Day 10, Thu 18/3/10
I'll pick up a thread that occurred to me the other day.
There are some women that I see as available to be perved on and some that I don't.
There are women that I see as available to be perved on? That's disgusting! But I'll just follow where I was going with this first, because it leads back to here anyway.
When I see a woman lookng all dressed up, with fashionable or formal clothes and conventional make-up, I see her as an object - a character in a performance instead of a person in real life. I also see her as someone it is OK for me to get some sexual gratificiation from. I very rarely see her as a fellow human out in the world getting by and facing hard times, having good times, having a personality and so on. Similarly, when a woman is wearing clothes that come close to revelaing her breasts or undies, I se eher as a mere object in my view and as somehere it is OK to look for sexual gratification.
When a woman behaves in a very confident and forthright way and puts her personality out in frint, I see her as a real perosn who is not merely an object I can utlise. And when a woman wears a hijab or dresses like a punk, or in some other way throws off the expectation to be always visually sexually attractive, I stop seeing her as a sexual object.
But when a confident, forthright woman is sitting quietly on the bus and not asserting her personality, I am once again able to see her as an object. And when a dleiberately non-sexually dressed woman is in a situation of undress, such as getting changed or having a shower, my view of her quickly shifts ot objectification and I start to imagine ways of managing to see her body.
This is because, underneath it all, my default view of women is that they are all objects for me to take some sexual pleasure from, even if only visually. Individual women, as I get to know them, may be removed from this generalisation but I still hold onto it for most.
So I really do see women as sex objects eh? At one time, I would have denied that.
(There is another train of thought to explore here about how this view affects my relationship with my partner because now that we are close, she is not someone I objectify anymore and therefore not someone I habitually turn to for sexual gratification.)
Thursday 18 March 2010
Day 9
Day 9, Wed 17/3/10
What I get out of it. It's a confronting thing to delve into and now I see why it's not enough just to describe the effects and challenge my selfishness.
What feelings do I have while I'm looking at porn? I'm not sure that they're empowered feelings, actually. I'm just going from memory here, and analysing it on the fly so further down the page I might say something different.
One I can bring to mind is a desperate feeling of longing to find what I'm looking for. I sit there going "Come on! Get her kinckers off! Touch her breasts!" and stuff like that. Yuck. I've never expposed that part of what I do before. It's horrible. When I find something that really turns me on, though, I have a feeling like I've won an awesome prize. I go "Oh my god! This is fucking unbelieveable! Yes!"
The things that turn me on the most are clips that seem to not play-acted but of women really doing things and where the soman herself si being actively sexual in public. I saw one where a woman was masturbating under a towel at a public beach. She lifted the towel briefly to show that she was nake dunderneath and rubbing her clit. She seemed to reach an orgasm. I found in unbelievably arousing.
This stuff feeds my fantasy that women experience their vulnerability and exposure as sexual, the same as I do, instead of the more common relaity in which they feel nervous, scared, self-conscious or belittled. It could be that the woman who appeared in the clip really does find it arousing. More likely her male partner finds it arousing and talked her into it and she was able to get some sexual pleasure from sharing the experience with him as he filmed it.
Regardless, it is still the case that many women would find that experience completely devoid of sexual pleasure and are frightened (or just exasperated) by the experience of finding unknown men arouse dby the sight of their bodies. For me to expose myself to that clip and take my sexual pleausure from it is to actively reinforce my fantasy view of women's sexuality and ignore the real and varied experiences that women actually have.
A background fantasy behind all of my porn viewing is that everyone is potentially aroused all the time and that to be touched in a sexual way is always and simply arousing. In my fantasy, there is simultaneously a situation where women are empowered to simply say no and be left alone and a fact that no-one ever does want to say no but is always ready to have sex. In this fantasy world, men are very considerate lovers and always make sure that women they have
sex with are as aroused as they are and reach orgasm simultaneously. But it doesn't have any room for things that spoil the mood or are felt as disrespectful.
What I get out of it. It's a confronting thing to delve into and now I see why it's not enough just to describe the effects and challenge my selfishness.
