This article was first published at: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-politics-of-making-babies-20110328-1cctq.html
The media is awash with stories of so-called ‘‘fashion babies’’. Whether we’re talking about Elton and David’s son Zachary, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s ‘‘gestational carrier’’ or Brisbane couple Melissa Keevers and Rosemary Nolan’s new quintuplets, everyone is apparently entitled to moralise about babies born by artificial reproductive technology or what columnist Miranda Devine calls ‘‘the latest fashion accessory ... or political statement’’.
A great many of the seemingly endless opinion pieces and letters to the editor assert that children need two biological parents, not the knowledge that they came into being via masturbation into a Petri dish.
Couples who use surrogacy are coldly accused of commodifying babies and ‘‘renting wombs’’. Same-sex couples who rely on a donor are said to be ‘‘unlinking the child-parent biological bond’’.
Even the sperm donors are getting bad press. Take, for example, the Oscar-nominated film The Kids Are All Right. While great, in that it normalises same-sex parents, the film portrays sperm donor Paul as somewhat manipulative, taking advantage of his genetic relationship to infiltrate and destroy a previously happy family.
When single women, lesbian and gay couples, or others with fertility issues, decide to try for a baby, the decision isn’t usually one that is made blithely. Similarly, the decision to donate sperm isn’t usually made on a whim.
When we were asked to donate to close friends, my partner and I didn’t just casually knock back a couple of glasses of wine and reach for the specimen jar. We considered our position carefully and consulted a range of resources and services. Some people, it seemed, felt concerned that we were inviting trouble on ourselves — that I and my children would feel betrayed or jealous that my partner had ‘‘given’’ a baby to someone else, or that the resulting child would one day make a claim on our family estate.
In the end, though, it was easy. Our friends were in a loving, stable relationship and we felt sure that they would make wonderful parents. With two children of our own, we could think of nothing better than seeing our friends experience the unparalleled joy of having a baby.
Fortunately, we already had a working model in the family of how a lesbian parents-donor relationship could work to provide children with a caring, stable home surrounded by an immediate and extended family who love them and have their best interests at heart.
Late last year a healthy baby boy was born. There was no jealousy and no regrets — just the great pleasure of seeing two people we care about, dazed and happy in new-baby-world.
Although our own children are too young to get some of the technicalities of their now-extended family, we make a point of talking to them about how we all played a part in creating a new life and a new family for our friends. We use the language of ‘‘half-brother’’ and ‘‘donor’’, even though they don’t yet understand what these relationships necessarily entail. Most of all, we are conscious of making sure that our donation is out in the open and doesn’t start to feel like some dark family secret.
Unfortunately, talking about sperm donation with others remains something of a taboo. Often, just by its nature, there is a degree of embarrassment and ‘‘ickiness’’. However, by not talking about the issue freely, we run the risk of marginalising children who were conceived by donor sperm and of discouraging men from considering donation.
According to Melbourne IVF, the number of men donating sperm in Victoria has been steadily decreasing since 2005 — currently there are just 184 registered donors in the state. Simultaneously, demand has increased since single women and women in same-sex relationships were granted access to IVF. Even of those men who do donate, only a percentage is willing to donate to single or lesbian parents.
If we were asked by our friends to donate again to try for a sibling, we would do so without a moment’s hesitation. Sensationalist headlines aside, and at the risk of sounding sappy, there is truly no other gift as rewarding as that of helping others create a much-wanted baby.
In addition to the great joy we have felt watching a new little person come into the world, it has also given us the opportunity to reflect on how we bring up our own children, and to consider how the next generation will come to view family life differently.
Through our situation, I hope that we can teach our daughters that families come in all different shapes and sizes. It doesn’t matter whether they have one parent or more, the gender of the parents, whether their parents are married, or whether they were conceived in a Petri dish. Surely, all that matters is that children are brought up surrounded by people who want them and who love them.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Why the new 'porn norm' is hurting women
This article was first published on http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/why-the-new-porn-norm-is-hurting-women-20110302-1be54.html#comments 3 March 2011
Porn is well and truly part of mainstream culture — no longer hidden behind neon-lit shop fronts and brown paper bags. With the advent of new technologies, accessing pornography is cheap, quick, easy and anonymous; in fact, it is estimated that one-third of Australian adults are consumers of porn.
It is tempting to think that the majority of this material is of the lame-storyline, large-moustache, Vaseline-lens variety. However, porn that would have been labelled hard core back in the ’70s is now more likely to be considered the norm. Recent research shows that acts of aggression against women are a commonplace – indeed expected – part of the porn narrative.
In defending their industry, many accuse the ‘‘anti-porn brigade’’ of focusing only on particularly violent examples of pornography. A recent study published in the journal Violence Against Women, however, has analysed the best-selling porn videos to see just how widespread and routine the degradation of women in pornography has become.
