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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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How do feminists feel about porn?

93 replies

guitarguy · 10/12/2014 13:55

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.

OP posts:
FloraFox · 06/01/2015 08:31

dwh there is so much I disagree with in your post, it's hard to know where to start. I hate your language of "hung up", "built in innately", "too 'precious'", "blow-job queen", "Girls think that". Women get no power from giving blow-jobs. It's the language of brogressive boundary pushers who care more about making more women available for sex on men's terms than an underlying examination of the problems for women's sexuality under patriarchal domination.

I completely disagree that FSOG is the erotisisation of consent. I could scarcely agree less. It is the erotisisation of submission and of transaction. I'll put this quote in from Sheila Jeffreys as a starting point:

"Sexuality is socially constructed for men out of their position of dominance, and for women out of their position of subordination. Thus it is the eroticized inequality of women which forms the excitement of sex under male supremacy. As a result, radical feminist critics argue, the sexuality of men commonly takes the form of aggression, objectification, the cutting off of sex from emotion, and the centring of sex entirely around penile entry into the body of a woman. For women sexuality takes the form of pleasure in their subordinate position and the eroticizing of men's dominance. This system does not work efficiently."

Girls don't "get hung up". Society has a massive impact on shaping sexuality and how girls should and should not respond to their sexuality. For the most part, IMO, society tells girls that their sexuality is not important. They are presented with images of female bodies which please men. Then they are told that this is because men are visual and women are not, when it comes to attraction. The images of men that are available are often aggressive and dominant.

Girls are told that their sexuality is transactional - she may trade it for love or money or it may be a reward for the prince who rescues the princess, the hero of the tale where she is the prize. The choices available to women are generally to accept this position or to transgress it. However the acceptable form of transgression (promoted by liberal men) is by making themselves available to all men or switching the roles but maintaining the dominance / submission roles within sexuality. This is supposedly empowering and reclaiming sexuality.

It's hard to actually imagine what women's sexuality would be like if it developed outside of patriachal domination. I would think that the first thing to go would be the concept of consent, as that encapsulates the woman as passive permission giver rather than equal and enthusiastic participant.

HouseWhereNobodyLives · 06/01/2015 08:47

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HouseWhereNobodyLives · 06/01/2015 08:49

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ukfirestorm · 06/01/2015 08:55

I think the wider availability and acceptability of porn affects young men and women, certainly the young men I know find it acceptable to discuss use of porn, whereas when I was young it was viewed as shameful and derisory even as a consumer, or taboo and shocking at least.

SolidGoldBrass · 06/01/2015 16:52

The 50 Shades books are appallingly written, generally bad-all-round erotica, but their impact has been interesting in a variety of ways. I think the fuss made about the books (rather than the books themselves) has been helpful in allowing more space for women to talk about sexuality and what they might like to do with partners, but I also noted, when the fuss was at its height, how many men were anxiously dissing the books and ridiculing the women who enjoyed them. A lot of men, both liberal and conservative ones, get very very squawky and hostile and contemptuous about either expressions of women's sexuality or erotic media that's aimed at/produced by women. I presume it's because they are frightened that women exploring sex will lead to their own in-with-it-out-with-it-wipe-it-on-the-curtains technique being deemed inadequate.

tegetega · 08/01/2015 23:08

Feminists are experts in all aspects of the sex industry (despite the fact very few or none of them actually have any experience working in the sex industry) and they generally want all aspects of the sex industry made illegal.

Feminists (and while we're at it, church leaders) know a lot more about the sex industry than actual porn actresses or sex workers do.

tegetega · 08/01/2015 23:27

"FloraFox Mon 05-Jan-15 17:54:13
Like watching someone get assaulted or murdered. "

Is this feminist really comparing adult porn to murder???

AmantesSuntAmentes · 08/01/2015 23:29

I think genuine feminism would allow women to have their own, individual opinion about everything, including porn. And blow jobs. Without berating or belittling them for holding that opinion.

