to be surprised at how many Mumsnetters are fine with pornography?

[Elizabetth]

Particularly as porn has become so much more mainstream in the past few years, I'd have thought that people would be concerned about premature sexualisation of children. Also I'm surprised that so many women are fine with it given that the humiliation and degradation of women is the central theme of pornography. You only have to look at the titles to realise that.

Oh, and I spend a lot of time online, I talk to a number of guys that use it for porn, their favourite sites are youporn.com and xtube.com, I asked them, and these are movies put up by real people, apparently thats what the turn on is, they say it's knowing it is real that does it for them.

yes policy genuine big ooooh.
But do feel slighted that we weren't mentioned by name, don't you? D'you think it was the sticker thing?

I'm not fine with it. I ignore it. I don't like the sexualisation of society but I have got so used to thinking that's my problem that I rarely even think about it.

I,m not fine with it, completely disagree with it.

A lot of what appears on those sites VS may not be with the women's consent. That's where the cheap thrill of it being real comes from - voyeurism. Actually all porn watching is voyeurism.

As for changing people's opinions, that's up to them. I'm just putting arguments and facts forward - what people do with them is their own business. As we see though, being anti-porn is a position that is discouraged - nobody has been attacked on this thread nearly as much as I have and for what, for having different opinions to some other people?

Those attacks make me think it's even more important to put the anti-porn point of view across. Silencing is a very nasty tactic.

I am with you on this one Elizabetth. It has to be said Elizabeth you do not seem to have many supporters on this thread which I find quite worrying don't you?

There were a few earlier, ALM. That's really my point, that women who object to porn are shouted down, belittled and insulted and their good arguments are ignored. Look what happened to you when you expressed outrage that your DH had negligently exposed your lo to porn - you got told off for being angry about it! No wonder people don't want to speak up.

Nobody has been able to defend the Werribee video (which is obviously closely connected to porn), the contents of that "couples" site, the actual experience of a porn performer or in fact what the vast majority of porn consists of, content which is deeply humiliating and degrading to the women involved and women in general. The reality gets brushed aside in favour of reports from "friends" which is about the only supporting evidence the pro-porn side can come up with - second hand anecdotes.

Elizabetth, surely you can see that you are the one who had had the most to say about it??
Yet still you cannot differentiate between men and women both being exploited, and men being the exploiters.
That is probably why many people have not agreed with you.
I very much doubt the people that are pro-porn would disagree if it was to be said some actor/resses in the porn industry are exploited, and some of those probably use drugs.
However to make this all about men being the evil sex that are doing all these bad things to women is your downfall.
As for not wanting to change attitudes and opinions, well, obviously you don't really care quite as much as you like to say then do you, or rather than just preaching you would be actually trying to make a difference.

I can't be a prude, tmmj. I know too much.

Elizabetth, with regards to our anecdotes from 'friends' I ahve the feeling that what a friend tells another friend in conversation about their own experiences is way more trustworthy than what a porn actress who wants to leave the industry would tell a reporter.

The werribe video is one such incedent, are all rapes not as harrowing?? The video does not mean the perpetrators are any less sick than the many many offenders that have raped, murdered and killed people over the last goodness knows how long. As I said, rape is not a new concept, the videoing of it is more so, because of technology, not because of porn.

i think that most of the people who have posted on this thread have been open minded and willing to take on board other people opinions, they are agree that there are bad aspects of porn but also, not all porn is bad. the problem with Elizabetth is she is not prepared to open her mind not even to the size of a pinhole, and will not take on board the opinions of others, and admit that not all women are forced into into, some men are being exploited too, some wemon enjoy doing it for a living etc..

She skirts around the opinions of others and doesnt answer their questions, it isnt a debate with her it is a complete one sided arguement.

As for my opinion to porn, i wont even waste my breath putting my opinions to her, she is like a dog with a bone on this one.

I think that we've all been slightly sidetracked by the issue of how the individual sex workers - male or female - are treated.

The reason porn matters is not because of the grim realities of life for porn actresses (tho I do think these realities are more frequently very, very bad than porn-positive fems admit).

It matters because of what it says to the rest of us (men, women, children) about women and their relationship with the world in general, and men in particular.

The diamond analogy doesn't work, for a very important reason.

The intrinsic appeal of diamonds is not that they were mined by poor blacks living in near-slavery conditions. If you love diamonds, you love them bcs they are rare, beautiful, expensive, whatever.

Whereas I would suggest that porn's appeal is precisely because it portrays - to varying degrees - the degradation of women.

This degradation word is provocative to some, and gets the arguments about choice flaming back and forth.

But my feeling is this.

'Women', in porn, are objectified - they are holes for fucking, trophies to be grabbed, opportunities to be snatched. or just receptacles.

