Math Magazine and 'good' porn.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2729435-to-think-this-is-ridiculous-re-guardian-opinion-piece-on-cultural-appropriation

Very interesting buffy! Also relevant to the cultural appropriation thread, if you've been following that.

Nope, there are some actions which just aren't feminist. For instance, a woman can tell me till she's blue in the face that she's a committed feminist, but if she pickets abortion clinics, she's lying!

Incidentally, as this thread shows, the arguments round porn are more complex, and lengthier, and there's an argument that in a perfectly equal world with no sexual coercion, pornography would cease to be a problem so its harm is contingent on this world being so screwed up that ultimately "feminist" porn is trying to stick a sticking plaster over a festering wound. And I concede that abortion is a different matter: for me, restricting women's bodily autonomy and forcing them to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth is an absolute wrong, not one which is contingent on the existence of inequalities in our current social set-up. But it's still not as simple as saying "This woman chose to make it. This woman says she's a feminist. Therefore this is a feminist act."

if a woman with feminist ideological background (probably sex positive) wants to write, direct and produce a video of herself being subjected to extreme BDSM (as we have done here at p4p) then that work is feminist. You can debate it and tell her she only made that video because- patriarchy but ultimately if we use artist intent as the bar for critique then certainly porn can be feminist.

I think its that bit about using artist intent that makes the difference. My issues with Porn being non-feminist are more to do with consumer intent than artist intent. So the normalisation of acts that pontially harm (or at least are not pleasurable for) women is normalised.

The intent of the artist is actually pretty much irrelevant as long as they aren't coerced.

By the way the smoking analogy was not a long thought out thing, it was a spur of the moment comparison to show how something can be legally permitted but not desirable.

Also, I've not really extended it to the end of the example, which would be few, if any people, are forced to smoke, but some are forced into the porn industry.

whatnow123 "I may be wrong but isn't your issue the porn industry, rather than simply the filming of the act?" is that to me?

My issue is with porn. If a couple want to film themselves having consensual sex that isn't porn. If they watch what they filmed, it isn't porn. This is not what the porn industry does, it is not what porn is. So my issue is with porn and the porn industry. I am not sure how one would break the industry down so it would no longer be an industry but we would still have porn.

Because I am sad and a but compulsive obsessive.

Can't help myself.

permission4pleasure.com/sex-positive-porn-aka-ethical-porn-feminist-porn-alt-porn/

"Nah, its all good – you can totally be a feminist and watch porn or make porn, just like you can wear make-up to look beautiful for yourself without being a product of mass media’s beauty standards. No one is saying don’t have a good introspective look at yourself to make sure you are doing things for yourself and your own desires, but to deny that many woman know themselves and what they want is equally anti-feminist.

For a text to be feminist, it really just needs to be created by people who have feminist intent, IE a self identified feminist makes some art with her feminist lens of the world. Like in critical theory, that work is then subject to perspective from an audience. They can debate the merit of the ‘feminist’ nature of the work, but ultimately, if a woman with feminist ideological background (probably sex positive) wants to write, direct and produce a video of herself being subjected to extreme BDSM (as we have done here at p4p) then that work is feminist. You can debate it and tell her she only made that video because- patriarchy but ultimately if we use artist intent as the bar for critique then certainly porn can be feminist."

The harm and issues with smoking are more clear cut.

Person A and Person B have sex = sex

Person A and Person B decide to film each other having sex = Filmed sex

Person A and Person B decide to share the recording with people on the internet = Porn??

With smoking it's the act of inhaling a cigarette that is bad for you.

I may be wrong but isn't your issue the porn industry, rather than simply the filming of the act?

"You said a couple of pages back that you don't think Porn can be feminist. Good then we agree. I don't think banning Porn would work, so my choices are not to watch it and to try to educate my children about the lack of reality and potential harm caused by Porn. If I wanted to watch it then I'd try to find stuff where it seemed most likely the people involved were enjoying it and not being harmed,which I think is your position. But I don't argue that that means watching Porn can be feminist, because I as a feminist watch Porn."

Rather distressingly you have summed up the arguments very well. As to your last sentence neither do I.

So, well what do I do for the rest of the day?

• shuffles off kicking as stone -

Thinking about it more its probably that black and white vs shades of grey thing we all have to do every day.
My black and white view - porn as it exists today is damaging to women because of how sexual relations are portrayed and how many actresses are harmed in production. Watching Porn openly normalised consuming Porn and makes people feel ok about Porn as a whole, even if the individual tries to sorce only less harmful Porn. It opens the door to misogyny and violence in the way sillage describes upthread. (As an aside I think the whole sex positive movement is like that - I'm 100% behind women being able to have sex in whatever way they enjoy but it seems to have morphed into having to accept "kinks" and the whole "vanilla" thing which I think men now exploit to get women to do things they don't want to. We've moved from slut shaming to prude shaming and its just as bad)

My grey view: I don't give a shit if an individual watches Porn, it isn't my business and most people do. I'm not judging people who watch it. I am judging people who try to make out its an ethical or feminist choice. If you watch it, then own the fact that its not a feminist thing to do. Don't try to rationalise it into Porn is good for women. Because its a very difficult position to justify. In a similar way to how I try to ethically source meat but on the occasions where I buy a rotisserie chicken, I don't try to rationalise that buying a rotisserie chicken was ethical because it saved the carbon footprint of me using my own ovens the supermarket cooking multiple chickensin one go (no idea if that's true, I just made it up) I recognise that on that occasion my desire for a convenient meal was above my ethics but I don't beat myself up about it. Because my shade of grey is I try to buy ethically but don't live or die by that.

We have not 'banned' smoking in our society. However, no one could be in any doubt that smoking is bad for people and affects others by secondary smoke etc (and grief when loved ones die or made ill by tobacco related/exacerbated diseases).

