Math Magazine and 'good' porn.

Why can't porn become, as you say, an emancipatory political act if it is controlled by women?

Because a bad thing doesn't stop being bad just because a woman does it.

Exploitation does not become "an emancipatory political act" just because a woman is doing it.

Someone mentioned cigarettes way back. Cigarettes do not cease to be carcinogenic if the factory is owned by a woman. Cigarette advertising would be no less unacceptable if the Marlboro man were the Marlboro woman.

I'm not upset, I was merely stating the facts about your interaction with another poster.

Xenophile I'm sorry if you are upset by my comments to Sillage but I took this to be an attack on me. "You might be the very worst debater I've ever encountered on Mumsnet. I can't tell if you really think what you write is sensible or if your one-handed typing isn't intended to be sensible in the first place." I was a little drunk so I replied when I would usually be more restrained. I apologise for any offence.

Buffy that's really, really interesting and you make some excellent points. I don't think our positions are miles apart. As you say "Really I think the most that can be claimed from 'feminist' porn is that consumers are probably not doing any extra harm by making or consuming it". As we stand at the moment that is exactly my assessment. We agree

We live in a society where mainstream porn is ubiquitous and harmful - I think we agree on this.

You correctly identify the chicken and egg situation in relation to porn and how porn reinforces patriarchal ideas. We agree on this

This is where we disagree. I think if more feminists produce porn we can help to change the narrative. I don't know about using porn to educate I was merely pointing out they are trialling this in the Netherlands. Why can't porn become, as you say, an emancipatory political act if it is controlled by women? If women are presented as clearly controlling what is happening to them could that (chicken and egg) feed into wider society?

You say " porn isn't neutral " (we agree), most mainstream porn is harmful. Can we make porn that isn't neutral in a positive way? It isn't porn in and of itself that is causing harm it is how it is produced and used.

I am an optimist, I can't stand the idea that there is nothing we can do apart from stand and watch from the sidelines saying how terrible it all is. Which brings me back to my original point - if women (who want to) become critical consumers of porn, it and society can be changed positively.

Now before you all tell me how naive I am, I know. However, the morally superior (not being sarcastic) alternative of disaproving appears to stand no chance of working. Leaving porn to the misogyists will only continue the downward spiral.

Feminist porn - Morally ambiguous but more practical?

I make no claim to be perfect or indeed right I am struggling to do the best I can in the society I live in.

Thanks for taking the time to do that concisely and elegantly, Buffy.

My apologies, the post I'm thinking of was on a different thread. As you were.

Not sure if one of BitOf's posts from last night is missing. There's the one where she's taking the piss out of Sillage and then the next one where she's saying she's drunk and then defending porn again, neither have crashing in in them so???

Fab post, Buffy.

Bitofacow, is one of your posts missing from this thread, one from last night, something about crashing in? It seems to have vanished. Is it possible for posts to be deleted without showing a deletion message? I was going to reply and had left a tab open, but when I refreshed it, the post had gone...very odd.

I would read "we cannot say porn is the cause" as the authors saying they don't know and can't prove it.

That is not what they said.

"The ‘pornography’ explanation seems partial at best, not least because young people only seemed to see this as motivating men, not women. We found other important explanations and motivations in young people's accounts, as we will see below."

Christ - a sexual practise where you have to be taught to "enjoy it painlessly" - excuse me while I don't rush to try it.

And as for "just say no" - yeah, that works so well in a society where sexual violence or the threat of it is ubiquitous.

Causality is very hard to prove. Do fashion magazines cause anorexia? Or does the media reflect society?

I would read "we cannot say porn is the cause" as the authors saying they don't know and can't prove it.

However, this is where we find ourselves so do we stand around saying its terrible while wringing our hands. Give women the confidence to say no to anything they don't want. Or teach people about anal sex so they can enjoy it painlessly.

Lass - "well if you don't think about it, what do you know?" from Bit"

What I would say is it is brilliant you are involved in a discussion on a complex issue. There are no easy answers and all (most) contributions are valid.

The BMJ article did not say that porn was not to blame. It said that there was not conclusive evidence that porn was to blame. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Scientists understandably tend to be very careful about such things.

But the BMJ article was chilling. What it showed IIRC was that a majority of young women aged 16 to 20 had tried anal sex. Of those who had tried it, a minority enjoyed it. The rest were split between those for whom it did nothing (not entirely surprising - women don't have a prostate gland) and those who found it uncomfortable and/or painful. The terrifying thing though was the attitude of the young men. A substantial proportion knew that their female sexual partners didn't want anal, expected to have to use "persuasion" up to and including coercion and, worst of all, engaged in this process of "persuasion" in the knowledge that the woman might well find the experience painful.

