Garance Franke-Ruta, in an op-ed published by OpinionJournal, argues that people below age 21 should not legally be able to consent to appear in porn.
But the “Girls Gone Wild” problem concerns adult porn: At what age is a girl ready to make that decision, one that she will live with–technologically speaking, at least–for the rest of her life? A woman of 18 may be physically indistinguishable from one who is 21, but they are developmentally worlds apart. […]
A new legal age for participating in the making of erotic imagery–that is, for participating in pornography–would most likely [be] sometimes honored in the breach more than the observance. But a 21-year-old barrier would save a lot of young women from being manipulated into an indelible error, while burdening the world’s next [“Girls Gone Wild” owner] Joe Francis with an aptly limited supply of “talent.” And it would surely have a tonic cultural effect. We are so numb to the coarse imagery around us that we have come to accept not just pornography itself–long since routinized–but its “barely legal” category. “Girls Gone Wild”–like its counterparts on the Web–is treated as a kind of joke. It isn’t. There ought to be a law.
On her own blog, Garance explains further:
…Our laws recognize that maturity comes slowly. In addition to the minimum drinking age of 21, the minimum age for entering Congress is 25, and for the Senate, 30. Many jurisdictions make 21 the baseline minimum for holding state senatorial or other government positions, while others use 25 as their local baseline. Several states have a 30-year-old minimum for the governorships, and we’re all familiar with the 35 year minimum that exists for the presidency.
Under what I am suggesting — which is really, at this point, more a general principle for legislation than a fully worked out proposal (I’m no lawyer) — women and men under 21 would retain the right to flash anyone they wanted or take photos for personal use, under the theory that the people a law is intended to protect should not be punished under it. All that would be lost is young men and women’s ability to participate in commercial enterprises looking to sell their erotic images, and the risk of involuntary distribution of their non-commercial images. Women and men would gain a greater right to control their own erotic images until age 21. The anti-porn laws we have now are much, much stronger than the one initially passed in the late 1970s, and what I was thinking of is something a bit more like that initial legislation, which would provide women and men with a tool to control their own images and prevent exploitation, but not result in any kind of massive prosecutorial crackdown per se. The intent would be to expand the zone of privacy for young men and women. The key factors to be regulated would be commercial use of images and unwanted use of non-commercial images.
I think it’s slippery of Garance to say “Women and men would gain a greater right to control their own erotic images until age 21”; no doubt there are some people who would actively want to sell their own images for commercial exploitation, and this law would force them to wait until their twenty-first birthday. So only certain people — those who consent in (often drunken) haste and then repent at length — would gain more control under this law.
But I still agree with Garance’s proposal. Yes, some people would be prevented from doing what they want by this law; it’s also the case that some people want to work for less than the minimum wage. Some workers would prefer to have laxer worker safety standards because they believe they could get more work that way. For that matter, it’s no doubt the case that there are some 15-year-olds out there who would like to be able to be paid to appear in porn.
In all these cases, that some people’s interests are harmed in order to provide other people with greater protection is an acceptable trade-off. (This is even more true of an age restriction law, which harms some people’s interests only temporarily.)
“Raising the age simply changes the definition of “barely legal” from 18 to 21. How is that an improvement?”
The idea raised in other threads was actually to raise it to 25, like the tobacco ads that require cigarette models be old enough that they don’t appear too young to buy cigarettes.
Which I don’t necessarily support. But you said that the goal of eliminating “barely legal” porn was to hurt men. I said it isn’t, and listed some benefits to women. Don’t retort now trying to critique the method, rather than the goal, which is what you originally brought up and what I defended.
Because it raises the age of the girls targetted for sexualization. Its no longer 18 but looks 16.
Its alot harder to imagine an older women as a 14 year old, and while sexualization of any aged person is disgusting and alarming, only 1 age is used to sexualize those outside the industry that look closer to 14 than 30.
pheeno:
“Almost a pedophile”? That’s rich! So, let’s see, someone who’s attracted to 25 year olds is almost-almost-almost-almost a pedophile?
Comparing attraction to young adults to pedophilia shows a remarkable ignorance of both sexual attraction and pedophilia.
I could be a jerk and tell you to read up on “youth rights 101”, but instead I’ll just calmly explain that suggesting these adult women can be manipulated “because of their age” is no less offensive than suggesting they can be manipulated because of their gender.
No, now it’s 21 but looks 18. Or looks 16, depending on the individual. In any case, you’re just pushing off the question: how is sexualizing [those who look like] 18 year olds an improvement over sexualizing [those who look like] 16 year olds? Consider that in most states, 16 year olds are equally capable of consenting to sex.
If someone wants to fantasize about 14 year olds, he’ll do it, whether that means finding a picture of a young-looking 18 year old, squinting at a picture of a young-looking 25 year old wearing a cheerleader uniform, reading a story, or something else. Fighting the human imagination is an uphill battle.
Almost a child molester then, doesnt actually matter to me. Sexualizing those under age doesnt earn much by way of distinction for me.
Your defense of people attracted to those who look younger than the legal age is getting disturbing.
looks 18 is better than looks 16.
And no one has claimed its better to sexualize anyone. In fact, the bulk of the arguement is that it sexualizes women/girls period. Though an older person is better capable of handling such a thing emotionally, since their brains are more developed and are actually equipped to deal with the emotional and mental crap they get handed.
thats not a reason to make it even easier. If you wanted to break into my house you’ll probably find a way. But Im not going to leave you a key.
pheeno:
“Child molester” and “pedophile” are the same thing: someone attracted to children who are sexually immature. Not just attracted to teenagers or young adults whose age is below some arbitrary number.
I really don’t find anything disturbing about someone who’s attracted to adults who possess the characteristics that have evolved to show sexual maturity, and frankly, I think you’re in the minority if you do.
Youth rights 101. There is no evidence that an 18 year old is less equipped to deal with that “crap” than a 21 year old, let alone medical evidence based on brain development. You’d trash these arguments if someone were making them about women, but apparently you have no problem making them yourself as long as they’re directed at young people.
Jesse-
You’d trash these arguments if someone were making them about women, but apparently you have no problem making them yourself as long as they’re directed at young people.
Give up, man. You’re not talking to people who are thinking rationally.
[Mithras, if you think the participants here are not rational, there is no reason for you to continue participating. You are banned. -Charles]
Jesse, please watch the way you address Pheeno.
(To be fair, I did call you ignorant. I did so in the context of you coming to a feminist blog and admitting ignorance of feminism. I apologize, however, for not making it clearer that my comment regarded the points of feminism under discussion. I could have phrased it another way.)
In every state and federal jurisdiction of the United States, the law states that a minor below the age of consent in that state or jurisdiction cannot consent to sexual activity of any sort involving a partner (with certain exceptions). Such sexual activity is legally considered child abuse.
A brief google search turns up at least one article claiming that brain development in the areas which concern decision-making isn’t complete until 21. It looks like there are others, but my connection has decided to be slow. Perhaps others can turn them up.
This is not a youth rights blog.
Mithras, this comment contains no content except an attack on another poster. Please don’t do that again.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-03-02-teens-cars-main-usat_x.htm
New findings from brain researchers at the National Institutes of Health explain for the first time why efforts to protect the youngest drivers usually fail. The weak link: what’s called “the executive branch” of the teen brain — the part that weighs risks, makes judgments and controls impulsive behavior.
Scientists at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., have found that this vital area develops through the teenage years and isn’t fully mature until age 25.
I knew I’d seen that study, but I couldn’t turn it up!
Mandolin:
I’m not going to split hairs over whether “child molester” means an actual pedophile or simply someone who violates an age of consent law. But if you want to use a legal definition, I’ll point out again that the age of consent is 16 in the majority of states (and around the world), so even the hypothetical porn viewer who’s attracted to 18 year olds because they look like 16 year olds is probably not fantasizing about anything illegal.
Another 101-level issue, but as you point out, this isn’t a youth rights blog so I don’t mind addressing it. The idea that decisions can’t be made correctly by a brain which will continue to develop is based on the assumption that there’s an ideal, “finished” brain that makes decisions in one particular way, and any other brain’s decisions are necessarily flawed.
