The Pornification of America is a provocative yet thought provoking journey about how ‘Raunch Culture’, a term coined by the author, has impacted our everyday lives. This oversexualization in media, the violence against women, how sexual assault gets silenced in politics, this author explores our obsession with sex and how raunch culture is becoming more wide spread.

I thought this book had really great points, a lot of the ideas presented vibed with me and my values. I could understand why raunch culture is toxic and why it needs to be spoken about more. The author brought up a really good point about being a sex positive feminist but still being outspoken about raunch culture and it made me really think about how raunch culture has affected my life.

My downfalls with this book is that it was not very well organized nor was it insanely accurate considering most of the data collected is from opinion. The main ideas of the chapters were skewed over many different sections of the book and yet when past ideas were referenced they had nothing to add to the idea at hand. Also, most of this book is full of opinions from straight people, a small sliver was left to anyone who identifies with the LGBTQIA+ and it makes me wonder how this book can claim to be ‘feminist’ when you are only supporting a fraction of the people who are at disadvantage because of the patriarchy. And finally, she had to defend the term TERF (trans-exclusive radical feminist) under the guise of this slanderous term to be demeaning to the roots of radical feminism and to this I say:
The TERFs out there are falsely using the feminist movement in order to spread their transphobia and I would never consider them feminist in any circumstance, the reason the term TERF is used because it identifies these ‘false-feminist’ and how they have wrongfully used ‘radical feminism’ to spread hate. We should be focusing on how these literal trash humans have gotten away with being coined ‘radical feminist’ in the first place, not their feelings about being called TERFs.

Overall, this book had some really great ideas but the execution and word choices were subpar. I would like to see this as a revised work in the future and maybe a little more researched, (i.e how raunch culture can also affect those who identify other than straight).

Fascinating, eye-opening, informative. It's hard for me to not feel guilty as to how oblivious I was to some aspects of raunch culture before this book. The aspects that I did recognize were those that I would never have known how to talk about, so the assertion that we are ill-equipped to have these conversations must be somewhat true. And the harsh reality, as portrayed throughout the book, is disheartening. How can we really overcome the new incarnations of sexism? It starts with education, and however little one person can do, I know I'll be drawing on some of this content when I need to have these conversations with people.

Raunch culture is a self-explanatory term Bernadette Barton uses to describe the decline and fall of the USA in The Pornification of America. It means women are subservient and mere objects, men rule, and they are gauche, vile, rude, crude and cruel about it. Images of naked and near women are everywhere. And under the Trump administration, all this has become uncontroversial, normal, accepted and expected. It is the patriarchy gone wild.

It makes for a fast-paced, constantly evolving challenge of a book. There is much truth in it, and pulling it altogether makes for a consistent and dispiriting package that is American culture today.

Barton does first-hand research using her experience teaching gender issues at Morehead State University. She interviews women and men, many her own students, and extensively quotes their appreciation of the rather ugly world they inhabit and have grown up in. It is a world of unending ubiquitous porn, violent casual sex and bro culture where women can amuse men by trying to fit in, but they never really rate. They want to be bros. When it works, they are considered dudes. When they displease, they are bitches. The labels are assigned and changed at the whim of the men. Men rule at their fantasy-fueled whim. Women, offended, nonetheless dress and make themselves up for it, and routinely participate. Sadly, the alternatives are few for singles.

It has turned young women into wannabe dudes. They hang out with obnoxious men, and try to match them verbally, while dressing sluttishly and acting coquettishly. That is, if you consider that 40% of customers at strip clubs are now women, who often take off their own tops and sit in their miniskirts and stiletto stripper shoes, as coquettish. Barton says “I perceive raunch culture to be a big con, manipulating women into performing free sex work, into being naked and half-naked, gratis.” American women have become willing partners in their own downfall.

Why any self-respecting woman would dress like a stripper, learn to dance with a pole, swear like a Karen and submit to sexual abuse is what Barton explores. It is sadly pathetic. That it is so popular and uncontroversial is most sad.

She explores the new world of hookups - sex without dating, or what used to be called one night stands. Only today it is well-organized, a meat market where everything is free.

There is a chapter on the casual universality of naked or near naked women in advertising, from tv commercials to giant billboards and everything in between.

And there had to be a chapter on internet porn, a new outlet available to all, from toddlers to seniors. In her experience, it is all about violence, from spanking to spitting to choking, to beating. Basically anything to demean and cause pain. The modern man actually expects to dole it out to be a satisfactory partner, and the woman often expects to undergo it all, or what did she think she was getting into in the hookup scene anyway? Children simply grow up with it, sexting each other from pre-puberty on.

Barton finds that internet porn has dulled the senses something fearsome. There are men who think they must follow the script, and men who can’t reach orgasm unless they are watching porn while having sex with a woman. Porn, now freely available on mobile phones and seemingly innocent social media such as Instagram (a Facebook service), can be seen being mindlessly watched in public, on the streets, in the subways and in restaurants. It is eye candy that keeps men, and to an increasing extent women, from facing the world. It is another way of avoiding or substituting for a real relationship.

Barton adds tremendous color from the words of her interviewees. They have all had these experiences, and for many, this is the way of the world and they know of no other way. This rather shocking state of the union has changed the very nature of American life. It is part and parcel of living alone, as well as the permissiveness of foul language by everyone, and the media pushing to keep ahead of these trends, pushing them farther and faster. It is not so much a vicious circle as a race to the bottom.

