An interesting article.

[hkellick]

I stumbled upon this article via someone's journal. The article is written by a university professor about the harm that the porn industry is doing to women. I'd like to suggest everyone read it, regardless of sex or how much porn you may watch/have watched. A warning, though, that it is very long.
I feel like this article is important, not because I feel like I've sinned (In my entire life, I've only watched two porn movies.. a really bad Hentai Cartoon and (I swear to god, this IS true), a really bad Star Trek parody porn where we fast forwarded through the sex scenes and just watched the really bad conversation.), but because, I guess, I never really knew how harmful these were.
I don't believe that Playboy and Strip Clubs are necessarily harmful to women and that there probably is no connection between reading a Playboy and raping a woman. But porn videos on the other hand... well, like I said, I had no idea. I've never seen any.
Just go read.. and feel free to discuss here, if you so choose.

Comments

[dustkitten.livejournal.com]

No insult on the playground is worse than being called a girl, except perhaps being called a "fag," a derivative of girl.

How is fag a "derivative of girl"?

I have a lot of thoughts about porn. Some of them about relate to my sex life, some of them don't. One of them is this: If industry goes by the stereotypes, then men like the porn and women like the romance novels. Shouldn't, then, the "perfect" porn be romantic but explicit? Why don't these titles flood the market?

I have a friend who was in the "adult" industry, but she worked on her own terms. She only worked in lesbian porn--she's a lesbian herself--and, at one time, was part of a company that made "lesbian porn for lesbians." Written by women, directed by women, with only women in them. She called one of the titles, "The most romantic, sexy thing I've ever seen in my life and I am proud to have been a part of it." Of course, you can't find it now, and the company did not make enough money to continue its existance.

She took the money she made in these movies and went to law school.

If that's what a couple years in the adult industry--not even the big-sellers (if there is such a thing)--can pay for, tens of thousands of dollars of schooling, what's to stop any attractive girl/woman from taking this "easy" option? Heck, Renee was asking to dub the "oohs and aahs" for a lot of money once. She wouldn't even have had to take off her clothes.

*

My friend Patrick went to a strip club with friends, and started to go on a regular basis. Not because he wanted to get off, but because the girls there were so miserable. One thanked him for being the only thing about her job that made her feel "human." Quite a few of the girls were single parents. Most of them were on heroin. Eventually, he got so depressed himself he stopped going. He couldn't help them. They had expensive cars, drug habits, and no self-esteem.

*

On the other hand, the article does not go into the fact that there are probably thousands of porn titles that have the woman dominant, or that yes, there ARE women who enjoy complete sexual subservience (although perhaps not with six men at once).

"Delusional" begins with the idea that women want something more caring in a man, but ends with her begging for anal penetration and ejaculation.

Are these two things always contradictory? Can't a woman with more than "vanilla" sexual tastes look for a caring man? Can't a man be sensitive and caring and still enjoy anal sex?

We can stop glorifying violence and we can reject its socially sanctioned forms, primarily in the military and the sports world. We can make peace heroic.

I think that it's more important to project the idea that violence on the playing field should never be taken off the field. If a sports figure assaults a woman--well, why should he have the "right" to draw his multi-million paychecks?

I don't want to give up violence in my entertainment. I want to love Braveheart without feeling like a bad person. I will never pick up a gun, or a broadsword. I know the line between fantasy and reality.

Maybe we should worry more about that.

-A-

[lite.livejournal.com]

I'll agree the article isn't perfect, but I'll argue some of your points and discuss some of the others.

I'll give you that the article is only looking at a portion of pornographic films and ignoring a great deal of other stuff. This is a failing in his point.

I agree that the author is painting in big broad strokes about WOMEN IN GENERAL instead of individual people.

I think you make a number of different and not entirely connected points.

Pornography:
I'm not suggesting anyone take away the rights of any person to enjoy the sex the way they'd like (so long as that isn't negatively affecting anyone or anything not capable of making that choice for themselves: children, animals or whichever.)

The question is whether or not pornography breeds violence. Yes, there are some woman who might enjoy any and everything that occurs during one of those "typical" (I have no idea if they're typical or not) porno films. Does that mean all women do? Does that mean all women should be accepting of the fact that men find this sort of thing a real turn on?

OK. Let me try this on a different angle.
Let's say that you, as a woman, enjoy rape fantasies. It's your thing. You REALLY get into it. It hurts no one. So no problem.
Then you find a guy and he's into the rape fantasy thing too. OK. No problem. Still hurting no one.
Then you make a movie where the two of you engage in the rape fantasy, a small personal porno.
No problem?
Then you SELL the movie where the two of you engage in the rape fantasy.
Still no problem?
OK, so you sell the movie where the two of you engage in the rape fantasy. And it gets a few buyers of other people also interested in rape fantasy.
You with me? No problem, right? Because people know the difference between reality and fantasy.
What if you sell the movie to someone who then goes out and fulfills his own rape fantasy by actually raping another woman.
Do you still feel that the movie was OK?
Let's take it that final step. The coup de gracie.
You sell the movie to someone who then goes out and fulfills his own rape fnatasy by actually raping the daughter of someone you know.

There's a line somewhere where it stops being just about you and starts being about other people. Sex between you and your partner is just about you. Porn videos is about other people and the more people who have seen it, the more people it's about.

The problem isn't with one video either. It's with an entire industry of hundreds or thousands of videos, each showing something that may be too violent or too demeaning.

Violence: Now let's get to your other point. You say that you don't want to give up violence in your entertainment because you can handle it. You have the right to enjoy violence if you want to.
Most of us can handle violence.. most of us can handle alcohol too, which doesn't stop the rate of alcohol-related death from being, in the last 10 years? 15? 20? I dunno... of being in the top five of number of people dead per year.
Violence begets violence. You can handle listening to Rock Music.. but somewhere in Ohio.. two idiots can't and decide that they need to shoot up a school. You can handle violent video games, but somewhere in Chicago, some idiot can't and begins shooting up the freeway.
Personally, I don't like violence in my entertainment without a damned good reason. Violence is all around us and much of it is there just for the flashy effects. You mention Braveheart. Do you think movies need to revolve around body counts? Could the point have gotten across just as well without actually watching a batallion of British soldies impaling themselves on some scottish spears?
Even twenty years ago, our parents were making GREAT movies that didn't necessarily revolve around how many people died nastily. Our parents made great television too where the plot revolved around "Oh no! Mrs. Huxtable is pregnant again! Now what?" and not "Oh no! Tony has to whack Pussy before Pussy tells too much to the feds!"
Violence has it's place in society and I don't condone a perfect barney'esque world where nothing goes wrong and no one fights, but I do believe there is far too much violence out there in our media.