Dope sale going on at pinkcherry.com 25% off using the code NEWYEARS I snagged the Jopen Comet G Wand during their Boxing Day sale for 30 bucks. Go go go 48 hours left!
*The follow is an excerpt from my larger article "Toward a Pussy Oriented Pedagogy: Choreography a Feminist Pornographic Imaginary"
The
“Feminist” in Feminist Porn
Gayle Rubin deploys her concept of the “charmed circle of sexuality” as a means to visualize the stratification of sexualities. The charmed circle occupies a privileged space and those acts within the circle are regarded as "natural" and evade certain forms of social and political policing. In our cultural imagination pornography
is used as a container for many forms of “uncharmed sexualities." For it is a fact that pornography is one of few resources one can turn to for information or representations of these "uncharmed sexualities." As Linda William's remarks in Screening Sex, it “most the most of us ever get” particularly when it comes to peripheral sexualities. One is much
more like to find information about and representations of anal sex,
nonmonogamous sex, group sex, sex with toys, fetishes, BDSM or rough sex,
homosexual and queer sex in pornography or porn related sex-ed materials than
anywhere else. The relationship of the charmed circle to porn also works to
further perpetuate stereotypes about women and their desires. Because these
sexualities are found most frequently in pornography, which is still considered
to be a monolith of films by and for men, than in mainstream culture, women who
want or have uncharmed sex are seen as falsely conscious or as being coerced
into doing them by a porn viewing man in their life.
Pornography is also a likely place to find
representations of women’s sexual pleasure and agency, as indicated and expanded by the
feminist porn movement. Feminist porn as a phenomenon, a form of
cultural production, and a movement “seeks to unsettle conventional
definitions of sex, and expand the language of sex as erotic activity, an
expression of identity, a power exchange, a cultural commodity, and even a new
politics” (Taormino et. al 19). Traditional approaches to representation in media
analysis precede from a feminist position frequently involves sorting out the
ontological status of the film’s representation as “good” or “bad” for women or
as a positive or negative representation of women. The focus on representation
in feminist film theory has been critiqued not only by feminist pornographers,
but in much of the feminist phenomenological theory from the past 10 years. Shifting
from the rigid ontological binary of good/bad, these critiques of the
representational model from theorists like Elena del Rio, Jennifer Barker, and Laura
Marks have engaged the possibilities of bodies and film viewership to challenge feminist paradigms like the male gaze. In particular, Elena del Rio’s critique of the
representational emphasis of feminist film theory provides a basis for thinking
through feminist porn as both a revision of dominant sexual scripts and a
reconfiguration of the role of representation.
In
Deleuze and the Cinemas of Performance,
Elena del Rio argues that “the body’s movements and gestures are capable of
transforming static forms and concepts typical of a representational paradigm
into forces and concepts that exhibit a transformative/expansive potential”
(del Rio 6). What feminist pornography offers is a relation of this potential of the body to a type of feminist
choreography. Choreography indicates that there is a model, but because this
model is performative/affective it cannot be thought of as a rigid,
unchangeable, set of observable points. Rather choreography and play are
contingent, they touch upon, but in each movement contain the potential for
rupture, flourish, and transformation. While the relation of feminist
choreography to pornography’s play does not render considerations of
representation worthless, it does offer another mode for navigating
representation and affection.
To
designate a film as “feminist” or “unfeminist” is to understand the film as containing an ontological
essence. However, it also reflects a reduction of women as either proper or
unproper feminist sexual subjects. Antiporn feminism and other sects emerging in the
late 70s and 80s sought to understand some sexual acts, orientations, and
desires as “feminist” and anything else as “unfeminist.” A line in the sand,
feminists attempted to recreate and reconstruct the same mechanics of sexual
stratification used to oppress women and contain them within phallocentric
parameters: the charmed circle of sexuality.