What feelings do I have while I'm looking at porn? I'm not sure that they're empowered feelings, actually. I'm just going from memory here, and analysing it on the fly so further down the page I might say something different.
One I can bring to mind is a desperate feeling of longing to find what I'm looking for. I sit there going "Come on! Get her kinckers off! Touch her breasts!" and stuff like that. Yuck. I've never expposed that part of what I do before. It's horrible. When I find something that really turns me on, though, I have a feeling like I've won an awesome prize. I go "Oh my god! This is fucking unbelieveable! Yes!"
The things that turn me on the most are clips that seem to not play-acted but of women really doing things and where the soman herself si being actively sexual in public. I saw one where a woman was masturbating under a towel at a public beach. She lifted the towel briefly to show that she was nake dunderneath and rubbing her clit. She seemed to reach an orgasm. I found in unbelievably arousing.
This stuff feeds my fantasy that women experience their vulnerability and exposure as sexual, the same as I do, instead of the more common relaity in which they feel nervous, scared, self-conscious or belittled. It could be that the woman who appeared in the clip really does find it arousing. More likely her male partner finds it arousing and talked her into it and she was able to get some sexual pleasure from sharing the experience with him as he filmed it.
Regardless, it is still the case that many women would find that experience completely devoid of sexual pleasure and are frightened (or just exasperated) by the experience of finding unknown men arouse dby the sight of their bodies. For me to expose myself to that clip and take my sexual pleausure from it is to actively reinforce my fantasy view of women's sexuality and ignore the real and varied experiences that women actually have.
A background fantasy behind all of my porn viewing is that everyone is potentially aroused all the time and that to be touched in a sexual way is always and simply arousing. In my fantasy, there is simultaneously a situation where women are empowered to simply say no and be left alone and a fact that no-one ever does want to say no but is always ready to have sex. In this fantasy world, men are very considerate lovers and always make sure that women they have
sex with are as aroused as they are and reach orgasm simultaneously. But it doesn't have any room for things that spoil the mood or are felt as disrespectful.
Day 8
Day 8, 16/3/10
I just yped up my writing from the past six entries so I can add it to my blog, so I re-read them all. That's a good little reiniforcing thing to do. I've got criticisms of what I said in most of them, though.
In particular yesterday's. To say that I control my behaviour successfully after doing this writing is a rosy way to see it. I do have much greater awareness and I do make more good decisions and better ones. But I am also capable of still objectifying women right after doing this writing or even while I'm doing it.
It's a very habitual act. It has gone so unchallneged (or not challenged in any truly confronting way) that it has become something I do in the background while my conscious mind is doing something else. In the past few years, I have had times of calling off that action when I spot myself doing it but the habit is still unmistakably there.
Right now is not the strictest I've been on stopping all those behaviours. I've had times when I was very firm about always avering my eyes every time I check out a woman in a sexualising way. But it didn't last. I don't think there's anyhting OK about that and I don't mean to imply that some of the subtler kinds of perving are not abusive and perpetutating male supermacy. In fact, I don't ant to try to give any justification at all because they would all be fake. But it is what is going on now. I am concentrating my effort on doing this writing and keeping my awareness on my actions and their effects and then noting what I'm no longer able to do because of that awareness.
And it seems that looking at porn is not something that I could do right now. Right then when I wrote that sentence, a conflict went on in my head where I disagreed and totally imagined myself sitting at a computer and digging up some porn, but then I thought of my partner and the reality of the porn industry and what I'm actually doing when I look at porn, and I felt less like I was able to do that again. It's a risky thing to put a lot of certainty in, though.
I also noticed I was planning to write about why I look at porn, what I get out of it. I wrote a bit of that on day 1, but not really since. It's a bit of a grisly topic but it illuminates the issue a lot I think.
Fundamentally, the thing I get from porn is sexual pleaure. That is a basic need and it is eas to see how something can become a strongly-formed habit if it is linked in my mind to that need. This is not any kind of excuse or lessening of what is wrong, it is jsut an investigation of the process behind forming the habit.
