Article about feminism and porn.

[DeleteOrDecay]

Thought this might be of interest here. I think the article makes some good points.

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/17353836?utmhpp_ref=uk&

NoLove - comes from the same place as his refusal to respect Pooch's boundaries, and his insistence that feminists are bad people (and the obvious fact that he's now getting angry now he's been called out on it). In summary: misogyny. Dressed up in all sorts of faux-intellectual language with elaborate case studies (not to mention a strange fixation with lesbian porn), but till misogyny.

Indeed Hedgehog. Along with the persistence in stating some pornography is produced by women as if this negates the misogyny inherent in it and damage it does to all women and girls.

How bizarre.

Not really. With the odd exception it is in the nature of human beings to exploit and mistreat others. That's just what they do. If you give human beings power they abuse it - women and men. Men have raped and killed and abused and enslaved because they have had the power to do so. Power is an intoxicant. Furthermore, it is often unconscious, so the person crushing the other feels nothing while the person being crushed feels everything.

The only antidote to power is love, and love is rare. I don't mean erotic or familial love, but pure selfless love. You can only attain that level of love through extreme suffering - by submitting yourself to the abuse of others. Or at least, suffering can have two possible consequences.

1. The suffering becomes so great that the individual wishes to transfer that pain into the other. This is the definition of evil. You find it in child molesters, serial killers etc.

2. The individual ego is destroyed through the extremity of suffering and then love becomes possible.

Definitely time to disengage.

if this negates the misogyny inherent in it and damage it does to all women and girls.

I am negating no such thing.

Yes, mostly, it's that poster.

Possibly it always is. I do wonder sometimes.

In fairness, nolove, it was me that opened the door to the nasty language. In hindsight, an error, but I hadn't yet realised.

I'm probably too sensitive to language such as that and there's nothing wrong with raising it to show how misogynistic and degrading pornography is. That such terms are relatively used in titles to garner views is incredibly disturbing.

I know

Last time I discussed porn on here and I was doing a bit of reading about what porn looks like these days, I couldn't get some of the stuff I'd seen out of my head. And that was just the titles and the descriptions.

Sorry, I just looked back and my reply to you looked a bit snippy, mostly - wasn't meant to be! You are very right about the various forms of misogyny...I quite like a game of spot-the-misogynist - sadly it's all too easy to get a full house

It is horrendous as is how young children are viewing it and boys start to see girls in this way. Last summer a friend of mine was just walking in the Broadway which contains the Tube station local to our school on her way home eating an ice cream when a group of boys who were about 13/14 at most in their school uniforms started making violently sexual comments at her clearly gleaned from pornography, finding it hilarious of course. In this sense pornography has made girls and women objects and any act can be sexualised into something boys and men have seen in pornography and used to degrade. That's without the kinds of things many boys often expect and try to pressure girls into and the fact degrading treatment of women is considered "normal" sex by many. I can empathise with not being able to get such awful things out of your head, knowing this is what we're being bombarded with and how women and girls are seen due to it.

Pooch can I just say I do agree with what you and a lot of feminists say. The misogyny of porn is a problem, but we are now in a situation where porn extends beyond the issue of patriarchy. Maybe a feminist forum is not the appropriate forum to discuss that, and for that I apologise.

When I said feminists 'want a different form of sexual exploitation' I meant that sometimes the focus seems to be ending one particular type of porn but not others. Why not put forward suggestion for outlawing it all? Because surely that is the only way that you will address the stuff that is so harmful to women and girls.

My suggestion would be:

1. Assuming it is impossible to immediately band porn, keeping all porn to certain licensed sites which are required to keep documentary evidence of all participants ages and consent. Any who do not comply will risk a jail sentence with those responsible registered as sex offenders.

2. Blocking access to all children by imposing a credit card wall.

3. Criminalizing video and pictorial sexting. It is the only way to ensure none of it ends up in cyberspace. If adults wish to create images of themselves that is fine, but as soon as it is communicated or uploaded it becomes an offence because it is a form of unlicensed pornography.

This might sound hardline, but it's the only way.

Assuming it is impossible to immediately band porn

Meant 'ban' porn. Obvs.

Don't worry Pooch, no offense taken!

I love it when men do thought experiments on porn threads. It's my favourite.

Quentin

My absolute favourite was when that twat said what about if women loved being prostitutes, had a really high status in the community, health and safety regulations, and were admired and feted throughout?

Then would it be okay?

Strangely they never have a come back to why men don't rent each other their arse holes