heterosexual pornography as confirmation of viewers’ masculine identity inhibits its incor poration into hardcore narrative.”
‘empowered them’, enabling them to really explore their sexuality. She insists, however, that feminists have got it all wrong, that her book was written for fun, and that everything Ana did in the book was safe and consensual. What people did in the bedroom was up to them, and was not for others to judge. The fact is that the freedom to view pornographic representations of their sexuality was not what the women’s movement fought for, nor those on the left or anyone concerned with real liberation.
The trap here, for feminists as well as everyone interested in sexual liberation, was to believe that liberation was simply a matter of breaking taboos, of pushing back boundaries and of transgressing old norms. Visual representation was equated with liberation. This made it seem as if what was holding people back was their own ignorance of sex and their own conformity. The sexual liberation of offer took Those who see the pornographisation the form of learning from the of pop culture as a positive thing refer “experts’ about how to do things. frequently to porn’s increasing Thus the majority watched, attractiveness to women. passively, while a few celebrities showed them how. As Isabella These are the standard arguments raised by Rosselini pointed out, this attitude was extremely those in favour of the pornographication of mass moralistic. The star of Blue Velvet affirmed that culture, and they have been rehearsed since the she regretted posing in Madonna’s Sex because 1980s when the liberalisation of the media and the book’s moralism “bothered the hell” out of the growth of the internet created a demand for her. Madonna seemed to be saying “I’ll teach massproduced content that would bring you how to be free”!” and Rossellini thought that audiences to advertisers. The cable TV this was like laying down a set of prescriptions companies have been trying for years to market for freedom. She herself believed that people porn to women, not very successfully. Those should be free to practice abstinence, to be gay, who see the pornographisation of pop culture as to have multiple partners, whatever they wanted a positive thing refer frequently to porn’s to do, it was OK . increasing attractiveness to women. This goes Those in favour of the commodification of sex hand in hand with the marketing of commodities argue that people are freer now that which promise to help women have better sex pornography has filtered into every aspect of lives – from sex toys to poledancing kits and popular culture. This is then inverted to argue classes, all using the argument that this is teh that we are free because of the commodification freedom that women have wanted all along. of sex. Selling sex to people in the form of James has succeeded by adding something commodities, cultural or otherwise, is held to ‘naughty’ – BDSM (BondageDomination benefit all humanity, but especially women. This SadismMasochism)– to the standard Mills and thinking is reflected in James’ assertion that Boon/Harlequin romance about a wideeyed many women told her that the book had virgin who wins the heart of a jaded,
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