 Hello, welcome to Quok Talk. I'm Crystal here on Think Tech. Tuesday, kind of dreary morning, kind of rainy, kind of a day where people like to stay at home and watch TV. Maybe you're turning on some porn. Or maybe better yet, come and join us for a conversation about porn. How about that for a Tuesday morning topic? So, a month ago, we had this topic. This is part two. So, please, you missed it. You have to go back on the video spreadsheet on the Think Tech website and check it out. It had a very interesting conversation with our guests. And, you know, porn, the reason we broke it up into two parts, porn and pain, is because there's just so much about porn. So much baggage, so much background information that we had to cover last time. And again, I encourage you to go and try to find the reference and file and watch it, because it is very, very insightful. So, we didn't really get to the pain part so much, because there's so much nitty-gritty, interesting industry information about the porn world. Now, we've got our wonderful guests again to continue our conversations about porn and pain and the concept of the more you watch, the less you feel. Hmm, right? Okay, so we're going to dissect this pain concept with my beautiful guest, Professor IU Saraswati, again from Women's Studies at UH. Welcome again. Thank you again for having me. Thank you. All right, so we're not going to recap everything we did last time, unless you have some, like, a nutshell that you wanted to carry forward that remind people of. Yeah, so one of the things that I would hope that we get to talk about today that we didn't talk about last time is the ways in which pain is actually the thread that connects the porn world together. And this is an argument that Professor Albert Jensen argues. And this is one of the things that I sort of talk about in my book as well in terms of, you know, what does that mean, that pain is the thread that connects the porn world together. What was this book that you referred to again? It's by Robert Jensen and Gail Dines. And so the ways that, when we look at the world of pain and the world of porn through the lens of pain, well, first of all, when we think about sex and sexuality, do you often think about it in terms of pain or in terms of pleasure? Pleasure. Pleasure, right? And so we know that our brain works in terms of using pain and pleasure as our compass, right? And so we often think of pleasure when we want to do something fun and we want to do something more of that. When we experience something that is pleasurable, pleasurable, then we want to do more of that. And when we experience something that is painful, we tend to avoid that, right? And so in my own book, I'm thinking about, well, how can we think about sex and sexuality differently if we looked at it from the perspective of pain rather than pleasure, right? Because, again, sex is often talked about in that sort of a pleasurable activity. But what kinds of different understanding can we get at when we look at sexuality from the perspective of pain? So that's what my book is really about. And so, and obviously in one of the chapters I talk about porn, right? And again, rather than looking at, you know, different ways in which, you know, porn has been represented or like women has been represented, I look at the narrative of pain in porn and particularly in terms of Asian women in porn. And so that's what we talked about the last time, Asian women and the ways in which when we click the category of Asian women in porn that they are often presented as experiencing that pain. Right. Which is a pleasurable pain. It's almost like they wanted it and that's why the men proceed. Yes. Or in these sort of like narratives in these videos, the women themselves are not really experiencing or like represented to be experiencing pleasurable as such as they are really experiencing pain and the pleasure comes from the people watching such a sort of painful activity. For this is mostly a male audience, right? Yes, heterosexual male, mostly. Okay. Is there a history of pain associated with porn or just pain associated with sexuality? Is this something that's been in our innate human nature ever since or do you think it gets worse and worse or more distorted because of what we're exposed to? Yes. So pain in some ways, it's one of again, one of the narratives and we talked about this last time as well, is that it's only one story, right? But isn't that interesting that this is this story that is attached to Asian women. So if you actually watch porn, which I kind of have to do and you click on like this different labels, different categories, they have the male category, they have all of these different categories, then the narrative is not always about pain, right? But what's interesting, what this professor talked about when he talks about pain as this thread that connects the porn world together is that when you think about it, porn is a performance, right? So we have porn stars are workers, right? And so the assumption here is that there is pain even as these porn stars are doing their work, right? To have to perform sex and sexual intercourse with, you know, another actor in some ways, right? That there is pain in there and the people who watch it in some ways are assumed to come from that space of pain, right? When they watch it, there's this something unsettling about their own sexuality, about women's sexuality, about men's