I wrote about abstinence from porn as an opportunity to gain mindful perspective on the nature of sexual desire. And how it manifests itself differently in simulacral form (online internet porn) as compared to the textures of interpersonal, tactile Relationship (being sexual/sensual with others, embodied, and in person).
In this post, I am going to try and speak more about porn from an integral perspective.
AQAL and Porn
According to Ken Wilber's AQAL model, all given phenomena can be apprehended from at least four different perspectives from four 'quadrants,' as shown in the image above.
The top row is about the Individual
The bottom row is about the Collective
The left hand side refers to Interiors
and the right hand side refers to Exteriors
To put them into quadrants, we thus have:
an Upper Left (UL) "Individual Interior"
an Upper Right (UR) "Individual Exterior"
a Lower Left (LL) "Collective Interior"
and a Lower Right (LR) "Collective Exterior"
Let's use porn as an example.
Porn would have a UL, Individual Interior manifestation, these comprise our interior, subjective responses:
e.g. the experience of titilation, yearning, horniness, intentionality, freedom, or disgust, aversion, apathy, boredom, compulsion, guilt, etc.
It manifests in the UR, Individual Exterior, as in its measureable effects on our individual, objectifiable physical body and behavioural change: e.g. bloodflow to genital region, neurotransmissions in our limbic brain, increased heart rate, etc., as well as masturbation, etc.
Porn has LL, Collective Interior or CULTURAL aspects... The "who and what" that is represented, as conditioned by certain cultural expectations of propriety and impropriety, the specific 'fetishisms' that arise, the meaning of certain bodytypes, acts, humiliations, triumphs, cultural tropes that are explored or undermined in the narratives of pornography given diverse cultural contexts etc... For example, Japanese porn and German porn are different not just because of different body/phenotypes, but also because of how these physical types are racialised by consumers both within and outside of their cultural boundaries, for both intended and unintended consumers...
Its LR, Collective Exterior aspects have to do with the measureable, material conditions and its effects on collectives/populations
e.g. How porn is produced and distributed? What is the medium of its expression (print? online video?)? What are the physical sites of its consumption (e.g. in a bedroom? in a cinema?)? What are the political systems are in place that condition its production, distribution, and consumption, and what are the aggregated effects it has on people on a population-wide level (e.g. epidemiological data of correlations between porn use and certain sexual health outcomes), etc...
Any given phenomenon (in this case, porn), exists in the way that it does in ALL FOUR QUADRANTS (there is no phenomenon that ABSENTS its manifestation in any single quadrant).
The study of porn, from an integral perspective, therefore requires the careful consideration of the methodologies for studying the contents of each quadrant.
Considering my Previous post on Abstinence from Porn
In my previous post, I explored the UL by studying the subjective states that arose in me from my consumption of or abstinence from porn throughout the narrative of my personal experiences. I also included the study of some subjective reports from others who had themselves used porn, or who had explored their sexuality with partners who had used porn.
The UR perspective I gave through an amateur elucidation of the material workings of the mind-body in its exposure to pornographic material. Here, I have found Marnia Robinson's blog, Cupid's Poisoned Arrow especially helpful. She talks about the neurochemical differences between pornographic sexual stimulation and interpersonal touch, and how habituation to porn can be argued on the basis of noting brain changes through habitual porn use.
I then briefly mentioned Robinson's failings. She does not adequately address her own biases from a LL and LR perspective. My criticism is of her heteronormative assumptions, and her privileging of monogamy as the ideal social arrangement, through biological determinism: that is to say, through a REDUCTION of the phenomenon of porn/sexual stimulation to its measureable UR manifestations in the brain.
In my last post, I noted how critiques of porn centre around the depiction of women and people of colour (which is a LL analysis using cultural theories: feminist/queer/anti-racist/postcolonial theories), as well as around who owns the means of production (which is both a LL socio- and LR economic analysis). I also surmised that there are liberatory uses of porn in this way as well, in terms of reclaiming porn through a radical emancipatory lens.
My own attempt in finding a 'middle way' here was around integrating the wisdom and perspectives of the LL (feminist, queer) and LR (materialist/Marxist) with those of the UL (phenomenology, personal experience) and UR (neuroscientific understandings)...
And then what?
By integrating these various perspectives in my project to apprehend Porn-As-Phenomenon, I believe I have grown in my own understanding of pornography. I see the limitations of the strictly UL perspective (i.e. ONLY personal experience of porn, which doesn't situate personal experience in a framework of socio-cultural-biological relations), the limitations of Robinson's UR commentaries (which rely on unsophisticated LL assumptions around the primacy of monogamy, heterosexual male experience, etc.) and the limitations of the LL 'culture war' debates.
