Event Write-up: The Price of Pleasure viewing and discussion

Like many others, I attended the "Price of Pleasure" screening and talk hosted by SARSA and with a special appearance by Robert Jensen. Before the movie started, Jensen contextualized the history of the porn industry in America as well as what prompted the filmmakers to create the film. Though it was not intended as a feminist anti-porn movie, the attitude of pornography as evil and needing to be eliminated was a pervasive theme in the movie.

The movie explored how pornography affected people's relationships , how it is used as a means to understand sexuality and what messages it promoted about femininity. Porn has been successful in reaching a larger audience and disseminating many of these ideas due to technological advances, such as the internet. The movie also examined many porn performers' and producers' opinions about why porn should not be considered as evil or in need of elimination.

In terms of relationships, the movie claimed that pornography adversely affected men's expecatations of their female partners. In particular, porn encouraged men to view women as disposable sex objects. Through conversations with a domestic abuse agency, many of the counselors stated that pornography was involved- either that he's watching it, then wanting to recreate that or he's making her watch it then wanting to film a movie. The idea that these ideas of women are restricted solely for porn stars is, thus a fallacy.

One of the women interviewed claimed that porn taught her that women were obligated to have sex and that that was how women existed as social beings. The film followed this quote with many sexualized images of women from mainstream media.

In terms of sexuality, the movie showed that pornography reduced a women to commodities that can be bought or sold on the capitalist market. One porn producer thought that it was great that a women could make tons of money only with her body. But why should this be one of the only options that a low-skilled, uneducated woman could choose? Is there really a choice there?