December 9th 1981 to 1982

 

The Other Press

 

by Julie Wheelwright

for Canadian University Press

The image of a young woman flashes on the screen.
She is naked but for her silver, spiked, high heeled
shoes, she sweats under the hot pink klieg lights of the
cabaret. She gyrates, thrusting her body forward, close
to the faces of the leering, respectable men in their grey
flannel suits; watching with moist eyes.

Her body is my body, reviled, made an object of
public lust and shame. Discomfort fills me and it
becomes apparent that this film has nothing to do with
love but only: exploitation.

The film is a recently produced national film board
documentary, Not A Love Story: This Film Is About
Pornography, recently screened privately in Vancouver.

‘The filmmakers let the people involved in the ‘in-
dustry’ speak for themselves. Bonnie Kerr Klein, inter-
views David Wells, editor and publisher of Rustler, Elite
and six other porno magazines.

“*I would say that the standards are a little rougher.
The magazines (now) are more explicit, possibly because
of women’s liberation. Men have started to feel
emasculated and they like to fantasize about women.
They prefer to dominate those women,”’ says Wells.

 

Klein cave controls her temper. Wells explains
how the greatest male fantasy is to have a woman kneel-
ing at his feet performing fellatio.

what market research tells you?”’

Wells replies, ‘“Yes.”’

Savs Suze Randall, a Playboy and Penthouse
photographer: ‘‘It’s all play-play, it’s all fantasy. It’s
nothing that anyone would take seriously.’’

It is the typical response of the porno industrialists.
They believe this is fantasy, that it is healthy for men to
think they can dominate, beat, rape and kill women as

_long as it’s only “‘play-play.””

Kathleen Barry, an author who has done considerable
research on the links between pornography and violence
against women in our society, explodes this myth.

“It may be just simply how you treat your secretary
four weeks from now. It may be what you decide you
want your wife to do because she isn’t as interesting as
what you see in the films. But somehow, it (por-
nography) gets translated back. And that’s what all of

on in those theatres.’’

“The more that women can be just cardboard cutouis,
or bunnies, or pets, the easier it is not to have any feeling
for them, not to have any compassion. Compassion is a
very dangerous thing. It cuts across that domination
relationship.’’

That pornography seeks to exploit and abuse women

New York’s Forty-second street sex strip.

There are four times as.many sex theatres, peep show
booths and strip joins as there are McDonald’s
‘restaurants in North America. Forty-second street is by
no means an anomaly. It is a bigger version of what hap-
pens in every major city.

Tracey and Klein interview. a couple who perform a
live sex show 12 times a night for $25 a show. The
woman explains that this life is easier than turning tricks
on the street and that ‘‘I can be with the man I love.’’.

- Why do people come to see her? Some men come
because they enjoy: seeing her black partner
wee her. Others yell, ‘‘fuck her, make her
urt.’ J

a

 

Klein shoots back, ‘‘How do you know this? Is this

us remain, as potential, if not real, victims of what goes -
Poet and writer Kenneth Pitchford supports this view. _

“

is made extremely clear by the filmmakers’ descent onto -

 

This is no love story —

It’s brutal

Despite these criticisms the film is powerful, and for
someone who has had little exposure to the hard core,

| ugly side of sexual exploitation in our society, it hits

hard. The music is well orchestrated and instead of view-
ing the women, affectionately known as ‘pin-up girls,’
there is something sinister and sickening about their
vulnerable poses and dewy eyes.

Making the film and seeing the effect that por-
nography had on these women changed Tracey’s life.

“Il was creating an opportunity for that (hard-core
porn) to happen here,’’ said the 27 year old who had
made stripping her career for 10 years.

Her perspective probably steered the filmmakers away
from adopting a condescending attitude toward the
women they interviewed. In an opening scene Tracey ex-
plains how she once joined an-anti-porno rally in Mon-
treal and was turned off when the women had an ‘‘oh,
poor you’’ attitude towards her.

Tracey’s strip show act is disturbing because she at-
tempts to combine humor into her dance. ‘‘I didn’t
think I was part of pornography,”’ she says. ‘‘I thought
I was a sjvecial act . . . funny, artistic.’’

Making women see these connections in their own

lives is an important step toward stopping pornography

but is another area where the filmmakers are lacking.