It is not necessary for me to use porn to fulfill my need for sexual pleasure. I have sex in real life with my partner, but even without that I am able to imagine sexual situations and mastrubate. From this perspective, using porn is lazy.
If it was just an issue of laziness, it would hardly be worth all this writing. I have already written about the selfishness in it, as well. But I have been challenged by a friend to see the way I prop myself up in my privileged male position by this and I'm beginning to get that too.
Porn is created for men. (Even Playgirl is probably aimed at gay men.) I won't say absolutely that no women could enjoy the fantasies that are implied in any porn but they are structured around the viewer being male.
Consuming porn is not just feeding my sexual desire; it is affirming my position as someone to whom all this sexual gratification is available. It is not out of nothing that all the porn material is made. People have done a lot of work producing it all, to feed desires like mine. There is an industry devoted to it and there is no similar industry devoted to ensuring that women have access to the sexual pleasure they want.
It's quite obvious stuff, really, but this is the first time I've thought it all out. Seen in its context, it's pretty gross.
It goes on, too. Because not only do women miss out on an industry devoted to their pleaure but the industry of porn for men requires the participation of huge numbers of women performing for men's pleasure. There are stories about it having terrible effects on women's relationships with their sexuality but I don't know the detials. But, very starkly, they are quite consciously giving their bodies and sexuality for men's pleasure when they do this work. At its most basic, it is a real life manifestation of male supremacy. Men actually do have access to women's bodies
through this industry. They are real women who have really done what they are seen doing, in most cases, and more or less any man is able to get access to them. It is a very stark example of male supremacy.
I just yped up my writing from the past six entries so I can add it to my blog, so I re-read them all. That's a good little reiniforcing thing to do. I've got criticisms of what I said in most of them, though.
In particular yesterday's. To say that I control my behaviour successfully after doing this writing is a rosy way to see it. I do have much greater awareness and I do make more good decisions and better ones. But I am also capable of still objectifying women right after doing this writing or even while I'm doing it.
It's a very habitual act. It has gone so unchallneged (or not challenged in any truly confronting way) that it has become something I do in the background while my conscious mind is doing something else. In the past few years, I have had times of calling off that action when I spot myself doing it but the habit is still unmistakably there.
Right now is not the strictest I've been on stopping all those behaviours. I've had times when I was very firm about always avering my eyes every time I check out a woman in a sexualising way. But it didn't last. I don't think there's anyhting OK about that and I don't mean to imply that some of the subtler kinds of perving are not abusive and perpetutating male supermacy. In fact, I don't ant to try to give any justification at all because they would all be fake. But it is what is going on now. I am concentrating my effort on doing this writing and keeping my awareness on my actions and their effects and then noting what I'm no longer able to do because of that awareness.
And it seems that looking at porn is not something that I could do right now. Right then when I wrote that sentence, a conflict went on in my head where I disagreed and totally imagined myself sitting at a computer and digging up some porn, but then I thought of my partner and the reality of the porn industry and what I'm actually doing when I look at porn, and I felt less like I was able to do that again. It's a risky thing to put a lot of certainty in, though.
I also noticed I was planning to write about why I look at porn, what I get out of it. I wrote a bit of that on day 1, but not really since. It's a bit of a grisly topic but it illuminates the issue a lot I think.
Fundamentally, the thing I get from porn is sexual pleaure. That is a basic need and it is eas to see how something can become a strongly-formed habit if it is linked in my mind to that need. This is not any kind of excuse or lessening of what is wrong, it is jsut an investigation of the process behind forming the habit.
It is not necessary for me to use porn to fulfill my need for sexual pleasure. I have sex in real life with my partner, but even without that I am able to imagine sexual situations and mastrubate. From this perspective, using porn is lazy.
If it was just an issue of laziness, it would hardly be worth all this writing. I have already written about the selfishness in it, as well. But I have been challenged by a friend to see the way I prop myself up in my privileged male position by this and I'm beginning to get that too.
Porn is created for men. (Even Playgirl is probably aimed at gay men.) I won't say absolutely that no women could enjoy the fantasies that are implied in any porn but they are structured around the viewer being male.