I
find that Luce Irigaray’s deconstruction of Plato’s allegorical cave a useful
way of thinking about how the concepts discussed earlier in this chapter and feminist porn resist an understanding of feminism as producing ontologies. In
terms of pedagogical models few have been historically adopted and appropriated
like that of the matrix model of the allegorical cave. In the 7th
book of The Republic, Plato recalls Socrates’ allegory of the cave. The basic
outline of the model goes like this: prisoners (men) exist in a cave in which
they are chained. There necks are chained so that they cannot move their heads
but instead see only what is in front of them. They cannot turn around. There
exists, however, within the cave a fire, which illuminates the figures of the
men and creates shadows upon the cave wall---the originary screen of projection.
But there also exists from above an opening through which a sliver of sunlight
peeks through. One at a time, the prisoners are released and pushed out of the
cave by a warden/mentor/philosopher. When the prisoner sees the Sun, he is
blinded, disoriented, and must adjust to this new “reality.” This adjustment
relies on a complete disavowal of the shadows, which once functioned as the
prisoner’s truths. While the initial dazzling of the Sun blinds the prisoner, he
later adjusts, first by seeing his reflection in water, then Real objects, and
then looking at the sun.
In
her section “Plato’s Hystera” from The Speculum of the Other Woman, Luce
Irigaray unravels the allegorical cave pedagogical model. She does so primarily
by asking critical questions and through a power of suggestion, a power I find
to be utilized and expanded in feminist porn as navigational mode. Though they
may not move, she asks, why is the singular voice of the philosopher the only
voice in the cave? Why would the prisoners not speak, and all at once in a
glorious, tumultuous cacophony? From her questioning and suggesting, Irigaray
points to the “holes” in the cave/womb pedagogical model in that it: 1) relies
on silence and on a singular echo of the voice of the “philosopher” 2) enacts a
ban on any dissident resonances and reverberations within the cave 3) situates
shame as a necessary part of subject production, in that it implies a paradoxical relationship to the cave in which the
subject only comes into being through the cave but must actively disavow ever
believing that the shadows within the cave as “truths” and 4) forgets the
“vagina,” the transitory space between the cave and the Sun. Further, the
ultimate goal of cave emergence is an essential stable subject around which
everything circulates and the “problem of ambiguity” is solved.
In
that cultural feminism/anti-pornography feminism works towards perpetuating a
proper, and thus stable and singular, feminist sexual subject that has rid
herself of the shadows of her male identification, the anti-sex models of
imagining and theorizing “female sexuality” can be thought of as appropriations
of such a model and exhibit many of its problematics. Alice Echols outlines
such models, as they circulated in feminist sexual politics from 1968 to 1983.
She states
And
while radical feminists were generally careful to distinguish between
individual and political solutions, cultural feminists typically believe that
individual solutions are political solutions. Cultural feminism’s validation of
individual solutions not only encouraged the scrutiny of personal behavior
rather than ideas, but moreover contributed to the development of standards of
‘liberated behavior’ (Echols 53).
In their attempts to theorize a stable
feminist sexual subject, the pedagogical impetus of anti-sex/porn feminism
approaches the sexualities of its “students” as if they are prisoners trapped
in a cave of social construction in which they are blind to the singular Truth
of liberated feminist sexuality. Pornography in this configuration is a threat
to the formation of this feminist subject, with the power to “teach” men and
women that male sexual supremacy is healthy and acceptable.
Feminist porn, like
that of Hartley and Taormino, offers not a feminist ontology but a feminist
relation. Take for example the question “What does feminist porn look like?” Another way of phrasing this
question is: how do you as a scholar identify feminist porn’s ontological
essence of what feminist porn is by looking at it? Because of its investment in
shifting the representation paradigm of feminist film critique it cannot be
described by what it looks like but rather how it is made, produced, whose
voices are included in the text but in the production, and how the viewer
arrives at the text.
Taormino discusses this shift in understanding representation in her
essay “Calling the Shots: Feminist Porn in Theory and Practice.” For Taormino,
the feminist in feminist porn is one of a relation to cultural production; it
is a question of ethics and modes of engagement. She configures representation
as something open to formation instead of a fixed essence. She writes:
Ultimately,
I want the performers to participate in creating their own representations.
Women and men are given choices: they choose who they will have sex with, they
choose the positions they want to be in, they choose the toys they will play
with, all based on what feels good to them, all based on their actual
sexuality, not a fabricated script (260-61).
For Taormino, working conditions,
ethical wages and representations that are understood as something created make
up the “feminist” in her feminist porn.
