Pornography vs. erotic fantasy

Well said Sunshine.

No Gingerbread Dad. Read what I wrote. I am comparing attitudes towards child porn and erotica.

And I've already said - more than once - that I don't wish to ban anything. Because it's too subjective. That's what my post is about.

Thankyou Sal

I agree totally Sunshine.

You are now comparing child pornography to erotica? who is this 'we' by the way.

I am sure there are people who would find some of the things you have read unacceptable and would gladly like that to be taboo. Who decides what literature is taboo or not, whilst you are not into the plumber fantasy you acknowledge that there are probably a large number of women that are so why does your view trump theirs?

This isn't a debate about censorship v anything goes.

I don't want porn banned. Not least because it will go completely underground which would be even more harmful for women. And if I don't want porn banned then I am hardly going to ask for erotic literature to be banned.

What I want is for some control over how the sex industry is marketed and how mainstream porn and erotica becomes as a result.

I don't know about you, but I don't want 9-year-old kids watching/listening to Rihanna writhing around talking about S&M. I've got no problem with S&M and I think open relationships can be a good thing. My young children already know the facts of life and when they become sexually active I will support them in their choices so that they remain healthy and safe. I am hardly a prude. But I don't want my kids growing up thinking that most sexual relationships involved bondage gear the way the current crop of female pop stars are portraying it. That's not healthy and no one will convince me that it is.

Someone will undoubtedly say "well don't let them listen to it then". OK, I don't. But plenty of parents will. The largest part of any pop fan-base is children, teens and the under 25s. It's a well-known demographic. Parental influence can only go so far and peer pressure is a well-defined and understood phenomenon. A whole generation is currently growing up being bombarded with these messages and thinking misogynistic terms for women - bitch, ho - are acceptable, that sex routinely involves bondage and burlesque gear, that women are basically prostitutes (kanye west, nelly), that it's fine for relationships to involve violence (eminem).

I'll give teenagers the credit they deserve - a significant amount of them are able to see through this. But an awful lot aren't.

One of the reasons so-called pornpop is so prevalent now is because porn has become so mainstream and acceptable in our society. I don't think trying to get it out of the mainstream is a bad thing. That doesn't mean banning it. It means making it private, between adults, not having it available at children's eye level in supermarkets or splashed all over daytime MTV or playing as soundtracks in soft-play centres and youth-clubs.

Now erotic literature is not in the same league, I agree. For a start it's less visual and you have to read it to take it in. You won't see kids absorbing through advertising and mainstream culture.

I said I hadn't made my mind up about how I felt it should be handled. I don't like it for the reasons I gave in my first post, but I am NOT calling for it to be banned. I was simply pointing out that it may be at the other end of the spectrum from hardcore porn but it is still on the spectrum. Therefore, if you're going to talk about erotic literature, to some extent you will end up having a discussion about porn generally.

I don't think that's a bad thing actually. Why we can't have a culture where we don't normalise misogyny but where you can still get hold of erotica?

Yup.

([German accent] I'm here to fix the washing machine... lol. Plumber porn )

Have you missed the objectification points made, then, GingerbreadDad? Because it seems like you have not really read the thread, just decided that the feminist prudes don't like sex and want to stop other people enjoying it. When in reality the discussion is a bit deeper than I Don't Like It.

I agree Jenny, censorship isn't the answer, because you are letting one person/a few people arbitrate for everyone else. (I mean if it was up to me I'd ban plumber based porn/erotica as I had an unsexy experience with a plumber once thereby pissing off all the millions of plumber-fanciers out there). On a practical level, censorship is impossible, now more than ever. But I think that we should collectively assert what we don't find acceptable. Much like we do with child porn, it's totally taboo.

This is the problem with all art forms, surely? Where should we create the parameters for what is acceptable? Where do we draw lines for censorship? These are almost unanswerable questions...

I really don't get it, not everything you don't like is wrong, works of fiction are not like pornography where there may be possible exploitation. It just looks like you want a authoritarian regime.

There are many books where the bad guy wins should we get rid of those as well? because they are not putting out the message you want. Whether you like it or not peoples tastes vary.

Yes I read the posts you have made previously

Gingerbread Dad you must have missed the posts that have explained why they perceive it to be harmful.

Difficult to know what you're saying is or isn't fiction there GBDad. Any chance of a comma?

It is fiction no one is harmed in the "creation" of it if you don't like it fine but that does not make it wrong. Unless anything radical feminists don't like is just wrong wrong wrong basically our way or the highway?

The older I get, the more I think that Mary Whitehouse might have had some nebulous truth underneath all the behind-the-times crustiness we associate her with... Am I just getting conservative myself?

I'm also reminded, in discussions of this type, of the '64 Potter Stewart quote:

" I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..."

Slightly OTT reaction there SGB. I already said I didn't think censorship was the way to go.

