Some readers have asked me to explain this passage, from the post before this one, in more detail:
Personally, I think that child porn and rape porn should be censored as heavily as possible (within the bounds of the Miller decision) and driven as far underground as possible. Allowing a market for child or rape porn (including “virtual” stuff) to flourish is wrong, because those markets encourage porn producers to harm real people.
Beyond that, I really don’t give a damn.
Avram responded:
And is “rape porn” depictions of actual rape, or just of people pretending to engage in rape? If the latter, again, where is the harm?
I suppose you could argue that such things encourage the viewers to go out and harm people, but you argued that it’s the producers who are doing the harm, and how exactly does that work?
The analogy I’d use is elephant ivory. Having a market for new elephant ivory is obviously a bad thing; it encourages poachers to kill elephants, leading to near-extinction.
What’s not so obvious is that having a legal market for old elephant ivory also encourages poachers to kill elephants. Why? Because in practice, it’s practically impossible to tell the difference between new and old elephant ivory. Therefore, if there’s a profitable market in old elephant ivory, that will motivate poachers to kill elephants and sell the new ivory, falsely claiming that it’s old ivory.
If we want to take as much of the profit out of poaching as possible, it’s not enough to just outlaw selling new elephant ivory. We also have to outlaw selling anything that’s in practice nearly impossible to distinguish from new elephant ivory.
Similarly, it’s not enough to outlaw possessing or selling “real” child porn – by which I mean, child pornography that was produced by actually sexually abusing real children. We also have to outlaw “virtual” child porn – that is, child-porn-like images so realistic that they’re indistinguishable from the real thing. If there’s a marketplace for material that’s for all practical purposes indistinguishable from real child porn, in practice that creates a market on which real child porn – falsely marketed as “virtual” – can be sold.
The same argument applies to rape porn (that is, photos or films depicting realistic-seeming rape scenes). If we want to outlaw people making money by selling films of real rapes, then we have to outlaw all rape porn.
To see why, imagine the police raid a porn producer’s studio and find tons of photos of children being raped. The porn producer says “sorry, I bought all of these from someone – I forget who – and he said he generated them on computer.” Suddenly, it becomes, for all practical purposes, impossible to enforce child-porn laws. I’m not willing to pay that price in order to protect the market viability of virtual child porn.
Lis wrote:
I wouldn’t outlaw prose and poetic descriptions – the only “virtual” porn I’d outlaw is visual representations so realistic that they’re not easily distinguishable from the real thing, for the reasons I just described in my answer to Avram.
Also, I’m calling for this in the context of the Miller decision – which says that no work that, taken as a whole, has serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value, can be obscene. So performances of Romeo and Juliet would be safe.
UPDATE: Reading the comments, I think I’d better clarify something (thanks, Charles and Kip!).
This post is not calling for an expansion of censorship laws. On the contrary, I’m saying the censorship laws should be narrowed, so that fewer works are deemed “obscene” and therefore lacking first amendment protection.
Under current law, all the stuff I talk about above is obscene – plus many more things besides, such as Demon Beast Invasion. What I’m advocating is that only rape porn and child porn (as defined in this post, above) should be censored; nothing else should be. I’m arguing for less censorship than we currently have, not more..
I believe that knowingly possessing vilolations of copywrite can be punished criminally […] although it rarely is.
I’d want to see an actual case cited before I believe that.
Hmm. According to the Library of Congress’s Copyright FAQ, copyright violation is a civil offense that can lead to criminal penalties in the case of willful violations for a profit. But I don’t think you own a copyright in your own image. What would the relevant portion of intellectual property law be? Not patent, obviously. Trademark, perhaps, but I’m pretty sure you’d have to register it.
Anyone know what law is actually being violated by people who create works of art derived from other people without getting permission first?
OK, according to the Graphic Artist Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines, 10th edition, page 48, there’s a right of publicity — that’s what keeps you from putting some famous person’s picture on your product without permission — and it’s not a federally-created right, but state-created, so it varies from state to state, with some states having explicit laws written about it, while others derive it from common law.
In New York state, for example, any living person (not just a celebrity) whose image or voice is used for advertising or trade purposes without permission has the right to sue. In California, a dead person’s heirs control rights in his image for fifty years.
k–
Intellectual property is just as “spurious” as all other forms of property. Property rights do not exist in nature and are created by society to give certain individuals the use/ decision-making power on certain issues – who gets to sleep in this building, who get to wear this ring, who gets dividends from this stock, who gets to publish Harry Potter. I am suggesting the use of property rights as device to protect individuals from being depicted (actually or wirtually) as being raped.
Avram-
Your cites on the actual law seem sound. I am suggesting other ways to think about the law.
“wirtually”?!? Have I developed typing speech problem? The “v” and “w” aren’t even close on the keyboard!
You know, I’ll be honest — I hate all porn. And I have NO respect for anyone who uses it. But I don’t favor censoring it. I favor using education to show people why it’s nothing but misogynist crap.
But, rape porn and child porn — real or virtual — is an entirely different story. Yes, it is a fucking luxury to be able and sit there and turn this into an intellectual issue, knowing full well that you will not be harmed by the effects, knowing, in fact, that you benefit from them. Yes, men benefit from living in a rape culture — whether they rape or not. Women are harmed living in a rape culture. And I sure as hell will not sit by and say that perpetuating that rape culture is fine and dandy.
There is nothing of benefit in rape or child porn. NOTHING. The only thing that comes of rape and child porn is the normalization of rape and child molestation. Saying (or thinking) that it’s ok to get off watching women being raped and sexualizing it is what contributes and perpetuates the rape culture we are living in.
So fuck yeah, I’m all for outright banning it. Making it illegal. And then going full-force after the people who try to produce it anyway. At least the people who use will know full and well that this is NOT acceptable in society. And as long as people feel it is acceptable in society, women will be harmed by it.
So, you can have all the meta-discussions you want — I retract NOTHING. I stand by every word I said.
And, btw, wrt Canada — my point was not that they have the same level of free speech as the US. My point is that, in practice, they have far, far less censorship. You’re not going to be seeing outright porn on non-cable TV in the US anytime soon — but you can already watch it in Canada. Many of the public television shows there would never be allowed on non-cable TV here — because they’d have bleep too many of the swear words.
And regarding Dworkin — again, you missed the point — that being, her books were NEVER BANNED. They were detained at the border (as many books are — “porn” or otherwise) and then they passed on through, same as usual. This is a typical scare-tactic myth that far too many of come to think is true. But it’s NOT.
bean,
I hear ya’. But.
The problem with having no respect for people who use porn is that most men use porn (not child porn or even rape porn, but some kind of porn). You don’t have to respect their use of porn, but should we not respect any of them for their other qualities if they also use porn?
The most feminist men I know use porn. They know it’s misogynist; they know that their sexuality has been largely constructed around those images. (Alas, women’s sexuality is constructed around those images, too.) Men often feel a lot of shame for using porn. They often use porn when they are bored, anxious, scared. They can still be political allies and good people, good partners and fathers. (Again, I’m not talking about child porn, which should be illegal, I agree.)
Porn is addictive. When I talk to thoughtful men about their use of porn (and very, very few men will talk to anyone about their use of porn, let alone a woman), the kind of compulsion they feel reminds me of the kind of compulsion and shame a lot of women feel around food. Now, I know food isn’t oppressive and porn is, but my point is that the psychological mechanism, if you will, around compulsion and shame and addiction, looks very similar to me.
My male partner works with young men around issues of sex and sexuality; he works with young men who are sex offenders. That’s not work I could so, but I’m glad someone compassionate and trustworthy is doing the work. He talks to a lot of men about their use of porn, and I’ve learned a lot from him. Shame begets shame, and shaming men around their use of pornography isn’t the answer. I think that feminist and other men working together in groups with compassion and trust (whoa, is she an idealist, or what?) can shift the culture around porn. I don’t know what else can….
For God’s sake. Define your terms. Please.
By “porn,” do you mean any sexually explicit art?
Do you mean specifically any sexually explicit art that is misogynist? If so, by whose definition? From whose perspective?
Or do you perhaps mean specifically any sexually explicit art with bright lighting, low production values, and a lousy script?
You’re all third-wave enough to understand the fucking controversy, here. Don’t feed it for cheap thrills and lousy rhetorical points. “Porn” is too broad a term, that means too many different things to too many people. Women use it. Men use it. Minors use it. It can be misogynist, misandrist, misanthropic in general. It can be celebratory, beautiful, necessary and vital. People use it in far more ways, from far more perspectives, and far more often than you might imagine. It does good. It liberates. It does harm–sometimes unthinkable harm. It can be bloody awful. It is more potent than it might otherwise be because it deals with taboo subjects, and because it deals with desire: which is a dangerous, anarchic force in anyone’s hands, as destructive and dangerous as it is empowering and liberating. And because of that power, one of the best ways of attacking, controlling, and healing the damage caused by porn as it largely has been done is to make new porn, to redefine it, to reimagine what sexually explicit art–porn–can and must do.
“Porn” in and of itself as a term of art is too broad to be evil. It’s too broad to be good. Define your terms. Please.
Bean, no one here is defending child pornography. No one here is defending rape pornography. I can appreciate where your rage is coming from, but it is misdirected and misapplied here. It might be nice to have a convenient bogeyman upon which to blame some very real evils–but the fight you want to fight cannot be won where you’re fighting it right now. As has been pointed out a number of times: you don’t have to fight to make it bloody well illegal. It already is.
For the record, as a free speech absolutist, I find Barry’s stated position to be an eminently sensible compromise between concerns over freedom of expression and concerns over the damage that expression can cause: that art dealing explicitly with nonconsensual sex be subject to the Miller test for obscenity, and that all other sexually explicit art be left alone on obscenity challenges. (I’m paraphrasing slightly, I think. Apologies if I’ve misread it; it’s how I understand it now.)
But I will not accept a blanket condemnation of any art that deals explicitly with nonconsensual sex. One of the best ways to make an idea inescapably powerful is to make it taboo. To drive it underground. To make it clear: we do not talk about this. The best way to fight that power is to talk about it. –You might not be calling for such a blanket condemnation, Bean, but it’s hard to tell with all the four-letter words and foaming rhetoric.
If you’d like to dismiss this as the bullshit intellectualization of a man who uses porn, who’s written it and written about it, who’s appalled by the appalling state of what passes for the art, who finds the industry qua industry unthinkably hellish, who’s read too much Delany, who thought Sontag made a pretty good start, who’s decadent enough to think the French might have been on to something before they crawled up their own navels, who counts Judith Levine as a hero, who–apparently–benefits all too well from living in a rape culture, please.
Feel free.
Bean, frankly, at this point I’ve got no respect for you.
A few years ago, I changed my opinion about gun control because of rational argument. A few weeks ago someone presented me with rational arguments that changed my opinion about the FDA. I’m open to rational, intelligent argument.
But you don’t seem interested in making those kinds of arguments. Instead you’re making blanket condemnations of me, of most of the people I know, of most of the people I don’t know. Do you actually expect to change anybody’s mind this way? Are you interested in changing people’s minds?
The problem with having no respect for people who use porn is that most men use porn (not child porn or even rape porn, but some kind of porn). You don’t have to respect their use of porn, but should we not respect any of them for their other qualities if they also use porn?
No. There are far too many men in my life who do not use porn, who actively work against it, to buy that cop-out.
And I’ve got women in my life who are quite fond of their porn, and they’d argue rings around you if you tried to tell them it was oppressing them.
Good for them. Good for you. Why does it not surprise me in the least? Guess what — doesn’t change my opinion, in the least.
I have spent years doing the research, doing reading, and making up my own mind. There is absolutely NO value to porn. None. It’s misogynist tripe. I’m not going to “argue” my position. I’ve spent far too much of my life doing that, and I’m not going to waste my time with people who don’t give a fuck about women.
And I’ll save my respect for those men and women who do care about women.
Ah.
Not quite ten hours later, and now I am a sicko who does not care about women.
It’s been a day.
I’m off; I find this discussion no longer fulfills my apparent desire for intellectual bullshit rationalizations. –Y’all take care now, y’heah?
bean says, “I have spent years doing the research, doing reading, and making up my own mind. There is absolutely NO value to porn. None. It’s misogynist tripe. I’m not going to “argue” my position. I’ve spent far too much of my life doing that, and I’m not going to waste my time with people who don’t give a fuck about women.”
[sigh]
For those of us who haven’t spent years reading and researching, if you won’t argue your position would you at least point us in the direction of some of your reading and research such that we may begin to make up our own minds?
That said, I second k’s motion to define “porn.”
Amp, do you feel that defending the right to produce or look at “normal” porn is the same as defending the right to produce and look at child/rape porn? I don’t. I don’t like any porn, but I don’t support banning “normal” porn. I do believe in free speech very strongly, but it happens that I don’t see this as an issue of free speech. And I also don’t see a significant difference between virtual child/rape porn and the real thing apart from a legal distinction, and that is why I react to the defense of the fake variety as “speech” just as I would react to the defense of real child/rape porn as speech.
I understand why it isn’t prosecuted like actual child/rape porn, which I stated. And I DO understand why people here are defending it. I’m not saying they think it’s a great idea, I’m simply saying that I think they are missing the point of free speech, and more broadly, the point of a free society. Anarchy doesn’t create freedom. It only creates freedom for the most violent, for the ones who would take freedom from others. A free society MUST restrict certain harmful “freedoms” in order for all people to have BASIC freedoms. In such a society, we are not allowed to bring harm to other people, and I strongly believe that this crap, virtual or not, is harmful.