sexuality. And I don't necessarily agree with that assumption because there is an interview with different women porn stars who talk about their experiences as workers and you know, some directors would even say that they would choose performers who exhibit sort of positive energy that they're pleasant to work with. And so this idea that that porn or like the setting of porn films as this sort of site of pain, I don't necessarily agree with that. But what I am sort of intrigued by is this idea, you know, when we trace the story of pain, right, in porn or in our life or in terms of sexuality, what understanding do we get from that, right? Can we break down this pain into different levels or different interpretations of pain? Absolutely. I mean, there are against scholars who differentiate between emotional pain, physical pain, bodily pain. But again, that is very Western, Westernized in some ways, right? Because without the duality of the split of the body and the mind, then what is painful in the body is painful in the mind. I mean, I've never experienced, you know, like my tooth aching and like, oh, it's just physical. I have, you know, which is kind of interesting, right, to think about it that way. But what I love is there's a feminist. Her name is Gloria Anzaldua. And her take on pain, which I love, and she said that pain is the way of life, right? Pain is the way of life, right? But what I love about this is that pain is neither good nor bad, right? It's just is the way of life. If you are alive, then pain is just- You experience pain. Childbirth is painful. Exactly. No pain, no gain. There are so many aspects of pain that you can experience. And so obviously sexuality, you know, as we experience life, we experience sex, we experience sexuality, we experience pain. It's just part of that. It's an integral part of that. But, okay, so taking that part of that, does porn distort that concept of pain? Yes. So, so, so porn takes, so when we see porn, particularly the kind of porn that I analyze, again, it's attached to women, Asian women, right? And so the men themselves, we don't really see them as having pain. They're not in pain. No. In some of the videos that I watch, we don't, sometimes we don't see the male's face, right? Because obviously the angle of the camera is positioned so that the audience or the viewer embodies the male gaze, right? Or the male bodies. So we don't really see that. Nobody wants to see kind of a guy huffing and gruffing anyway. I don't know. Exactly, right? But why do we assume that? Because, because I think, you know, it is such a beautiful thing. And I think to be able to integrate every single aspect of it, the pain, the pleasure, and everything in between, and to really see even men and women and all different kinds of genders, to really experience, you know, sex, this beautiful and delicious thing, right? But what we see in porn is just, particularly, again, the one that I looked at, that the women are in pain and pain as a bad thing in that way, right? And it's not meant to disturb you. This pain in porn, right? Creators of these videos are believing there's a genuine market and an attraction to this form. You know, I don't know this concept of genuine or real sort of like desire, right? Because obviously, there's no such thing as desire as being free from our social environment, right? There's desire map. And in some ways, we'd like to think that how we feel is natural. But in my first book, actually, I talked about feelings, right? And the ways in which that feelings is the ways in which power works, right? And so if you want to understand how power works in our society, we look at how we are made to feel a certain way. And so some of the examples, I didn't really talk about this in my book. So it's kind of power and pain, that whole duality. Yes, yes. So in some ways, so it's an example that is easy to understand in terms of understanding how power is gendered and all that is, I often ask my students, if there is a heterosexual sort of couple, a mother and a father, and then the baby starts crying in public space, who do you think would feel more guilty to pick up the baby and soothe the baby, right? And so usually my students would say the mothers, right? So again, this shows that even as we feel that this feeling is natural to us, that in some ways that this feeling sort of reflects how power works in our society, that women are taught to feel more guilty to take care of their kids than men, right? So associating that with the porn though, do you think that women place themselves in a different situation or accept their role in porn because of society? Absolutely, absolutely. Both the women in porn themselves, because again, these women are workers, right? They're actors, right? And so they have to work, they have to perform a certain way, which is, embodying that feeling of pain and also as well as the audience, right? Could it be male, could it be female? They are made to feel a certain way when they watch these things, right? And so when I study this, I clearly remember how certain days I couldn't just wake up, like I felt very depressed after watching this, right? Watching porn. Watching porn, because when you study this, you don't just watch, right? No, it's not like. You actually replay the same film over and over and over. Do you watch it with your students and discuss? Oh, no, no, no, no. I don't do that. I don't do that. No? No. And