The representation of sexual pleasure in pornography is often skewed and offers an unrealistic picture.
The circumstances depicted are beyond the normal scope of the average and everyday sexual encounter, which can give an individual inaccurate expectations when thinking about sexual pleasure.
But then again, just like any other film or novel, pornography is only one representation of sexual pleasure.
I recently had the pleasure to attend a lecture entitled “Visualizing Pleasure: Pornography and the Limits of Representation” in the Indiana Memorial Union. The lecture was given by Juana Maria Rodriguez, professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of ?California-Berkeley.
Her lecture focused on Dian Hanson’s book “Vanessa Del Rio: Fifty Years of Slightly Slutty Behavior,” a multi-media book depicting the life and work of Vanessa Del Rio, a porn actress of color who worked most prominently in the 1970s and ’80s, the so-called golden age of pornography.
Del Rio faced many challenges as a woman of color working in the porn industry, including her right to representation and keeping herself intact while enacting various sexually vulnerable roles.
Pornography offers little for an individual’s personhood. Men and women alike are reduced merely to body parts and sexual acts.
The challenge is to remain in control of your pleasure without becoming the victim.
The challenge, as Rodriguez put it so nicely, is to claim your pleasure for your own and not let it be taken from you.
Del Rio once said, “They don’t take from me, I take from them.”
Del Rio has made sure she is the one who is the arbiter of her sexual pleasure, even when she has had to play the victim or subject her body to demeaning work.
The pleasure was always for herself and no one else, and that is what allowed her to remain herself.
With the dominance of hook-up culture, it is easy to lose part of yourself by losing track of your own pleasure or submitting for the pleasure of others.
That is not to say you should not seek out sexual experiences or that you should only have sex within a committed and monogamous relationship or that you should seek out a submissive partner who will put your pleasure before their own.
Sexual pleasure is an individual experience that is linked closely to an individual’s self-perception and, therefore, it is important that the individual claim sexual pleasure as their own and allow it to remain separate from their partner so they can retain their sense of individuality.
Your body and your pleasure are your own. No one else should be able to impose their own will upon those two things, because they are an integral part of your personhood.
If you want to have sex with a new stranger every week, go ahead. If you don’t, don’t.
Do whatever it is that you want because it is your pleasure and yours alone.
johnstra@indiana.edu
