KayRenee

When I consider that pornography is simply the depiction of sexual acts as a means to an end – sexual arousal – I see no wrong in consenting adults engaging in sex acts which are recorded and disseminated for consumption and enjoyment by adults. I strongly believe in autonomy and I’m seriously opposed to preventing adults from exercising their desires, within reason, even if I dislike the behaviors adults choose for themselves. From a theoretical point of view I am not anti-porn. But when I look at pornography from a practical view it becomes clear that pornography, in its current state, is far more sinister than its mere definition.

If you’ve seen heterosexual porn lately – and I have – you’ll likely notice that romance and intimacy are absent. Even the crappy story lines, horrendous background music, and awful acting porn was known for are absent. Producers don’t even bother to create a fantasy for viewers; they simply want to cram as many money shots into a scene as possible. And those money shots usually involve women – including women who look like little girls – being spat on, urinated on, and having penises, fists, arms and random objects inserted into every orifice of their bodies – often simultaneously. This may arouse and satisfy the male performer but it’s evident that the women in these films are in pain.

I recognize that individuals are aroused by different things. We all have our fetishes, preferences, and pain thresholds. But some basic principles of human anatomy hold true. Vaginas, anuses, and mouths are not designed to to sustain enduring brutality (and by brutality I do not simply mean penetration). These cavities have purposes and having tibiae and fibulae inserted into them is not one of the designated purposes. Any adult woman who has had enough pleasurable sexual experiences knows that the tears streaming down the faces of many women performers and the screams that escape them are done out of pain and not overwhelming pleasure.

So how can I not be staunchly against something in theory when all practical evidence suggests that I should be? Why the reluctance? What would it take for me to turn the corner?

On March 1, 2011 I attended a talk at Harvard Kennedy School of Government given by Dr. Gail Dines, anti-porn advocate and author of “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality“. I entered the event with reluctance to adopt an anti-porn stance. My reservations and dislikes about some aspects of pornography weren’t enough for me to totally against it. But after hearing Dr. Dines discuss her research and speak at length about her conversations and experiences with porn industry and advertising industry executives, porn producers, performers, public health professionals, men who consume porn, and women who are in relationships with these men it would have been virtually impossible to remain unmoved.

I don’t share each of Dr. Dines’ hardened positions on pornography, her level of disdain for capitalism, and I am apprehensive about claims that cannot be, for a number of valid reasons, supported by empirical data. That said, Dr. Dines offers a compelling argument about the connection between pornography and other major industries and the potential public health crisis pornography is helping to fuel. It was impossible not to be alarmed, disgusted, concerned, angry, or saddened while listening to Dr. Dines talk about her research and experiences as an anti-pornography activist.

I want to share some of the most interesting and startling talking points of Dr. Dines’ talk. I’m writing this post and sharing this information (much, though not all, is new to me) because it forced me to reevaluate how my reluctance to take a more hardened stance on pornography only adds to existing problems. I have not yet investigated the following claims (although I do intend to read Dr. Dines’ book and subsequently research and examine some of the claims and arguments she makes) but, if true, they certainly should give everyone reason to be alarmed. I’ve tried my best to summarize the talking points and conversational topics that arose while preserving Dr. Dines’ original message. Here goes:

