Masculinity and Pornography

By: Marc
I am sitting in the dining facility here minding my own business, too lost in the root beer float I'd made to worry about anything surrounding me ...when I was tapped on the shoulder by another soldier, pointing out to me a conventional good-looking airman who had just walked by. Already, soldiers sitting at my table are talking about what they'd like to do to her."That's nice," I said, getting back to my root beer float.

"Sergeant, when it comes to talking about women, you're at the level of a 7th-grader," a soldier told me, then went back to talking about the woman.My unresolved masculinity almost got the best of me; I wanted to defend my manhood by talking about the women I've been with in the past - and join in on the conversations, as if somehow it would prove that I am, indeed, a man.But my feminism got the best me and rather than joining in the exercise of objectification, I kept quiet.

On the walk back, however, I began to think about the incident, and what the soldier had meant when he, because of my refusal to join in to an obvious male-bonding moment of objectifying women, equated misogyny with manhood. Perhaps I should have been insulted; but perhaps, just perhaps, the world would be a more equal, pleasant place where women weren't objectified and raped if everyman were to look at women through the eyes of a 7th-grader. After all, as children, we saw our opposite genders as equals and friends.

For the most part - and as long back as I can remember, boys and girls go along. There were no such things as misogyny, and groups of boys never sat around and insulted groups of girls or turned them into objects.As children, boys also looked up to their mothers, believing them to be the women who could do anything; not only did they look to their mothers for comfort and care, but these young boys, and I remember my days as a boy, genuinely loved their mothers, without regard as to their gender.

So, what changed? Where along the road to adulthood do males turn from loving, respectful boys to men who objectify? What are the social forces and rites of passage that turned them from lovers to objectifiers? To be sure, not all men objectify, but those who do objectify, it seems, assert more "masculinity" than those who do not.For me, the masculinity can be attributed to several thing - and porn being among them. After all, pornography is almost every boy's rite-of-passage.

This means, then, that on masculinity, the objectification of women and the consumption of porn go hand-in-hand. That is, where porn paints the picture of women as always readily available, always desiring the same types of sex men want, and never saying no, it also turns women into an accessory. Rather than an equal partnership where sex and pleasure are negotiated and shared, porn makes men assume that he can have sex with women whenever, however and wherever.Further, as boys and young men sit around in front of a television screen, viewing pictures of women in various stages of sexual conducts, the one thing that's removed from porn is the humanity of sex. Thus, at a young age, men are conditioned to believe not only are women there to pleasure them, but that there is no emotion in sex.

It's no wonder why some men can readily objectify and rape women. After all, if women are viewed as 'less-than-humans,' and if it's assumed that all women want sex all the time and that no women ever says no, then the protestations of women mean very little, and further, even when women are drunk and unresponsive, the man would assume (having been conditioned to do so) that she wants sex. Add this to the belief that sex defines a man and the result is what we see everyday - young men, fueled by their own beliefs in masculinity, objectifying and raping women - often without knowing what they're doing is wrong.

So what's the solution here? To be sure, it's not censorship; but I do believe the feminist movement needs more male presence. Often times, we focus on ensuring that young girls have role models who teach them the values of being strong and assertive, yet, even in our movement, we lack the male presence to teach young men to deconstruct their masculinity and deal with women not as objects, but fellow human beings.

Further, given that the major source of women's oppressions and plights are the actions of men, there also needs to be more focus on men's studies - that is, how men fit within patriarchy and what gender roles require of them. After all, if men's actions are causing women pain, then we need to figure why men are taking those actions.

While there are resources out there (the National Organization for Men Against Sexism @ www.nomas.org, as an example), they are far and few between - and if we want to take the next step into not only empowering girls and women, but also teaching boys and men to be loving, caring human beings toward women and themselves, then we need to include them in on not just the social justice movement, but also the academic movement. After all, not only are women's humanities, but also the humanities of men, are depended on it.