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.

Do you expect other posters to engage respectfully with you when you reference their lobotomies blinks?

What are you hoping to get out of this thread? A fight?

Because I think most of us here are interested in exploring the subject matter.

On Larry's point, this pornification of our culture is horrific and damaging and what I really want, is to stop it. But the only way it will stop, is by making it an election issue or by having a high profile campaign like Jamie Oliver's school dinners one. I jsut don't know how that can happen though. The only other option is terrorism, but I'm too old and lazy for that.

because i'm the only one making barbed comments AF. yesiree.

blinks, there are barbed comments and there is what you said < shrugs >

We're just items for men to mark

you don't know many nice men then. i know lots. lucky me.

no you went from that to a statement-

'we're just items for men to mark'

comments like that make me think about all the men in my life and i feel offended on their behalf.

Dittany,

The thing is that "men" don't enjoy ejaculating on women's faces, or none that I know.

It is, peculiarly, a porn thing. Except, as I mentioned earlier, there do seem to be a generation who have got their knowledge of sex from porn and some regard it as normal. That is from ignorance and bad education, not a desire to punish.

I am really against prevalent porn but it is not a man vs woman thing. It is bad for both women and men, as it is detrimental to sex being an enjoyable and natural part of a loving relationship, rather than a performance.

LG it harms both men and women, but let's not pretend it harms men as much as women. Unless they're gay, they're not the ones being penetrated and jizzed on. They're also not the ones being pressurised into doing these things and they're not the ones being mocked as prudes for not doing it or sluts for doing it. No shame or mockery attaches to young men who do it. Both attach to young women who do.

It's not an equal playing field, let's not pretend it is.

actually, HB, I do attach shame and mockery to young men who indulge in ridiculously misogynistic and pornified crap

and that they think that the stuff they are seeing is "real", or really how women like to be treated, or how even worse, how they deserve to be treated

I get your point though...as a society, that generally doesn't happen to them

Also AF, they don't care if we do - it's whether their peer group do that's important to them. And I don't think they do on the whole.

no they don't, HB

I don't expect the opinion of a middle-aged, frigid woman like me would have any impact on them at all

until they have their own daughter's of course, and then we hear a different story

perhaps

Well exactly Lenin.

An insightful comment on cum shots;

"I'd like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can't have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face."

-Porn actor and activist Bill Margold, quoted in Stoller and Levine's Coming Attractions

Whenever I have come across porn with men ejaculating on women dressed up as cheerleaders for example, I have always thought it pathetically obvious it is about getting even with women.

I know this stuff is disturbing but I would be interested in moving this discussion on from issues of consent, etc to what porn actually is and what it says about society.

Even if women do consent to being filmed having men cum on their faces, etc - why do men want to buy this stuff? Why do men get off on it? Why do we accept that a significant section of society is masturbating over depictions of humiliation and degradation of another section of that society? Why do so many people fail to see what is going on here?

I thought it very interesting that feminist writer Robert Jensen found that initially he couldn't help becoming aroused by porn, even though he is antiporn. I already linked to this but here it is again because I think it poses a lot of questions that could be interesting to discuss.

www.zcommunications.org/sexuality-masculinity-and-mens-choices-by-robert-jensen

When I hear all these arguments about how 'it is just sex' and 'consenting adults' I generally wondering if the people making those arguments have seen the same porn as me.

It generally seems that they have - yet here we have larry saying that none of the men he knows like ejaculating on women's faces. I don't know of any women who like that or would have much truck with a man who wanted to do it.

Mainstream (?!) pornography quite clearly does NOT depict what most people would consider to be a balanced happy sex life - so why do people defend it as though it does?

Can't they see what I see? And if not why not?

I would be really interested in the perspective of people who have changed from being ok with porn to being against it.

What was it that made you change and see porn for what it is?