After almost four years at San Diego State, I finally know whatall you ladies have been doing when you are not studying (and we allknow that’s a lot of time). You have been lurking around on theInternet, looking at porn.
Perhapsnot every woman has been looking at it, but contrary to popularnotions that women have an aversion to pornography, Nielsen indicatesotherwise. According to The Plain Dealer, a Cleveland newspaper,Nielsen, “the industry standard for measuring online audiences,”revealed in a study of 40,000 panelists at home and on the job,nearly one in three visitors to “adult” Web sites was a woman. Theyestimated in September alone, 9.4 million women sneaked a peek atonline erotica.
The women viewing online pornography not only defy stereotypes butalso defy classification. According to the Dealer, very few femaleswho are mesmerized by explicit online images use them to augmenttheir real-time sex lives. Quite a few, in fact, are logging ontothese sites covertly, as their religion dictates pornography issinful.
According to the evangelical magazine Today’s Christian Woman, 34percent of respondents to an online survey – a vast majority of whichwere church-going women – admitted to intentionally visitingpornographic Web sites.
On one hand, I am tempted to commend these women for achieving alevel of liberation such that they feel comfortable enough to eschewpopular convention and view pornography if they so desire. It isessential the women become more open about sexuality, if not to getone step closer to universal equality than for the sake of their ownpleasure. How are we to enjoy our bodies and the act of sex if boththose things are taboo? The surprisingly large number of womenactively pursuing porn is encouraging in that it implies a rejectionof those antiquated taboos and an acceptance of the fact that we arenot immune to desire.
However, on the other hand, the medium by which women are gainingaccess to pornography is worrisome. While women are flocking to theInternet, they are nearly completely absent in adult bookstores andother purveyors of sensual goods. One thing the Internet offers thatpublic sellers don’t is anonymity; women still feel guilty aboutviewing illicit images, so they do it as stealthily as possible.Therefore, the element of guilt that so prohibited women from viewingporn before is still there, if slightly more subtle.
Perhaps the pornography itself fosters some of that guilt. As youcan probably imagine, researching this topic online was fairlydifficult; each time I attempted a Google search, the results yieldeda slew of X-rated sites and very little concrete information. Many ofthese sites boasted slogans such as “Home of the Hottest Real Womenon the Internet” – the problem is, these women are anything but real,from their fake breasts to their fake orgasms and the falseexpectations their bodies and behavior engender in real women. What,then, are women left to feel when confronted with their own bodies,stretch marks included, and their distorted perception of sexualityas a whole, except guilt?
Though I have focused largely on women, men are not exempt fromnegative self-image. The sole measurement of a man’s worth is hismeasurement, so to speak, leaving him feeling woefully inadequatewhen it comes to physical intimacy.
Ultimately, the increase in consumption of pornography by men andwomen alike is dangerous in that blurs the line between porn andactual sex. The more we are saturated with pornography, Internet orotherwise, the more we begin to equate what we see on camera with howwe should act in bed. Sex on screen has no ramifications; there isnone of the love, intimacy, pleasure, displeasure and confusion thatoften accompany the actual act and its aftermath. Sex is far moremultifaceted than one-dimensional pornography would have us believe,and while I believe we should all be free to watch – and beyond that,enjoy – adult entertainment, we must constantly remind ourselves, itis a far cry from reality.
– Karla Saia is an English senior and assistant opinion editor forThe Daily Aztec.
– This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed – include your full name, majorand year in school.