But any two individuals will approach the same problem from different angles, applying different logic and priorities, and perhaps come up with different answers. People of any age are capable of reasoning and making informed decisions, even if they come up with different answers at different points in their life. If I choose A and my neighbor chooses B, that doesn’t mean my neighbor is incapable of decision-making; just like if I choose A today and would’ve chosen B ten years ago, that doesn’t mean I was incapable back then… or does it? Those who say young people can’t make decisions seem to think it does.
And I think that’s really what it boils down to. If you ask an 18 year old whether they want to appear in porn, you’ll get an answer, and if you ask why they gave that answer, you’ll get an explanation. No one claims 18 year olds can’t answer the question — they just claim 18 year olds will answer incorrectly. Why? Not because there’s anything wrong with the explanation, but because they might answer or explain differently when they’re older; the answer and explanation given by an older person is presumed to be the right one, which makes any other thought process wrong by default.
This is a perfect example, actually:
So, teenagers are more impulsive and more willing to take risks than older people. But we already know some people are more impulsive and willing to take risks than others, right? Some people like bungee jumping and snowboarding; others prefer a cup of tea and a game of chess. Some people are day traders; others invest for the long term.
You’d have a hard time convincing anyone that one group is incapable of making decisions because they have a larger appetite for risk. Larger appetite for risk essentially just means a different set of priorities: day traders value potential profit over stability, but you can’t say objectively that stability is better than the potential for short-term profit; it’s a matter of opinion. Why, then, should we believe that teenagers are incapable of making decisions just because they take more risks?
Why, then, should we believe that teenagers are incapable of making decisions just because they take more risks?
Because we all remember being teenagers, Jesse, and for the most part we remember making a lot of really, really, really stupid decisions. Which is cool – that’s part of learning. Error is the kitchen where we bake the pies of maturity, or something.
Does that mean that teenagers should have no rights? No. But it does mean that as a society, it’s reasonable for us to “stage” the responsibilities and privileges of young people in a way that gives them time and space to make their stupid mistakes in a non-lethal way. That generally entails foreclosing certain decision spaces until a certain point in time is reached. We use a point in time rather than “maturity” because age is a halfway decent proxy for maturity, and age can be handled objectively by the law where maturity cannot.
Well, a lot of people have opinions about a lot of decisions. I’m sure a lot of teenagers think the decisions adults make are stupid too. But to suggest that we should elevate one set of opinions over the other, just because they’re held by older people, is pure ageism.
Then call me an unabashed ageist. We elevate one set of opinion over the other because experience teaches us that experience has value, and the opinion of the person with experience is worth more, as a general rule, than the opinion of the person without it.
At least you’re honest. Any other prejudices you’d like to put on the record? A little racism or sexism, maybe? I mean, experience teaches us that white men have been pretty successful, so perhaps it’s also justified to give their opinions a little extra weight.
So, are you with the people who suggest that children should be given full rights and responsibilities immediately at birth, or are you in favor of some other kind of gradation?
If not experience and biology, what makes it acceptable for a parent to override a toddler’s agency by – say – keeping hir finger out of the socket?
What’s your opinion on consent laws, btw?
I think we can distinguish between a mind so immature that it really can’t make decisions that are rational, explainable through some logic and set of priorities, and one that can. That is, between a mind which is objectively lacking knowledge or reason, and one which has the necessary knowledge and reason but applies them in a way that another might find distasteful.
A toddler who’s about to stick his finger in the socket doesn’t know what he’s doing. He may not know that electricity lives in there, or that live wires are dangerous to touch, or he may not be able to make the logical connection to conclude “it would be dangerous for me to touch these wires”. He’s not making a value judgment or weighing risk against reward.
A sober 20 year old woman who’s about to appear in porn, however, is not missing the knowledge or reasoning capacity needed to make her decision. She knows what porn is, what she’ll be doing, and what she’ll receive for it. She knows that she may regret it later, and she’s weighing that risk against the immediate reward, using her own tolerance for risk. You can argue with her priorities, but that’s a matter of opinion; her decision is still informed and rational.
As for consent laws, it’s hard to take a firm position because of the woeful state of sex education in this country. Fundamentally, I think the key things a person needs to know in order to give informed consent are what sex is, what it can lead to (pregnancy, disease, emotional impact, etc. as well as secondary effects of those), and how to prevent or deal with those consequences. Those are fairly open-ended topics, and many pages have been written about them.
I think the age of consent should at the very least be made an even 16 across the country, but it doesn’t make sense to go much further than that until addressing the fact that a lot of teenagers, who may be quite capable of grasping those elements that put the “informed” in informed consent, still have not learned them. That makes it difficult to set a lower age without causing a lot of false positives. (Ideally, we could test on a case-by-case basis whether informed consent was given, but that isn’t practical.)
However, short of lowering the age, I do think the laws can be improved in other ways. They should include an exception for couples who are close in age, where one is just above the line and the other is just under, and when both parties are below the line, neither should be found guilty. Also, the law should not presume that a younger person’s consent is entirely worthless; a case of actual rape should be treated far more harshly than a de-facto consensual sexual relationship, without having to rely on a judge being sympathetic to the 19-year-old with the 15-year-old girlfriend.
At least you’re honest. Any other prejudices you’d like to put on the record? A little racism or sexism, maybe?
Racism and sexism differ from “ageism” in that neither race nor sex is a measure of a linear trait which everyone possesses. Age, in many circumstances, is an entirely appropriate basis on which to discriminate.
Not to worry, though. Soon you’ll gain more experience and maturity, and will realize the error of your philosophy. ;)
Everyone has a race and a sex. Are you suggesting discrimination is OK because people don’t stay at the same age forever? It seems to me that only makes the discrimination more insidious, by constantly adding newly-oppressed people at one end while depriving the group of motivated activists at the other. Would sexism be OK if every year, a number of women were permanently granted “honorary man” status?
Hey, so are race and sex, “in many circumstances”, like keeping men out of the ladies’ room or keeping Strom Thurmond out of the Congressional Black Caucus. But neither race, nor sex, nor age are appropriate criteria for disqualifying an otherwise-competent person from exercising any right.
Are you suggesting discrimination is OK because people don’t stay at the same age forever?
Yes. And also because people of lower ages are, on the left-hand side of the distribution, generally less informed and less competent in the areas where they are generally discriminated against. Most of those areas are greatly controlled by questions of judgment and prudence – two areas where there is a known, empirically observed deficit in younger people. This deficit heals only slowly.
We try to adjust our legal benchmark years to hit the point where most if not all of the young people have reached a maturity level sufficient for the responsibility to be endowed. Sometimes we miss in one direction, as now, when it does begin to look like 16 is a little young to be driving. Other times we miss in the other; probably most 19 year olds wouldn’t be killed by knocking down a beer. But we do our best. No doubt we can do better, and activists like yourself will be useful social spurs to action.
But your basic critique is, no offense, crazy.
Would sexism be OK if every year, a number of women were permanently granted “honorary man” status?
No. But that isn’t what happens as people age, so the analogy isn’t material.
Hey, so are race and sex, “in many circumstances”, like keeping men out of the ladies’ room or keeping Strom Thurmond out of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Indeed. The number of such instances where discrimination by age is appropriate is vastly higher.
But neither race, nor sex, nor age are appropriate criteria for disqualifying an otherwise-competent person from exercising any right.
Certainly. But in many fields and for many areas, having reached a certain chronological age and the life experience that accompanies that age is part of the definition of competence.
The drinking age should be lower than the driving age so that people will become conversant with the results of drinking before they find themselves having to make serious decisions about it. The drinking age should also be lower than the porn age.
The drinking age being set at 21 — ignored by many, but still enforced — leads to several badly fucked-up standards which injure positive intergenerational relations. Basically, in a nutshell, it means that popular young people become conversant with the effects of alcohol on a normal human schedule, and unpopular young people don’t. I’m oversimplifying, but this is the gist of my observation.
I think that raising the porn age to 21 — while all the other American majority standards stand where they do — would mean that only those under-21-year-olds who are desperate and unable to make a living in other fields would enter porn. Only those, in short, bereft of a support network. Because if you’re underage and drink, you can talk about it, but if you’re underage and in porn, talking about it would rob you of your livelihood — therefore basically making it IMPOSSIBLE for these people to live openly.
I know many folks in the adult industry, and those who live openly tend to be far happier, use hard drugs less, have much more healthy lives.
