(Google translate) Porn does not only affect the viewing. Also partner is affected, according to two young women made a short film about pornography and sexuality. Porn ideals has made women the teeth to be object, they say.
“Porn Damaged” is the title of a recent short film where eight young women talk about how pornography affected their sexuality, self-image and relationships – including after their boyfriends looked at porn. Behind the film is Roxane von Gerber Hedayat and Moa Kjell Beach, both 22 years old and from Stockholm.
– We wanted to make this film after many conversations and discussions with friends about porn role in our society. But even our own experiences and emotions play a major role. We also thought that there was one aspect of porn debate, which usually is about how men are affected or whether the industry itself, says Roxane.
How women really affected by growing up in an over-sexualised society in which they almost always portrayed as passive objects? It’s a question that Moa thought a lot about.
– Whether eyeing at porn or not, you become extremely influenced by society’s messages and sexual experiences with men who probably consumed much porn, she says.
As a woman, look at porn is a different thing than to do what you believe Roxane. The course is mainly the woman who is the object of the movies, which only exists for men, she says.
– Even if I choose not to check out, I will still be influenced and get the image conveyed to me – as long as I have sexual relations with someone who consumed porn.
Both Roxanne and Moa have read parts of The inside series on “porn impotence,” that young men who masturbated while viewing porn may find it difficult to have sex with a partner. Now they want to broaden the debate. How are such girls to see porn, or that their boyfriends do it?
– In addition, porn aesthetics everywhere. We are constantly surrounded by airbrushed and sexualized female bodies. So even if no one consumed just porn we would clearly understand how a woman should be and look like – but in porn pulled it to the extreme, says Roxane.
Both she and Moa has studied documentaries, including on Öland Folk High School. Preparations for the documentary “Porn Damaged” was a study of women’s sexuality, they think.
– Several of the interviewed young women in the movie are offended that their partner eyeing the porn in the relationship, and feel let down and betrayed type says Moa. They wonder why there is a need to fire on anyone but themselves. When you’ve grown up with constantly being objectified – in such a degree that it has become an important part of one’s identity – it will be a doubly even feel deselected as the object of their partner.
Roxanne says she constantly struggles to stop objectifying herself, she thinks it is a tough battle when the world looks the way it does.
– Actually, the real problem of why women should have valued as objects, both of themselves and of others. And regardless of how much I myself manage to free myself so other people will still respond to me based on this standard.
Prior to his documentary conducted Roxane and Moa thirty interviews, eight of them are in the movie. The talks revolve around how porn and the female gender role affects their self-image.
– We live in a time when porn normalize more and more. Pornography seems almost considered something healthy and fulfilling, part of a sexual liberation. But I really think it’s the opposite, continues Moa.
– Yes, I think that porn puts handcuffs on our sexuality and that it creates a template for how we should behave sexually, says Roxane.
How so?
– We have learned to be stylish objects to satisfy men and even light on it themselves. It has gone so far that it’s almost become more important than the physical pleasure, answers Moa.
– That we ourselves teeth to be instruments of man’s pleasure is quite sick, says Roxane. Of course, we women also physical pleasure of sex, but I think most of us find it very difficult to relax and think about ourselves and how we want it.
Almost all the guys looking at porn. Can you not see it as a “private” thing, something that does not have the relationship to do?
– Men who watch porn affects not only themselves, answer Roxane.
– No, porn watching always affects a relationship, says Moa. I think everyone gets a wrong perception of reality of what sex is by taking note of the skewed image of women conveyed in movies.
Have any of you had boyfriends who looked at porn?
– Yes, replies Roxane. And it has affected my relationships much.
Have you yourself been watching porn?
– Yes, I’ve checked a lot, especially when I was younger. I felt a lot of shame, a shame that is associated with female sexuality in general. But I’ve also always felt that there was something very degrading, answers Roxane.
– And as conscious feminist, I also felt more shame in bed if I lived up to the porn-influenced ideals. At the same time I learned to turn on the right, so six is on the whole very problematic. But I’m so fucking tired of being ashamed of my sexuality, continues Roxane.
It is not the individual person’s excitement as they question, underline Moa. But regardless of whether we are men or women affected us as individuals of ideals in such porn movies and commercials, she believes.
– We are surprised by society’s lack of analysis of what all this really does to us.
Both Moa and Roxane believe that this influence also occurs in other ways.
– The media reports more and more often to mental illness among young girls is increasing. I think a contributing factor is the diseased conditions our bodies to live up to, and we think it is strange that this should not be taken more seriously, says Moa.
Moa and Roxane says that the number of reported rapes is increasing, that men seem to fire on all young girls and that 13 year old girls secretly photographed in the dressing room.
– We see it as a direct consequence of the messages we constantly get thrown in the face. And that a girl is raped with a wine bottle by three guys who are not convicted says a lot about society’s view of sexuality, says Moa.
She and Roxane wants to sex would be more free, open and fun.
– It need not be anything wrong in that film six, but it is impossible as long as today’s gender roles persist. Sexuality is so steeped in porn ideals is really just an old-fashioned expression of the patriarchal structure. In Iceland, discussed a draft law against Internet porn – maybe it’s something for us in Sweden, says Roxane and Moa.
Footnote: The short film “Porn Damaged” appears on 2 June in collaboration with the Women’s Lobby of the Rio Cinema in Stockholm and is followed by a call.
Thomas Lerner
thomas.lerner @ dn.se
May 23, 2013
Roxane von Gerber Hedayat
Age: 22 years old.
Family: “Siblings, parents, sisterhood.”
Lives: Stockholm.
Background: Has studied television production and documentary films.
Current: The short film “Porn Damaged”.
Moa Kjellstrand
Age: 22 years old.
Family: Parents, sister, girlfriend.
Lives: Stockholm.
Background: Read gender studies. He studied documentary film at both Sundbybergs college and Öland Folk High School.
Current: The short film “Porn Damaged”.
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