Consuming porn is not just feeding my sexual desire; it is affirming my position as someone to whom all this sexual gratification is available. It is not out of nothing that all the porn material is made. People have done a lot of work producing it all, to feed desires like mine. There is an industry devoted to it and there is no similar industry devoted to ensuring that women have access to the sexual pleasure they want.
It's quite obvious stuff, really, but this is the first time I've thought it all out. Seen in its context, it's pretty gross.
It goes on, too. Because not only do women miss out on an industry devoted to their pleaure but the industry of porn for men requires the participation of huge numbers of women performing for men's pleasure. There are stories about it having terrible effects on women's relationships with their sexuality but I don't know the detials. But, very starkly, they are quite consciously giving their bodies and sexuality for men's pleasure when they do this work. At its most basic, it is a real life manifestation of male supremacy. Men actually do have access to women's bodies
through this industry. They are real women who have really done what they are seen doing, in most cases, and more or less any man is able to get access to them. It is a very stark example of male supremacy.
Day 7
Day 7, Mon 15/3/10
I've already missed a day. It just slipped quietly by. We both noticed at one point in the day but then forgot again. I can feel the difference from having gone longer without bringing myself back to this headspace.
After I do this writing, I walk around for a while in a very conscious state. I notice my behaviour and can decide to be a decent person. But gradually it fades and I slip into the easy habit of allowing myself to behave in a creepy or even intimidating way just to grab a bit of tenuous sexual pleasure.
When I see a woman in the distance, I straight away start scanning her for chances to see her genitals. (First, in fact, I assess whether someone is a woman or not. I can do that from a great distance, although sometimes I'm wrong.) I check to see whether her top has a low neckline or gaping arm-holes and whether she is wearing anything underneath it. Even if she is I will still look though, because it may be a lacy, see-through bra or it may fall forward and expose her nipple as she leans over.
I know it's pretty gross but I want to put it all down so that it's out there in front of me and I can't just quietly do it without consciously noticing that that's what I'm doing.
I also look for wet or see-through tops. Tops that are not going to expose the woman's breasts but are still quite figure-hugging or revealing, like bikinis or tube tops also cop a long stare from me. I imagine bikini tops coming untied and tube tops being pulled down.
There are actually clips I have found on the net where one perpetrator films while another runs up to a woman in a top like these and pulls it down to expose her breasts. On some days, I find those clips very arousing. It's straight-out sexual assault and I doubt it's strictly legal to publish them. If someone described to me their enjoyment of something similar that held no sexual interest for me, I would be absolutely appalled. But I can somehow prevent that reaction because I focus so completely on my own sexual experience of it.
And I also look up women's skirts. I have actually changed direction on the street to follow a woman in a short skirt, keeping a short distance behind and waiting for the wind to lift up her skirt. I have (not just as a kid but also still these days) done the unsbutle look-under-the-desk at a girl's undies. I have placed myself at the right distance behind a woman on the stairs so I can look up her skirt as she climbs the stairs.
I think the idea that someone is so pathetically obsessed that he will go to those lengths would be the most frightening thing for me if I was a woman. And of course it is directly oppressive to try to make a random act that someone does, like walking up a flight of stairs, into a sexual situation that she hasn't chosen to take part in.
To do that and expect to get away with it with no punishment is a really clear sign of internalised sexism. I certainly don't expect to be able to treat men that way. But I definitely do anticipate that I can treat women like that and that nothing will happen to me.
I've already missed a day. It just slipped quietly by. We both noticed at one point in the day but then forgot again. I can feel the difference from having gone longer without bringing myself back to this headspace.
After I do this writing, I walk around for a while in a very conscious state. I notice my behaviour and can decide to be a decent person. But gradually it fades and I slip into the easy habit of allowing myself to behave in a creepy or even intimidating way just to grab a bit of tenuous sexual pleasure.
When I see a woman in the distance, I straight away start scanning her for chances to see her genitals. (First, in fact, I assess whether someone is a woman or not. I can do that from a great distance, although sometimes I'm wrong.) I check to see whether her top has a low neckline or gaping arm-holes and whether she is wearing anything underneath it. Even if she is I will still look though, because it may be a lacy, see-through bra or it may fall forward and expose her nipple as she leans over.
