Gail Dines, Pornland: How Pornography Has Hijacked Our Sexuality (Beacon Press, 2010).
published in Voice Male, Summer 2010, pp. 27-29.

After a recent presentation on pornography, a group lingered to talk more about their experiences. One woman, in her 40s, explained that she had always suspected that her husband used sexually explicit material but that they had an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He didn’t want to acknowledge his habit of masturbating to porn online, and she didn’t want to know.

That couple’s tacit agreement broke down when his porn use became so compulsive that he was incapable of a meaningful sexual relationship with her. Another woman, two decades younger, said she had ignored the signs of her boyfriend’s obsession with porn until he began to nag her to try anal sex, which she found painful the one time she agreed. When his nagging turned to a demand, the extent of his use of pornography surfaced.

Neither woman realized how common their problems were in a society in which the mainstreaming of pornography has accelerated dramatically. They took some solace in the knowledge that their experiences weren’t unusual, but that gave way quickly to a painful recognition of how the denigration of women is routinely sexualized in contemporary culture. Whether we use pornography or are in a relationship with someone who does, we all live in Pornland.

To understand this pornification of society, I recommended to the women that they read Gail Dines’ amazing new book, Pornland: How Pornography Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, which can help us make sense of the explosion of increasingly cruel sexually explicit material and the dramatic coarsening of pop culture.

The key to the power of Dines’ book is its uncompromising radical feminism, articulated in everyday language free of jargon. Although such politics is routinely mocked in the United States, Pornland makes a compelling case for an unromanticized radicalism that is more necessary than ever. The women’s movement has won important victories in recent decades, but Dines makes it clear how much is left to be done, and how the porn culture has been a setback to gender justice.

Full disclosure: I have known Dines as a friend, colleague, and co-author for 17 years, and my own work on this subject has been influenced by her insights. My review is prejudiced in that sense, though my enthusiasm for the book comes not from loyalty but from the importance of her work.

Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, begins the book by suggesting we are living through “a massive social experiment” in which we are being used as experimental subjects without our permission. The research question: What happens when you saturate a culture with evermore extreme misogynistic and racist images designed to sexually arouse? What happens to the sexual imaginations of boys and men, who are the primary consumers, and the self-image of girls and women? How are intimate relationships shaped by the expectations cultivated by pornography? What effect does the routine use of such material have not only on levels of sexual violence but on how we define sexual violence?

Dines organizes the evidence that is starting to accumulate from scholarly research and everyday experience, and the news is bad. The accomplishment of Pornland is that it not only reports on that bad news without sugarcoating, but provides an analysis of the underlying systems, making it possible to comprehend why this has happened.

The book starts with an explanation of the business of pornography — how innovators such as Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt paved the way for the pornification of the culture, and how lots of “legitimate” corporations (especially mainstream media companies and hotels) are cashing in today. If we want to understand pornography, we have to look at capitalism, in all its amoral, predatory glory.

Pornland also shines a light on the racism of contemporary pornography. While the worst racist stereotypes have been eliminated from mainstream movies and television, they flourish in pornography. In some movies, pornographers sexualize race for white men who want to see women from particular racial/ethnic groups degraded, while in other movies they avoid non-white performers to appeal to men who despise people of color. Pornography reminds us of how white supremacy endures in contemporary society.

Dines focuses the core of the book on male supremacy, the central system that defines pornography. Recognizing that the term “patriarchy” is not part of the contemporary vocabulary, Dines talks about that system in accessible language that makes it clear: Pornography is, at its core, the sexualizing of male domination and female submission. Pornography’s defenders want to suggest that sexually explicit images are just sex on screen, but Dines walks the reader through the reality of those images, especially the most extreme and misogynist “gonzo” pornography that blankets the internet.

Dines not only explains but equips pornography critics to respond to the most common attempt to derail this analysis, the accusation that people who have a problem with porn are “anti-sex.” The label is nonsensical, but people — especially women — who fear being dismissed as repressed or prudish often are understandably scared off by the insult.

Dines’ response is useful: “[I]f this were a book that criticizes McDonald’s for its exploitive labor practices, its destruction of the environment, and its impact on our diet and health, would anyone accuse the author of being anti-eating or anti-food? I suspect that most readers would separate the industry (McDonald’s) and the industrial product (hamburgers) from the act of eating and would understand that the critique was focused on the large-scale impact of the fast food industry and not the human need, experience, and joy of eating.”

Dines also makes it clear that the other common slur against radical feminists — that they are man-haters — is equally absurd. Pornland is a book for men as much for women, a call for men to take back control of their own lives from the pornographers. Dines describes her frequent lectures to college audiences: “When I look out at the men in the lecture hall, they remind me of my son, and I feel outraged that they are caught in the crosshairs of this predatory industry, one that has a huge financial stake in habituating them to a product that dehumanizes all involved.”

Dines doesn’t end the book with naïve claims that the pornified culture will be easily challenged. We can all make personal choices to reduce our exposure to pornography, but precisely because we all live in Pornland, individual actions aren’t sufficient. New approaches to law may have a role; certainly a more vigorous public education campaign around pornography and sexuality more generally is needed. Dines doesn’t pretend to have answers, but her book gives us the analysis we need to start this important conversation.

For more information on Dines and Pornland, go to http://gaildines.com/.