Pornographic Double-Standards

With the Fifty Shades of Grey movie coming out in a few days, I figured I’d give my thoughts on this pornographic film electrifying experience in visual erotica. Here’s a quick summary to those who have no clue what I’m talking about. Some time ago, a book called Fifty Shades of Grey was released. It quickly became a cultural phenomenon selling millions. The book was infamous for introducing taboo sexual practices to a wider audience all involving domination and submission. The “story” involves a young woman meeting a tall, dark and handsome billionaire and they both engage in consensual S&M. That’s pretty much the entire story as far as I’m aware. The upcoming movie is based upon this book.

Before we begin, a few words on what this post is not. I will not be debating the morality of watching the movie, reading the book or engaging in the practices both the book and movie describe. Ask someone else for advice if you really don’t know whether you should go see the movie. I will also not talk about why women like this sort of thing or offer explanations on why women are drawn to this sort of thing. Others have done a far better job.

It is no secret that this book was a huge hit with the ladies. In fact, I don’t even know a single male who read the book for his own enjoyment. We guys joke around about being forced to read the book as torture; men just aren’t drawn to Fifty Shades of Grey. It is clear that this book wasn’t even written for men, nor the movie made for them. You can see this from the marketing strategy of the film; the marketing was designed to entice women and allow their curiosity to lead them into watching the movie.

In the coming weeks, “Fifty Shades” ads will blanket female-skewing shows like ABC’s “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder”… “Fifty Shades” marketing is taking advantage of Pinterest’s 71% female userbase, promoting the film with an extensive photo board… Female moviegoers are driving social conversations around this film in numerous ways… Over the past week, 86% of all retweets from the film’s Twitter account came from women.”

Women are reading the book and women will go see the movie. I didn’t think this was controversial. However, I did get into a conversation with a family friend who had this to say:

Well, actually that isn’t true at all. It’s clear from the marketing and the readership that this is a movie for women. There is a reason why the book is referred to as “mommy porn“. The movie, like the book will be popular with women and teenage girls because men don’t care for this sort of thing.

Now, I would like to point out something I’ve been noticing for the past couple years now. Christians didn’t cause a big ruckus when the book came out. In addition, I haven’t come across much material where Christians are condemning the consumption of this sort of literary porn. In fact, I know self-proclaimed Christian women who read the book and are eagerly anticipating the movie. These same Christian women were also very excited when that other “mommy porn movie” came out.

Pretty much since I hit puberty and took an interest in girls, I was warn about the dangers of consuming porn and how it was such a sinful thing for Christian men to do. We all know the verse used to support this. Here is my question, why are men constantly being warned, condemned and taught about porn consumption, but women are left alone. The usual answer is that women don’t look at porn as much as men do. Well if you define porn as “pictures or videos of hot, naked women having sex”, then you might have a point (though not a major one because this idea is questionable at best).

However, as I wrote before in Porn for Women, there is no essential difference between the porn that men consume and the romance novels porn that women consume. They both affect the consumer similar ways. Yet, I find it funny that men are constantly demonized for porn use, but women who read literary pornography like Fifty Shades of Grey are left alone . I will come out and say it, romance novels and literary erotica like Fifty Shades of Grey = porn for women; there is no way around it.

Let’s talk a bit about this double standard. I know of guys who confessed to their Christian girlfriends or fiances about their struggles with porn and became pariahs afterwards. This struggle with porn was considered a huge spiritual problem in the man’s life; the women are heavily encouraged to rethink their relationships if their boyfriend/husband have such problems. However, when teenage girls and now women read the equivalent, nobody says a thing. In fact, I’ll bet you my entire law school tuition (it ain’t cheap) that if a Christian man broke up with his Christian girlfriend because she loved books like Fifty Shades of grey, the man would be the bad guy. He would be the one who is being unfair, unwilling to forgive and afraid of commitment. Rollo Tomassi explains it this way:

That’s because men’s sexual personalities are ALWAYS cast as disgusting perversions when their point of origin is from the man himself. Women’s sexual personalities are embraced and sympathetic to the condition of women.

Woman masturbates = sexy and hot. Man masturbates = disgusting perversion.

I see this play out in the hype surrounding the Fifty Shades of Grey movie. I had one family friend condemn the producer and writer for making the movie

Nothing wrong with placing some of the blame on the writer and producer.

However, I don’t see any blame being laid for those women who willingly go to see the movie and read the book. If there wasn’t a hoard of hungry women gobbling up the book, there would be no movie.. While the writer and producer might share some of the blame for creating the poison, the women themselves are freely choosing to ingest it. Why don’t we apply the same logic and only blame the producers and actors who make the explicit porn videos that men are fond of?

Honestly, I find this double standard sickening. If you have fictional books that cause women to lust, it is no different than images causing guys to lust. Both should be condemned; but I don’t see that happening in Christian circles. The women’s consumption is almost always downplayed relative to the mans just because it isn’t visual. This shouldn’t be controversial, but you’d be surprised. As I said before, guys doing porn are seen as losers, deviants and in need of some serious spiritual healing, but the overwhelming number of women who gobble up romance novels like Fifty Shades of Grey are not held accountable in the same manner. This needs to change.