The effect of porn on teenage boys and young men

People who want to fuck children aren't allowed by law to indulge that in any way. Even if they just want to look at pictures. We do put legal restrictions on certain things. It's not a completely weird idea.

In other words, a kind of equal opportunity exploitation is not the answer.

Beach I see your point, thank you.

But how would we ensure that all erotica is erotica and not porn? It's not a workable distinction. All porn or erotica is the commodification of the human body in a commercial context. What you call it makes no difference.

And if we did live in a non-patriarchal society, people would still express fantasises that are dark and violent. There just wouldn't be the same prevalent dynamic of male dominance and female submission. There would still be themes of dominance and submission. There would still be sexual cruelty and contempt in the world, just like there would be every other form of cruelty and contempt.

All porn OR erotica, particularly online, must be regulated and/or severely restricted. For the sake of children if nothing else.

I don't want to regulate what people do in private while they consent where it's not transactional or causing quantifiable damage. I think people often make some very damaging choices, but that's largely up to them. I do want to regulate or ideally ban the porn industry, and prostitution.

This is an example of the vicious authoritarian streak that turns people of feminism. Not only are the women who make porn apparently degrading (lessening the value of ? ) themselves, but they need to be stopped from doing it. Men - who are not allowed to state opinions that contradict those of the feminist, because that is "mansplaining" should instead accept that the feminists have already considered the issue and all its nuances in far greater depth than they could have. Furthermore, because feminism is not for men they should leave the decision making to the subset of women who are feminists and should then get on with implementing whatever they are told is best for everyone.

It's hardly surprising that women are affected by thousands of years of misogynistic conditioning into their role as a member of the sex class, is it? Porn is still degrading to women, even if you watch it with a woman. And as a feminist I find BDSM an incredibly problematic fetish (and this is as a person whose sexual tastes run that way). In private it's not my business, but I don't see that there is a sovereign right for a commercial market in misogynistic material to exist, as much porn is, obviously including BDSM. As Beach said, porn is hate speech against women. Watched any Nazi/Jew porn recently with your girlfriend? Or white plantation owner and black slave? I think the parallel will be clearer to you.

Pornhounds really like talking about their porn consumption I've noticed. Particularly to feminists.

Qwerty IMO and according to my politics that would quite clearly be pornography. I would have thought that would be perfectly clear from my above posts quoting Diana Russell.

Making sexism free erotica in patriarchal society is a challenge to the point of near impossibility IMO.

Beach, if a woman made a porn film showing men being tied up and whipped, would that be porn or erotica?

What you and your partner do does not justify anything.

To you, no, but venusinscorpio said: "I'm not talking about what people want to get up to with each other in private" while then going on to try and regulate what people get up to in private.

"I define erotica as sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed."

Qwerty did you read the Diana Russell quote properly? Your response to it suggests not.

Degradation is not respectful and it is often sexist.

BDSM is sexist and degradation is its cornerstone.

I'm using the above quote from DR in order to provide a contrast to what pornography is and does. It doesn't mean that I agree that everything that gets called erotica comes under this definition and it most certainly doesn't mean that everything that gets called erotica is free from sexism, etc. A lot of what gets called erotica is pornography.

Making sexism free erotica in patriarchal society is a challenge to the point of near impossibility IMO.

What you and your partner do does not justify anything.

venusinscorpio

In private, my partner and I watch porn.

(We had also done everything else on your tedious list, at her instigation, before she had even viewed porn)

f we infiltrated porn with videos of breastfeeding it would become mainstream and no one would get triggered if they saw it in public.

Even without the earlier post about what a bad idea this is

It still doesnt manke any sense

Obviously people would still find it a trigger, not everone watches porn

Did I say that qwerty? Don't misrepresent what I say to further your own argument.

I don't have any anachronistic sexual taboos thanks. I'm not talking about what people want to get up to with each other in private. I'm talking about the structured oppression and discrimination of women as a class by perpetuating our role as merely objects for men's gratification in various ways, not least by normalising the mores of the exploitative, misogynistic commercial porn industry as a tool of patriarchy which keeps women in this role. See the difference?

I define erotica as sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed.

Sorry Beach that's rubbish. I don't want children to be able to access 'erotica' either. There is female produced 'erotica' that features BDSM and other violent, degrading themes. The distinction between porn and erotica is so unclear as to be meaningless.

Erotica is still people making money out of people's bodies. Dress it up however you like, but that is what it is.

Justifying porn as 'erotica' is no different from men justifying porn as 'amateur'.

The problem here is liberalism and moral relativism pure and simple. With a lot of misogyny and racism thrown into the stew.

Beachcomber

Your definitions do not become factual by the intensity of your solipsism.

Oooh julie

You are lovely...

Reported obvs

Venus are you saying female produced porn has legitimacy and male produced porn does not? Sorry, that's nonsense. I wouldn't want my step-daughter accessing a porn site made by a 'feminist' any less tthan any other porn site.

And there is no reason at all why female sexual freedom cannot have exploitative characteristics. Women are not all lovely and gentle you know.

The problem is the whole post-60's ideology of sexual freedom. Lots of good things came from the sexual revolution: legitimate rights for women and homosexuals. But it also promoted a disregard for moral norms and the notion that 'if it feels good, do it'. Consumer-capitalism co-opted it and now we have this horrid sexual supermarket today.

Moral injunctions should be placed on people's sexual behaviour for the sake of society. An alliance of right-wing libertarians and liberal left have done enormous damage with their promotion of sexual liberationists ideology.

venusinscorpio

I'm glad we've found each other mutually amusing. Watching someone defend the enforcement of their own anachronistic sexual taboos as a form of modernism is like seeing someone dance burlesque with a completely deadpan expression.

Ok, here we go with the libertarian and neo-liberal framing of objections to pornography as being moralistic and anti-freedom (remember I said that would happen upthread).

Perhaps we need to clarify what pornography is. I'm working within a feminist analysis which I think is well expressed by Diana Russell when she says:

I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone or encourage such behavior. I conceptualize pornography as both a form of hate speech and as discrimination against women.

In contrast to erotica about which she says:

I define erotica as sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed.

Pornhounds and misogynists like to promote the idea that pornography is simply "sexxay films and pictures" that exist in a socio-political and cultural vacuum and that objections to it are simply pearl clutching, moralistic, prudishness and anti-sex.

Thanks MephistophelesApprentice for proving my point so well in your posts.

Honest question: qwerty232 Would you ban an exhibitionist putting herself online for her own sense of sexual fulfilment?