I was very angry when I posted last night. Nothing upsets me more than child sexual abuse. Perhaps I shouldn’t have posted at all. But on the other hand, I don’t see how people can have a completely rational discussion about how people have a right to produce realistic images or portrayals of something so incredibly harmful for the express purpose of getting people sexually aroused. I don’t see the harm as abstract or even indirect.
As I believe I said, I would compare it to inciting a riot. But maybe I can’t discuss this rationally. Maybe this is the “worst” in me, like the death penalty example given above. Because I am against the death penalty, but I wouldn’t really care if you rounded up all of the child molesters and child pornographers and killed them all. My position on the death penalty is an intellectual one, borne not out of a belief that everyone deserves to go on living no matter their offenses, but because I don’t believe the government should have the power to decide who lives and dies — because I know the system is far from perfect and innocents are killed — because I know the system is unfair along class/race lines — and on some level because I know that if my child were sentenced to die, I would feel that the state doesn’t have the right to take that person from me. My opinion on this particular topic is borne out of a visceral reaction (thus my dry eyes at the thought of dead child molesters), but I still believe that my opinion on the legality of these images is a valid one.
I believe that a just society has an obligation to be balanced. Free speech is incredibly important, one of the most important rights we have. But something more basic is the right to safety. A civilized society must protect its citizens. I think, when weighed against each other on a case by case basis, decisions can be made. I do not believe that an across the board, rigid ideal can be adhered to with positive results. This is one case where I think that the need to protect outweighs the need for virtual child/rape pornographers to peddle their “speech.” This is only case I can think of where I feel that way without reservation, actually.
I’m sorry if you think I mussed up your comments section, but I can’t think of anything I feel more strongly about, and while the presentation was probably not effective, persuasive, or productive, the content behind the emotion is something I stand by. We are discussing opinions here, and it is my opinion that the opinion of those who would protect this sort of thing is flawed.
Porn: A book, visual image, movie, etc. which primarily or exclusively depicts sexual activity. Its intention is to provoke sexual arousal and induce orgasm in its viewer/consumer.
Sorry I missed the rest of the firefight, but will this do for a start ?
bean:
(Wow, apparently I don’t care about myself.)
I’ll second (third?) the motion: please define porn.
(I have a few books on my shelf that would be defined as porn by some – and I don’t mean Lolita or the Karma Sutra)
I’d also like to ask who the hell are you to say what I do and do not care about?
Ampersand:
Thanks for the analogy re: virtual child/rape porn and old ivory. I have had trouble deciding where I stand on the issue; what with my strong free speech beliefs and my strident feminism seemingly at odds. I think that your analogy makes a lot of sense and while I still need to think about this some more, it helps.
Jenny, it’s entirely possible to be a feminist and still like pornography. Avedon Carol heads a British group called Feminists Against Censorship, and I’ve heard her rebut anti-porn arguments plenty of times.
I haven’t been in on this discussion from the start, forgive me if my remarks are off-key here. But one thing that leaps to my mind is that we seem to be talking about an aestheticization of violence, and that this is also one of the hallmarks of fascism. I would argue that pornography that aestheticizes violence contributes to making society more accepting of fascism. In situations such as rape, or when adults abuse children, you have those with power exploiting those who lack power. The people who make this stuff as consumer items are doing it to make money. The people who make this stuff are contributing to the vitality of fascism, and so are the people who consume it, particularly if they’re unthinking about it, if they’re just being “good” consumers, believing that they’re somehow fulfilling their god-given American right to self-realization. As if.
America is a very violent country, and it’s an increasingly closed-minded one. It’s sad but not surprising that we in the West (America) argue for “free speech” as a means for propagating what is basically an oppressive ideology, given that all we’re fed culturally is social Darwinism. (It’s one of the ironies of life that America’s leader doesn’t believe in evolution, but pays homage to its social variant.) Do American defenders of free speech really believe that the first amendment was intended as an instrument for propagating something other than an ideal value? Have they no sense of history? In the 18th century, the point of being able to speak freely was to speak truth, not to speak commerce or violence. (Of course the French had de Sade, who already knew that things weren’t as easy as all that. They locked him up in the Bastille because he refused to shut up and kept writing pornography; he kept pushing the nasty bits in people’s faces and pointed out that enlightenment wasn’t going to be so easy, but in America, Free Speech was enshrined … so that 20th century capitalists could use it to get richer than even Croesus could have imagined. The porn industry is a huge industry; its internet-based cyber-innovations eventually trickle down to users everywhere: we’re talking big industry, the kind that doesn’t have to get out-sourced to China or India, unlike manufacturing and engineering.)
Porn is about free speech the way the upcoming election of Arnold in California is about democracy. It’s all about the money, and the violence, and it’s all about how both are being aestheticized to make everyone accept fascist trends as though they were free speech ideals or, maybe worse, natural phenomena.
And by the way, the earlier comments about the majority of men consuming pornography: I don’t see that (not with the men I know), except in the sense that our entire economy is sexualized, and in that sense we’re all partaking of it. “Buy this car and get a babe with bigger tits (or become the babe with bigger tits)” or “Wear these jeans and learn to just love getting it up the ass” or …whatever! There’s a reason those fundamentalist lunatics in Kabul wanted to purge capitalism American-style. Because in the sense that our economy is sexualized, we’re enmeshed in escalating the pitch of the sexualization. It gets worse every year. I have a 9-year old daughter; I’m glad she’s tall enough that she can wear clothes from the women’s petite section. There’s some choice in that department. But in the children’s department, on the other hand, girls’ clothing is all styled to the SLUT theme. That’s where the fever pitch is heading. Use ’em up and toss ’em out — that’s what the economy thinks of you.
Hope this isn’t too way off the mark; I was inspired by Ampersand & Bean, with whom I basically agree.
“…Porn is about free speech the way the upcoming election of Arnold in California is about democracy. It’s all about the money, and the violence, and it’s all about how both are being aestheticized to make everyone accept fascist trends as though they were free speech ideals or, maybe worse, natural phenomena…”
Indeed. And the fact that it makes the powerful an awful lot of money, and that so many of the powerful are Republicans/Conservatives, makes me feel that the perpetual alarm bells about how it’s all going to go up in a giant banning frenzy aaaany minute now are just a bunch of hooey. As with the drug war, the small-time folk may suffer, but the institution itself will remain as big, hideous, and inescapable as ever. Righties, like their so-called “liberal,” so-called “opposites” in the entertainment industry, love dog-and-pony shows, they love staged good-vs.-evil battles as much as the floggers of mass corporatized culture do. (Remember the Wildmon Vs. Bochco “battle” over *N.Y.P.D. Blue* ?) Both sides love it. It brings them love, attention, and money from whichever group of idealogues are in their particular camp. Both sides need each other, and they need us to continue with our persistent amnesia about how much they actually have in common with each other and how much their interests overlap. That may be the saddest part.
Yule, if I were inclined to worry about the aestheticization of violence (which I’m not), I’d worry far more about the popularity of Hong Kong-inspired movies than about any pornography. Most porn I’ve seen is about as violent as a bowl of fruit in a still life.
We in the West — or at least I in the West — argue for free speech in the faith that if everybody has a chance to speak freely, truth and knowledge will emerge from the conflicting clash of ideas. If some ideas are suppressed, there’s no way to guarantee that it won’t be the true ones that get squashed. And yeah, oppressive authorities are entirely capable of labeling some unpleasant (to them) truth as “pornography” or “obscenity” if that’s an easy route to suppressing it.
Yawn.
Porn: A book, visual image, movie, etc. which primarily or exclusively depicts sexual activity. Its [sole] intention is to provoke sexual arousal and induce orgasm in its viewer/consumer.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me.
The constant arguments from free-speech absolutists about “what constitutes porn” is generally a big, as Amy S. would say, YAWN. It’s simply nothing other than an attempt to divert the discussion. “Oh no, Michaelangelo’s David will be considered porn.” Give me a break.
As I said, I don’t have respect for people who use porn. Nothing is going to change my mind about that. I’ve played in the “porn in empowering” game in my younger days, and I’ve learned what bullshit it is. Despite that, I’m not calling for censorship. I’m sure as fuck not going to go out and spout first amendment rhetoric in an attempt to protect it, but neither am I going to fight to have it banned.
Except when it comes to any form of rape or child pornography. ANY form. (And, ftr, laws have already been set in place that make virtual pornography — including rape and child pornography — LEGAL. This is the law I want to strike down.)
I am not a first amendment absolutist — as if that wasn’t clear enough. Because the fact is, first amendment absolutists have degraded the first amendment to it’s most vile and purient aspects. It’s no longer about protecting free speech and thought, it’s about protecting racism, sexism, misogyny, and PORN. It’s not about protecting rights — except those of the lowest denominator. There is no slippery slope — that’s the biggest bullshit argument to ever be made (hence the need for lies about things like the Butler Decision — the truth won’t allow the argument to stand up.)
And to make it even worse :gasp: to first amendment absolutists, I also FULLY support Canada’s anti-hate-speech laws.
As a woman under treatment for a physically caused sexual dysfunction, allow me to state for the record that both physicians specializing in women’s sexual health and sexual therapists do recommend viewing or reading porn as a form of treatment for certain sexual dysfunctions. And I have met with some of the leading doctors in both fields.
For women with arousal or orgasmic disorders, anything that can turn you on (without causing direct harm to others (and so far all the complaints against virtual porn has involved indirect harms) is considered a good thing.
Pornography is also necessary in studies of arousal in women. It’s hard to treat a dysfunction without understanding how things are supposed to work. In order to help women like me, physiological research is needed on healthy women. Many of these measurements will not be as accurate if the subjects rely on insertion or vibration for arousal, meaning they need women who can be aroused by pornography.
I would like to continue the discussion: I feel I have useful information to contribute, and there is more I would like to say about my own experiences, but given the scorn and condemnatory attitudes displayed by bean and Tishie, I do not feel safe nor comfortable posting about them here.
Perhaps, Barry, we could continue the discussion via email?
but given the scorn and condemnatory attitudes displayed by bean and Tishie, I do not feel safe nor comfortable posting about them here.
Oh, but it’s “just speech” — there is no direct harm there. Words can’t hurt you. Come on, all FREE SPEECH, blah, blah, blah
Well, at least someone’s noticed I’m alive. ;)
Well, at least someone’s noticed I’m alive. ;)
Sorry, Amy, you’re to polite — you need some “foaming rhetoric” in order to get noticed. :p
I guess you’re right, bean. I’d like to say that I’m de-foamed because all this discussion and Amp’s curative influence have made me a kinder, gentler, more reasonable subspecies of porn-hatin’ feminist. :p The Kind Men Like[tm]. But the truth is, I’m just really tired from the long week in Gummint Gulag-Land. :D Oh, well…
So, bean, are you actually going to engage with the point Lis brought up — how porn is actually benefiting her and other women like her — or are you going to just dismiss her sarcastically?
Hey, how can anyone verify that Lis is who she says she is, that her doctors are legitimate practitioners, that she’s even a she ? For that matter, if I argued that in my personal experience, porn CREATED a great deal of sexual dysfunction that I’m spending my adult life attempting to slough off, would you adress that, Avram ? Or would you just start thumping your chest and shouting about censorship again ? Would you just ignore *my* points, as you already have ?
Just let’s forget it. In a just and humane world, we’d all get in our two cents and we’d all get the same creedence no matter where we fell on the spectrum of opinion. And it is a spectrum, Avram, no matter how much you and some others want to make it into two poles. Two poles, that, as I said earlier (unadressed by anyone but bean, aren’t even as far apart as so many make them out to be)
But I guess this ain’t that fair, just world.
What kind of proof would you like, Amy?
I’d offer to phone you, but I don’t think either of us would want our home phone numbers floating about the web.
However, I do provide a legitimate link in these comments, which you can follow to my website. There, you can see photos of me and read more of my writings. I have been on Usenet since 1988 and you can find thousands of posts by me on Google Groups over the years that I believe present a fairly consistent portrayal of who I am (though it may be somewhat incomplete, since I don’t share every aspect of my life).
I live in the Boston area; the sex therapist I spent the most time with was Dr. Goodwin, author of A Woman’s Guide to Overcoming Sexual Fear & Pain. I am currently being treated by Dr. Irwin Goldstein, head of BUMC’s Institute of Sexual Medicine, one of the leading research centers into women’s sexual dysfunction. Several years ago, I appeared on a local newscast discussing the problem of women’s sexual dysfunction, and I have a video of myself in the ISM offices discussing my experience. And here is my husband’s description of a lecture we attended describing the latest findings which also tangentially explains our situation. Search his journal and Usenet and you will find further posts by him, going back years recounting our sexual problems.
Is that sufficient?
One final thought. I’ve heard of guys imitating women on chat rooms, but don’t they generally play at being horny bisexuals? The notion of somebody deciding to portray a woman unable to have sex and uncomfortable about talking about it in public (until somebody pisses her off) seems a little unrealistic, don’t you think?
Why yes, I am a frigid bitch.
Amy, if you want to call Lis a liar, then actually do it, OK? She can defend her claims, or not, as she sees fit. She’s at least making an actual argument, which is more than bean is doing.