• People aged 25+ experienced a society in which print media ruled. The shift from print based media to image based media has had a tremendous impact on socialization.
• Mass media (imagery) is the key force of socialization in our society. Porn has significant cultural legitimacy and socializes men to accept that the buying, selling and use of women is acceptable.
• Most American boys view hardcore porn by age 11.
• Women (not all) are not in the porn industry because they like sex. Most women are in the porn industry because they were exploited. Many women performers admit to not enjoying performing sex acts.
• The porn industry recognizes that men leave porn sites soon after they have ejaculated. Extensive research is being conducted and strategies are being implemented to increase the likelihood than men will stay on porn sites after ejaculation. This is an important point because the porn industry openly acknowledges that a significant number of men are addicted to porn and the industry wants to capitalize on the addiction by keeping men addicted.
• The industry has calcified relationships with mainstream and independent film studios (the studios that make all of the movies we see in theaters), television studios, home electronic companies and advertising companies. Th porn industry has products placed throughout many of the movies, print images, and videos we see.
• The porn industry exerts deliberate and targeted effort into making sure than men don’t have any empathy for the women they see in porn films. For example, many of the labels assigned to women (“dirty skank” “big black booty”, “asian sl*t”, “M.I.L.F”) or the specific sexual acts (“ram it in her ass”, “all three holes”, “wreck the b*tch”, “pound her p***y”, “make her choke”) are specifically implemented to dehumanize women. If men saw these women as mothers, sister, and daughters they would have likely have crises of conscience when considering why they get pleasure from seeing these women dehumanized.
• The misconception that women have power in porn is patently false. Though a multi-billion dollar/year industry, less than 1% of women of women performers have gone on to produce porn or launch successful careers in mainstream commercial film. Women have virtually no power in porn.
• The average “shelf-life” of women in the porn industry is approximately 3 months. Most women who begin careers as sex performers can’t endure the physical trauma. Many women who leave the porn industry turn to prostitution or stripping. Women in porn have a high rate of drug abuse.
• Many women suffer rectal prolapses after being subjected to repetitive rectal trauma. The number of incidents is increasing.
• Increasing numbers of women performers are developing fecal infections in their throats. Fecal matter is spread from penises inserted into anuses and then inserted into women’s mouths.
• The porn industry (in heterosexual porn) has an abysmally poor record of implemented safeguards against std contraction (i.e. condom usage) and a poor record of providing basic health care to workers.
• In African-American/Black/”Ebony” porn, a small group of Black men (performers turned producers) provide most of the financial backing for the vast majority of the films. In recent years, these men have recruited Brazilian women for films because many consumers like the racially ambiguous appearance of many Brazilian women.
• Black women are overwhelmingly portrayed as animalistic when compared to White and Asian women.
• Interracial porn – particularly porn that has a Black male performing having sex with a White female performer -makes up a significant share of porn. Dr. Gines suggests that if you consider the historical connotations of Black men having sex with White women or even being interested in White women, it seems evident that Black men are used to debase White women. In a society where Black men are often viewed as dangerous, criminal, and morally corrupt, having Black men dominate White women in porn serves the purpose of making the White women in porn dirty, imorral, and less human thus making it easier for male viewers not to see those White women as human.
• There is a tremendous increase in porn featuring women who appear to be underage. This is one of the highest grossing genres of pornography. The phenomenon of sexualizing women who appear to be in prepubescent or teenage years has crossed into mainstream print media.
• Evidence suggests that a number of men who are imprisoned for statutory rape do not have the same pathologies as child molesters and rapists. Evidence suggests that a smaller but significant faction of imprisoned men would not intentionally pursue or have sex with underage girls. Rather, these men are attempting to act out a fantasy with women they believe to be adults.
• A significant number of men report loss of interest in having sex with their girlfriends, wives, and sexual partners; many of these men admit to expressing anger or frustration that their significant others will not perform certain sexual acts. In addition, a substantial number of women complain that their significant other’s consumption of pornography has had an adverse effect on their relationship.
• Numerous men have approached or contacted Dr. Dines to confess addictions to pornography and admit that porn has affected their ability to express intimacy with women. These men ask for help with porn addiction.
• There is a link between pornography and sex trafficking. The porn industry is exceptionally profitable but it’s losing some revenue due to the availability of free porn on the internet. Many sex traffickers in North America and Asia start sex trafficking rings by creating promotional porn. Traffickers enslave women, record them performing sex acts, and upload the video to free porn sites across the internet. The promotional porn is created to draw clientele to additional services.
• The U.S. is one of the top sex trafficking countries (Americans have the incorrect assumption that sex trafficking only happens in third world countries). San Francisco, Arizona, Ohio, New York, Boston and Portland are major sex-trafficking hubs.

