Anti-Porn

[Ninja Realist]

I found this article to be very insightful:

http://www.oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html

I find pornography to be vulgar and sexist. It not only has a terrible effect on the individuals that get involved in it, but on society as a whole. I think anyone who enhoys pornography should read the articles on this site, most importantly the extremely well written and poignant essays.

[GWS923]

It's a profession people choose to go in to. I personally think lawyers are more morally reprehensible than people who choose to enjoy the sexual pleasures of life. The girls who do porn probably don't feel it's sexist, or they wouldn't do it. Women who don't do porn should be strong enough to let men know that just because men do certain things to women in porn doesn't mean it's okay in real life. If we banished porn because it was sexist, we'd have to ban all the movies from before the 60's because most of them are sexist too.

I really don't see how it's degrading to women on a basic level. Two people having sex does not imply that one gender is inferior to another. As you start to deviate, you find a lot of porn in which a female submits to a male, but at the same time, you get a lot of stuff in which the male submits to the female (domination). If there are specific types of porn in which a female is humiliated, or which actively support the mistreatment of females, I haven't come across them, but, to be fair, maybe that's just because of my modest sexual tastes... so I'll leave that open to you, NR, as that could be a good point of yours.

As for the viewing of porn not being healthy, we're just going to think this stuff up in our heads anyway if it's not on the internet. It's not like the availability of porn is changing human nature.

[Kagome654]

Not that I disagree with you, GWS, but I have to wonder if you bothered to check out the link as their 'Myths' section mentions many of the arguments you just made...

[GWS923]

The website, as far as I'm concerned, is unnavigatable. Way too many links for me to have any incentive to look through them all.

So no, I did not check out the "Myths" section.

Edit: And now that I have, what I've seen has made me laugh. "Pornography destroys relationships." It is a known fact that men are more inclined to masturbate when they are getting some than when they are not. If anything, my relationship supports pornography.

Many of the myths just show how men can be idiots. They can, it's true, but if I'm being sexist by watching porn, this site is sexist against men, making broad hypocritical generalizations.

"Prostitution is a professional choice." prostitution is completely different than pornography. Parallels are there, but pornstars don't run the risk of being killed, and can get paid dumploads of money just for posing, at which point they could do something else with their lives. Prostitution is a sad product of the flaws in our (and likewise every other country's) economic system.

"Porn is an outlet safety etc." What? What the... I just wanted to masturbate... gimme a break. No one I ever knew claimed that.

"Women who work in porn are empowerd." I'm not sure what this one is going on about. Is this supposed to be a justification myth? To denounce such a myth would require an understanding of the porn industry I doubt these people have.

"porn is a fantasy, no one would try to apply this to real life." Why not apply stuff you see in real life? As long as it's safe and both partners agree to do it.

[Kagome654]

Well then, fair enough.

Anyway, I'm pretty much on the fence, the website makes some good points but I feel sometimes its implied that I have to agree with a conclusion as only logical but in reality I'm not sure I agree with many of the points they used to get there.

[GWS923]

I feel sometimes its implied that I have to agree with a conclusion as only logical but in reality I'm not sure I agree with many of the points they used to get there.

That's exactly how I feel. I mean sure, there are problems with pornography and I can certainly understand how pornography could make someone uncomfortable, but I don't think my looking at porn will ever effect the way I act or treat others, specifically females. I'd even say that seeing how fake porn can be has made me appreciate the deep connection I have with my girlfriend. It's made her more special to me. That might seem like a stretch. Probably is. But I thought I'd say it anyway.

[Ninja Realist]

GWS923, before you start talking you should read the Essays which give real life supports of many of the arguments in the Myth Section.

Also did you not see this quote:

I got the shit kicked out of me. I was told before the video - and they said this very proudly, mind you - that in this line most of the girls start crying because they're hurting so bad . . . I couldn't breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset, and they didn't stop. They kept filming. You can hear me say, 'Turn the ****ing camera off,' and they kept going.

I also think you should read this story: http://www.oneangrygirl.net/LaraRoxx.html

[isolatedotaku]

Kids and porn

According to a poll released in March by the Kaiser Family Foundation:
70 percent of teens ages 15-17 say they have accidentally come across porn while using the Internet.
25 percent of the boys admit they have lied about their age to access a website.
76 percent of the teens say their schools have Internet filters on the computers.
33 percent say their home computer has a filter.
Family Safe Media, an outfit that sells Internet filters and other blocking devices, has also compiled research on the topic. It has found:
The average age at which a child is first exposed to Internet porn is 11.
The largest consumer of Internet porn is kids between ages 12 and 17.
12 percent of all websites are porn sites.
25 percent of all search engine requests are for porn.

I fall into each one of those precents (in which case, the last two are more like "I have visited..." and "I have searched..."), and I could care less.

Now I only looked through the Kid's Corner (I am 14, exposed to porn roughfully when I was 11), and nothing I read made me regret any of my choices.

I agree with Kagome, I am on a fence (put the grass is looking green where the naked women lay). Sure, some hardcore porn may demean women, but if you don't like don't watch it. No one forces people to watch porn. I have never once been told "You! Sit down! Watch this copy of "Private Calls!""

[PsychoSaiya-jin]

Define "porn"

[isolatedotaku]

Porn

n : creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire [syn: pornography, porno, erotica, smut]

Dictionary dot com

EDIT//

no artistic value? I strongly disagree with that. Some pornography have some artistic value (such as costume design, location, some even have interesting stories...)

[Pedro The Hutt]

Everything in moderation is what I say.
And from the bits that I've read off that site, it's heavily biased. Of course I'm not doubting that the posted links, stories and articles aren't true, BUT, that doesn't make it an absolute. Similarly people have died making normal films, or have gotten abuse in any other industry, but that doesn't mean the entire industry is bad. What that site does is the generalising thing, it does an equivilant of saying "My son got attacked by a muslim, all muslims are bad!". Which of course is bollocks.

[GWS923]

GWS923, before you start talking you should read the Essays which give real life supports of many of the arguments in the Myth Section.

Also did you not see this quote:



I also think you should read this story: http://www.oneangrygirl.net/LaraRoxx.html

The real life essays might be real, that's a very good possibility. But it's also the internet. Which means it could be entirely fake. And if that does happen to one girl, that's a tragedy. If it happened to all girls though, I doubt we'd still have a pornography business.

[Erigion]

I find porn to the most wonderful thing ever invented.

Oh and that recent study about judging a website's design in milliseconds is absolutely true. Dear lord that site needs a redesign.

[Ninja Realist]

I feel like you guys haven't read the essays because they make a larger more all-encompassing view. That is to say, porn affects the way that men perceive women, female sexuality, and relationships in general. In one of the essays she has talked about how, throughout her entire life, she has met men with a dim view of female sexuality who did not do anything but penetrate her until she told them otherwise. I am not saying porn is all to blame for this, many other media outlets have had a large effect on these strange and insensitive views that many men have towards women, but I think discounting the role pornography plays in these kind of misconceptions is just deluding yourself.

(As, let me reiterate that the most iformative and poignant section of this website is the essay section, "Why I am anti-porn", please read this as this is the part of the site that I found really influential)

I think it is also self-deluding to discount the predatory and carnivorous effect that porn has on women. Just because someone agrees to do something does not necessarily mean they want to. If that was the case no one would work in Gas Station's or in Coal Mines. But porn, in particular, is a very unforgiving industry that tends to prey on people in very vulnerable positions.

I will also be the first to admit that this website is biased. But it is no less biased than the image that pornography portrays of women. But please, if you wan't to tell me a POSITIVE effect the porn industry has than say it, but I certainly can't think of one.

[punkusa20_2001]

to hell with anit-porn, to hell with pro porn too. i watch porn, i masturbate, i still haven't gone to a strip club because i think its degrading, but i have friends who work at some and some women i know even suggest it for the experience. no one forces these people to be in porn or strip clubs. watch it and just know the difference between reality and fantasy, its when you fail to do that it becomes a problem. when you let something like that enter your life for any other reason then quick sexual release that you get violence and delusional people.

and before you believe that dogma ninja, people aren't preyed on in the porn industry. I thought about entering it until i found out that most men do gay porn first. in my research it is very much like trying out for a movie, and the only real people that are convinced into it are the homemade indie porn people. thats not a lie or a myth, i know that for fact.

edit: are really read the essay's and tell me they are not completely biased through someone with a bad experience, if i was in a near fatal plane crash i would say plane's were unsafe too. Show me some hard figures and then you can sway me, not this whiny 16 year old my bf was a dick routine so therefore everyone who watches porn is.

[Basketball Jesus]

Buncha bloody prudes. The lot of them.

I feel like you guys haven't read the essays because they make a larger more all-encompassing view. That is to say, porn affects the way that men perceive women, female sexuality, and relationships in general. In one of the essays she has talked about how, throughout her entire life, she has met men with a dim view of female sexuality who did not do anything but penetrate her until she told them otherwise. I am not saying porn is all to blame for this, many other media outlets have had a large effect on these strange and insensitive views that many men have towards women, but I think discounting the role pornography plays in these kind of misconceptions is just deluding yourself.

(As, let me reiterate that the most iformative and poignant section of this website is the essay section, "Why I am anti-porn", please read this as this is the part of the site that I found really influential)

I think it is also self-deluding to discount the predatory and carnivorous effect that porn has on women. Just because someone agrees to do something does not necessarily mean they want to. If that was the case no one would work in Gas Station's or in Coal Mines. But porn, in particular, is a very unforgiving industry that tends to prey on people in very vulnerable positions.

I will also be the first to admit that this website is biased. But it is no less biased than the image that pornography portrays of women. But please, if you wan't to tell me a POSITIVE effect the porn industry has than say it, but I certainly can't think of one.

Whoopty ****ing doo. You got a bunch of people who confuse fantasy for reality. Welcome to the media baby. Then you have a bunch of people who know nothing about sex. That's reality. We're still pretty much a closed society when it comes to such matters. If it wasn't for porn, I wouldn't know the procedures behind sexual intercourse since none of our school's wonderful sex/health ed courses actually covered it.

Educational AND entertaining. Yep.... nothing to see here. Just keep on walking folks.

[Ninja Realist]

The real life essays might be real, that's a very good possibility. But it's also the internet. Which means it could be entirely fake. And if that does happen to one girl, that's a tragedy. If it happened to all girls though, I doubt we'd still have a pornography business.

Most of those essays were also published in reputable internet sources.

Also, the reason we still have a porn business is because we live in a very patriarchal society that still does not have very much respect for women. It is a big money industry and money has a very immoralizing effect on people.

I don't see why anyone would argue that porn is a positive thing, nor do I see HOW it could be argued as a positive thing.

[GWS923]

Most of those essays were also published in reputable internet sources.

Also, the reason we still have a porn business is because we live in a very patriarchal society that still does not have very much respect for women. It is a big money industry and money has a very immoralizing effect on people.

I don't see why anyone would argue that porn is a positive thing, nor do I see HOW it could be argued as a positive thing.

