Porn

I agree Beach, it is hate speech against women, one of the very many problems I have with it.

However to what degree is society fine with it? At what point did hate speech and contempt towards women become socially sanctioned? Men are socially conditioned, conditioned to consume amongst other things.

Hatred is not born out of biology it's conditioning. There is a dialectic between social conditioning and to what degree we shape the social environment, how we view it, react to it and how we are shaped by it in turn. (probably been reading too much Hegel!)

The same as the this Maddona whore complex,good wives stay chaste, made that way through indoctrination, economics and unpaid labour whilst poor women are kept in slavery (through government policy, re education, benefits etc) to be exploited in a different way, through sex work, poorly waged and forced labour (read about mexican women working in Louisiana.) these women have lower social status because they are of a lower socio/economic group.

Because our social status is our economic status and it is the labour we undertake, the value we confer upon all people is based on class, both means of exploitation and the way in which it is justified. How many times do you hear the sex positives say "well if she wants to earn money, well if she has a family to feed" That is a justification of exploitation not a defence of free choice IMO.

Thanks, Beach, that's my whole problem with it. Objectification that facilitates hate-filled behaviour - and vice versa. If anyone doesn't like "hate" they could try "contempt". If anyone still won't face it, they could try asking your average, fun-filled, porn-using guy to pose around naked while women slag off his looks, then let people shove things down his throat and up his bum while still insulting him. And slap him around a bit. Tell him he "loves it".

But the porn peddlers are selling hate speech against women. And society is fine with it.

And that is a very concerning dynamic.

IMO.

"PATRIARCHY IS A HISTORIC CREATION formed by men and women in a process which took nearly 2500 years to its completion. In its earliest form patriarchy appeared as the archaic state. The sexuality of women, consisting of their sexual and their reproductive capacities and services, was commodified even prior to the creation of Western civilization. The development of agriculture in the Neolithic period fostered the inter-tribal "exchange of women," not only as a means of avoiding incessant warfare by the cementing of marriage alliances but also because societies with more women could produce more children. In contrast to the economic needs of hunting/gathering societies, agriculturists could use the labor of children to increase production and accumulate surpluses. Men-as-a-group had rights in women which women-as-a-group did not have in men. Women themselves became a resource, acquired by men much as the land was acquired by men. Women were exchanged or bought in marriages for the benefit of their families; later, they were conquered or bought in slavery, where their sexual services were part of their labor and where their children were the property of their masters. In every known society it was women of conquered tribes who were first enslaved, whereas men were killed. " Lerner, The creation of patriarchy.

For me it all just comes down to one thing, men exploit women for power and wealth accumulation, in competition with other men, to control property rights through assured progeny, they high jack women's sexuality and exploit their free labour and then sell it back to others at a profit. So advertising food mixers and peddling porn are two sides of one coin!

The first imaginary friends were female the very earliest religious represenations show great big fat fertile goddesses: it took human beings quite a while to work out the link between sex and babies, so women were initially regarded as magical, powerful etc because they produced new human beings! Subsequently, men wanted to make sure that they had women under control, as breeding stock. Hence patriarchy.

Eh?

You couldn't make this up...

I have a vague awareness that the last remaining bonobo are in Congo, which has been a warzone for years. Maybe it's just been safer to study chimps?

Chimps pair-bond and fight over food (and engage in prostitution, possibly). Bonobos don't. I've seen theories that the human brain contains all the parts of both species, but imagine it's probably a bit more complex than that. They haven't finished analysing bonobo DNA yet: they only started this year! The fact that they did trog chimps way before bonobos just goes to show .... that biologists are more interested in aggressive, pair bonding species??

I want to be a bonobo :)

I don't think the behaviour of other primates necessarily "proves" anything; we're also very chimpanzee-like in some of our behaviours. (Gang raids on the next troupe/tribe, gang-rape just as examples.)

Hmm.

If you can convince women that they don't like sex, they won't bother looking for it elsewhere, hence men can be reasonably sure that the children they are supporting are their own. FGM and footbinding have the same end result.

I think we need to be very wary of extrapolating from other species but do bonobos have any concept of fatherhood? If everybody is shagging everybody, the males won't know which babies are theirs.

We really can't look to biology for lessons in morals.

Back on the bonobos! I have just been doing some reading on bonobos, what a great life, a matriachal society, way to go

So it would seem that bonobos share much in common with us, with their genes being 98% identical to that of Homo sapiens, they have sex because they like it, they share, they show empathy and the males derive their position in the pecking order through the matrilineal line. The males do not show aggression towards females and babies.

So does this prove that women were socialised and later indoctrinated to not like sex? Why? to whose advantage? The chimps are trading bananas for sex, so that would imply that prostitution is linked to the need to eat (economic) but why women? Is it biology?have men always been better at provisioning food? but in human civilisations that wasn't always the case until we settled the land and started creating a surplus through the development of agriculture.

So if men paid for sex and porn in bananas would it make it ok? Is that then the natural order of things, is it biologically determined, or is the sex industry a different type of exploitation? Violence born out of hatred or exploitation born out of the need to eat?

