought we had? None of these questions can be answered easily, but I am glad there is at least one mainstream movie this Oscar season that is getting us thinking and talking about more complicated views on gender and sexuality.