Just because there is demand for something doesn't mean an industry has to exist for it. Just like all the truckers in the world could go on a strike, and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it except meet their demands, pornstars (theoretically) could do the same. The industry isn't doomed to corruption simply because it exists. Only politics works that way.

I'm not arguing that porn is positive. I'm arguing that I don't think it's particularly negative.

[loner]

If we get rid of all the things in this world that isn't positive, there would be a lot of things that should be gone. Go burn down the city of Las Vegas for a start.

[isolatedotaku]

I want to argue that porn is positive. For one thing, it has taught me how NOT to treat most women during sex. It has taught me that random f*cking leads to a horrible relationship which will cause life to suck.

I honestly don't see why people get piss off about stuff they are not forced to do/watch/listen to. It doesn't make sense to me. If you don't like something, don't do it. I don't like SOAD, so I don't listen to SOAD. I don't like reading bias essays about porn, so I stopped reading the site.

And yes, ultimately everything about a person job come down to their choices.

Lets take Random Porn Star #45431
--She is one year away from graduating from high school. She needs to make a choice about applying for scholarships.
+Choice A: Apply for everything she can
-Choice B: Apply for a few
-Choice C: Don't Apply for Anything

(For the sake of this, I will GodMod her and make her chose C. Because I know a lot of teenagers chose this way).

--She is now stuck with a large dept when she gets into college. She has a nice body, while at a party, she is approached my Random Porn Director #132 and asked if she would want to do a porno (he explains details like how much money she can make).
+No.
-Yes. She needs the money for college debt, and day-to-day living.

(Clear Heels! Wait, I mean, if I needed the cash, I would take the paying job).

I could of made that more drawn out, but I think I got the point across. It ultimately came down to her choice about not applying for scholarships. There are good and bad choices in life, however, they are always a choice.

EDIT FOR BELOW//

I saw it pointless to post just to insult our new idiotic friend Spunky, so I was going to say this in a new post;

"We had 20 intelligent posts in a row. Thank you for ruining it"

[spunky]

porn doesn't demean women, it gives them the excersize they don't get from baking me pie all day.

[animefreek_CM]

Ok, let me start by saying through my internet travels, I've seen some pretty freaky stuff. Luckily, no fecal stuff or anything that extreme, but fairly rough stuff. With that said, I find that it's an industry of wide variety. Some of the studios treat women with the respect they deserve, and it shows on-screen. Others, like "Mike's Apartment," for example, pay women to have rough, unrespectful sex. That isn't right, especially since it's prostitution. Porn, believe it or not, is the number one media industry in the nation. Sad, but true.

Maybe all those guys heard that frequent ejaculations can prevent cancer... (courtesy of Penthouse)

[Linuts]

Porn is an entertainment industry. And like a lot of entertainment indsutries, it follows the trends set by their customers. Porn was all about the humping... That was the only place to see it. Well, now any kid with a TV can watch all the dry humping they want on a music video. Humping is no longer enough. Hmm... So let's try lesbian sex. No, we've got WWF female actresses practically raping each other on the rink in front of live audiences. Hmmm, not enough. Oh let's try kinky S&M! No wait... Midnight Showcase took care of that... Not enough...

Is porn really degrading the image of sex, or is society itself that's been doing it since the birth control pill?

I think it goes down to how each person is taught when it comes to sex and the treatment of women. My Mother, that's right my Mother, bought me a Playboy magazine when I was 12. We sat down and looked over all the nude models. She told me how to tell apart the fake breasts, what all the jokes mean and why is that guy in the comic strip putting his pee pee down the woman's pee pee. She also taught me how to digest the images and information from these magazines, and to use my own common sense to judge what's right or wrong. Yeah, you'd think I'd have a pretty messed up childhood huh? (Oh yeah, I got to keep that magazine after BTW).

Of course, that didn't turn me away from Porn or anything. I've watched porn at friends' house. I've seen some pretty sick things on the Internet. Well, you don't see me trying to pee on some woman's face, nor will I ever have the urge to do so.

Of course, if you don't want real people being physically offended by sexual activity, but still need your fix... If you can stand the high squeeling voices and somewhat ridiculous storylines, Hentai maybe your thing :p.

[General Suburbia]

I don't know about you, but I'd like some more female opinions on this. So far, Kagome is the only girl who has posted here.

In my opinion, porn isn't the real problem. I may be against porn, but it is today's society that advocates it with a voracious appetite, fueled by various other outlets of media. I remember watching a special on VH1 on the impact hip hop videos have on women today - how they were seen not as people but as things with holes to pierce with, how they were basically brainwashed into becoming sluts and whores without even knowing it, how they many times did not have a choice in the matter, else they lose what may be the only "decent" job available for them.

Porn is really just a reflection of the general society's view of women. If anyone would want to destroy the porn industry or at least tone it down some, there will have to be more than a few other changes implemented before that.

[Ritalin]

Who cares, it's not like they forced anyone to star in porn flicks. Pornography has been around since the roman days, it isn't going anywhere.

I don't think it's degrading either. The woman made that choice, she probably likes it, otherwise she wouldn't be doing it. Again, it's not like she was forced into the industry, or it's the only thing she can do (if it is, there is something wrong with her). Now try reversing this argument. There is plenty of porn out there aimed at women that you could easily say is degrading men, but you never hear about this. Hmmm.

I just don't understand why people are so against porn. It seems like an illogical hate.

Although I will defend how generic internet porn makes men very stupid when it comes to the real thing. So many times I've had convos with friends (male and female) where the man just didn't do shit. In and out, basically. Porn does give the impression to sex newbs that you can just stick it in and the woman will have a glorious orgasm that will make her scream pure ecstasy and the whole street will hear it. This is just the entertainment side of it, and if you dig deeper than "XXX_****_titties_cum.avi" you'll see there is actually quality that isn't nearly as unrealistic.

[Eek]

I found this article to be very insightful:

http://www.oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html

I find pornography to be vulgar and sexist. It not only has a terrible effect on the individuals that get involved in it, but on society as a whole. I think anyone who enhoys pornography should read the articles on this site, most importantly the extremely well written and poignant essays.
The internet is for porn. 'Tis true:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4446981554735098778

More seriously, I browsed through the website you gave. She has some interesting arguments, but there's really nothing I agree with there.

Let's be perfectly honest: there are various types of pornography. If we're talking softcore porn, then there's no harm. Have you ever picked up a Playboy magazine? Those Playmates of the month aren't objectified and spat upon; there's always a lengthy interview with/article about the Playmate, what they've done, what they'd like to do in life, etc. If anything, they're put up on a pedestal and given opportunities to go places in life they'd only dreamed about.

Hardcore porn is a different realm. It caters far more to the customer base, so if a lot of people like to watch big black guys with little white chicks, that's what will be made/sold/watched. Most hardcore porns don't have big budgets because the customers only want to get to the goods and watch the vaginal/oral/anal/whatever sex. If there's a group of customers out there that want to see a porn with an actual story to it, they can probably find it, and if there's a group of customers out there that want to see women get violently raped, they can probably meet their needs there. Am I saying that that's great and all? No, but like any industry, there are marginalized portions which cater towards marginalized fetishes/desires/activities. Think about anime; in the medium offered to us by television, anime is effectively a marginalized section.

Most women are not forced into the industry, and those who are pushed into it probably do so because of financial reasons (i.e. She needs to pay the bills or lose her mortgage; her options are to either spend weeks searching for jobs or she can do a quick porn shoot and make some fast cash); the most extreme group is in porn completely against their own will and they're effectively slaves (slavery might be outlawed, but acting like this doesn't happen in any country is being naive).

Anyways, a few years back, I ran into this blog, and although it's never updated any longer, I still think that True Porn Clerk Stories is quite intelligent and analytical of the porn industry and people who watch the stuff:
http://www.improvisation.ws/mb/tpcs1.php

In conclusion, calling pornography "sexist" and "vulgar" is the same as calling Americans "fat" and "warmongers". You're generalizing.

[shizukuchan]

In what ways is porn different from regular sex?
In what ways is watching sex on a screen different from seeing your spouse/lover naked IRL?
What's the difference between the mind of someone who watches a lot of porn and someone who doesn't?

porn = sex + the illusion of control

It's ultimately not about the sex. We want to believe that everything and everybody else exists for us alone. People of both genders, on both sides of the screen, buy into this. The ideal of unlimited control (sometimes aka "choice", "selection", "the American dream", etc.) is the implied definition of normalcy and respectability in our culture - it's also an ideal which is conducive to commerce. Yes, we really are that stupid.

A revealing tidbit (sorry, I can't remember the network news show where I saw it): Americans spend more time looking at porn than watching all major league sports combined.

In our culture, porn is almost as normal as sex (which also makes it about as taboo as sex). That's because porn is simply one facet of the sexual side of the overall economy. We want to find a way to make everything for sale, even sex - especially sex.

Porn owes much of its success to the fact that it can be addictive. Some guys end up thinking with their balls all the time. But it's often hard to notice this, since it has become so normal and so contemporary. Hindsight is a bit clearer, though. It's easy to look upon all the slavery, inquisitions, imperialism, genocides and other variations of rape in the history of Western civilization and think of it all as part of our barbaric past. But although slave traders and crucifixions have become scarce, the hedonistic lust for control hasn't disappeared. We have technology now, so it's become more discreet, more convenient, and more user-friendly.

[Neo-Hunter]

I feel that porn is actual not a marketing thing but a subconcence thing that can help a person man or woman feel aroused so they can have sex later but I'm also against kiddie porn which is sick and should be illigal.

[PsychoSaiya-jin]

I've dated a woman that has done what could be considered to be porn. Above all else, she did it for her own reasons and to feel good about herself.
If you ask me, I'd say that Anti-Porn is making as much a generalisation as the "myths" it tries to dispel.

Of course there are some cases (especially those outside of the main porn-industry companies) where everything isn't quite above board but you can't just simply lump them all into the same pigeon hole so easily.

The reason I asked for a definition of "porn" earlier is that originally it was a term used to describe corruption. The modern meaning of the term now applies to anything which is deemed to do little more than be sexually stimulating.
This new meaning is a little bit difficult. What is it that separates a pole dancer from the likes of Britany Spears in the eyes of the pulic?
At what point do we say that a film with sexual situations (for example, the infamous "9 Songs") has artistic value?

[punkusa20_2001]

all i am saying is that if you watch porn then go around bitch smacking women, its not because of porn, its because your an ******* who would go around smacking women with porn or not. if porn makes you do something, then your just ****ing weak willed, i personally dont let my penis lead me around, and i am respectful to women because how i was raised. I still watch porn of all sorts.

[ryamano]

During my short life I've seen all sort of things on the Internet that I've never even imagined could exist (or that people could jack off to). Some of these things I've learned to even like, most I find disgusting (lolicon, shotacon (discovered that on wikipedia), golden shower, etc), but I respect the ones who like them.
The moral of the story? If a guy tries to rape or be disrespectful to women it's because he wants too, not because porn corrupted him into doing so. People have been doing that since the beginning of times.
Anyway, the porn I know (never really seen these "rape" scenes you people are talking about) isn't really disrespectful to women. It's just a bunch of people (ranging from one to really many) being paid to have sex and act while being filmed. Most are done by a studio much like any Hollywood movie. Probably even these "rape" scenes were made by actresses who consented to them and got a load of cash for doing it.

