Math Magazine and 'good' porn.

[MrsToddsShortcut]

While I can see what she is trying to do, is the concept of 'nice'/'good' porn still not skirting around the same ballpark as all the hideous, damaging degrading stuff? It's still effectively saying porn is okay. Or would you say this is closer to erotic writing, I.e no real people involved? Is it just the wide end of a very nasty wedge? Genuinely not sure how I feel about this.

Huff post article about Math magazine

I think "female superior" just means a position for penis-in-vagina sex when the woman is on top. It doesn't necessarily imply "male inferior" at the same time!

But I think there's a kind of pornography where women are shown as enthusiastic, even dominating, participants. Not necessarily to the point where the men are being forced into something; it might show a man as initially naive, but he soon gets the idea.

Or maybe I'm imagining it, not knowing much about pornography. In fact I wonder how we can discuss pornography unless we've seen a fair amount of it! I have the impression that it's a pretty varied field, not limited to sadistic portrayals the way people here often talk about it. But it might be seen as disloyal to the cause to say "Not all pornography shows women being harmed". That would suggest that we have to get in and dissect what pornography is about, and what the underlying motivation is, and that's an uncomfortable thing to contemplate.

In the posting I just made I missed out some thought about pornography which shows a woman being enthusiastic about sex actually being quite insidious, and not as positive as I implied. The issue would be that the woman would be shown as having motivations out of male fantasy, something very unrealistic compared with most people's lives. So there wouldn't be any coercion or violence involved, but the woman herself would be presented as eagerly having sex with a man outside the bounds of, shall we say, a trusting and mutually respectful relationship. So I'm not sure we can say that take away the male domination and everything would be fine: we have to think about whether the people in porn are being sexual in a way that respects themselves.

Can you say more about what you mean by a 'female superior position sex act'?

Perhaps the women are of superior beauty?

Well, anyway, I don't believe the women in mainstream porn are in any way, shape or form dominant, or even assertive. The submissive pout of the women in the porny pictures I occasionally see on advertisements for porn and the like does not look like they're advertising femdom/malesub there!

In fact I wonder how we can discuss pornography unless we've seen a fair amount of it!

Well, it is of course difficult, but there's no avoiding it. You can't do unethical things just so you know for sure exactly how unethical they are.
I've read more descriptions of porn than I would, in retrospect, like to have read, and they give a rather detailed picture.

You are right about not all porn showing violence against women, but I have read an article on so-called "lesbian porn", which apparently looks rather vanilla, but behind the scenes there's actresses who are not lesbian, do not know how to pleasure a woman and cause pain instead, and of course all have to pretend they are enjoying themselves. It's ugly.

So even if it looks nice and fun, that doesn't mean it is.

Wise words from a very smart woman about "lesbian" porn:

"The kick of girl-girl porno lies partly in its catering to the fantasy of violating the privacy of lesbians, of making even sex between women - something quite threatening to male sexual prerogative-serve a male agenda; the other, tacit element is the kick of seeing “normal”girls made to emulate homosexual activity. The assumption is that homosexual activity is repulsive, and that therefore the models are disgusted by it and endure it under some compulsion - whether the compulsion of money, force of personality, or physical threat.

Pictures of real lesbians - at Gay Pride rallies, for example - kissing, necking and flirting are often considered disgusting and ugly by the same men who enjoy girl-girl fantasy porn.

Lesbians in the public world who kiss, hold hands, or otherwise behave like a sexually intimate couple (in a restaurant, in a park, at a movie) have often been subjected to abuse, threats and violence from hetero men - the same men who constitute the market for ever-popular girl-girl porno."

-Catharine A. Mackinnon, Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, (edited by Christine Stark & Rebecca Whisnant), “Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution & Pornography.” 2004. (p. 198)

Thanks for that Buffy really interesting stuff and you pull together the intellectual arguments. My background is political rather than sociological so please excuse my adaptation.

So "Choosing happy doesn't necessarily mean you've chosen something liberating, " It's a bit like the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat, you might not like it but it will be to your benefit (liberating?) in the long run and be of benefit to wider society. The people might not like it but it is in there best interest. But I like being happy - so shallow.

