Viagra, Cialis, testosterone patches, and more recently, the fast-acting anti-depressant Flibanserin, were all Big Pharma dreams to cure FSD (and one of its sub-disorders, hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD). But unfortunately for Big Pharma, female sexuality does not follow the male hydraulic model. Pumping blood into women’s genitals does not do the trick. Even research projects sponsored by pharmaceutical companies did not come up with increased sexual satisfaction when compared with placebos.
Moreover, since 2000, well-publicised grassroots activism against pornsex by New York University feminist psychiatrist and sex therapist, Leonore Tiefer, is gaining ground. Tiefer argues that the ‘corporate-backed idea of sex-as-function’ needs to be replaced with a ‘humanistic vision’ of sexuality which she puts forward in her New View Campaign[71] (Kaschak and Tiefer, 2002; see also Moynihan, 2010, p. 148). In a similar way, the 2011 film Orgasm Inc.: The Strange Science of Female Pleasure, directed by Liz Canner, reveals the manufacturing of the ‘disease’ FSD by profit-hungry pharmaceutical companies (see Laureano, 2011). Nevertheless, encouraging as these critiques of Big Pharma’s union with Big Porn are, it would be naïve to conclude that the pharmaceutical quest for a miracle pill or patch for this elusive ‘disease’ has come to an end; new drugs are in the pipeline and the magic number ‘43%’ continues to haunt women and to ‘normalise’ FSD.
2 Pornsex Needs Pornready Bodies
The continuing hypersexualisation of women and girls demands that their bodies fit the ideology of pornsex and a male-centred model of sexual activity. Their breasts need to be augmented, any real or imaginary wrinkles Botoxed, and their hairless labia and vaginas surgically redesigned. ‘Pornochic’ has become the norm of the beauty industry.
Injuries and death from breast augmentation have long been noted by feminist writers.[72] Adverse effects from silicone breast implants have led to hundreds of product liability litigation cases (Cohen, 1994). Notwithstanding such documented damage, the pornification of women’s lives has normalised breast augmentation surgery as a way to attain the required ‘ho’ look.
A case in point is the death of German porn star, Carolin Berger, during her 6th breast enhancement surgery at age 23 in January, 2011. Her heart stopped during the operation and she sustained severe brain damage. Bloggers expressed sadness over Carolin’s death on the Website JustBreastImplants.com which describes itself as a ‘Breast augmentation patient education resource’ where you can locate a surgeon. One post reads: “Oh how sad! My heart goes out to her loved ones” followed, however, by the same woman writing “5’1 almost at 5’2, 103lbs, 350 mod+ saline, started as 34aa, now a 34c or a 32d!!!!” Other bloggers post their own revealing photos with augmented breasts and a full list of enhanced body parts, followed by the name of their cosmetic surgeon. The postmodern ideology of bodies-as-text, here to be inscribed, meets the demands of a pornified society for medically enhanced women’s bodies.
The same ideology was reflected in a 2009 Channel 4 TV Program in the UK. Four hundred teenagers from 14 to 17 had been surveyed. A group of boys from Sheringham High School in Norfolk was shown photographs of 10 pairs of breasts. All said that the most attractive breasts were those that had been surgically enhanced. As TV presenter, Anna Richardson, commented: “Alarmingly, a posse of their female classmates says the same thing. Both sexes are unimpressed with normal breasts, which – unlike porn stars’ silicone-boosted chests – are often not symmetrical and sit down, not up.” And 45% of girls from Sheringham High School were unhappy with their own breasts, and almost a third said they might consider surgery (The Guardian, 30 March, 2009).
The Guardian report continues:
When the programme makers show boys and girls a woman opening her legs to reveal hair, there are gasps, some born of disgust. In porn, females are always shaved down below. Girls admit that they are starting to shave their lower regions and that boys expect them to do so. The pupils’ reaction shows how their expectations of what bodies should look like are framed by watching porn. Freakish ideas of physicality are mainstream.
Indeed, there is now a seemingly non-negotiable demand to be hairless and ‘pert’ in the vaginal department. Unruly vaginal lips and body hair are frowned upon by men who like their (porn) women to look like little girls: clean, and definitely hairless. Hence the commercial success of celebrity surgeon David Matlock’s trademarked procedures at his Institute in Los Angeles: the ‘Designer Laser Vaginoplasty®’ (“for the aesthetic enhancement of the vulvar structures”) and ‘Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation®’ (“for the enhancement of sexual gratification, vaginal tightening”). Other must-have surgeries include ‘Brazilian Butt Augmentation’ demonstrated by Dr Matlock himself in a video on his Website to, as he puts it, “artistically enhance your buttocks to give it a more rounded, toned, lifted, athletic look that compels people to look and admire” (http://www.drmatlock.com/).
Leonore Tiefer and colleagues call such procedures FGCS (Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery) and compare them to FGM (female genital mutilation, see http://www.newviewcampaign.org/video.asp). They decry the increasing lack of diversity in women’s bodies – including labia of all sizes and shapes – as creating a monoculture of pornsex bodies. Retail medicine and global medical tourism offer a plethora of exotic places where women can submit their bodies to FGCS: from Australia’s Gold Coast to Bangkok or Florida.
As pornography critic, Gail Dines, observes:
Something has shifted so profoundly in our society that the idealized, pop culture image of women in today’s pornified world is no longer a Stepford Wife but rather a plasticized, scripted, hypersexualized, surgically enhanced young woman. The media world we live in today has replaced the stereotyped Stepford Wife with the equally limiting and controlling stereotype of a Stepford Slut (in Rivers, 2010. See also her comment on ‘sluts’ in Griffin, 2011).
3 Medical Hazards of Pornsex
In addition to the damage from cosmetic surgery, there are daily health risks from engaging in increasingly violent pornography acts – be it as paid ‘porn stars’ or as Stepford Sluts in the privacy of millions of homes. For potential porn recruits the Website of the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Healthcare Foundation (http://www.aim-med.org/) with 2 clinics in Los Angeles, acts as a Health Care provider, and will tell you all there is to know about starting your ‘career’ in ‘the Industry’. In the video Porn 101, you are guided by Sharon Mitchell (Dr Mitch) who introduces herself as having been “an actress and a producer, director, stripper and just about anything else you can possibly think of in the Adult Entertainment Industry for over 21 years” (such as waging a battle with drug addiction for 18 years, as she tells viewers in Porn 102). The potential porn ‘professional’ is introduced to the Pornography Industry in a matter-of-fact, friendly and non-threatening way. The most important message is to be tested for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) before you start performing, and to be re-tested every 30 days. Easy – and just what you would do in any other ‘job’.
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7 Leonore Tiefer deserves a medal for her decade-long, feisty resistance to the medicalisation of sex (‘sex for our pleasure or their profit?’), see http://www.newviewcampaign.org/. Tiefer regularly attends FDA hearings and puts the alternative view (as Shere Hite did 25 years ago in
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8 For example, see Sheila Jeffreys (2005, pp. 158–161) on the tragic death of German Lolo Ferrari in 2000. Ferrari was pimped by her husband for prostitution and pornography. Before she died from an overdose of prescription drugs, Ferrari weighed a mere 48 kg. She was a heavy user of pain killers as each breast had been surgically augmented and weighed more than 3kg, which meant she could barely stand up, and she rarely slept because of not being able to find a comfortable position. Eleven years after her death, a quick Google search locates hundreds of porn pictures of Ferrari. Pornography is indeed infinite prostitution (see Farley, this volume).