[Pedro The Hutt]

I feel that porn is actual not a marketing thing but a subconcence thing that can help a person man or woman feel aroused so they can have sex later but I'm also against kiddie porn which is sick and should be illigal.

Erm... Kiddie porn is illegal in most if not all countries. o.o;;

[Mana]

For the sake of having another woman post:

I'm not against porn, and I don't agree with a lot of the things presented at all. It's all based on generalizations, and the porn industry is way too complex to deal with in such broad terminologies.

No, I didn't read the essays, and I may or may not at some point, but in all honesty, I don't think I need to. As stated before, in regards to women in the porn industry, it all comes down to bad choices, and the events that may have been out of a few women's control is not enough to turn against the entire industry. Bad shit happens to everyone at some point, and there's no way to protect the world from it. Personally, I wouldn't want to.

[shizukuchan]

I got called to jury duty once (I didn't end up serving). It was a case involving something about a prostitute. One of the jury candidates got excused right away because he said he doesn't think prostitution should be illegal. He was of the school of thought which believes prostitution is a "victimless" crime because it involves consenting adults.

People find all sorts of reasonable excuses to enjoy whatever turns them on. Porn shouldn't be considered bad because sex is "bad". Watching porn is a choice, but it's just a bad choice. It makes you think your senses are alive, all the while making them dull. The most superficial physical senses are blared out of proportion, generating a lot of mental static which lingers beyond necessity. You become less aware of what you're really thinking and feeling inside.

People who watch a lot of porn are addicted to the intense sensations. Feeling excessively lustful so much of the time can be just as disruptive as being angry or depressed for extended periods. The physical and mental damage from excessive anger and depression is fairly well known, but the effects of unchecked lust are less documented because of all the taboos and moralistic issues that inevitably become attached to it.

Porn can make the mind a slave. Being addicted to or influenced by something (like being "under the influence") while trying to consider the pros and cons if it - that's neither a favorable nor logical position to be in.

I think the worst thing about porn is that it blunts empathy and compassion. Most porn-watching is marked by intense flashes of egotism. At least momentarily, it makes the viewer feel that his own sensations and his own will can somehow automatically be transferred on someone else. If you saw the scene near the end of Now and Then, Here and There where Hamdo (almost graciously) demands Lala Ru to give herself and her power to him all for his sake alone, then you might feel that he is not only egotistical but out of touch with reality as well. But the mentality which is often involved in watching porn is basically the same.

I can definitely empathize with the physical lust aspect of wanting to watch porn, but not all sex experiences are created equal. Porn has little or nothing to do with empathy, and the appeal of porn usually depends on killing the very thing that makes sex good. If you can develop a mentality where you have intense intercourse with people (sexually or otherwise) without forgetting empathy, then you'll feel a lot less interested in porn, no matter how horny you feel.

Sex without responsibility is no good. Watching porn does not really help much in this area either. Any fool can make a baby, but it takes a real man or woman to be a father or mother. Irresponsible parents and unwanted pregnancies stink of poverty. Likewise, a lot of us are hardly aware of what's lost when we accept sex without responsibility as normal. When vicarious and virtual experiences inform our minds more than intimate connections with the people we want to be with, then we're going to have problems dealing with reality.

[Itachi Uchiha]

I will admit ahead of time that i'm severely biased in my views due to that fact that my dad has worked for Playboy as long as i’ve been alive..

A great deal of that website made me laugh. That essay by Clara just seemed like a girl whining, in need of an outlet for her anger after a break up with her boy friend. The arguments Maryn brought up were just self confidence problems... That paper about power was a good argument, but what did it have to do with porn?

Damn those essays are god awful tripe!

I have to ask - How is porn responsible for men treating women badly, raping them, or just being sex crazed? I will tell you for a fact, men were sex fiends, raping women, and sexist pigs 1,000s of years before the word porn even existed! This entire sight is just complaining about men and pointing the finger at ‘porn,’ when they should be blaming the jerks they went out with or maybe themselves.

[Kagome654]

I will tell you for a fact, men were sex fiends, raping women, and sexist pigs 1,000s of years before the word porn even existed! This entire sight is just complaining about men and pointing the finger at ‘porn,’ when they should be blaming the jerks they went out with or maybe themselves.

I hope I misinterpreted you and you didn't just imply that women who are raped should blame themselves in any way, shape or form...

[Itachi Uchiha]

I hope I misinterpreted you and you didn't just imply that women who are raped should blame themselves in any way, shape or form...
I was referring to the essays, which were for the most part different women complaining about having let their boy friends treat them like crap.

[shizukuchan]

I will admit ahead of time that i'm severely biased in my views due to that fact that my dad has worked for Playboy as long as i’ve been alive..As you know, porn is a huge industry. Let's not kid ourselves - there's a lot of money to be made. In a similar way with big tobacco, people who profit from porn will say and do ANYTHING to promote attitudes that help their business, so it only makes sense to question the motives behind any statements saying that porn is not harmful.

The Playboy and Hustler cartoons in the "Those Wacky Rape Scenes!" section are very telling. Porn IS a real business, and they become successful by knowing their clientele - maybe better than they know themselves. Those cartoons reflect attitudes that are extremely degrading and exploitative. And like big tobacco, pornographers surely understand that they have to promote their product to the next generation by any means they can get away with. Porn basically tells kids that it's okay to treat women like pieces of meat, and even that something must be wrong with a woman if she doesn't cooperate enough. You've probably seen this:The largest consumer of Internet porn is kids between ages 12 and 17.It's not just "adult" entertainment. Sexism is an acquired attitude, so porn has to sell itself to the impressionable. This makes porn a form of propaganda. And then these kids are going to define the nature of future interpersonal relationships. I think it's too bad if relationships of the future are kept at a superficial level like this in order to make profits for pornographers. People miss out on a lot of life's potential because somebody out there wants to keep selling a product - porn is just one example of this.I will tell you for a fact, men were sex fiends, raping women, and sexist pigs 1,000s of years before the word porn even existed!That is obvious, but I think it has to be looked at from a business perspective. The question of what porn has to do with the more extreme behaviors like rape, violence, etc. is complicated. But any competent porn promoter is going to make their product with the customer in mind. And the product is going to promote the very attitudes of sexism and exploitation which helped to bring customer and merchandise together in the first place. Sexist attitudes are bad, and so is rape. It's debatable how much porn contributes to rape, but it's in the nature of the business for porn to promote the attitudes and conditions which make rape more likely.

Those who promote porn surely have to know what they're doing. They have to provide what the customer wants. History shows what the customer wants, and it goes way beyond sexual pleasure.

In any case, people treating each other like a pieces of meat is wrong, and the criminal definition of rape is just one tiny and extreme aspect of the way sexist attitudes make life miserable for the average person. Besides, the problem with porn isn't in that it automatically makes you a rapist; it's in the way porn gives permission for people to use each other in degrading ways - sometimes without being aware of what's happening.A great deal of that website made me laugh. That essay by Clara just seemed like a girl whining, in need of an outlet for her anger after a break up with her boy friend. The arguments Maryn brought up were just self confidence problems...I don't see how laughter is an appropriate response to the suffering on that site. Women, just like men, generally don't appreciate being used by someone, or being treated like a piece of meat. There's a natural and often unspoken demand for empathy. Porn typically tries to silence that demand by reminding the individual to behave like a good customer and by pretending that the customer is in control. Porn is just an incredibly repetitive piece of programming promoting a big fat lie.

People can be programmed to believe all sorts of things. A lot of advertisers understand that. I'm sometimes amazed at what otherwise intelligent women allow men to do to them. Certain attitudes and scenarios start to become normal and acceptable if they're just repeated enough or integrated enough into mainstream culture.

And practically all women have insecurities and make mistakes. A criminal record doesn't necessarily make a suspect guilty of a crime, and a woman's personal shortcomings don't really excuse the greedy eyes of some jerk who only wants to use her.This entire sight is just complaining about men and pointing the finger at ‘porn,’ when they should be blaming the jerks they went out with or maybe themselves.It's too easy to say that porn is not directly related to any poor judgment on their part. These people are caught in a large system of interpersonal relationships informed by sexist attitudes. Porn is one of the outlets which promotes these attitudes.

[Pedro The Hutt]

Follow the Jack Thompson school of thought much then? What you seem to be indicating is that watching porn invariably gives you an ego boost (don't see how that works) and that it sinks your empathy. Which is quite similar to saying that playing videogames will make you invariably become violent and angry. And I'm sure that there are people who become egomaniacs due to porn or that become violent due to video games, but guess what, there was something wrong with them to begin with, porn/gaming was just a catalyst, not the cause.

Most people are very aware that porn is not a realistic representation of a (sexual) relationship and those that do think it is(and thus think it's okay to treat women like objects) probably need a reality check on things beyond their porn.
But anyhow, my point being, just because it can happen doesn't mean it will, why, I know a pair of girls who eagerly read the latest hentai doujin featuring their fave anime characters and they still are very pleasant girls to talk to who are always willing to offer a listening ear. So I doubt that porn, or hentai, sunk their empathy to Davy Jones' locker.

[PsychoSaiya-jin]

If I were to be so impressionable that I'd mimmick porn I'd be sustaining an erection for up to 3 hours without stopping.
...okay so you might have a point ;)

Seriously though; If we were to look at the number 1 consumer of the rape and other extreme fettishist pornographys, the Japanese, your theory would suggest that women wouldn't be safe in that country without a bulletproof chastity belt and a mace.
Last time I checked, there haven't been reports of mass raping and pillagings by Japanese men since the end of world war two.

[fugupinkeye]

I think it is just fantastic. I was so tired of taking responsibility for my own actions. Now if I mistreat a woman, all I have to do is watch pornography first, and it isn't my fault.
Do people, and especially Americans, really need another way to not take responsibility for the way we conduct ourselves? If you claim you don't know the difference between right and wrong, you're either a liar, or part of the .01 percent of people who are truly sociopathic. Watching a sexual act, be it pleasant or unseemly, does not change your moral compass. It's just an excuse for poor behavior.

[punkusa20_2001]

and to hell with all that anyway, you know what if the girl that wrote that essay wants to see an *******, visit me after i haven't watched porn in about 3 days. you willl see your strung out *******.

[shizukuchan]

If we were to look at the number 1 consumer of the rape and other extreme fettishist pornographys, the Japanese, your theory would suggest that women wouldn't be safe in that country without a bulletproof chastity belt and a mace.
Last time I checked, there haven't been reports of mass raping and pillagings by Japanese men since the end of world war two.I did not connect porn directly to the criminal act of rape. Porn is part of the propaganda wing of the whole sexist fabric in society. You're referring to the overtly violent and oppressive behaviors that we commonly associate with our "barbaric past" (as mentioned in my first post). I was trying to point out that those overt behaviors have, in step with advancing technology, taken on a more normal and user-friendly guise. What was obviously wrong in hindsight is now largely accepted as normal.

