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.

"I wonder whether this continues throughout the industry though - both the 'transparent' part that I agree is a question of taste - take it or leave it, up to you - and the 'underground' part which is a different and darker entity and the bit most labelled "anti-porn" are probably concerned about."

I'm concerned about all pornography because it treats women's bodies as commodities. It is prostitution by proxy. Men pay other men to f*ck women for them.

There seems to be some kind of belief that because what I've described is really horrible, it must be underground or out of the mainstream and I don't know why that is. This stuff is mainstream, it is common, it's what the male viewers demand. Please read this article by Robert Jensen (I think I"m going to keep posting it until people really engage with it) where he describes what he saw just picking out a few porn videos in a normal video store -

mwcnews.net/content/view/3286/26/

I can't post the description here because it's too offensive but this is what porn consists of - sexual abuse of women on film.

DeathBySnooSnoo, not sure if the rise of lads mags (which are actually on the decline in sales now, the market is so saturated) has at it?s heart the wish to control female sexuality. I think what goes on there is a pretty fair exchange, beautiful women advertising their ?fitness?, and getting modest to good financial reward for it, some get a career in the media, and all get greater exposure to potencial mates of higher status. The men are just as ?exploited? if there as any exploitation going on at all.

I can see why it isn?t to everyone?s taste to have scantily clad women everywhere, especially for women who are past that prime ? the problem seems to be that many women don?t want to feel that they have to compete on that level, and I would agree with that. Our society does need to value women for something more than the aesthetics of their sexual prime, but the market loves sex as it sells ? we are in a cultural bind it seems to me.

The extreme end of patriarchy controlling women is what we observe in Islamic societies, where women are not educated, are covered up and closeted indoors and not allowed out without a chaperone.

Paedophilia will never become mainstream ? is the comic strip you are talking about isn?t ironic? Is it in Viz?

VVV, women are massively empowered by things like the pill abd by the right to obtain abortion. These things are the bedrock of civilisation from a female perspective if fairness and freedom are what you are aiming for. These will be the first things to go should, say, the UK become an Islamic or any other religious fundamentalist society. Religion controls demographics by denying women freedom to express their sexuality, which is not coy, but very active ? but importantly still more discriminating than male sexuality.

Men do need the women to make porn, but the costs to these women are great, especially in terms of reputation and socially. This in turn has consequences for their mental health.

Jenna Jameson is a bit of a tragic figure ? she was gang raped and leaft for dead before getting into porn. Interviews with her on the subject leave you in no doubt that she still has huge unresolved issues about her self worth. Many in porn have borderline personality disorder too.

I agree Elizabetth, what you have described is very much mainstream. I think there are many people who choose not to see it because the continuing inequality between the sexes is extreme and terrifying and easier to deny.

I agree with the prostitution analogy. There really isn't any way to deny that; it is what it is what it is...

I'm just going to keep reiterating the point. Everybody's heard of Deep Throat, right? - one of the most famous porn films ever. Some people here have probably watched it. Well Linda Lovelace said that every time someone watched that film they were watching her being raped.

The funny thing is that when she was still in the power of Chuck Traynor the pimp who married her so she couldn't testify against him, she became famous as the star of it and went on lots of talk shows claiming how much she loved what was done to her.

When she finally escaped from him she was able to tell what had really happened to her - how she had been forced to make the film (apparently the bruises are visible on her when you watch it) and she was in terror for her life. Most people didn't believe her (and still don't) because it's not a sexy story is it - a woman brutalised rather than a sexy actress who's a complete exhibitionist and loves every minute of having a penis inserted right to the bottom of her throat (she had to be hypnotised so she didn't gag). Nobody wants to think of the violent pimp in the background threatening her and beating her up.

Thats the sort of denial we're seeing here all the nonsense about how women make the porn, how the performers "choose" it (when like I said it is much more likely that porn chooses them), that men and women are equally exploited, that the woman hatred that is visible in every frame of porn isn't there.... the list goes on.

I still don't understand why people defend it and I'm no more enlightened after these threads than I was at the beginning.

Elizabeth, you asked if you are being unreaonable to be surprised at how many mumsnetters were fine with pornography.

I don't believe you are, I also am surprised.

