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The use of women to sell products is nothing new. The Virgin Mary has always been one of Christianity's biggest shills. Check out all those medieval triptych's of the bare-breasted virgin -- put her in a bikini and paste her into an imaginary beer commercial: it would work.

The trick of advertising is that it works on me even when I know I'm being manipulated by it. It's the same with rape in a Max Hardcore video. Max's performers tell us they are not being raped; the images tell us they are. My brain tells me I am too sophisticated to be manipulated by a TV ad, but the images nevertheless perform miracles of manipulation.

I know that popping open a can of beer will not result in an explosion of bikini-clad vixens in my living room. But every time I see a commercial, some part of me compares the idealized models to the reality of my life. My reality always comes up short. I don't have muscles and a hairline like the guy in the ad; my girlfriend doesn't have a face and body like the women fawning all over the guy in the ad.

In an old ad for Pantene shampoo, model Kelly LeBrock used to say, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful." The flaunting of LeBrock's unattainable beauty was obnoxious -- clearly, you didhate Kelly LeBrock. You hated her because she was so beautiful. You knew that a woman as beautiful as LeBrock would seldom look your way. And your girlfriend knew she would never look like LeBrock no matter how many times she shampooed with Pantene. At least, this is how the commercial worked on me.

The ad, like most others, engendered hatred of the model, hatred of my life and, probably, self-hatred in whichever woman I was with. I am a misogynist of fantasy women. I feel exploited by them. I hate commercials. I hate the women in them. I hate supermodels. I hate it when they write books. I hate it when their lives and tragedies are detailed in supermarket tabloids. I hate it when I read these stories.

I hate it when a girl I care about looks at her body and tells me she doesn't like her breasts because there are tiny stretch marks on the sides. I hate it when she tells me she doesn't want to go out because she's feeling ugly. Usually, she feels this way after reading Cosmo or Allure, or a story about Cindy Crawford's latest romance in the Star.

Before I left Hustler, I wrote a highly favorable review of a Max Hardcore video. I described Max as a genius, who was making some of the most brutally honest cinema in America today. My praise was tongue-in-cheek. Max's films were disgusting and sick, but they raised uncomfortable questions about myself and the industry I worked in.

Is pornography misogynistic? In my mind there is only one response. How could it not be? Pornography comes from a culture that breeds misogyny. At least it seems to have done so in me.
salon.com | Jan. 18, 2000

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