In short, I think that changing it at present would hurt the very people it’s supposed to protect.
Oddly, if the drinking age were 16 and the driving age 18, as in various European countries, I would be more OK with setting the porn age higher. Partly because of what I have to say below…
…contributing to the brain discussion: y’all are aware that experience affects neurology, right? People get better at making decisions as they get older in part because they’ve made a bunch of decisions by the time they’re older. Forgetting this hurts anyone who’s trying to learn how to learn.
Re Mandolin’s comments upthread: bandaid is a good word, and a good metaphor. I guess what I mean to say is that if you don’t clean the wound before putting on the bandaid, it can actually contribute to the chance of infection — and the status of youth in American culture is already sort of a festering wound. I can speak to that last line from my own experience. I don’t feel like doing so at the moment, but maybe later.
Jesse:
I have to ask…you ever done any porn? Know any 18 year olds in the business? Know any, oh, say 25 year olds in the business?
Porn is different from other jobs, and other decisions, really. Hell, any form of sex work is. I know people in the field who are 18, and I know people in the field who are in their 30’s…guess who, universally, tends to deal with it and fair better? It’s not the 18 year olds. Guess who is almost universally prepared for the consequences of their choice to be in such a field? It’s not the 18 year olds. Guess who is almost universally more responsible, authoritive, and less easily talked into do things they’d really rather not do? It’s not the 18 year olds.
Sigh. This was an interesting “costs of restricting individual autonomy v. benefits of protection for the group as a whole” debate, and now it’s a “what does Jesse think?” debate. Can’t we go back on track?
Never having worked in the field myself, nor been close to anyone who has, I have to respect this opinion — and it jibes with what (nearly) everyone here has observed and remembers from being teenagers ourselves.
I’m still not sure I would favor an outright ban until age 21, on the “costs of restricting individual autonomy” arguments that have already been made. RenegadeEvolution, how do you feel about a waiting period (the actor has 72 hours to change her/his mind) and sobriety tests as methods of curtailing GGW-type blatant exploitation?
Interesting. What do you think of 18-year-olds voting?
Having been one of the first beneficiaries of that law and having observed it since then, I can say I’m not impressed. The idea behind it was “If they’re old enough to die for their country, they’re old enough to vote.” Of course, that was when there was a draft, and there was no choice in the matter. It was also the idea behind lowering the drinking age to 18. That didn’t work out either, and the Federal government forced the states to change the age back to 21 by withholding Federal road money for states that left their drinking ages below 21. So, now there’s no more draft, and we have a lot more evidence showing that there’s a big improvement in judgement between age 18 and age 21. If they’re not old enough to make a mature decision about how to use alcohol, they’re not old enough to make a mature decision about how to run the country.
Bean, would you care to point me at some accounts of women who’ve been put at risk by having been in porn?
More generally, women are at risk of being stalked and attacked whether they’ve been in porn or not. There may be some way of figuring out whether the risk is increased much by having been in porn, but I’m not sure what that would be.
Ron, what do you think of 18-year-olds joining the military?
I’m not trying to be flip here. It’s arguable that the voting age should be raised back to 21, but in that case I would want the age for joining the service raised as well: if you’re not old enough to vote, you’re not old enough to die for your country.
Slight digression: as I recall, a major problem, probably the primary one, with lowering the drinking age was that high-school seniors could legally buy booze, which led to a lot more drinking among younger teenagers. Also, in those days drunk-driving laws were much less stringent than they are now, and drunk driving carried less social stigma. The combination of inexperienced driver/inexperienced drinker/more impulsive personality proved very bad. And, now that I come to think of it, substitute “sexuality” for “driver” in the above sentence and the argument still works, which is why I think sobriety tests for at least some sex workers are a really good idea.
Lu: I think that would be a good idea, but then you run into the issue of people then also having to wait for their payment, or part of it, I would imagine, and some people in porn need the money right away.
I’m not trying to be flip here. It’s arguable that the voting age should be raised back to 21, but in that case I would want the age for joining the service raised as well: if you’re not old enough to vote, you’re not old enough to die for your country.
Let’s compromise: you can get the vote, and the right to drink, before age 21, by joining the military. The act of joining the military (generally) indicates a level of acceptance of responsibility. Anybody who serves can have their civil perks early.
I don’t find that an unreasonable proposal. I think that joining the Military can fuck your life up as much or more than being in porn.
Also, pushing the age of enlistment up to 21 would neatly bypass the issue of military recruiters camping out on high school campuses and harassing future grads.
—Myca
I’ve indicated elsewhere in this discussion that I think the fundamental problem with the proposed “solution” to the GGW issue is that it establishes as a principle the power of the state to classify legal adults, 18-20 years old, as incompetent in matters of sexual expression.
The question of prior sexual abuse as an incapacitating factor has been raised. I wonder how people here would react to the suggestion that victims of such abuse be “protected” by law from their presumed incompetence in matters of sexual expression? I pose this point because I’ve known a number of lesbian women who suffered such abuse and can well imagine what some people would make of the suggestion that the abuse rendered them incompetent in sexual matters.
I think that’s a good point, A.J.
This law seems appealing, but ultimately doesn’t seem to be a very good idea.
(FWIW, I did know someone who’d been in porn before age 18. And sie did have to hide it. And it did get hir into a lot of bad situations, including AIDS infection.)
Since I raised the issue, I’m going to point out that raising it isnt pointing out incompetance on the part of the women and girls, nor is it even suggesting they’re incompetant at all. Its pointing out culpability on the part of the porn industry in using molestation and rape to turn a profit. They make money off of rape victims and child rape victims. They make a great deal of money because some fuckstick couldnt keep his hands off a child. They’re making money off of him teaching her that her worth is in her pussy and they’re proving him right, as are those who buy the porn.
Pheeno: While a valid point, that can be a … grey…area to go. Yes, there are women in porn who are abuse victims. There are also women in every other job in the world who are abuse victims, and countless women in sexual relationships who have been abuse victims, and that can be exploited or those women can be put in pain by anyone, really. Anyone. However, those women still have a right to make choices, and have those choices be recognized as those of an adult. Would we call into question and constantly mention the choices of an abused woman in any other field of work, outside of the sex industry? Would we question each and all of her sexual relationships? Would we, say, in so many charming words that ANYONE is “teaching her that her worth is in her pussy”? (even that phrase makes my skin crawl).
Once you start negating or constantly questioning the choices of abuse victims to work on one field (even the sex industry), you open the door for questioning them in all sorts of other areas…are they too damaged to hold high stress jobs? Are they too damaged to have relationships? Too damaged to have children? In fact, while worrying about damage done to abuse victims is generally nobel and well-inentioned, the term “damaged” and other associated words are labels that can be hard to shake and harmful in their own right. I will also state, for the record, sex workers who have not been sexually abused do get a wee bit tired of the assumption that all people in the business have been abused.
I know people in the field who are 18, and I know people in the field who are in their 30’s…guess who, universally, tends to deal with it and fair better?
Renegade, do these individuals, the older ones, generally support a person’s right to appear in pornography at 18, or do they tend to oppose it?
Myca: my issue is with the idea that there are some adults who can be arrested, tried, and punished as adults, but who we still give the rights of children.
I agree with the thought behind that statement, but I don’t see this issue the same way, Myca. When we speak of a minor tried as an adult, it can sound as though we are selectively choosing to bump them up in status in this single, very negative way while denying them all of the positive aspects of adulthood, but I see it as a decision that while their status as a minor remains unchanged, punishments which were once thought unsuitable for minors actually are suitable in some cases.
Not that the ‘adult punishments’ are always suitable either, but that’s another thread.
I get what you’re saying, and I’m in favor of the destigmatization of sex work too, but I actually think that we ask this sort of thing too little about other fields of work. What makes a person in the military think violence is cool? Was it a violent or abusive childhood? Are we doing further damage to these folks by putting them in violent situations?
I think examining why these choices are made and how these situations are constructed is a good thing, whatever profession we’re talking about.
—Myca
pheeno, so there’s a sort of statute of limitations on that? It’s OK to exploit rape victims but only after they’re old enough to drink?
It’s always struck me that there’s more than a little prejudice against sex workers in the they-all-must-have-been-abused line. No NORMAL woman would lower herself, the poor things must be broken somehow. (Normal women trade sex for cash on an informal basis.)
