Porn - I use it and feel bad - help convince me porn is wrong

Mr IC Interesting point on why that sister/mother/female relative argument will and won't work - basically for it to work (as in provide a man with a lightbulb moment) - it assumes a certain level of empathy with a woman as a fellow human being. I have a sinking feeling I've been assuming too much. Dittany spot on as usual.

Oh god this feminism stuff is depressing. I am going to have to go on that thread I read about the simmering rage and start asking for help.

This thread is an education. A horrible education.

Can we have a Feminist Classics section please?

Carmina it isn't a co-incidence that victorian porn co-incides with an enormous advance in women's rights - the married women's property act was being lobbied for and then was won in 1870, the age of consent was raised to 13 and then 16 due to the work of Josephine Butler, it became easier for women to get custody of their children in divorce, violence became recognised as grounds for divorce and of course, women's suffrage was being discussed.

Victorian pornography was a bit of backlash going on, while at the same time they were elevating women as this angel of the house notion. Also, come off it, they didn't show women sucking shit-covered penises, now did they? But I suppose they mgiht have done if women had got the vote earlier.

That's true, I hadn't thought about it like that.

OK, because men don't see their sisters as human. Fair enough MrIC.

Dittany, they do see their sisters as human. That's the reason the argument doesn't work.

Premise 1: (Most) Men see their sisters/mothers/girlfriends/wives as human.

Premise 2: (Most) Men see women who do porn as meat.

So (most) men don't want their sisters (mothers etc) to do porn because then they would have to view their sisters as meat too. The idea of taking the other view and seeing the women in porn as human simply wouldn't occur to most.

I prefer your argument ("imagine if it was you") as well.

er... no, I'm not confusing pornography with women's sexuality.

What I was trying to say Herbeggs and Beachcomber is that if you say to a man - "pornography is bad - just imagine if it was your sister being filmed in those degrading situations" the men in question will agree with you, but the majority will agree with you for the wrong reasons.

They won't agree with you because they would want to protect their sisters from being abused and degraded (at least this wouldn't be their primary concern). They would agree with you because they wouldn't want the shame of having a sister that social mores would label a slut and a whore. (Social mores of course largely being defined by men). Men are primarily concerned with their own status - having a sister who does porn would lower their status, which is why they'd object to it.

You wouldn't have succeeded in humanizing the victim with the "imagine it was your sister" argument, is what I was trying to say.

Tab - would I mind if my daughters went into the porn industry?
Yes I probably would mind - but if that's what they wanted to do and were entering it consensually then it really would be up to them wouldn't it. ( dd1 was considering becoming a fashion model, that industry isn't entirely risk free ) - and wrt hardcore porn being some sort of revenge for feminism ( I know it wasn't you who said it ) I'm sorry but that's incorrect - anyone who knows anything about the Romans will confirm that!
Pornography wasn't invented in the 60's - it's been around since the beginning of time ( Victorian porn often depicts women being tied up etc ) so to suggest it's revenge for feminism shows a lack of historical knowledge. You could argue that feminism has made porn more acceptable and mainstream as women have a lot more freedom of choice and aren't as inhibited about sex - Y'know - if you wanted to be nonsubjective.

I don't think the point for feminists is that it is, 'wrong' for women to sell their bodies.

The point is that it is harmful for women to sell their bodies, and in the vast majority of cases, the women who find themselves in the position of doing it, are damaged and vulnerable people. Anyone who knows how high the rates of histories of sexual violence, rape and childhood abuse, are in women in porn, cannot argue otherwise surely.

If men would stop dehumanizing women and buying them/paying to abuse them/making money from abuses them/paying to watch them be abused/jacking off to them being abused, we wouldn't have a problem, would we?

That is the core message, it's wrong to buy women, and it's wrong for women to sell their bodies.

I will do the google experiment later and see what I come up with. Perhaps it's true that I'm unaware of what constitutes the majority of porn is so extreme. Maybe I'm too optimistic about men.

