Okay, Mith here. I'm going to be doing a few blogs for Argus. Once I figure out how to work this thing...*hits computer with hammer*
Close enough.
Anyways, onto more serious matters. It's often been a common to hear feminists complain about porn. Well, that makes sense. They see it as a way to degrade women...but is that true? Here's a link to a Feminist blog (vlog?) on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHXyomf6NAA&feature=PlayList&p=3B6AC545B0E0C730&index=0
As the blogger indicates, she feels that she cannot clearly outline her problems with porn, but she does have a list that she believes does it well enough for her. As such, I have taken the time to outline the large, large problems with this list. Said list can be found here:
http://antipornfeminists.wordpress.com/whats-wrong-with-pornography/
And if you'll bear with me, I still haven't learned to use the quotation method that Argus has, so I'm going to put the quotations in bold and a slightly larger text.
Pornography harms women.
Pornography is not fantasy. Pornography happens in the real world, to real women; everything you see in pornography happened somewhere to a real woman.
Yes, Pornography is real—to an extent. Pornography is an entertainment industry. So while some of these things in porn do happen, such as the actual physical sexual contact, it doesn’t mean that everything else such as incidents surrounding it happened. Nor in fact, does it mean that these women are being forced into this. They choose to do this. Just because a woman is low on income and sees this as a last resort does not mean that they were forced by into it. There are other options that the woman has, but for some reason she chose that industry to make her life.
The pornography industry is a multi-billion dollar global industry.
Pornography exists to make money. It is an industry that chews women up and spits them out; it is an industry where exposure to violence, harassment, injury and infection are seen as normal and acceptable.
Yes, yes it may be. The problem is, that doesn’t make it illegal. Construction workers face similar problems. They are constantly being exposed to danger and they are asked to physically destroy themselves. Or US soldiers. They’re asked to put themselves in areas full of hostile enemies with not just knives, handguns, and a midnight alleyway, but against enemies with automatic weapons, bombs, and tanks. Life is not this rosey little world where everything is fair and nice. People from all walks of life are forced to do things they don’t like.
And why is this a 'woman’s' issue? Why is this not potrayed as something that also chews men up and spits them out? Are they no less on sexual display? Are they no less considered meat that is to be tossed out when no longer of value? What about men who start suffering erectile disfunction? What about men who get too old and are no longer considered of use?
Pornography doesn’t expand our sexuality – it stunts it.
Mainstream heterosexual pornography dictates a narrow and limited idea of human sexuality. In pornography, male sexuality is predicated on cruelty, coercion and degradation; female sexuality is predicated on submitting to or appearing to enjoy being subjected to cruel, coercive and degrading treatment. Pornography eradicates women’s sexual agency, and makes it harder for women to find out about their own bodies and their own sexuality.
False. Yes, there is some porn that does indeed display men using predetorial means of obtianing sex. Porn that displays men being manipulative, forceful, and doing things that are degrading nd cruel is not potraying an accurate form of sexual experience. But then again, pornography isn’t a documentary. It’s not meant to teach men what sex is—it is there to act as a ventation. In the same way that playing a video game of two hardcore cops on the edge is not an accurate represenation of how real police officers work is not meant to portray the reality of law enforcement, neither is porn an actual representation of sexuality. Because it’s not supposed to be.
Porn is directed at men, or least, the majority of it is. And thus, most porn represents a very male dominated presentation because it is a male fantasy. It is the idea of men getting entirely what they want out of sex. What is that? Pleasure and dominance. Just like how in an action game, we want to be a gun totting badass who guns down innocent civilians who get in the way of villains. Porn is nothing more than a fantasy. It’s no better than attacking a violent movie for being violent.
This doesn’t mean that men who watch porn will become violent. It may, for some who are rather naïve, direct them into having some early trips in how reality works if all they’ve seen is fantasy, but that doesn’t mean it ruins their life forever, just like how playing a football game on the Wii and then playing it in real life suddenly causes a brutal awakening to the naïve player. As for women—again, this is not a female oriented industry. Perhaps there are women, who like it, but this is again, a fantasy and they will not be looking to be making love with someone, but rather get out sexual tension.
Pornography portrays sexual violence against women as normal, natural and an inevitable part of male sexuality.
Sexual desire does not develop in a vacuum. The prurient attitude we have to sex in this country, combined with a lack of decent sex education, means that many people use pornography as their primary source of information on what sex is supposed to be like. Mainstream heterosexual pornography tells men that the sexual abuse of women is exciting, and that women enjoy being abused. It tells women that in order to do sex properly, they have to put up with and enjoy such abuse.
Just as sexual desire does not develop in a vacuum, neither do humans lack the ability to learn when reality isn’t living up to fantasy. A young male, even one who has learned only sexuality from porn, is not going to act that way against a woman for only the reason of watching a porn video. Human interaction is far more complicated than that. If a young male experiencing sex for the first time does something overtly aggressive that he sees portrayed in a fantasy—it will be met with female hostility. Why? Because the female does not like it. Now, because in most cases, men want to make their sexual partners happy long before sexual interaction, they will often immediately cease that action. Why? Because it is a logical response. Just like how if I were misinformed in a proper way to speak to someone, I would not continue to act that way when my expectations of their responses are not met. This is because we are a very social species and we will more often than not cease a behavior that is disapproved by another individual.
