I'm going to write it all down. Just as I remember it. Try to pin the experience down, stop it flying away. Perhaps, if I can write it down, it means it really happened.
Friday, 5pm: you knock on my open office door and ask if I have plans for the evening. The tragic truth is that I'd been planning on grading papers until I couldn't bear it any more, then grabbing McDonald's on the way home. McDonald's for one. At my apartment, I'd probably pour a Scotch and doomscroll on my phone, same as most nights. So I tell you that I'm heading to the gym after work.
"Come for a drink," you say. "You shouldn't exercise in the dark."
A drink, then. A week-ending, sun-downing, steam-letting-off drink with a colleague. We walk a couple of blocks--you seem to know where you're going, so I follow along. A pretty unremarkable pub, where you ask the hostess for a booth. Anodyne conversation until the server comes over. I ask for a pint of Guinness.
"Oh, gross. Too filling," you say. "What we need is tequila. Two large ones, on the rocks." I raise my eyebrows when the server turns back to me, but shrug in acquiescence.
"Do you always start your Friday evenings with shots?"
You have a strange, secretive half-smirk on your face. "No, silly. We're not animals. They have the good stuff here, and we're going to sip it. Sip it reasonably fast, mind you."
"Do you have to go on somewhere afterwards...?"
"Still up in the air, this evening is." The drinks arrive. "Cheers."
I take a sip. You gulp down a third of your glass in one, then have a big swig of water. Your eyes sparkle.
"Tough week?" I say.
"No looking back. The week is dead. This drink is anticipatory, not valedictory."
And then we chat, like normal people with many common interests, acquaintances, and a certain amount of shared history. We chat until our first glasses are empty, whereupon you order another round.
"So. Christopher. You've not asked me about my research. Don't you want to know what I'm working on?"
"Um, of course. What are you working on, Lucy? Weren't you doing that project on Stevie Smith?"
"Was. No more. Never again, at least not while I'm still young."
"What's the new direction, then?" And here you take another big drink of your tequila, followed by more water.
"Thank you for asking!" A pause. "I'm doing porn now."
Now, I'm a humanities guy working in a notoriously liberal department at a fairly progressive university, and I'm not shocked by much, academically speaking. So I say "Yeah? That's more of a cultural studies direction, isn't it? Or are you looking at textual representations, or is it more a theoretical approach?" It takes me a moment to notice that you are blushing quite seriously.
You clear your throat. "Um, I'd call it media studies, honestly. I'm really interested in the image, above all."
"Gosh. So you're looking at a lot of..."
"People fucking. Yes."
"And how bad is it? I mean, not just as an experience--from a feminist standpoint?"
"Well, Christopher. I have got to tell you, there is some pretty heinous shit out there. Women are being exploited, terribly. Men too, but mostly women. Naturally. Some people are making lots of money off of the utter degradation of women. And that's without thinking about anything illegal at all."
"So you're with Andrea Dworkin et al.? Objectification, and so on."
"Up to a point, certainly. I've nothing but respect for my feminist foremothers on this. But things have changed." You sip, sigh, sip. "Have you looked at any porn recently, Chris? I mean online, like PornHub or something?"
"I am, um, aware of its work." You smile, brilliantly.
"Oh my God, it is a fucking utopia! I am such a PornHub evangelist, like you wouldn't believe. I want to tell everybody."
I probably goggle at you like a complete dope.
"Consider this: who can post a sexy video on PornHub? Anybody. Setting up an account takes two minutes. Take a picture of your ass, post it. You're a porn star! But you're also a content creator--what a cringey title, but it's true. Performers can be in control of their material like never before. Want to keep it anonymous? Do it against a blank wall, crop your head out of the frame. Had enough of porn stardom? Delete your account."
"But surely girls are still doing it for the money, so they're still making themselves into commodities, objectifying themselves for the male gaze..."
"Spoken like a true Duke graduate. And it's nice of you to worry. But have you asked any of the girls you--yes you, Professor Lehman--masturbate over why they do it? No? Because I have. I have a database!
And if you look at individual accounts on PornHub, individual women who aren't producing work for a channel owned by somebody else, and not the people who've become big stars on the platform independently, most of them aren't monetizing their content at all. You can sign up for advertising revenue, but that's chickenfeed unless you're getting hundreds of thousands of views. So hundreds of times a week, women with regular day jobs are uploading videos of themselves riding their husband's dick, or sitting naked on their washing machine or anything else you can possibly think of. And they're not going to make a nickel from it. Is that exploitation?"
