Eve Ensler and victims of violence

Eve Ensler walked on a stage in a New Orleans sports arena and asked the audience gathered to do two things.  She introduced herself and asked: 1) “All of you who are personally victims of violence, please stand.”  An unexpected number of silhouettes rose to be counted. I felt my heart pounding in anxiety and my eyes widening in surprise.

Then she asked, 2) "Those of you who know women who are or have been victims of violence, please stand." The rest of the arena, including me, in one rustling move seemed to rise to join the first group of those willing to take their place, their number in a sisterhood too large for our minds to embrace.

This is why we are Rising in RVA.  There are too many of us already.  Let us save those to come and give them hope of a different life.

Feb 14, 2013 from 11 AM - 2 PM at the Richmond Coliseum.  Free of charge and open to all.  Please join us to end violence against women and to change the world as we know it.

PORN II

Yesterday I wrote about my reaction to The Price of Pleasure, a DVD documentary I saw on Netflix about the Porn Industry which is big, big business.

The movie disturbed me deeply and filled me with images I would much rather not have in my head.

More of my reactions to the film:

A young man who was being interviewed with his face in silhouette so he couldn't be recognized talked about the effect porn flicks have on him.  He said he has trouble staying aroused with his girlfriend because she doesn't do the things that are in the movies and he's so used to being aroused by them that he can't keep an erection unless he's experiencing that.  His brain has become so used to porn that he needs it to be aroused.  Wow.  What a loss to him and his partner.

Another young man talked about watching a porn film with his girlfriend.  There was anal sex in it.  He was getting aroused.  He was only half watching the film though because he was also watching his girlfriend to see how she was responding.  She was disturbed and afterwards they talked about it.  The next time she was less disturbed.  The time after that even less so.  Eventually he could see that it had become normal to her because she didn't react, so he broached the possibility of doing that with her.  She eventually agreed.  And so it goes...  something becomes normalized through viewing it so much.

I wonder about kids who've grown up finding porn on the internet, for whom that is the first sex they see.  How do they learn what normal is?  Do they grow up thinking violence towards women is normal?  In the film, a young man at the beginning said (and I paraphrase), "I'm a pretty shy guy.  I'm not all that experienced.  If some girl came up to me and started saying, 'Fuck me, baby.  Give it to me in the ass.' like they do in the movies, I'd be petrified!  I wouldn't know what to do with that."

What sort of expectations are these films setting up?  How can "normal" people live up to them?

One researcher commented that girls are trying to act sexy by acting how the porn stars act in the movies when they're acting turned on by the things being done to them - pretty far from real feeling - acting like someone who is acting in a porn movie - and trying to please your partner that way.  That seems pathetic to me.  But even more so, it scares me.

I want children and teenagers to understand that sex is wonderful.  In a few days I'm going to write about what I wish we could teach our children about sex, but today I'm going to share more about the film.

One young woman who'd been in the movies, and still was, shared how much she got paid for particular acts:
$400 for woman on woman
$600 for man on woman
$800 for two men on one woman
and increasingly more for anal sex then two men in her anus, on up to about $1500 for a gang bang.

Another woman said, (again paraphrased), "I don't have a college education.  What am I supposed to do?  My choices are to work in the food service industry or clean hotel rooms and not make enough to survive, or I can do this and make great money.  Easy choice."

The women in the film who were in the industry understandably spoke as if they were choosing to make the films.  It used to be understood that women in porn flicks were being used and abused and taken advantage of.  Now the women speak of choice and empowerment.  It's confusing to me.  I don't pretend to know the answers.  I just know for myself that our bodies have memories.  I don't know how these women - or these men - will be able to have a loving, intimate relationship in years to come without the body memories coming back to haunt them.

I can picture one of these actresses in bed with her husband, this time not play acting but, rather, just having beautiful sex, and suddenly she gets triggered by the way she's being touched, and the trauma of it interrupts their intimacy.  How could it not?  I don't believe for a moment that it's possible to repress scenes of being raped or tortured or abused - even though it's "just" acting - and not have it affect one later.  We human beings are very, very good at denial, but eventually stuff comes up and has to be dealt with.

I wonder what happens to these women as they age and can no longer make the films - what do they do then?  (Though the filmmakers showed "Granny Porn" as well - very old women having sex and acting sexy, with a certain ironic flair.)

I also feel for the men.  They weren't mentioned at all in the film.  What do they think or feel as they act out violence and cruelty towards women?  Don't they have family members they respect?  How would they respond if that were happening to their mother or sister or daughter?  How does it feel to be one of 12 studly-looking men standing in a circle jerking off on a woman's face?  Does he feel strong and powerful and better-than for having conquered this woman?  How about if she is in torture devices and he's pulling her hair and stomping on her face while his "buddy" is raping her?  I can't separate fantasy from reality enough there to understand how people can portray such scenes.

