A friend of mine is setting up a Web site with some of her friends for feminist (mostly queer) porn. I’m straight, but she asked me if I wanted to be in it, with or without my boyfriend of two years. After I stipulated that I didn’t want to make porn with people I didn’t want to do it with, and made it clear that I like it a lot rougher than would be traditionally considered feminist, she said that anything I wanted to do was fine.
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But despite all this rationalization, I still feel uneasy. I’m 20 years old and have no intention of running for public office, so if there’s any time to do something like being in porn it’s now. However, I still feel like something as permanent as pictures taken by other people for other people will end up where I don’t want them to be. I don’t feel like my friend and boyfriend are pressuring me to be on the site, but I do feel that since they have no issues with making porn for public consumption there must be some repression that is holding me back. Or maybe they’re the ones being ridiculous and I’m being sensible. What do you think? –Pondering Over Revealing Nudity
And finally, kiddo, consuming porn doesn’t obligate a person to “give back” to the genre–and thank God for that. If everyone who consumed porn “gave back” we’d have to wade through mountains of porn featuring pudgy middle-aged guys before we found anything even remotely hot. Eesh.
As someone working in the mental health field, I can’t tell you how impressed I was with your response to Wrapped Up. You will recall the obviously troubled young woman who weighs 103 pounds and who is “repulsed” by the sight of her own body. I was impressed not so much by your sensitivity to the boyfriend’s want of an entirely naked love object as much as I was astounded by your cruelty to this woman. You called her a “nutcase,” remember? A mere glance at a body mass index chart will tell you that she quite probably suffers from anorexia nervosa, and her extremely negative perception of her own body possibly qualifies as body dysmorphic disorder. Just so you know, these are two very complicated and potentially life-threatening mental illnesses. I have no idea why this person sought you out for the help she needs. After all, you’re a homosexual, and until 1973 homosexuals were considered nutcases according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Prior to 1973 sex columnists such as yourself–not bound, apparently, by any code of ethics whatsoever–could have referred to you as a nutcase simply for being gay. Technically you are no longer a nutcase, but I can call you a dipshit. There now. How did that feel? –Psychiatric Social Worker