"Why do they do it, then?"
" Ask them! There are thousands out there. Presumably they have different reasons. But the one that fascinates me is this: women like doing it. I mean sex, obviously, because I think most feminists accept that women do like sex and that's okay, but also exhibitionism. Some women like being looked at. The male gaze turns them on. Or the female gaze. The gaze can be a source of erotic delight for women."
"Isn't that social conditioning, though? The patriarchy has objectified them for so long that women have internalized their objectification? Or they feel they need to show themselves to men, sexually, to gain validation as women, to have worth in society."
"Hey, maybe you're right. There's something in that. But consider this: a woman props her phone on her coffee table and films herself stripping. When she's naked she caresses herself and spreads her pussy open with her fingers and you see that she's wet. That arousal--is that real? And is that woman's real arousal a symptom of a sexual Stockholm Syndrome millennia in the making, or is it just that being seen, really seen, seen erotically, can be hot?"
"But the male gaze is, well, a bad thing! Catcalling--catcalling's bad! If women are objectifying themselves, aren't they complicit in, um, something... well... bad?" I sound lame and not terribly well informed, but I am obviously discomfited by the way this conversation has developed.
"Women are in control of their environment on PornHub; it is so much less dangerous than the streets. And why isn't that obvious? The virtual sphere can be a safe space for sexual expression, and it becomes safer the more explicitly sex-oriented the community you belong to is. If you're feeling sexy, you can log in, post something, chat with people. When you've had enough, go do something else. If you're reasonably cautious, the risks of posting homemade porn affecting your real life are minimal. When you've had enough, you can quit. The woman is in control. And PornHub is incredibly strict about the really bad stuff. You won't find anyone underage on there, not that anybody should be looking. There are murky waters out there, but PornHub is a massive corporation--they're open to scrutiny.
The best thing about it, though, and God I love this: did you know how nice people are to each other on PornHub? I think they enforce commenting standards pretty strictly--that's something I want to dig into more. But in general, you don't encounter trolls on PornHub. You know what men say to women in comments on PornHub videos? They say they'd like to fuck you, sure, which is absolutely not a bad thing to hear when you're in the mood to hear it. But they also tell you you're beautiful, and sexy, and they say they hope you have a nice day. And if your video has helped them come, they say thank you. You're not expected to respond. You can flirt a little if that's your thing, or you can delete all your DMs unread, or turn them off. You can make connections or you can stay totally aloof. And these options are open to any woman who finds being gazed at makes her feel sexy, and men, and non-binary folks, because here is the single most beautiful thing about it. Somebody out there will find you sexy; somebody will touch themselves while looking at your body if you put it out there. It's a big world, and the more mainstream this type of porn becomes, the more chance there is that you will be found by somebody exactly whose cup of tea you are. Perhaps you'll find love through it; more likely, you'll find acceptance and validation. What could be more self-esteem enhancing than knowing that a fireman in Sweden thinks your feet are the most enticing thing that he's ever seen? Or that a butch chick in Montreal would be interested in fisting you? But the great thing is... you don't have to do anything about it! That nice lesbian won't be offended if I don't let her fist me IRL. If I don't feel like roleplaying foot-worship with Olaf this evening, I can just log out."
I notice the pronoun change. You say "I" instead of the impersonal "you." Is it inadvertent? I see that you are staring at me quite intently. I hold your gaze for a moment, look to the side, look back.
"I have a channel," you say.
"Okay," I say, and sip my drink.
"I have a very small, very anonymous personal channel on PornHub, and you are the first person I've told about it in real life."
"Really? Why on earth...?"
"Look. Here goes. Damn. I'm more nervous about this than I expected. Some forethought has gone into this, I can tell you. The thing is, Chris. I like you. That's important. More important, I trust you. I know we don't hang out that much these days, but we've been through some shit together. I need help--no, not like that! I mean I need practical assistance with my project. I need a collaborator. I thought you'd be a good candidate. You're hella smart, you're cute, and you have tenure. That's important, because I really am going to write this stuff up and publish it, and it might ruffle some feathers. I can't lure some kid fresh out of the PhD and subject them to my crazy notions."
"You do remember that I work on Shakespeare, yeah? I have no credentials as a media person, or really as a feminist, honestly. I'm not sure what I'd bring to the table."
