Late last night (12:07am to be precise) I received this comment from 18-year-old Bellatrix in response to Clive Hamilton’s piece Dymock’s Bookstore: Porn Merchants? which I published yesterday.
I thought what she wrote such a powerful commentary on the impact of porn magazines on women, I was compelled to reproduce her comment here so you wouldn’t miss it.
I am 18 and happy with my body, I don’t compare myself to other women I meet dressed in everyday clothes. Saying this, when I see playboy – or any porn (that includes “mens magazines”), I suddenly feel insecure. I see images of women with unrealistic breasts and know they are fake, I am fully conscious that this is not the natural state of a womans body and would never choose to do that to myself but there is still that nagging notion in the back of my mind that this is what all men want, this is what they find attractive. These pictures don’t make me feel ugly they make me feel worthless, like any parter I have is settling for me when what they really want is this still image – busty and brainless.
I’m sick of men excusing porn by saying “well some women watch it too” or “It is just the way men are – visual”. I’m sick of having to be the one to avert my eyes and remind myself what is really important. I’m sick of feeling like I am at war with every other woman on this planet. I’m sick of hearing people my age talk about porn as if its an everyday part of life – everyone watches it/owns it/talks about it. I’m sick of places like book stores – a haven for intellectual thinking and creativity which ignores conventional beauty in the place of talented writers and minds, buying into this demeaning and hurtful culture. What I’m really sick of though is my gender being diminished to a sex symbol. I shouldn’t feel like a piece of teenage meat being drooled over, critiqued and judged constantly, but this is how Playboy makes me feel – a piece of flesh to feed unrealistic sexual desires.
21 Responses
This heartfelt opinion from Bellatrix needs to be heard, well done her. When she says that she feels as if ‘any partner is settling for her when what they really want is this still image…’ she speaks for a lot of women.
I haven’t had a relationship with a man for many years because of these same commercial media-created feelings that I do not ‘measure up’ physically, and in fact have been turned off men pretty well completely because of what I perceive is their susceptibility to what seems to be a form of mass brainwashing and the apparent scarcity of men who can see past and speak out against these brutalising images. Men will unfortunately suffer in the long term because of this toxic culture, because we are moving towards a situation where women will not be interested in dating them.
Wow, I feel exactly the same way but haven’t been able to articulate it until now. Thank-you Bellatrix for speaking up.
Pornography damages both men and women but its primary outcome is to humiliate and subjugate women.
It projects body images that are far from honest and it suggests the “normal” role for a woman is to submit to the lusts of manipulative unscrupulous men.
Pornographic images undermine femininity and (by definition), humanity. Women are objectified and therefore, de-humanised.
Pornography inculcates our culture with images and false “ideals” on the basis of carefully-contrived lies and manipulative strategies – for the “pleasure of men” and, for the massive profits derived from an industry that by its nature defiles beauty with pretence & perfidy.
This is a fantastic comment, I agree wholeheartedly with Bellatrix and feel exactly the same way. This porn/sexualised culture seems to have infiltrated every facet of my life, its so hard to escape from it and ignore it.
I find knowing and believing my worth in God’s eyes gives me constant peace and fulfilment.
WOW!
Great writing Bellatrix!
I am very impressed with your mature insight into this topic which affects all of us as women. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Great job.
Thanks Melinda for sharing with us 🙂
Bellatrix has put into words what I’m sure a lot of women feel. As a youthworker I am becoming increasingly dismayed that teen girls seem to accept the view that they are sex objects. They say they feel empowered by speaking, dressing, behaving sexy etc. Their facebook pages sport applications which rate such things as their “Sexual Accuracy” (the icon of which is a girls view of her legs spread apart with a guy at the other end swinging a golf ball towards her “hole”). They comment with “lol”s….
Directing girls to websites such as this can be a big help in them understanding the poisonous culture they are allowing to happen around them. It takes a gutsy girl to state what she really feels – like Bellatrix, as I fear that when the rubber hits the road for a lot of girls, they will succumb to the status quo and go with the behavioural flow for fear of rejection from their peers. Girls need to see how they are subtly being sexploited . If it is OK with Bellatrix I would like to use her comment in future studies I do with my Youth Kids.
Also as a mother of 3 boys (16,12,8) I am acutely aware of the need to educate them about the destructive nature of porn and how it can affect their future relationships. A comment like Bellatrix’s is a helpful start. Thank you for posting.
A succinctly elegant piece by a thoughtful young woman. I wish I had had this clarity at the tender age of 18.
Thanks for your openness!
It’s encouraging to hear a young woman so clearly articulate the personal impact of porn.
Be encouraged that there are good men out there who hate porn & respect women.
Join Collectiveshout.org to meet other like minds who are fighting this plenitude culture!