In spite of hearing this information I remained conflicted and I expressed this during the Q&A section of the talk. I explained to Dr. Dines that I have serious concerns about the current state of porn but that I also believed that women should be allowed to express their sexuality through pornography. And though I’ve yet to come across a wide array of porn that doesn’t seem exploitative of women, I told her that I believe that kind of porn is possible. Dr. Dines posed questions to which I had no answer.  What would non-exploitative porn look like?  Even if women had greater influence in porn what woman is going to say, “Yes, I’ll get naked, have sex with a man, or multiple men, I’ll allow them to spit on me, insert objects into me, on camera, creating a permanent image of myself that can be viewed until eternity just so others can get off? What would that kind of porn look like?”

It’s unreasonable to be unyieldingly passive about something when the negatives overwhelmingly outweigh the positive aspects. It’s insane to defend a hypothetical environment that seems implausible to imagine. For those reasons, my position on pornography has changed. I won’t promise to never again view another piece of pornographic material. That’s unrealistic and dishonest. What I can be certain of is that I’ll never view porn the same way again.

Large employers like to market themselves as proponents of ethnically and racially diverse workplaces, and many employers do a reasonable job of hiring ethnic and racial minorities. A quick examination of an organization’s hiring numbers will likely reveal a handful of Blacks, a sprinkle of Latinos, a dash of Asians and perhaps a Native American or two. What these numbers often do not reveal, however, are the capacities in which minorities are employed. A more focused examination of hiring practices will likely show that diversity is mostly evident in entry-level administrative, clerical, and service positions. I suspect that many recruiters are guiding minorities away from higher-level positions and towards lower-level positions.

Employers may be diverse statistically but they certainly are not diverse substantively. Recruiters and managers do a good job of ensuring that people charged with maintaining facilities, making photocopies, answering phones, and scheduling appointments represent the ethnic and racial rainbow. But recruiters and managers don’t seem to take the same to care to make sure that the same degree of diversity is represented in higher-level positions, particularly those of decision-making authority. Whether intentional or inadvertent, this disparity is real. Employers are lying about their hiring practices by omitting an important part of the truth.

In my trite observation, the hiring process is often used to maintain the facade of diversity by guiding minorities into “get-stuck” positions they’re often over qualified for. I’ve personally seen minority candidates with qualifications that should garner them a mid-level managerial position play second fiddle – in the role of glorified errand person – to younger, lesser-experienced, and lesser-credentialed White managers. While younger White employees are put into positions of authority and given the opportunity to prove themselves in their role, qualified minority employees are encouraged to view a lower position as an “opportunity” to work their way up in the company and demonstrate their worth. I’ve experienced this in my own career.

In my mid-twenties I applied for a position in the marketing department for a large mutual fund company which markets itself as being racially diverse. My interview with the hiring director went great and he raved about my qualifications. I was certain that I’d get the job I had applied for. Then, he told me that there was an even “better opportunity” – an entry level position – that I might be a great “fit” for. The hiring director quickly shifted from talking about the position I applied for to the position he wanted to put me in. I didn’t realize that I had been duped until my first day of work at the company.

On my first day, my training class of about 20 people was given a tour of the building. The two largest departments in the building – I’ll refer to them as Department A (my department) and Department B – were on separate sides of the building. The contrast in racial and ethnic makeup of each of the departments was glaring. Of the hundreds of non-manager employees in Department A most were Black; only 25% of lower-level managers were Black and/or Latino; all of the mid to upper-level managers were White. Of the non-manager employees in Department B less than five were Black; one employee was Latino; all of the lower-level managers were White; all of the upper-level managers were White.

In Department A, young White recent college grads were plucked from new employee training classes and put in managerial positions. In my three years with the organization, not a single non-white employee was put on a fast-track to a managerial position. In many instances, the new young and inexperienced White managers supervised employees who had been with the company for more than a decade. Not a single young Black, Latino or Asian employee in the division was given such an opportunity.

It didn’t take me long to realize that hiring minorities served practical purposes for the organization. It allowed the company to give the appearance of valuing a diverse employee body, and it allowed the organization to fill dead-end positions by falsely assuring perspective candidates – particularly minorities – that opportunities for advancement were available to them. I’m thankful that I acted on this realization and moved on to greener pastures.