But any other industry doesnt make their money of sexually exploiting women who have been sexually abused. Nurses arent being sexually exploited. Secretaries arent being sexually exploited. Stats and research so far show a disturbing majority of women who go into sex work have been sexually abused. The industry makes money directly off that abuse.
And you cannot continue to ignore the context around womens choices by just calling them choices. A choice between shit and shittier isnt some wondermous choice that is just a travesty of justice to impede. If you’re going to recognize those choices, recognize everything about them. If you’re part of an oppressed sex class its pretty hard to *volunteer* for oppression and exploitation. It gets masked as choice when it’s not so much of a choice it is being forced into a position, whether by finance or other means. It enforces the status quo, which isnt exactly condusive to women having the ability to make real choices based on more than what the system allows.
I call into question any choice made by women in a patriarchial male dominated society, not because women are incapable of making choices, but because they have no agency in the patriarchy and therefore have no say whatsoever in the context surrounding their choices.
And yes, abusers teach women their worth is their bodies. Society teaches us that. The media teaches us that. Commercials teach us that. When prostitutes or women who’ve had sex aren’t really believed as rape victims, not only is our worth measured by our bodies, its measured by our hymens and how much “use” our bodies have had. When purity balls become a popular fad, when modesty for women is hailed as good and written about and discussed, when abortion bans dont include rape or incest, when everything we read about sexuality classifies women as virgins or whores, we *are* being taught our worth lies in our bodies.
And some industries are cashing in on that. The majority are run by men.
What makes a person in the military think violence is cool?
What makes anyone think violence is cool?
Are you presuming that everyone in the military thinks violence is cool?
Sure, but if we’re denying these minors the much greater rights of adulthood in all cases and inflicting adult punishments on them in some cases, I think that’s out of line.
—Myca
Ron, what do you think of 18-year-olds joining the military? I’m not trying to be flip here. It’s arguable that the voting age should be raised back to 21, but in that case I would want the age for joining the service raised as well: if you’re not old enough to vote, you’re not old enough to die for your country.
I’m with Robert; I’m fine with 18-year-olds joining the military, and letting them vote as well in the bargain.
No more than anyone is presuming that everyone in porn was sexually abused . . . but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a disproportionate number of people matching that criteria in both cases.
—Myca
Im not holding the women responsible or judging them. Im judging the culture they live in and the industry that makes money off of them. When the majority of women in the sex industry are interviewed, they flat out say if they had another choice they would have chosen differently. Im not judging them, Im actually listening.
People who claim this or imply this dont tend to be promoting feminist theory. Feminists point out that normal women are forced into making decisions without having any say in the context surrounding those decisions and womens sexuality isnt the madonna/whore BS commonly trotted out. These women do what they have to to survive in a sexist society, just like every other woman does.
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/04/28/reader-actually-asks-spinster-aunts-opinion/
this is a much better explaination than I could ever give
Ick. In other words, if a sex worker appears to disagree with Twisty’s analysis of the sex worker’s life, that sex worker must be experiencing false consciousness. No, thank you.
First of all, Twisty’s language is all about contempt for feminists and/or sex workers who disagree with her (“fun feminists” and “empowerful”). It’s easy to say “I respect sex workers”; but saying that doesn’t mean anything when the language is full of sneering.
Second of all, I don’t buy claims of “no agency… no say whatsoever.” That’s simplistic, and the only way you can believe that is by ignoring the words of sex workers who have said, explicitly, that “no agency” and “no say whatsoever” is not an accurate description of their lives.
I’m not saying that sex workers (or anyone else) has total agency, nor am I saying that patriarchy doesn’t limit people’s agency. Of course it does. But there’s an important area between “total unfettered free agency” and “no say whatsoever” which is where most people, including many sex workers, live their lives.
bean:
The fact that the older people criticizing the young people’s actions are, in fact, the same individuals at a later date, doesn’t really change the equation. You, at age 40, might look back and think some decisions you made at age 20 are stupid. But at the same time, you at age 20 might look ahead, consider a decision you might make at age 40, and think that would be stupid, even if you know your opinion might change over time.
Everyone’s opinions change over time, in every aspect of life, but they’re still opinions. As long as 20-year-old-you wasn’t missing the knowledge or reasoning capacity needed to make the decision, the difference can only be due to a different set of priorities. And the only way you can conclude that 40-year-old-you’s priorities are objectively the “right” ones is if you’re simply biased toward older people.
So, unfair discrimination is OK as long as everyone has to go through it at some point: an oppressive, patronizing, humiliating rite of passage?
I’m amused that you can keep lowering the age these adults supposedly look like. Maybe judging someone’s age by their appearance isn’t such a hot idea if it’s so easy to make oneself look 25% younger.
You mean the sort of attraction that’s targeted toward sexually mature individuals (since all the makeup in the world can’t make an adult woman look like a prepubescent child)? I think that’s the message we want to be sending to pedophiles, frankly. Might make them stop being pedophiles, you know?
Once more, I’m amused that you think supporting female youth rights would mean taking agency away from young females. That’s as ridiculous as saying you’re protecting women by denying them the “burden” of voting or working. On the other hand, if I suggested you weren’t a feminist but merely an old-womanist, there’d be quite a bit more truth to it.
Whoever wrote that needs to explain how gay and bi male porn is a “representation of the oppression of the sex class” in the context of patriarchy as well as exactly what liberating them from male oppression would entail.
I rather doubt that the “majority of sex workers” has ever been interviewed for their opinions about anything.
The fact that current social relations may not allow for full freedom of choice is no argument for further restricting individual freedom of action.
“Whoever wrote that needs to explain how gay and bi male porn is a “representation of the oppression of the sex class” in the context of patriarchy as well as exactly what liberating them from male oppression would entail.”
I believe the argument is that our understanding of sex is predicated on a dominance-submission model (built with the understanding of women as the sex class), and that we extend that relationship to all encounters, sexual or otherwise.
I encourage you to go check out the actual post, though. http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/04/28/reader-actually-asks-spinster-aunts-opinion/
She also wrote another post today: http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/05/07/the-secret-lives-of-prigs/ — which contains the line: “I might as well put the kibosh on the tired old “what about gay porn?!” For crissake, it’s 2007; do we not yet get that gay men are men?”
I’m realizing why this makes me a bit uncomfortable. When pheeno says
I realized the problem. This proposal isn’t ADDING a choice. It’s not providing an alternate choice. It’s not giving another avenue of employment. It is merely removing an existing choice.
Now, i strongly dislike the thought of 18-21 year olds (or anyone else, but we’re focusing on them in this thread, so…) getting stuck in the porn business when they don’t want to be there. So: Is it more efficient to try to forbid them? Or to help them go elsewhere?
People who claim this or imply this dont tend to be promoting feminist theory.
What Amp said. And please, have the guts to say “You’re not a feminist,” which is clearly what you meant, rather than mincing around about ‘people’.
I ran into the same thing with Mackinnon’s minions, back in the long-ago days before the Web; they pitied and cared about sex workers, as long as the whores kept their mouths shut and nodded along when Good Feminists spoke for them.
Unless they’ve somehow stepped out of the system they arent exempt from the affects of living as a sex class. Pointing out male priveledge does exactly the same thing. I’m abit more open to the idea it could be empowering, but so far I’ve never gotten an answer on how that doesnt boil down to the demand creating the supply. Which isnt exactly that grey area of free agency. Free agency would need to include the ability to express yourself sexually, and that doesnt happen when the money dictates exactly how you do so. And the money is held by men, who arent going to pay to see a woman sexually express herself in ways that do not appeal to men. And they dont seem to be capable of limiting it to the one woman willing to do it.
Clearly your crystal ball is broken, because I say what I mean and dont bother mincing words. It wastes my time. The idea that women who venture into the sex industry are abnormal is an idea (many) feminists are trying to fight. Its a matter of survival, not being mentally screwed up. Some feminists do however agree with that belief. That doesnt automatically make them not feminist.
What in the name of bob do you think the struggle for fair wages is? Or the struggle to view womens jobs as valuable? Or the fight to get stereotypes out of the classroom? Or the struggle to lift women out of poverty so they have more options?
etc etc…
Right.
One question, I suppose, is whether or not these things are sufficiently advanced to make this particular law useful. (I’m going with “not yet.”)