Thank you for sharing your feelings Bellatrix and thanks Melinda for sharing this letter. I feel similarly and sometimes feel like a lonely soul in the battle against the normalisation of porn, so many women and men just do not get it. Those of us who do get it need to keep talking, writing, listening and being honest like Bellatrix has just done.
Wow, she really hit the nail on the head. Well done!
If I may add further comment, I’d like to tell you a little about how porn has impacted my life.
Growing up I was always told how beautiful I was. Even as a young child. It didn’t matter how much I excelled at school, if I had great sporting achievements, every compliment or piece of encouragement I got was because of my looks. My parents would parade me around their friends and family like I was some kind of trophy and they would all remark on how beautiful I was. I was only worth anything as long as I remained attractive (on the flip side of that, if people hurled abuse at me it was because I must be a dumb slut…goes hand in hand with being attractive right?).
This ‘admiration’ of my beauty went so far as to my uncle being sexually inappropriate with me when I was around the age of 10. He had a computer full of pornographic games that he would let his own children and me and my sister play and he was dreadfully sleazy in his dealings with us.
In high school boys would want to ‘get with’ me… not be with me as a person they liked, but as a ‘hot chick’ they’d love to ‘score’ with. My girlfriends started rejecting me and distancing themselves from me and ended up teasing me and calling me a slut and telling me I was fat and ugly because the boys wouldn’t pay attention to them.
Then I was sexually assaulted at a party by a boy I was familiar with, but nobody would believe me, because apparently my reputation preceded me (I was still a virgin).
Ironically, I never felt confident in myself, my looks and I was always trying to make myself into something I wasn’t to please the boys and meet their expectations of me. Of course, these boys all enjoyed their playboys and porn and I was expected to fit the mould. My self respect was zero.
At 18 I got pregnant. I gained about 20kg of weight when I was pregnant and was never able to lose it all. I have since had 2 more children and with each pregnancy gained a little more weight. To that end, I am now a size 18 and I am struggling to lose weight and am constantly at war with myself over my appearance.
Even into my adult life, after I had managed to lose most of my weight for a short time, any relationships I had were always about the guy’s expectations of how I should look and behave. They didn’t like my hair colour, my boobs were too small, my arse was too big, I wasn’t slutty enough in the bedroom and I didn’t ‘put out’ often enough. All of these guys, like Bellatrix said, all thought porn was ok and normal and that everybody watched it and thought that more women should strive to be like the women in it. One guy actually wanted me to watch porn with him while we had sex.
Now people don’t have any problems telling me I’m fat or that I don’t fit the requirements to be the ‘hot chick’ anymore. I’m ostracized and made to feel worthless all over again.
My point in telling this story is that I’ve been on both sides of the issue and both sides suck. I couldn’t meet peoples expectations when I was considered attractive and I still can’t meet them now that I no longer fit the mould.
It has taken me a very long time and a lot of counselling to finally start accepting myself as I am. I’m trying to be kinder to myself and take a healthy approach to diet and lifestyle, but every time I open up a magazine and see another half naked (or fully naked) girl, posing in a suggestive manner, or turn on the TV and see an inappropriate, overtly sexual ad or tv show, my self esteem takes another hit and like Bellatrix, I feel worthless again.
To add insult to injury, a couple of month ago I busted my own husband watching porn. He had promised me 10 years ago when we got together he would stop watching it as it made me uncomfortable, but the minute I went out of town, he was downloading porn and his excuse was.. yep, you guessed it…being male, he’s a visual creature.
I have tried to voice my concerns with friends and family about this whole ‘pornification’ issue, but none of them can see my point. I find it incredibly frustrating. Most people just label me a prude. I’ve pointed many many people to Melinda and her articles but none of them seem to get it. I think they’ve become so desensitised to the overtly sexual influence of mainstream media that they just don’t care. If this is the general attitude out there, then I can only see porn in mainstream media becoming worse and worse as more people are brainwashed into thinking it’s a normal part of every day life.
I feel very alone in my feelings of inadequacy and pretty worthless most of the time. Porn has had lasting, devastating effects in my life.
Good on you Bellatrix. I agree with you. The images make me feel worthless. I feel that if that’s what men want to look at then what hope have i got. I have never been the thin beautiful one and after 25yrs of marriage and 4 children have no hope of ever being so. But my husband loves me and my body for which I am grateful and feel blessed. I do feel awkward when I have to see these images in petrol stations, newsagents etc. I have 2 sons who I have to explain the dangers of this stuff to, and how it affects everybody especially the women they will have in their lives one day. Thank you for speaking out.
I totally agree and as one of the other writer’s mentioned, I too have found it difficult to articulate my feelings on the matter but Bellatrix really hit the nail on the head!
Pornography is just so damaging and I hate hearing the excuses; “men are visual”, “it’s normal”, “everyone is doing it”, “it’s just a fantasy!”. What the fantasy really is; is believing you can watch this sort of material without being affected! And the affects really show in the interactions that are had with a lot of men and the way women feel about themselves.