so, you know, after watching it days and days and I became sort of, I felt depressed, right? Because in some ways, because rather than embodying the gaze of the male audience, I felt that I'm that Asian woman in the film and I felt violated. And there are also this notion of, you know, digital rape, right? In some ways, that you feel that you're being raped, that every time I enter the space of the cyberspace, I felt like it's not a safe space for me to be. You know, I don't know if I went to the extent of depressed because I don't see it as much as you. I just kind of did my research and just, I don't even want to open the clips because I don't want to go there. And I also, why is that? Why do you feel that way, right? Right. It's disturbing. And also, what I was thinking with the violent issue that you're talking about is what triggers the violence in men against women out in the real world. That's what really bothered me. Absolutely. When people, when men distort the concept of sexuality. Yes. There is actually a study that shows that men who watch porn are more forgiving in terms of the violence that are happening around them, right? It doesn't mean that they are more likely to rape, right? But it is, but the studies show that they're more sort of desensitized in some ways, right? And so when they see sort of like violence around them, they tend to not respond with sort of like, you know, well, let's stop this. I don't think cultural backgrounds affect how men perceive, you know, even if porn is the same all over, because if they're upbringing and how they treat women or their positions, do you think that that is something that is huge? Absolutely. Absolutely. Right? Cultural background, sort of family background. But unfortunately, we live in a culture that is patriarchy, even in the US, right? Right. We see that last time. Yeah. And so when we still live in that culture, and they call it a rape culture, right? A rape culture, you know, when we see all of these things that are happening and then we see certain people who are not being quote-unquote, you know, punished in a certain way when they rape, right? Or people of certain genders and race don't get punishment. Or they blame the woman for asking for it. Yes. The victim blaming, or like a judge would ask, you know, did you see that article? Did you see that article? Yeah, knees. Oh my God, let's talk about that. Your knees together, right? Where was that? Was it, okay, I don't remember where. But there was a judge in which ever state recently. Yes, yes, yes. Do you want to talk about it? Yes. Yes. So I think he asked the victim, the survivor, you know, why didn't you, you know, put your knees together, right? So that you can prevent rape. And so that was interesting. Because in some ways, again, this is the rape culture, right? It's the sort of victim blaming that you can do something about it. Rather than looking at the structure, rather than looking at the institution, you again blame the women. Right. So going back to the porn image of porn and pain, and taking that stupid judge's concept of closing your knees, is you get the other extreme. So in the porn videos, you've got these women, maybe it's a little BDSM association, but they tie the women up and stretch them out till you can't even get any more exposed, the other extreme. And so what does that do to your concept of sexuality? Really, it's just, it's more than in your face. Yeah. I mean, I think when we bring up like issues of like BDSM, I think it's very, very important that we really dissociate BDSM with pain and the kind of pain that I talk about. Because I, you know, I did go to, you know, BDSM workshops as part of my research, I did go to, you know, and become part of the community of BDSM and, and really spend time with them. And, and when pain is, you know, part of your sexual activity, and when it is done in such a chronicle professional ways, I don't know how else to say it, but in a respectful way. Okay. So when you have the consents, then all those consents. It is the consents. And it is actually hard because I had to learn how to, you know, you're flogging, you had to do, all you had to learn how to do it. It was part of my research. You don't know how to whip, I mean. I don't know. I don't know to do it in the right way. And, and the way that is both respectful and the way that actually aroused pleasure in the other person. And it's actually hard. Nice, they can't do that. It's a fine line. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing when we can do that. And so, so I just need to sort of, you know, put it out there that it is not. Let's hold that thought. We'll take a quick break. I think this porn and pain we're onto something. And that fine thread that you're talking about that links it or crosses over and turns you into the dark side. I don't know. We're going to continue to deconstruct this painful pornographic topic. So don't go away. We'll be back very soon. Aloha, everyone. I hope you've been watching Think The Kauai. But I'm here to invite you to watch me on Viva Hawaii every Monday at 3 p.m. I'm waiting for you. Mahalo. Aloha. I'm Kaylee Ikeena, president of the Grassroot Institute. If you want to be an informed citizen, we invite you to watch every week as we bring wonderful guests together on Ehana Kako, a weekly program on the Think Te Kauai Broadcast Network every Monday at 2 o'clock p.m. We talk with people who know what