It's easy to say that just watching some videos doesn't make a real difference in the way we think, see and behave. That kind of thinking is typical of the well-conditioned consumer. But people such as those in government, film, and advertising know better than that and see it from a somewhat different perspective. Big money doesn't get spent on stuff that doesn't have a strong effect on the mind. Pornographers understand this well enough, and they're going to exploit inborn human nature and promote the assumptions (no matter how unrealistic) that are not inborn. They traffic in human frailty.Follow the Jack Thompson school of thought much then?Don't know who he is. Someone who's against sex and violence in video games, I assume.What you seem to be indicating is that watching porn invariably gives you an ego boost (don't see how that works) and that it sinks your empathy.Ego isn't always obvious, and it doesn't always come up as a rush of arrogance. Ego is a disconnect from reality. Porn casts people in roles that are divorced from reality, especially assuming things about women not on their terms (which would recognize them as human), but on the most irrational and presumptuous impulses of men.

Porn specializes in the repeated visualization of certain scenarios and assumptions, so the effect of porn on empathy is conditional. Someone who watches a lot of porn can just as well play the roles of loving parent, friend, etc. as before. But the more that pornographic scenarios inform a mind, the more that mind will disconnect from the obvious of humanity (of a woman, for example) and either tolerate or participate in situations which degrade her. Sexism is an acquired attitude, and porn plays a part in the process for many people. One of the most effective ways to make people accept false assumptions is to make them banal. Empathy means contact with reality, and it's something most of us desperately need and search for; but ironically, mocking any hint of empathy has become banal.Which is quite similar to saying that playing videogames will make you invariably become violent and angry.Looking at it as a simple cause and effect scenario is not very useful. That makes the definitions too strict and simplistic, setting up a straw man type of argument. Video games don't exactly make the players become violent. People already have the causes and conditions for violence from many sources already. The endless repetition and routine of pre-programmed games mostly conditions the mind to accept violence as normal. It's usually a process of desensitizing through repeated practice and visualization. The direct message of these games isn't "kill people for real" - it's "there's lots of killing, but that's okay because it's not real." It's always like that with maintaining a population that's ready for war (and maybe making a profit in the process). The awareness of death and pain has to be minimized. The people must be informed that the enemy is not really (or fully) human. Stories, games, and information provide the chloroform. And you're right about how people who play violent video games know that the killing isn't real. Contact with reality is the first real casualty.

Porn is usually a kind of abuse, a more genteel form of rape. In war, rape typically accompanies the killing. Violent games make killing scenarios appear less real, and porn objectifies women and makes it seem casual to relate to them in ways which assume that they are less than human. This contributes to the actual crime of rape in only a few extreme cases, but the real damage is a lot more mainstream. People have less of an ability to see each other as human, and that just contributes to all the loneliness, pain and sorrow. If someone has trouble visualizing empathy under certain conditions (like on a date or in bed), then the easy solution is often to feel better by finding a way to use and and possess some object of beauty or value, and porn makes this very convenient.But anyhow, my point being, just because it can happen doesn't mean it will, why, I know a pair of girls who eagerly read the latest hentai doujin featuring their fave anime characters and they still are very pleasant girls to talk to who are always willing to offer a listening ear. So I doubt that porn, or hentai, sunk their empathy to Davy Jones' locker.And a lot of people I've met here and IRL watch lots of porn and remain perfectly friendly and likeable. Human nature is a motley fool. Most of the negative thoughts and actions in the world are not perpetrated by psychopaths (as in the usual straw man arguments); most of the real harm is done by average decent people who don't understand the games they play. There may be smart sheep and nice sheep, but when it comes to being led by conditioning, they're still sheep.and to hell with all that anyway, you know what if the girl that wrote that essay wants to see an *******, visit me after i haven't watched porn in about 3 days. you willl see your strung out *******.I'm really glad you said that. Underneath the intelligent or respectable facade, a lot of porn watchers feel basically the same as you do. It's often a sign of conditioning when someone has trouble knowing the difference between a want and a need.

[General Suburbia]

and to hell with all that anyway, you know what if the girl that wrote that essay wants to see an *******, visit me after i haven't watched porn in about 3 days. you willl see your strung out *******.
So you've just admitted that you're addicted to porn?

[Pedro The Hutt]

Quite funny that porn makes us think of women as pieces of flesh when female emancipation and acceptance has never been better, the strife for gender equality has never been stronger, and yet these days are also record highs for porn production. According to your arguments I've just made a paradox. Oh well.

[PsychoSaiya-jin]

Despite what you say, I'm not willing to let pornography take the resposibility for those who have sexist prejudices and attitudes in the same way I won't let videogames be used as a excuse for someones crimes.

I beleive that your environment, the people around you that you talk to and your upbringing (for example) are far greater influences on a person's behaviour and way of thinking than the comparibly low amount of time they spend veiwing adult material.

On side note. Jack Tompson is not only a person against videogames, but an active Lawyer-Troll that illegally pesters, harrasses and goads people in the videogame industry and fandom until he finds a schmuck that isn't as well versed in the law as he is and sues whoever falls into his trap.
His methods have been so deplorable that organisations studying the effect of videogames have officially requested he not associate himself with them.
But lets save that for another discussion :)

[shizukuchan]

Oh, then Jack Thompson sounds pretty extreme, an easy scarecrow for straw man arguments.Despite what you say, I'm not willing to let pornography take the resposibility for those who have sexist prejudices and attitudes in the same way I won't let videogames be used as a excuse for someones crimes.And rightly you shouldn't. Porn is just a part of the picture. Porn does a lot to promote sexist attitudes, but not all sexist attitudes are informed by porn, and sexist attitudes in general are not informed entirely by porn. But for those who really want to cut down on sexist information, avoiding porn would be a good step to take.I beleive that your environment, the people around you that you talk to and your upbringing (for example) are far greater influences on a person's behaviour and way of thinking than the comparibly low amount of time they spend veiwing adult material.I guess so, if you want to look at it from a wide zoom lens. But I'd add that the "quality" of time should be considered along with the overall time from a clock. The good times and serious talks with friends and family are very significant, but the time spent watching porn is of a different nature because the same types of attitudes and scenarios are presented in a formulaic and repetitive way. The content is really specialized, being a matter of information, visualization and conditioning. At that level, the mind is almost at its most mechanical and unable to relate much to the kind of empathy needed in real human contact, and that's quite a different category of experience from the more complex and integrative exchange which often goes on with friends and family.Quite funny that porn makes us think of women as pieces of flesh when female emancipation and acceptance has never been better, the strife for gender equality has never been stronger, and yet these days are also record highs for porn production. According to your arguments I've just made a paradox. Oh well.All the progress in women's rights you mentioned has little relevant relationship to the recent rise of porn. If anything, porn is an obstacle to progress and a holdover from a long legacy of ignorance. Women's rights have advanced, but of course that doesn't mean ingrained sexism is anywhere near dead. Porn flourishes much because of the existence of that sexism combined with the advance of technology. And in order to continue being successful, porn has to resist the decline of sexism. It's not a paradox - it's just the conflict which naturally comes with progress, a progress which has both ethical and technological aspects for today.

[punkusa20_2001]

yes i am addicted to porn. But that does not mean that i subconciously allow porn to affect my views on women. I was brought up with an older generation of parents and because of this i treat women with the respect and indepedence that they want in the modern age with a touch of class and dignity of the 50's.

i could go further to fight shizuka's arguements but i will leave it at this.
I understand that you are trying to say porn is a small part of a large picture in modern society where many small things tend to lean towards the disrespect of women. now read my whole spiel here. Porn is usually with the intent to get someone off so it will sell, it doesn't care what it degrades in the process. My greatest arguement is that you should join my cause of complaining about how people are sheep. people that let something in a fantasy world affect there subconcious are outright weak in the first place. if its not porn then they would fall into something, most likely with a negative aspect on their views of any particular group. its not porn that is directed to destroy the morals of men's views towards women. Its men and women who let it play in their minds that cause this problem.

[Kagome654]

Porn is usually with the intent to get someone off so it will sell, it doesn't care what it degrades in the process..

So they're completely indifferent to any negative affects their product could be having? Sorry, but that isn't much of a defense...

My greatest arguement is that you should join my cause of complaining about how people are sheep. people that let something in a fantasy world affect there subconcious are outright weak in the first place. if its not porn then they would fall into something, most likely with a negative aspect on their views of any particular group. its not porn that is directed to destroy the morals of men's views towards women. Its men and women who let it play in their minds that cause this problem.

No one decides to let something affect their values. I don't sit in front of the tv, watch an African American drug dealer spouting ebonics get arrested and think 'Wow, I think my opinion of black people should be they're all drug dealing criminals who can't speak proper English! Why? Because Law & Order told me so!' It's not a matter of being weak if you are subjected to a barrage of values and views from a certain age. Will violent/tasteless porn cause a man who has been raised in a stable environment and told to respect women from an early age to do a complete 180 and become a sexist pig? No. Will watching an extreme amount of porn probably alter his thinking about women even a little? Probably. Denying that porn has ANY affect on the way someone views sexuality is just silly in my very humble opinion. Seeing or hearing ANYTHING for prolonged periods of times is likely to change how you view it, especially if its during a formative time in a child or teenager's life. The thing is that most people get enough conflicting messages, I hope, from their parents and others that Porn isn't the strongest influence in their lives when it comes to sexual relations.

Basically, while I do think porn can and does have negative affects I don't think they are enough when it comes to a well adjusted individual that I can decry the 'evils of porn.' Yes, (some) porn can help to perpetuate a negative view of women, but its only the symptom of a greater problem, not a cause.

Everything in moderation, I suppose, even porn.

[shizukuchan]

Will violent/tasteless porn cause a man who has been raised in a stable environment and told to respect women from an early age to do a complete 180 and become a sexist pig?This is the straw man argument again. No one who gives enough consideration is going to jump to conclusions and say that watching porn is automatically and overtly going to turn you into a sexist pig. If it were that obvious, then maybe porn would be a lot less popular. The worst thing about porn is its effect on the viewer's ego and potential for empathy, and these have implications that go far beyond the treatment of women.

What a person believes about sexism is often divorced from the sexist information they carry inside. If almost everybody in the world believes they want peace, no hunger, etc., and if they don't deliberately try to promote war, hunger, etc., then why don't things turn out the way we want? What a person mentally believes about sexism is one thing, and the network of sexist information in which we all participate is another. Porn appeals to a category of the mind which is not quite the same as the mind which carries all the sentiments typical of a "stable" environment. War and rape are a legacy of humankind, and porn currently plays a part in continuing the tradition. People from genteel upbringings are just as complicit. Sentiments are one thing, and the conditioning typical of porn is another. Wherever this kind of conditioning is involved, the individual loses individuality to become part of a larger system. The process is often passive.