This is not always true of course. There are plenty of people who will insist upon their way and demand that others obey—but that is not the fault of pornography, but rather a mixture if improper raising on the parent’s part or simple problems with that individual. It is not the company’s fault that someone has chosen fantasy over reality and has trouble because of it.
Pornography reinforces male supremacy, and the idea that men are entitled to sexual access to women’s bodies.
Men define themselves as being whatever is not a woman, in order to be a man it is necessary for there to be a subordinate group of women for men to compare themselves to and feel superior to. In mainstream heterosexual pornography men are always the active agents and women are always the passive objects. No man in pornography ever fails to get what he wants; the women in pornography exist solely to satisfy men’s desires, they have no will or desire of their own except to service men’s needs.
An incredibly bad argument. First, saying that men define themselves as what is not womanhood is utterly and completely bunk. Men are the way they are because men desire to be masculine and they define that based upon their own desires and culture. Furthermore, men are not always portrayed as active agents. There is plenty of pornography depicting women as the aggressors and men as passive objects that the women desire to have and get—purely for their own sexual pleasure.
Again, this isn’t something that men thought on for hours, days, weeks, or even years, but rather a natural desire of humans. It has taken a sexual encounter and potrayed it in a light that while not socially acceptable—is exciting and hence, arousing. The same is true in women. Some women might find a porn where a woman gets forced into sex as arousing because women view masculinity as desirable. And while they would never accept a male who forces her into sex when they want to, they find the situation arousing because it presents a very radical and masculine heavy image.
Pornography portrays sex and women as disgusting.
The words used to describe women and women’s bodies in pornography betray the fact that women and sex are seen as dirty and disgusting by the men who use it: ‘bitch’ ‘cunt’ ‘slut’ ‘fuck toy’ ‘fuck hole’ ‘dirty’ ‘filthy’ etc etc.
Again, that is not entirely true. There are plenty of porn movies, games, and the like that portray sex as deep, beautiful, and in some cases, even spiritual. The women in these more ‘dirty’ pornographies are not portrayed in such a manner because they wish to influence the audience, but rather to appeal to the audience’s already set desires. People don’t make movies (often) because they want to influence people, but rather to appeal to something people like. Action movies and comedies exist because people like them and will pay to see them.
In that same manner, people will pay for dirty porn because they want dirty porn.
Pornography promotes misogynistic beauty standards.
In mainstream heterosexual pornography women are interchangeable, it trains women and men to see a natural female body – one with pubic hair, or small breasts, or any fat – as unnatural and disgusting.
Another misconception. First off, this only shows the lack of knowledge and the abundance of ignorance shown here. There are many pornographies out there that show fat women, older women, hairy women, and women with small breasts as attractive and desirable by males. This is again, because it is playing to the likes and dislikes of people. People in general, prefer attractive counterparts. This is based on a natural desire to seek out a mate that is not only healthy, but successful. This is determined by many factors that make men and women attracted to each other. Women seek out masculine men and thus will be more attracted to men with greater physical strength and stamina, but even more so men will be attracted to women with hips that shows they will bare healthy children or ample breasts that show they will be able to supply that child with nutrition.
Pornography affects you.
Even if you are not a pornography consumer, a significant number of the men you interact with every day will be. It’s difficult to imagine that a man can spend a lot of time viewing and masturbating to degrading images of women without that pornographic ideology having a negative effect on his view of women.
It’s difficult to imagine because it isn’t true. Most men are not stupid, easily led individuals who will believe one source of information their entire life when all of their interactions prove this to be wrong time and time again. Nor is it true that because a great deal of women like Twilight—a fantasy about an emotionally distant and abusive male vampire who treats his girlfriend like an object and nothing better than added luggage—that they will suddenly all desire men such as that. Which is ironic because most men hate Twilight because the vampire Edward is an emotionally distant and abusive boyfriend who treats his girlfriend like an object and nothing better than added luggage.
In short, if this is what you consider a good argument, you’re in trouble. The argument ignores the reason for porn and why it exists. It furthermore ignores the fact of why it exists. This isn’t an argument about morality or how these women are being abused (because they aren’t, they chose this), but rather an argument of porn causes sexual violence and violations. It’s no different than claiming that video games cause violence. It ignores that most people understand the difference and it ignores that most people do not act they way they should in a fantasy setting because fantasies by their nature, are designed for that purpose. So we can act in ways we don’t often act. So we can be the villain, or the cop on the edge. Or the hardcore stud screwing some hot chick and tells her to go make sandwhich.
The fact is, you don’t understand men or women. You just want to paint a perfect world where no one ever even conceives of people being remotely violent or aggressive towards another in a way that isn’t socially acceptable when in fact, we all do it. And the reason we simulate it is so we don’t actually have to do it to get the same satisfaction from it. Just like how some people play video games for the thrill, some people watch porn of abusive sex for the thrill of being mistreated or mistreating. They all appeal to portions of the human mind.
Friday, January 29, 2010 7:53 PM