To make an analog to female circumcision — often, the best action is indirect. It is more likely to make it possible for women to make the choice not to inflict FGS on their daughters if there are viable economic options. Attacking FGS directly, and legally, has had documented & disastrous consequences.
The commercial exploitation* of teenage girls is situated deeply within our cultural context, springing out of the construction of women as sex class, objectificiation, sexual assault, the links between women’s worth and their ability to attract men, the Madonna/whore complex, and so on. As with any culturally embedded phenomenon, it’s probably best to deal with the contextual problems that create it. So, if the goal here is to stop the commercial exploitation of young girl’s sexuality, then I think I agree with A.J. that other avenues of attack are more likely than this one to make it possible for young women to make constructive choices.
*Please note the words commercial and exploitation as important facets of the behavior that I’m condemning.
pheeno, if you think those other options are so obvious, why in the name of george w. bush ;) did you imply they didn’t have a choice? I think it’s because you feel, as do I, that those options are not “real” yet. I wasn’t suggesting that other things designed to increase options didn’t exist. But seeing as they are so far per se ineffective (as the issue is still on the table and folks say they have no other options) is it a good idea to invoke a ban?
I think 21 is too old to drink and I think that there should be one legal age for everything, not some at 21 and some at 18. Nineteen or maybe 20 seems good to me. But not 21. This legal age also includes military service. It seems wrong that you can send a kid off to die but you can’t let them have a beer or pose nude.
Another thing I want to know, Garance, is why you are writing this? Have you interviewed nude models and found that they, more often than not, regret it or that the vast majority are living in shame? Where did you get your statistics? I want to see them. Are you speaking for yourself? Did you pose nude and now regret it? If so, are you in a position to speak for everyone else?
I don’t think it will ever happen, but I think there’s a lot to be said for raising the age of adulthood to 21 (at my most pessimistic I’d even say 41) across the board: to vote, to drink, to marry, to enter into contracts, etc., etc. From a moral point of view, I would include joining the military (although from a *completely* amoral, utilitarian point of view, there is an advantage to having the ranks of the military filled by young people who are physically at or near their prime, even though their mental development is less than complete).
However, if as a society we are going to say that 18 to 20 years olds have the right to enter into contracts and other business transactions (and by implication the right to make bad decisions that they will regret in the future), I really don’t see a reason to make an exception for people in that age group who agree to make porn. On the other hand, there may be some merit in providing for a cooling off period between when the pictures are taken and when they are disseminated during which time the subject (or object) of the picture can withdraw her consent to having the pictures disseminated.
There are some practical problems: 1. It’s really hard to stop someone from posting a picture on the Internet, and once it’s done, getting it off the Internet is like ringing a bell. 2. It’s my understanding that an awful lot of porn originates from other countries, so laws adopted in one country (e.g. the US) may not be all that effective in preventing the spread of porn (and the inevitable exploitation of women–and to some extent men).
I’m not sure where the “what about gay porn” argument is coming from. Did anybody understand G F-R to advocate changing the age to 21 for women but keeping it at 18 for men?
Because of the context surrounding the choice. Also, the fact that other options do exist, though they arent widely advertised and many women (and men) have no idea they even exist. The public school system (for example)likes to misinform people by telling them a HS diploma is necessary to attend college. Not true. Get a GED and go to community college for 2 years. Take your college transcripts and go to a University. They wont even look at HS if you have college credits. Single mothers get the full amounts of financial aid available and the college will help them find work, via work study or outside jobs that will allow you to make a living without having to exploit yourself and other women in the process. This information isnt widely available and it should be.
Options do exist, but they always seem to be hard vs harder. I’d like to see that change, but Im extremely wary of settling with the status quo until there are more options, because too many lives are being destroyed in the meantime. Too many women pay with their very lives because of the sex industry. And Im not too comfortable with someone elses idea of empowerment when it comes at my expense. Male or female.
Its not an easy issue. But so far, the negatives of 18 year olds in the porn industry are outweighing the positives. At least, in my POV they do.
CJ:
“Renegade, do these individuals, the older ones, generally support a person’s right to appear in pornography at 18, or do they tend to oppose it?’
Then tend to tell people they REALLY need to think about the decision before making it.
Pheeno:
“But any other industry doesnt make their money of sexually exploiting women who have been sexually abused. Nurses arent being sexually exploited. Secretaries arent being sexually exploited. Stats and research so far show a disturbing majority of women who go into sex work have been sexually abused. The industry makes money directly off that abuse.”
Modelling with clothes on? The music industry? Acting? Looks and sexuality all matter in those fields. And the industry makes money directly off of sex. Now, I know of the studies you are probably considering when pondering this…Farley’s 90% is popular. Mind you, that was a study done on street prostitutes in a few areas, not porn performers, or even a cross section of sexworkers. So far as I know, no one has ever done a Documented Study on Porn performers…those in the LA porn, the women on the internet, the women working and filming out of Miami and the Czech Republic and Canada… I’ve never seen a study focused solidly, academically, unbaisedly on women in porn, specifically. Were some of them undoubtedly abused? Yes. Is it the high number implied by Farley’s 90% of San Francisco and other assoreted street prostitutes that is so often applied to all sex workers? Somehow, I am skeptical.
“And you cannot continue to ignore the context around womens choices by just calling them choices. A choice between shit and shittier isnt some wondermous choice that is just a travesty of justice to impede. If you’re going to recognize those choices, recognize everything about them. If you’re part of an oppressed sex class its pretty hard to *volunteer* for oppression and exploitation. It gets masked as choice when it’s not so much of a choice it is being forced into a position, whether by finance or other means. It enforces the status quo, which isnt exactly condusive to women having the ability to make real choices based on more than what the system allows.”
No one makes choices in a vaccum, I get this. All humans are influenced by outside events and factors. And for some sex workers, its not a choice of shit and shittier, it’s a valid, attractive choice, actually. No one seems to care if an abused person who might be traumatized involves themselves in violent sports, or joins the military, or become a cop…having a gun or a black belt is seemingly fine, but the second they decide to screw on film…it’s all over.
“I call into question any choice made by women in a patriarchial male dominated society, not because women are incapable of making choices, but because they have no agency in the patriarchy and therefore have no say whatsoever in the context surrounding their choices.”
No agency? None at all? No say whatsoever? Well, that’s a grim world view I choose not to accept. “Why did I get out of bed and eat breakfast this morning…oh damn, the patriarchy made me do it”….
“And yes, abusers teach women their worth is their bodies. Society teaches us that. The media teaches us that. Commercials teach us that. When prostitutes or women who’ve had sex aren’t really believed as rape victims, not only is our worth measured by our bodies, its measured by our hymens and how much “use” our bodies have had. When purity balls become a popular fad, when modesty for women is hailed as good and written about and discussed, when abortion bans dont include rape or incest, when everything we read about sexuality classifies women as virgins or whores, we *are* being taught our worth lies in our bodies.
And some industries are cashing in on that. The majority are run by men.”
And women have the choice to say “fuck that noise…”
Also, Pheeno, wrt to this “When the majority of women in the sex industry are interviewed, they flat out say if they had another choice they would have chosen differently. Im not judging them, Im actually listening.”
I’d like to see that documentation, and see what brand of sex workers comprise the “majority”…
And Twisty’s post, well, a lot of people, sex worker or not, disagree with that one. A good reply and discussion of that very post can be found here:
http://persephonesboxblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/possibility-of-consent.html
I’m abit more open to the idea it could be empowering
So, which is it? Sex work is invariably a result of patriarchy making women the sex class, or it might kinda be empowering? I don’t see how you can argue both. (And please, if you say what you mean, realize that “people” include some of the people commenting here.)
Why is it terrible to exploit 18-year-olds but not as bad to exploit 21-year-olds?
Yeah. It means “Female Genital Surgeries.” It’s certainly not a perfect term, but the hope is to balance accuracy (“female circumcision” can be misleading and minimizing) with respect for some African women who feel female genital mutilation is a term that ends discussion.
Are they taking these jobs to perpetuate the idea a womans worth is found in her body? *note Im not claiming women purposely go out and try to prove all womens worth is in their bodies by the use of the word perpetuate. That is however the result of their actions.