And violence or tastelessness in porn are not the main problem. Hardcore, softcore - they both have the same repetitive format and rerun the same basic programs of sexism and false sense of control. The "bad" content wouldn't have such an effect if the format wasn't so designed to condition the mind.

I don't think the stability of a person's background makes a real difference in their resistance to porn. For example, the military can take people from almost any background and train them to kill and follow orders if they keep with the program. The training doesn't necessarily take away the soldier's ability to be a nice person outwardly, but it does prepare them to put their personal sentiments aside and become a ready instrument when certain situations come up. Again, porn works through information, intense visualization and repetitive conditioning. Conditioning is a largely mechanical process and therefore doesn't care much about where you come from or what you believe.

And I don't know, but maybe it can even be argued that people from "stable" environments are more susceptible to such influences because their minds are more "clean" and less familar and less resistant to pornographic information. But honestly, I don't see how, on the average, one's upbringing makes much difference in the mind's ability to assimilate attitudes while in a passive state.Everything in moderation, I suppose, even porn.Everything? Racism or sexism is fine in moderation too?

Porn is addictive. The pornographers understand that well enough, so that's much of the reason why most pornography is so repetitive and formulaic - because the format of a product is largely a matter of how a product markets itself most effectively. And not so surprisingly, a lot of porn consumers seem to be in denial or not very aware of their addiction. Taking something in moderation (as you're saying) means the consumer has to be in control, but porn is practically designed for addiction. And that's the most important thing I've been trying to point out from my first post here:

porn = sex + the illusion of control

If you honestly think you're in control, then porn has probably got you by the balls (which turns out to be a commonly underestimated and convenient route to the brain, as many a marketer knows). Control is the first and foremost lie of pornography. The format of porn is designed to make viewers less and less in control of themselves. Porn is conditioning, and it's not the place to look for moderation in anything.

Once upon a time (not very long ago at all), tobacco manufacturers actually said that cigarettes are not addictive even though they knew the addictive properties are a major part of their product's ability to market itself. Porn isn't like a diet, comparable to moderating saturated fat intake or something like that. Porn is basically mind control with sexist content that stimulates the ego as an opiate.

[Smitty]

yes i am addicted to porn. But that does not mean that i subconciously allow porn to affect my views on women.
According to Freud, the subconscious is defined as repressed thoughts and unacceptable behaviors and urges of which we are not aware. Therefore, porn could be subconsciously harming you, and you may not even know it. You can't pick and choose what to "allow" into your subconscious :p.

My view on porn is to keep it natural. I try to be compromising on the subject because my uncle is in the business (although I personally hate porn with the fiery passion of a thousand suns :)). A fascination with sexual things is not unhealthy. Getting into the hardcore stuff potentially (and probably) could be. A guy is not going to go out and rape a girl because he googled Jenna Jameson and stared at her naked pictures. But the bestiality, the multiple penetrations, that's just disgusting.

[Liegenschonheit]

I have to say that blaming porn for making men treat women like objects is like blaming video games for what is wrong with society. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of teh pron, but come on.

Arguement: Porn teaches men to objectify women
Rebuttal: No, hundreds of years of society treating women as objects have caused that. If you want to see men objectifying women, look at June Cleaver.

Arguement: Porn makes people more perverse.
Rebuttal: People have been perverse since we crawled out of the sea and learned to breathe air. Where do you think porn comes from? The imagination. And porn isn't anything new, they have been writing dirty stories since the printing press, and before video they had burlesque shows. It sort of makes you wonder, what came first? Horse sex or people wanting to watch horse sex?

Arguement: Porn makes men inattentive to women's needs sexually.
Rebuttal: No, some men are just that way. They aren't wired the same way as women are sexually, and a lot of men just want to get it in as fast as they can. A lot of times, men either don't know better or just don't care. It isn't the porn that makes them that way.

Arguement: Porn makes men have unrealistic expectations of women.
Rebuttal: Most men can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I don't know about you, but I don't know many adults who went to see Harry Potter and came out expecting to be able to do magic. This is pretty much the same thing.

I think that site's arguements are like reading a Jack Thompson tyrade against GTA. The porn doesn't make anyone do it, people do what they do by themselves.

As for women in the porn industry, perhaps they are being exploited. But then, I think that women scrubbing toilets in motel 6 for minimum wage are being exploited. Maybe not sexually, but when she has to clean feces off the floor, I think it counts as degrading. Look around, there are a lot of jobs that involve being exploited or degraded, and not all of them pay as well. And don't give me that "she had no alternative" line, everyone has alternatives. Most porn stars went into the industry willingly.

As for that girl who got beaten up during the filming of "Rough Trade", I have to give her a D- in common sense. First of all, she was contacted to be in a film with a title that suggests violence, and she agreed. Secondly, she was warned beforehand that it was going to get rough, and that most girls couldn't take it. She went ahead anyway. Yes, the fact that they wouldn't let her stop at the point when she wanted to is a terrible thing, and that is why I think that if anything the porn industry needs some kind of regulation. But she had ample opportunity to get the hell out of dodge.

In the end, my stance on the issue is this: People who want to watch porn or create porn have every right. I find the fact that this site is based on broad generalizations and a few personal anecdotes make it a bit misleading. I want to see the evidence based on a large case study, not a few women's experiences.

[shizukuchan]

I try to be compromising on the subject because my uncle is in the businessIt's a business using the most artificial means. Not the place to find the "natural" sex influences you were referring to.

If I were a Christian like you and in your place, then I would rather influence than be influenced by my uncle on this matter. Every once in a while, I'd kindly remind him to repent. But then again, I'm not you.Arguement: Porn teaches men to objectify women
Rebuttal: No, hundreds of years of society treating women as objects have caused that. If you want to see men objectifying women, look at June Cleaver.Of course. Porn isn't the ultimate cause of women being objectified. Porn is a means by which women continue to be objectified. Your next two arguments and rebuttals follow the same basic reasoning.

Porn can't usually be said to be the direct cause of sexist tendencies. The sexist assumptions are already there as a legacy, and porn capitalizes on this to make profit for the industry and maintain or advance the overall status quo. That rarely translates into rape, because rape is a very small part of the story. But it's obvious that the degradation and mistreatment of women would not be possible without the framework of sexist assumptions in society. Porn is mainly an instrument to maintain and promote that status quo and is just a more recent technology-born aspect of that overall system of assumptions.

And regarding some statements by people earlier: It doesn't make sense (somewhat of a straw man) to define the abuse of women only in terms of rape or violent crime. It goes all the way across the board - from the often invisible ways that women are given second priority in the workplace, and to the continuous unspoken instances where women's voices remain silent because they would have to fight harder to have their ideas heard (these ideas often don't even make it to the conscious level), and so much more. These are things that even women often don't notice because it's taken for granted, i.e. an overall assumption of society. It's often too normal to notice.Most men can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.Yes, and that's why sexist content in porn is less subject to question while the viewer is in a passive state. "The porn scenario is not real, therefore it has no effect on me." Again, it's a business. The smart money knows that porn does affect thinking and behavior. The feeling that one is really in control while under the influence of porn is an illusion which the pornographer would like the consumer to keep. "The customer is always right," as the saying goes.

The ability to tell between fantasy and reality is mainly a conscious and rational function. Porn appeals to a different aspect of mind and to a different system of priorities. Again, human nature is a motley fool.I don't know about you, but I don't know many adults who went to see Harry Potter and came out expecting to be able to do magic. This is pretty much the same thing.Harry Potter is an elaborate story with a lot of depth. Porn is simplistic and formulaic, designed to condition the mind in a mechanical way. The two invoke different aspects of mind, therefore different approaches to what's "real".I think that site's arguements are like reading a Jack Thompson tyrade against GTA.From what I've been told, Jack Thompson hardly represents anyone else but himself. The anti-porn site is not like that.Look around, there are a lot of jobs that involve being exploited or degraded, and not all of them pay as well.If avoiding certain poor jobs is an incentive to go into porn, then that would suggest that the choice to go into porn was made that much less freely.

Also, both sexes work in rotten jobs. That's a larger economic issue. But as for this topic, who is being most exploited and degraded? You know that women are treated as inferior in the workforce. Porn helps to maintain the framework of assumptions which keeps it that way.Most porn stars went into the industry willingly.Which often means that there were one or more reasons why they would tolerate being put in humiliating positions. "Willingly" implies freedom and choice. Going into porn is not the kind of choice most would make if they really had the freedom to do so. Associating the porn industry with will or freedom is about as contradictory as those deceptive Marlboro ads which show fresh air, health and freedom to sell a product which is actually polluting, unhealthy and addictive.As for that girl who got beaten up during the filming of "Rough Trade", I have to give her a D- in common sense. First of all, she was contacted to be in a film with a title that suggests violence, and she agreed. Secondly, she was warned beforehand that it was going to get rough, and that most girls couldn't take it. She went ahead anyway.Even if there's no law against it, this situation is just criminal. The victim's common sense is not the main concern. Besides, even smart people make stupid mistakes. The pornographers shouldn't have been allowed to offer a job under such terms in the first place.Yes, the fact that they wouldn't let her stop at the point when she wanted to is a terrible thing, and that is why I think that if anything the porn industry needs some kind of regulation.Victims obviously don't allow themselves to be abused willingly. They have to be desperate for something (or ignorant about something, but that doesn't seem to apply here). When desperate people are involved in producing and/or buying a commodity under high demand, then aggressive people who resist the rules are attracted to the industry, and regulations can only do so much to prevent abuse.

Porn isn't just a matter of entertainment - it's a system of control. People who work in such a business are not likely to accept controls and regulations quietly.

Congress taking on the main job of regulating porn...if the porn industry with all its money and its tendency for mental conditioning had an influential lobby...I hope it doesn't come to that.I find the fact that this site is based on broad generalizations and a few personal anecdotes make it a bit misleading.Non-comprehensive doesn't necessarily mean misleading.I want to see the evidence based on a large case study, not a few women's experiences.Not sure what kind of case study you mean.

It's at least clear that porn is a carrier of sexist (and racist) assumptions of every kind, and communicates to one of the lowest and least voluntary modes of thought. For that alone, it deserves to be condemned and avoided as all false and degrading things should be. Seeing nude or sexual pictures is one thing, but using those images to exploit human weaknesses and promote sexism is another.

[Roark]

Alright shizu, my turn to come out and play. I was maintaining respectable mod-distance from this entire issue until this line:
Porn is mainly an instrument to maintain and promote that status quo and is just a more recent technology-born aspect of that overall system of assumptions.
This is completely wrong, and abscribes deeper, more sinister motives to a group of people than you really have a right to. Saying this pretty much implicates these people as willing, knowing members in a millenia long conspiracy.

This is not the case. Porn exists for one main reason:
Profit.

Let me start with a bit of personal background here:
I've watched pr0n/hentai, read literotica/dirty mags/doujinshi, and actually enjoyed them.
I graduated from a highly liberal college and studied closely under the main teacher of woman studies philosophy on my campus.
I like to think of myself as a mature individual with a rather healthy view of women in regards to sex (hell, Mana initiated with me).

