Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity

by Robert Jensen

In our culture, porn makes the man. So argues Robert Jensen in Getting Pornography and the End of Masculinity . Jensen’s treatise begins with a simple “Be a man.” It ends with a defiant “I chose to struggle to be a human being.” The journey from masculinity to humanity is found in the candid and intelligent exploration of porn’s devastating role in defining masculinity. Getting Off seamlessly blends personal anecdotes from Jensen’s years as a feminist anti-pornography activist with scholarly research. In his trademark conversational style, he shows how mainstream pornography reinforces social definitions of manhood and influences men’s attitudes about women and how to treat them. Pornography is a thriving multi-billion-dollar industry; it drives the direction of emerging media technology. Pornography also makes for complicated politics. These days, anti-porn arguments are assumed to be “anti-sex” and thus a critical debate is silenced. This book breaks that silence. Alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough, but crucial, questions about pornography, sex, manhood, and the way toward genuine social justice. Robert Jensen is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Heart of Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege and Citizens of the The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity .

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Sexuality, Sociology, Gender, Psychology, Pornography

197 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Robert Jensen is an emeritus professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in northern New Mexico with his wife, Eliza Gilkyson, a two-time Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter.

Reviews

[d · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi ignorancia sobre los diferentes feminismos es absoluta, pero recuerdo que en el librito de Virginie Despentes ( Teoría King Kong ) menciona a este feminismo norteamericano antiporno, al que considera como totalmente datado.

El problema con Jensen, primero, es que este libro empieza con una hipótesis totalmente histérica e insostenible: la cultura norteamericana convierte a todos los hombres en potenciales violadores (escribe esto en la segunda página, no exagero, y salta a otra cosa en la siguiente). Se caracteriza por llegar a diferentes tipos de conclusiones por vueltas argumentativas totalmente tiradas de los pelos, no concluyentes. Ejemplo, cuando escribe sobre el juego infantil king of the hill:

In my experience, both male and female children can, and did, play King of the Hill, but it was overwhelmingly a game of male children. It’s one of the games that train male children to be men. No matter who is playing, it is a game of masculinity. King of the Hill reveals one essential characteristic of the dominant conception of masculinity: No one is ever safe, and everyone loses something (p. 27)

¿?. Usar un juego infantil como constructo teórico habla de la poca seriedad argumentativa que tiene. Pocas páginas después afirma que “las mujeres son una clase” (¿?!!) y que el capitalismo es solamente un sistema opresor entre otros:

This doesn’t mean, of course, that in this world all men have it easy. As a result of other systems of dominance and oppression— white supremacy, heterosexism, predatory corporate capitalism—men of color, gay men, poor and working-class men suffer in various ways (p. 28)

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Es decir: considera que el patriarcado como sistema opresor, es mayor que el capitalismo, cuando en realidad es al revés, este último lo contiene absolutamente. Hacia la mitad del libro la cosa mejora un poquito, pero no me saco de la boca el gusto de que su postura tiene más que ver con resabios de viejo puritanismo anglosajón que otra cosa. Un embole todo.