I’ll see if I can dig up where I read this. It was either amnesty internation or another human rights org.
It is now, it could change with time if women can eventually be seen as not a sex class.
Its temporarily empowering
Its sometimes empowering to specidifc indivduals yet oppressive to the whole.
These are all ways to argue both. Its not that difficult.
Yes, Ive seen it. The response sorta falls apart for me when she asserts Twisty is claiming women are brainwashed. Im pretty sure her meaning isnt brainwashed, but more along the lines of trying to explain water to fish or white male priveldge to white men.
My questions for sex workers or women who believe it is empowering are:
If its so empowering, why havent women as a whole stopped being seen as sexulized objects by now and why hasnt the idea that sex is something women posses disappeared?
Also, does it make you feel empowered to know some of the men watching you think you’d accept being raped as long as they left money on the nightstand? Where does empowerment come to play in that?
If your idea of self empowerment is no longer bankable, and what appeals to men changes, is it empowerment to have to change to continue to make money?
And how long does this empowerment last anyway?
Oh and also
What happens when your empowerment and career directly affect mine and my ability to feed myself and my child, as well as exposes me to some rather iffy situations?
For instance, Im a massage therapist. On a daily basis I have men expecting to be able to pay me and get a rub and tug. Or see my breasts. The massage parlors that charge for happy endings directly contribute to those men thinking its acceptable. Its just a commodity to be bought and sold after all, its not like it insults me or scares me when some strange man asks for more than a legit massage. And then Im placed in a situation where I have to be polite to the fucksticks, for fear they’ll just take it anyway. I cant even express my insult because it could get me raped by a resentful man. So another womans empowerment just came at my expense and Im degraded and at risk now. And if it genuinely IS her freely made choice, and not a case of shit vs shittier but an attractive career how can I express my gratitude the next time one of her “clients” TELLS me I should be grateful he asked nicely instead of just grabbing me? ( actual words of one asshole, after talking about how the massage ladies at another place would accomadate him so whats the big deal) What should my response be if I inform them of how their actions directly affect me and they tell me it empowers them?
your empowerment
You keep throwing this word “empowerment” around. Exactly one person has referred to porn in any way as “empowering”, and that was in reference to a woman appearing in On Our Backs, which is lesbian porn (not faux-lesbian-for-men porn). You go on to conflate “sex workers” and “women who believe it is empowering”, and base an entire strawman argument on that.
Good job blaming the victim, though. Do you really think your male customers would not see you as a member of the sex class, and assume “paid to touch me” means “paid to touch me however I want her to”, if only sex workers would STFU? Do you think these were all nice guys who had no thought that they were entitled to rape, harass or insist on sex until they found porn?
Also, does it make you feel empowered to know some of the men watching you think you’d accept being raped as long as they left money on the nightstand?
Are you kidding? Some of the men watching you walk down the street think this. Some of those men think you’d accept being raped as long as they bought you dinner first. Some of them wouldn’t think of it as rape at all. Why does sex work change any of this? Because it upsets you that some pimps and slavers call their houses of prostitution “massage parlors”?
Jesse, I’m interested in your ideas about youth rights. You’ve caused me to examine some of my ageist prejudices, so thank you for that. That said, the youth rights angle is something of a distraction from the thread.
I also think you’re wrong to be advocating for the right of 18-year-old girls to be porn models. For the vast majority (yes, there are exceptions), being a porn model is not a good thing. It’s not a matter of 18-year-olds having the right to do it, it’s a matter of giving some legal protection to people who are vulnerable to exploiters and abusers. 18-year-olds are more vulnerable not because they are more stupid than 21-year-olds, but because of the way society is constructed and because they have less freedeom and economic clout.
I personally would prefer the emphasis to be on criminalizing those who sell images of people under 21, rather than those who model for such images. Overall, I think this would make things better for the 18-21 age group (possibly also for the 12-18 age group who might be less targeted by predators), and help to redress the disadvantages they have compared to older people.
It seems as though we’re getting tied up in a lot of side conversations about things of various interest. And that’s perfectly OK with me, since I’m neither a moderator nor overly fussy about thread drift.
But in the spirit of the original post:
There are youthful people, many women among them, who are being harmed by exploitation and/or abuse in the sex industries. Some of these harms may be preventable. What can we do to help the young people who are being harmed, and remedy their situation(s)?
The problem, I think, is that we can’t discuss this particular issue without getting into several different battles.
Are young people being exploited? How do we define exploitation? How do pornography, sex work, and agency function together? What is their role in society? What is adulthood, what is rationality, what is consent, what is false consciousness, and so on.
Personally, I think once Jesse has accepted that experience and biology are acceptable rationales for dealing with toddlers differently than adults, he’s conceded the ageist game. The question is just when and how it’s appropriate to bring those factors to bear, not whether or not they’re appropriate factors.
As far as sex work, agency, and the degree to which pornography is a social ill — I doubt we’re going to get any consensus about that on this thread. Which is to say that I’m not sure everyone agrees to the terms of your question, Robert. So, I’d take your question, and add some more to it…
Does anyone who is pro-feminist think that Girls Gone Wild is not exploitative? Why and how is it exploitative? Is it exploitative in ways that are different from other types of pornography? Is it possible or desirable to address those harms separately from addressing other kinds of harm?
Aside from the Girls Gone Wild case, do people feel that eighteen to twenty year olds are being harmed by sex work in ways in which older women are not? What are those abuses, specifically? Is it useful to address those abuses without addressing the rest of the system?
If we’re going to address the whole system, why and how should we do that? Is it more important to work on things like creating alternative economic routes for people who are being trapped in sex work, or are there ways to restrict the porn industry that people feel will be effective? We’ve floated waiting periods so that people are able to withdraw their consent for the use of pornographic images, and suggested greater enforcement of the rules that already exist in re: drunkenness and consent. Are those sufficient? Are they viable? Are there hidden costs to them? Are there other methods we should look into?
Does anyone pro-feminist feel that there actually is no problem here at all?
Note: If this is the general direction that Amp would like to see the conversation go in, then I respectfully suggest that he consider stepping in and requesting that the youth rights conversation be confined to the specific ways in which it addresses the intersection of consent and pornography. We’ve had requests for that at 141 (Sailorman) and 185 (Individ-ewe-al).
bean:
What an ironic sentiment from someone who has apparently lumped me into a group I don’t even belong to.
You’re right that I confused your statement with pheeno’s, though. Sorry. And if thinking that I did it because you’re both women or feminists helps you feel righteous, that’s disappointing, but who am I to burst your bubble?
Mandolin:
I don’t think I’ve said any such thing. In fact, I addressed this claim in comment #133 by pointing out elements that are lacking in a toddler’s decision making but are possessed by both an 18 and 21 year old. We can say objectively that the toddler’s decision is not informed or rational; the most we can say about the 18 year old’s decision is that some time in the future, she might wish she’d chosen differently.
pheeno,
do you see people as carrying an obligation to limit their own personal empowerment if there’s a side effect on others?
Not that I’m not talking about empowerment that is done at the expense of other people (that’s really direct oppression, not empowerment). I’m talking about the effect on an unrelated third party, like you and the ‘massage parlor’ example.
If X finds it to be empowering to be a sex worker, and if X isn’t oppressing fellow actors directly by doing so, should X be required to take the trickledown effect on you into account?
And if so: if you find it empowering to lobby against porn, should you be required to take the trickledown effect on X into account?
Because both people are in the same class, I’m not sure that it’s reasonable to focus on the effects of only one person.
Pheeno:
Re; sexwork, power & empowerment:
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2006/11/empowering-stripping-sex-work-how-hell.html
http://octogalore.blogspot.com/2007/05/dc-madam-power-rape-or-none-of-above.html
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2007/05/power-sex-work.html
Also, blaming women in sex work for the way men treat you (i.e. your massage clients) is sketchy at best. No porn performer ever made a man demand a happy ending from you, he did it himself. As for potential responses, oddly enough, I’ve been stripping and a man has assumed he would get more than that; my response was “that’s not what I am here to do, that is not what you paid me for”. Some men are pervs, yes, some are even rapists….but they are not the majority. Also, “the all you whores are making us look bad” line, which is exactly what this really boils down to, really, is old. Each and every person on the face of the earth is ultimately responsible for their own behavior. And honestly, I suspect more young women are idolizing and emulating everyone from Michelle Kwan to Pink to Condi Rice that are idolizing and emulating Jenna Jameson. Also, really, unless you are paying for Porn Gal X to live, have a roof over her head, eat, have clothing and basic human necessities, I’d avoid telling her what she can do for a living and shaming her for it by saying “but you make my life so hard!”
