The Naomi Wolf Myth

Last month, feminist author Naomi Wolf wrote an essay entitled "The Porn Myth" in which she argues that the prevalence of pornography via the Internet has magically transformed men into automatons disinterested in and incapable of enjoying the company of real women. Sex bloggers everywhere went ballistic and returned Wolf’s anecdotal evidence in kind.

After having read Wolf’s essay, I felt the need to laugh. I found her assertions to be hilarious. I’ve never read any of her books and wondered if all of her work is equally facile. Perhaps my expectations were unfair. Seeing as how she is a notable figure on the feminist scene and, perhaps, on the intellectual landscape of the U.S., I thought that she would be able to do something other than spew aphorisms. It’s not that I consider her idea to be beyond the bounds of reason, but rather because I would expect someone with her credentials to present her conclusion as a possibility rather than a truth given the evidence she provides. Had she written, “I’ve noticed on college campuses that some young women are feeling like they cannot compete against pornography for men’s attention. This is disturbing and I wonder if it is indicative of a larger trend...” my inquisitive mind would have jumped into overdrive. What would account for these feelings? How can we find out if it is more widespread? But she didn’t. “The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity." Where’s the evidence? What she did was to use an unrepresentative sample of college women and extrapolate from it the workings of all men. If pornography does have such an effect, is it only upon young men? What about, say, a 40 year-old guy? How about non-college educated men? White vs. black vs. Latino? Wolf notes: “In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.” Is she inferring that 40 year-old men do not view porn? Or that they do but the effect on them is different? Why would this be? This is intellectual treachery and Wolf ought be roundly castigated by everyone regardless on which side of the he or she sits. By ignoring so much she deals a blow to an otherwise much-needed endeavor, feminism. Well, equality feminism.

Women are due equal pay for equal pay, rape is horrendous and must be stomped out, women have the right to pursue a career and not be bound to the home if they so choose, etc. There can be no doubt that feminism generally has achieved some great things and changed our society for the better. But to say something like, “’Beauty’ is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.” is retarded. It kowtows to the notion that human beings are tabla rasas and denies the ever-increasing evidence of a human nature which is forever engaged in a pas de deux with nurture. Reading Wolf’s tract and some choice quotes, I get the impression that she views all the wrongs in the world as an instant drink – like Tang. Just take men and add pornography.

Such a view has led to some unfortunate consequences which only acts as barriers towards gender equality. For instance, sex has become disassociated from rape. Steven Pinker: “But the fact that rape has something to do with violence does not mean it has nothing to do with sex, any more than the fact that armed robbery has something to do with violence means it has nothing to do with greed.” Related to this are sexual harassment laws and the politically correct notion that looking at a woman is potential harassment. This dehumanizes interaction between men and women and transmogrifies them into a series of sterile Lockean contracts.

The porn myth is really that pornography can do much more than make a guy horny. Wolf’s words are degrading to men because they indicate a belief that men are inherently stupid, unable as we are to distinguish between a picture of a woman and the women we encounter everyday in real life. At best, Wolf implies that men are slaves to, often times, destructive urges and have no self-control. Thusly we are primal and lack the civilizing palliatives of intellect and restraint. That shit didn’t work for describing black people and it doesn’t work for describing men.

Since Wolf provides nothing more than anecdotal evidence to bolster her argument, let’s try a mental exercise. Can we think of any other factor which could be the cause of Wolf’s observations? I find it disturbing that she never actually defines by women not being able to “compete” with porn. She doesn’t even have the courtesy to give us an anecdote. What does this mean? Are young women unable to get dates? Do men deny them physical contact? Do men come out and tell them, “No thanks, you don’t look like Jenna Jameson.”? What competition are these women losing exactly?

So let’s put on our thinking caps and try to imagine other causes for her (debatable) effect. E.g. - could it be the case that abstinence among women in college is up? Think about it, men are constantly in musth at that age and at the most sexually competitive point in their lives. So, if young women are less inclined to have sex, could young men be turning to porn and masturbation as an alternative to never hitting a home run or getting a bad case of blue balls? Again, I present this as merely a hypothesis with no data to bolster it but it stands on the same ground as Wolf’s claims. Similarly, are messages of abstinence and fear of AIDS promoting “safe sex” (ie – masturbation) among men?

Are the women who are doing the complaining speaking of relationships they deem as “serious” or of an inability to get a one-night-stand? Are young college women making demands in their serious relationships that were not made by similar women of Wolf’s generation? Could society-at-large (outside of pornography) being promulgating messages that would discourage sex outside of marriage? Let us here again take into account AIDS and the promotion of “traditional” family values.

Personally, I do not feel that Wolf’s claims are evidence of a larger trend. Even if they were, to paint a simplistic cause and effect relationship as she has done is ludicrous. Like basically everything else in life, a drastic change in a large population would be the result of the interaction of a number of factors working in concert.

Ms. Wolf’s essay is an act of stupidity by someone of obvious intelligence. That she makes conclusions based solely on ill-explained anecdotes is intellectual nonfeasance. It is an atrocity in the fight for gender equality. Such tripe does little to encourage others to take seriously any other ideas she may have which could very well have great merit. Instead of debunking a “porn myth” she merely creates her own.