Being forced and coerced to agree with or comply to a matriarchal collective of ideals, is no less a subjugation than being forced to adhere to a patriarchal collective of ideals.

Feminism is freedom! At least, it should be and it should also be power to the individual. IME.

tegetega · 08/01/2015 23:32

Feminism is freedom, except for the sex industry, which feminists are trying their best to make illegal.

Look at Iceland (the most feminist country in the world along with Sweden) for example, they have criminalised porn, strip clubs and prostitution; and are now looking at ways to block porn from being accessed from the internet in the first place.

tegetega · 08/01/2015 23:38

Feminism is freedom, except for women who want to have traditional roles for example staying at home and who often get heavily criticised by feminists for their choices.

tegetega · 08/01/2015 23:39

Feminism is freedom about making choices, as long as the choices you make are approved by feminists.

SolidGoldBrass · 09/01/2015 11:38

Oh don't be such a dick Tegatega. Feminists are not a homogenous mass with identical opinions. There are plenty of feminists within the sex industry and a growing movement dedicated to producing and celebrating feminist porn. Not all feminists agree with this, of course, but that's because feminists are people with a range of opinions on different topics - just the one core agreement that women are human beings and entitled to do as they want without men's permission and without being subjected to men's control and violence.

DadWasHere · 09/01/2015 23:04

SGB. In my opinion you presume wrong.

You say its an 'appallingly written, generally bad-all-round erotica' book. I agree. But more importantly its the book that sold, not a better one. You want clear differentiation between why you slag off the book and why men would but I dont think that gulf exists to the extent you believe it does. The average man was as happy about the book as a pig in shit, it got their partner horny and men quite often dont have a problem with that.

Looking deeper at it plenty of women say Grey is an abuser and are troubled by the themes of the book, but if men are contemptuous its because they fear female erotica? No. Find better erotica and get women interested in it and perhaps you will find men in less disagreement than you think.

Grey is not Everyman, he represents an unattainable standard of power and wealth but speaks clearly to men what they already know, that having those things interests the opposite sex. I see no evidence that women are any more happy with unrealistic standards of male fantasy. Further, with that power and wealth Grey does some serious nasty shit. Why would women getting off on reading about it not trouble men?

SolidGoldBrass · 09/01/2015 23:35

The exact set of factors which make a shitty book sell in billions isn't known (otherwise we'd all be at it) but one thing which both 50 Shades and The Da Vinci Code (the other unmitigated crock of shit which sold in billions) have in common is that they are mostly read by people who otherwise don't read books. And there are more of these people than there are people who enjoy fiction, read lots of it and therefore are not impressed by poorly-written, derivative guff.
Around the time when 50 Shades hype was peaking, there was a clutch of articles about 'women who write erotica' (you do know, I take it, that there are lots of women who write erotic fiction). Every single one of which was patronizing and passive-aggressive insulting.

DadWasHere · 10/01/2015 00:25

The thing I remember from that period were articles from men who went in search of the female writers of erotica and found women who were quite the opposite of what they expected. No surprise to me though, I know a published author of erotica, she has a huge collection of herbal teas and multiple indoor cats. That was the norm rather than the exception and I remember some articles that wanted traction on the apparent discontinuity, between the authors lifestyle and what she wrote, and they used it to nasty effect. But I saw that as being unjustly mean spirited on the author and rubbishing legitimacy and authority rather than being in fear of what they wrote.

YonicSleighdriver · 10/01/2015 01:32

I don't think SGB said fear, she said:

"Every single one of which was patronizing and passive-aggressive insulting."

I suspect we all read the same articles. I think the journos were mostly disappointed they couldn't illustrate with "my sex romp aged 23 and 3/4" type pictures because whaddya know? Women over 35 and over a size 12 with nice jumper collections think about sex too.

DadWasHere · 10/01/2015 07:22

I don't think SGB said fear...

Read further back:
I presume it's because they are frightened....

YonicSleighdriver · 10/01/2015 09:56

Ah, I see.

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