And if you can find that study, I am interested to see it. People forget that most of these studies are either A) funded by anti-sexwork sources or B) focuses on street prostitutes and trafficked women, yet use them a blanket truths for the WHOLE of the sex industry, from strippers to professional dominants. There are reasons “happy sex workers” rarely make it into these types of studies.
Robert:
“There are youthful people, many women among them, who are being harmed by exploitation and/or abuse in the sex industries. Some of these harms may be preventable. What can we do to help the young people who are being harmed, and remedy their situation(s)?”
Clearer contracts, safer working conditions, mandatory STD testing, more widespread condom use, unions, drug testing. It’s a start.
Mandolin:
“Does anyone who is pro-feminist think that Girls Gone Wild is not exploitative? Why and how is it exploitative? Is it exploitative in ways that are different from other types of pornography? Is it possible or desirable to address those harms separately from addressing other kinds of harm?
Aside from the Girls Gone Wild case, do people feel that eighteen to twenty year olds are being harmed by sex work in ways in which older women are not? What are those abuses, specifically? Is it useful to address those abuses without addressing the rest of the system?”
GGW is most certainly exploitive, primarily I think because it RELIES on the drunk nature of the women in it to be successful. There are not a lot of stone cold sober women in GGW videos, most of them are quite drunk, amid a pack of hollering people telling them to take it off, and many of them are not even old enough to be drinking. That disturbs me. Also, they are “paid” in t-shirts and hats. Now, most porn? Filmed in a quiet location with a few people around, with presigned contracts, and with payment.
I think the average 18 year old is not, generally, as emotionally equipped to deal with making porn and the consequences of doing so as say, the average 25 year old. That’s just been my observation.
Actually, if it’s GGW that bothers you, pass a law that makes it illegal to pay people to take their clothes off in public and take pictures of them. Be sure “pay people” includes buying them drinks as well as handing out T-shirts, etc. That’ll put a crimp in their style.
Dont confuse contribution with blame. Sex workers contribute to a very widespead societal belief that sexuality is something women own and use as power over men. Their contribution is either willing or unwilling depending on what side of the fence one sits on in regards to porn and the sex industry.
I wonder where he got the idea it was acceptable to ask in the first place? Did he just pull the belief out of thin air? Or has an industry that treats sex and womens bodies as commodoties contributed to it? And if you are a willing part of that industry, do you have any role in it?
Unless the behavior is willingly choosing an attractive career that contributes to societal beliefs about women?
We live in a rape culture and you cant ignore the fact that certain behaviors and beliefs contribute to it.
Nope. Porn just confirms it.
Funny, we were discussing the women who are insulted by being considered victims. So if they arent the victims, I can hardly be blaming the victim. If they arent in fact victims, then why shouldnt their behavior be looked at as well? You cant have it both ways. If, as RE, suggests, she herself wasnt a victim in choosing her career and it was a freely made choice exempt from the patrarchial context then why cant her behavior and possible affects be questioned?
So why encourage it?
Because it contributes to the mentality as opposed to say, fighting it.
Yes, the real fear of rape even while Im at work does tend to be *upsetting*.
I have to worry about it at home, when Im out AND get the added bonus of my workplace as a possible Unsafe Zone.
Yay.
“Why does sex work change any of this?”
Is it fun living in Denial Bizzaro world? What about sex work DOESN’T affect this attitude? What about sex work DOESN’T reinforce, exaserbate and justify this attitude?
Wake up.
Porn/purchasing sex is not a right. It is not harmless fun. People are harmed by it and those people are not just immature teenaged girls. Perhaps if the damage to men and boys is highlighted, perhaps then you will take the problem seriously?
pheeno:
I think almost all women, regardless of their careers, worry about being raped. However, when a man rapes a woman, it is HIS fault, not porn, not the people in porn, his…the bad act is his, the blame is his.
Now, I’ve heard the “porn makes men think this is okay” argument 10000000 times now. YES, porn can negatively affect some men…MOST of whom already had a host of issues with socialization and women anyway. I do NOT think porn makes “men”…all of them, the normal ones, what have you, rapists. Just like I don’t buy that Marilyn Manson caused the Columbine shootings, or that other things, from music, to movies, to books, to video games, MAKE people commit bad acts. People commit those acts- not the movie, show, song, or game. And the responsibility rests with the person who committed whatever act.
As for my job creating a bad image for women? Well, lets talk about that for a moment. It’s be my (and I repeat, my) experience that women treat me far worse than men do. I’ve also seen women who claim to be feminists or at least interested in feminism mock, attack, threaten and insult sex workers, at home mothers, models, women who claim to like make up and heels, female lawyers, willing at home and not in public BDSM enthusiasts and say some really nasty, violent things about MEN…not rapists, not Joe the GGW guy, but men in general. I don’t think the image I present while earning a living is any more unflattering that the image these women present, and the looks, reactions and comments one gets for saying “I support feminism” are no less odd than the ones a person gets when saying “I do porn”. But really, that is neither here nor there. The sex industry is a reality. It’s not going anywhere, and rather than worry about how my chosen profession affects your image with men, my concerns rest more with keeping the women in this industry as safe as possible, getting those who want out, out, and seeing that legally they are viewed as HUMAN BEINGS…and treated as such, which is not the case all too often. You get harassed at work? You can probably complain to your boss and black ball the customer. Not so for many of these women.
So a woman who is paid to take her clothes off is “encouraging” men to believe she would be happy to be forced to have sex as long as they left a tip afterward? What is she doing, beaming rape fantasies by telepathy? Men never got the idea that women are the sex class until they picked up a copy of Playboy?
If, as RE, suggests, she herself wasnt a victim in choosing her career and it was a freely made choice exempt from the patrarchial context then why cant her behavior and possible affects be questioned?
By all means, question them. Just don’t pretend that you’re really just trying to help the poor dears get past their false consciousness.
Also, just because it needs to be pointed out and all…violence against women, violence against young women, girls, the expolitation and rape of those women and girls? Such things do happen in cultures where pornography is illegal. Such things happened long before porn was widely available via VHS, DVD, and the Internet….
bean;
“Do women own any of the responsibility? If not, how can they be viewed as or expect to be treated as responsible adults?”
No woman deserves to be raped no matter what she does. Pretty basic, isn’t it?
Soo…what? None of it contributes anything at all to our culture? All porn exists in a vaccum and has zero affect on culture or society? Well thats convenient isnt it?
Then its a good thing Im not arguing it MAKES them do anything isnt it? Im arguing that it CONTRIBUTES to a CULTURE that has sexist beliefs against women and it does NOTHING to combat those beliefs, but does in fact CONTRIBUTE to that overall belief.
And if you chose freely of your own will and I take your word for that and respect the way you define your life anc choices, then you freely chose to contribute to that culture and are RESPONSIBLE for that contribution. JUST the contribution, not rape.
Im not. Im going on their word that they indeed chose freely and without false conciousness. Which means they are a part of that industry and have a role in its affect on our society. Just like porn producers, porn companies, porn buyers ect.
Do they get that idea confirmed or rejected by picking up a Playboy?
I guess my problem with analyzing gay porn through the window of heterosexual relationships (gay bottoms are just ‘women-in-disguise’ and all that crap) is that it’s the quintessential case of intellectually theorizing from outside a situation.
As in, “I have this big theory that explains everything, but it doesn’t explain you, so instead of realizing that my theory is lacking, I will change you to make you fit my theory.”
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and I just find this particular nailing somewhat implausible.
Not to mention insulting.
And deeply homophobic.
—-Myca
Pheeno:
“Soo…what? None of it contributes anything at all to our culture? All porn exists in a vaccum and has zero affect on culture or society? Well thats convenient isnt it?”