I know it's pretty gross but I want to put it all down so that it's out there in front of me and I can't just quietly do it without consciously noticing that that's what I'm doing.
I also look for wet or see-through tops. Tops that are not going to expose the woman's breasts but are still quite figure-hugging or revealing, like bikinis or tube tops also cop a long stare from me. I imagine bikini tops coming untied and tube tops being pulled down.
There are actually clips I have found on the net where one perpetrator films while another runs up to a woman in a top like these and pulls it down to expose her breasts. On some days, I find those clips very arousing. It's straight-out sexual assault and I doubt it's strictly legal to publish them. If someone described to me their enjoyment of something similar that held no sexual interest for me, I would be absolutely appalled. But I can somehow prevent that reaction because I focus so completely on my own sexual experience of it.
And I also look up women's skirts. I have actually changed direction on the street to follow a woman in a short skirt, keeping a short distance behind and waiting for the wind to lift up her skirt. I have (not just as a kid but also still these days) done the unsbutle look-under-the-desk at a girl's undies. I have placed myself at the right distance behind a woman on the stairs so I can look up her skirt as she climbs the stairs.
I think the idea that someone is so pathetically obsessed that he will go to those lengths would be the most frightening thing for me if I was a woman. And of course it is directly oppressive to try to make a random act that someone does, like walking up a flight of stairs, into a sexual situation that she hasn't chosen to take part in.
To do that and expect to get away with it with no punishment is a really clear sign of internalised sexism. I certainly don't expect to be able to treat men that way. But I definitely do anticipate that I can treat women like that and that nothing will happen to me.
Day 5
Day 5, Sat 13/3/10
This is actually the longest I have kept up a daily activity to deal with this shit. Usually I go a few days (not even consecutive days) and then it sort of fades away. To my mind, that is the worst part of it - I'm just not facing it at all but actually tolerating it.
I see my ability to carry on being so selfish as a manifestation of the sexism I'm brought up in. Of course I have a human tendency to be a bit selfish but it's totally sexist of me to allow myself to carry on the level of abusive behaviour that porn use entails.
Primarily it's abusive to my partner because it makes her feel inadequate as a sexual partner, and it also deprives her of my sexual attention when she wants it, some of the time. I have told her that it has nothing to do with her not being sexy, or attractive or sexual enough but that is really obviously not going to be enough to stop her feeling that way.
I am told that the porn industry is also abusive to the women who appear as models, and that it preys on women whose sexual identity is affected by past abuses. I haven't read enough to say more about that but the main point is that my porn use is a sign that I don't care if that's the cse. It's all about me feeding my own little sexual desire, by whatever means I can find around me.
This is actually the longest I have kept up a daily activity to deal with this shit. Usually I go a few days (not even consecutive days) and then it sort of fades away. To my mind, that is the worst part of it - I'm just not facing it at all but actually tolerating it.
I see my ability to carry on being so selfish as a manifestation of the sexism I'm brought up in. Of course I have a human tendency to be a bit selfish but it's totally sexist of me to allow myself to carry on the level of abusive behaviour that porn use entails.
Primarily it's abusive to my partner because it makes her feel inadequate as a sexual partner, and it also deprives her of my sexual attention when she wants it, some of the time. I have told her that it has nothing to do with her not being sexy, or attractive or sexual enough but that is really obviously not going to be enough to stop her feeling that way.
I am told that the porn industry is also abusive to the women who appear as models, and that it preys on women whose sexual identity is affected by past abuses. I haven't read enough to say more about that but the main point is that my porn use is a sign that I don't care if that's the cse. It's all about me feeding my own little sexual desire, by whatever means I can find around me.
Day 4
Day 4, Fri 12/3/10
It's horrifiying, the extent to which I really do see women as sex objects. That's what "internalised" sexism is, I suppose. I have actually learnt this stuff on a deep level and a simple belief in equality is not enough to overcome that. I believe in lots of things women have the right to (I mean like all the normal stuff that men expect) but I actually take part in denying them some of those rights every day.
