Let’s start with that phrase. By mainstream heterosexual pornography I mean the videos and DVDs that are widely available in the United States today, marketed as sexually explicit (what is commonly called “hardcore”), rented and purchased primarily by men, depicting sex primarily between men and women. The sexual activity is not simulated; these videos are a record of sex between the performers. What happens on the screen happened in the world.
This analysis is based primarily on three qualitative studies of pornographic videos I have conducted since 1996. I use the term “mainstream” to describe the tapes because I excluded what many would consider the non-representative fringe of the pornography market -- bondage and sadomasochistic tapes; any tape that advertised explicit violence, urination, or defecation; and child pornography (the only material clearly illegal everywhere in the United States). There is no shortage of such material in this country -- in shops, through the mail, on the internet, or underground (in the case of child pornography) -- but I passed over all of that. Instead, I visited stores that sold “adult product” (the industry’s preferred term) and asked clerks and managers to help me select the most commonly rented and purchased tapes. I wanted to avoid the common accusation that feminist critics of pornography pick out the worst examples, the most violent material, to critique. In one of the stores I visited, the section from which I rented tapes is actually labeled “mainstream.”
What I describe here is not an aberration. These tapes are broadly representative of the 11,303 new hardcore titles that were released in 2002, according to the Adult Video News, the industry’s trade magazine. They are the mainstream of a pornography industry with an estimated $10 billion in annual sales. They are what brothers and fathers and uncles are watching, what boyfriends and husbands are watching. And, in many cases, what boy children are watching.
Here is a sample from my 2003 research, starting with the so-called “couples market,” the tapes the industry says it makes to appeal not just to men but to women. These films, sometimes called “features,” typically have a minimal plot line and make attempts, no matter how badly executed, at character development. From there, I’ll move to “gonzo,” films that have no pretense of narrative and simply present sexual activity, sometimes shot “POV” (from the point of view of the man engaging in sex).
“Sopornos IV” is a 2003 release from VCA Pictures, one of the “high-end” companies that produces for what the industry calls the “couples market.” The plot is a takeoff on the popular HBO series about mobsters. In #4, mob boss Bobby Soporno is obsessed with the thought that everyone in his life is always having sex, including his crew and his daughter. In the final sex scene his wife has sex with two of his men. After the standard progression through oral and vaginal sex, one of the men prepares to penetrate her anally. She tells him: “That fucking cock is so fucking huge. … Spread
fucking ass. … Spread it open.” He penetrates her. Then she says, in a slightly lower tone, “Don’t go any deeper,” and she seems to be in pain. At the end of the scene, she begs for their semen (“Two cocks jacking off in my face. I want it.”), opens her mouth, and the men ejaculate onto her at the same time.
“Two in the Seat #3” is a 2003 release from Red Light District that consists of six separate scenes in which two men have sex with one woman, culminating in double-penetration (d.p.), in which the woman is penetrated vaginally and anally at the same time. In one scene, 20-year-old Claire, her hair in pigtails, says she has been in the industry for three months. Asked by the off-camera interviewer what will happen in the scene, she replies, “I’m here to get pounded.” The two men who then enter the scene begin a steady stream of insults, calling her “a dirty, nasty girl,” “a little fucking cunt,” “a little slut.” After the standard progression of oral and vaginal sex, she asks one to “Please put your cock in my ass.” During the double-penetration on the floor, her vocalizations sound pained. She’s braced against the couch, moving very little. The men spank her, and her buttock is visibly red. One man asks, “Are you crying?” which leads to this exchange:
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I am not suggesting that in every scene in mainstream pornography such expressions of pain are evident. And I acknowledge that I cannot know exactly what the women in these films were feeling, physically or emotionally. I do not presume to speak for them, or for women in pornography, or for women in general. But her is what Belladonna, one of the women who appeared in “Two in the Seat #3,” told a television interviewer about such scenes: “You have to really prepare physically and mentally for it. I mean, I go through a process from the night before. I stop eating at 5:00. I do, you know, like two enemas. The next morning I don’t eat anything. It’s so draining on your body.” Women’s experiences no doubt vary, but Belladonna’s experience hardly seems idiosyncratic.
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This analysis is not news to the industry. As Jerome Tanner put it during a pornography directors’ roundtable discussion featured in Adult Video News, “People just want it harder, harder, and harder, because like Ron said, what are you gonna do next?” Another director, Jules Jordan, was blunt about his task: “ne of the things about today’s porn and the extreme market, the gonzo market, so many fans want to see so much more extreme stuff that I’m always trying to figure out ways to do something different. But it seems everybody wants to see a girl doing a d.p. now or a gangbang. For certain girls, that’s great, and I like to see that for certain people, but a lot of fans are becoming a lot more demanding about wanting to see the more extreme stuff. It’s definitely brought porn somewhere, but I don’t know where it’s headed from there.”
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/pornography&cruelty.htm
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