As far as you go, well, I found your post uninteresting. I don’t consider myself obliged to take on every person who posts here, but at least I didn’t dismiss you with a sarcastic one-liner. But since you’ve asked, here goes:
Does porn make money for the powerful? Sure, lots of things do, that’s a big part of what being powerful means. It also makes money for the not-so-powerful. The guys in the corner shop selling nudie magazines are making money off porn, but they don’t seem like vastly powerful tycoons to me. One female friend of mine once had a girlfriend who hired a photographer to shoot erotic photos of herself for my friend; the photographer made money off the deal, but I don’t think he was a multi-billionaire or a senator.
Anyway, you may be right about the censorship battles being primarily about drumming up support on both sides. Some of that stuff really does go on. But real people suffer from those laws. Jesus Castillo, the guy whose case ultimately started this thread, now has a felony conviction on his record on top of his fines and legal fees because he sold some drawings to another adult. Parents are being taken to court, or threatened with having their children taken from them, for taking photos of the kids bathing or otherwise naked. These laws have real, harmful consequences. And there are some real nasty bastards, like John Ashcroft, running things in Washington right now. They shouldn’t get any more weapons than they already have.
So long as the scum making and selling porn are protected, who gives a fuck about women and children, huh? As the constitution says — all men are created equal. Seems constitutionalists still believe that, in it’s original meaning.
And I don’t see you responding to Amy’s comments about being harmed by porn. Oh, that’s ok, right — women who have been fucked over (and maybe even have their own sexual problems as a result) by porn and it’s users don’t really count, do they? Their rights aren’t important.
Funny how the slippery slope advocates still can’t manage to bring about a worthy argument — I’m talking about one that doesn’t rely on conspiracy theories, myths, or lies. Why? Because it doesn’t exist.
The argument to this point–ad hominem attacks aside–seems to have revolved around whether or not pornography (nicely defined by Amy S.; thank you) is intrinsically bad (specifically, does it incite violence in users). If porn is intrinsically bad, then it is worthwhile to outlaw virtual rape- and child-porn because these things would encourage their users to rape women and molest children.
To this point, neither side has offered evidence to support or refute the claim that using violent porn leads its users to act out the acts depicted. Until someone does this, it seems that the debate will consist largely of vehemently asserted opinions and personal attacks.
Pink Dream Poppies wrote: The argument to this point–ad hominem attacks aside–seems to have revolved around whether or not pornography (nicely defined by Amy S.; thank you) is intrinsically bad (specifically, does it incite violence in users). If porn is intrinsically bad, then it is worthwhile to outlaw virtual rape- and child-porn because these things would encourage their users to rape women and molest children.
Pink Dream Poppies, that’s not my argument – with all due respect, I think you need to reread the post that began this discussion. I was arguing that the existance of a marketplace for realistic child/rape porn encourages producers to harm people, just as the existance of any legal elephant ivory markets (even ones that, in theory, don’t include new ivory) encourages poachers to kill elephants.
(My argument was not that owning ivory encourages ivory owners to kill elephants themselves – but that’s apparently what you think my argument was).
Amy’s argument, if I understood it correctly, was that porn harms some of the people who use porn, by helping them to develop a coursened and disempowering view of sexuality (including their own). There’s actually a pretty widespread anti-porn movement (mostly, but not entirely, Christian) which takes this approach.
PDP: To this point, neither side has offered evidence to support or refute the claim that using violent porn leads its users to act out the acts depicted.
There is a great deal of laboratory evidence about the connection between viewing pornography and increased aggression towards women or acceptance of “rape myths” among men. The evidence is very mixed – especially when dealing with porn-in-general – but is strongest for making the case that violent pornography encourages violence against women.
The problem is that even the best lab evidence is still evidence about a very artificial situation, and may not really tell us much about what happens for most men in the real world.
Personally – and this is something I can’t prove empirically – I do think the evidence that violent pornography increases aggression and misogyny is interesting and has some validity, but doesn’t tell us much about 99.99% of rapists. Rape culture, in my opinion, is created mostly by the ideology of masculinity (and discussing that will require a whole other post), and in particular the feelings of entitlement, selfishness and the need to constantly prove oneself that the myth of masculinity encourages. In addition, the cultural devaluation of women contributes a lot to the rape culture.
Now, what if all the child and rape porn disappeared overnight? I don’t think it would make a difference to 99.99% of rapes. I’m convinced that rape is mostly caused by the sort of cultural factors I described above (and will discuss in more detail in a later post), and not by reading violent porn. If we want to make a significant fight against rape culture, we have to change society so that women are equally valued, and so that “masculinity” is vastly redefined.
But.
(There’s always a but, isn’t there?)
The lab research does show – not beyond any possible doubt, but with reasonable consistancy – that viewing violent porn encourages misogyny and aggression against women (in male viewers).
There’s no way to prove or disprove it, but given the lab evidence – and given the millions and millions of porn consumers in the world – I find it hard to believe that there aren’t some men, somewhere, who are pushed over the edge by consumption of violent porn. Not enough to impact the overall rape statistics – maybe only one rape in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, or one in fifty thousand. Statistically insignificant.
But here’s the catch – depending on how you measure, there are between 300,000 and 876,000 rapes of women in the United States each year. (That’s according to the National Violence Against Women Survey, which was conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in 1998). Suppose virtual rape porn wasn’t effectively banned, and was easily available to anyone with an interest in it and access to the internet (which is pretty much the case right now, alas). If just one in 10,000 rapes each year is committed by that ultra-rare rapist who was pushed over the edge by violent pornography, then that would be between 30 and 90 rapes a year. A number so small that it’s statistically impossible to measure, compared to the whole.
But here’s the thing. To me, even the chance – however remote – that banning virtual rape porn that can’t pass the Miller standard would prevent 30 to 90 rapes a year makes the ban worthwhile. Heck, even if it only had a chance of preventing one in 100,000 rapes – 3 to 9 a year – then it would still be worthwhile.
Why? Because the material being banned has so little inherant value of its own (I’d argue none). Virtual rape porn that can’t pass the Miller test is worthless; it adds nothing of value to society. If you weigh on one side of the scale all the virtues of virtual rape porn, and on the other side of the scale the pain and suffering of even one rape per year that might be prevented by a ban, then I’d say the possible benefits of preventing that rape far outweigh all the benefits of the freedom to create and distribute rape porn.
(Heck, if it was even one rape in a million being prevented – that is to say, between two and six rapes per decade – then I’d still say that banning rape porn is worthwhile. Because it has no positive value of its own to make us want to keep it legal despite the harm it may cause.)
And I think the lab evidence showing a connection between misogyny, aggression and viewing violent porn – imperfect as it is – is strong enough so I don’t think anyone can reasonably dismiss the possibility that a tiny number of rapists (.01%? .001%?) are driven over the edge by viewing violent porn.
* * *
So I think there is a case to be made that violent porn ought to be banned due to the chance that some of its consumers may be encouraged to harm people.
Admittedly, it’s an extremely marginal case. But since the material being banned is so worthless anyway, I think even a marginal case is worth considering. Weighing the potential gains against the harms, I just don’t see any reason not to ban rape porn.
Avram wrote: But real people suffer from those laws. Jesus Castillo, the guy whose case ultimately started this thread, now has a felony conviction on his record on top of his fines and legal fees because he sold some drawings to another adult.
Mr. Castillo doesn’t have a felony on his record – he was convicted of a misdemeanor. He didn’t pay his own fines or legal fees; they were covered by donations and by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Nonetheless, I agree with you that putting a comic book clerk on trial for selling a comic book to an adult is dumb.
“Porn: A book, visual image, movie, etc. which primarily or exclusively depicts sexual activity. Its [sole] intention is to provoke sexual arousal and induce orgasm in its viewer/consumer.” Yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me… As I said, I don’t have respect for people who use porn.
I’m sorry, I’m not getting this at all. You’re outright condemning anyone who uses porn to get off? Anyone? Regardless of the nature of the porn? Even if it’s just pictures of two or more consenting adults making love? Or are you making an arbitrary distinction between porn (“what I don’t approve of”) and erotica (“what gets me off personally”)? I mean, I don’t get off on violence at all, but I don’t understand what’s automatically misogynist or evil or wrong about depictions of lovemaking.
Bean, what harm? We’ve drifted on from Barry’s original point about child porn and rape porn, to your claims about porn in general. What harm? Show me some evidence proving that porn in general harms women.
Barry, you’ve got a point about the market for child porn. I’m a bit confused about this “rape porn” thing, though. Is this realistic depictions of rape, or photos/filming of actual rapes? I’d be a bit surprised if there were a market for the latter — it would seem both difficult and risky to actually produce.
Ampersand, I too would like a definition of rape porn? Are you including porn that depicts BDSM? Roleplaying of non-consent? Remember, the definition of rape includes impaired consent, so is anything showing a drunk bubbly woman also verboten?
Worthless == devoid of value.
Therefore, if some people derive positive value from something, it is not worthless.
I know people who have benefitted from access to BDSM porn (that did not cause direct harm to anybody in its production).
QED, such violent porn is not worthless.
Outlawing something because some consumers may react in a certain way is a very low standard, especially when you acknowledge there is no empirical proof. That same standard justifies outlawing guns and other many other things that might have a miniscule chance of endangering others. I don’t like that precedent.
As far as free speech arguments are concerned, there is no equivalent to Monty Python’s “Killer Joke” that harms everybody who comes into contact with it. [For shorthand purposes, I’m using speech here to equal all communication & information, including pornography.]
Speech isn’t good or evil. Speech is neutral — the uses it can be put to may be good or evil, but the speech itself is just speech. If someone can benefit from it, then that speech must be good for that person. Speech that is “not good” presumably harms everyone that comes into contact with it, and I can’t think of a single instance where that has happened.
For example, some readers of Mein Kampf are inspired to commit horrific acts, but many other people read the same material to research anti-Semitism and prevent future genocides. Same thing with the Turner Diaries, which some experts blamed for Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Since these same experts read the book to understand McVeigh, then the book itself can’t be inherently bad. A book with instructions on bomb-building can be a good reference for authors or scientists.
And, back to the topic at hand, some people blame pornography for a host of indirect social ills, while for those in sexual minorities, it might’ve been a lifesaver to know they’re not alone.
As long as nobody is harmed in the production, and people benefit from it, how can it be worthless?
I don’t see you responding to Amy’s comments about being harmed by porn.
Well, I thought about doing so, but figured I gave her enough to deal with.
She wrote “in my personal experience, porn CREATED a great deal of sexual dysfunction that I’m spending my adult life attempting to slough off”
That is too vague to be debatable.
I’d like to see a more detailed description of what this dysfunction is and how she believes porn created it. Has she seen any medical or psychological professionals to confirm this diagnosis or is this just a gut feeling of hers?
I’m willing to discuss matters. I’ve laid out the names of the reputable medical experts I’ve seen; will she do the same? Without some further evidence, then we have nothing to respond to.
Bean, as far as women’s opinions not really counting, notice that the only person whose personal experiences were met with open doubt and disbelief was me. Nobody’s questioned your or Amy’s or Trishie’s right to your opinions, but I’ve been openly dismissed as a female impersonator.
BTW, two other things regarding who gets believed. (1) Avram and I met in person at WorldCon 2001 (first time in the train station the day before the con, right?). (2) Beyond a certain level, credence has to be earned. Study the rhetorical concept of ethos sometime.
I’m Lis’s husband. So, first off, I’d like to point out that I’m relatively certain that she 1) exists, and 2) is female, since I tend to see her naked just about every day. So, I’ve got pretty good evidence.
I’m also pretty darn certain that everything she’s saying about her not being able to have sex, period, full stop, at all — is accurate. And that pornography is used in both quantifying the lack of desire, and in calibrating to find out what “normal” would be — because one cannot fix something unless one knows what “fixed” would look like.
So, that’s one way in which pornography, in general, is useful.
Second: responding to the idea that a “A book, visual image, movie, etc. which primarily or exclusively depicts sexual activity. Its intention is to provoke sexual arousal and induce orgasm in its viewer/consumer” has “absolutely NO value [. . . ]. None. It’s misogynist tripe.”
Well. Given that the woman I’m married to has no ability to have sex, my entire sexual outlet for the past several years has been through porn.
For me, it clearly has value.
If one believes that pleasure is a Good (which is supported by Aristotle), and that sexual outlets are pleasurable, which they clearly are, then clearly there is a value to porn.
That seems so completely obvious to me that it’s hard to argue with it.
In order to think otherwise, you’d have to believe that either sex was itself NOT a Good in the Aristotelian sense, or that there was ALWAYS a way to have sex that did NOT involve porn.
Which of those do you believe, bean?
Avram and I met in person at WorldCon 2001 (first time in the train station the day before the con, right?).
That was you (and your husband, if I remember correctly)? Hi!
