 | James Miller Miller on Tap |
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I own pornographic software. Well, pornographic is kind of a strong word. Racy might be a bit more accurate. Last Christmas, a friend bought me the Playboy Screen Saver. On my computer, after two minutes, a series of scantily clad (sometimes not ever that) women parade around on my screen. The program comes with several, adorable, Hefner-esque variations, like "The Girl Next Door" and the "Wet and Wild." Usually the pictures are rather innocuous, maybe tasteless in their worst moments, topless coeds trying - to the best of their puppyish abilities - to look alluring and sexy. Yet this little CD-ROM has been a wonderful teaching tool for me, and not just about the Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue. My semi-dirty screen saver has shown me volumes about something college students are mired in hip deep: The human response to sex.
If I had to count the number of times since I moved in that I have caught hell from people about the damn thing, I'd have to take off my shoes.
You would be amazed at how seemingly rational, half-educated college students have become visibly upset over a girl in a bunny costume parked on my monitor.
Putting aside the issues of feminism and sexual politics this raises for a moment, this is also right to privacy issue. This is something I have in my room. It's not like I have it on my door, or on a sign around my neck. Can you imagine the gall it takes for someone to waltz into my home and chastise me for my choice in incidental computer technology?
I beg your pardon; I didn't realize that everybody's personal, mental comfort was my responsibility.
But back to the sexual politics.
Women hate the thing. I have not had a single male objection, but nearly every woman who has seen it usually reacts to it as if I had a jar of phlegm perched on my desk. If anything the Screen Saver Sociology project has given me insight into feminist attitudes about sexuality. Particularly about the kind of bra-and-pasty sexuality presented by a filthy piece of software.
Now, a true feminist would believe that there is nothing wrong with a woman posing for these kinds of pictures, because feminism is a movement that gives women the right to make choices. It's not important if it's the choice to run for the Senate or the choice to be slobbered over by 12-year-old boys, and, I guess, me. The nature of the choice is not important. The choice in itself is paramount.
But that's not the kind of rhetoric I hear. The main argument I've had pointed my way is that images of this kind are degrading to women and encourage men to view them as sex objects.
Well, of course these women are sex objects. What else is the point of a Playboy Screen Saver? Was anyone under the impression that these women are recruited for their insights on Mideast politics or their witty banter? Doesn't it strike anyone as remotely stupid to criticize somebody (OK, me again) for looking at a woman in dirty pictures in a sexual way? Isn't that the damn point?
It's important to realize the purpose of things like this: cheap titillation. The entire concept is to have mostly naked, attractive in a cliched sort of way, in cheap, tawdry poses to excite a simple and malformed section of the male psyche. Criticizing a Playboy Screen Saver for being exploitative is like criticizing techno fans for having no taste. It's just their nature.
But this is about as far as this kind of thinking should go. The women of Playboy or other analogous publications are, by definition, sex objects. Only a fool would extrapolate this into the rest of real life. It would be grossly inappropriate, at the very least, to view all women in this context. Outside of this limited sphere, to look at a women as purely a sexual being is totally indefensible.
Since the average Jane did not ask to be judged on her physical merits by posing for such things, it makes no sense to evaluate her worth based on them. A purely aesthetic judgment of a person is very rarely merited and has little usefulness in the real world. It only applies to the gauze and bronzed world of centerfold land, and that's where it should stay.
And finally, wouldn't it be great if we all lightened up just a little bit? It's just a few dirty pictures. It's not the end of the world, no matter what Andrea Dworkin thinks. Are we all so afraid of our own libidos that the slightest prurient exercise sends us into a tailspin? Perhaps if Americans didn't have such a Puritanical attitude toward sex, we would be more at home letting that lean and hungry side of ourselves out to play every once in a while. All this over a screen saver?
- James Miller can't be reached over e-mail at jamespm@umich.edu. He is too mesmerized to check e-mail.