The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships

"Nothing shows any better than pornography what you get from capitalism." -- Richard Wolff

"Pornography delivers patriarchal messages to men’s brain by the penis." -- Gail Dines

"To us, pornography presents an opportunity to examine the roots of the problems we are facing – patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy – in their most blatant, naked and rawest forms. When this exploitation can stir and stimulate our most irrational and uncensored sexual core, we know how deep we have internalized and naturalized such inequality." -- The Filmmakers

A full-length 'watermarked' video, as well as copies for purchase, are available at Media Education Foundation.

The film web site.

WHAT THE FILM IS REALLY ABOUT

From the statement of the film's director Chyng Sun

During the "porn war" in the 1980s and early 1990s, the feminists focused on the harm that pornography has perpetuated on women through its producers and consumers. Although some of the interviewees did experience or witness such horrendous sexual violence done to women that was connected to pornography, we think for the majority of men and women the effects of pornography were less overt and dramatic but still no less profound. That is why the focus of the film is on sexuality and relationships. But when we explored deeper and deeper into the issues, what concerned us the most was beyond how pornography affects, but what it reveals about the world we live in and the mechanisms that shape and maintain it.

J.M. Productions' Gag Factor is indeed hard to watch when the female performers choke and cry because the male performers' penises are inserted in their throat so deeply. The crucial issues are not whether a woman freely "chooses" to work in the film, but why an economic system would pay the women who are willing to be gagged 50 times more money than her McDonald's job and whether this is the best way to organize our labor system. Also, condemning the producers as being particularly misogynistic does not go far; instead, we should question: why would a system reward private enterprise to make a movie like this; why there are so many consumers who would watch it and gain sexual pleasure? Pornography is where patriarchy and capitalism meet.

Theme-wise, this whole film can be summed up by two short statements: "Nothing shows any better than pornography what you get from capitalism," by Rich Wolff (Professor of Economics) and "Pornography delivers patriarchal messages to men’s brain by the penis," by Gail Dines (Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies).

The defenders of pornography like to say that pornography is just a symptom or a reflection of a male-dominated culture. But pornography does more than passively "reflect;" it represents masculinity in such a way that male dominance and aggression becomes natural, normal and even beneficial. As pornographer Ernest Greene puts it, "There is a natural component of power as an erotic stimulant in all sexuality." Or in the same vein, pornographer Joe Gallent states, "Every woman I have ever met has had a rape fantasy at some point. Men have violence fantasies about domination, and that’s just how it is." Pornography indeed perpetuates, reinforces and normalizes sexism, but burning all porn will not end male violence and sexual exploitation.

To us, pornography presents an opportunity to examine the roots of the problems we are facing – patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy – in their most blatant, naked and rawest forms. When this exploitation can stir and stimulate our most irrational and uncensored sexual core, we know how deep we have internalized and naturalized such inequality.

So we go to the roots. The ambition of the filmmakers may seem very modest but actually no less profound: we want people to really see what they have been watching all along. It is fascinating that almost without exception, the porn users who were interviewed admitted that they felt uncomfortable or guilty when they watched certain scenes because they knew the women on screen were not treated right, and they did not want to be there. Greg, a 20-year-old college student, said at the end of the film, “The second I have an orgasm and that passion kind of sinks out of my body and you’re still watching the movie, you start to really see what’s going on and it’s kind of just foul… and you just kind of wonder like, this is not sexy, this is not sex, this is not how I want to experience sex."

We wish that viewers of our film do not ignore the discomfort – not turn down the volume, not fast-forward the bothering scenes, and not use "This is free speech," "She chooses to do it" or "This is free porn, I didn't buy it" to justify their consumption. Let's just simply and honestly see what exactly turns us on.