You suggest the "not all porn" argument has to "neutralise the broader arguments that can be made about inequality generally," and to a large extent I agree. But it comes down to idealism vs realism. The left is plagued by this argument. Better New Labour than the Tories. Should the left remain pure but out of power? People on the left have to abandon some principles to make some gains don't they? Or are they just Tory apologists?

Is it better to make improvements to something bad (but enjoyable?) than to call for an idealistic but hopeless ban? The "not all porn" argument would suggest less people will be harmed in a less severe way but harm will still occur. Can you live with the compromise? I understand lots of you will say no.

I admit my "not all porn" argument is not idealistic and may result in some harm. It will contribute to society's body discipline of both men and women. This is not good, but it's not totally bad either. You could gain tiny incremental steps.

An idealistic opposition to porn moves nobody anywhere, idealistically pure and morally secure but in a practical sense useless. One could say 100% of nothing. While I am scrabbling around in the dirt for a little bit of something, and something is better than nothing.

I know and respect the view that if something is wrong it should always be opposed absolutely. Any harm to any one is always bad. I have spent a long time putting forward that argument myself. I just think it is impractical - for me in my life.

This is where I link back to my posts about my work. Small gains. We keep positive by saying "you can't change the world but you can make small gains." Any little victory moves us forward.

The "not all porn" argument put into practice would be a small gain. When I look at bigger issues FGM, I can't get enthusiastic about banning porn. There are bigger, better fights. FGM makes NO one happy. (I'm not putting forward the 'people starving somewhere' argument).

I like being happy (checks make-up in the mirror), I am aware I am being manipulated (need to loose some weight) bottom line I choose practical with the hope of small gains - ethical porn?????

I post with trepidation because I know a moral high ground response is very easy to type and I am being very honest about the compromises in this argument.

Now, I need to decide who I will vote for in the Labour leadership contest and then find out what that naughty Frodo Baggins has been up to with Sam.

I can see where you're coming from with the issue of a workable compromise which achieves tiny incremental improvements, versus the moral high ground which gets us nowhere (and the analogy with Blairite labour versus Corbyn is well put - while Labour fights among themselves over this one, the conservatives are going to destroy the NHS and education, and no-one will even be trying to stop them because they're preoccupied with whose socialism is the right one...)

But I think it's a huge step from "as a pragmatic strategy, let's get the kids I work with talking about consent in their real life sexual relationships, rather than worrying about what's on their phones" (though I still worry that the latter may be undoing all the good work you do on the former) to "and therefore I'm okay with it morally". I think you're right - we all do things we're a bit uncomfortable with because... "reasons". As a single parent whose income is not huge, I've (in the past) bought quite a lot of stuff from Sports Direct. With the latest wave of revelations, I finally steeled myself to by DS's latest pair of footie boots from a more reputable store, and god, the financial hit! We all of us do stuff we know we shouldn't. And giving it up usually comes at a cost (double the Sports Direct cost, in this case). But for me personally, the thing is there is no absolute need for porn. I can have a sexual fantasy life without it, it is not necessary to me in that sense.

It's not so much Frodo and Sam I worry about, it's the foursome... (Have you discovered any of the polyamory on AO3 yet? It's like trying to read a verbal description of a game of twister, only with genitals instead of hands and feet. And about as erotic as trying to disentangle three beds' worth of sheets and duvet covers when you get them out the tumble dryer).

Bitofacow, why can't you get enthusiastic about banning porn while you look at FGM? This seems to be an appeal to worse problems. I am able to care about both at the same time. And would, in fact, argue that the two are connected.
Women voluntarily have surgery on their vulva to make it look more pornified. And porn actresses probably have to have it so they can get jobs. The two issues are not really that separate, even though cutting the inner labia is of course not as bad as the mutilation of the clitoris.

As for the difference between pragmatism and being okay with something morally, indeed, yes, we do a lot of things we shouldn't. I recently bought unfair trade chocolate. I admit it.

I also contributed to the polyamory on AO3 blushes

I've noticed that the people who want to argue 'not all porn' seem to need to neutralise the broader arguments that can be made about inequality generally, and how it works, generally. In other words, if you want to argue 'not all porn' first you have to establish a backdrop where the relations between men and women - sexually and socially - are broadly OK.