 

Kathleen Shannon, the film’s executive director, was
at the screening and explained how the idea to in-
vestigate pornography began. Klein’s eight-year-old
daughter came across a copy of Penthouse in a cabin her
mother shared with another family. Klein was at a loss
to explain to her inquisitive daughter what pornography
was. 4
The film is much like that adolescent voyage into the
unknown and at times. this perspective is somewhat ir-
ritating. For example we see a scene where Klein and her
eight year old walk into the corner store to shop. A
voice-over tells us the story about the young girl first
discovering pornography as the camera records the child
watching a male shopper browse through a Penthouse
magazine.

Come on, the story would have been enough, we can

all imagine that first encounter without being led by the

hand.
At other times the film slips into sloppy self-
indulgence that weakens its message. Linda Lee Tracey,
ontreal stripper, accompanies Klein on her journey
rough the sex shows, strip joints and peep movie the-
atres in New York and beyond. This, in a sense, is her
story of realization that stripping is another form of

* pornography.

But the film ends with Tracey and Klein on a beach
reciting poetry. It is Tracey’s statement about her
journey, and it is good poetry, but it is somehow inap-
propriate.

The two women also interview women who work in
booths. Men pay a dollar for a token. When they drop
the coin in a box, a metal plate is raised, revealing a

' woman scantily dressed and sitting behind a plexiglass

shield. They talk to each other through a telephone.

 

She spreads her legs, urging her customer to ‘‘take it
out.”’ The man replies ‘‘no, you’re not good enough for
me.’’ Many women who work there grow to hate men,
she later tells Klein.

They travel to a peep show theatre. Tracey cajoles the
manager into letting the camera film one of the shows. It
is entitled Beat the Bitch.

A crudely made black and white image flickers on the
screen. A man is forcing a woman onto a table, hz; stuf-
fed her mouth with a potato and is biting her breasts and
pulling out her public hair by the handful.

“‘That hurts,’’ says Tracey.

“But it’s not real. Those people aren’t getting hurt,”’
says the manager.

More shots. This time of children. In one scene a girl
sits on a medical examination table in a short dress. A
naked man approaches with an erection and the child
reaches out to stroke it.

Another shot of a woman with her breasts bound so

tightly with rope they are turning purple. She is strung —

up by her feet, awaiting torture.

The film is as difficult to watch as it is to assess. It
reveals the gross exploitation and suffering women are
forced into in the name of sex, and even love. But the
film is certainly not flawless and leaves a myriad of
ambiguous feelings.

According to Ed'Donnerstein, a research psychologist

quoted in the film, there is a causal link between por-
nography and increased male violence.

“*There’s something about the combination of por-
nography and aggression which becomes a very power-
ful image. If we list all the variables which we think can
increase aggressive behavior and rank the top ten, prob-
ably eight of them are thrown together in aggressive por-
nography,’’ says Donnerstein.

Far from being the healthy, fantasy outlet for men.
that people like Randall and West make it out to be,
pornography perpetrates and legitimizes violence

against women in our society.

 

Perhaps this connection could have been more clearly
illustrated in the film. Otherwise it may be too easy for
men and our society to excuse it because it shows the ex-
treme rather than the norm. Although, for millions of
men, it is the norm.

What is also alarming about the issue of pornography
is its growth. In Canada where consumers were forced to
buy American publications, there is now a proliferation.
A Vancouver Magazine Service Distribution spokesper-
son said at least half of the 4,000 magazines they handle
are pornographic.

She said the number of pornographic magazines has
increased ‘‘greatly’’ in the past six years she has worked
at the magazine service. ‘‘We’re getting more and more
all the time.’’

Not A Love Story outlines the depth of the problem
and despite its inability to link the extremes with other
aspects of our society, it is an important film.

Because of the film’s many explicit scenes, however, it

‘has tangled with the censor boards and according to

NFB regional manager Bruce Pilgrim, there are no plans
to show the film publicly in B.C.

The Other Press will be sponsoring a
screening of Not a Love Story: A film about
pornography, in room 308AB at the New West

 

campus, Monday December 14 in the afternoon |

from 1:00 on. There will be a student led
discussion of the pornography issue after the
screening. Be prepared to be shocked-

s