You only have to open any porn site to see that women are put into categories: Japanese, black, interracial, spinster... And just because you don't consume porn doesn't mean you're not influenced by its codes.
The origin of vaginismus lies in the unconscious representation of the sexual act, in particular penetration. Black, Arab, white and Asian women are not represented in the same way in society, and in the sexual imaginary delivered by porn. Racial positioning (i.e. the way they are perceived) therefore impacts on the construction of vaginismus for each of these women.
Beurette and veiled woman.
One of the first and most recognised boxes is that of the beurette (regularly in the top search). This is the fantasy of the nun who goes wild, who removes her veil for a man, or two, or three. Like almost all categories, that of the beurette comes from the colonial and post-colonial period: it is a way of fantasising about the Orient and the contribution of civilisation. The submissive veiled woman is sexually liberated. This exoticism transposed onto the bodies of Arab women has been denounced by the #pasvosbeurettes movement. But vaginismus is in itself another form of protest.
Arab women may develop vaginismus as a reaction to being assigned a sexual fantasy: they do not recognise themselves in the imposed norm, and their unconscious clashes with this difference. To become aware of this, you can ask yourself: what sexual representations do I identify with and what sexual representations am I being referred to?
Black panther.
As far as the black woman in porn is concerned, exoticization is also in order, but it is not based on the same processes. The black woman is not said to be submissive, unlike the Arab woman, but very active, almost too much so. She is seen as sexually aggressive, enterprising and sometimes domineering. She does not need to be liberated but rather tamed, as one would tame an animal. Her sexualisation is based on a form of animalisation.
Society dictates to all women a very limited sexual behaviour where virginity is considered sacred. But on the side of collective representations, black women are considered, as black women, to have a liberated sexuality. This opposition between two assignments can also be at the origin of a form of vaginismus: the unconscious is caught between two fires, and ends up blocking itself.
White women, and gangbanging by black men.
When it comes to white women in the porn industry, it's different. They are only called white when they are filmed with people who are not. And the most common videos on this subject are interracial gangbangs (one white woman for every 10 black men). This time it is the partner, the black man, who is animalised, and the white woman is depicted as prey, taken by assault.
A brief historical note: In the 19th and 20th centuries, the French state attempted to symbolically separate the colonists from the natives. The emphasis on difference was used to justify unequal treatment. The idea of the bestiality of the colonised spread, and it was on this idea that the natives were made into the allegedly worst rapists. The colonists feared that something would happen to their wives when they went out of private quarters: the fantasy of the white woman being assaulted by the natives was born.
Little by little, this fantasy, which concerned more the colonised North Africans because they were more in contact with the colonists, evolved thanks to the porn industry. It is the black man who becomes the great fear of the white woman. Videos featuring interracial gangbangs are numerous, and the violence of these videos (often close to rape) does not fail to impregnate the imagination of white vaginic women.
Japanese student, the Asian woman.
The Asian woman is the object of an extremely fetishised sexualisation. To begin with, she is reduced to a nationality - Japanese - in most pornographic sites. Secondly, she is supposed to correspond to certain anatomical criteria such as the narrowness of the vagina. This widespread idea leads to distorted representations of Asian women's own intimacy. The resulting vaginismus is not so much in opposition as it is in accordance with the norm: by hearing that they are too tight, enclosed, and that this is what makes them desirable, Asian women persuade their bodies that this is a reality.
Among Asian women, another fantasy is added: that of women perceived as "Indian" and their more or less close link with the Kâma-Sûtra (reduced to a simple sex book, which it is not). These women are then reputed to have highly developed sexual capacities. These representations can be a source of pressure, and thus of vaginismus: since the more expectations are placed on women, the more their sexuality is likely to be affected.
In conclusion, I would say that being a woman is not enough to explain the construction of vaginismus: because you are never just a woman. Other categories enter into our identities, such as racial positioning, and these categories condition our sexual imaginaries and thus the relationship we have with our intimacy. To rethink your sexuality, you can turn to sites like Bellesa, which openly say no to these patterns and question the importance of these patterns in your own imagination.
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