Porn

[msrisotto]

Tentative!

Um, the way I see it is that a lot of porn (I have heard) is appallingly violent and degrading for women. This stuff, ideally wouldn't exist and should be banned (how, I don't know, but ideally).

However, the porn that I have seen or enjoyed is not. I wouldn't enjoy porn that is degrading.

So, why is all porn bad? (in some people's opinions?) If it isn't degrading and is equal in its approach, for the entertainment of others, then I don't see any harm.

Is the argument that you don't get the 'good' porn without the bad?

Don't flame me please, I really want this to be a considered conversation.

Beachcomber, some people gave Sunny a pasting above on the thread when she talked about making webcam porn at home.

But if we're limiting this down to professional, scripted porn, I still don't see a problem with doing that in return for money as long as everyone has freely consented.

Carmen has been asking some good questions that get to the heart of the matter. I am anti-porn. I am conservative and capitalist. Carmen is a liberal and believes in individual choice and it seems to me that this is close to choice feminism. Most conservative right-wingers are anti-porn. It is progressive liberals who want near total freedom. I don't believe that the patriarchy controls porn. The church is patriarchal and is anti-porn. In a patriarchal society like Iran, there will be no double anal. It is permissive, progressive societies that are full of porn. Max Hardcore is in jail, the patriarchy locked him up. The porn barons are out to destroy society, and conservatives want to protect society.

Not every porn actress is raped. Carmen is right that some do do it out of choice and the same is true of some prostitutes.

Carmen wanted to get to the heart of the issue when she asked, what is it about selling sex or taking money for sex that is different to taking money for other activities. She asked is there something sacred, something religious, something moral?
I think there is, and that is why all societies apart from progressive liberal ones are against it.

Carmen is an artist and likes the freedom of performance artists to cut themselves on stage, and to eat shit. She feels there is nothing wrong with these things if the participants want to do them. I think there is something wrong with these things. I am not a liberal, I think some of the people doing these things are ill and I think that they may possibly spread their harmful ideas to other members of the public. I believe that society has to have boundaries and be illiberal, that some things are off limits and obscene and that the pornographers who use obscenity to destroy the moral base of a society should be locked up for obscenity, as Max Hardcore was.

I can't answer your question without defining degradation and hurt.

I don't think it's wrong to masturbate over a spanking video if everyone involved consented.

I do think it's wrong to sell pictures of a drugged woman being raped.

I don't know whether it's 'wrong' to masturbate over anything. I tend to think you can't police thoughts or fantasies and that nothing is wrong until it becomes an action.

However if you download a picture of a woman being raped, you profit those responsible, so that is morally wrong.

Good post, claig.

"I still don't see a problem with doing that in return for money as long as everyone has freely consented."

Ok so that means that you must be against the vast majority of porn then.

Why are you arguing so hard to justify the minority at the expense of all the people who are damaged by this stuff?

I think we need a thread about choice and consent in order to explore this properly.

I happen to think it is wrong to masturbate over someone's pain and degradation even if they have 'freely chosen' to be hurt and degraded. I also think it is wrong to get rich by selling pain and degradation for people to wank over.

I have read the quotes of some of the top porn barons and they brag about how they want to destroy and undermine the moral base of society and subvert it. They are very powerful rich men and they have aims that go beyond money. They brag about overturning the religious base of society, of destoying the suburban middle-class familial structures, they revel in sacrilegious imagery involving nuns etc. They are drug pushers who are influencing their viewers. They create and supply the demand.

"Why are you arguing so hard to justify the minority at the expense of all the people who are damaged by this stuff?"

Beachcomber... I'm not defending the porn industry.

I'm defending the individual's right to expression whether that be sexual or otherwise. Arguing for a blanket 'ban' on pornography is pointless and dangerous. Such things in the past have led to gross blanket censorship of artists, actors, authors and many more.

I have no problem with regulating the porn industry and working to ensure contracts are fair and properly regulated, that consent has been given freely all around.

I do have a problem with insisting that all mediatised nudity, sex or sex acts are morally wrong and should be illegal.

Being hurt means being in pain (say from having a large penis shoved down your throat repeatedly or from being penetrated anally in a thrusting and forceful way that causes you pain you want to stop).

Being degraded is by dictionary definition 'Reduced in rank, dignity, or esteem.'.

I think a woman choking on the penis of a man she has not chosen as a sexual partner is not in a position of dignity. I don't think this woman is being held in high esteem either by those who sell her images or those who masturbate over them.

Moral, hurt, degraded, rape, coercion, etc are all quite simple concepts really.

I did find some acceptable 'nice' porn the other day which DP and I bought for a giggle - it's called The Lovers Guide and is all about sex and relationships and mutual appreciation (recommended by relate according to its cover!) and while there is a huge amount of shagging it is by 4 different real-life couples who talk about their relationships too. They do happen to be very pretty couples but it's about pleasure for them both not just poor, plastic women choking on cock.

Ok Carmen I get you - you are not defending the porn industry and you agree that most of what goes on in it is wrong.

You do however think it is ok to regulate an industry in which people catch STDs and are at risk of getting pregnant.

You said "I'm defending the individual's right to expression whether that be sexual or otherwise." - sorry can you explain what this has to do with porn. Porn performers are not expressing themselves - they are being paid to engage in sex acts that they may or may not feel comfortable with, with partners they have not chosen, in order to provide wank fodder for rich and powerful people to sell.

"Plus you can't divorce all this from a global context of female oppression. To imagine that these 'choices' are made in some purified realm where inequality and oppression don't constrain the choices people make is ... well, just completely misguided."

ITA Prolesworth.

Beachcomber... yes, I do think it's ok to regulate an industry where there is a risk of bodily harm. It's done in plenty of sports, industrial work and in the military. Health and safety is about minimising necessary risks not eliminating them.

Your question about expression is complicated. Is Shakespeare any less an expression because actors are being directed and scripted?

It's a red herring though because I'm not defending the porn industry as you keep trying to force me to do. I'm defending all artists to write erotic stories, paint erotic pictures, photograph nudes, be nude, have sex on stage, get whipped or cut themselves or whatever they want to do.

You may be able to distinguish between the exploitative porn industry and freelance artists or distinguish between entertainment and art but it's a very fine line which regulators and lawmakers struggle to find. If you place a blanket ban on mediatised sex, you jeapordise all those artists. You'll lose Annie Sprinkle, Nabokov and Goya along with Jenna Jameson.

Happiestblonde makes the point with her 'nice porn' - who the hell defines what is 'nice porn' and measures whether a woman is being degraded? Is oral sex automatically degrading? Why?

I don't disagree with you Prolesworth. But my point is it would be better to tackle the inequality.

sorry - by 'nice' i meant the men and women are 100% willing, there is no degradation or possibly damaging acts or sole focus on either male or female pleasure. There is oral sex on both sides with the focus being mutual appreciation within a relationship/

So oral sex isn't degrading or possibly damaging as long as the man also goes down on the woman? Hmm.

Hmm.

I don't think oral sex is intrinsically damaging, no.

Well Carmen I think you have been tricked by the porn industry.

You have been tricked into defending the filmed pain and degradation of women for people to masturbate over and make money from in the name of defending 'freedom' and art and choice.

It's one of the oldest tricks in the misogynist book.

but the men running the porn industry have wives, daughters, mothers, sisters. I don't think they want to destroy women.