Emma Watson, best known as Hermione in Harry Potter, has decided that being very public about feminism is more important than acting. And good for her. Except that it seems her research skills aren’t nearly as good as Hermione’s.
A report in The Independent has her calling “for the creation of ‘awesome alternatives’ to pornography that empower instead of objectifying women.”
Ah yes. If only feminist porn existed. If only there were some way of finding this mythical thing. If only there were some kind of “search engine” where you could type in the words “feminist porn” and see if it really was a thing. Phew, what a thrilling experience that would be.
This is the latest incarnation of the ongoing media headline “Where is all the porn for women?” Or, “why is there no good porn for women?” The people who write these articles or say these things typically don’t try too hard before throwing up their hands and declaring all porn to be bad. I suspect they get as far as Pornhub and – like so many women – turn away feeling disgusted or let down thanks to the rampant sexism, immature attitudes and constant male gaze. If only they did a bit more searching. Because there are so many of us out there, waving our hands, saying “Hey! Over here! Hey!”, slowly sinking into our respective obscurities, steamrollered by pirated porn and Google’s determination to sideline us.
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Emma’s statement came during an interview with old-world feminist Gloria Steinem. Gloria has long been talking about the need for a different kind of porn, saying that “erotica” is what would be feminist, as opposed to “porn” which is sexist. An example from an old interview on PBS:
We have to say pornography is not erotica, porn means female slavery. It means the depiction of female slavery. Erotica means love, something very different, very mutual. These are two different things. We have, in a very deep way, to disentangle a sexuality and intimacy and violence.
In her discussion with Emma, Gloria repeats herself:
…”I was hoping that having a word for erotica, for shared mutual pleasurable empathetic sex, real pleasurable sex would help us do something about pornography. […] Maybe not existing is a long way off, but having an alternative.”
“That I definitely think is possible,” replied Watson. “We should be creating lots of awesome, great alternatives to pornography.”
There’s a lot to be said about the whole “erotica vs porn” dichotomy that Gloria perpetuates. I can make the old joke about how erotica is where you use a feather, porn is where you use the whole chook. Erotica is nice, porn is nasty. Erotica is for women, porn is for men. There’s also the class judgement of “I watch erotica, you watch porn, they watch dirty filth.” A while ago I wrote about my decision to use the word “porn” to describe my work, partly because of this ongoing semantic argument. For another perspective, the folks at Sometimes Its Just A Cigar blog have some choice words about the way Emma and Gloria’s assumptions give primacy to “niceness” and the romantic ideal.
What’s interesting is how far behind the rest of us Gloria and Emma are. For the last twenty years there’s been a conversation going on about what makes for good porn, how best to depict women’s agency, consent and pleasure and what the nuances are when it comes to what’s degrading and what isn’t. It’s not just a matter of using the word “erotica” and dreamily wishing someone, somewhere would make nice porn. Been there, done that. We’re having deep discussions about diversity, sexuality, gender and new ways of getting off. There’s such a wide variety of alternative porn out there exploring the options, stepping away from the cliches, embracing the concept of non-normative sexuality and relationships.
And of course, there’s lots of room to explore straight normative relationships from a different perspective, which is what I occasionally do with my films.
There’s just so much out there it’s almost breathtaking to think that Emma and Gloria can be so ill-informed. Emma may be young but has she never really looked at porn on the internet? And Gloria… well. Gloria has been calling for “erotica” for years but she never seems to actually go beyond that and see if it exists yet.
The other interesting part of this conversation was that Emma went on to plug a subscription website called OMGYes. The site seems to focus more on sex education than porn but, from what I’m gathering, it does include explicit content.
The question that first springs to mind is: fuck, how can I get Emma Watson to plug MY site as well? (And rest assured, I tweeted her some examples!). I mean, my god, the people at OMGYes must be inundated with traffic and links and subscriptions right now. Good for them. Why don’t they have an affiliate program, dammit?
Secondly, what is it about a sex site that gets the Official Feminist Tick from Emma and Gloria? Is it the education aspect? Is it the focus on female pleasure? Is it simply that this is the first different, female-gaze porn site Emma has seen and some PR person hit the jackpot?
This opens the can of worms which asks the neverending question: How do you define the Authentic Feminist Sexuality™? What type of fucking is officially OK with feminism? Under what circumstances does it occur? How do you depict that? And what does it mean if a woman enjoys a type of sex that isn’t OK?
I’ve been making porn for women for 16 years and it’s been a long learning curve. I’ve unlearned a lot of assumptions in the process. I’m hoping that Emma’s Great Big Year Of Feminism sees her doing something similar: listening, learning and understanding. And maybe exploring some of the vast swathe of feminist porn that’s already out there. I can send her some links and logins if she’s interested.
Edit: I just sent Emma Watson The Feminist Porn Book from Amazon with a short gift note. Elle Chase (Lady Cheeky) came up with the idea and another friend happily found a mailing address. I have no idea if it will just be binned by her minders but it’s worth a go.
Edit 2: A feminist porn-producing friend tells me that OMGYes owes her money for pre production costs from a couple of years ago. So, yeah. Maybe they’ll have some cash now to pay her.
Image credit: Emma Watson 2013 by George Biard via Wikimedia Commons
(Not a woman, so I’m sorry if I’m being an interloper right now! Ended up here via a Facebook link.)
Arf, this aggravates me so much. I’m a comprehensive sex educator and one of the greatest struggles for me has been figuring out how to normalize the use of toys, feminist porn, and other “pleasure aids” for my female students. Since it’s a high school class, I can’t direct them to specific porn sites (like yours!) but my hope is that they’ll find them. OMGYes is really cool (and I’m glad it exists), but it exists almost entirely behind a paywall… I understand the need to make $$, but its point is to cash in on the exclusion of women from the pleasure industry, not to provide greater access. Also, it doesn’t really provide stimulation so much as instruction.
I also wish that OMGYes and the “erotica” paradigm didn’t have so much of an anti-raunch undercurrent. Everyone’s got some sort of raunchy fantasy and portraying female sexuality/desire as cleaner or somehow less subject to kinks can have a really shaming and upsetting effect on young women, especially.
^ Ugh. ‘Raunch/raunchy’ is one of those words I wish could be banned. It seems to simply mean ‘a woman being sexual in a way I don’t like’.
Good luck with your classes!
I remember cracked talked about how some celebrities internet knowledge stops with the time they get famous, they mentionedan interview with Eminem in which he showed an interviewer his porn collection. When the interviewer told him about the easy availability on the Internet Eminem was apparently stunned. He had no idea. Emma Watson could be of the same ilk. She might not have even got as far as pornhub and never discovered things like nubile films.