Is 'all porn' any better? Not even porn happy couples upload to the internet for free would pass the benchmark you just set with that logic.

I used to watch pornography, but you don't have to watch it to learn enough about the product to act for change.

Remember John Stagliano, the pornographer from the earlier post who challenged Tristan Taormino to force anal sex on a woman who vehemently said "no"? Stagliano's company Evil Angel is releasing "I Blackmailed My Babysitter’s Ass" on Sept 19.

(link goes to Xbiz, the business website of the porn industry, no porn visible on this webpage) www.xbiz.com/news/211880

LOS ANGELES — Evil Angel has announced the release of director Kevin Moore’s “I Blackmailed My Babysitter’s Ass," which will be available Sept. 19 on DVD and VOD.

“The title is to the point — babysitters being blackmailed for anal sex by the men they work for,” Moore stated. In each of four scenes, a flirty tramp surrenders all three orifices to an opportunistic man of the house.

Alexandra Kelley, Evil Angel’s vice president of sales and marketing, notes that titles like “I Blackmailed My Babysitter’s Ass” are hot in the marketplace. She said, “Fans aroused by ‘forbidden love,’ ‘taboo relations’ and ‘blackmailed’ content like to fantasize on the ‘What if?’”

"porn happy couples upload to the internet for free"

I file that one next to the other outlandish examples men concoct when women talk about the widespread problem of rape, things like

1. What if we’re both drunk and she says yes to foreplay but right before I put it in she says, ‘No”?

1. But if she’s walking naked through a park at night, some responsibility…

I’ve heard men give variations on that “naked in a dark park” scenario so many times during discussions about rape that it's downright freaky. It’s like they’re fishing for The Rape Line, that liminal technicality where they can sate their desire to get off on women they damn well know are unwilling while convincing themselves they're either blame-free or less to blame than they imagine her to be.

Matilda " and the thing is for me there is no absolute need for porn" that is correct. There is no 'need' for it and you don't feel the pull. And that is OK. However, for lots of people while there is no need the pull, the lure, the thrill is very, very strong. And that is OK too.

I won't buy Nestlé. Aren't I moral? Actually I never drink coffee anyway so it causes me no harm. I won't go to Sports Direct, but hey I can afford not to, so that's easy for me to say.

The pull or porn is very strong, if you are in to it.

So Dadwashere even though no porn meets the moral bar I would ideally like to think I have, I indulge while assuring myself (hypocritically?) that what I look at is ethical. Big compromise I know.

Matilda - teddy bears, get the teddy's and use them to work out what limbs go where.

dad Yes well done that was buffys point. No porn is ok against a backdrop of unequal sexual relations.

bitof FGM is serving some purpose or it wouldn't still exist. I'm not sure I would describe it as making people "happy" but there is a subset of men who would be unhappy to find their wife hadn't been cut. FGM is also there to subjugate women and put their sexual experience below that of men
I'm not arguing for one minute porn is equivalent to FGM. I'm arguing that both have the same root, I think you wanting to campaign against one and not the other is more indicative of your cultural values and the society you have been raised in. You've been socialised to believe porn is not too harmful as much people in cultures with FGM have been socialised that FGM is necessary

"Teddy bears..." - I have recently been informed that there is a whole sub-genre called fluffy! I think that's where you might be going.

But on a more serious note, in addition to sillage's point, the other thing is (as with other sorts of porn supposedly produced by consenting participants) "how does the end user know?" Putting their sex lives out on the web on public display could be a kink the couple share. It could be something one member of the couple is being coerced into (shades of that 18th century scandal where the man got off on peeping through the keyhole while his wife took a series of lovers because he told her to), it could be an act of revenge porn - couple made video for private use during the relationship, then one posts it after the relationship ends. If anything, home made porn comes with even less chance of the user being able to check its provenance than so-called feminist porn with its framing of actors discussing consent before and after the filming.

Makelovenotporn - amateur porn uploaded by individuals checked by the website.

Off to work now.

If you believe, sillage, that a woman selling sexual consent amounts to her acceptance to be raped, then produced commercial porn is rape. But if you want to make a case that commercial porn is all about the depiction of women being degraded and abused, I see that as another issue, the treatment of an actor is separate from the treatment their act depicts.