That said, a lot of the arguments you're putting forward here are only so much bovine fecal matter, based mostly on rhetoric and emotion rather than actual argumentation.

Porn is a means by which women continue to be objectified.
This is better phrased as "SOME porn is a means...". You make several assumptions by using the blanket term "porn" instead of narrowing down your instances.

For example, what about gay porn? By definition that can't degrade women, as it doesn't involve any. How about BDSM flicks with little or no intercourse taking place? Here, the woman seems in control, completely, since breaking down and submitting ruins the whole domination thing. And then there is what could be termed "couples porn", where two people obviously presumed to be in a relationship have one on one intercourse with foreplay. Normally the guy goes down and the woman doesn't have the insta-orgasm portrayed in some porn. Is this degrading to women still?

Also, what of the argument that porn degrades me by raising expectations - that we all have big dicks, that we all can maintain an erection for hours, etc.

In short, your statement that "[All] Porn is a means to continue to objectify women" is false. That's not a good thing, since it's the major premise. It's also your conclusion, and that raises issues of circularity...


Porn can't usually be said to be the direct cause of sexist tendencies. The sexist assumptions are already there as a legacy, and porn capitalizes on this to make profit for the industry and maintain or advance the overall status quo.
Emphasis added. Again, you ascribe a much more sinister motive to porn producers than they deserve. Very few, if any, people wake up and say that they have an agenda to degrade women. This is not a conscious goal and desire. Also, advancing the status quo is an oxymoron.

But it's obvious that the degradation and mistreatment of women would not be possible without the framework of sexist assumptions in society.
This is in no way true. I could degrade and women based on their intelligence, race, religion, sexual orientation, hair colour, foot size, or any numerous other factors. Sexism is just one means for this. Eliminating sexist assumptions, aside from being a utopian ideal-type task, won't stop the mistreatment of women.

And regarding some statements by people earlier: It doesn't make sense (somewhat of a straw man) to define the abuse of women only in terms of rape or violent crime. It goes all the way across the board - from the often invisible ways that women are given second priority in the workplace, and to the continuous unspoken instances where women's voices remain silent because they would have to fight harder to have their ideas heard (these ideas often don't even make it to the conscious level), and so much more. These are things that even women often don't notice because it's taken for granted, i.e. an overall assumption of society. It's often too normal to notice.
Two things at work here:
One is the institutional treatment of women, which has admittedly made huge progress in the the past few decades. More women are working in positions of authority than ever before, and salary gaps are closing. I'm distrustful of straight numbers, as no two people's salaries and experiences are ever the same, so meaningful comparisons are very hard to make.

The other thing is the assertion that women are being massively silenced through society's views on them. This is mostly because their ideas aren't heard as loudly and as clearly as men's. However, I've always questioned what standard of involvement should be used. How do we know when everyone's voice has been heard. Often, the standard used for how hard a woman has to fight is based on male mindsets, or comparing her to men in some way. Is that the ultimate goal here, to make women more masculine? To make all people unisex in their attitudes? Or to recognize and preserve the differences in male/female cognition, and make sure both viewpoints are accounted for? Currently, it seems like a lot of feminists want women to be heard just like men, or for people to be unisex. A good, dedicated group wish to preserve feminine viewpoints. However, this is often at odds with the way the world works, not simply because it's a sexist male capitalist society, but because those methods of cognition prove successful. Women who adopt those cognition methods share in the success. Women who find innovative ways to adapt female cognition into the primarily male framework - or create situations where feminine cognitive patterns succeed to greater degrees than male patterns - also share in the success. Women who utilize feminine cognition patterns where such methods show diminished results based on the male patterns don't succeed. This is cold and calculating, but when success can be measured in numbers, it's accurate.

NOTE: I introduce two broad terms here, male and female cognition patterns. It's a rather deep area of study, both in philosophy and psychology as to the nature of how men and women problem solve and process situations differently. The example I'm most familiar with is feminist approaches to epistemology. The question that really needs to be asked is: what's the goal here? Female supremacy? Utter equality? Women utilizing the same cognition patterns as men, or men as women, or a new category being created that incorporates both?

Yes, and that's why sexist content in porn is less subject to question while the viewer is in a passive state. "The porn scenario is not real, therefore it has no effect on me." Again, it's a business. The smart money knows that porn does affect thinking and behavior. The feeling that one is really in control while under the influence of porn is an illusion which the pornographer would like the consumer to keep. "The customer is always right," as the saying goes.
Talking about the subconscious is great since no one can prove anything about it. Please, come back with en masse, double blind case studies that directly link porn, sexism, and degredation of women. Personal essays don't count.

The ability to tell between fantasy and reality is mainly a conscious and rational function. Porn appeals to a different aspect of mind and to a different system of priorities. Again, human nature is a motley fool.Harry Potter is an elaborate story with a lot of depth. Porn is simplistic and formulaic, designed to condition the mind in a mechanical way. The two invoke different aspects of mind, therefore different approaches to what's "real"
Again, this "different part of the mind". Am I conscious while watching porn, or do I turn into some kind of zombie? I still maintain rational faculties. I know I'm looking at an image. Ascribe humans some credit.

If avoiding certain poor jobs is an incentive to go into porn, then that would suggest that the choice to go into porn was made that much less freely.
That makes no sense at all. Given the choice between several poor jobs with low pay and a poor job with high pay but the stigma of porn, how can the choice to enter be anything but free? Unless you want to argue that greed constrained the decision. Let's say that a woman has 5 choices of jobs: A, B, C, D, and P. A won't allow her to meet her rent, since it's part time. B-D each have a demeaning aspect (cleaning toilets, being a cashier, and standing over a deep frier), but will let her pay her bills, but without too much extra money. Option P is porn, which pays more but is more degrading/risky. She certainly has a choice to overcome greed and work two of the degrading jobs, or one of the degrading and the part time to make extra.

Going into porn is not the kind of choice most would make if they really had the freedom to do so.
Or it's not the choice you would make for them.
Associating the porn industry with will or freedom is about as contradictory as those deceptive Marlboro ads which show fresh air, health and freedom to sell a product which is actually polluting, unhealthy and addictive.
The polluting thing isn't fact either. Get your facts right.

Even if there's no law against it, this situation is just criminal. The victim's common sense is not the main concern. Besides, even smart people make stupid mistakes. The pornographers shouldn't have been allowed to offer a job under such terms in the first place.

You should see what some people go through in jobs then. This, again, was a conscious choice of not researching a job enough and not saying no when given the chance.

Victims obviously don't allow themselves to be abused willingly.
Some do because of other attachment problems.

Porn isn't just a matter of entertainment - it's a system of control. People who work in such a business are not likely to accept controls and regulations quietly.
You've yet to really show any of this, you just assert it.

It's at least clear that porn is a carrier of sexist (and racist) assumptions of every kind, and communicates to one of the lowest and least voluntary modes of thought. For that alone, it deserves to be condemned and avoided as all false and degrading things should be. Seeing nude or sexual pictures is one thing, but using those images to exploit human weaknesses and promote sexism is another.
Again, you haven't really shown ANY of this at all in any of your posts. You've just linked to a site and started asserting "porn promotes sexism". You've never delivered any kind of argumentation at all!

Furthrer, you never even responded to PSJ's request for a good definition of porn. Hint: you can't get one in the dictionary. This is exactly the struggle that the SCOTUS has been wrestling with. What is porn? Is Clockwork Orange and Lolita? How about Eyes Wide Shut? How about Britney Spears concerts? Sports illustrated Swimsuit Edition?

There's more to say, but Mana is waiting for me to finish this. Suffice to say that there's a lot more that can be said about:
attractiveness and pleasing aesthetics
female sexuality and repression
degradation vs. empowerment through porn
porn as an outlet for dangerous desires and criminal control.
various utilitarian arguments for the use of porn.

Ask about any, and I'll reply later today.

[ryamano]

And violence or tastelessness in porn are not the main problem. Hardcore, softcore - they both have the same repetitive format and rerun the same basic programs of sexism and false sense of control. The "bad" content wouldn't have such an effect if the format wasn't so designed to condition the mind.

What you're basically saying, shizukuchan, is that porn=sex+fantasy of control, and that is bad because it subconsciously degrades women. It degrades women because men watching it aren't thinking of the women on them as real women but as ways of getting their sexual releases (as perverted as they may be). Well, before there were porn videos or magazines, men jacked off to erotic stories or to their plain imagination. It seems that because these acts involve men thinking about women as sexual objects (not thinking about the consequences or to the woman's feelings) they're as bad as watching porn. When a 14-year old sees a Demi Moore movie and goes to the bathroom and jacks off to the idea he has of her naked he's being disrespectful and sexist, isn't he? What's the difference between doing this and seeing a porn movie or magazine with Demi Moore on it? So, to not be sexist in any way he should stop jacking off altogether (the only he could do this without being sexist was to get his girlfriend to give him a handjob).

And the same thing applies to erotic stories (personally, I've seen things much more disturbing in some erotic stories than in some porn movies). It doesn't matter if they're well-written and emotive stuff that will make you cry at the end, stupid sentences with sex in them joined together by a 19-ear old or really disturbing stuff involving rape or torture. They all involve people having sex in a unreal way (since it's not actually real) and therefore the people masturbating to it don't think of them as real people. And what about all those yaoi fanfics that are written by girls and for girls? Aren't they sexist in any way? When a girl writes about Heero and Trowa getting it on, isn't she thinking about them (and the gay males in general) as being nothing but sexual playthings meant to amuse her (at least on a subconscious level)?

You seem to be advocating the end of solo masturbation, since I can't think of any way people can masturbate without a partner without using their minds to make up a fantasy where someone from the opposite (or same) sex in it. And when they make up this fantasy, they're (at least on a subconscious level) treating these people as objects. And, personally, I can't think of a healthy world without masturbation.

P.S. Maybe girls masturbate to something without actually making up a fantasy about it (I don't know since i'm not a girl). If so, pelease tell me:cool:

P.P.S: Actually, if you take this argument's logic, one way to masturbate without being sexist is to masturbate to a sexual fantasy involving animals, since they're already inferior to humans. But that's just plain wrong to me.

[shizukuchan]

Alright shizu, my turn to come out and play. I was maintaining respectable mod-distance from this entire issue until this line:Oh goody. You should let loose a bit more often!Originally Posted by shizukuchan
Porn is mainly an instrument to maintain and promote that status quo and is just a more recent technology-born aspect of that overall system of assumptions.This is completely wrong, and abscribes deeper, more sinister motives to a group of people than you really have a right to. Saying this pretty much implicates these people as willing, knowing members in a millenia long conspiracy.

This is not the case. Porn exists for one main reason:
Profit.Sounds a bit hasty to say "completely" wrong here. And it's funny that you should use the word "conspiracy". When I woke up this morning, I was thinking, "Geez, I hope nobody at AA thinks I'm trying to paint pornography as a deliberate and conscious conspiracy. That would be such a misunderstanding of certain points about awareness that I've been making repeatedly. Why do people go for the straw man approach so much? Easy victories, I guess. People aim too low."

