75. Breaking the shackles of the male gaze – Ninja Thyberg

One of the many planned questions I never ask in my pretty intense conversation with film director Ninja Thyberg is this: To state that gender and sexuality are just social constructs is to me like throwing all intuitive capability in the trash. Don’t you sometimes feel we don’t let ourselves be human in this politicized society? My guess is that Ninja would partly agree but also not quite understand what I mean. The hot spots of our conversation have to do with our somewhat different views on the significance of biology (and/or nonphysical aspects) vs social structures. But differences in points of view make for an interesting human encounter, right? Ninja Thyberg is an intelligent, brave and curious person who very early in life began pondering sexuality and gender roles. She wanted to explore the drivers behind pornography, for instance. After a series of acclaimed short movies, her first full length movie, ”Pleasure”, premieres in theaters across Europe this fall. It is about a 19-year-old Swedish girl who goes to Los Angeles to try to become the next big star in the porn industry. The film is partly brutally realistic. Although it does not show explicit sex (and the only full frontals are of men) it still contains several crude scenes. ”Pleasure” has many layers, and despite the rawness of the industry that is arguably what many viewers would expect, it also shows the friendship, drive and humor that exists among the female stars, and also an everydayness and kindness. Ninja says she almost regrets that she portrayed the porn industry in such a multifaceted way. Because almost everybody seems to like the film! ”And that's not only a good thing”, she says. ”I wanted to be nuanced, and maybe the film is too nuanced, so nobody is really provoked. Right now I'm just afraid it's going to be forgotten, like ’yeah, great film, very nuanced’, and that's that”, Ninja says. I hardly think her worry is warranted. Thyberg was always drawn to the topic of pornography because it is taboo and nobody wants to talk about it. ”I have been provoked by the hypocrisy in our culture, where people watch so much porn and no one admits it. It takes place in kind of a parallel universe. It's like something that itches and the doctor says don't scratch, that makes me want to scratch it even more.” From there we venture into a more general gender discussion. ”Sexuality is built from the cultural context and that is constantly changing”, Ninja says. ”I know from my own experience that it is possible to change your sexuality. It is what your brain is used to.” I ask about some differences in sexuality that seem to be there, according to studies, like the ability to switch it off and on and how much it is visually oriented. Ninja modifies her view a bit and says we might be born with some differences on a group level. ”Fifteen years ago I thought everything was a social construct and that there were no biological differences. Now I realize it is a combination.” But she also says: ”Of course men are more visually oriented, because they are triggered visually by the male gaze everywhere.” Delving a bit deeper into this aspect, Ninja says that men who want sex but don’t get it are more vulnerable than women who want sex but don’t get it, and she has an interesting reasoning behind that. ”There are some privileges in being a woman in this culture that are seldom talked about in feminism”, she says. ”Things that male losers in the system don't have. If the feminist movement doesn’t recognize this, the counter reactions from these men are just going to increase.”