The Price of Pleasure (review)

Note: Because I was asked to speak at a discussion about pornography to a Public Health class at Boston University this week, I decided to break my routine and publish two posts this month - both about porn.  Just for the record I"ll be back to other musings next month. 

I watched a disturbing documentary film last weekend.  The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships by Chyng Sun and Miguel Picker highlights the transgressions of an industry out of control.   The film documents an industry wide increase in torture scenes.  I reluctantly watched a naked women being water-boarded as foreplay.  It documented mainstream porn’s increase in multiple men on single woman scenes by showing a 20 on 1 interaction.  Let me tell you, the image of 19 grown men standing around a woman on her knees, playing with their dicks while waiting for a blowjob, did nothing to advance the cause of healthy masculinity.  Maybe most instructive was the scene at an adult toy convention where a salesman was hawking a robotic love doll.  A middle aged guy fondles the robot’s tit and gives the salesmen an appreciative nod.

That’s the rub, fellas.  They’ve taken the human connection out of sex.  Too many of us are settling for internet images of idealized women or strippers in clubs, neither of whom have any human connection to us.  It’s sad.  After watching The Price of Pleasure, I certainly didn’t feel like watching porn, but it offered no better information on what to do with my sex urge.  At one point, the well known activist Gail Dines said a person who complains that anti-porners are against sex is like a person who complains that because you speak out against McDonald’s, you are against food.  It’s a good analogy.  The Price of Pleasure, however, is not about recipes for beautiful gourmet sexuality.  It’s all stick, stick, stick.  You’ll have to find the carrot elsewhere.  

Of course, most anti-porners are not against sex.  People speak out against porn because of the damage it does to human beings and to intimacy between partners.  There is, however, a long tradition of sexual repression around the world.  One reason porn is so dangerous and so pervasive is because of the vacuum of communication and media about enlightened sexual practices.  Porn, unfortunately, rushes in to fill that void with the lowest common denominator.  

Those of us interested in sexual healing need to focus on the beautiful, loving, erotic interactions that real people participate in that simply are not available from actresses or animatronics devices.  Clearly, there is a need for anti-porn agitation, but at the end of the day porn users need to be convinced, not only that porn is harmful, but also there is an alternative that feels even better.  Porn would not be as popular as it is if people were exposed to the communicative, sensual and meditative pleasures of enlightened sex.  You don’t want to eat at McDonald’s once you gain an appetite for healthy, gourmet food, but giving up the Big Mac is not always easy.

I’m hip to the fact that a great number of men use porn.  But a great number of men have credit card debt and that's not a good thing either.  Just like earning financial freedom requires vision, planning and discipline, true sexual freedom must be earned with vision, planning and discipline as well.  The porn experience allows only a superficial connection to our sexual being.  By remaining on a shallow, surface level with our sexual partners, be they porn actresses or women we know personally, the best part of the experience is forfeited. 

One of the foundation tenets of healthy manhood must be an enlightened sexual ethic.  Men simply spend too much time thinking about sex to give our vision over to cheap corrupters of the faith.   We know instinctively there is so much more to sex than pornographers would have us believe.  It’s ironic that these are called adult films when they are more accurately adolescent fantasies sold to viewers with underdeveloped imaginations.  It’s our duty as adults to do the serious work of communicating within and beyond the sexual experience so we get to know ourselves and our partners better.  That work begins by reflecting deeply on our own thoughts and feelings to determine a path that is erotically true.  The work continues by aligning our deepest sexual thoughts and feelings with those of a partner. 

When we commit to visioning the ideal sexual relationship, planning its manifestation and disciplining ourselves to achieve it, few will find ourselves in front of a computer screen holding semen soaked tissues.  More likely, we'll find ourselves looking deeply into the soul of another.

My Wife's Friend

I have mixed feelings about my wife’s menstruation.  I’ve trained myself to be happy when it comes because it means we’ve navigated another month without conceiving children.  We’re busy enough with two adolescents and don’t want to go back to the starting gate.  So, although I welcome it from the family planning perspective, my initial reaction is often a selfish, “Damn, no sex for a week.”

To complicate the situation, Jasmin suffers from pretty bad cramps for the first few days.  During this time, she is not in a great mood and becomes easily irritated.  I’m often the object of her menstrual fury.  Behavior that would not piss her off the rest of the month causes her to glare at me with annoyance, repeating the famous phrase, “You know what time of the month it is.”

My feelings about menstruation are colored by the fact that Jasmin’s cramps cause her to be irritable.  My ability to be compassionate is sometimes lacking.  Even though I’m happy she’s not pregnant, I get a little aggravated that I have to deal with her short-temperedness every month.  We often have small arguments on the first or second day of her period until I decide to back off because experience tells me there is no winning at this time.

I pine for the wise old days of Moon Lodges.  The Moon Lodge was a tradition in many Indigenous cultures.  A separate space of honor was provided for menstruating women.  Recognizing that this was a special time, the women would gather to reflect, relax and connect with Spirit, relieved of everyday responsibilities.  Their regular duties were picked up by family or community members and the Lodge guests were cared for by elder women not on their menses.  Both menstruating women and their families got a break.

Jasmin takes it easier at the start of her period but her responsibilities don’t allow her to just rest a few days straight.  Because there’s no place she can easily go away and chill while she’s menstruating, she still has to deal with me and the kids.  If she did hang out with a girlfriend during her time, I’d be afraid that might result in a quid pro quo of our house being visited throughout the month her cramp driven, irritable friends.

To help me improve my attitude, I printed up a little sign that says “Moon Lodge” and tape it to our bedroom door when I notice it’s that time of the month.  This reminds me to show more compassion for the cramps.  I try extra hard to be patient which makes my life more pleasant as well.  Like so many things in our fast paced society, we cannot totally experience the slower, simpler world of old, but we can use our intelligence to approximate the best parts of it.

I have a vested interest in showing more empathy when Jasmin suffers from menstrual cramps.  It helps to minimize the conflict in our relationship by acknowledging there’s a powerful, largely unseen, process that I don’t fully understand happening within her body.  I still don’t get sex for a week, but there’s less tension in our home.

I know all women wouldn’t want to use a traditional Moon Lodge.  But, as a society, we could incorporate more Moon Lodges for women who do want it.  Honoring the sacred time of a woman’s menstruation in a conscious way supports greater harmony in all relationships.  President Obama might even support an initiative to establish Moon Lodges across the country.  It’s not that far-fetched an idea.  It just depends on how bad the First Lady’s cramps are.