Oh, poor Avram. I guess boring is as boring does. And, you know, I tend to believe Amp’s opinion on just how badly Castillo has been harmed by his experience over yours. As for your weeping over the poor saps who now, thanks to Ashcroft, might have to forgo their 50 cent profit on their issues of *Playboy* for fear of big, bad Ashcroft, cry me a fucking river already. I’ve spent the last five years or so trying to figure out how to get my artwork sold so I can break at least partly out of the day job gulag, while somehow keeping a roof over my head and some cursory health coverage. It would have been a hell of lot easier if I was just willing to strip down, shake my tits and wiggle my ass on some “art” film. Or maybe I could have done giant paintings of my genitalia and hung them up in galleries. Ho hum. Know what else ? If and when Ashcroft comes for my copy of *Our Bodies Ourselves, my issue of *Boom Boom* where Dave Lasky crushes out on a kindly nude model in college, the underwear catalogues I sometimes use in my collages, my “How-To” anal sex vid, and my purple vibrator, I sure hope hordes of first-Amendment Absolutist pornhounds will give a damn and rally to my defense. But somehow, I doubt it. My life just doesn’t produce enough sound and fury, not to mention enough T&A for anyone to give a shit. When capitalism and fundamentalism collide over the twin sacred cows of sex and money, I know whose gonna’ get run off the street and furthermore, whose gonna’ get the most first aid afterwards. Not to mention whose gonna’ be able to spin their pain into a career. In the latter category, it’s not gonna’ be me. That’s for sure. La fucking la.
Lis, thanks for the info. I appreciate it, just as I hope you appreciate my not wanting anyone to be on the honor system when it comes to this type of discussion. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been on other boards where men invaded women’s discussions of sexuality “in disguise” as women themselves. Blecch.
I’ll look over your links more when I’ve had a little more coffee. As for your dismissal of my opinion that porn can *cause* dysfunction, well, I think Amp covered it well. If you refer to dysfunction as being solely about an inability to acheive sexual arousal and orgasm, then no. I’m not dysfunctional. I’m thinking more in terms of how our society creates a huge vacuum for most of us when we’re young around sexuality. We either get no information at all, or information filtered through religious institutions, or scare-stories in sex-Ed, and so on. All of these leave a huge gap in our understanding of sexuality that usually ends up being filled in by porn (or, if you’re female, its first cousins “romance” novels about the joys of abduction and rape and *Cosmo*). In my adult life, I’ve come to resent how these distorted views of sexuality have colonized my perceptions of sex and how viciously at odds they usually are in their opinions about woman’s place in the world and the place of sex in one’s day-to-day life. I hope I’ve managed to make myself a little clearer now.
If I can’t prove that to your satisfaction, well, sorry. I’m living this conflict every day. I don’t like it. If I had it all to do over again, I’d ask if the opposing poles of condemnation over sex and the hopelessly distorted, hollow and ugly view of sex depicted by most porn is the best our soceity can do to educate its citizens. And I sure wouldn’t accept porn so blindly as the primary “answer.”
BTW, is it fair to simply assume that women who are involved in the manufacture of porn are not harmed by it ?:
“Some girls are used in nine months or a year. An 18-year-old, sweet young thing, signs with an agency, makes five films in her first week. Five directors, five actors, five times five: she gets phone calls. A hundred movies in four months. She’s not a fresh face any more. Her price slips and she stops getting phone calls. Then it’s, ‘Okay, will you do anal? Will you do gangbangs?’ Then they’re used up. They can’t even get a phone call. The market forces of this industry use them up.”
— porn star-turned-director Jonathan Morgan; Guardian Unlimited; March 17, 2001.
If you believe the below article (and I do. It broke my heart) the women who work as prostitutes at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch put their health at less risk than do the women who star in porn films. :(
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-pornjan12.story
I’m thinking more in terms of how our society creates a huge vacuum for most of us when we’re young around sexuality. We either get no information at all, or information filtered through religious institutions, or scare-stories in sex-Ed, and so on. All of these leave a huge gap in our understanding of sexuality that usually ends up being filled in by porn (or, if you’re female, its first cousins “romance” novels about the joys of abduction and rape and *Cosmo*). In my adult life, I’ve come to resent how these distorted views of sexuality have colonized my perceptions of sex and how viciously at odds they usually are in their opinions about woman’s place in the world and the place of sex in one’s day-to-day life.
I agree that these are a problem. But IMO, the answer is not to shut down bad speech and create an even bigger vacuum where sexuality is concerned, but to try to drown them out by producing more good information. It’s not easy, but it can be done, and I think it’s more effective.
After all, when a form of speech is restricted, it doesn’t vanish, it just goes underground, making it harder for society to find and root out the truly harmful stuff.
If pornography is legal, the government can mandate consent forms and age restrictions and labor laws to protect the models. If its illegal, porn will continue to be produced, but without such protections. [How well these laws are enforced is a different matter.]
I want to write something about the examples of Prohibition and the 18th century gin scares, about the kids since Columbine who may be invisible because they can’t write about their own violent thoughts (and thus get help) without risking expulsion. But I’m too tired to make the coherent argument at the moment.
BTW, for those who say all porn is misogynistic, please explain whether that includes gay male pornography which does not involve women at all? If so, how?
Amy, I’m in the same boat you are as far as selling art goes, so I sympathize. The difference between us is that, in my case, I also sympathize with the guys running that corner smoke and magazine shop.
I don’t quite see the point of your post. You’re not making a living with your art, so porn must be bad? You’re not making a living with your art, so the people who have to suffer because of anti-porn hysteria deserve what they get? Spell it out for me, ’cause I’m just not getting it.
I also feel sorry for you if you had lousy sex education. I had parents who told me where babies come from as soon as I was old enough to ask, and had no problems getting me books about the subject. I had schools that gave frank, straightforward sex ed classes. Maybe I’m blessed, but most of my friends also got good sex ed, so I’m clearly not alone in the world.
I don’t see how anti-porn efforts make educating people about sex any easier, since our current best source of information is the Internet, and net filters supposedly designed to block porn also seem to do a pretty good job of blocking frank sexual education info.
I guess you’d have to go back to my original post, Avram, and at this point I don’t even remember which of the threads related to the original case it’s on. Sorry. :o
I think you’re missing my point. It’s not really a question of “sympathy,” though I doubt that a corner store salesman makes his *entire* profit margin on adult mags, or that there’s no way to make money in the video sales biz other than through sale of adult videos. My point is more that I’m tired of these arguments always ending up so reductive and reactive. And we *all* suffer for it, not just the Castillos. I wouldn’t even say that my sex ed was “lousy” so much as I would say that the bits and pieces I picked up from the books my parents gave us, mass media (including porn), school, and religious instruction (and I wasn’t raised a fundie or anything, so again, I’ve got less baggage than a lot of people) weren’t the whole picture a woman needs to have a healthy view of her sexuality. And I’m still dealing with that today, like a lot of people.
Also, I’m tired, so tired, of the worship of utter crap, misogyny, and above all, the worship of the almighty dollar that I seem to be expected to engage in if I’m to be squarely in the First Amendement Absolutist camp. That camp, for all its high-falutin rhetoric, doesn’t do much proactive work. At any rate, you’ll be happy to know that I get just as much flack from certain radfems who consider my views to be rabidly pro-porn. And I live with a First Amendment Absolutist of whom I’m quite fond despite the fact that we argue all the time about this. That’s how I know there’s a continuum and not two poles. ;)
Lis, Thanks.
It seems to me that there are several conclusions that can now be drawn from this discussion:
(a)porn has some value
(b)therefore, it is deserving of some degree of constitutional protection
(c)nevertheless, porn sometimes causes real harm to some people
(d)therefore, reasonable regulations related to a legitimate governmental purpose are necessary in order to protect the producers, distributors, and consumers of porn, while at the same time also shielding those who might be harmed by porn
(e)obscenity laws and the USSC’s Miller test seem poorly designed to accomplish the goals identified in (d), and therefore
(f)a new legal framework is needed which will adequately accomplish the goals identified in (d)
I like porn.
Shouldn’t we take into account the pleasure received from the use of pornography? While porn can be misogynistic, limiting, addictive and just plain dumb, it can also feel good to include in our sexual lives. Yes, even porn that includes representations of rape. I make this argument because, to be frank, porn is important to me. In fact, porn is important to a lot of men that I know (of all sexual orientations). We are not (always) controlled by it. We are never inspired to rape because of it. We just like it. Porn is such a hot-button issue that it’s hard to see that, like fried food, it may not be healthy as the sole or central aspect of one’s diet, but sometimes it really hits the spot. I don’t think that the pleasure received with the use of porn should be the only ethic involved in an analysis of porn in the U.S., but I sure do think it needs to be in there.
I have quite a bit of trouble agreeing with Ampersand that if there is even an incredibly remote chance that one man, somewhere, has been inspired by porn (or “pushed over the edge”) to rape, then we should get rid of it. Porn is part of the rape culture, just as non-porn T.V. and movies are part of the rape culture, and non-porn comics are part of the rape culture. While I am easily upset and disturbed by representations of rape, I am also easily upset by movies like “Hulk” in which the only female character has no soul or agency and is used as a plot device, always responding in kind, without consent, to the male characters’ desires. Rape porn is easy to critique because it’s literal. Representations of women in the broader media, much more difficult to link to rape, is The Real McCoy.
The problem that I have with the studies that look into the potentially violent effects of porn use is the premise. Why is porn being singled out? I guess that porn is an easy target. In mainstream America, it is easy to blame porn. I chalk this up to a viciously fanatical cultural history of sexual repression and sexual shame (witch trials, child sex abuse hysteria, anti-gay movements, Christian fundamentalism, etc.). These studies remind me of the studies looking into the existence of the gay gene. It strikes me as ridiculous that any self-respecting scientist could claim to have isolated the gene that is responsible for the incredible diversity of LGBT culture in the world. Similarly, any attempt to isolate the effects of porn from the myriad pressures exerted on human beings every day in our market driven capitalist culture is ludicrous. Anyway, it’s hard for me to believe that rape porn is any more influential than regular het porn. It all has a similar message: women are not real human beings but are, instead, here for men’s pleasure. And why chip away at rape with random restrictions when we could take a more comprehensive approach.
So here’s my vision. Men and women are not shamed into not using porn. Instead we embrace the use of porn in our culture. We refuse to stop talking about the theoretical consequences of porn in a racist, heterosexist, etc. etc. patriarchy, but we never tell people that they are bad for using porn. We coax out those who feel particularly ashamed and isolated. We teach people how to be smart porn consumers. We teach people how to include porn in their lives (if they so choose) without addictive or otherwise unhealthy consequences. We reap the benefits of the pleasure that ensues and we demand a more diverse range of porn offerings. In fact, we are so liberated and unashamed that we choose to publicly boycott certain porn producers because of unsafe labor conditions or illegal operations. We refuse to be slaves to an industry that, for the most part, does not care about its consumers or its workers.
Lastly, I wanted to engage Ampersand’s analogy of the old and new ivory. Why would someone risk being arrested if they could replicate an illegal product so successfully that the average consumer could not tell the difference? It seems that an industry that clearly cares more about itself than its customers would not take such a risk.
Tex, I don’t think I agree with your points a, b, c, d, or f. E is pretty much right.
I don’t think porn has value because I don’t think anything really has value. Value isn’t a quality of objects, it’s a matter of human perception. Some people (a lot of people) value porn, to varying degrees.
And I think it deserves constitutional protection, not because of any value people might or might not ascribe to it, but because it’s a form of expression, and I haven’t yet been able to find the words “except for pornography and obscenity” in the First Amendment. (The Supreme Court disagrees with me on this one.)
I’m not willing to grant that porn causes real harm without seeing a good deal of good evidence. So I’m not willing to grant that regulations are needed beyond those that apply to workplaces in general. (With some fine-tuning to reflect the particular nature of the porn industry. If you’re a coal miner you worry about black lung, computer programmers worry about carpal tunnel syndrome, nuclear power plant workers worry about radiation exposure, sex workers in the more physical portions of the industry need to worry about STDs.)
I think most of the more vocal contributors to this thread would agree that a new legal framework is needed, but I don’t think there’s much consensus on what the new framework should look like.
Amy, do you think you could stop calling people more committed to free speech than you “First Amendement Absolutists”? I can’t be an absolutist, since there are people out there even more committed than I am. It reminds me of the an old Jewish joke: A heretic is someone who keeps one fewer mitzvah (religious commandment) than you; a fanatic is someone who keeps one more. (Or the George Carlin joke about how anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster is a maniac.) As you yourself have pointed out, these things are points on a spectrum.
Avram, what would you find a non-insulting term for people who tend strongly towards the “censor virtually nothing!” end of that spectrum?
Not only that, Avram, but since he uses that term to describe himself — and Amy used it to describe him, not you — I ask, what the fuck is the problem?
FTR — one more time — other than child and rape porn, I have never, not once, called for porn to be censored. Not on this thread, not in real life, NEVER. I find it odious, and I have little to no respect for people who use it — that is my opinion, and I’m entitled to it. But I have never called for it to be banned or censored in any way. Why is it that it’s expected that I should respect the opinions and practices of someone (and something) that goes against every belief I have? Why is it that I’m expected to do that, but no one is expected to respect my opinions and beliefs?
Anti-porn feminists are NOT anti-sex, nor are they “prudish,” “frigid,” or “ashamed of sexuality.” We simply believe in more egalitarian and mutually benefical forms of sexuality.