They have neither identity nor volition:
they are never unavailable (unless a momentary unavailability would be more arousing to the audience)

They are not the masters of their own fate. They are the sum of their orifices, nothing more, and 'exist' only in relation to the male actor and audience.

This is true, though often covert, in Porn Lite. Go slightly deeper into pornoworld and this version of what a woman 'is' is explicit and overt.

Yes, this reflects the misogyny of the wider world.
But it reflects it and invigorates it. It reflects it, and extends it. And this is damaging and sad, sad, sad - for all of us.

Regardless of whether or not the girl is getting Union scale for gagging on a cock.

This Porn version of what being a woman is is very much in our world. Just ignoring it if we don't like it won't prevent our sons and daughters absorbing it.

well said mmj

x post!!

I said already that this isn't a Q&A session LuckyUnderpants. I'm much more inclined to address people's thought-through arguments than questions that they think they have the right to bark at me. After a while that kind of thing gets tiring.

As for not having an open mind, the thing is I used to think that porn was great. I've seen both sides of the argument and I know that the pro-porn side of the argument is the morally bankrupt one.

If you can find heterosexual porn that doesn't degrade and humiliate women then I'd be interested to see it. The problem for pro-porners is that they can't come up with it, and even if they did it still doesn't contradict the vact that the overwhelming majority of porn is misogynist and damaging to women.

Onebatmother, very well said.

THe extreme anti-porn position is always going to be regarded with disapproval by people with any sense (regardless of how much porn they themselves want to watch) because it's all about controlling other people's sexual choices and insisting on a very rigid, narrow definition of what is acceptable sexual behaviour. Andrea Dworkin, for instance, believed that it was not possible for a woman to consent to any kind of sexual activity with a man therefore all sex and all pornography involves rape/force/cruelty. ANti-porn campaigners often claim that no (decent) woman would do 'these things' voluntarily and insist that any woman who claims to enjoy (for example) anal intercourse, group sex or exhibitionism is either lying, brainwashed or a hopeless drug addict.

Problems women face in the modern world (objectification, domestic violence, discrimination) were around long before mass-market pornography. Women's sexuality has long been controlled, restricted, any autonymous sexual behaviour punished with violence, ostracism, imprisonmnet etc. Religion is the source of nearly all womem's suffering: it's not porn that makes people mutilate their children's genitals, close down women's healthcare clinics or assault women for being 'indecently' dressed. ANd one of the biggest reasons for rejecting the feminist pro-censorship position is the speed and eagerness with which pro-censorship feminists have always teamed up with rightwing sexist scum in order to stop any discussion of sexual diverstiy, whether for entertainment or education.

onebatmother, I do see your point, I really do, but if porn is treated in the right way and maybe some of the ways it is made are changed, then porn can be a healthy part of life.
Not all men that watch porn, or have watched porn beleive a woman is just a hole, anymore than all the women who watch porn believe that a man is just a hard cock.
It is the attitudes that need changing, which is based on how people are bought up to view both sex, and the opposite sex, then an understanding off porn being an act, as much as any film we watch on tv, can be developed.

TMMJ, because what she is saying is just as discriminative as she believes the porn industry to be!

It is not fair to blame the whole downfall of society on men, and porn, anymore than it is fair to blame all exploitation of women on men.

For goodness sake, if you want to blame someone why not blame the women who enjoy faluting their sexuality and using it as a form of power??

I see every woman that ever dared to embrace her sexuality and the effect it has on men is a victim?? Of course she is,

It is the fact that some women are happy to do that that makes some men think that all women are slags!

Madamez I personally do not want to control other people's sexual choices. I want to persuade them not to watch porn, and not to accept it as 'the way it is'.

as i said earlier, Yes, this reflects the misogyny of the wider world.
But it reflects it and invigorates it. It reflects it, and extends it. And this is damaging and sad, sad, sad - for all of us.

(Exhibitionism, btw, is actually a pretty rare paraphilia. Porn, to survive, needs us to believe that it's very very common)

im not saying she has to say 'well ok maybe my beliefs are wrong?' im saying she needs to take on board other peoples opinions instead of just dismissing them. Like when VS metioned her friend who really enjoyed her job in porn? she wont admit that there are women in that industry that enjoy their job.

I would never talk about "decent" women madamez. That kind of thinking doesn't exist in my world view.

The virgin/whore dichotomy comes straight from patriarchal male thinking. Porn is a good example of it. Women are always being called slts, whres, sl*gs in porn because some men enjoy it.

madamez - I thought that Andrea Dworkin only objected to penetrative sex.

But I don't think that porn is ever going to be viewed as just another 'act' is it victorian? Because for many people sex is an ultimately private, intimate act, not disgusting or horrifying, simply private.