By
organizing pornography around a material ethical compass, Taormino’s use of
“feminist” to describe her work, and the work of the other feminist
pornographers, refers not to a stable subjective category but to a mode of
existing, coming into contact with object, consuming, and discovering one’s own
pleasure driven impulses. It is about how one arrives at conclusions rather
than the conclusions themselves. It renegotiates the classic feminist pedagogy
of singular conclusion on “female sexuality” but asserting the possibility of sexualities.
It is not one because it is a type of journey, not a singular destination. It
is sea on which to be sailed, a plural choreography, that never relies on a
stable endpoint.
While the alleogrical cave requires a muting of certain resonances,
feminist porn as described and created by Taormino involves cacophony. Multiple
voices emerge and contribute and often contradict each other. There is no
feminist subject that emerges, only a feminist relation. It is a politics of
reverberation and resonance that both “responds to dominant images with
alternative ones and creates its own iconography” (Taormino 261). This
response, however, concerns the paradigms of feminism as much as it concerns
the paradigms of mainstream pornography.
Nina
Hartley lays out the contradictions that have pervaded feminist response to
sexuality by placing certain acts in a feminist taxonomy of creating a proper
feminist subject.
We
were encouraged to take responsibility for our own orgasms while being told
that penetration was the patriarchal practice of colonizing women’s bodies, and
any woman who wanted that was not liberated. These opposing messages left all
women doubting their sanity (230).
The reconstruction of the charmed
circle model of sexuality required women to cast off their former shadowy
illusions in order to echo the singular voice of the philosopher (the proper
feminist subject). Consequentially women involved in the movement found
themselves questioning what was male identified shadow and what was “normal,”
by feminist standards.One way feminist sex radicals
responded, and through feminist porn continue to respond, was to disseminate
information about sexuality, preventing physical harm, and leaving room for
resonance in place of prescription.
If
something resonates carnally with a person it does not necessarily mean that
she will immediately carry out or attempt to mimic whatever it is that
resonates. As I have argued throughout resonance is one of the primary ways
viewers learn from pornography. Williams articulates this concept. She remarks
that
Even
if we live our lives never ‘having’ sex we learn to appreciate and enjoy
certain sexual ways of being, certain forms of (mild or powerful) arousal by
watching the mediate sexual contacts of others, whether smoldering glances,
kisses, more overt forms of friction or complex scenarios of power, abjection,
and need (Williams 95).
The work of Nina Hartley and Tristan
Taormino offers guided opportunities for resonance and identification to help
women learn about different types of “paths to pleasure.” Even those, which are not so "charming."
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Now, I've never been a fan of rabbit style vibes. My only other experience with them was a glittered out monstrosity made of cheap jelly which pinched and pulled the walls of my vag. Not to mention, I found the "rabbit" on the rabbit to poke my clit around and never give it enough contact to make a difference.
Rabbit style vibes are often way bigger than I appreciate, making them cumbersome and well, scary. The Twisty from Maia is on the smaller side with ample thought given to texture. The Twisty is smooth to the touch and didn't have much drag upon insertion. At first glance it appears seamless, but on further inspection I found a faint trace of one.
The package describes the clit stimulator on the Twisty as a "stem." It has a wide twisty base that narrows into an teeny ball shaped antenna. The tip packs the vibes into a tiny area which feels great and usually hits the opening of the clitoral hood, a new sensation for me who usually prefers a lot of pressure and strong vibes on top of the hood. There are three vibration intensities and 4 other functions, but I actually prefer the lowest setting which provides light but buzzy stimulation directly to the clitoris.
BUT (and this is a huge but) as soon as you turn on the shaft rotations, your ear is assaulted with a high pitched screeching noise that only increases in volume the higher you turn it up. Sounding like a treadmill, the shaft rotates at three speeds, and with each speed a higher volume of the unforgivable noise.
(An even bigger but) I love the rotation. I love it so much, I've reverted to grabbing it mid-session on a steady basis. I've seen a lot of rabbits in my day and normally the rotation patterns seem like they are trying to blend cupcake batter in your vagina. They are often imprecise and whirl around without consequence. The Twisty does not do this. The only way I can describe the sensation is that it as if the Twisty is lovingly swirling my G Spot around. In a magic circle.