So, first, a little about porn (not including rape or child porn). Why do I hate it so much, well, jesuslovesmeandonlyme, summed up a big part of it: women are not real human beings but are, instead, here for men?s pleasure. Does this happen only in porn? Fuck no. And I’m against all forms of media that express this message. But, I’ve never, ever understood the argument “well, it exists in other venues besides porn, so we should leave porn alone.” NO, I will fight against it in ALL venues, INCLUDING porn. This is a thread about porn, not about Cosmo, or TV, or mainstream movies — so I’m talking about porn. The fact that it exists in other aspects of society does NOT exempt porn from being critiqued and criticized as misogynist tripe. Here are some quotes from some pornographers themselves:
?My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up.?
– Adult film ?legend? and Free Speech Coalition board member Bill Margold
“Women are here to serve men. Look at them, they got to squat to piss. Hell, that proves it.”
-Larry Flynt of Hustler
?These chicks are our natural enemy. It is time to do battle with them.?
-Hugh Hefner of Playboy on early feminists.
Now, as for rape porn — is there a market for it? Hell yeah. People in this very thread have said they enjoy it. It appears, in one form or another, in everything from “mainstream” porn markets to specialized porn markets. “Mainstream” porn tends to use rape as a “joke” — thereby diminishing and dismissing the realities of what rape victims endure. They turn it into something women not only “deserve” but “want.” A few examples of rape jokes can be found in such venues as Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler. Do a simple google search (or read some spam e-mail) and you will find a plethora of websites featuring rape porn. They often include claims that it’s “real” rape. These sorts of sites go far beyond “BDSM” depictions into scenes of realistic rape as well as unrealistic (i.e. women enjoying being raped).
I agree with most of Amp’s previous post — except that I disagree that it doesn’t come into play in “99.99%” of rapes. I don’t disagree at all that rape porn is only one aspect of our rape culture. Indeed, there are many other aspects — including masculinity, “mainstream” porn, and even mainstream media. I simply believe that rape porn leads to more rapes than .01%.
I have some quotes from sources, and I really wish that the quote function still worked in the comments (what a pain in the ass), but, in order to try and make this a bit less confusing, I’ll be posting separate posts for those.
So bean, you still haven’t answered my question about gay male porn.
OK, first, I’ll look at the notion that porn does not influence people [all emphasis in original):
It has been said that the most disingenuous argument in the pornography debate is that porn doesn’t influence people. If images don’t influence attitudes and bahavior, how do we explain the existence of the advertising industry?
Of course, none of us likes to admit we are influenced by advertising. Few proud car owners would say: “I bought my Volvo because their advertisements create an image of a thinking
person’s car, and that appeals to my ego.” We value our self-image as rational beings and, as a result, most of us are in denial about the influence of advertising.
Those in the advertising business, however, know that images have impact. In 1997, America’s top ten advertisers alone spent a total of $5.2 billion helping consumers part with their hard-earned cash (Parade Magazine quoting Advertising Age, August 16, 1998, p.14). It might be nice to think that investments like Nike’s Michael Jordan campaign are made out of blind hope, but market research predicts and confirms the impact of advertising. The enormous advertising and marketing industries are built on the premise that the media do influence a wide range of behaviors (Surrett, R. (1992). Media, Crime and Criminal Justice: Images and Realities, Brooks/Cole Publishing, p. 104).
To believe pornography does not impact attitudes and behavior is to believe we are not affected by what we see. Our collective state of denial of the impact of advertising illustrates that people can believe they are not affected. But the evidence illustrates how improbable that would be!
To argue that advertising has no impact (as opposed to merely being blind to it) requires impressive faith that we invariably intercept and rationally defuse the power of suggestion in advertising images. Oftentimes we do. But communications experts note that advertising works
precisely because it appeals to human emotion rather than to rational considerations:
“TV commercials do not use propositions to persuade; they use visual images…and
only rarely…verifiable assertions. Therefore, commercials are not susceptible to logical analysis [and] are not refutable. It is not facts that are offered to the consumers but idols, to which both adults and children can attach themselves with equal devotion and without the burden of logic or verification (Postman, N. (1994). The Disappearance of Childhood, New York: Vintage Books, p.107-108).
If the effectiveness of advertising is based upon its appeal to emotion, do we really believe that pornography appeals to reason? Pornography, ultimately, is a form of advertising. (Can you spell “sex sells”?) Pornography advertises a particular view of human sexuality, as surely as the Marlboro Man conveys a particular image of a cigarette brand. The only question is: what brand of sexuality is pornography promoting?
The messages of pornography
The Hugh Hefners of the world sometimes describe their product as simply “the joys of consensual sexuality.” The reality is much less elevated and considerably more one-sided. Studies indicate that individuals use pornography to inform and teach themselves about sexual behavior (Duncan, D. (1990). “Pornography as a source of sex information for university students,” Psychological Reports, 66, p.442; Duncan, D., & Donnelly, J. (1991). Pornography as a source of sex information for students at Northeastern University, Psychological Reports, 78, p.782; Duncan, D., & Nicholson, T. (1991). Pornography as a source of sex information at Southeastern University. Psychological Reports, 68, p.802). So what does pornography teach?
About sexuality:
Scholars note that human sexuality in pornography is never more than physical, since “depictions of other basic aspects of human sexuality – such as communication between sexual partners, expressions of affection or emotion (except fear and lust)…and concerns about…the consequences of sexual activities – are minimized. (Brosius, H.B., Weaver, J.B., & Staab, J.F. (1993). Exploring the social and sexual ‘reality’ of contemporary pornography. The Journal of Sex Research, 30, p.162)
Pornography advertises sex without relationships, without commitment, and especially, without consequences. How many porn videos include the resulting teenage pregnancy with the child-mother dropping out of school? Or catching human papilloma virus (HPV), leading to infertility or cervical cancer, or even catching AIDS?
About women:
In the words of one academic study: “The characteristic portrayal of women in pornography [is] as socially nondiscriminating, as hysterically euphoric in response to just about any sexual or pseudosexual stimulation, and as eager to accommodate seemingly any and every sexual request” (Zillman, D. & Bryant, J. (1984) .Effects of massive exposure to pornography, in Malamuth, NM & Donnerstein, E, (Ed), Pornography and sexual aggression, Orlando, FL: Academic Press, p.134).
Another study notes that women are depicted as “malleable, obsessed with sex, and willing to engage in any sexual act with any sexual partner” (Diamond, S. (1985). Pornography: Image and Reality, in Burstyn, V (Ed.), Women Against Censorship, Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, p.42).
Pornography presents women in stereotype, as insatiable sex machines to accommodate
every possible sexual request. Women, it tells us, are here to please men, and if they say “no” it is just token resistance. In pornography, the typical woman is always ready, available, and eager to please, unlike a real woman who might have inconvenient expectations of her own.
About men:
In pornography, men are apparently here to have sex with as many women as possible. Marriage is either a hindrance to their purpose, or irrelevant because fidelity is abnormal and possibly unnatural. In pornography, men certainly don’t value women for their minds, since they don’t appear to have discovered that women have such a thing.
False advertising?
In our society, “the learning of sexual techniques and attitudes is too often left to chance, which may include such sources as X-rated video shops. As a result, a great number of people acquire faulty information and expectations that can impair their sexual enjoyment and adequacy” (Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life (1992) Eds. Carson, R.C., & Butcher, J.N. Sexual disorders and variants. HarperCollins: New York, p.347). The message of pornography is that sex is the only human activity where there is no such thing as a poor choice, and where there are no consequences to actions.
Pornography’s portrayal of human sexual behavior is so erroneous as to be fraudulent. Most
obvious are the unrealistic body types, unrealistic sexual situations, and routinely multi-orgasmic sexual performances. More subtly, the most desirable sexual behaviors are depicted as excluding monogamy, fidelity, responsibility, commitment, or even an established relationship of any sort between partners.
This stands in direct contrast to the most rewarding and satisfying sexual relationships in real life. In the most definitive scientific survey ever done on human sexual behavior, the vast majority of both males and females were found to have few sex partners over a lifetime. Once married, the vast majority have no other sex partner than their spouse. Americans generally show considerably more sexual restraint than the entertainment media (including pornography) would suggest, but it is the couples who are married or cohabiting who have more frequent and more satisfying sex. (Michael, R.T., Gagnon, J.H., Laumann, E.O., & Kolata, G. (1994). Sex in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company).
There is a vivid contrast between pornography’s portrayal of desirable sexual behaviors, and the behaviors found most satisfying by most individuals. Because people often judge themselves by how they perceive that others behave, individuals using pornography set themselves up for unrealistic expectations leading to damaged relationships.
More from Just Harmless Fun
Impact of Sexually Oriented Businesses
The curiously toxic nature of pornography is also illustrated by the consistently negative impact that sex businesses have upon the areas in which they are located. This impact of sexually oriented businesses (SOBs) has been clearly demonstrated through land use studies.
U.S. courts allow restrictive zoning of SOBs because such businesses have significant negative impacts on their surrounding communities. These impacts are called “secondary harmful effects” (as distinct from the primary harmful effects on the mind of the porn-user, which are not a constitutional basis for zoning ordinances).
Such secondary harmful effects in neighborhoods with SOBs include a significant increase in property crimes and sexual crimes (including voyeurism, exhibitionism, and assault), and an overall decrease in property values. In the words of columnist George Will: “One doesn’t need a moral micrometer to gauge the fact that the sex industry turned Times Square into a slum” (Will, G.F. (November 11, 1996). Big Stick Conservatism. Newsweek, 96).
Other examples of the negative impact of the sex industry include (National Law Center for Children and Families (1997). NLC summary of “SOB land use” studies):
Austin, TX — 1986 – in four study areas with SOBs, sexually related crimes were 177% to 482% higher than the city’s average.
Indianapolis, IN — 1984-1986 – Between 1978-1982, crime in study areas was 46% higher than for the city as a whole. Sex related crimes were four times greater when SOBs were located near residential areas vs. commercial areas.
Garden Grove, CA — 1981-1990 – On Garden Grove Blvd., seven adult businesses accounted for 36% of all crime in the area. In one case, a bar opened within 500 feet of an SOB and serious crime within 1000 feet of that business rose 300% during the next year.
Phoenix, AZ — 1978 – Sex offenses, including indecent exposure, were 506% greater in neighborhoods with SOBs. Even excluding indecent exposure, the sex offenses were still 132% greater in those neighborhoods.
Whittier, CA — In comparison studies of two residential areas conducted between 1970-1973 before SOBs, and 1974-1977 after SOBs, malicious mischief increased 700%, assault increased 387%, prostitution increased 300%, and all theft increased 120%.
Virtually all SOBs, regardless of the city in which they are located, have similar negative effects upon their surrounding neighborhoods. The Indianapolis study concluded that: “Even a relatively passive use such as an adult book store [has] a serious negative effect on [its] immediate environs.” It is difficult to miss the implication that these harmful secondary effects simply reflect something harmful in the nature of the material.
From the same article, in the section titled Empirical Research Studies (but skipping the introduction and the section on “Government Commissions” because, frankly, I don’t want to copy all — it’s there in the link for all to see. Alas, I also know from experience that few, if any, readers actually read the linked articles, so I’m going to at least cut and paste some of the information here) [Again, all emphasis in original]:
Subsequent Studies [that is, subsequent to the Government Commissions]
Subsequent work has indicated that detrimental effects are not limited to violent pornography. Since social science studies are rarely unanimous in their findings (there are exceptions to every trend), the most compelling academic evidence comes from reviewing a multitude of research studies and looking for patterns. Such work can take the form of “review studies” (which review and compare the results of a number of original research studies) and “meta-analyses” (which aggregate the results of original research studies meeting stringent criteria of comparability). Some recent examples are:
aggressive stimuli and 46 using non-aggressive stimuli), concluded that “the empirical research on the effects of aggressive pornography shows, with fairly impressive consistency, that exposure to these materials has a negative effect on attitudes toward women and the perceived likelihood to rape.” The study also noted that 70 percent of the 46 non-aggressive studies reported clear evidence of negative effects of exposure (Lyons, J.S., Anderson, R.L. and Larsen, D., A Systematic Review of the Effects of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Pornography, in Zillman, Bryant & Huston (Ed.), Media, Children & the Family: Social Scientific, Psychodynamic, and Clinical Perpectives, Hillsdale, N.J., J. Erlbaum Associates, p.305.)
“violence within the pornography is not necessary to increase the acceptance of rape myths” (i.e. the myth that women secretly desire to be raped). The study noted that the link between acceptance of rape myths and exposure to pornography stems from a simple premise – “that most pornography commodifies sex, that women become objects used for male pleasure, and that as objects of desire, they are to be acted on.” The study also noted that such attitudinal changes are of concern because “several recent meta-analyses demonstrate a high correlation (about r = .80) between attitude and behavior.” (Allen, M., Emmers, T., Gebhardt, L., & Giery M. A. (1995). “Exposure to Pornography and Acceptance of Rape Myths.” Journal of Communication, Winter, p.19 and pp.7-8.)
[skipping over some more study results — they’re in the link if you want to read them]
Straw Men
It is customary for pornography advocates to counter such findings by overstating them. For
example: “It is ridiculous to suggest that one look at Playboy turns a man into a rapist.” Of
course that would be ridiculous: it’s also not what the research is suggesting. Or: “Pornography
can’t compel anyone to act in a particular way.” True, and neither did liquor or tobacco advertisements (now banned or restricted) compel anyone to buy their products. Or: “Pornography doesn’t affect everyone the same way.” True, and neither did tobacco or liquor ads – but their influence was undeniable.