How anyone could read that article and take from it the message that "porn wasn't the cause" (in fact the autgors said, paraphrasing, "we cannot say that porn is the cause") is beyond my comprehension.

What I meant is that isn't it in the interest of pornographers to portray sex as bad or sleazy?

I don't watch porn, never have but I don't get the impression porn promotes sex as a natural , fun thing to do.

Doesn't porn rely on an underlying assumption that sex is dirty ?

Porn relies on the consumer of the material being sexually aroused by it and being willing to pay to experience that pleasure. IMO it is not that sex is dirty, but rather that it is largely an intensely private experience.

Buffy - if it is the same article I am thinking of, it explicitly stated that the explanation of pornography as a reason for the practice of anal sex among the interviewees was partial at best.

So if women make and control some pornography they can start to fight the idea that sex is a 'bad' thing and only men enjoy it.

Sex isn't a bad thing. Who nowadays seriously says it is?

Who says nowadays that only men enjoy it?

Even if those statements were true of current attitudes and mores why would porn be the answer to changing attitudes?

Doesn't porn rely on an underlying assumption that sex is dirty ?

I think I've thought more about porn in the last week than in the previous 57 years of my existence. I suspect that is setting me up for a fall along the lines of "well if you don't think about it, what do you know?" from Bit

An aside, I'm wholly unconvinced by directors like von Trier and whoever made the tedious 9 Songs that a film is in any way improved by the actors actually having real sex.

Sorry I'm a bit drunk.

I quote "anal sex at all is indicative of pornography's effects on modern sexuality. " I repeat anal sex is as old as sex. The idea that it is new fangled thing brought about by porn is laughable. It has been practiced by a wide variety of societies for a wide variety of reasons for millennia. One of the reasons is that some men and (oh my gosh) some womern like it.

disclaimer - anyone who doesn't consent should not be forced.

Oh dear bitof. You seriously think that the fact Greek women (who didn't have reliable contraceptives) used anal to avoid pregnancy demonstrates that the rise of anal as part of the sexual repertoire of young women today ISNT linked to porn?

You might be the worst debater on MN arrgghhh the pain. The misery. How will I cope? Sillage of the "anal sex at all is indicative of pornography's effects on modern sexuality". Anal sex is as old as sex. No, no it is caused by pornography. Still LMAO. Off you go.

You might be the very worst debater I've ever encountered on Mumsnet. I can't tell if you really think what you write is sensible or if your one-handed typing isn't intended to be sensible in the first place.

Either way, I won't waste any more time on you.

"In later Greco-Roman times, sodomy lost its standing as an abomination. Called pedico, it was practiced by men and women, the latter largely for contraception."

www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/55717-the-7-weirdest-sex-stories-of-the-ancient-world.html

Yep anal sex directly influenced by modern pornography's effect on modern sexuality. LMAO. No one did it till they watched porn.

"Ive watched porn and so has my partner and yet i dont feel like i HAVE to have anal sex all the time or any such nonsense."

That you have anal sex at all is indicative of pornography's effects on modern sexuality. I'd say believing you have a right to include prostitutes as a part of your sex life is another influence of porn.

"Porn has been around since the dawn of time and always will be."

It really hasn't. Nudity is not porn. Cave paintings in France are not porn. Venus figurines are not porn.

I strongly disagree that "Pink Prison" (produced by a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa.) is a pro-woman or feminist.

These are the keywords IMDB (rated 3.9) links to it:
prison
sadism
photo reporter
interracial sex
shower
catfight
hardcore
sex

There's also nothing pro-woman I've seen about Ovidie either, perhaps you can explain why you think she's a good example of someone raising awareness about women's oppression or fighting to attain rights for women in some way not making itself clear.

It's worth noting that Ovidie fits the common pattern of pornstitutes who gave up prostituting in porn themselves as soon as they made a name for themselves. Just like Tristan Taormino stopped prostituting to direct, immediately after achieving a little mainstream success in the crossover porno "All About Anna" Ovidie's stopped performing prostituted acts on film and moved behind the scenes into running the business of commodifying sex and prostituting others.

Porn is one of the very few arenas where hitting a level of success doesn't lead to more success in the industry so much as it quickly ushers the 'talent' out of the industry.

Pimps and pornographers frequently tantalize desperate young women and girls with the possibilities that their "nude modeling" will lead to mainstream success. It's a well known grooming tactic.