Neither pro-porn nor anti-porn advocates adequately address the more morally-neutral neurochemical implications of habituation. According to Robinson's commentary, pro-porn proponents do not adequately consider the addictive and escalating potential of porn use, even if it begins innocuously... And of course, anti-porn advocates who shame others into quitting porn for moral reasons themselves inadvertently HEIGHTEN the addictive quality of porn (because that which is forbidden elicits a greater 'hit' of dopamine rush, which is implicated in experiences of addiction).
In other words, while Robinson's UR reductionism could use some LL deconstruction, the LL perspectives that I delineated as strawmen in my last article could also use the wisdom of the UR (made possible because of advances in neuroscience) and the LR (made possible because of emerging epidemiological/social research data, for example, on the correlation of endemic porn use with erectile (dys)function).
That said, I would like to address some of my own assumptions in my critique of porn use, and in my personal decision to opt for abstinence... and I will raise some further questions for pondering.
1. That Authenticity is important in sexual experience
and that porn is 'less authentic' than relating to another person in person. What IS authenticity? What are measures of authenticity? To be informed by neurochemical affect (UL & UR) is one thing, but to assume that 'authenticity,' however it is arbitrarily defined, is impossible through porn... That was a bit of a philosophical leap. I also did not consider the specific sorts of intimacies that could hypothetically be enabled by using porn with a partner.
2. That the Interpersonal is more central to sexuality than Solo sexuality
What role does the Other play in my experience of authentic sexual experience? Are there hierarchies of contact with the Other? Who draws these lines where? Why do I privilege certain sorts of contact with Others as compared to another (sort of contact)?
There are all sorts of sexual relationships one can have with others...
There could be an Orgy / Group Sex encounter
A one-on-one sexual encounter with One other
The contact with the Other through porn (which involved real people in its production)
The contact with the Other through fantasy while masturbating solo
The complete non-contact with the Other through masturbating solo and intentionally focusing on one's own body.
Perhaps Porn is LITERALLY a middle-way between certain extremes?
Still, I would argue that mindful masturbation (remaining present with the sensations of my own body) is more emancipatory, from a strictly meditative component, as compared EITHER to mindless pornographic consumption OR mindless sex with others. This likely will require a future post for elaboration...
3. That the 'producers' of porn are the empowered, owning classes
I have a slightly different perspective on this now, based on an amazing conversation I had yesterday with a group of folks on this piece on Integral Sexology by Ray Harris... Factoring a more traditional, Marxist, class-critique of porn in a late-capitalist world... We can consider how sexual experience has historically required that all of us identify with Labour. We work to have sex. We court, we date, we buy dinner, we flirt, we dance; We have to increase our skills in these ways in order to reach orgasmic satisfaction in interaction with Others.
However, now, the ubiquity of porn means that consumers of porn no longer require the Marxist revolution, i.e. identifying with Labour and empowering ourselves by taking control of the means of production, such as the people depicted in porn simultaneously owning the cameras, and the channels of distribution if any at all...
Instead, we now identify with the owning classes: That we are ENTITLED to others' sexual Labour, that we need only click a mouse or a button with high speed internet access in order to be titillated... We require no introspection, no wresting of control of the 'means of production,' etc. etc.
Far from being the Enemy, producers of porn are simply pawns... They are rewarded by consumers, who pit the Labour of the producers AGAINST the Labour of the actors...
My previous proposed solution was from the perspective of the 'owning class' of the Consumer of porn. That is: To abstain from consumption altogether.
But another potential solution (or attempt at redress) can be in the form of identifying with sexual Labour, and to then work more closely with Producers and Actors of porn, indeed, perhaps even dissolving that distinction altogether. To be producer, actor, AND consumer of porn that I co-create with a community of folks who are similarly committed to emancipation and de-habituation (from compulsive patterns of consumption) as well as to Love.
Indeed, while this may look nothing like porn as we know it, it would be helpful not to toss porn out of the window... Far more dangerous and liberating to completely demystify it, and feel THAT freedom. The only way out as Through...
Great post! I wanted to explore the idea of porn as commodity. I'm not sure that creation of unpaid amateur porn actually dissolves the distinction between producers and consumers, any more than volunteerism or sole proprietorship dissolve the distinction between labor and capital. Inevitably there is a draw to "monetize" and self-commodify, just as the capitalist job market treats a volunteer as gaining "skills" in order to perform a "real" (i.e., paying) job, so too does the existence of a marketplace for porn draw true amateurs into the world of paid porn production (whether in the fetish category of "amateur" or not). In addition, because porn categories other than "solo" pretty much require others, there is a tendency to fall into classically capitalist modes of production, unless the material means of production (e.g., the camera, the location, the editing equipment) are collectively owned by all performer and non-performer workers. While possible in theory, in reality, the commodified nature of porn, with its consumers' demand for endless novelty, militates against the formation of stable collectives, because getting "new" stars will always be financially rewarded. I suppose we could see the formation of ad hoc collectives for one-off projects, or extremely large collectives where members re-combine in videos in various permutations, but that has a lot of other practical complications.
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