What the research does show is that pornography is a strong, negative influence affecting attitudes and behavior. It promotes the same attitudes towards women that breed sexual harassment and destroy relationships. It promotes the same attitudes towards sexuality that breed promiscuity and the spread of STDs. It teaches that the main function of “a sensitive, key relationship of human existence” is simply self-gratification at the expense of others. And it is sold without even a “Surgeon-Generals Warning.”
Correlational Studies
The research in the previous section was conducted largely in controlled circumstances, to measure cause and effect without extraneous variables. Another type of research looks at the “laboratory of life” to measure actual experience, although with less ability to neutralize extraneous variables. This type of research can prove correlation (i.e. that certain things happen together) without necessarily proving causation (i.e. that one thing caused the other).
Correlational research may be conducted when, for any number of reasons, causal research is impractical, impossible, or unethical. For example, if you want to learn the impact of brain damage on speech patterns, you obviously can’t go around bopping people on the head. Rather, you identify a number of subjects who already have brain damage. Your findings would indicate correlation, not causation, but would still be relevant.
There is a great deal of correlational evidence about the effects of pornography. Examples include:
sexually oriented businesses. During the same period, reported rapes declined 27% in Oklahoma City while rising 19% in the remainder of the state. Law officers were aware of no other likely cause of the difference. (See letter of Feb. 22, 1991 from Hon. Robert Macy, District Attorney,Oklahoma County, to Mr. George Harper; and letter of March 2, 1990, from Mr. Ray Pasutti, UCR Supervisor, Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, to Mr. Harper.)
The advocates of pornography usually reject correlational evidence of pornography’s harm, saying it provides no evidence of causality. Of course, they also challenge experimental studies as “true in the laboratory, perhaps, but unproven in the real world” – thus precluding almost any conceivable input from social science research! Setting the hurdle impossibly high is the same device the tobacco companies used for decades to evade the link between smoking and cancer.
Porn advocates often challenge correlational findings with questions like: “Does pornography lead to rape, or are rapists simply the sort of people who use pornography?” Curiously, no one asks: “Does drunk driving cause accidents, or are reckless drivers simply the sort of people who drink a skinful?” In some fields, correlational research is all there is. The evidence against drunk driving is based largely on correlation, it being difficult to obtain research funding to ply test subjects with liquor then set them loose on the nearest Interstate.
Correlational results must be used with caution, since they do not always speak to the causal direction of a link (for example, between rape rates and porn usage). In the case of pornography,however, correlational studies are a complement to the experimental lab research discussed earlier.Taken together like scissors, with one blade for causality and the other for real-world application, the results are certainly indicative that porn is a “potent catalyst for sexually abusive behaviors, such as rape.” (Weaver – see note 29.)
Experience In Other Countries
One area where porn advocates are happy to talk about correlational studies is in relation to Denmark, where the government lifted pornography restrictions in 1969. Studies in the early 1970s by Berl Kutchinsky of the University of Copenhagen suggested that the easy availability of pornography had caused sex crimes to decrease by acting as a “safety-valve” for potential offenders.
Although this study is still quoted today, subsequent reviewers identified serious flaws in the conclusions. In particular, two factors distorted the results: (1)at the same time that pornography was legalized, a number of other sex crimes were decriminalized, including voyeurism (peeping), “indecency towards women,” and certain categories of incest; and (2)Kutchinsky grouped rape along with other lesser categories of sex crime. The study thus obscured the fact that the more serious types of sex crimes such as rape actually increased in number and rate following the legalization of pornography in Denmark. (Court, J.H., (1977). “Pornography & Sex Crimes,” International Journal of Criminology & Penology, 5, p 129.)
Porn advocates are usually quieter about the results of studies of Sweden, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia, where “as the constraints on the availability of pornography were lifted… the rates of rape in those countries increased.” (Work of John H. Court, described in Marshall, W.L. and Barrett, S. (1990) Criminal Neglect: Why Sex Offenders Go Free, Toronto: Doubleday, p.141.) For example, “in two Australian states between 1964 and 1977, when South Australia liberalized it’s laws on pornography and Queensland maintained its conservative policy…over the thirteen-year period, the number of rapes in Queensland remained at the same low level while South Australia’s showed a sixfold increase.” (Work of John H. Court, described in Marshall, W.L. and Barrett, S. (1990) Criminal Neglect: Why Sex Offenders Go Free, Toronto: Doubleday, p.141.)
Well, that’s enough for me from that article — suffice it to say, the article goes on to look at Media Studies, Experience of Clinical Psychologists, Anecdotal Evidence, and Factors Particularly Affecting Children. I will leave you with the conclusion of that article:
Can the harms of pornography be proved with the certainty of a proposition in geometry? No, because that is not the standard applied to research in the social sciences. The correct standard is to assess the preponderance of the evidence.
In the case of pornography, the preponderance of the evidence clearly demonstrates that the material is not “just harmless fun.” Although almost all men are attracted by it, there are clearly perils associated with its use – which no doubt explains why so many men are willing to resist their own hormones and try to keep away from pornography.
Pornography is not about real human sexuality: it’s about a dehumanized, synthetic version of sex that eliminates love, honor, dignity, true intimacy and commitment. The image of sexuality offered by pornography comes without relationships, responsibility or consequences – a largely fraudulent picture. Porn movies never show a girlfriend getting pregnant at 16, or a young man getting AIDS – or a married man resisting the temptation of another woman.
Unfortunately, the research demonstrates that pornography’s fraudulent messages are ingested, affecting attitudes and behavior. Countless studies show that the basic messages of pornography – that a woman’s function is to satisfy a man sexually, that women have no value, no meaning, and their desires and needs are irrelevant – breed sexual callousness and acceptance of the rape myth (i.e. that women secretly desire to be raped).
These are the attitudes that lead to sexual harassment, failed relationships, early promiscuity and the spread of STDs. And, unless one believes that attitudes and behaviors are unrelated, it is difficult then to be surprised by the evidence of correlation between pornography usage and sexually abusive behaviors.
We protect ourselves and our communities, in part,through the values we affirm as important. Treating every human being with respect, equality, and dignity, are values we should all be able to embrace, as a society and as individuals. The harms of pornography result from replacing respect, equality and dignity with a candy-coated message of hate.
Now, as for Lis’ question BTW, for those who say all porn is misogynistic, please explain whether that includes gay male pornography which does not involve women at all? If so, how? (and EXCUSE ME for waiting until I was finished with posting the other stuff I wanted to post — sheesh):
First, I’d say to get ahold of some of the writings by Chris Kendall — a legal scholar from the University of Michigan (although, I’ve heard he may be in Australia now) who has written extensively on this subject — namely, how gay male porn is just as misogynist and harmful as straight porn. Also, since I’m lazy (and tired from posting here all day), I’m going to quote someone else — part of a much longer (but very good essay) by Bradford Lang Rothrock:
Gay male sexual politics are centered around the binary of masculine/feminine with its concomitant domination/subordination. Far from being a challenge to the institution of heterosexuality, gay male sexual politics and culture reproduce and actively participate in the subordination of women. Through the economically powerful gay male sex industry, male prostitution, and the worship and mimicry of straight men (masculinity), we are far from anything we should be “proud” of. Women may be physically absent from gay culture, but they are constantly present as an objectified idea or concept, against which to construct what is most sexually gratifying and desirable.
Gay culture is a bastion of masculinity. Straight men are considered the most attractive and worthwhile commodity in the sexual market. Certain gay porn stars are marketed as actually straight. There are whole video series which claim to be either two straight men (with titles like “Straight Boys Do” or “Straight to the Zone”) having sex with each other, or straight men in locker rooms or college showers caught masturbating by a hidden camera. Beyond that, there are a myriad of pornographic videos featuring stereotypically straight ‘roles” such as the sailor, the soldier, the cop, the cowboy, the frat boy, the jock, the construction worker, etc. Men of color, seen through the racist eye as hyper-sexualized and machismo, are the subject of videos which play out the white supremacist fantasies of the exotic, sexually uncontrollable, and insatiable straight man. This fascination and obsession with straightness is rooted in the hierarchy of masculinity which exists within the class of men. White straight men are at the top, with straight men of color and all gay men at the bottom. Since being a man in our society is defined by the possession of women (along with racial and economic factors, with all three interlocking), straight men are the definition of “Man.”
Masculinity is the antithesis of femininity. It is that which by its very definition holds political, social, and economic power over its Other; Woman. By eroticizing masculinity, which necessarily means eroticizing straightness, gay men are making the subordination of women sexy. We are objectifying women through a myopic focus on their gender/sex. This focus on femininity is used as a way to make its opposite, masculinity, intelligible. Women become only their gender/sex, they become the sexual objects of men. ibis differs only in practice with straight men who also see women as sex objects.
Thank you Ampersand for your articulate and polite response. I’m also sorry for having mistaken the points raised by you and Amy S. (apologies to you both).
Thank you bean for your posts as well, especially “Just Harmless Fun,” which I haven’t yet read but have on my desktop. On a related note, what was the source of the essay by Mr. Rothrock. Is it online or just hard-printed?
That said, I tend to agree with you both that simulated rape- and child-pornography ought to be restricted (although, I must admit that I’ve not entirely thought my way through all the arguments and counter-arguments).
I’m not sure who (and am too lazy to scroll up at the moment) but some have asked about the ivory analogy Amp used. Specifically, if there were a synthetic form of ivory produced that was indistinguishable from real ivory, how is it that the market for real ivory would increase? Simply put, the fake ivory would have to be sold cheaply enough that it would be worthwhile to produce, which would in turn flood the market with a fake product. People who considered themselves ivory connoisseurs would be very interested in purchasing real ivory precisely because it wasn’t that fake stuff that everyone else has. Rape and child pornography would be similar, with there being a stigma attached to real rape and child pornography (I can imagine someone saying, “I only watch real rapes, none of that fake-rape shit. That’s for [insert derogatory remark toward women or gays here].”)
Similar situations, in which the presence of a near-perfect synthetic increases the value of a non-synthetic product, can be found in the diamond industry (diamonds are more expensive because of cubic zirconium), the jewelry industry (gold more expensive because of fake gold), the antiquities market, the art world, and even the glass market (since the introduction of clear plastic alternatives for glass, the cost of real glass has risen remarkably).
I can accept a ban of simulated rape- and child-pornography on the basis that it encourages a market for legitimate rape- and child-porn. I’m not so sure about a ban on the basis that rape- and child-pornography encourages rape and child molestation (but apparently no one was arguing that and I just made it up).
It seems to me, on a different topic, that the relationship between pornography and violence and misogyny has little to do with the nature of porn itself (as going by Amy’s definition) so much as it has to do with the type of pornography that is produced. Theoretically, would a work revolving around a healthy, well-balanced monogamous relationship between a man and a woman (or man and man, woman and woman) that had graphic depictions of sex and also showed their relationship outside of the sheets be considered to be misogynistic?
Then again, it might not be considered porn…
That said, though, I don’t think that it’s impossible to have a work that consisted largely or soley of graphic depictions of sex that isn’t degrading to women and does promote physically and emotionally safe sex.
First bean, your question to me — I have no objection whatsoever to Amy calling the person she lives with a First Amendment Absolutist if that’s what he calls himself. What I object to is what she said at the beginning of that paragraph: Also, I’m tired, so tired, of the worship of utter crap, misogyny, and above all, the worship of the almighty dollar that I seem to be expected to engage in if I’m to be squarely in the First Amendement Absolutist camp. I took that as addressed to me, since she was replying to a post of mine, and it smacks of trying to exaggerate my position into a straw man. Insulting doesn’t enter into it — it’s just inaccurate. I’m not asking anybody to worship anything, and I do recognize limitations on the First Amendment (copyright and libel).
On to your lengthy arguments and quotations:
Egalitarianism
Anti-porn feminists are NOT anti-sex, nor are they “prudish,” “frigid,” or “ashamed of sexuality.” We simply believe in more egalitarian and mutually benefical forms of sexuality.
More egalitarian and beneficial than what? There are a hell of a lot of people in this world who like porn (billions, I’d bet), and I know for a fact that quite a few of them have very egalitarian sex lives in which both they and their partners gain mutual benefit and satisfaction.
“women are not real human beings but are, instead, here for men’s pleasure”
How about the example I cited above? A female friend of mine, S, had a girlfriend, I’ll call her G, hire a photographer who I’ll call P to take sexual photos of G for S to enjoy. S refers to these photos as porn. I’ve got no idea whether P was a man or a woman, but assuming the latter, who was the man taking pleasure in this situation? S also draws her own porn for her enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. Is this also a case of men oppressing women?
Given your last post, in which porn where women don’t even appear is somehow described as mysogenistic, I’m guessing you’ve got an unfalsifiable hypothesis here. If women are present, it’s misogynistic. If women aren’t present, it’s misogynistic. If women are shown wanting lots of sex partners, it’s misogynistic. If men are shown wanting lots of sex partners, it’s misogynistic.
Quotes from pornographers
During the 2000 presidential race, I saw a lot of right-wing messages quoting Al Gore saying some outrageous thing or another. In the cases where I could trace the quote back to its original context, I generally found that the outrageous quote was a distortion, fabrication, or had been stripped of context which made it less outrageous. I’m not going to take any of those quotes seriously as evidence unless you can give me context (or citations that’ll let me look up the original context).