Bringing up 'I Blackmailed My Babysitter’s Ass' and investing substantial worth in 'the story' of its tittle seems pointless to me, like bringing up 'Lord of the G-Strings' and discussing the validity of why female elves are so irresistible to human men. The sex acts are real, the framing of them is a fiction. If most porn tittles referenced acts of women being abused in some form, I would say there is a fundamental problem with how men want to see women depicted in porn. But your case seems akin to going into literotica and deciding its 20,000 tales of non consent and rape represent the mainstream drive for works of written fiction.

Still catching up on thread so apologies if I rehashimg something. To me, as a feminist I don't think there is such a thing as feminist porn at the moment because of the structural relationships. Basically, porn is filmed prostitution, and since I don't believe in purchased consent for sex, I don't think any prostition is okay, therefore porn, even when the woman is really, really enjoying it, is not feminist from my pov.

I think if we really want to deal with the content of porn as femisinst/ not feminist, there should be a ban on anyine ever making money out of any porn product. Sites hosting porn must not be able to make any revenue from adverts/ clucks, makers must not be allowed to receive payment for their work. If all the pornographers were doing it all out of the goodness of their heart, and there was no money to coerce consent from performers etc then we might be in a position to have arguments based on genuine consent/ freedom of speech etc, and focus on content would not obscure the wider structural oppressions that porn takes part in.

To me, at the moment, all the, but-she-likes-it, it's-for-women is just smoke in front of the real issue, which is that porn is prostitution and therefore inevitably connected to global sex trafficking whether or not the individuals in one particular film or transaction were themselves trafficked or regard themselves as coerced.

I think that, on balance, I have to agree with Glosswitch here when she says:

With porn or sex work, I just don't understand how someone thinks they can tell by outer appearances whether someone else is being coerced

And once you at least accept that coercion is a possibility, I don't understand how you can justify taking pleasure in it

So called ethical porn often doesn't add up when scrutinised and if you accept that there is the possibility of coercion/pain/harm, which realistically you have to do, then consuming it just makes you part of the problem.

"If you believe, sillage, that a woman selling sexual consent amounts to her acceptance to be raped, then produced commercial porn is rape."

Oh I don't believe it amounts to her acceptance to be raped, I believe, based on what men who prostitute women say and do, that men who make and consume porn think prostitutes can't be raped.

"the treatment of an actor is separate from the treatment their act depicts."

Can you stop focusing (aka shifting the responsibility) on the prostituted women who are economically extorted into unwanted sex and spend some energy questioning why and what it means that millions of men are masturbating to the idea of anally raping their babysitters (and stepdaughters, nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc)?

"If most porn tittles referenced acts of women being abused in some form, I would say there is a fundamental problem with how men want to see women depicted in porn."

You say this, but if you meant it then you would have read the research posted earlier showing virulent misogyny in the vast majority of pornography.

www.academia.edu/14444093/Aggression_and_Sexual_Behavior_in_Best-Selling_Pornography_Videos_A_Content_Analysis_Update?auto=download

"Many critics of antipornography efforts have suggested that researchers pick out the most violent and aggressive videos available to alarm the public about potential harm or degradation in adult video texts (see interview with Ernest Greene in The Price of Pleasure, Sun & Picker, 2008). By selecting top-renting and best-selling videos for analysis, we attempted to provide a picture of what is commonly consumed. Our results suggest that popular pornographic videos contain high levels of both verbal and physical aggression...approaching 90%."

The population of titles for this research was drawn from a compilation of 250 best-selling and 250 most rented video lists published monthly by AVN. The researchers selected the top 30 videos appearing on each list from December 2004 to June 2005. After deleting duplications, the population consisted of 275 titles (AVN, 2005). Fifty titles were randomly selected from this list to comprise the sample, yielding a total of 304 scenes.

On the whole, the pornographic scenes analyzed in this study were aggressive; only 10.2% of scenes did not contain an aggressive act.

Physical aggression was much more common than verbal aggression occurring in 88.2% of the scenes, whereas expressions of verbal aggression occurred in 48.7% of the scenes. By far, the most common verbally aggressive act was name calling (e.g., “bitch,” “slut”; 97.2% of all 632 verbally aggressive acts).