Porn is an instrument of a system, and the consciousness of the individual humans' involvement varies.

Yes, the primary motive is profit, as I've been saying all along. That's why I keep saying it's a business. I'm not attributing the kind of awareness to either the porn producers or consumers in the way you think I am. If money is the motive, then people are just doing whatever seems to work in order to achieve their goals, so it doesn't have to be a conspiracy of sinister motives on the part of the pornographers, and it doesn't have to be a knowing participation on the part of the porn consumers. Again, it's a system, a network of causes which doesn't always involve conscious complicity. If anything, I've mentioned many times how people are not quite aware of what's going on. The questions of sinister motives or knowing participation can just as well be left ambiguous. With the the kind of information and programming that porn is communicated by, a high level awareness and agency is often not even necessary.Let me start with a bit of personal background here:
I've watched pr0n/hentai, read literotica/dirty mags/doujinshi, and actually enjoyed them.
I graduated from a highly liberal college and studied closely under the main teacher of woman studies philosophy on my campus.
I like to think of myself as a mature individual with a rather healthy view of women in regards to sex (hell, Mana initiated with me).This type of argument has been brought up by a few people already. It basically says, "I'm a very non-sexist person, and so are all the people I hang with. I know a lot of nice and decent people who watch porn, and it doesn't make them any less decent as people." So what? Scarlett O'Hara was a very admirable heroine in many ways and liberated herself from certain false and immature ideas, but she still continued many of the racist assumptions of her era. For the third time: Human nature is a motley fool. The awareness of decency, goodness, niceness, etc. can be extremely selective within each individual person.

It's so easy to think that one's own circle of friends and the "liberated" awareness of the present time makes us beyond the reach of a more "barbaric" past. It's a very common and insular view which is divorced from reality. Again, racism and sexism are all too ordinary and contemporary. It's the average and decent people who do the most to continue the tradition.That said, a lot of the arguments you're putting forward here are only so much bovine fecal matter, based mostly on rhetoric and emotion rather than actual argumentation.They said about the same to Socrates. Now he's supposed to be the father of modern logic or something along those lines. Maybe if you accuse me of walking on clouds, I can go have a chat with Socrates and see what he says about porn.

And yeah, I'm pretty familiar with this "reasoning" or "actual argumentation" you're talking about. There's really no awareness in it. "Facts" and information are just tools to argue various points. The problem with porn is a matter of self-awareness inhibited by the repetitive and programmatic nature of the pornographic format. Logic can help us build relationships between ideas, but it can't do the whole job of making us self-aware. For that, conscience has guide reasoning. I know that may sound unreasonable to you, but that's our lot as human beings.This is better phrased as "SOME porn is a means...". You make several assumptions by using the blanket term "porn" instead of narrowing down your instances.

For example, what about gay porn?...How about: MOST porn is a means by which women continue to be objectified? The vast majority of porn is made for male heterosexual consumers. Given the proportion there, I didn't narrow things too much. Yes, I'm aware there's such a thing as gay porn. :rolleyes: I wanted to talk about porn in relation to sexism and the illusion of control. My arguments apply pretty well to the majority of porn. Gay porn, BDSM, etc. have their own conventions when it comes to being repetitive and programmatic, so many of my statements may apply to them as well, but the assumptions they promote are probably a whole different subject from the widespread sexism I've been trying to address.

So you see, I didn't use the word "porn" as a blanket term, because I was well aware of the category of sexism I was talking about. And it's a bit surprising that you would think, for example, that I was saying gay porn is sexist against women, given that I never even suggested such a thing. But actually, you probably knew well enough what I meant, and you just wanted to be picky about categories and defining terms. But it was not necessary for me to go out and define "porn" in the way that you want. The categories I was addressing are already implied in the text of my posts.

Feh. This is one of the things about academic "argumentation" that stinks. Red herrings and categorical considerations that have little to do with the subject at hand.Also, what of the argument that porn degrades me by raising expectations - that we all have big dicks, that we all can maintain an erection for hours, etc.Okay, so part of the ego-fantasy for a lot of guys may involve visualizing increased "manhood" and performance. I don't see why you brought this up.In short, your statement that "[All] Porn is a means to continue to objectify women" is false. That's not a good thing, since it's the major premise. It's also your conclusion, and that raises issues of circularity...I don't want to assume too much on this point. Maybe you can explain how you think I'm being circular.Again, you ascribe a much more sinister motive to porn producers than they deserve. Very few, if any, people wake up and say that they have an agenda to degrade women. This is not a conscious goal and desire.Yeah, I explained above about sinister motives, consciousness, agenda (conspiracy), etc. already.Also, advancing the status quo is an oxymoron.Nitpicky point taken. But you know well enough that I meant "advancing the established sexist assumptions".But it's obvious that the degradation and mistreatment of women would not be possible without the framework of sexist assumptions in society.This is in no way true. I could degrade and women based on their intelligence, race, religion, sexual orientation, hair colour, foot size, or any numerous other factors. Sexism is just one means for this. Eliminating sexist assumptions, aside from being a utopian ideal-type task, won't stop the mistreatment of women.I think you're smart enough to see my intended meaning on this point. You're just being argumentative and playing with categories. Straw man approach again. You probably know that I'm talking about the degradation of women as a specific category. If women, for example, were mistreated based on their intelligence, then would that be based on "women's intelligence" or intelligence in general? If the former, then it's probably a sexist issue, an issue of gender inequality; if the latter, then it would be both men and women who are mistreated, making the argument irrelevant to the issue of sexist assumptions.

And no, eliminating sexist assumptions is not a utopian fantasy. Sexism isn't an inherent characteristic of being human. Sexism, like slavery, has a beginning and can just as well have an end if we use our conscience and reason to challenge the status quo instead of surrendering to it. It may not be an easy goal to reach, but the ease or difficulty of the task is actually a matter of perspective. It may very well appear difficult when considered relative to the ease of watching porn and fapping along like a good consumer.One is the institutional treatment of women, which has admittedly made huge progress in the the past few decades. More women are working in positions of authority than ever before, and salary gaps are closing.These are good things - with not much thanks to porn.Often, the standard used for how hard a woman has to fight is based on male mindsets, or comparing her to men in some way. Is that the ultimate goal here, to make women more masculine? To make all people unisex in their attitudes? Or to recognize and preserve the differences in male/female cognition, and make sure both viewpoints are accounted for?These are well-considered questions that crossed my mind as well. Unfortunately, porn is not really conducive to this kind of thinking.Talking about the subconscious is great since no one can prove anything about it. Please, come back with en masse, double blind case studies that directly link porn, sexism, and degredation of women. Personal essays don't count.I was talking about business, not the subconscious. You don't have to analyze anyone's subconscious to know the customer and plan accordingly to make a profit. Pornographers don't usually have to go through a rigorous scientific inquiry. Business has its own standards and methods of research.Am I conscious while watching porn, or do I turn into some kind of zombie?It's not an either/or situation.Ascribe humans some credit.I do. Maybe more than you do. I allow for the fact that people can be aware and very unaware of things at the same time.

Oh, and I forgot to say about Harry Potter earlier: Anyone who thinks they can do magic after seeing Harry Potter is probably deluded. But learning to accept sexist assumptions is not such a stretch of imagination for those who are informed by porn.
If avoiding certain poor jobs is an incentive to go into porn, then that would suggest that the choice to go into porn was made that much less freely.That makes no sense at all. Given the choice between several poor jobs with low pay and a poor job with high pay but the stigma of porn, how can the choice to enter be anything but free? Unless you want to argue that greed constrained the decision. Let's say that a woman has 5 choices of jobs: A, B, C, D, and P. A won't allow her to meet her rent, since it's part time. B-D each have a demeaning aspect (cleaning toilets, being a cashier, and standing over a deep frier), but will let her pay her bills, but without too much extra money. Option P is porn, which pays more but is more degrading/risky. She certainly has a choice to overcome greed and work two of the degrading jobs, or one of the degrading and the part time to make extra.My point was simple: Fewer options means less freedom of choice.Going into porn is not the kind of choice most would make if they really had the freedom to do so.Or it's not the choice you would make for them.Your reaction here is more emotional than rational. I'm against porn in general, so I must have a problem with freedom of choice, heh? You know, the anti-porn website recommends education rather than legislation as the way to counteract porn.

And my statement here was pretty reasonable and matter-of-fact. If it weren't for economic factors and other negative reinforcements, most people would not consider going into porn as an attractive option.The polluting thing isn't fact either. Get your facts right.I wasn't going into the issue of global warming or saying anything about amounts. Cigarette smoke is not a positive contribution to air quality - that's all. You sometimes extrapolate things in ways that don't relate to my intended meaning.You should see what some people go through in jobs then.It's the old "the world is a corrupt place, so we should learn to accept reality" argument. That's no excuse. It's common thinking like that which maintains a lower standard of life. And I dunno, but maybe I've seen more of the misery on this planet than you have.This, again, was a conscious choice of not researching a job enough and not saying no when given the chance.I think you know that what the employer was doing was wrong. People make mistakes for all sorts of reasons: lack of common sense, pressure from various circumstances. But does the price of screwing up have to be so high? At least in America, we should not tolerate the kind of exploitation we despise in poorer countries.Victims obviously don't allow themselves to be abused willingly.Some do because of other attachment problems.
Yeah, low self-esteem, co-dependence...all sorts of stuff. The question of agency and volition is complicated by factors ranging from small incentives to plain coercion, which is why I always question statements saying that people go into porn "freely" or "willingly".Porn isn't just a matter of entertainment - it's a system of control. People who work in such a business are not likely to accept controls and regulations quietly.You've yet to really show any of this, you just assert it.
I've talked about whether this system of control is a conspiracy or not.

And if you were to spend time regularly watching porn, being conditioned through the same repetitive format, except the content was religious instead of sexual, wouldn't it be obvious that it was a crude form of indoctrination?

Regarding the porn industry and government regulation, I just chalk it up to the way big business works. When there's that much money involved, and there's such a hungry customer base, the people making porn would obviously want to keep as much control as possible and will likely want to tell the government what they want instead of the other way around.Again, you haven't really shown ANY of this at all in any of your posts. You've just linked to a site and started asserting "porn promotes sexism". You've never delivered any kind of argumentation at all!You seriously didn't find those rape cartoons to be sexist? You don't think the roles that women play in porn degrade them into mere playthings for men? If porn isn't really promoting sexist assumptions, then what does it take to get the job done?Furthrer, you never even responded to PSJ's request for a good definition of porn.Like I mentioned earlier, the categories I've been addressing are already implied. Besides, I thought it would be a waste of time. You guys can tell me whatever definition of porn you want. It's only a categorical term, so I'll just accept your definition and word my responses accordingly. "No matter how you slice it," as they say.This is exactly the struggle that the SCOTUS has been wrestling with. What is porn? Is Clockwork Orange and Lolita? How about Eyes Wide Shut? How about Britney Spears concerts? Sports illustrated Swimsuit Edition?I don't really care if people are looking at nude pictures. I'm concerned about whether sexual images are being used to condition viewers' minds and promote sexist assumptions. You can look in whatever dictionaries and wrangle with semantics and categories all you want. You can include or exclude whatever categories of sex or images you feel like. But it's mostly just thinking with your balls, just a bunch of words, until the existence of the other person starts to become less a matter of objectification, and empathy starts to inform abstract reasoning.