The firmness of the toy balances out the subtlety of the motion while keeping enough pressure to stimulate properly. I do sometimes add in a stronger clit toy to my hood or the toy's shaft which does not vibrate. In several reviews, many reviewers find the clitoral stimulators in rabbits to distract from internal or G spot stimulation. Because the unique rotation pattern of the shaft feels so incredible I am focus on the internal sensations while receiving the additional clitoral stimulation I generally need to come.
I had my first blended orgasms with this toy. The orgasms aren not fast but they are simple, long, and full bodied. Having bought this on a whim, I'm honestly surprised at how frequently I use this toy, or rather how often I can feel my G spot wanting this toy. I had never really been successful at creating and maintaining a pleasurable relationship with my G spot, and the Twisty has done a lot to bring us closer together!
Some finale thoughts:
-The high pitched rotation noise might be too much for some
-Although the low-mid range price point does make up for it.
-Seriously, the magic circle G swirl is worth having in one's life.
You can get it at Love Honey.
-
It is a corporate Christmas party, and I feel clumsy.
I shift uncomfortably. I do not belong. Or maybe I do and I simply don't like it.
Both options are unappealing, and I am unsettled by my contradictions.
This is business. Why am I here?
This question threads together my day-to-day. I should be writing about my experiences, but my hand is heavy to the page. The questions begin to multiply, raising my pulse and stirring up doubt. What is there to say? Why am I doing this? What is the value in me doing this?
This last question is inextricably tied to how we view ourselves as social subjects. It is a question that could only be asked in a society whose economies of desire and pleasure are measured by singularity. How does your experience translate to a dollar value? What is your material worth to this company? Is it worth it?
I said for a long time that feminist theory saved my life. My theoretical imagination allowed to me to render all that haunted me into abstraction. By turning everything around me into a concept I was in control, I knew what the relationship between pleasure and labor was, how patriarchy deploys shame to police women, and how sexism works. That was all undone very quickly as I heard stories, answered questions, and generally observed life in the shop.
There is a woman in line and she is scowling at me. It startles me and as I catch her eye, her lips curl in a snide snarl. Worthless, whore, disgusting. Its not the first time, and my eyes flash cobra gaze that I am everything she thinks I am.
There is a man, who asks me what my boyfriend thinks of me "doing this." I tell him that I would not date someone who doesn't respect and value my decisions. He says yes, but he can't imagine a woman being around so many porn movies. I tell him that I write about porn.
Which someone else interprets as that I write porn, which while untrue, sounds cooler.
A woman laughs at me in disgust.
Someone tells me that a woman manager was once attacked by a customer.
An elderly couple, who radiate love, are laughing happily together. The woman and I scour through racks on an empty Sunday morning, reading the plots to movies out loud together and trying to pick some good ones. "I want the girls to be pretty" she says.
There is a woman recovering from a hysterectomy, who has a limited sexual vocabulary with which she is comfortable. And I am Nancy Drew, deciphering clues. There are a lot of whispered analogies and hushed euphemisms. She says thank you and means it.
A man tells me that he was embarrassed, but feels better now.
All is full of slowly worded confessions, euphemistic codes, life narratives, and judgments. "Am I sick? Am I disgusting? Do you think I am disgusting?"
I see people where no one is supposed to see them. Many arrive cloaked in shame and I often wonder if I am just another peg in the shame industrial complex.
Distressed, I turned to Amber Hollibaugh's My Dangerous Desires which is one of the few places I feel home. In her introduction to the book, Dorothy Alison writes about how she hid in fiction writing to escape her immense fear of biography.
- "The grace of fiction is that you can tell a larger story than the world has yet acknowledged---and pretend, at least in part, that you are not completely present in the story you tell" (xvii).
The grace of academic writing lies in that it can and will only be understood by a small, specific population. But, this isn't grace so much as it is a privilege. Stripped of dense verbosity, what could I possibly have to say? Why should I say it?
