Pornography- Men and Women

Naomi Wolf writes in The Beauty Myth that “such imagery [beauty pornography] represses female sexuality and lowers self-esteem by casting sex as locked in a chastity belt in which beauty is the only key” (146). In other words she means that pornography can make women feel ugly. In my opinion this is true in many cases, as we see men falling for women with a certain figure. That in a way can allow other women to think that they can only be beautiful if their bodies are similar to the women in pornography. Pornography is giving a false image of how women are meant to look like during sex and also how they’re meant to act. I feel that a lot of people in our society forget that pornography isn’t real and that most of those women were not born with bodies like that.
Another example where you see that pornography is not reality, Wolf describes a situation with a friend of hers. “A friend, a model, at fifteen, showed me the prints from her first lingerie shoot…I could hardly recognize her (151). Her friend, Sasha had scoliosis and had to wear a back brace, yet it was hidden and she was still posing in a provocative way for the camera. At the end of the story Wolf says, “like me, Sasha was a virgin” (151). This passage made me realize that nothing is even real in these advertisements. For example Sasha didn’t really have breasts that big, as she was only fifteen at the time. Also the whole scene was made to look like something made up and it didn’t represent Sasha’s real life as a high school teenager.
Wolf acknowledges the fact that pornography also can effect men negatively. While women are afraid of being ugly, the men say, “we’re afraid they’ll laugh at us” (153). I think what Wolf is trying to convey is that even though women are judged a lot by men, men are also judged by women. “The fact is that women are able to view men just as men view women, as subjects for sexual and aesthetic evaluation” (153). I like how Naomi Wolf always made sure to point out both sides for men and women. That way, her book reaches out to more viewers and avoids having a one-sided biased view. It shows that men can also feel uncomfortable with their bodies and that may pressure them into doing unordinary things.