Porn Debate at Cambridge Uni

[madwomanintheattic]

anyone going? 19 feb i think, but could be wrong. could be really important - hopefully - Gail Dines is taking part, amongst others... i really hope the whole pole dancing thing is touched on too.

Of course it is offensive.

"Hell, she even adds her own family to the mix. That?s more hardcore than any scene I?ve ever seen!"

Nice.

And then suggesting that Shelley Lubben started out her career in hardcore because she didn't have the looks for anything softer and that working as a prostitute before she entered the porn industry meant that she must have known what she was in for in porn. (What genital herpes and cervical cancer?). Suggesting that she does the work she does for money and glory.

Most people in porn slag off Shelley Lubben - they can't bear the fact that she helps women out of porn and tells the truth about what a sick 'industry' it is. They hate the fact that she gives a voice to the women who are abused and damaged in porn.

I'm surprised you have never heard of her before. Her religious angle doesn't really sit with my values but I can see why it helps her.

So who's going to win?

In the red corner, a big crowd of anti-porn feminists

In the blue corner - what? Porn users looking for validation? Eccentric tory libertarians? Either way I don't think I fancy their chances...

you think so?

I would have said - in the blue corner a whole load of blokes who use porn and girls who want to show how open-minded they are

I would be surprised if the feminists win, from what I have heard about what Cambridge is like these days, and what I remember of union debates.

But if they do it will be a very pleasing sign of the times.

Surely SSAM you mean a lot of liberal minded young men and lots of empowered young women!

I have a lot of respect for Shelley Lubben. I have watched some of her talks on youtube before. She must get a lot of abuse for daring to speak out against a multi billion dollar industry. I read the blog post but didn't anything particularly helpful or eye opening in it. It seemed like a poor effort to discredit her but didn't manage to say anything very damning at all.

Just in case.

My main beef with debates like this is that they tend to become (or, very often, begin) rigidly all-or-nothing.

I've seen and made some great, well-paid, comfortable, friendly porn - not massively fresh and original, but it's hard to be original about something that people have been doing since people began. At the same time, I think that the vast majority of what is produced is shoddy, tedious, forced (in several senses) stuff made and distributed in terrible conditions that exploits the women and men appearing in it.

Porn won by 44 votes.

Looks as if Dines and Woolfson built an early lead, but Lubben crashed and burned in the home straight.

www.cambridgefirst.co.uk/news/porn_has_it_at_cambridge_union_1_807040

It seems to suggest that the students were buying into the arguments put forward by Dines and Woolfson, who you would except to get a better reception at in an academic forum, but that they were totally turned-off by Lubben.

I think people like Dines should be careful who they share a platform with. Lubben probably plays well with conservatives and the religious right, but to other audiences I think she is more of a liability.

How much should we care about this?

As David Mitchell said in his article on pole dancing:

Being dickishly flippant is one of the joys of student life. The Union Society, in particular, is an institution where persuasively advocating things you disagree with or don't care about is all part of the game. It may be idiotic, but no more so than stealing road signs, guzzling so many Creme Eggs that you throw up or crawling around the floor dribbling and eating from the dog's bowl. It's all part of growing up. Or, in my case, a Friday night out.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/18/students-pole-dancing-david-mitchell

well the anti-porn side did better than I expected at any rate. Porn won by 44 votes - that's leaves quite a large objecting minority and there were lots of abstentions.

when you remember that these are students, who tend to be lefty (and the anti-porn side was mischaracterised as conservative), and part of a horribly sexist institution....

I wonder how many women were part of it.

I hope Dr Dines wasn't too put out by losing the motion - or by the quality of debate at one of England's top universities

Anna Span sounds like a charming woman....

Maybe you or Dittany should have been there Jess. I admire (and share) your zero-tolerance approach to this stuff

"Span thrust her sharp catty claws into Lubben, presenting her as a woman who had merely joined the opposition to porn because it appeared to be more lucrative."

Anti-porn campaigning more lucrative than being a part of the multi-billion-pound porn world?

Ridiculous.