The messages of pornography
Pornography advertises sex without relationships, without commitment, and especially, without consequences.
And this is supposed to convince me of what exactly? Porn is a fantasy. Fantasy, by its very nature, exaggerates pleasant aspects and minimizes the unpleasant.
Impact of Sexually Oriented Businesses, Correlational Studies
As you point out, it’s hard to tell whether porn causes bad behavior, or people who commit bad behavior tend to be attracted to sex businesses. The Oklahoma City case suggests the latter to me, however. If porn causes rape, then why did rape rates in the rest of the state increase when Oklahoma City shut down most of its sex businesses?
Empirical Research Studies
I’m going to leave these alone till Avedon Carol gets back from Scotland and answers my email. I think I’ve seen Avedon (who researches this topic for a living) argue that the strongest correlative factor among rapists is a sexually repressive upbringing, but I don’t remember the details. If there are problems with the studies you mention, odds are good she’ll know about it.
While hunting for hard figures on that Denmark sex crimes claim, I found a page that summarized some studies that contradict your claims (emphasis added by me):
And the most important bit:
In other words, if you’re the sort of guy likely to rape women, you’re also the sort of guy likely to buy lots of porn, but you’ll probably rape teh women anyway even if you don’t get the porn. If you’re the sort of guy not likely to rape women, porn isn’t going to change that.
Oh, and here’s the mention of Denmark that made Google find that page for me:
Selection Bias
In the case of pornography, the preponderance of the evidence clearly demonstrates that the material is not “just harmless fun.” Although almost all men are attracted by it, there are clearly perils associated with its use – which no doubt explains why so many men are willing to resist their own hormones and try to keep away from pornography. […] Unfortunately, the research demonstrates that pornography’s fraudulent messages are ingested, affecting attitudes and behavior.
Bean, you’re talking about me, you’re talking about my friends (both male and female — you are aware that many women also like porn, aren’t you?), and you’re making sweeping statements that bear no relationship to the reality I experience every day. I just plain cannot take you seriously, and since you — by your own words — seem to arrange your life so as to have no experience with people who like porn, well, you’re selecting against the very people who could disprove you by their everyday actions.
You live in Oregon, right? A place I’ve never been. But if I were to go on and on about how dry Oregon is, how it never rains there, and I’d never go near Oregon because I hate dry places, you’d probably tell me I was nuts. When it comes to porn, you’re telling me that Oregon is dry.
Lis
It was nice of you to answer Lis’s question about gay male porn, but how about her first question, about her own porn use? Answering that would require you to acknowledge that women can use and enjoy porn, something I haven’t seen you do yet. Instead, when she said that your attitude made her uncomfortable, you dismissed her sarcastically. Don’t expect me to take you seriously when you talk about “treating every human being with respect, equality, and dignity”.
Just a couple of things, cuz, frankly, I’m not going to waste much more of my time on this:
First, you keep on going on and on about “my” claims, when I was very, very clear that I was quoting an article. Whether I agree with the article or not does not change the fact that these are the claims of the authors of the article, not mine.
Second, you obviously didn’t read the quote about gay male sex if you think it has anything to do with “women being present or not” or “number of partners.”
(Hmmm…maybe reading porn reduces a person reading comprehension.)
Third, e-mailing and calling up your friends to come and back you up is a lame argument technique (known in internet-speak as “gangpiling”). You can do it all you want, but the more you do it, the more likely it looks like you simply can’t hold your own in the argument. You’ve already got 2 of your friends to do this, and say you have asked a 3rd (at least). So, believe me, I’ll be considering that little tidbit of information when I read any post from you or your friends.
Forth, regarding the Denmark study — first, the article I quoted already stated some of the numerous methodological problems with that study and second, suggested other international studies that would disprove your own claims. (And, as the article points out, you typically decided to ignore them.)
Fifth, yes, I’m fully aware that I’m speaking about you and your friends. So what? Seriously, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day — what, you think I’m gonna go “oh, no, well, if Avram uses porn, I’ll have to rethink my position,” or even “oh, no, some women use porn, now I’ll definitely have to rethink my position.” Pulllleeeeezzzzze. Based on your posts here, it only reifies my previous opinion, and makes it that much stronger in my head.
Yes, I do self-select my friends. No, they cannot use porn; more than that, they cannot be racist, classist, ageist, and must be a feminist. Sure, I have acquaintances that don’t match up to that criteria, but not friends — it’s that whole “respect” thing, ya know. Do I have a shortage of friends? Uh, NO. I’m quite content with my friends (and my SO), and I see no need to reduce my standards in order to have more “friends.”
As for Lis, I don’t buy it. Oh, I’m sure that she’s had these problems, that she’s seen the doctors she’s claimed to, and that she even believes what they’ve told her. But I don’t buy the bunk she’s been sold. I read over the links she gave, and WOAH, what a load of hooey. Should I start bringing up all the doctors (“leaders in their field,” all) who would rip those theories to threads? But, see, I don’t buy it not just based on what doctors do or do not say, but based on my own experience. As I said, I went through that whole “porn is empowering/you need porn to be more sexually free” phase. And I learned first-hand what a load of grade-A number 1 BUNK it is. And, in the long run, the shit and sexual dysfunction I had to overcome as a direct result of that little pro-porn game was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.
Yeah, bean, I know you’re quoting another source, but you’re the one introducing these claims as evidence, and presumably endorsing them. They are, in that sense, yours.
Second, I read over that quote about gay porn twice. It looks like a whole bunch of bafflegab written by someone who likes to make up stories about what other people’s sexualities mean.
Third, I wrote to Avedon because she’s an expert on the topic at hand. She knows more, much more, about it than I do. I don’t see how this is any more wrong than quoting a text written by someone else. And I didn’t bring Lis and her husband in on this, they came here on their own. I didn’t even recognize them till Lis mentioned having met me — they’re people I’ve met once, maybe twice, briefly, two or three years ago. But hey, thanks for that baseless accusation.
Fourth, why should I take your studies over mine? The bit you quoted mentioned two very specific problems with the Denmark study, neither of which has anything to do with the important claim in the bit I quoted — that porn consumption in Denmark decreased after legalization. Shall I criticize your reading comprehension now?
Fifth, you’re missing the point. You are making factual claims about me and my friends. You don’t know me, you probably don’t know my friends. (We may have a few in common.) My experience tells me that your claims are false.
I’m not doubting your personal experience. You tell me that porn didn’t improve your life, fine, I believe you. I do not doubt for a second that porn did not improve your life. If anyone ever asks me about it, that’s what I’ll say. If I’m ever before a Senate investigation committee, and they say “Mr. Grumer, tell us, did porn improve bean’s life, and remember that you’re under oath,” I’ll reply “Senator, bean has said in no uncertain terms that porn most definitely did not improve her life, and I see no reason to doubt her on this matter.” Got it?
But see, I’ve got these friends who tell me that porn has improved their lives, and most of them seem to get along just fine with the women in their lives, involved in happy, fulfilling, long-term relationships and everything, and some of them even are women, and I don’t see any reason to doubt their experiences either.
But your claims about the effects of porn, on the other hand, are very broad. They cover millions, or more likely billions, of people, far more than you could ever have met. I’m not about to believe you when I have immediate evidence right at hand that tells me otherwise.
bean: Selective correlational studies don’t prove your opinion that porn (however you define it) explicitly causes rape. Using your correlations, we would expect the reported rape rates to be significantly higher in Portland and Honolulu, where “obscenity” is not prosecutable (and in Oregon, content-related zoning is illegal, but being challenged in the Nyssa case).
Looking at the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for 2002, it’s interesting to note that Oklahoma City had 405 reported forcible rapes for 2001, 445 for 2002, compared to Portland’s 305 and 354 for 2001 and 2002. (Comparable populations – Portland’s is 539,438, OKC’s is 519,034 as per 7/1/2002 Census Bureau estimates). Comparing Portland’s rate to other similar-sized cities, it is about the same as Denver’s, lower than Nashville’s, but higher than New Orleans and Washington D.C. (However, New Orleans and Washington had almost as many murders as forcible rapes, which suggests under-reporting.)
In both your citations and mine, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, though.
From my observations, I see that “lad mags” like Maxim, Stuff, etc. depict women as commodities even more than porn, and have more potential for negatively influencing men than porn because of their wider circulation and their stronger commodification. Problem, though…..they usually don’t depict sex, or even nudity. Miller explicitly limits obscenity to depiction of sexual activity.
Personally, I believe that the lad mags do more to cause misogyny (or as I prefer to call its effect, dumbass men) than porn, and exposure to media violence, while it doesn’t cause social violence, definitely reinforces aggression as a normal response to everyday situations.
Be careful who you define your friends as, too. I don’t actively use porn, but have a libido that responds to my thoughts and perceptions. I don’t classify myself as a feminist, although judging my views as a whole, you might characterize me as one. I may be ageist and classist as well; I think rich people are evil until proven moral, and don’t like misbehaving children and old people who can’t drive. (Old men have caused me to be in two serious car accidents because of their inattentiveness.)
I realize that even Amp and bean are arguing that Miller covers too much ground, and that only child porn and depictions of rape should be banned. Fair enough.
And, I will characterize myself as a First Amendment Absolutist – I don’t think there should be any legal restrictions on sexually-oriented works, so long as they aren’t depictions of an actual illegal act (post-Lawrence v. Texas) or involve children under the age of consent. (These restrictions are because of the underlying illegal act – NOT because of the sexual nature of the content – I would be against a snuff film or the “Bumfights” videos for the same reason.)
Miller is impossibly vague, and is trouble in the wrong hands, such as John Ashcroft’s or Joe Lieberman’s. Ashcroft has already started going after porn producers shipping product into conservative districts, and I do see him going after gay porn and sex toys to shore up his fundie cred.
I worked against Measure 31 (an attempted repeal of Oregon’s near-absolute state free speech laws down to the Miller standard) in 1996. The sponsor of the measure? None other than Kevin Mannix.
I do care for free speech when it doesn’t involve sexually explicit material; I am currently working on lawsuits against the Portland Police for attacking protesters against George W. Bush a year ago, and against the police for committing nothing less than acts of terrorism against Iraq War protesters this March.
And I sure as hell will be at UP this Thursday, with a video camera and my knowledge of police tactics and personnel, so if the cops decide to kick ass, I can take names……to include them as defendants in another lawsuit.
And I think the FCC should pay KBOO back for wasting $25,000 of its members’ pledges in legal fees for defending the station against charges that rapper Sarah Jones’s song ‘Your Revolution’ is ‘indecent’.
I think the FCC’s ban on “indecency” is even more ripe for abuse than the Miller precedent, despite the trend toward stations having idiot DJs with junior-high level sexual and scatological “humor”.
1) How amusing it is that in this thread, it’s only the other women posters who completely disbelieve anything I say, calling me a fraud, a plant and a dupe and belittling my personal experiences in a way I haven’t seen happen to anybody else in these threads. Who is disempowering whom here???
2) I have had hormone tests conducted by labs that prove my sexual dysfunction is a physical condition. The notion that all women’s sexual dysfunction is somehow psychological or sociological in nature is incredibly insulting. You realize that if you break that statement down, it really comes down to “it’s all in her head.” Nobody assumes that impotent men are just somehow crippled by society — it’s a physical problem treated by medication and other physical means. But for women, oh no, it couldn’t possibly be something physical, now. Send her to a shrink to break her conditioning. It’s been five years since I first wrote on this subject, and most of what I said then still holds.
3) I do not buy the binary division into masculinity and femininity. Gender roles cross a wide spectrum, and shouldn’t be treated as straightjackets. Because much of the dependence upon gender roles ends up defining women as “not men.” This leads to differences being redefined as dysfunctions. Have you read Carol Tavris’s nonfiction book The Mismeasure of Woman?
I have never denied that you may have a real sexual dysfunction. I simply disagree about porn as treatment.
And, ftr, I was avoiding responding to your post — precisely because I knew you were going to simply dismiss my own concerns and turn this into some attack on you. There is simply no way that I can express how little I agree with porn in any way, including “treatment,” without you taking offense. So, I wasn’t going to say anything at all. But, Avram insisted I answered. So I did. I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’m ok with porn in any situation, or that I buy into the idea that porn is treatment. No, sorry, not gonna happen.
“…Theoretically, would a work revolving around a healthy, well-balanced monogamous relationship between a man and a woman (or man and man, woman and woman) that had graphic depictions of sex and also showed their relationship outside of the sheets be considered to be misogynistic?
Then again, it might not be considered porn…”
Well, I have a certain fondness of A.S. Byatt’s novel *Babel Tower*, which sure as blazes has some graphic sexual content in it. One of its heroines is sexually active and not particularly healthy or monogamous, those she’s got a formidable intellect. One of the climactic scenes is around an obscenity trial for a [fictitious] work of fiction, so Byatt puts in snippets of the work in question, and they are nasty all right. I guess I could understand people saying that her novel thus has pornographic content, since people can beat off to anything if they’re really determined. However, the pornographic bits make up such a small overall proportion of the book that I can’t imagine anyone *buying* it as stroke material. It wouldn’t be the shortest distance between two points, so to speak. Also, I don’t think the overall purpose of the book is to help people masturbate. It’s exists to provide a good read, though it’s pretty damn unsettling. So for my purposes, at least, it easily escapes the definition of “porn.”