Sexual acts that women would typically find painful or degrading were common in the videos analysed, such as women being forced to perform oral sex immediately after anal penetraton. Boston sociology professor Gail Dines has previously reflected on this particular sequence and noted that it often comes with a ‘‘joke’’ about the woman being made to ‘‘eat shit’’. Professor Dines further points out that the brutality of the industry has become such that most porn actresses have a ‘‘shelf life’’ of three months because their bodies are so physically damaged by the job.
Even defenders of the industry would have a hard time arguing against the unequivocal finding in this research that there has been a sharp increase in the levels of aggression shown in films over the past two decades. They commonly contest, however, that the degree and frequency of violence towards women doesn’t matter because porn is ‘‘just fantasy’’.
It has to be pointed out that no one is suggesting that men who sit down to watch porn go out afterwards to assault or rape women. However, the trend towards the increased degradation of women in porn means we run the risk of becoming desensitised to depictions of sexual violence. We also raise the very real possibility that a generation of young men and women will come to view the humiliation of women as a normal part of sex (to say nothing of a distinct lack of female pleasure).
It would be simply naive to claim that porn has no effect on our society. Porn and culture interact, simultaneously reflecting and shaping each other. The increasing expectation of young women (and to a lesser extent, men) to look and act in a way that reflects the so-called ‘‘porn aesthetic’’, the popularity of ‘‘sexting’’ and the increasing uptake of practises such as labioplasty are just a few examples of porn concepts that have made the leap into mainstream culture.
It stands to reason, then, that when we fantasise about hurting women, our real relationships suffer. When we gain sexual arousal from the (even fictional) debasement of women, it changes the way we view men, women and sex, on an individual and a societal level.
But for all the disturbing findings in the recent research, perhaps the most depressing statistic was that kissing, hugging or laughing was depicted in only 10 per cent of sex scenes. This statistic alone should be enough to make us want to challenge and change the ‘‘porn norm’’ so that it includes positive representations of women, and space for intimacy, trust and respect.
Porn is well and truly part of mainstream culture — no longer hidden behind neon-lit shop fronts and brown paper bags. With the advent of new technologies, accessing pornography is cheap, quick, easy and anonymous; in fact, it is estimated that one-third of Australian adults are consumers of porn.
It is tempting to think that the majority of this material is of the lame-storyline, large-moustache, Vaseline-lens variety. However, porn that would have been labelled hard core back in the ’70s is now more likely to be considered the norm. Recent research shows that acts of aggression against women are a commonplace – indeed expected – part of the porn narrative.
In defending their industry, many accuse the ‘‘anti-porn brigade’’ of focusing only on particularly violent examples of pornography. A recent study published in the journal Violence Against Women, however, has analysed the best-selling porn videos to see just how widespread and routine the degradation of women in pornography has become.
The research found that physical aggression was present in 88 per cent of scenes. Of these, there was an average of 12 aggressive acts per scene. In addition, name-calling occurred in about half of all scenes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the perpetrators of violent acts were most commonly men, while the targets of their violence were nearly always women. In almost every case, women were shown reacting to aggressive acts with pleasure or neutrality, enforcing the idea that women enjoy being dominated or degraded during sex.Sexual acts that women would typically find painful or degrading were common in the videos analysed, such as women being forced to perform oral sex immediately after anal penetraton. Boston sociology professor Gail Dines has previously reflected on this particular sequence and noted that it often comes with a ‘‘joke’’ about the woman being made to ‘‘eat shit’’. Professor Dines further points out that the brutality of the industry has become such that most porn actresses have a ‘‘shelf life’’ of three months because their bodies are so physically damaged by the job.
Even defenders of the industry would have a hard time arguing against the unequivocal finding in this research that there has been a sharp increase in the levels of aggression shown in films over the past two decades. They commonly contest, however, that the degree and frequency of violence towards women doesn’t matter because porn is ‘‘just fantasy’’.
It has to be pointed out that no one is suggesting that men who sit down to watch porn go out afterwards to assault or rape women. However, the trend towards the increased degradation of women in porn means we run the risk of becoming desensitised to depictions of sexual violence. We also raise the very real possibility that a generation of young men and women will come to view the humiliation of women as a normal part of sex (to say nothing of a distinct lack of female pleasure).
It would be simply naive to claim that porn has no effect on our society. Porn and culture interact, simultaneously reflecting and shaping each other. The increasing expectation of young women (and to a lesser extent, men) to look and act in a way that reflects the so-called ‘‘porn aesthetic’’, the popularity of ‘‘sexting’’ and the increasing uptake of practises such as labioplasty are just a few examples of porn concepts that have made the leap into mainstream culture.
It stands to reason, then, that when we fantasise about hurting women, our real relationships suffer. When we gain sexual arousal from the (even fictional) debasement of women, it changes the way we view men, women and sex, on an individual and a societal level.
But for all the disturbing findings in the recent research, perhaps the most depressing statistic was that kissing, hugging or laughing was depicted in only 10 per cent of sex scenes. This statistic alone should be enough to make us want to challenge and change the ‘‘porn norm’’ so that it includes positive representations of women, and space for intimacy, trust and respect.
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