It is interesting! If we're looking at chimpanzees for insight to human behaviour, let's not forget the very fabulous, matriarchal, sex-positive bonobo.
They shag for fun. Oestrus not required. Which, one might say, makes them more like humans than the trog chimps.

Chimpanzee "prostitution"; or is it pair-bonding? Interesting stuff...

Sorry, Beachcomber, the need to eat statement was a short hand for economic and socio/economic necessity and evolution. When I speak about evolution, perhaps I should be clearer, I am not talking about biology but social conditioning. Our material and social conditions of our lives are closely linked to economics and the need to produce be it wealth, food or children are all socially determined.

Anyway, patriarchy exists, understanding why and what it's built on might help establish how we are going to do away with it I think there might be some truth in the fact that men cottoned onto biological fatherhood, which is something that is puzzling me but I'm not aware of any research into this. Anyone have any links or articles?

The first form of sex industry, prostitution. Seems to me that there is a link between marriage, slavery and prostitution other than subjugating women. The cause may be different than the effect, does that make any sense?

I think there are a couple of misconceptions here:

The first humans were nomadic and it is thought that men hadn't fetishized sex or opted to make it a pass time because they had to keep the population down.

One thing that makes humans unusual is that we have evolved hidden oestrus. We don't come 'on heat' once a month - we're receptive to sex at any time of the month or year and men can't tell when we're fertile. This would suggest that sex has always had a recreational and/or bonding function for us.

There was a human 'bottleneck' when, for one reason or another, the human population dwindled to a couple of hundred. That would certainly have led to a tremendous drive for reproduction.

It doesn't work like that. In evolutionary terms, the drive is always to leave as many of your own descendants as possible, regardless of population levels.

I think a possible key to the beginnings of the patriarchy is the moment when men cottoned on to the mechanics of biological fatherhood.

We've come a long way from porn!

You all talk about porn as a stand alone sujbect. the following link talks about a few effects of porn which I thought was interesting. mrclm.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/great-article-on-effects-of-porn.html
Where I think the impact of porn should be considered is within the context of its use. there is a substantial body of evidence indicating that it can and does have an impact on the individual using it, but where this becomes really significant is in that persons degree of use and behaviour in regard to others in their life. Is he into it and she hates it, so it causes conflict? Does it effect her self esteem because she feels compared to those women or feels like she has to perform acts she isn't comfortable with to compete for his attention? Is there children who are at risk of exposure and she stays because the finacial alternatives are pretty bleak. I just don't think you can say porn is either good or bad without looking at the context.

Did white people keep slaves because of an irrational hatred of black people? No it was purely driven by economics.

Oh I say you pretty much did say it, hadn't read carefully.

Are you arguing that white supremacy and black slavery were driven by a genuine economical need?

Or perhaps a desire to control and have more, and a sense of entitlement and superiority that made the ethics of the situation a nonproblem.

Yes I think ownership is a founding reason for the desire to control women's reproductive capacity.

I think there is more to it than that though.

Just as I think there is more to white supremacy than slavery.

Patriarchy was born out of evolution and the need to eat! I would strongly contest this statement.

That sort of statement sounds to me like an argument that patriarchy is the natural order. That male dominance, force and violence are the natural order. That female subjugation, oppression and lower status are the natural order.

Would you say that white supremacy was born out evolution and need for slaves? Good luck with that sort of statement!

Anyway, this is all a bit off topic - we had a thread ages ago on the origins of patriarchy, it was very interesting with lots of posts from very informed MNers. Perhaps it is time for another one?

Property is the key to understanding why men sought to control women's reproductive capacity. Lerner went in search of the answer and couldn't precisely pin point it either.

The first humans were nomadic and it is thought that men hadn't fetishized sex or opted to make it a pass time because they had to keep the population down. Women would have given birth to children not on the long journey but when settled. Also women were hunters in some societies and pregnant women make useless hunters. To preserve the tribe and ensure everyone ate, everyone was engaged in hunting.

Did white people keep slaves because of an irrational hatred of black people? No it was purely driven by economics. That is why one tribe sold another tribe into slavery?

Patriarchy was born out of evolution and the need to eat! Everything that happens now is born out of the same need. There is no pathological hatred IMO, unless it can be proven.

I'm not sure that we know exactly do we? Perhaps, it isn't an area I'm well read in. I know the theory is that it happened when it became of importance to control women's reproductive capacity.

Indeed I think that is pretty much what you said above; Marriage came about in all societies as a response to man's desire to pass on property to his progeny.

So did cave man hit cave women over the head and drag her back to the cave? When exactly did men decide and largely succeed in co-opting women's sexuality?

I'm just saying that female sexuality has historically been defined and co-opted, by men.

Controlling female sexuality, and reproductive ability, is a cornerstone of patriarchy.

Porn doesn't change that. Rather, it just demonstrates it, once again.

(It isn't my personal opinion that women don't like sex.)