“Help people masturbate” was a hasty and poor choice of words on my part. I should have said “provide sexual arousal,” more in keeping with my earlier attempt to define the word *porn*. Sorry for the confusion. :o
Gay culture is a bastion of masculinity. Straight men are considered the most attractive and worthwhile commodity in the sexual market.
Now that’s a broad generalization if I ever saw one. Rothrock may have some backup for this, but not in the quote provided. However, in my entire life of knowing gay men of various ages, occupations, backgrounds, etc., I have never met a single one who remotely resembles this statement. Sure they might think some straight guys are cute, and a few were more “masculine” than others—but, um, from what I’ve seen, gay men are more in touch with their “feminine side”, so to speak, than with being macho boys. Yes, they prize the long shlong, super-muscular pin-up boy as part of their fantasy, and in this they can be said to hypervalue The Masculine. But only as exaggerated fantasy of What Can He Do For ME (yow). The straight guy subgenre has nothing to do with submitting women; it’s about releasing the Queer Within, a gay man’s correlative of the straight guy’s fantasy of converting lesbians with “some real lovin'”. Piggish, yes, and maybe a little “prowess”-oriented, but not really dominance, and certainly not rape. In real life, consumers of such fantasies go home and watch Queer Eye with their soft-bellied domestic partner sitting next to them on the couch, munching Tostitos.
Beyond that, there are a myriad of pornographic videos featuring stereotypically straight ‘roles” such as the sailor, the soldier, the cop, the cowboy, the frat boy, the jock, the construction worker, etc.
OR, to entertain another interpretation, gay men project themselves into roles typically dominated by straight men because in real life they have lived with exclusion from such roles, or with severe closeting required in order to function in such hyper-masculine subcultures. Also, what about the subversive aspect of gay men taking on such “straight roles”? Doesn’t that upset the traditional masculine order by injecting Other elements the hypermasculine has rejected: alternative sexuality, effeminacy, nelliness, the Nancy Boy? These have little bearing on “women as a concept” and more about positing a more balanced range of gender identities incorporating both the masculine and the feminine. It is difficult for the hypermasculine not to see any behavior that falls outside a strict definition of Appropriate Manliness (homophobically and sexistly defined) as an invasion, a compromise, a threat. Gay men taking on traditional straight roles in porn is a power fantasy of a different order than what most straight guy porn inflicts upon women; it’s about gay men fighting against a straight man’s world.
Masculinity is the antithesis of femininity. It is that which by its very definition holds political, social, and economic power over its Other; Woman. By eroticizing masculinity, which necessarily means eroticizing straightness, gay men are making the subordination of women sexy.
That is so conflated, where to begin? Okay, for one thing, as Lis suggests, we need better definitions of masculinity and femininity—of a neutral, value-free quality that Amy provided for porn—before we can really get anywhere. The “antithesis”? Is there no room for maybe viewing them as compliments of each other? The implied definition Rothrock seems to work with pits women and men against each other in some cage match that, for all the power inequities in our society and our history, does not do justice to either the power of women or the respectfulness of men, not to mention the humanity of either. Is it possible to have a dose of masculinity without becoming a Mr. Hyde of domineering, abusive and rape-prone dimensions? Can a woman be feminine without being passive, submissive or victimized? Speaking as a straight guy, I find particularly noxious the suggestion that my sexuality cannot be eroticized without necessarily subordinating women. Good grief! What impoverished sex one must have for that to be true! I ain’t sayin’ I’m some Casanova, but I do take attentiveness to my partner’s needs seriously. So what is that, masculine or feminine? What gender role am I playing when I take care to sexually pleasure my partner? Rothrock’s binary opposition provides no clue.
We are objectifying women through a myopic focus on their gender/sex.
In most straight male porn, yes. But in gay male porn, no. That’s ridiculous. Women are not even in the building, let alone the same room, when it comes to gay porn. Unless Rothrock is talking about the subculture of gay men who fetishize divas and the drag queens who imitate them. But even then, that’s a real stretch. And not particularly relevant to gay male porn.
The best Rothrock can do, at least insofar as he’s been quoted here, is to argue that the presence of maculinity implies the absence of femininity; from that he somehow extrapolates that eroticizing one subordinates the other. He doesn’t explain how this happens, nor how it relates to gay male porn. Am I supposed to dialectically infer the presence of the superstructure in the background, codifying his notions of masculinity and feminity? It would have been better to see some more substantial explanation of how Rothrock’s ideological mechanics work.
…misogyny (or as I prefer to call its effect, dumbass men)….
There’s a definition I can work with. :)
“Hey I didn’t write these passages that I’m citing now to defend my point of view. So don’t expect me to make any defense of them.”
“If I think homosexuality is immoral, then I guess there’s no way for me to explain how I feel about it without offending those gays now, is there? What do you want me to do about that?”
“Whenever I have sex, masculinity and femininity never enter the picture. Everything is just equal! Porn is evil because it creates this evil distinction between male and female! EVVIIILL…”
Beautiful.
Well, I have a certain fondness of A.S. Byatt’s novel *Babel Tower*, which sure as blazes has some graphic sexual content in it.
Hey, Amy, can I borrow that? Not cuz I need masturbation material, but because I have been interested in reading her stuff since her NY Times editorial on Harry Potter. (And, yes, Kip, I haven’t read AS Byatt; yes, I’m a boob.) If I wind up masturbating, I’ll just buy you a new copy.
Here is a copy of the full article by Rothrock: Gay…Pride?
Barbar, go away — what do you do? Stalk the net 24 hours a day looking for anything that puts down porn? And here’s a post that mentions both porn and the Ms. boards, must be a big bonus for you. :rolleyes: Your trolling is about as welcome here as it is at the Ms. boards — and we know how well that went.
Oh, and: After all this fuss, I just wanted to register my own appreciation for the elephant ivory analogy, Barry. Well-conceived. I don’t know if it wholly convinces me to legislate against virtual child porn. At the risk of slipping down a slope of my own creation, I am concerned with our law enforcement establishment’s tendency to apply laws meant for one problem to tackle something else, like using RICO against protesters. I think if I saw a pretty specifically drawn-up law regarding virtual child porn, I could support it; the problem is, as Kip suggested 125 comments ago, that such laws as are written tend to be vaguely worded, because certain legislators, often right wing and fundy, want to cast as wide a net as possible—contrary to your efforts here to narrow censorship as much as possible. Nonetheless, it is an important issue that shouldn’t be swept under the rug by 1st Ammendment absolutism.
Thanks for the link, Bean. That helps put Rothrock’s statements in some context. I still think he’s oversimplified and misconstrued quite a bit. And his hostility to S/M, Queer Theory, drag queens, while making no mention of more recent Queer additions (the trans communities, bisexuality, intersexed, polyamory) combined with a pretty old school marxism seriously hampers his analysis. He is quite right that there is sexism to be found among gay men—or anywhere else in our society, for that matter—and we should all “divest” ourselves of sexism, address issues of class, race, et cetera while moving forward. Incorporating such issues into Pride events, politicizing them further, making links with other groups oppressed in our society—all very good things.
But rejecting Pride altogether? Not recognizing the value of some of these small achievements tends to throw the baby steps out with the bathwater, so to speak. And insisting that no substantial change can be made short of revolution is a tired old paleo-marxist copout that shortchanges real progress that real people have been fighting for, while undercutting present efforts with totalizing cynicism.
And his outright rejection of drag queens raises more questions. For one thing, the subjective element. Is he really serious in contending that gay men who gussed up in drag were simply out to get laughs? Sure comedy has been a longstanding part of the tradition, but the friction that a man assuming majority defined feminine attributes remains, even post-RuPaul, subversive, because the dominant hypermasculinism we are all concerned about persists.
Yet there is more. The subjective identification with a certain fetishized diva—a Judy, a Barbra, a Liza, a Cher—through drag is an empowering experience; in such divas, the drag queen recognizes grace, power, strength and humor in the face of personal or social adversity. Yes, drag queens embrace a rather narrowly defined concept of femininity; you are not likely to see a Michelle Shocked drag queen. But then, Michelle Shocked, as a strong woman with a more balanced, nuanced identity of masculine and feminine attributes, invites neither parody nor impersonation. There is no friction here to play with. She has no Get Up, no iconic wardrobe that a drag queen would enjoy wearing. The same dynamic works for drag kings. I doubt that if I or Barry were a public personas, we would inspire any woman to impersonate us. We’re men, but we’re not iconically men, neither Macho Man, Real Man nor even Sensitive Hunk. We’re flabby cartoonists who blog too much. Not much of a stage show, I tell ya.
If you wanna talk about drag queens, my opinions pretty much fall in line with this guy’s (someone I have gone to a lot of drag shows with).
Kevin, *Babel Tower* is third in a series. I should probably lend you *The Virgin In The Garden* first so you can read about Byatt’s universe in chronological order. Don’t worry, though, it’s still naughty and bad, but shorter.
If nothing else, you could get hopelessly bored after ten pages with no naughty bits in sight, proclaim that Byatt sucks eggs and that I don’t know literature *0R* porn from my own elbow, and kip could have a good laugh as some kind of compensation for this entire thread. :p
Don’t worry, Kevin…..you can read Harry Potter after the A.S. Byatt to get the stink of pretention out of your brain…:P
Puh-lease, Mr. FAA :p. Like YOU don’t hunker over those damned *New Yorker*s and *Atlantic*s at least three nights a week. Let’s talk pretension. :D Why can’t you just drool over the *Sports Illustrated* bikini babes, like normal people. :p
Hey Bean, I downloaded the pdf for later reading. Today has been a busy day and I have a cartoon to do, so I may have a delay in responding to it. So don’t feel I’ve blown you off or anything if I don’t appear here. Heck, I may even just post about this on my own blog.
And Amy and Aaron—you guys live together! How do you manage to have a blog comments conversation when you’re in the same room? :)
BTW, just one more thing about gay porn — even if you can find some that doesn’t rely entirely on the cult of masculinity, it still relies on objectification. Objectification is harmful — not just to women, but to all people.
Many of the arguments against gay porn seem to be based upon a pre-existing conclusion (“porn is misogynist”) and then looking for evidence to support it, rather than looking first at the evidence and then drawing a conclusion from it.
I also disagree with you/bean that all objectification is harmful. Inappropriate objectification can be harmful, but in general, its a necessary survival trait to enable humans to deal with all the other people we interact with on a daily basis.
Quoting from a Usenet post by my husband in which he explained why small talk exists:
My current job is (largely) telephone technical support. People phoning in for help with their software have no interest nor need to deal with the whole me, with my financial worries and physical problems — they only want my ears, voice, and the portions of my brain that can help resolve their technical issues. I’m an introvert; dealing with people exhausts me.
I don’t want to know the intimate life stories of every clerk and cashier I deal with, and I don’t want or need them knowing such details about me. My transactions with these people exists within a ritualized framework, and in most cases neither side needs a deeper relationship with the other.
And just because I “objectify” the guy behind the counter at McDonalds doesn’t inhibit my ability to relate to other people in similar roles in a more meaningful way (such as the people who work at the local diner; I see them more often and we know each other better).
It seems that you are working with a very different definition of objectification than I am.
[Objectification is]the portrayal of human beings – usually women – as depersonalized sexual things, such as “tits, cunt, and ass,” not as multifaceted human beings deserving equal rights with men.
–Susan Brownmiller
Objectification = OBJECT, THING
Martha Nussbaum has a good piece about objectification, where she argues that some forms of objectification (including some kinds of sexual objectification) are morally unproblematic, while other forms of objectification (including some non-sexual kinds of objectification) are morally problematic.
I take it Lis is talking about a variety of kinds of objectification, as Nussbaum is, while bean is talking specifically about morally problematic kinds of sexual objectification. One point of Nussbaum’s paper, though, is that we can’t just assume that all forms of sexual objectification are morally wrong.
The other day a hot young guy arrived at my house to install cable. He had the wrong house, but we had a friendly chat while I was giving him directions. When the guy left, I said to my partner, “he can come install my cable anytime.” Was I sexually objectifying the guy? Probably. Was it morally wrong for me to do that? I don’t think so.
You can find the paper in Nussbaum’s book, Sex and Social Justice, which I highly recommend anyway.
I think I’m a bit too late (say, 2 and a half years) to participate in this discussion, but as I’m here, let me ask you a question, based on your assumption that rape porn leads to rape. Did rape occur 400 years ago? (Yes it did). However there was no rape porn back then. And yet, Victorian England was full of forced sexuality. So doesnt that even slightly change your unchangeable opinion?
Letaur, no one here has said that rape porn is the sole cause of rape. To quote from what I wrote in post #80:
Saying “rape existed before rape porn,” as if that contradicts what I’ve written, merely implies that you failed to understand what I wrote.
Besides which, depictions of rape that are intended to be funny, sexy or both, exist much further back than 400 years ago. Roman comedy is full of funny rape, and depictions of Zeus raping various women that are clearly intended to be sexy are not uncommon historically, so even the point that rape existed prior to the creation of rape porn is probably true only to the extent that rape probably existed before artistic representation had developed.
Andrea Dworkin, a radical feminist, testified before the New York Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography in 1986 stating, “Pornography is used in rape – to plan it, to execute it, to choreograph it, to engender the excitement to commit the act.” Do you believe that pornography should be banned because it may cause a person to commit rap or is there no significance between the two and banning pornography would be unconstitutional?