Nudity Content Must Be Over 18

Ariel Levy

For more than a decade sex-positive feminists have co-opted our pornography. They've taken it out from under the bed and from inside sleazy bookshops and placed it, well, on themselves, dressing up like hookers and strippers, announcing themselves as "Porn Stars" in tight baby-Ts and paving a path to legitimizing our sick obsessions into a marketable mainstream. It's just not right.

Finally, the backlash has begun. Pornography may once again be our secret shame, an illicit temptation, which makes it that much hotter. Ariel Levy probably doesn't agree with our motivation, but the New York magazine writer who just published Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Free Press), is sick and tired of a generation of Girls Gone Wild idolizing porn stars as if they're a true expression of uninhibited sexuality.

Sex Wrecks has always championed the twisted, depraved and pathetic side of the adult industry, that with no redeeming social aspect. In other words, the filth that pornography really is. Not empowering, but exploitative. And we believe Levy is a prophet that you all better listen to.

By Peter Landau

You may be surprised to learn that a site calling itself Sex Wrecks is in almost total agreement with the thesis of your book and eager for the backlash against the mainstreaming of pornography, which makes it less illicit and therefore less fun. But even as a secret shame, pornography is often about objectifying women, so how do you feel about pornography in general?
I don't think there's any reason people can't make porn in a way that is respectful to women--Candida Royalle puts a lot of effort into this, for example. Generally, I'm not talking about what's wrong with the sex industry; I'm talking about what's wrong with what mainstream culture has decided to make the sex industry mean.

It's like, if we just have strippers and porn stars and the Playboy bunny everywhere we look, then that means we're uninhibited and okay with sexuality. I think that's just goofy. Just because we constantly reiterate this one extremely formulaic, extremely commercial shorthand for sexiness throughout our culture doesn't mean we're free and easy sensualists.

Outside of the research you did for the book, do you recall your first experience with pornography; how and when did this happen and what was your reaction?
The sex radical Susie Bright came to my campus when I was at Wesleyan University and did this presentation where she showed us lots of porn and talked to us about it. It was very interesting. I'm a big Susie Bright fan now; I was on her radio show the other day.

What is a "Female Chauvinist Pig"?
If male chauvinist pigs of years past were guys who treated women like pieces of meat, then female chauvinist pigs of today are women who make sex objects of other women and of themselves and think of this as liberation.

In an early chapter you accompany a Girls Gone Wild film crew, which itself is likely a sexual fantasy for most men reading this, yet it was anything but a turn-on. Could you describe what really goes on behind the scenes?
There's kind of a creepy vibe. Once the camera was trained on a girl, people would start to circle like seagulls sensing a family is about to abandon their lunch. Everyone would chant "shows your tits," "show your ass," and so on, and I sometimes worried if the girl declined they'd start throwing rocks at her. But the girls never declined.

There are many examples of smart women--both young and old--that you interview in the book who disagree with your thesis, saying that by embracing clichéd sexuality they're being ironic and hip, such as retro-burlesque performers. Are they deluding themselves or is it possible to emulate a stripper and not become exploited?
Obviously there are some women for whom exhibitionism is really an authentic expression of their sexuality. If a woman is genuinely turned on by lap dancing or whatever, then great, I'm happy for her, she was born at the right time. But there are a lot of ways to be sexual and it seems to me this one way is over represented and that we have an extremely narrow view of sexuality in this culture right now.

My wife says that the women who wear "Porn Star" T-shirts should try sporting the slogan "Cum Rag" and see if that wakes them up. Or is that the road we're headed down, where, as long as it's vaguely sexual, even the most base and disgusting act is ironic and hip?
A “Cum Rag” T-shirt would surprise even me.

In your own press release you ask why prominent feminists have been unable or unwilling to launch an effective backlash against raunch culture. So, why?
Well, partly because the feminist heroines of the 1970s are in their sixties now and I think raunch culture just looks incredibly foreign and incomprehensible to them. You can't really imagine Betty Friedan going on spring break with Girls Gone Wild. But also I think younger feminists have been reluctant to talk about this because it's been seen as really unfashionable to question porn or anything that's been redefined as sexually "liberating".

What is most disturbing is seeing very young girls flocking to the fashion styles of porn stars and strippers without context for irony or the maturity to understand what they're tapping into. Is this your greatest fear, that they define feminism's next stage?
I just think it's a bummer when a high-school girl says to me, "To look the skankiest, that would be the one way we all compete." I mean, we're talking about a girl who doesn't know what she wants from sex yet, who hasn't had a chance to really explore her own desires, and already she's putting all this energy into putting on an ongoing erotic performance. That's my general objection to raunch culture: too much emphasis on performance, not enough on personal pleasure.