I’m currently searching for employment and I’ve had to combat some of the same hiring practices I first experienced during my encounter with the hiring director of the mutual fund company. During several of the recent interviews I’ve had at a number of organizations, recruiters or managers have pitched positions that I’m clearly overqualified for. The recruiters always sell the positions as incredible “opportunities” despite the fact that my taking such a position would be a significant setback for someone of my age and with my credentials.

After gracefully declining to pursue these “opportunities” the conversation quickly reverts back to the position I actually applied for (as it should). I’m asked to come back for second and third interviews, and in several instances I’ve been offered the position I originally applied for. Ultimately, I realize that recruiters and hiring managers are testing how short you’re willing to sell yourself. Whether intentional or not, I suspect that recruiters try this more often with minorities because we may be more susceptible to falling for a setback disguised as an opportunity. This causes many of us to pigeonhole ourselves and stunt our professional progress.

In this especially competitive job market which has rendered a disproportionate amount of minorities unemployed or underemployed, it becomes more difficult to secure a desired position. Bills need to be paid and food isn’t free, so less desirable positions become more appealing. But I’m thinking about the long-term. I’m focusing on potential career opportunities and not merely job opportunities. I’m trying to remind myself of what I’m worth and what I’m capable of. I don’t expect my employment search to be a breeze. At some point much later down the line, I may have to take a less than desirable position. But through all of this I will not sell myself short and I won’t allow myself to be guided into positions of perpetuity.

This past summer I went to Chicago for the first time in my adult life (I lived there briefly as a child though my recollection of the experience is vague). I fell in love with Chicago’s beautiful architecture and sprawling landscape. I was surprised at how friendly and helpful Chicagoans were. I found it to be an incredible city. But I was shocked at how few Black people I saw.

I’d always heard about Chicago’s enormous Black population, particularly it’s thriving Black middle class. My mother was born there and much of my family setttled in Chicago via Mississippi and Alabama before making their way to Boston, so I knew Chicago had plenty of Black folk. Yet, other than the Black doormen greeting guests or the few Black salespeople working in retail stores on Magnificent Mile or transit people driving buses, I saw very few Black people. When my friend and I strolled her neighborhood (somewhere on Fullerton Parkway) it was not what I expected. Where were the jazz and blues clubs I’d heard so much about? Where were all the stepper’s events Black Chicagoans beamed about? Where were the Black neigborhoods Chicago is known for? If I didn’t have family in Chicago, had never met Black people from Chicago or had no awareness of how the Great Migration shaped Chicago’s demographic landscape (including how “redlining” affected the racial distribution of the city), my brief encounter with Chicago would have left me with the impression that Chicago was a “White city”. The same can be said about Boston.

People who aren’t natives of Boston, who have never lived in or frequented ares in Boston where Blacks reside, and people who are ignorant to Boston’s racial struggles have a whitewashed view of my home city. They’re unaware that nearly half of Boston’s population is non-white.  At present, whites are the majority population (this has not always been the case as Whites have been the minority within Boston Proper city limits in past years) and at 25% of the population, Blacks are the second largest racial group in the city. Blacks and Latinos combined make up nearly 40% of the population. By no stretch of the imagination is Boston as “White” as too many people think it is. Boston is, however, an extremely segregated city.

I grew up in Roxbury which is the heart of Black Boston. I never saw White people in the neighborhoods and my mother never took me to South Boston, the North End, East Boston or other typically White parts of the city. The Jewish community had abandoned Roxbury years before I was born and Roxbury looked like your typical Black ‘hood. My interactions with White people were limited to having White school teachers, White doctors and seeing my mother meet with White social workers. My grandparents – Caribbean immigrants who came to Boston via New York – lived in Mattapan which boasts one of the largest Jamaican and Haitian populations in the America (after cities like New York and Miami). In all areas of my childhood I was surrounded by people who looked like me, spoke like me and lived in my neighborhoods so I didn’t directly experience many of the racial conflicts in my youth that seem to be standard for many Blacks. If I had not been taught differently I might have assumed, based on my daily interactions, that there were very few White people in Boston. It was not until I attended a college in central New Jersey that I became acutely aware of my ‘minority’ status in social settings.

