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

well i often comment on stuff like this. I dont think porn is inherently wrong no. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with consenting adults making films of themselves and sharing it with other consenting adults if thats what everyone involved wants. Of course the problems arise when theres suspicions about consent. But porn in itself is not inherently wrong in my view. There are many porn films made professionally where people arent being exploited. For example those films like All About Anna and Pink Prison. Im abog fan of the feminist porn actress Ovidie as well i think shes mint!

What about the fact so many young girls are pressured into harmful or not pleasurable for them activities like anal, face jizzing or BDSM, hedgehog? Is that ok with you?

thats not the fault of pornography. That is like blaming violent films for violence. The problem is that somewhere along the line these girls arent receiving good enough sex education early enough and neither are the boys. Ive watched porn and so has my partner and yet i dont feel like i HAVE to have anal sex all the time or any such nonsense. Porn has been around since the dawn of time and always will be. Theres obviously a wider discussion that needs to be had about sex and our attitudes to sex. Just like any other type of film or art form its a reflection of the attitudes of society it isnt in itself causing the problems.

Id never seen any pornography until i was an adult but let me tell you that i got pressured into doing loads of stuff i wasnt comfortable with as a teenage girl and so did 99% of my female friends. It has more to do with societies attitudes to male and female sexuality than it does with anything else. It has more to do with not being taught about your own sexuality being afraid of it and unable to express clearly what you do and dont want to happen. It has to do with the pervasive view that boys will be boys and sexually aggressive to some degree and girls will be passive and want to please. This is not ingrained in children through porn it is just ingrained in them through day to day life, through advertising, on tv, even in the way they are taught in school. This attitude is everywhere and i honestly think these calls to ban porn because it is harmful to young girls only adds to this, by assuming that women have no agency or sexuality and are coerced into everything sexual that they do. Of course im not denying that in some porn the people involved arent totally doing it of their own free will... but i think to label all types of porn with the same brush is just another thing that is feeding into these strange views we allow to be upheld about passive female sexuality.

No one is saying ban Porn, I think? We are discussing whether Porn can ever be truly feminist. (Apple for caps, I added porn to my dictionary after the pork thing and its upset Ip my autocorrect!)

"but i think to label all types of porn with the same brush is just another thing that is feeding into these strange views we allow to be upheld about passive female sexuality."

So if women make and control some pornography they can start to fight the idea that sex is a 'bad' thing and only men enjoy it. Perhaps women could become empowered and start making demands?

"Ive watched porn and so has my partner and yet i dont feel like i HAVE to have anal sex all the time or any such nonsense."

That you have anal sex at all is indicative of pornography's effects on modern sexuality. I'd say believing you have a right to include prostitutes as a part of your sex life is another influence of porn.

"Porn has been around since the dawn of time and always will be."

It really hasn't. Nudity is not porn. Cave paintings in France are not porn. Venus figurines are not porn.

I strongly disagree that "Pink Prison" (produced by a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa.) is a pro-woman or feminist.

These are the keywords IMDB (rated 3.9) links to it:
prison
sadism
photo reporter
interracial sex
shower
catfight
hardcore
sex

There's also nothing pro-woman I've seen about Ovidie either, perhaps you can explain why you think she's a good example of someone raising awareness about women's oppression or fighting to attain rights for women in some way not making itself clear.

It's worth noting that Ovidie fits the common pattern of pornstitutes who gave up prostituting in porn themselves as soon as they made a name for themselves. Just like Tristan Taormino stopped prostituting to direct, immediately after achieving a little mainstream success in the crossover porno "All About Anna" Ovidie's stopped performing prostituted acts on film and moved behind the scenes into running the business of commodifying sex and prostituting others.

Porn is one of the very few arenas where hitting a level of success doesn't lead to more success in the industry so much as it quickly ushers the 'talent' out of the industry.

Pimps and pornographers frequently tantalize desperate young women and girls with the possibilities that their "nude modeling" will lead to mainstream success. It's a well known grooming tactic.

"In later Greco-Roman times, sodomy lost its standing as an abomination. Called pedico, it was practiced by men and women, the latter largely for contraception."

www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/55717-the-7-weirdest-sex-stories-of-the-ancient-world.html

Yep anal sex directly influenced by modern pornography's effect on modern sexuality. LMAO. No one did it till they watched porn.

