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

[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.