Women were verbally insulted or referred to in derogatory terms 534 times, whereas men experienced similar verbal assaults in only 65 instances.

A total of 9.9% of scenes analyzed contained positive behaviors. Most of the positive behaviors observed were kissing, but laughing, embracing, caressing, verbal compliments, and statements of “making love” or “I love you” were also noted.

ATM was depicted in 41% of scenes. Logistic regression analyses revealed that ATM was a strong predictor of the presence of both verbal and physical aggression in the scene. We argue that this provides criterion validity to ATM as an inherently degrading practice and suggest that future studies continue to code for its presence.

Among the 50 randomly selected pornographic videos, there were 6 films with titles suggesting that the female performers are young or underage, such as “Teen Fuck Holes,” “Teenage Spermaholics #3,” “Anal Teen Tryouts,” “Cum Craving Teens,” or “Barely Legal #50.”

Here goes Buffy
Does porn hamper women's liberation while "remaining part of the overall disciplining of sexuality? Yep, probably does."
It could be argued that body discipline is so prevalent that ALL sexual encounters are influenced by it. Monogamous sexual relations are moulded by societal influences and so confirm the participants in their gender stereotypes. No sex will liberate women from body discipline. Would anyone suggest we forego all sex?

The level of acceptable risk is a personal compromise. The level of harm acceptable seems to be tied up in whether people think sexual harm is different and therefore worse than other harm. I think harm is harm and don't really see how people can buy products made by children while condemning porn. Harm was caused. So as discussed previously the issue is where you are prepared to compromise. I try to source as many purchases as I can ethnically, porn is just another one in the list.

We could disappear down a legalising prostitution rabbit hole, no surprise to discover I would. If you believe women can never make informed decisions about porn or prostitution we are always going to disagree.

I know lots of pro porn arguments focus on how dull, grey and joyless people who oppose porn are. I have tried really hard not to say this. However, if it is not something you enjoy it is hard to understand the pull and a lot easier to condemn. Sex is a massively powerful influence in SOME people's lives. They are not happier or better people they just have different demons. Dismissing the pull and then condeming it as "something you don't need" because I don't need it is very dangerous and shows a lack of empathy. We will never make any progress if we don't try to understand other people.

In relation to the suppliers of porn I would apply the classic Marxist interpretation, it is not the specific industry but the nature of capitalism that is the issue. I will restrain myself from going in to detail as I will disappear up my own arse.

I don't think many people perform the mental contortions I go to to justify their actions. Should I just embrace my inner pervert and stop feeling uncomfortable (I don't do guilt)? I understand what you say about going to the gym makes you happier. I am joking about being shallow, I think. But honestly sometimes nothing beats a great, big bag of greasy chips. And a pie. With gravy. Mushy peas?

And finally, practically a ban would not work. Incremental steps towards reforming porn is my view the only practical way forward. (Please forgive me Mr Marx for my capitulation to the hegemony).

Felsa I have lots of opinions on FGM but I don't want to hijack this thread. It is a massive issue 200 million women, today, now, in this world are suffering. There are practical things I can actually do to help stop this.

Basically, porn is filmed prostitution, and since I don't believe in purchased consent for sex, I don't think any prostition is okay, therefore porn, even when the woman is really, really enjoying it, is not feminist from my pov

I agree. Porn is just filmed prostitution.

So far as the enthusiastic amateurs, what about candaulism? How could you be sure both were equally enthusiastic?

"I know lots of pro porn arguments focus on how dull, grey and joyless people who oppose porn are. I have tried really hard not to say this. However, if it is not something you enjoy it is hard to understand the pull and a lot easier to condemn. Sex is a massively powerful influence in SOME people's lives."

You're still equating anti-porn with anti-sex

HapShawl - I tried really hard to make it clear I was not doing that. The next line that you do not quote is " They are not happier or better people".

Very slowly. If you do not share this particular pull/desire/kink it is hard to understand. In the same way some people regard being gay as something people could just ignore. In the same way the BDSM community face prejudice and are told to just ignore their desires. It is different to you, not better or worse.

And if you don't like porn that doesn't make you frigid, miserable or morally superior.

Clear enough?

But why are you lumping in watching porn with those other sexual activities?