There is also a chapter on the strange new tradition of dick pics. It seems men feel entitled to send women they don’t even know photos of their genitals in various states. Even when they do know them, the photos are usually unrequested, unexpected, and unwanted. Doesn’t seem to stop anyone. If it led to a new relationship, perhaps it could be considered worthwhile. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t. It’s just an aspect of the raunch culture where such activities are the new normal. It is meaningless to men and offensive to women. In today’s thinking, that’s a win-win.

Raunch culture is not just vile, it is fraudulent. It “cloaks itself in the language of female empowerment, but it is Orwellian doublespeak. Hypersexualization is not sexual positivity,” Barton says. In other words, this is not feminism rising, it the patriarchy ever stronger. These kinds of insights throughout the book alter the reader’s perception of the scattered parts.

There seems to be no quarter for sane relationships in Barton’s world. Even pastors refer to their wives as hot, or worse. Right in their sermons. “Raunch culture and conservative religiosity are two sides of the same coin, promoting the patriarchy, controlling women’s bodies,” she says. Evangelicals use raunch culture extensively, telling the flock that sex is greatly improved for true believers and anything is permissible inside a hetero marriage. This is attractive to men, giving them carte blanche over their women. “Conservative Christian and raunch cultures work well in unison because both systems position women as inferior to men, and both seek to control women’s sexual expression,” Barton says.

Along with the visual, there is the verbal. Swearing is no longer just commonplace, it is a necessary part of speech. Especially during sex. Most of her interviewees use four letter words throughout their answers to their professor, for example. Barton appears to simply accept this, not attempting to teach anything about communicating effectively. She is a voyeur of the swamp.

She calls what appears in social media e-bile. The constant berating of women, the denigration and objectification is now totally normal. Women are less than hoes, they are holes. Women self-objectify, in a process we used to call being self-conscious. This takes it a few steps further, abandoning all hope of standing tall and instead conforming to the submissive stance required.

That any of this true is depressing. That kids today grow up knowing all this and positioning themselves to participate accordingly is most unfortunate. It does not bode well for the future. This is a society in rapid decline.

The one chapter I did not appreciate was on Hillary Clinton. Barton is one of those still massively bitter that she was not elected president. Barton goes on and on about how perfectly qualified she was for the job (especially compared to Donald Trump), how she was treated unfairly, how could this happen, what is wrong with everyone, etc. We’ve seen this all before, in more appropriate contexts, and Barton adds nothing to the argument or to her own book with it.

She is especially critical of Trump calling Clinton names, accusing her of crimes and so on – because she is a woman. This is incorrect. Trump is like that period, even with Republican males who don’t toe his line. It was not (purely) because she is a woman, but simply because she is a Democrat. That’s all it took to unleash all the vileness he could muster. Any Democrat would have received it, regardless of race, creed or sex. Barton clearly let her feelings overtake her otherwise fair analysis throughout.

Of course Trump himself is the poster child for all that is wrong in this new relationship-free dystopia. His own wife, a former escort, has famously posed naked for magazines. The exalted image of the First Lady of the United States is out the window. The first couple lives in separate apartments, both in Washington and in New York. They famously have no pets and do as little as possible together. There is nothing normal about their family. His pussy-grabbing comments, gestures to his crotch and claims that women who accuse him of rape are not his type all set the tone for the violent hookup culture he presides over. It reminds me of my favorite New Yorker cartoon of this presidency. A mother is chastising her ten year old son, saying Young Man, “we do not use presidential language in this house.” What better description of the Trump decline and fall can there be?

But what of the blame? There are three candidates for Barton. Parents have never done their duty explaining sex or how to relate to someone else. “The talk” parents are supposed to give their adolescent children mostly never happens.

Schools in America have abandoned any kind of sex education, relying on parents to keep it inside the family and the home, which does not happen. “Porn has to stop being the de facto sex-ed,” says Kayla, one of the student interviewees.

And women should support each other better. There is not just safety in numbers, but close relationships among women give them reinforcement.

None of these factors is new, unlike, say, dick pics and internet porn. It means that the fault is purely negligence, allowing a crazy weed to grow wildly out of control. The three factors (parents, schools and other women) have the ability to rein it in again, but history shows that is shall we say, unlikely.

Barton’s final say is over feminism, which she counts on for support, comfort, reinforcement, growth, protection and promotion. But as I read, I couldn’t help thinking this applies to everything. For example, substituting the term labor union for feminism throughout gives exactly the same result. Humans need outside influences, second opinions, available allies and trusted relationships. Any kind of human relationship would help minimize the current state of decline. It’s really not an issue of feminism. It’s bigger than that.

Same for online porn. Barton doesn’t examine it this way, but since she says the overwhelming majority of those connected to the internet dote on porn, we should recognize it as highly valued in people’s lives. Then perhaps we can deal with it, promote a healthier version of it, minimize the crazier parts of it, and maybe even manipulate it to help users, instead of crippling them in real life. Just a thought.

Hers is not an optimistic analysis, but it is thorough and enlightening. For those of us who have managed to develop close relationships involving love, trust and respect, The Pornification of America will be a revelation. The slimy ads gracing our televisions and billboards are the just the tip of a gigantic iceberg that is sinking the very nature of American society.

David Wineberg