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

[Judy1234]

Continuing the previous thread - people's sexuality varies hugely and what some people think is disgusting is good fun for others. It's impossible to generalise and say XYZ practice is wrong or repugnant and I agree with the posts at the end of the other thread that porn often just reflects what people do. Obviously you pick where your own interests lie and are glad human beings are diverse.

Eliz - "The idea behind pornography is the degradation and oppression of women. It is a tool used by men to ensure that women stay in second place, sexually serving them."

I don't agree with this idea, as I don't agree with the idea that rape is a tool used by men to keep women in place - the power not sex idea. But that is a different debate adn thread perhaps

I am pro-porn (legal, and not interested in anything violent etc) and pro-choice.

I know that there are women and men involved in the industry who doesn't want to be, and I feel that there needs to be further legislation stating that everyone has to give consent etc.

However, please realise that some women choose to do this.

elizabeth your arguments have been put clearly and very well a good debate i think - although att imes youhave become angry and this taints your responses

First off it's voyeurism, give it its real name. "Voyeurism isn't wrong" sounds a bit different doesn't it. Who wants to be a voyeur after all?

you can call it what you will - i dont think voyeurism sounds and better or worse - and certainly wouldnt make me feel dirty or seedy by want of calling it another name.

"Secondly "people fucking" sounds like two people who both want to do it when in fact in pornography you are watching someone being paid to be fucked which as everybody knows is called prostition. Prostitution is most definitely wrong."

well the merits or not of prostitution can lead onto a whole other discussion, but i dont think that prostitution in its essense is wrong.

2The fact that you can't even grasp these basic realities, is yet another example of why I really, really have to leave this thread."

they are your realities not mine. this doesn;t make either of us wrong just we have differnt points of view.

Norma - "Ok, just a response to that last post Elizabetth. Voyeurism and prostitution are wrong in your opinion. These are not 'basic realities' as you put it. They are not facts, they are opinions.

I don't think there is anything wrong with either as long as no-one is forced to do anything against their wishes."

Voyerism is a fetish, I wouldn't know if it could be called 'wrong'. I don't know enough about it. On a basic level films appeal to us via a voyeuristc level. I don't think there is anything 'wrong' with watching people fuck, but mostly, people choose to do it in private. It isn't representative of the human species to do it like dogs. Some do, but it still isn't the 'norm' which is why some people think it's weird - which it might be, rather than 'wrong'.

Women only go into prostitution when all other avenues are exhausted ot they feel they have no other choice. Therefore it is not, on average, anyones wish to be a prostitute and attract the vilification they do by men and women alike. In this sense, it can been seen as being more 'wrong' than voyeurism, just bacause of the palpable stress and pain it causes women and their families. Like one of the prostitutes in the article said, "No one wants to be sold."

Jofe, again, no one is disputing that there are some women who choose to do it. What we are saying is that it is complicated and very FEW women actually do choose unambigously.

You're calling an act of prostitution on film "people fucking" which is incredibly misleading. That's what I mean by being unable to grasp the basic realities of porn.

I know my position on prostitution being wrong is an opinion but its an opinion back up by an awful lot of evidence and experience of women in prostitution.

3rd time lucky - I'm really gone!

Elizabetth

Click the 'ignore' button on this thread and be satisfied that you have put forward a strong, consistent argument for your views (and you have done so in the face of some pretty idiotic, personal insults being spouted back at you at times).

Ariel Levi defined porn as the art of sex demonstration, not real sex, but a parody.

well if that's a strong consistent argument god preserve us from hysterical diatribes

Do you want to be more specific Kittock?

Not at this point no

Well i think if the insinuation that Elizabeth's argument was/is nothing but a hysterical diatribe it doesn't stand up and is a bit of cheap shot to be honest.

at Kittock.

I'd say Elizabetth has been consistent in her argument.

I disagree with some of her points but I don't think she's been inconsistent. I've found it quite difficult to argue with in the sense I feel we go round in circles...it's the money aspect, it's the degrading aspect, it's the men using the women aspect, it's the money aspect...

I don't really see why anyone has to get personal about how Elizabetth has made her points tbh. It is difficult if you feel someone hasn't responded to an attempt to further understand their argument though.

Kittock - please do let us know when you are ready to expand further on your last few posts.

I'm sure it will be thrilling

There seem to be two tactics being used by the pro-industrial porn'ers, and they are ad hominem and reductio ad absurdum. Attacking the person not the argument, or making ridiculous claims about the argument then trying to claim the whole argument is therefore ridiculous itself.

Alright - I really wasn't going to get drawn in yet again, but you win.