I guess that some women probably think about sex a lot but I can imagine most women get bombarded with messages about their sexuality so much (and, more directly, with sexual attention and harrassment from men) that what they really want is to have completely non-sexual interactions a lot of the time. Even just to be distracted by a woman's cleavage denies her that non-sexual interaction, but the old look-up-and-down and all that is even worse. I do both of those things habitually, and worse things sometimes too, like changing where I'm sitting to get a better view up a woman's skirt.
Naturally, women are also taught to objectify themselves their whole lives and so most women participate in their own objectification is some way. But this is all about me changing my behaviour, so I don't need to say much about that. It is useful to recognise it though, so I'm not confused when I see women doing things that seem to play into their own oppression.
I really want to have comfortably non-sexual relationships with women. And to have that means giving up the practice of reading sexuality into every situation that contains a woman. That is itself a learned practice. I didn't always do that. Obviously there is something natural about having sexual fantasies and I don't know where the instinct ends and learning begins but I'm sure it's not inevitable that I should read every sighting of the shape of a breast as a sexual expreience.
But on some level, I do experience it that way. Just now I watched a couple of people crossing a pedestrian crossing, and I imagined seeing them all as just sexual beings. It was absurd and made me smile but, subtract the men and that's kind of what I do all the time. But the difference between a "being" and an "object" is that beings have their own plans for what they will experience but an object is only there to be experienced by someone else.
So sexual objectification involves making someone into scenery (men gloat about "enjoying the view" at beaches). That's part of the more general sidelining of women as intelligent people and participants in democracy etc. Who knows which came first - in a way it seems more natural that it owuld all develop together as a manifestation of men's selfishness (and their active decision to indulge and enforce it).
It's horrifiying, the extent to which I really do see women as sex objects. That's what "internalised" sexism is, I suppose. I have actually learnt this stuff on a deep level and a simple belief in equality is not enough to overcome that. I believe in lots of things women have the right to (I mean like all the normal stuff that men expect) but I actually take part in denying them some of those rights every day.
I guess that some women probably think about sex a lot but I can imagine most women get bombarded with messages about their sexuality so much (and, more directly, with sexual attention and harrassment from men) that what they really want is to have completely non-sexual interactions a lot of the time. Even just to be distracted by a woman's cleavage denies her that non-sexual interaction, but the old look-up-and-down and all that is even worse. I do both of those things habitually, and worse things sometimes too, like changing where I'm sitting to get a better view up a woman's skirt.
Naturally, women are also taught to objectify themselves their whole lives and so most women participate in their own objectification is some way. But this is all about me changing my behaviour, so I don't need to say much about that. It is useful to recognise it though, so I'm not confused when I see women doing things that seem to play into their own oppression.
I really want to have comfortably non-sexual relationships with women. And to have that means giving up the practice of reading sexuality into every situation that contains a woman. That is itself a learned practice. I didn't always do that. Obviously there is something natural about having sexual fantasies and I don't know where the instinct ends and learning begins but I'm sure it's not inevitable that I should read every sighting of the shape of a breast as a sexual expreience.
But on some level, I do experience it that way. Just now I watched a couple of people crossing a pedestrian crossing, and I imagined seeing them all as just sexual beings. It was absurd and made me smile but, subtract the men and that's kind of what I do all the time. But the difference between a "being" and an "object" is that beings have their own plans for what they will experience but an object is only there to be experienced by someone else.
So sexual objectification involves making someone into scenery (men gloat about "enjoying the view" at beaches). That's part of the more general sidelining of women as intelligent people and participants in democracy etc. Who knows which came first - in a way it seems more natural that it owuld all develop together as a manifestation of men's selfishness (and their active decision to indulge and enforce it).
Day 3
Day 3, Thu 11/3/10
Even at intervals of one day, I get completely out of the frame of mind for thinking about sexism and porn. It takes a serious effort of concentration to bring my attention back to it again.
I haven't wanted to look at porn in these few days while I've been doing this. That's pretty normal for me. For a while after a bout of porn watching, while the consequences are fresh in my mind, I usually have little desire to look at porn.