Because I want to. I find myself surrounded by women who know what they want. Women who articulate what they want and have gone off to find it. Women who are assured, and strong, and unafraid to inhabit a space that most assume we are all terrified to be in. They reassure me, they make me laugh, they trust me, and we share time together.
I arrived there looking for what Lynn Comella calls "sex positive synergy." What I have found is a messy navigation of shame, wanting, histories, and hyper-capitalism. I found myself living in my body differently, and while I am often distraught and upset, I am often profoundly moved by the temporary intimacy some allow me.
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The first toy I bought with my discount was the We-Vibe 3. I told myself I would hold out until the 4 came out, but I just could not. It just seemed so promising! The power rushed to my head. 40% off! I was salivating ready to eagerly buy up anything that seemed appealing.
But I haven't stopped kicking myself since I saw the new 4. WHY AREN'T SEX TOYS LIKE CELL PHONES, WHY CAN'T I HAZ AN UPGRADE?!?!?!
I digress, it's my greedy and impatient little self I have to blame.
At least, at first glance the new design seems to have addressed all the central structural issues I had with the We-Vibe 3.
1) Size
The We-Vibe 3 is simply too big. Though the G-spot stimulator does find my G spot nicely, the outer clitoral stimulator misses my clit, by a lot. I tried rectifying the situation by pushing the G-spot end farther up and holding it in place, it has to be held that way---thus limiting its "hands free" appeal.
Because the G-spot end is rounded like the outer clit end, it makes penetration kind of difficult. Lube is required or else it will drag all along the other person's cock. I hear this isn't pleasant.
The real kicker for me is that the new We-Vibe is crazy smaller, and the G-spot end is now flat rather than rounded.
2) Finish
Glossy silicone toys are notorious lent magnets. Every speck of dust, every errant kitty hair, all things stick to it with such ferocity they do. not. let. go.
3) Vibe strength
Like I've said before, I like industrial strength vibes directly on my clit. The combination of low vibe strength and it being just a little bit too long means that it misses the spot. It also scoots around a lot, and needs to be readjusted frequently.
Now, all this being said I have a similar agreement with sex toy reviewer and cartoonist Erica Moen's review of the We-Vibe 2. Though it leaves a lot to be desired, it's still quite a little treat to add a little hands free vibe action to getting pounded.
You can get it at Good Vibes.
Once
upon a time that has been and yet thrusts its presence into my everyday.
Whiskey breathed, I proclaimed my martyrdom---they were crucifying me at the
hand of a rather dramatic allegory that no one ever even bothers to
remember. He laughs an arrogant
laugh, I do not try very hard to ignore how wet my cunt gets. I want him to
penetrate me to know me to punish me to set me free to tie me up to pull my
skin off to devour and resurrect my cunt.
I
sit topless on a porch, he in a busted rocking chair. Smell of cheap tobacco I
tell him I underestimate my sadist impulse. He speaks quietly. All along the
rhythmic orgasmic repetition that are nights into days---I wanted to strip him
bare to lay him out. To get under through
around the skin with its closed pores and knowing smile. We sit together
stripped.
Some
time ago that is both yesterday and today---his voice speaks through a phone, distant
and present; slurred and stern and familiar----hooking my cunt making me blush.
Picking out lube is a relatively new phenomenon for me. Before I began using toys internally, I never used it. I knew the basics of lube shopping, the differences between water and silicone based etc, but everything I tried seemed to leave me in distress. This was before System JO's Agape entered my life.
A woman from JO came in to help us learn about their products. When she passed around the agape tester, I was startled by how close its texture and viscosity came to "the real thing."Its marketed toward women who are particularly sensitive and I found it mild while still capable of doing the job.
It took me a while to warm up to the idea of buying yet another bottle, though I don't know why. At the end of it all, the Agape was the only lube that ever made a lasting impression with me.
System's Jo's Agape contains neither glycerin nor silicone. It's a rather thin consistency, and works best for vaginal use. What appeals to me most is that it's light and thin. This might lead you to think that you'll need a lot of it.
Not true.
When I overuse it, it can become gummy and generally unpleasant---countering its most positive aspects. Start with less and add more, as needed.
When used in the proper amount, it feels clean, slick, with NO tacky after-mess. Go get some over at System Jo or Amazon.