We have limited smoking, we have warnings on the packs it is bad for your health and we hope one day (or at least I do) that a generation will be born who will avoid tobacco altogether, so in future none will be dying from tobacco related/exacerbated diseases).

Is this an option with porn?

Although I am a Christian I don't hold some of the standard evangelical views, which in some circles would be against same sex marriage and I am very much in favor of body autonomy (all things being equal)!

Most importantly for this debate my views on prom are formed, as far as I can tell, totally around my view as a feminist and not for any religious reasons.

I know it is easy to dismiss people who hold religious views, so I want to be clear that I am a Christian and a feminist and my view on this issue are my feminist views, which (for me) do not clash with my Christian views. If that makes sense!

There are two linked studies. The one saying Porn use is associated with more egalitarian views of women is the one I critiqued upthread because I could read the whole article. The one about Porn actresses I could only read the abstract but it was testing some very specific assumptions made about Porn actresses (ie that they suffered higher rates of sexual abuse than other women). It seemed better researched but because I can't read the full text it's hard for me to know.

bit of I meant you seem keen to move the debate onto banning Porn as you bought it up first and return to it often. We could have a conversation about whether prohibition of anything really works, however its very off topic of the original thread which is can porn be a feminist choice?

I feel like you are cartooning some of the posts here into "radfems want all Porn banned despite women saying they enjoy consuming and making it. The radfems are denying women's choices! Bad radfems!" Where as my position is that a lot more nuanced than that. The fact some women enjoy making Porn doesn't mean all women do and that some Porn actresses aren't harmed by their career. And some women making a choice doesn't automatically make that a feminist choice.

You said a couple of pages back that you don't think Porn can be feminist. Good then we agree. I don't think banning Porn would work, so my choices are not to watch it and to try to educate my children about the lack of reality and potential harm caused by Porn. If I wanted to watch it then I'd try to find stuff where it seemed most likely the people involved were enjoying it and not being harmed,which I think is your position. But I don't argue that that means watching Porn can be feminist, because I as a feminist watch Porn.

Any 'anti' argument always puts people on the back foot. I can remember being fed up of breathing second hand smoke and being told I was a party pooper. Being against page 3, and I was/am (context is everything), and being told it was "just a bit of fun".

I am not saying your argument is anti sex, I have tried hard not to use that term. But the nature of the argument is that I am 'for' and you are 'against'. The language used by default will make me look fun and you look miserable. I can only say that I know that is not true.

The issue with morality is entirely my own which is why I try to avoid it. In my line of work moral judgments are best avoided. Morals when applied to sex, in my experience, leave women in a significantly worse position. New thread perhaps?

You seem to think morals have only to do with sexual behaviour and sexual proclivities and can be divorced from ethics or politics. That objecting to porn as being immoral is limited to objecting to sex.

You have such a narrow (one might even say judgemental ) view of what words mean

I can't work out if you genuinely apply such a limited interpretation or if it just suits your agenda of insinuating that porn users are sooo much nicer, open, non judgemental, than anyone who thinks porn is problematic.

It wasn't a survey so much as an piece of peer reviewed academic research.

Flawed research, but it wasn't pulled off the Cosmopolitan website.

I think sociologists and psychologists spend a lot of time attempting to measure what might be considered "irrelevant bollocks". Not my area of expertise though.

Lass I am glad you feel able to comment on my views of morality based on some posts on MN. I would not presume to comment on yours and if I have I apologise. I just prefer my arguments to be political or ethical.

In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group

How the hell do you measure "higher levels of spirituality" objectively? I'm a very no nonsense, practical, atheist.

Any survey which sought to measure my "spirituality" or "spiritual well being" would find it was non existent as (and sorry if this is rude to anyone for whom those terms mean anything) since as a concept, it's irrelevant bollocks.

I don't look down on people who use morality as an argument they scare me too much. Morality when applied to women does not usually work in our favour. The book thread are reading "Handmaids Tale". Moral arguments usually involve women being criminalised. Criminalising prostitution always means women end up in prison

It's been said before but you really have an incredibly limited view of the meaning of morality.

Bit of a derail but if by "criminalising prostitution always means women end up in prison" you mean pimps and brothel keepers, who happen to be women, end up in jail, then personally I have no problem with that.

If you mean women who are prostitutes , I can only speak for UK, where being a prostitute is not illegal.

Women make, participate in and enjoy porn.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19317611.2012.666514?src=recsys

Imperfect research as it is self selecting but I would not like to dismiss the voices of these women.

Buffy Are you calling me a Neoliberal??? Now you have gone too far. Do you want a fight?

"Neoliberal ideals of freedom via consumer choice is ONE way to define and imagine freedom. You post as if it is the very ESSENCE of freedom."

I think I am suggesting consumer choice can be used to influence porn production, until we reach a place where we actually are free. It is one of a range of choices we can make including not using porn. I may have misunderstood your post......

Women make, participate in and enjoy porn. Many do this voluntarily and even enthusiastically. The message from radical feminism seems to be they are not really enjoying it and not doing it voluntarily. Now I understand the pressure of society but I also understand free will. To dismiss the voices of these women as misguided is patronising and totally unhelpful.

The research about attitudes to porn is far from perfect, like most research it is a piece of the puzzle. I thought it was an interesting piece suggesting the clear correlation that porn makes young men rape women is not quite as clear as was suggested earlier on the thread.

"" users held more egalitarian attitudes—toward women in positions of power, toward women working outside the home, and toward abortion—than nonusers of pornography.

Well, yeah, if they are not controlling for religion, that is the likely outcome, because the average misogynist dude only decides to not watch porn for religious reasons.
You'd have to do that study with atheists.