But I've still been perving on women. I stare at women's cleavages or look up their skirts. Of course, it's actually gross and I also know about what a cold and threatening thing it can be.
I suppose my behaviour is as though it's really important to me to get that glimpse of this woman's breasts or undies. In a way I feel rich when I'm in a place where women don't cover their bodies very carefully and I see their nipples and things more often. But also I feel a certain gratitude when women prevent me from seeing their bodies without making any kind of fuss. (I mean that they just wear sensible, non-revealing clothing that takes away the issue for me.) But of course it isn't up to women to hide their bodies away, it's up to me to learn what is sexual and what is just a woman being there with no sexual meaning at all.
I was thinking yesterday or today about how, when I've got a new mindset in place, it will be a whole different experience walking around. As it is now, I see sex everywhere. Not always but anytime and all around me. Just about any sighting of a woman can be extrapolated in my imagination to become an imagining abut a sexual situation.
That is what I am giving up, fundamentally. I'm instating a situation in which most of my interactions aren't about sex at all. It's complicated by the fact that there is a sexual aspect to lots of relationships, even ones that don't involve actual sex or flirting at all. But there is a difference between understanding that and just taking sexual gratification from random situations that don't have a sexual element.
Even at intervals of one day, I get completely out of the frame of mind for thinking about sexism and porn. It takes a serious effort of concentration to bring my attention back to it again.
I haven't wanted to look at porn in these few days while I've been doing this. That's pretty normal for me. For a while after a bout of porn watching, while the consequences are fresh in my mind, I usually have little desire to look at porn.
But I've still been perving on women. I stare at women's cleavages or look up their skirts. Of course, it's actually gross and I also know about what a cold and threatening thing it can be.
I suppose my behaviour is as though it's really important to me to get that glimpse of this woman's breasts or undies. In a way I feel rich when I'm in a place where women don't cover their bodies very carefully and I see their nipples and things more often. But also I feel a certain gratitude when women prevent me from seeing their bodies without making any kind of fuss. (I mean that they just wear sensible, non-revealing clothing that takes away the issue for me.) But of course it isn't up to women to hide their bodies away, it's up to me to learn what is sexual and what is just a woman being there with no sexual meaning at all.
I was thinking yesterday or today about how, when I've got a new mindset in place, it will be a whole different experience walking around. As it is now, I see sex everywhere. Not always but anytime and all around me. Just about any sighting of a woman can be extrapolated in my imagination to become an imagining abut a sexual situation.
That is what I am giving up, fundamentally. I'm instating a situation in which most of my interactions aren't about sex at all. It's complicated by the fact that there is a sexual aspect to lots of relationships, even ones that don't involve actual sex or flirting at all. But there is a difference between understanding that and just taking sexual gratification from random situations that don't have a sexual element.
Day 2
Day 2, Wed 10/3/10
It takes an effort to be in the headspace of being critical of my sexism. Wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, most of the time I'm open to sexualising some woman's body when I see her. I notice myself doing it but it's not the same as being critical, analysing what I'm doing and challenging it.
There are lots of things to write about what's wrong with porn and with ogling women but there's a fundamental thing that I don't think about much. That is the basic practice of getting my sexual pleasure from all those random women (without even their consent). In a way, it's really just getting sexual pleasure from my own fantasies but it's using those women as the fuel for my fantasies. (Sometimes the fantasy is not obvious and it can seem like the situation is sexual inherently but that can just be a widely held fantasy that I've been taught in my culture.) So there's the idea of using all these women to fuel my sexual fantasies, and there's the selfish practice of just going around grabbing sexual gratification from everyone I fancy.
There is also the betrayal of my real relationship. Our relationship is monogamous, so the rule is pretty simple: we only have sex with each other. But even without that total restriction, say in a polyamorous relationship, it would still be unacceptable to get lots of sexual gratification form random people all the time. I don't see it the way some people seem to, where every instance is like a crime committed against my partner. It's more that the attitude is not in keeping with the relationship we've got. An analogy might be living in a share house where we all share the cooking and all eat together. If that's the relationship the household has but one perosn keeps eating junk food and not wanting a meal and not wanting to cook either, it makes it hard for everyone. So this is like that, only sex is more fraught with emotional upsets, so we need to be even more careful to behave well with it.