It becomes somewhat annoying when I tell people that I’m from Boston and get, “Oh, I didn’t know y’all had Black people there” as a response. It’s even more of an annoyance when Blacks who come to Boston for school or internships complain about not being able to “find” Black people when so many of us “non-existent” Blacks are too aware of what it takes to maintain in this city.

For people who seemingly don’t exist we sure have had to endure a lot in one of America’s first cities. Blacks have been in Boston long before the 54th Regiment fought in the Civil War and only by their fortitude do they remain in this city despite obscenely high costs of living, gentrification of neighborhoods and institutionalized racism that is ingrained in education, law and business here. Yes, Blacks are plenty in Boston and we have the battle marks to prove it.

Blacks like my great-grandmother worked in factories to provide for their families when they grew weary of the extreme domestic terrorism and few opportunities they endured in the south. When Whites left Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan and took their capital with them, my Ma’Dear and her family – and many others like them – stayed despite the rapid deterioration of their neighborhoods.

My mother and students like her surely weren’t invisible when racial epithets were hurled at them as they rode school buses often escorted by law enforcement officials during the busing of the ’70s. I bet Black children like my father who were called “nigger”, pelted with rocks and stones, and spat upon by White parents upset that Black children were afforded equal access to education wished they were invisible to the hatred they endured. Blacks like my grandparents – the first Black family to move into their neighborhood in Mattapan – weren’t invisible to a White neighbor who called my uncle “monkey”.

If the Black population of Boston had been invisible before, they were surely revealed in 1989 when Charles Stewart murdered his seven-month pregnant wife and blamed in on a Black man. The seemingly non-existent Black community served as the collective whipping boy for his crime. It wasn’t until long after Blacks had their homes raided without cause and without warrants and after countless Black men were strip-searched in the streets at whim that police confirmed that Stewart was the murder.

Blacks suffered in Boston in the 80s and 90s when many like my mother’s friend Gail got strung out on crack or when my mother’s friend Jesse (affectionately known to me as Uncle Jesse”) died of AIDS. Blacks like so many of the young males killing each other today on Bowdoin Street in Dorchester or all through Roxbury and Mattapan are invisible only to those who don’t care to know enough about their circumstances. Perhaps the 2010 earthquake in Haiti drew attention to the enormous Haitian community living in Boston to outsiders, but the Black collective in Boston has always known of and appreciated the diversity and mass of its body.

With the increasing number of Whites taking over Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods, perhaps Boston will truly become the whitewashed city people expect it to be. Perhaps visitors and short-termers will be correct when they lament at the non-existent Black population. But that isn’t the reality right now. Blacks are plenty in Boston and we are not invisible.

Visit your local bookstore or browse online selections of African-American literature and you’ll likely find a plethora of books featuring highly-sexualized images of Black women accompanying titles like Altered Destiny: A Hustler’s Choice or Still Wifey Material (pardon me while I throw up). Gone are the days when Barnes & Noble would have an African-American Literature section that featured books by Alice Walker, Walter Mosley, Donald Goines, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and even, I regret to say, Eric Jerome Dickey (blech). In the featured selections you found a variety in time, perspective, tone, and message. These selections have been replaced by tired, done-to-death novels about hustlin, and love triangles gone wrong. Of the new featured selections, the only variety is in the name of the authors and the pairs of titties prominently displayed on the book covers.

Five to ten years ago — before self-publishing became easy enough for a third grader to do — books like Man Child in the Promised Land, The Bluest Eye, The Color Purple, Black Girl Lost and Invisible Man were prominently displayed. In fact, I was exposed to some of the finest African-American literary works for no reason other than that they were displayed in a bookstore. If you wanted to find a run of the mill tale about a woman who slept with her best friend’s baby daddy, you had to visit a corner in the hood to find it. While I don’t necessarily agree that certain books only deserve to be housed on card tables on 125th Street in Harlem, I miss the days of not being disgusted when I come upon the African-American Literature section in bookstores.

