2001 channel 4 documentary on porn

Max Hardcore is the same, he enjoys the power and degrading the women, he gets pleasure out of it. That is why he does it. He wants to feel powerful and make his victioms defenceless.

I don't agree with these pyschologists who say this about pathology

"This failure to recognise and emotionally respond to facial and other signals of distress may underlie psychopaths' failure to block behaviour that causes distress in others and their lack of emotional empathy, the scientists suggest."

When Ronnie Kray held a red hot poker to the eyes of another criminal and threatened to blind him, he understood teh fear of the other person, he enjoyed that person's fear, he was sadistic and cruel. It made him feel powerful that the other person was weak and fearful.

Psychopathy:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6198704.stm

I read up a lot about this a couple of years ago after my own experience with one.

This book, written by a neurobiologist, is interesting:

www.amazon.co.uk/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/159102580X

Not that I am making excuses for these people at all, I hasten to add. I wish that we could ship them all off to a desert island somewhere.

Yes, agree, they are evil. But what turns them evil. All of the Hutus and Tutsis do carried out atrocities weren't eveil before it started. Somehow they were swept up in it. People can be turned evil by messages that society pushes out as well. That is why it is important that porn like this doesn't grow in popularity.

But if we don't ever worry about "why" how can we ever stop it? If we don't try to understand, does this not just let the situation carry on?

Just read the thread. remember seeing the documentary at the time. Shocking and disgraceful that these things are allowed to be made.

I think the core of the disassociation and treating women as objects is to do with power and its converse weakness. Sexual experience is a biological urge but emotional attachment is regarded as a weakness since it leads to loss of control and power. It means being under the control of emtions rather than controlling emotions. The same urge to power and treating of others as objects is seen when gangs stamp on the heads of others or when Hutus and Tutsis butcher innocent men, women and children or when the soldiers in Sierra Leone chop the arms off babies. The objectification of others allows the person doing it to mistreat them without any human emotion or empathy.
The urge to power is really due to an underlying weakness that is compensated for by exerting power.

Criminals, thugs, con men, pornographers etc. objectify others in order to mistreat them and gain power and money by exploiting them.

their

not all men

just this minority of men, who have the ability to switch off heir humanity

Thanks Beachcomber. But if men just want a sexual experience without the emotional attachment, why don't they just masturbate? And what is it that makes them want to avoid the emotional attachment in the first place? Where does that come from?

I would like to know at what point men came to see women as "objects"?

This is interesting from Robert Jensen, (he is very good isn't he);

"Meg Baldwin, a feminist law professor at Florida State University who left academic life to run a women?s center, once gave me more insight into this process. Baldwin, who has worked for years with women who are prostituted, said one of the common experiences of those women is coping with the unprovoked rage and violence that johns will direct at them. Baldwin told me that after hearing countless stories about this reaction by men, she concluded the rage was rooted in this self-objectification. She sketched this process:

Men typically go to prostitutes to have a sexual experience without having to engage emotionally. Yet when they are in the sexual situation, they sometimes find themselves having those very same emotional reactions they wanted to avoid, simply because our emotional lives cannot be completely controlled. When they feel those things they wanted to suppress, the johns lash out at the most convenient target -- the women who they believe caused them to feel what they didn?t want to feel.

If Baldwin is right and, based on my own experience, I believe she is we could say that men turn women into objects in order to turn ourselves into objects, so that we can split off emotion from body during sex, in search of a sexual experience in which we don?t have to feel. But because sex is always more than a physical act, men seeking this split-off state often find themselves having strong emotional reactions, which can get channeled into violence and cruelty."

uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/realmenrealchoices.htm

It goes some way to shedding some light on the cruelty aspect.

Hmm...maybe that should have been "depressing and fascinating"...

This has been a depressingly fascinating thread.

I haven't seen the documentary - and wussily don't want to subject myself to it, having read the interview with the director and the various other links posted here - but I still feel sick about it. And the fact that this type of porn is watched for pleasure....

I lurk around these threads and sometimes occasionally post. But for me, I really want to know why some men act this way? Where did it start? Where does it come from? What is it that makes them behave like this? How far back in history do you have to go?

Sorry! Lots of questions there....

Sorry, Beachcomber - I misread what it was you were looking for.

In terms of the men who engage in this type of abuse, I think there are the psychopaths like Max Hardcore.

And there are others who abdicate all responsibility for their actions by saying that the woman involved has "chosen" to do it. Therefore, if they line up to fuck a woman who is being paid, and who they have told themselves has chosen to be there, they will suppress any conscience nagging that they might have.

An analogy that I'd draw is with men who visit lap dancing clubs. Most men I know who visit lap dancing clubs know deep down that it's exploitative but even my own older brother (depressingly - and boy, did he fall off his pedestal the day that he said this to me) abdicated himself of all responsibility by saying that the dancers "choose" to be there. He gave himself permission to go into a strip club on his stag night and pay a 19 year old girl to dance naked in a room for him and 5 mates for about 20 minutes.

I am glad that Andre and I understand each other.

and some people like to watch it on film, and rewind/FF to the best bits

...but they can, and they do

Yes, that is it exactly. You just don't imagine that human beings would behave like this towards other human beings.

"she thought she could handle it, but she was wrong, she thought she was dealing with people who had at least a tiny kernel of human decency left inside them

she was wrong

I think that was the point of the documentary, in a nutshell

the sheer evil and inhumanity of it all...I don't know if anybody would comprehend that truly until faced with it"

I have had experiences like this. I thought I was dealing with a human being, with human feelings.

Some people don't have that gene, or have willingly suppressed it for their own gratification.

Very, very scary.

JessinAvalon Absolutely! Topics picked by the women who run Mumsnet are essential reading for my daughter. It matters what you say, not just the manner in which you say it.

PeterAndreForEtc I have considered your accusation that I'm attention-seeking and concluded that that doesn't quite cover it. Widen your imagination.

Got to go now. Bye.