I can't believe that I can keep doing what I do - looking at porn, perving on women, etc. - while knowing that this is what I'm doing. It horrifies me, but I do it. And every time I do that, I'm practising my ability to keep doing it depsite knowing how bad it is.
It takes an effort to be in the headspace of being critical of my sexism. Wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, most of the time I'm open to sexualising some woman's body when I see her. I notice myself doing it but it's not the same as being critical, analysing what I'm doing and challenging it.
There are lots of things to write about what's wrong with porn and with ogling women but there's a fundamental thing that I don't think about much. That is the basic practice of getting my sexual pleasure from all those random women (without even their consent). In a way, it's really just getting sexual pleasure from my own fantasies but it's using those women as the fuel for my fantasies. (Sometimes the fantasy is not obvious and it can seem like the situation is sexual inherently but that can just be a widely held fantasy that I've been taught in my culture.) So there's the idea of using all these women to fuel my sexual fantasies, and there's the selfish practice of just going around grabbing sexual gratification from everyone I fancy.
There is also the betrayal of my real relationship. Our relationship is monogamous, so the rule is pretty simple: we only have sex with each other. But even without that total restriction, say in a polyamorous relationship, it would still be unacceptable to get lots of sexual gratification form random people all the time. I don't see it the way some people seem to, where every instance is like a crime committed against my partner. It's more that the attitude is not in keeping with the relationship we've got. An analogy might be living in a share house where we all share the cooking and all eat together. If that's the relationship the household has but one perosn keeps eating junk food and not wanting a meal and not wanting to cook either, it makes it hard for everyone. So this is like that, only sex is more fraught with emotional upsets, so we need to be even more careful to behave well with it.
I can't believe that I can keep doing what I do - looking at porn, perving on women, etc. - while knowing that this is what I'm doing. It horrifies me, but I do it. And every time I do that, I'm practising my ability to keep doing it depsite knowing how bad it is.
Day 1
Day 1, Tue 09/3/10
The prupose of this writing is to confront myself with the conflict between my understanding and my behaviour. I understand how porn harms me, my partner and my relationships but I still look at it. It's total selfishness.
So I'm writing about:
- what I get out of porn, why I do it
- what it does to my partner
- what it does to me
- what it does to models etc. in the industry
When I look at porn, I can see women's bodies and sexuality without knowing them at all. That in itself is harmful because it reinforces a view that the bodies of women I don't know are available to me for my sexual pleasure.
I also get to indulge whatever fantasy has been published in porn material. This is a selfish practice too, and out of keeping with the idea of consenting relationships.
This disrespect for consent and prvacy carries over into my interactions with real women. In a situation where a woman is exposed and vulnerable, my thoughts run along the lines of my sexual experience of the situation instead of about her saftey or welfare needs or just her comfort and me being friendly.
The prupose of this writing is to confront myself with the conflict between my understanding and my behaviour. I understand how porn harms me, my partner and my relationships but I still look at it. It's total selfishness.
So I'm writing about:
- what I get out of porn, why I do it
- what it does to my partner
- what it does to me
- what it does to models etc. in the industry
When I look at porn, I can see women's bodies and sexuality without knowing them at all. That in itself is harmful because it reinforces a view that the bodies of women I don't know are available to me for my sexual pleasure.
I also get to indulge whatever fantasy has been published in porn material. This is a selfish practice too, and out of keeping with the idea of consenting relationships.
This disrespect for consent and prvacy carries over into my interactions with real women. In a situation where a woman is exposed and vulnerable, my thoughts run along the lines of my sexual experience of the situation instead of about her saftey or welfare needs or just her comfort and me being friendly.
Here I go Again
Well, I didn't keep up writing on this blog every day.
My partner and I have started a new habit now where I write in a book every day while she does drawing practice.
I retype my writing and then post it up here.
My partner and I have started a new habit now where I write in a book every day while she does drawing practice.
I retype my writing and then post it up here.
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