It seems to me that a lot of women that are “pro-porn” are not really aware of the sort of degrading material that is out there, nor the fact that they are supporting such damaging practices. Just wait until you are in a relationship with a porn addict that wants to orgasm onto your face, or calls you a dirty whore or tells you there is something wrong with you because you do not want to swallow his orgasm or that your breasts are not big enough! That you are the one with the problem because you are uncomfortable with porn. This is not love or intimacy or even enjoyable sex.. PORN IS ABUSE!
I just don’t get it..
END RANT!
This is a perfect statement that sums up how a lot of women (including myself) feel about porn but are not able to put so eloquently in to words. Thank you, Bellatrix.
yes porn is corrupting
there is only one way to recover from the corrupting effects of porn
in my experience girls are far harder on themselves and each other than men are
don’t waste your time with men who can’t think for themselves
make sure you are a woman who CAN think for yourself
I would prefer someone who smiles and with whom I can actually have a conversation – surely I am not the only guy who thinks like this.
I agree with what has been said. It saddens me that there is little public space left free of these images. It allows for a pervasive attitude that the objectification of women is acceptable and you may treat them as you will.
Well said Bellatrix!
Porn makes me feel worthless, humiliated and hated.
A women was gang raped in Bendigo on the weekend 14 times by 7 men, the youngest being a boy of 14! Is this going to be the norm in the future as porn escalates? terrifying.
A lot of this so-called ‘evolutionary psychology’, which has made its way into mainstream culture, is to blame for porn inflitrating its way into all aspects of everyday life. It seems that every week the mainstream media reports some sexual stereotype on the basis of dubious numbers and wishful thinking. After all, who could argue with respected Harvard/Oxford/MIT biologists ……… ??? I think we all need to be careful as this may well be the pornographers’ last line of defence.
When I wrote this comment I was feeling rather down trodden – fighting a pointless fight when even book stores are imposing this sexualised culture onto women. The comments left in response have given me great solace. Whilst I know social authorities will continue to assault society with sexualised presentations of women I know that there are women who don’t conform and men who don’t have these expectations. ‘Sexualisation’ targets girls by isolating them and playing on them whilst they are most vulnerable – much how I was feeling yesterday, the response has lifted my spirits and drawn me out of feeling so helpless. Thank you.
Anniejane – You have permission to use what I wrote, good luck in your work.
Bellatrix, I wrote to you yesterday in my response to Clive’s article, and I just want to take a moment today to reiterate that you are not alone in how you feel. I am nearly 40 years old and have carried these feelings since I was a teenager. Pretty bleak to hear that, huh? But while the problems of pornography and the “pornification” of culture are becoming more widespread and harmful, a positive change is there also: More and more people are speaking out against the phenomenon. When we have enough courage to speak up –to risk being called “prudes” or being told we have sexual “hang ups”, etc. — when we nonetheless tell others how we are affected by pornography and its mainstreaming into everywhere, it makes it easier for another woman to speak up. And another. And another. And perhaps men, as well, as they start to realize how women they’d like to be closer to are feeling about these issues. You are not alone in your feelings of self-loathing that this culture fosters. You are not alone in feeling as if you are battling other women. I, myself, recognize the anger I feel toward women who overly sexualize themselves and objectify themselves and accept pornography, conforming to the cultural messages of what a woman should be. But, I can’t help wondering if those women would still do those sorts of things if they thought they would be valued by men if they did NOT conform. And then there’s the anger at men, but really most are socialized from birth to fulfill the stereotypical male role — something addressed in the book “Raising Cain”. Another book worth mentioning,though I am conflicted about the author, is “Smut: A Sex Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough”. In addition to Collective Shout, you may want to check out the group Stop Porn Culture. Gail Dines who helped to found SPC just came out with a really good book, “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.”
You are NOT alone.
Best,
Kimberly
This “demeaning and hurtful culture” how you called is caused by our social system, where we are all “prostitutes” because in one or another way we are all selling our skills/ knowledge to earn money to sustain our lives. Porn industry is profit-oriented like any other industry, they make money on beautiful girls. Companies sell beauty products, doctors make money on implants or other “improvements” to women’s body, girls are posing in magazines not always because they like it but because of money they can easily get from it.
Surely, any lady would be way better without any “improvement” to her body but business dictates companies to sell more and more crap as long as profits are still coming.
We blame men for being visual and demanding in respect to the women’s looks, but it is all the influence of our culture, our social system. If you look at men from a tribal community,you will see that they all are walking naked since they are born. Men look at woman’s eye, he doesn’t stare at her body. But here, in our culture, we see how camera moves to girl’s cleavage and her legs etc…Tribal man wouldn’t even know what to do with Playboy magazine! He wouldn’t find it interesting to look at women’s bodies. He sees naked women around all the time!
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