they're talking about when it comes to the economy or the government or to building a better society. So we'll see you then on Ehana Kako, which means let's work together every Monday at 2 o'clock p.m. on the Think Te Kauai Broadcast Network. Aloha. Hi, I'm Donna Blanchard. I'm the host of Center Stage, which is on Wednesdays at 2 o'clock here on Think Tech. On Center Stage, I talk with artists about not only what they do and how they do it, but the meat of the conversation for me is why they do it, why we go through this. A lot of us are not making our livings doing this. And a lot of us would do this with our last dying breath if we had that choice. And that's what I love to talk to people about. I hope you enjoy watching it, and I hope you get inspired because there's an artist inside G2. Join us on Center Stage at 2 o'clock on Wednesdays. Bye. Hi, I'm Stacey Hayashi with the Think Tech Kauai show, Stacey to the Rescue, highlighting some of Hawaii's issues. You can catch it at Think Tech Kauai on Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha. See you then. Back to Qwok Talk, talking about foreign paying with Professor IU. Now, we're just getting into this heated discussion about what pain is and what it really kind of opens up into. IU, we have a wonderful lady in the panel that I always like to bring in to kind of stir things up. And Zuri, you never see her, but she's always there. She's the one controlling the panel. So, Zuri, welcome into our conversation again today. Hello. Hi, Zuri. You know what? Have you ever watched porn? I think I'll have to admit it on air, but yes. Of course, right? Who hasn't, right? Okay, so my question is, this is like an open woman's girl's discussion. After just dabbling in some, you know, no offense. I'm not trying to be not PC to any ethnic background, but why are black dicks so huge? Can you please, like, forget your professor thing. Zuri, let's talk girl talk. I mean, what's your take on it? You know, that's actually a very interesting comment. And, you know, it seems to be that a lot of men, black men have, you know, what they'd call a mendingo. They're more large and everything like that. But it seems to be a cross-cultural thing. So, that is something different. What I'm interested in is, what do you think about the different categories of women in concerns, in terms of race, race and ethnicity? How do you think they're portrayed differently? How they're portrayed differently in the world of porn? Right. Like, we've been talking about Asian women and everything like that, but have you been noticing or have you ever noticed how they portray black women? You know, I don't even see that many black women. That's so interesting. Do you want to ask Dr. first? What do you think? Why are there different portrayals of, yeah? Oh, yeah, because racism and sexism, obviously, as they intersect, is live and, you know, alive and well in the porn industry. And this is another part of it. And why it's so important is that rather than challenging these sort of, you know, racist sort of ideologies that porn industry really runs with it. Right? And this is why, as you talked about earlier, that the presentations of black men is always hyper-sexualized, as well as black women. It's always sort of like hyper-sexualized in a certain way. And Asian men, in particular, is being emasculated. And even in some of the comments, because the study that I do, I don't only look at the videos, but I also look at the comments that these people would make about particular videos. And in some of these videos, people would say, why are these women screaming? You know, because like the men who is, you know, penetrating them only have like small penis, right? And because it's, you know, Asian men. And so, again, there's this sort of stereotype that is always been... But there's some truth to it, though, no? Well, what people would say about media, media is always either exaggerates, right? Some people would say, you know, what do you call that mirror? Oh, the carnival mirror. Oh, right, when it distorts that funny hand? Yes, yes, yes. And so, media is always like that. There's always certain parts of truth. But what does that mean anyway, when you are already really distorted? Asian men come in all different sizes and shapes, just like black men, just like white men, just like women, just like... So, did you hate it when I made that comment about black men? I kind of, yeah. I wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear it. Yeah, because I think that's part of the problem, right? Because, you know, because that is not obviously true, but that is really the stereotype, and that's how racism, you know, perpetuates it. Wow. Well, you know what, Zur, I think you picked out a huge issue here that I don't think we can even continue to do in such a short time. Do you have any reflections on that yourself? Because your ethnic background is part Indian and part African, is that right? Yes. Well, I am black, and I am Native American, Ojibwe, to be specific. But, you know, I was just kind of reacting to that because I thought it was very interesting that black men are portrayed to have, you know, these big dicks. They're so powerful. Every race wants them. But then, when like a black woman is portrayed, it's like, you know, this ghetto black slot, things like that. Like, so she's demeaned. Yeah. And so I was kind of going to ask the doctor what she thinks about women