I know the difference between acting and reality most of the time, but these people are actually having sex.  The women are actually having 2-3 men penetrate her at a time.  They are actually tied up, with handcuffs on, and are being violated then they're having to eat their own feces or urine.  They are actually doing those things.  It is not chocolate on his penis or lemonade she's drinking.  How can a person absent herself or himself enough to do those things without being damaged by it?  I do not understand.

More tomorrow.

PORN

Yesterday I watched a documentary on Netflix called The Price of Pleasure.  (Hmmm, I just wrote "The Price of Porn - shows what I really think.)  Here's Netflix's write up about it:

Interviewing scholars, industry insiders and consumers, this probing documentary delves into the effects of pornography on one's sexual identity and relationships, as well as its influence on business and American popular culture overall.

Cast:

Matthew Tennie, Gregory Mitchell, Stephanie Cleveland, Gabrielle Shaw, Eli Schemel, Gail Dines, Damone Richardson, Ariel Levy, Brandon Iron, Robert Jensen, Joanna Angel

Director:

Miguel Picker, Chyng Sun

I watched it as I painted so I listened more than watched, only glancing up every once in a while for a few seconds.  I don't think I could have watched the whole thing.  The images, though they blocked out the breasts, penises, and vaginas, were still graphic and disturbing.

I have watched a few porn flicks in my life, but only a few.  I watched one with a former partner - that didn't turn out so well - and 2 with groups of women as we critiqued them and made fun of them and laughed until we got bored and turned them off to talk about more interesting real life stuff.  So I am not a fan of porn.  This documentary certainly cemented that feeling.

The film was truly disturbing to me.  First of all, it was the images - there have apparently been "advances" in the world of porn since I last dipped into it 15 or so years ago.  Now, according to researchers who have subjected themselves to watching 200 of these films and cataloging the content, 87% of the scenes contain violence towards women in them.  And they  mean VIOLENCE - rape, anal rape, forced sex, gang banging, S&M stuff I couldn't even have imagined in my wildest dreams, not to mention calling the women demeaning names, etc.  Apparently (and I realize I might sound completely uninformed and naive as I say this stuff having just learned about it, but that's true - I have been naive and uninformed) there's something called ATM (not the machine where you get money).  It stands for anus to mouth - the man comes into the woman's anus then puts his penis into her mouth to have her clean him off.  I can't begin to imagine doing that.  I also can't understand how that might be considered a turn on.  So many of the scenes they showed or alluded to were bestial, cruel, vicious.  I don't understand what's happening.

I learned from the film that more money is spent on the porn industry than on football, baseball AND basketball combined.  900,000,000 films are watched each year.  That's an average of 3 per person, man, woman, and child, in the USA each year.  It is big business. And it's no longer some slimy business which people are embarrassed to be a part of.  Instead, women who are in the movies become superstars and go around on DVD-signing tours.  There are trade fairs for porn where women are up on platforms which put their vaginas right at eye-level for the men with their video cameras to film them.  Live.  In person.  Or where women are bound and gagged for men to film them.  The filmmakers showed the men who were ogling the women.  They were normal-looking guys with an irrepressible hunger in their eyes.

They interviewed a young woman who took part in Girls Gone Wild.  I don't really know what it is, but I think camera crews descend on FL and other Spring Break hotbeds of wildness and film girls going wild.  The camera crew of GGW visited one young woman in her hotel room and asked her to act sexy, etc.  Who knows what she did.  Then the producers of this film asked her why she took part in it.  She looked at them like they were brain dead, "Why wouldn't I take part?  It's not like I want to be a politician or something one day."  As if the only thing that made sense was to take part and be famous for a time on camera.

Another young woman who graduated from Rutgers started her own porn film company and made films starring herself.  She talked like she liked the attention she gathered as she walks down the street, men hooting and hollering and whistling at her.  They showed a scene from one of her movies.  Her face was on a chair while she was clearly bound and being entered from behind while her head was being held in place by her hair being pulled.  Her face was contorted in pain and agony.  It did not look to me like she was acting.  Perhaps she was.  But I felt pain and agony watching her.  I can't understand how that could be a turn on for someone.  I wanted to go into that room and pull the SOB's off of her and protect her from such violation.  Yet she talked about her part in it as if she were empowered and getting the best of the men, beating them at their own game.  I don't get it.

More tomorrow.

Shameless Survivor

I just realized I never posted the finished version of Shameless Survivor so here it is now.  This woman was part of Beyond Barbie's night called Through the Fire, a presentation on intimate partner abuse.  Lisette, the woman pictured here, was shot by her husband who then killed himself.  She read three entries from her blog, http://www.shamelesssurvivors.com/.  They were so powerful, they left me speechless and have resonated with me all week since then.  The one I found most moving answered the question so many people ask her, "If your husband was so abusive, why didn't you leave?"  She read a list of reasons she didn't such as feeling so bad about herself (because she believed what he said) that she had no ability to leave.  It was tough, powerful stuff to listen to. 

If you or someone you know is in a relationship that may be abusive, please know that Lisette's blog can be a resource to you, and there is much other help available, for example, Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE or YWCA.

May this painting help encourage others to seek the help they need and to know that they deserve to be treated like the wonderful people they are.