Book Review
Title: Porn: An Oral History by Polly Barton
Genre: Social Commentary
Rating: 3.25 Stars
When I read the synopsis of this book, I assumed it was going to be the author’s commentary on porn and porn culture, but it is told in a series of anonymous interviews the author does with several people, discussing their own porn habits and the feelings they have about porn. Now, it doesn’t contain anything overtly sexual, but it does discuss a lot of issues surrounding sex that plague many people today from sexuality to body positivity.
The opening interview is with a straight woman with children, these introductory lines are important as it details the type of person being interviewed and how that might influence their ideas around sex and porn. The woman is asked about her use of porn which is solely to masturbate and the feelings she has surrounding that. These feelings are primarily shameful, but she also understands that it is something necessary to her life even though she has a partner. Her partner tends to have a lower sex drive and as those with children can relate to, finding time to be intimate with young children can be difficult so using porn just becomes an easier way to deal with those needs without worrying too much about other things. She also discusses her feelings around body image with porn since most actors both male and female tend to be very attractive which isn’t realistic but having realistic people in porn isn’t attractive to a lot of people, so it forms this catch-22. For women especially, porn can promote and drive home some very negative ideas around body image and sexuality which is touched upon.
The second interview is with a gay man for Australia living in Japan, his location is relevant because the ideas and openness around sex and porn can differ from country to country and is no different here. Knowing his sexuality from a young age, he mainly viewed porn for the aesthetics rather than the sexual aspect which is unusually especially as a teen. However, upon moving countries he realised that people didn’t openly discuss sexuality and porn in Japan despite having a very sex positive attitude. The next series of interviews trend the same ground but brin different topics to light from women’s autonomy to relationship dynamics between heterosexual and queer couples. It also looks at the influence porn has on both the development of sexually immature teens and how these influences impact our relationships later in life for both good and bad reasons. While these interviews so far tend to lean more towards women, the opinions and perspective of men is the most interesting part for me.
This is because there is a social idea that men consume more porn than women which seems to be true leading to the issues women have with porn like the unequal power dynamics and the leaning towards more violent or rough content. However, the men spoken to throughout the book tend to disagree claiming that getting off to porn is just easier than using their imaginations but the experience of getting off with porn is watered down compared to other ways of getting off. Meaning for men, porn is just convenient rather than them actively choosing to use that as a primary method of getting off. However, something interesting I noticed was both men and women, hetero and queer, all find bringing up the topic of porn in a relationship awkward unless it is actively causing issues when it might provide a way to deal with the stigma surrounding porn and its uses especially during relationships.
The rest of the book follows the same format and although it did feel a little repetitive at times, it does bring up several relevant issues such as female autonomy, porn addiction, body image for both men and women and the increasing violence in relationships as well as the lack of consent and sex education at the relevant age. Overall, I did find some of the discussion brought up in the book interesting, but I also felt it was overly long for a series of interviews with little context or analysis in-between. It could have been a much more engaging read if the author had inserted some analysis between the interviews to break them up so they didn’t feel like they were running together but it was worth the read for the social commentary alone.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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