Some might argue that I shouldn’t concern myself with these books if they don’t interest me; I should spend my money on the books that I want to read. But I have much reason to be concerned. Bookstores are featuring these books and making them more readily available because people are buying these books en masse. Black people — who may very well relate to some of these books — are likely the main procurers of these books. Other people — likely White people as history has proven — are buying these books because they epitomize many of the stereotypes about Black people that far too many Whites are enamored with. So, how does this affect me?

I don’t want to be bombarded with subpar writing masquerading as the best of modern contemporary African-American literature; I want to choose from a variety of well-written Black literary works. I want to choose from books that challenge me to write and think better or offer me new perspectives. I don’t want my choices to be limited to books that add no value to my life. I don’t want to have to choose between a book about a woman whose baby daddy got locked up for selling drugs and a book about a woman whose baby daddy is cheating on her. I can watch Maury Povich for one hour at no charge to get my fix of hoodtacular drama. People are obviously buying these books in large numbers. If not, bookstores wouldn’t give them prominent display in their stores. So, yeah, this affects me. When I can find infinite selections of inexpensive hood life novels and have to search harder and pay more for thoughtful and well-crafted novels that offer varied perspectives of African-American life, it becomes a personal problem.

I wish Black people would get a clue. I know we’re not the only people buying these books, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that we’re the majority procurers. I’m not against the existence of these books. I don’t like them, but I understand why a market for these books exists. What I am against, however, is how we continue to pigeonhole ourselves. We use our currency to make a statement about what we value. If we’re spending our money on uni-faceted depictions of ourselves we’ll create a climate in which writers who want to offer us varied perspectives, present us with new opportunities and challenge us to higher thinking will be met with obstacles that early Black writers made strides to overcome.

Variety is the issue here. I suppose, begrudgingly, that the story of the ride or die woman who will get on the stroll for her man should be told. But that tale needs to be countered. And perhaps, some might argue, that a place needs to exist for writers who have had no formal training or invested much time refining their craft; perhaps people who merely want to tell a story deserve to be read too. But mediocre and unrefined stories that keep being repeated need to be countered with well-thought, polished, reflective and challenging stories. The only way we can ensure the latter is to invest in those kinds of works and to encourage others to do the same. I hope this is not merely wishful thinking.

Note: I want to extend a special ‘Thank You’ to Alexandra (@youngfabmama) for engaging me in a conversation that sparked me to write to this post.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. ~Mark Twain

I got a lot of shit going on. It’s a very stressful time for me but I’m managing it as best I can. I have to make some incredibly difficult decisions – the kind that can totally derail my plans if I make the wrong moves.  I’ve been in this space before and I’m not afraid to own the hard choices. It certainly isn’t the first time I’ve had to make life altering decisions.

But the noise.

It helps to talk about tough situations, right? I tried that. But, sometimes people won’t justlisten. Instead of letting you release whatever it is you’re holding people start to pile their advice and cautionary tales on you. Never mind that you’ve been here before. It doesn’t matter that you’ve pretty much made your mind up. People want to “save” you. What should be a space that’s free for you to process your thoughts and your own worries becomes cluttered with everyone else’s fears, concerns and apprehensions. Their fears, their uncertainties, and their concerns morph into some viral thing that permeates your thoughts and eats away at the courage you need to make the touch choices. If you let it.

Great shit doesn’t happen by being afraid. You have to step out onto a ledge before you really know what lies beyond it. Most of us know this, but we often steer each other down the path that everyone else has already traveled. We say we admire the bold, the daring, those who set trails ablaze. But that’s for other people to try. Not our friends. Not our family. Often, we don’t want to take the risks ourselves. So when someone tells us that they may try something gutsy, something risky, we try our damndest to deter them. A lot of people have tried to deter me lately. But I’m blocking it out. I’m forging ahead.

Some time ago I became a statistic in so many ways. I did not remain one. What got me marching in the right direction was harnessing my fear and turning it into fire. I burned shit down to make sure I “made it”. When I couldn’t resist my fear, I mastered my fear and I made it my ally. It’s hard to be fearless when so many people around you try to convince you to be afraid, but I didn’t get where I am without walking down a few dark alleys. I don’t intend to start being afraid now.