What is it actually a consistent argument for? Elizabetth and others have ruled out the idea of banning anything (even stuff which those whom she calls "pro-porners" have suggested might be worth consideration of a ban)and dismissed many "pro-porners" calls for regulation of the industry - so what are we all actually arguing for?

But the main thing I object to is the repeated use of false logic in applying the features of certain types of pornography to all pornography.

I don't see how you can have a reasoned debate about something that you haven't defined and which you use to mean different things as and when it suits you. The meaning of pornography in this debate has veered wildly across the thread from anything involving photographs of naked women to extreme gonzo porn. If we're talking about extreme and violent porn, let's have a debate about that. If we're talking about all representations of sex, that's something different. It's like wrestling a bucket of eels.

I could go on, but I promised myself I woudn't.

as far as I am aware the debate is about industrial porn - as when penetration is explicit.

The banning debate is seperate, this was a debate seems mostly about the morals of industrial porn. Some people don't seem to be aable to get the idea that a lot fo women are exploited by the industry and that many porn actresses (they are called actresses because it is a performance) have very troubled backgrounds which make the concept of 'consent' and 'choice' very murky.

Well I thought she was arguing for us to have empathy with the women used in porn films. I thought she was saying that if we had any empathy with those women we wouldn't want to watch porn.

I don't disagree with the idea that we should empathise with the women's circumstances that have perhaps lead them into porn. However I am still pro-choice, even if the choices available are limited. I also argue that some porn stars want to do the job.

Elizabetth's argument is a personal one, some of which I don't agree with, some I do.

From my perspective, and based on my research on female sexuality, industrial porn subverts female sexuality to resemble male sexuality, and therefore isn't representative of the majority of women.

That is not to say women don't like sex, or even pornography, but that the argument that is it just representing what happens in real life is not tenable.

MT - I don't think any of the pro-porn people are saying exploitation isn't happening. I think they're arguing that it doesn't have to happen. I think the pro=porn side are saying with proper regulation and rights for workers the industry could be succesful without the exploitation. (unless of course you think that prostitution by definition - i.e. being paid for sex - is exploitation, this I think is where Elizabetth and I disagree)

Voyeurism isn't wrong. Nor is prostitution. Coercion is wrong, but so is prohibiting consensual behaviour on the grounds that you don't like it.

ANd the basic reality that all the anti-porners fail to grasp is that by blaming all sexism and inequality on porn and sex work, they are getting the wrong end of the stick. Societies which prohibit women from sexual expression, prohibit them from selling sex (except in one lifetime deal to the highest bidder ie marriage) are not societies which favour women's advancement. If you stick to just the narrow example of the UK, women's rights have improved ocnsiderably since the social upheaval of the 60s, along with the delcline in censorship. We don;t have a fully equal world yet but we are still going forwards, not backwards, and open communication about sex rather than a paranoid projection of all one's worst fears onto some shitfing spectre called 'pornography' is what will improve the situation. .To some extent and in some cases, women in the sex industry who defend their rights to work as they choose and not be treated as morons, victims or less-than-human are speaking out for the rights of women not to have their sexuality controlled and policed by other people , not to be condemned for indulging in sex how, when, why and with who they like. Including doing it for money.Because condemnation of sex workers or a complete refusal to take them seriously is really not very far at all from telling women that they have to stay within certain limits (cover yourself up, only have sex with your husband, have children when you're told to not when you want to) and that every choice a woman makes must impact on all women so whatever she decides she can be blamed for something...

Norma: Well I'd rather women were helped to find other choices before needing to go into any form of prostitution.

There will always be a minority of women who have extremely high libido's coupled with a taste for exhibitionism as Madamez has desctibed.

We have said there is nothing 'wrong' with this, or these women's chouces to display their acts for further erotic fulfillment. But these women are not representative of women on the whole. They are representative of a minority of women.

Norma, I think whereever money is involved exploitaion is involved. If it were a free transaction then we could be sure that it wasn't. All I am saying is that you cannot be sure, even with non violent industrial porn, that exploitation is not involved. For that reason I avoid it.

But even us as women discussing this are pretty irrelevent. Even if we all decided to boycott porn until we could be sure that every woman in it was expessing their true sexuality, it would have little effect because men drive the market not women.

MT - I'm not suggesting that women should be 'forced' into prostitution because of their financial circumstances and this is what the anti-porn people are failing to see. The pro-porn argument is purely that people should be able to enjoy having sex, watching sex, being paid for sex, etc. We believe this is possible without exploiting women.

That is where we disagree MT, because I do not believe that money for sex has to involve exploitation.