Christopher Siters

PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
When discussing themes of Victorian pornography, Steven Marcus lists three

characteristics that, though changing in content, are still prevalent: (1) “the creation of the

ubiquitously sexually desiring, visibly sexually satisfied female,”; (2) “involves the staple of all

hard-core pornography (because it is consistently banned in the more accessible soft-core), the

image of the huge, hard, magical male member – always erect, forever unflagging,”; and (3) “the

repetition in earlier and more recent pornographies of two or more men engaged in joint sex with

the one woman,” (p. 68). These themes are then further dissected, exposing the “inadequacies” of

men rather than “glorifying” them,

The most conspicuous of male emotions, and the anxieties they express,

are surely not-so-hidden in the relentless repetition of these themes. Do we not see

only too clearly here fear of female rejection, terror of phallic failure and

homosexual feeling disguised as heterosexual performance? What we do not find

in pornography – hence its provocation – are the acceptable male emotions

associated with the approved discourse on male sexuality. Sex restrained by love

and marriage, sex which is ‘protective’, ‘respectable’ and ‘faithful’, reverses into

its opposite: sex greedy for immediate, unlimited, self-centered gratification, (p.

68).

In discussing the formation of fantasy, Segal, building off these themes, says,

Psychoanalytic theory offers one way of understanding what it sees a

men’s fetishistic need for visual proof of phallic potency, and their need for visual

proof of female desire. Men’s specific fears of impotence, feeding off infantile

castration anxiety, generate hostility and panic towards women. Through

Christopher Siters
PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
pornography real women can be avoided, male anxiety soothed, and delusions of

phallic prowess indulged by intimations of the rock-hard, larger-than-life male

organ, (p. 69).

This illustrates a few things: the “proof of phallic potency …delusions of phallic prowess…rock-

hard, larger-than-life,” suggests a sort of “use it or lose it” mentality for men towards their sexual

organs, “specific fears of impotence, feeding off infantile castration anxiety,” not only supports

the subordination of women by perpetuating the “castration anxiety/penis envy” dichotomy set-

up in favor of the patriarchy. If men are not continually erect, they will in fact, eventually lose

use of the member altogether; this mirrors the ideology that men need to exert power in order to

maintain power, or risk losing it; “…their need for visual proof of female desire” again supports

this, requiring women to desire the phallus and thus, men, as the phallus is the representation of

male power. In short, men desire to see phallic worship.

“Pornography, in this view, also serves men’s wishful fantasy which, feeding off infantile

incestuous attachment, connects them specifically to women as the maternal substitute, creating

longing for the permanent possession and visible proof of female desire,” (p. 70). If one looks

critically at this statement, thinking about Freud’s theory that the maternal incestuous feeling is a

desire stemming from the realization that our caregiver cannot anticipate our every need and we

are not the sole object of our caregiver’s affection, it seems to suggest perhaps it is not an

“incestuous” desire inherently, but rather manifests as such because the typical primary caregiver

is the biological parent, and because we believe that our caregivers know us better than we know

ourselves. An adult with no blood relation caring for a child, who at some point develop a sexual

relationship would not be considered “incestuous,” simply morally questionable as the adult

was/is the child’s “guardian,” and not an actual blood relative.

Christopher Siters
PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
Looking at the idea of “infantile incestuous attachment” as the desire for someone to

know us better than we know ourselves as well as being the sole object of their affection, the idea

of incestuous desire is offset,

“The last thing men in general… ‘want’ the women in their lives to be –

whether wives, daughters, friends, workmates, lovers, or whatever – is the

ubiquitously sexually desiring, universally sexually available, creature of much

pornographic fantasy…it is men, after all, who have surrounded women with the

innumerable sanctions precisely aimed to restrict, if not eliminate, the

possibilities for them to express sexual arousal or availability,” (p. 66).

It would seem then, that in wanting the “universally sexually available” woman, men want

(perhaps “need”) a certain amount of anonymity; while they want to be seen as “men”, period,

they do not want the women they know to be the “creatures of pornographic fantasy,” and thus

do not want to be viewed as the savage, threatening males depicted in pornography. This

suggests that men enjoy a certain level of detachment that comes from porn usage, they are able

to escape the confines of who they are and can lose themselves in their fantasies. “Pornography

teaches men to disconnect their emotions from sexual expression,” (p. 67); this statement is

critiqued for its vagueness, saying that many who write about porn rarely bother to define it,

however it does reinforce the idea that men who view porn may do so specifically for the

disconnect.

“What is happening now,” Andrea Dworkin informs… “is that

pornography is becoming the contemporary mechanism for controlling women,

and it is a control that is exercised through sheer terror.” Yet, many men…are
Christopher Siters
PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
frightened of being seen to use it…How has it come to occupy such a central

place in women’s fears of men and some men’s embarrassment with themselves?

(p. 67).

While it can be argued that pornography was and still is a means of subjugating women, a

seemingly negative depiction of women in pursuit of a positive male image, it is obvious that the

embarrassment that men feel was not an intended result of pornography. This embarrassment

arising from pornography seems to stem directly from the very things that pornography depicts,

or rather doesn’t depict: the fear that they are not sexually desirable, that they are sexually

inadequate, and so must turn to pornography because they cannot fulfill their sexual desires in

real life; in a culture where men are allowed to be overtly, even almost publicly sexual, the idea

of having to turn to porn to satisfy one’s desires is arguably a sign of emasculation.

Segal furthers this idea,

Standard pornography…gives men a sense of control which is missing

from the rest of their lives: from their productive, political and – increasingly,

with the rise of feminism – personal and sexual lives with women…Pornography

is not a means for men to achieve power over women, but proof that men lack

power of women, (p. 76).

Segal cites Elsthain, saying, “Pornography offers for voyeuristic consumption a vision that

attracts precisely because it signifies to ‘public man’ what he is not – in either public or private:

he increasingly lacks the power to bend others to his will,” (p. 77). The desire for anonymity is

thus reinforced by the ideology that pornography signifies a lack of power.

Christopher Siters
PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
If standard pornography essentially is the depiction of raping women as some feminists

hold it to be, the anti-pornography stance is understandable; however, it is arguable that if

women/feminism feel so oppressed by the thing itself, which is a direct result of the patriarchy, it

could be possible to “penetrate” the current system of standard pornography and slowly

“envelop” it from within, replacing the phallic worship and imagery with that of yonic, and

thusly realizing the “castration anxiety” of the patriarchy.