Yes, I could have stopped reading, but I read it to see If I was being unreasonable.

However, after reading the thread I feel I have been exposed to more porn in the last few days than at any other time in my life!

Yes, I could have stopped looking, but I read it to see If I was being unreasonable.

That is not a criticism against any of the people who have posted that they are comfortable with their practices

People defend it because they need to justify their decisions -

"People don't justify stupid decisions because they are bad people, on the contrary, no one wants to admit they are a fool andf might have been very mistaken about something.

Moreover, as our actions and logic become further and further separated, we tend to hold tighter onto our original notions. Instead of admitting that we were wrong, we justify our actions even more strongly."

That's from a review on the book I posted about dissonence theory.

dissonance as in cognitive dissonance

I understand your point completely NNT. To talk about porn you have to talk about it and that can be very disturbing - people will hear things they don't want to know about.

I'm being criticised for not actually having seen some of the things that I know go on in porn, which is a terrible catch-22, because there is no way in the world I am going to look at that kind of abuse of women. The descriptions are bad enough.

It's what porn relies on though, that people will keep silent about what's in it and what is done to women in it (the viewers because they don't want people to know what turns them on and what they are watching, and everybody else because who wants their mind polluted with that kind of stuff). Instead we get fantasies about how its an "empowering" career choice.

I really don't think you need to watch porn to understand what goes on in it; there is enought writtren pon ther subject to get a fair picture.

That's like saying we need to watch on line paedophillia before we can condemn it - we don't obvioulsy.

MT, that's quite a statement there.
All pornography is the same as child pornography?

I promised a quick comment on the other site,
coming right up.

Good points, MonkeyTrousers.

Studies show most men aren't aroused by 'rape' scenareos or scenes of sexual violence.

Electrodes are actually attached to the penis and baseline arousal levels discerned before hand obvioulsy, to rule out the risk that the men find the environment unarousing.

There really is a lot of research about human sexuality.

daddyj - "All pornography is the same as child pornography?"

I have no idea how you could make such an inference from my post. No that is not the case and it is not what I said.

I read the report about lapdancing in Camden
and the interview with a disillusioned UK lapdancer
and, MT, there is one major issue with it:

It's preaching to the converted.
There is no attempt at putting the point across persuasively,
to reach out to the neutral or even to people like me
who are sympathetic but would actually rather like to see
the evidence for why the whole thing should be banned.

Read it again DaddyJ. MT said you don't need to see something to condemn it. Another example would be only reading the descriptions of the photographs that came out of Abu Graib rather than seeing them directly or to know of and condemn beheading videos.

oops, beforehand not before 'hand' haha

MT, you said we don't need to see paedophilia to condemn it.
Absolutely.

But we do need to see consenting adult pornography to be able to discuss it, non?

Elizabetth,
Some porn is violent, and I would never want to see that, for obvious reasons.

However, some porn is because the women wants to do it, it is not necesseraily degrading to that women, and not all women who are in these videos are doing it because they are on drugs/have had problems in their past.

Elisabetth (sorry, I kept on misspelling your name),
the nature of the porn in question is central to your point, though.

If you/we don't look at it we cannot judge
whether it glorifies violence towards women
or simply contains footage of a men and a woman
having sex.

How much porn do you watch DaddyJ? Same question to Zebedeeghost if he's still around. Also what kind of genres would you say the porn you watch were?

How much porn do you watch DaddyJ? Same question to Zebedeeghost if he's still around. Also what kind of genres would you say the porn you watch were?

Because a grown man and a grown woman
having consentual sex is NOT the same as paedophilia.

Hence my shocked comment to, MT.

The porn users will never ever admit that what they are watching is the degradation of women.

Linda Lovelace was clearly a troubled woman suffering from terrible domestic violence. Unfortunatley domestic violence happens all over the world, and I don't think it can be tarred with the same brush as porn.

Linda's problems were caused by her husband, not the porn industry per se.

Since Linda's revelations the mainstraim porn industry has vastly improved their working conditions and I do not beleive all women working in porn are victims. It's frankly not true.

Candida Royalle is a famous porn actress who established her own company specialising in making porn aimed at women as oppsed to the usual male orientated audience. She has been hugely sucessful and maintains the fact that women have a right to porn also.