How do feminists feel about porn?

[guitarguy]

Do you feel like it portrays women in a bad way? I feel that porn belittles women in many ways and I'd like to stop watching it.

Yonic, some posts are entered as a question, some as an statement, and some as a proposition.

Surely you can see that difference?

Very few feminists do porn. I think it takes them too long to undo their Doc Marteins and take their dungarees off.

Well, what are your views then, partial? Should people try, as the OP is doing, to watch less porn? Would you like to see porn or erotic fiction banned?

There are problematic themes in some erotic fiction. I'm sure different feminists will have different views on how damaging those aspects might be.

I don't think anyone has asked my views apart from Yonic, so I'll keep then to myself for the next while.

Why so aggressive Yonic? Or have I missed something. Sorry if I have.

Partial

You are posting on a thread started by a poster who was pretty quickly banned and was a fairly obvious troll. Thus most of the responses mocked the troll. You posted shortly after PaulBrown who has only posted provocatively in FWR so far. Your post wasn't particularly related to the OP itself. And you asked a pretty general question without stating your own views or seemingly drawing any distinction of your own.

The last sentence of my first reply to you was a little snarky, for which I will apologise, but that's the backdrop to it. However, I did look to address your point in the first paragraph of that reply.

Then your reply was pure snark, still without giving any of your own views on the topic. Hence my request.

Hope that clears things up.

Fwiw, in case you read any if the above as me thinking you are a troll: I don't. But do always bear in mind that feminist issues, such as sexual violence and its depiction, aren't a theoretical discussion for women, but a lived reality.

Yonic, you are correct in thinking I am not a troll, I have a posting history, thanks for that acknowledgement.

So many times when I post on FWR, I seem to get it wrong. I really do not wish to be goady or provocative. Many times I feel that if I were to meet with other posters (like you) in RL we would probably get one really well.

bear in mind that feminist issues, such as sexual violence and its depiction, aren't a theoretical discussion for women, but a lived reality.

Wise words Yonic, and I promise I will try to bear them in mind

Maybe it would make sense to start a thread asking people's views on rape scenes in erotic fiction? But avoid the "should X be banned? Discuss" type OP - if you have a view, or even if you aren't sure of your own view yet, say so!

I promise to come post on it if you do, though there's a troll hanging around this afternoon so you might want to wait a while.

""At worst it [porn] is filmed rape."

Comments like this is why most people don't want anything to do with feminism."

But it's true. My ex and I watched porn. More than once I ended up watching a woman who clearly did not want to be there - like a visibly frightened, trembling woman surrounded by men who were laughing at her distress and carrying on, a teenage girl who was in physical pain after having sex with several men and was crying and asking to stop - which was when a perky teamster ran in and encouraged her to keep going, with high fives and 'whoop's. The men who had sex with her after this where noticeably rough, like they were hoping to provoke more tears. I can provide more examples if those aren't disturbing enough. Not much porn these days resembles regular sex. The slapping, spitting, choking, 'how much can she put up with before she crumbles' genre is normal now. It's very worrying.

Don't know if I'm going off on a tangent but fifty shades of grey et al, can they be included under this heading.
The massive sale in supermarkets of so called erotic fiction is unprecedented?
I work with women and sex is more openly talked about with ones who have read them. Which should be seen as a step forward?
However, For me there is still sexism and misogyny running through books like fifty shades if not dangerously so.
I believe the main character is the personification of an abuser, he ticks every book.
I don't say don't read them, I say read them with a new perspective.
Is it about a loving relationship or an abusive one?

What porn OP? There is rather a lot of it, from illegal child porn and bestiality through to free amateur exhibitionist porn. Between those two extremes you have the commercial industry fighting for every cent it can get, trying to cater to every possible market, under-age tastes with 'barely legal' porn, various kinks and fetishes, more mainstream porn and attempts to duplicate the home movie look. Less problematic would be real amateur porn which in more modern times expanded to video casting sites where individuals and couples perform on cam for paying customers via the commercial website tracking views and collecting payment to return a percentage of proceeds to the 'performers'. There is also free amateur exhibitionist porn, although that can be polluted with prostitution- vis 'hired fake wife porn' and non consent 'hidden cam' material and revenge porn (non consent distribution). Everyone should have problems with child porn because there can be no valid consent but virtually no one should have a problem with 'real' exhibitionist porn, provided the feminist making the call is capable of separating notions of appropriate consent from their personal tastes not to view said porn.

A small point of order, but one that seriously pisses me off every time I see it.

There is no such thing as child porn. Pornographers want us all to believe that porn is consensual and just fine, and in no way exploits women, no, of course not.

Children cannot, legally or morally consent to the acts performed on them. Therefore, it is either filmed child sexual abuse, or images of child sexual abuse.

I know it's pedantic, but one thing feminists like to do is name the problem. Calling it child porn doesn't name the issue.

As you were.

DWH, the OP never came back...

Feminists disagree on whether or not all porn is bad/should be banned.
Though please carry on discussing erotic fiction hoping for a namecheck as I have to give a talk on the subject of That Book and feminism and consent in fiction and stuff fairly soon.

Wanna start another thread, SGB? This one has had several tangents!

dwh the only porn I could theoretically not find objectionable would be free exhibitionist porn in a non-patriarchal environment. As soon as commerce is involved and for so long as we live in a patriarchal society, i don't think porn can be separated from exploitation of women individually not the continuation of submission of women as a class.

FloraFOx: why should people make art for free? (admittedly that's a whole other thread, really: the current widespread belief that anyone who enjoys his/her artistic endeavours, whether those are in the shape of writing, photography, acting, singing or craftwork, is being unreasonable and greedy if s/he expects to earn an actual living from these endeavours...)

Porn is not art.

If the performers are consenting, what stops it being art? Or would you prefer to call it sport?

There's no performance. No it's not sport either. It's just a video of human activity that happens to be highly exploitative in its current form. Like watching someone get assaulted or murdered. That would not be art nor sport.

why is fifty shades of grey so hugely popular then?

what does popularity have to do with something being art or sport?

goes another tangent!

why is fifty shades of grey so hugely popular then?

IMO its the erotisation of consent. Parents, peers and society eroticise consent and sexual 'conduct code' into girls by projecting into them that their initial sexual experiences are an order of magnitude more of a Big Deal than boys experiences and that boys need to bring something more to the table than just desire. Girls get hung up that their own sexual desires mean something 'more' because that 'more' is built in innately, compared to boys. Leads to things like the lesbian u-haul joke. Girls sex is a a big deal and if its made too 'precious' it creates all manner of screwed up thinking. Some girls will supply oral sex and derive power from that rather than direct sexual gratification, ie a blow-job queen in terror of cunnilingus. Girls that think that dating X amount of time before sex means he 'cares' (because he must) or the boy doing different things for her lessens the chance he is not -just- interested in sex because being -just- interested in sex is bad.

A boy desiring sex is seen as natural but at the same time 'lesser', more bestial, and well meaning people will project into a boy you cannot simply want to -just- fuck a girl because that is being an ass-hole, you should be 'serious'. In other words for boys if you want to be a 'good' man sexual desire should have dimensions beyond sex. In that environment, instead of shared pleasure, boys begin to think in polarised terms of either being either thieves or heroes.