who kind of go away from realistic porn because the, you know, the selection is so limited and so demeaning for my own race. Does that make sense? Wow. So, yeah, she's asking about how you feel. I mean, where does it, like, you know, she said there's such a lack of representation and equal depiction of black American women or Asian or ethnic backgrounds. And where do people go and how does that affect them? Yeah. So what is interesting that there is a study by, I believe, Professor Miller, I mean, Miller Young, I believe, and she looks at specifically black women as porn stars and how they themselves have websites. So rather than going to these websites that I study like Uporn.com or all these other websites, that they themselves, because of this internet, this is also what internet does to porn industry, is that it allows us, if we want to, like, open our own website and be our own porn star so that we can get the money ourselves. And so what she was talking about, that that allows sort of black women to have their own websites and gain the financial freedom by being porn stars because of this internet industry. So that's really interesting. And what I also want to highlight is that, you know, internet is such an awesome place that there are artists who created websites like what it's called milk, M-I-L-K. And on that website, it's not only just porn, but also she would have this sort of counter ticker where you will read, you know, like how many people have died of HIV by the time you watch this porn. So in some ways, you're being more critical about porn. And when you watch porn, it's not only within that context of your own sexuality, but also the larger part of that. Although that in itself I think is problematic because the narrative that we often hear in sex ed or anywhere is that don't have sex because then you'll have these STDs and stigmatize people with STDs because, you know, we have people who have cancer, we have people who have diabetes, we have people who have, like, it's just disease, again, pain, just, you know, like, illness is just part of life, but you stigmatize people with STDs and so that's also not a problem. How do you think people can educate themselves to be more critical when they do, if they go and engage in watching porn, it's fine, everybody has their own freedom and choice. But how do you educate people to distinguish which way things lie? And if you're uncomfortable with it, what do you do, how can you be proactive in doing something else to compensate? Like Zuri was her concept. Yeah, there are websites, which I don't remember, I just read about this, but there are websites made by women for women and for porn, right? And what they highlight is that they want to look at the quote-unquote real sex, they want to look at real bodies, so not just very particular, very, again, people have the options to have breast augmentation if they want to, but, you know, certain porn sort of videos often highlight women who have particular kind of body shape. And on this websites, women would have, you know, people with different kinds of, you know, breasts, different kinds of bodies, so it's real bodies, real sex and real orgasm. What's this website called? I don't remember, I just read it last night. Oh, okay. But it's made by women, for women. I like that. It's inspiring. And so there are websites like that. And again, thanks to the internet, because before, if you think about the production, the distribution of porn videos would be very, very expensive. Right. Now with the internet, everything is, you know, relatively, you know, cheaper. And it's ironic, I mean, I have to go back to the first time we talked about porn last month, is you mentioned that the whole porn industry, you know, we used to say, oh, it's the internet that's encouraged this whole boom. But in fact, you said it was the other way around how you created the whole security system. Yes, yes. Because porn really, you know, forces the internet to, you know, get it together, you know, if you want to continue to arouse us, right, the security system, the payment system, and even the fast speed that, you know, we can, yeah, absolutely. Right. So well, we've opened up, you know, a can of worms, if you wish. I mean, a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about these types of issues. But you know what, it's out there. So whether it's in your face or whether you want to do it on the side and not telling them to light yourselves every day and deny the fact that you are doing something that you think is not healthy, you know, please educate yourselves, think about it, be critical, and know what's out there. And like IU says, you have your choices, you can be proactive in creating, not necessarily sites, but just creating just your own position on something. IU, just in our short time left, do you have anything else we can leave the audience? And Zuri, thanks again for that wonderful joint discussion. Yeah, absolutely. So check out, you know, certain blogs, certain websites like feministing.com, right, Miss Magazine blogs, where you can then learn more about issues of women that are empowering for us and then do Google search of, you know, things that could be pleasurable, pleasurable and empowering for us. Excellent. All right, we'll take that with you. Enjoy your Tuesday after morning. Yeah, okay. All righty. And again, thank you for tuning in on Think Tech and we'll see you next week.