Given that I suspect most men watch porn at some point (huge assumption on my part) I can't believe most of them are watching the extreme stuff that's been quoted

Rita: I think the main point you seem to be in denail about is what constitutes hard core and 'ordinary' porn. I think this is a really serious problem for us all because so many people want to believe, like you do, that double anal, gang bangs and so on are at the extremes that most 'normal' people don't watch. As soon as you accept that your idea of 'extreme' is actually the norm, you will have to see it differently. Read about Beachcomber's google experiment or try it yourself if you can stomach it.

I don't think she's blaming the victims, Beach. I think what she means is the problem of teaching vulnerable young women that it is acceptable to sell their bodies, and it is OK for them the think that it is their only skill or purpose in life.

Rita that sure seems like an upside down way of looking at things.

The problem with porn is not the women who find themselves in the position of selling sex. I hope you don't mean it that way, but that just sounds like so much victim blaming to me.

The problem with porn is what HerBEggs said so well in her last post.

In total agreement with everything in HerBEggs' post of Fri 15-Apr-11 12:05:42.

dittany, I've read both of those book, and my objection to porn comes from the angle that TAB comes from, that it's not ok to teach women it's ok to sell your body for sex, doesn't matter if it's page 3, or gang bang.

I suppose I want to focus on that, rather than the extreme ends.

By the way, I watched the documentary, and it was horrible

Thanks all

When I was growing up my behaviour screamed abuse You only had to look at me to see I was in agony yet people turned a blind eye. I see porn as the same thoose women are screaming yet many people just claim it is ok and yet again ignore evident abuse. I guess people want to live thier nice happy lives without the inconvenience of others pain. I agree with Dittany there is a big difference between a teenager and a adult. I never expected a child to have the power to stand up and say no but I think it is reasonable to expect it of a adult.

Rita, I think the answer to that is still no. Because, as Crawling illustrated, for the girl's to think it's OK to sell their bodies for the enjoyment of others it is likely the result of past abuse. Therefore, the porn industry is still profitting off the abuse that was inflicted upon them.

The problem with this hardcore stuff is that it's even worse torture for people who've already been subjected to these sorts of acts for the amusements and pleasure of abusers. Now they are staring in videos of it and thinking that everyone likes to do this stuff that they now see as normal. Everyone happily sits down to watch a women recieve double anal penetration in their eyes. This further reinforcing their belief that no one cares about them as human beings and everyone is perfectly happy for them to be nothing more than a jizz-rag. When they need help, not to be gang banged repeatedley.

Rita I think men like to watch this stuff because they are exposed to the idea that women are less than human from a very early age. They are surrounded by messages which say that women have encroached on their territory and are castrating them, they are encouraged by nearly all the societal messages they receive, to resent the gains that women have made in the last century and fear them and fight them instead of welcoming them, then they are exposed at a ridiculously early, vulnerable age to revenge fantasies in effect, of humiliating and degrading the human beings who supposedly are castrating them. That's what these fantasies are about - punishment and revenge for women not knowing their place. You wanted sexual freedom and liberation, you wanted the right to sleep around and have no strings sex just like men do? Well here you are, have it then, with three penises at a time, at least one of them with shit on it in your mouth.

And they are encouraged to be the viewer and the perpetrator - the viewer is not in the place of the abused woman, s/he is in the place of the abuser.

dittany, I don't watch as much porn as you do, but my understanding was that those categories you mention are not at the mainstream of porn - yes, they exist on the internet.

Ok, starting from scratch, would it be ok if porn were only straight man-woman sex? Is your only objection coming from the more extreme forms?

Yes what I can't understand, is how people are happy to allow boys to see this stuff - they should be protected from it, not bombarded with it as part of the construction of their masculinity. Where is the fucking responsibility of adults who shrug and start bleating on about censorship? Do you really not value boys any higher than this? Is the porn industry really more important than the psychological and sexual well-being of the next generation of human beings?