Making Today’s Marriage Work: Smart Women and Egalitarian Relationships

For all its protestations about being liberatory, most of today’s bestselling porn is atavistic and repressive. Women, goes the theme, should accept and enjoy abuse from men. In a recent study of 50 of the most popular hardcore films,

“…I’m going to begin to talk about what it is that we found after
looking at these 304 scenes in these 50 top selling pornographic films.
In total in the 304 scenes we coded a total of 3,376 acts of
aggression. That ends up averaging…to an aggressive act every minute
and a half. The scenes on average contained eleven and a half acts of
verbal or physical aggression…

“Most of the aggressors in these films were men…73%. By far the most common recipient of aggression was a woman…

“How did the person respond when they were aggressed?… In 95% of
these 3,000 and some acts of aggression, the person was either neutral,
as in no change of facial expression or verbal expression, or was sort
of saying, ‘That feels great. Keep doing it. Right on.’ And in only 3%
did we see some overt expression of displeasure or pain. Again, it
seems to be very important to the people who are watching this to
believe that the recipient of aggression is fact enjoying it, is
choosing it at some level.”

Films on sale at Amazing.net (“the largest adult retail chain in the nation”) proclaim over and over that women are stupid and need to be put in their place:

Dumb Blonde Bitches (24hr)

Intense Fetish # 724 300 Strokes For Spanky
…Every stroke is applied to her tender ass. See her ass
get red and bruised with small blood blisters forming. Spanky is a real
pain slut. You will see her writhe in pain and then smile in ecstasy.

Pain In The Ass
The bitch has been naggin at you
all fuckin day. Take out the garnage. Do the dirty fuckin dishes. Dont
drink so much beer. Blah Blah Blah. Theres only so much a man can
fuckin take so when its bed time make it your turn to be the major pain
in her ass.

Young Dumb And Full Of Cum
The Hottest In Hardcore! They’re Cute And Have A Mind Like A 20 Watt Bulb!…

Young, Dumb And Full Of Cum 7
They havent got a clue… and we love fill them in!…

Young Dumb & Full Of Cum #9
They dont have a thought in their heads…

Same at Kink.com:

Sex and Submission
“Our powerless girls scream as they are tied up and forced to have sex
over and over. Are they screams for help or do they really just want
more?”

And Hustler:

There are those who say that illogic is the
native tongue of anything with tits… It comes natural to many broads;
just like rolling in shit is natural for dogs… They speak not from
the heart but from the gash, and chances are that at least once a month
your chick will stop you dead in your tracks with a masterpiece of cunt
rhetoric… The one surefire way to stop those feminine lips from
driving you crazy is to put something between them–like your cock, for
instance.

If you’re looking for a happy marriage, these messages are dead wrong. Stephanie Coontz reviews the latest research in “The Romantic Life of Brainiacs” (The Boston Globe, 2/18/07):

One reason educated women are more likely to marry today than in the past is that modern men are less threatened by equality and more interested in finding a mate who can share the burdens of breadwinning. Many studies show that men now want a wife who is at a similar educational or occupational level. The 2001 Journal of Marriage and Family paper found that in mate-preference surveys taken in 1985 and 1996, intelligence and education had moved up to number 5 on men’s list of desirable qualities in a mate in both surveys, ahead of good looks…

Furthermore, college-educated couples have lower divorce rates than any other educational group. And in the last 30 years, while the marriages of less-educated women became less stable, the marriages of college-educated women became more stable. College graduates are more likely to have egalitarian ideas about sharing housework and breadwinning, and recent research shows that egalitarian ideas and behaviors improve marital satisfaction for both men and women…

They have better sex lives, too. According to sociologist Virginia Rutter of Framingham State College, surveys show that educated couples engage in more variety in their sex lives… Educated husbands are also more likely to help with housework, which turns out to be a potent aphrodisiac. Psychologist John Gottman, professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle, found that when men do more housework, their wives are more likely to be “in the mood” for sex…

Studies have shown that men whose attitudes become more egalitarian during their marriage report higher marital satisfaction, and so do their wives; they also have better sex lives and more socially aware children…

See also:

Wall Street Journal: “What’s at the Heart of Happiness?”
Studies have found that married folks are happier than those who are single.

Marriage is Undersold in America
The
empirical evidence is now strong and persuasive that a good marriage
enhances personal happiness, economic success, health and longevity.
This evidence should become a regular part of our educational programs
and our public discourse.

The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
Maurer found
three common traits that distinguish sexually satisfied couples from unsatisfied couples: (1)
acceptance of one’s own sexuality, (2) listening to one’s partner and being aware of a partner’s
likes and dislikes, and (3) open and honest communication.

Moreover, according to data from the General Social Survey in 2000 (N = 531), people
who report being happily married are 61 percent less likely to report using Internet pornography
compared to those who also used the Internet and who had completed the General Social Survey
in 2000…

…the
following observations were made by [the 350 attendees of the November 2002
meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers] polled with regard to why the Internet had
played a role in divorces that year…56 percent of the divorce cases involved one party having an obsessive interest in
pornographic websites…

“Spousal Use of Pornography and Its Clinical Significance for Asian-American Women”
Many female participants in the study by Bridges et al. (2003) noted a
diminution in their partner’s sexual desire for them and believed that
their partners had come to prefer the pornographic models to them…
They reported a decline in the intimacy of their relationship, a
diminished sense of their partner’s commitment to them, strong feelings
that their partners failed utterly to respect them or understand their
emotional distress concerning the pornography, and lastly, a sense that
they were living a shameful lie by presenting themselves to others as a
loving and committed couple…

Testimony from Northampton Shelter for Battered Women: Half of Abusers Use Pornography as a Part of the Abuse (explicit)
We have recently begun to formally ask the battered women who call us
whether the abuser uses pornography and from this we conservatively
estimate that at least 1/2 of the abusers use pornography as a part of
the abuse. Battering is based on an issue of power and control, with
the abuser using all kinds of methods to continually assert his power
and control over the woman. Throughout, he is persistently working to
deny her of her ability to make informed decisions about her life and
through threats, coercion, and continual terror succeeds at clearly
establishing himself as “in control”. We frequently hear a woman say
that she feels like a prisoner in her own home, and in fact, she is.

Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values; Women’s Desire to Have Daughters Plummets
Pornography consumption had a most powerful effect on evaluations of
the desirability and viability of marriage. Endorsement of marriage as
an essential institution dropped from 60.0% in the control groups to
38.8% in the treatment groups…

Steve and Cokie Roberts Report on Marriage: A Good Idea that Refuses to Die
Steve,
who’s been the Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George
Washington University since 1997 [and married for 41 years], says that
time and again his students come into his office and ask, “How do you
do it?” The students aren’t asking how to write a snappy lead or tips
on getting an interview with Al Gore. “Popular culture tells them it’s
naive and foolish to think of having a lifelong devotion to someone.
But they have the impulse. I’m not saying marriage is right for all
people all the time, but I think it’s right for most people, most of
the time. To have a partner to go through life with is one of the most
elemental human desires, and these kids want to hear it’s not a pipe
dream, a fiction.”