You might be the very worst debater I've ever encountered on Mumsnet. I can't tell if you really think what you write is sensible or if your one-handed typing isn't intended to be sensible in the first place.

Either way, I won't waste any more time on you.

You might be the worst debater on MN arrgghhh the pain. The misery. How will I cope? Sillage of the "anal sex at all is indicative of pornography's effects on modern sexuality". Anal sex is as old as sex. No, no it is caused by pornography. Still LMAO. Off you go.

Oh dear bitof. You seriously think that the fact Greek women (who didn't have reliable contraceptives) used anal to avoid pregnancy demonstrates that the rise of anal as part of the sexual repertoire of young women today ISNT linked to porn?

Sorry I'm a bit drunk.

I quote "anal sex at all is indicative of pornography's effects on modern sexuality. " I repeat anal sex is as old as sex. The idea that it is new fangled thing brought about by porn is laughable. It has been practiced by a wide variety of societies for a wide variety of reasons for millennia. One of the reasons is that some men and (oh my gosh) some womern like it.

disclaimer - anyone who doesn't consent should not be forced.

I think I've thought more about porn in the last week than in the previous 57 years of my existence. I suspect that is setting me up for a fall along the lines of "well if you don't think about it, what do you know?" from Bit

An aside, I'm wholly unconvinced by directors like von Trier and whoever made the tedious 9 Songs that a film is in any way improved by the actors actually having real sex.

So if women make and control some pornography they can start to fight the idea that sex is a 'bad' thing and only men enjoy it.

Sex isn't a bad thing. Who nowadays seriously says it is?

Who says nowadays that only men enjoy it?

Even if those statements were true of current attitudes and mores why would porn be the answer to changing attitudes?

Doesn't porn rely on an underlying assumption that sex is dirty ?

Buffy - if it is the same article I am thinking of, it explicitly stated that the explanation of pornography as a reason for the practice of anal sex among the interviewees was partial at best.

Doesn't porn rely on an underlying assumption that sex is dirty ?

Porn relies on the consumer of the material being sexually aroused by it and being willing to pay to experience that pleasure. IMO it is not that sex is dirty, but rather that it is largely an intensely private experience.

What I meant is that isn't it in the interest of pornographers to portray sex as bad or sleazy?

I don't watch porn, never have but I don't get the impression porn promotes sex as a natural , fun thing to do.

The BMJ article did not say that porn was not to blame. It said that there was not conclusive evidence that porn was to blame. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Scientists understandably tend to be very careful about such things.

But the BMJ article was chilling. What it showed IIRC was that a majority of young women aged 16 to 20 had tried anal sex. Of those who had tried it, a minority enjoyed it. The rest were split between those for whom it did nothing (not entirely surprising - women don't have a prostate gland) and those who found it uncomfortable and/or painful. The terrifying thing though was the attitude of the young men. A substantial proportion knew that their female sexual partners didn't want anal, expected to have to use "persuasion" up to and including coercion and, worst of all, engaged in this process of "persuasion" in the knowledge that the woman might well find the experience painful.

How anyone could read that article and take from it the message that "porn wasn't the cause" (in fact the autgors said, paraphrasing, "we cannot say that porn is the cause") is beyond my comprehension.

Lass - "well if you don't think about it, what do you know?" from Bit"

What I would say is it is brilliant you are involved in a discussion on a complex issue. There are no easy answers and all (most) contributions are valid.

Causality is very hard to prove. Do fashion magazines cause anorexia? Or does the media reflect society?

I would read "we cannot say porn is the cause" as the authors saying they don't know and can't prove it.

However, this is where we find ourselves so do we stand around saying its terrible while wringing our hands. Give women the confidence to say no to anything they don't want. Or teach people about anal sex so they can enjoy it painlessly.

Christ - a sexual practise where you have to be taught to "enjoy it painlessly" - excuse me while I don't rush to try it.

And as for "just say no" - yeah, that works so well in a society where sexual violence or the threat of it is ubiquitous.

I would read "we cannot say porn is the cause" as the authors saying they don't know and can't prove it.

That is not what they said.

"The ‘pornography’ explanation seems partial at best, not least because young people only seemed to see this as motivating men, not women. We found other important explanations and motivations in young people's accounts, as we will see below."