No one is arguing for the banning of Mills and Boon, which would be ridiculous. I was simply musing on how it's still a part of the whole thing, albeit at the extremely gentle end where it's doing no harm. Erotic fiction can fall anywhere between the two extremes. Some of it is nasty nasty stuff, some of it is nice. I think jenny makes a good point about how we should discuss this as part of a spectrum, with people free to make their own choice about where they fall in it but with an accepted awareness that the one extreme can portray extremely unhealthy attitudes towards women.

I thought you made a good point about we have books about serial killers, murders, horror, etc and how the people who read them are mostly perfectly normal, decent people who don't go round thinking it's acceptable to kill people just because they're read about it in a book. I read a lot of crime fiction myself and I've got no desire to go round killing people.

However, in horror/sci-fi books, the scenario is very different to the world we live in, so no one confuses it with real life and ordinary people. In crime fiction the killers are nearly always caught and punished. Good always tends to triumph in the end. In all these books there is always a plot and usually some sort of resolution in the ending, which more often than not has a moral judgement in it.

Most visual porn doesn't have moral judgements. Women can play out rape scenes for other people's enjoyment and no one gets punished. In fact the woman will have to pretend she likes it, and IMO that does contribute to rape myths, such as 'no means yes', etc. Murder is punished in our society. Rape and sexual crimes against women - not so much. Not by a long shot.

Now I agree that good erotic fiction isn't like that, and if people enjoy reading it good for them. But I make no apologies for feeling that the hard core stuff that plays into misogyny and rape myths should be treated with derision and come with a warning cover. If that makes me like Mary Whitehouse so be it.

Of course most will be middle-of-the-range stuff that reinforces gender stereotypes but isn't misogynistic. I think it's a lot easier to see through the stereotypes but still enjoy these if we make it clear that the nasty stuff is extreme and unacceptable.

I think this is yet another area where we need to address attitudes with education. In this case, I would say it would be helpful to encourage people to think of pornography as a drug (especially with the availability we now have on the internet). At one end of the scale it might be a little bit like caffeine - a light and enjoyable stimulant - but at the other end it can be pure Class A: the production makes unethical people rich, abuses the workers involved, attacks society and reduces the 'users' to hollowed-eyed wrecks.

Who said ban it, SGB?

Disclaimer: no, I didn't really report the post about Draco and leather trousers .... I was doing this thing called 'joking'.

What SGB said.

Who said Ban it All, SGB? You're taking it all very personally, I'd go as far as to say you're bleating and whining about it. If i remember rightly you're an erotic writer yourself? Well, even if you're not totally objective, at lest you're not a prude. Phew, eh

Oh FFS! If you are going to whine about erotic fiction describing Bad Things then you might as well just fuck off over to join the corpse of Mary Whitehouse and Ban All Fiction NOW!
I appreciate the ethical objection to the coercion of performers in visual porn/erotica, but when there are shelves and shelves of fiction describing all sorts of horrible things happening to women/men/children/animals that are quite openly sold and openly discussed and reviewed but are labelled as literature/horror/sci-fi/thrillers, and everyone understands that they are fiction and their authors not threats to the public, those who get their actual sticky jollies from evisceration or dismemberment will have plenty to wank over anyway.

And anyone who bleats and whines about Bad Stuff in specifically erotic fiction as a reason to ban all erotic material is someone who is clearly demonstrating that yes, actually, for all the rhetoric, you are a prude and you do have a problem and a lot of issues around sex.

I agree sunshine
We're all so very non judgemental nowadays - good - but it leads to moral relativism. It's plain to see on the other thread about the 12 year olds who were raped, where it's seen as normal for preteens to meet men in parks for gangbangs Cos you know, some people like that, and hey who am I to judge? (Except in this case that's the view espoused by the actual judge)
Maybe it's time to bring back the taboo? (Can't believe I said that. someone prove me wrong please...)

And LeatherTrousersDraco is just sick!

mumwithdic thanks for posting the quotes. It's quite interesting to read. I don't know what she wrote before and after those quotes, but that's quite different from the 'pro-porn' label she's been tagged with I agree.

I always find myself in a dilemma with issues around erotic literature and the like. I accept that as there are no real people involved there are no victims as such, but I still feel that they contribute to an overall objectification of women and that they uphold an ideal about sex - THIS is what good sex is like etc - IYSWIM.

However, what can be done about it? Even though I want to see lots of things in life stopped - e.g. porn, pornpop music videos, rants against immigrants and women in the tabloids etc - I am generally against censorship because I really dislike the idea of any government deciding what is 'good' for us as if we are naughty children.

In my ideal world I guess we'd have much more discussion about these issues and how they contribute to social problems so that the demand for these things was lessened and they disappeared. We're a long way off that though - in fact they are becoming more pervasive in society - so maybe we also need to discourage them as much as ignore them. Dunno really. Still thinking about it.

i think that's what I mean about objectification LaWeasley. In ordinary porn you have no idea about the people involved. Just that she's blonde with big tits or whatever. Nor is there much attention given to her feelings, just actions. You can't really get more dehumanised than that.