I remember in the movie The Color Purple, there was a scene where a White lady was pinching the cheeks of a couple of Black kids. She wouldn't say she was doing them any harm at all. But the truth was, she was a racist who just wanted to be "kind" to the little Negroes. In retrospect, the offensiveness of the situation is obvious, but how does one "prove" or "reason" that any real harm was done? Was it all in the minds of the offended Black people? And it's less easy when we're talking in the present tense, when the assumptions which inform our everyday pleasantries are practically a part of the air we breathe.

And in the movie The Joy Luck Club, there was a flashback to one of the women's childhood in China, where her mother was a secondary wife to a rich man. The first wife gave the little girl an expensive gift. But this gift was not meant to honor, but rather to keep the girl and her mother in a second-class position. The girl was not fully aware of this significance at first, and it took her mother's suicide to make her see her real position. Again, these things are sometimes difficult to reason about in our present tense. And it really says something about our ability to become conscious of present realities if we can watch something like porn and think it doesn't really promote sexist assumptions.

Last example: A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen. The wife in the household actually seems to have a pretty affectionate relationship with her husband. She makes great sacrifices for his sake. The husband also gives her much of what a woman is "supposed" to have. But it's gradually revealed that, for her husband, she is no more than an object, a doll living in his house and surrounded by the trappings of civility. In retrospect, the injustice is clear, but it's hard to say the marriage was really that bad unless you take into account the wife's potential as a woman and a human being.

And that's where porn and sexist assumptions do the most harm. Porn sends a false message about the role of women, and much of that message is assimilated passively because it's already become an ingrained assumption. Today, we are able to better visualize what people of color can be as human beings. But the popularity of porn is a strong indication of how little many of us are able to visualize a woman in her potential as a real human being. Anyone who watches porn with any awareness should know the intense visualization involved in each session. The resulting image can make woman appear attractive or make her appear to play many different roles, but in the end, it all revolves around the typical male viewer's ego.
(post too long, to be cont'd)

[shizukuchan]

Have you ever picked up a Playboy magazine? Those Playmates of the month aren't objectified and spat upon; there's always a lengthy interview with/article about the Playmate, what they've done, what they'd like to do in life, etc. If anything, they're put up on a pedestal and given opportunities to go places in life they'd only dreamed about.To spit upon or to put on a pedestal can both be ways to objectify. Either method can be used to prevent real human-to-human contact and intercourse. The harm done is a matter of empathy.

The stuff about their life or personality is just window dressing. If a playmate's body is injured or scarred, then she's not fit to be a playmate anymore. Sexy bodies are the main point. Having sexy women frolicking at a wealthy estate is for the sake of men's egos. Hugh Hefner's Doll's House just happens to be a mansion. Many Middle Eastern rulers were also said to have treated their wives well. But no amount of affection, respectability or material opulence can change the fact when women are treated as objects or property.If we're talking softcore porn, then there's no harm.The women are good as trophies for men's egos, so there would be no point in getting them hurt, unhappy, or otherwise tarnished. And then there's hardcore, but that's a different aspect of ego.Suffice to say that there's a lot more that can be said about:
attractiveness and pleasing aesthetics
female sexuality and repression
degradation vs. empowerment through porn
porn as an outlet for dangerous desires and criminal control.
various utilitarian arguments for the use of porn.Meh. Nothing is completely bad, even porn. But the cons far outweigh the pros here, and there are more positive ways to appreciate beauty, control dangerous desires, etc.They all involve people having sex in a unreal way (since it's not actually real) and therefore the people masturbating to it don't think of them as real people. And what about all those yaoi fanfics that are written by girls and for girls? Aren't they sexist in any way? When a girl writes about Heero and Trowa getting it on, isn't she thinking about them (and the gay males in general) as being nothing but sexual playthings meant to amuse her (at least on a subconscious level)?Yeah, maybe those girls should find another way to relate to boys. Just because porn is plentiful and available doesn't mean it should be considered normal or positive overall.I can't think of a healthy world without masturbation.That's too bad. Maybe you'd think differently if there was less pornographic information going around. The habits of porn and masturbation are acquired. They are normal for a lot of people because that's the kind of social framework that porn helps to maintain. Ingrained sexist assumptions and pornography make it more difficult to tell the difference between a need and a want.

But yeah, some people may have to masturbate and go through the whole objectifying thing until their ability to visualize empathy overtakes their ability to visualize the opposite sex as objects. Interest in sex is natural, but all this objectifying stuff can be learned and unlearned.Pornography has been around since the roman days, it isn't going anywhere.Slavery is already headed the way of the dodo. Porn started somewhere, and it can just as well end somewhere if that's what people want, if people understand that there's already a better form of intercourse.I don't think it's degrading either. The woman made that choice, she probably likes it, otherwise she wouldn't be doing it.If a man wants a woman to play a degrading role, then it's so much more convenient to play it with a woman who doesn't feel it's degrading to be used by strangers. Most women have enough common sense, though. Deep inside, they know when they're being used, and they don't like it. But then they use their strength of mind and will to convince themselves that the choice is worth the price they pay, an effort which serves the men's purposes just fine.Now try reversing this argument. There is plenty of porn out there aimed at women that you could easily say is degrading men, but you never hear about this. Hmmm.That would be a double-standard - in favor of men. Porn isn't exclusively degrading of women, of course, just mostly degrading of women, considering that the vast majority of porn is made for male consumers.

[Eek]

To spit upon or to put on a pedestal can both be ways to objectify. Either method can be used to prevent real human-to-human contact and intercourse. The harm done is a matter of empathy.
Yes, spitting on or raising someone on a pedestal can be a way of objectifying another person. Of course, saying "thank you" or smiling at someone can also be another way of talking down to them. Just like how saying "I hate you" or punching someone can be signs of affection.

Just because I walk down the street and a pretty woman catches my eye doesn't mean "Uh oh, Eek is objectifying a woman". Yeah, I might perhaps stop and speak to her, but if I don't have the time of day, I'll just give her a quick glaze and she's mere eye candy. If women don't do this, then I pity them. From my perspective, it isn't about objectifying and looking at them like they're merely sex objects to be toyed with at my leisure. If I don't have time, I don't have time, and it's as simple as that. Thus, if I don't have time, why do I need to bother sacrificing something I need to do in my life to have "real human-to-human contact" with a pretty woman? I'll just look at her out of the corner of my eye for a second, think "That's a pretty woman right there", and move on. Is there any harm done? Am I merely developing an outlook on women that states that they're objects to be gazed at? Am I avoiding contact with women because they're merely meant to be spat upon or raised onto pedestals? No.
The stuff about their life or personality is just window dressing. If a playmate's body is injured or scarred, then she's not fit to be a playmate anymore. Sexy bodies are the main point. Having sexy women frolicking at a wealthy estate is for the sake of men's egos. Hugh Hefner's Doll's House just happens to be a mansion. Many Middle Eastern rulers were also said to have treated their wives well. But no amount of affection, respectability or material opulence can change the fact when women are treated as objects or property.
Opinion. Generalization. There's far more in Playboy than nude women. Opinion. No point. Getting to a point. You're talking about more than 2000 years ago, not today.
The women are good as trophies for men's egos, so there would be no point in getting them hurt, unhappy, or otherwise tarnished. And then there's hardcore, but that's a different aspect of ego.
And whatever I say about softcore porn won't change your opinion and vice versa. I don't see women as being "trophies" for men in just about any sense unless that's the woman's personal intent, which in that case, I'd imagine that you'd claim that I would be removing some of her freedom were I to tell her that she couldn't be a man's trophy.

Hardcore porn is an entirely different and more complex animal.

[PsychoSaiya-jin]

Furthrer, you never even responded to PSJ's request for a good definition of porn. Hint: you can't get one in the dictionary. This is exactly the struggle that the SCOTUS has been wrestling with. What is porn? Is Clockwork Orange and Lolita? How about Eyes Wide Shut? How about Britney Spears concerts? Sports illustrated Swimsuit Edition?
Thank you, that was exactly what I was aiming at.

Porn is an instrument of a system, and the consciousness of the individual humans' involvement varies.In my Systems Analysis unit, I've learned that everything is a system. Porn, rain, my toilet. A system is an internetworking set of factors which have an a aciton and boundaires.

Google defines a system as:
# a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole; "a vast system of production and distribution and consumption keep the country going"
# instrumentality that combines interrelated interacting artifacts designed to work as a coherent entity; "he bought a new stereo system"; "the system consists of a motor and a small computer"
# a complex of methods or rules governing behavior; "they have to operate under a system they oppose"; "that language has a complex system for indicating gender"
# a procedure or process for obtaining an objective; "they had to devise a system that did not depend on cooperation"
# a group of physiologically or anatomically related organs or parts; "the body has a system of organs for digestion"
# arrangement: an organized structure for arranging or classifying; "he changed the arrangement of the topics"; "the facts were familiar but it was in the organization of them that he was original"; "he tried to understand their system of classification"
# (physical chemistry) a sample of matter in which substances in different phases are in equilibrium; "in a static system oil cannot be replaced by water on a surface"; "a system generating hydrogen peroxide"
# the living body considered as made up of interdependent components forming a unified whole; "exercise helped him get the alcohol out of his system"
# organization: an ordered manner; orderliness by virtue of being methodical and well organized; "his compulsive organization was not an endearing quality"; "we can't do it unless we establish some system around here"

So where do we name the components of a porn system? Do the boundaries end in the industry or extend to the consumer (or maybe even further)?

Scarlett O'Hara was a very admirable heroine in many ways and liberated herself from certain false and immature ideas, but she still continued many of the racist assumptions of her era. The same could be said about Bruce Lee, who was a TV sidekick and never allowed to truely star in a western production until just before his untimely demise. Being an icon of popular-culture, you couldn't say he furthered stereotypes. If anything, he negated them.
Scarlett is similar, within the constraints of the times she managed to be a vitial and functional member of the main cast -Something which was quite radical at the time.
The only stronger female television role would have been Ms Emma Peel of The Avengers.

This type of argument has been brought up by a few people already. And with good reason. What better a source of information to quote than your own first hand experiences in the subject and life.
What is the more a compelling argument:
"I read about a person who was.."
"I know a person who is..."
"I personally am/do/have done...."

I could spend all night cutting and pasting information to make points. But nobody can tell you that your own first-hand experience of "white" is actually "black".
You say that we look at the present to forget of neglect the "past",, but when is the past? When does the Pre-porn era exist?
Have we always had porn?

They said about the same to Socrates. Now he's supposed to be the father of modern logic or something along those lines. Maybe if you accuse me of walking on clouds, I can go have a chat wit