I did not say that. I did not even really imply that, in fact, I said in a previous comment that porn can and probably does affect some men negatively, did I not? Yet, blaming the porn is also all too convenient, isn’t it. Why look at crappy sex education systems, crap mental health care, crap effort on the part of educators and parents to teach children about sex, respect, and relationships, and the messages put out in the media overall, from network primetime tv to popular music when we can blame it on the porn? As I explained once upon a time, my job is adult entertainer, not sex educator. It is not my job to teach the male youth of the world what their parents and actual educators should be teaching them.
As for contributing to the culture, easy to blame that on the porn too, isn’t it? And the people willingly doing it, of course. So, porn performers are either victims or a predator/enablers, then, is it? Convenient.
I don’t think so. Porn is not the root cause, no matter what anyone wants to say, and there are just as many, more in fact, violent and sexually violent messages on primetime network TV as there are in porn. Don’t believe me? Check out any of the Law & Order franchises, or any of the CSI franchises, Cold Case, Navy NCIS, The Profiler, Shark, or just about any other big network television show. Oh, and something you might notice on those? The women in normal fields who end up victims are treated as victims, the sex workers, well, they deserved it. Trust me, society does not view a legit massage therapist the same way they view a porn performer…
And playboy magazine has never depicted a rape scene. What one sees in playboy is not so different than what one sees on the beaches of the world on a hot day.
Evidently, you’ve forgotten my post where I list some of those exact things, like media.
It either contributes or it doesnt. And not all sexist men are some abnormal “other” removed from everyone else, incidentally.
Victims can be unwilling/unwitting enablers as well. But in no way is porn exempt from not making a contribution.
No one HAS said that.
Pheeno, Bean-
How we got from age 21 to this is interesting, yet it seems to be where all conversations about porn go eventually…
I look at it this way. Yes, I am willing in the business I am in. I do not think porn, or any other type of sex work is some bastion of empowerment for women as a whole. I do think it can contribute negatively to the way some people (not just men, but women as well) view some types of women (generally those in the business), or even, on rare occasions, women as a whole. I think over exposure to porn can be bad, once again, for some people, just like over exposure to anything, from booze to disel fumes, can be bad for some people.
However, I am not in the business of nor of the mind to tell adults where and how they can find their entertainment and “vice”, as it were, so long as it is found consentingly. I do not believe in telling people what they can and cannot do as general rule, and I believe in holding people, not things, responsible for their bad actions. Does porn contribute to…what…in essence boils down to the “slutification of the western world?” It may very well. In some cases, it certainly does, for some men and women alike, warp or color their ideas for that. I accept that, sure. I will not deny the fact that perhaps out there, somewhere, I myself, or the industry as a whole, have given the impression to some men that ALL women like asex they way they see it in porn or given some young women the misguided idea that in order to be attractive they have to get implants and do anal sex or something. Am I going to fall all over myself appologizing for it, or say I hate my job and nothing but evil comes from the industry itself? No, I’m not, because I do not believe, nor have my exeperiences, shown that to be true.
I think people, all people, face a lot of pressure in life, pressure to conform, not to conform, to look, act, feel, behave a certain way, and a lot of those pressures are conflicting, and they come from all sides. Ultimately, I think most people find their own ideas and headspace that fits them. Yes, porn, raunch culture, whatever the heck term you want to use can be among those pressures…just like the church, peer groups, political movements, and countless other things. So while yes, what I do can be a factor, it is one of thousands of other factors and contributing sources…and I am not going to take the blame for it, nor should the industry, nor should any other one influence. I’ve never forced anyone to get naked, have sex, or film it in my life, nor dress in certain manner, nor treat women in a certain manner, nor any other such thing. My industry as a whole might influence such things in some people, but it is one of countless influences, and I don’t really believe in demonizing those things for all, above all others.
I hope that makes sense, because it’ about as plain and flat out as it gets.
“I guess my problem with analyzing gay porn through the window of heterosexual relationships (gay bottoms are just ‘women-in-disguise’ and all that crap) is that it’s the quintessential case of intellectually theorizing from outside a situation.”
Right. I see what you’re saying. FTR, I wasn’t endorsing Twisty (I actually just have no idea what I think about a lot of these issues), just linking to her in response to someone’s question about what she thought.
I don’t think you’re reducing the argument perfectly, though. I know people float the women-in-disguise thing, but my impression was that Twisty’s argument was more… heck, almost philosophical? We know that human brains seem to really enjoy the concept of binary opposition, which creates self/other. If you assume (as Twisty’s doing) that the primary self/other relationship is male/female, then you can argue that *all* other self/other relationships are derived from that, sexual or otherwise. Not just romance, gay or straight, but business, friendships, parenting, keeping pets, partnering for other activities, waving hello on the street.
I think this notion, like most attempts to peer into prehistory and guess how it affects modern psychology, is unsubstantiated. However, as a theoretical model, I think it can yield some interesting perspectives, in much the same way that the equivalent model for race (the original self/other relationship is my-group/out-group) can, or for that matter, the same way that Freudian analysis can.
Right, but that’s part of my issue . . . her ‘big theory of everything’ seems to have been constructed without spending a lot of time talking to the parts of ‘everything’ that lie outside her direct experience.
I mean, I’ve seen gay porn where the same person tops and bottoms in different scenarios . . . who’s the ‘other’ there? What if you’re a dominant bottom? What if you’re a submissive top? Things don’t always break down to male/female oppressor/oppressed, and it just seems like there are a lot of folks who try to force that paradigm where it doesn’t fit.
—Myca
Bean, there’s nothing wrong with any individual TV creator producing a new TV series in which the protagonist is male. Yet when all these TV creators acting (seemingly) independently produce a collective TV season in which 70 or 80 percent of TV series protagonists are male, that’s a problem. It’s the pattern that’s problematic, not each individual decision.
Similarly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any individual feminist critiquing porn, or sex work. But there is an overall pattern in which, collectively, feminists are singling out porn and sex work for a much larger and harsher degree of criticism than other genres. That’s a legitimate thing for sex workers (or anyone else, I suppose) to object to.
Bean:
Hell, even I occasionally critique or criticize porn and sex work :)
As Amp alluded to above, it becomes…tedious…when someone in the business, now or previously, who does not fit the popularized role (hated it, victimized by it, so on) offers opinions on ANY aspect of it, and suddenly it becomes “don’t you SEE what YOU & YOUR business are doing to the rest of us”…which, while not a direct quote, is a vibe picked up easily enough in this thread, and countless ones similar to it throughout the blogosphere. There is no such thing, or at least it is terribly rare, as a civil conversation about porn. I’ve come to know this. I think most people have come to know this. Part of the reason you rarely hear from people in the business who, well, like or at least don’t hate it? Because they get singled out and well, yeah, abused, for not falling in line with feminist critique of porn. Why get involved in a discussion where sooner or later, directly or in a round about way, you-personally- are going to get blamed for rape, sexual abuse, and the majority of what is wrong with sex and sexuality in the western world? It’s like walking into a door, then doing it again, and again…
This thread started on a question about raising the age of consent in porn to 21. I think it is a good idea for hardcore porn (simplified, that which involves penetration) because of what I’ve seen and heard. Just my opinion, no one has to agree with it or like it. This thread became yet another in a long line of threads about “the evils of pornography”…
I’m in the hate the game not the player mode of thinking. Women have the least say in the industry. If we’re going to blame anyone, it’s directors, producers and buyers of porn who are mostly male. Women are economically disadvantaged and often strip or pose to get through college or whatever. There was a young woman on Feministing recently who commented that she strips to pay for college. It’s a feminist stance because she has to do it to pay for college. I’ll bet it pays more than working at fastfood restaurant.
Some fascinating argument. I’m getting the impression that a lot of folks here have no experience of a non-porno society. You know, a society in which selling a copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover or The Well of Loneliness or Maurice or Ullysses would have been courting a bust for trafficking in pornography.
I bring this up because it seems to me that if we are going to argue about the relative importance of pornography to the larger question of women’s status and treatment, the first logical step would to compare current conditions to those that existed prior to the legalization of pornography.
Is anyone willing to argue that the objective condition of women in say 1950 was less oppressive than the present? Can it be shown that the advent of legal pornography parallels a decline in the status of women? Are women today more, or less subject to violence, assault or rape than 50 years ago .?
I think that the answers to these questions would be far more pertinent to a serious discussion than apriori theoretical constructs. I recognize that there are difficulties in compiling accurate data but surely some work has been done in this area? Or are the arguments all based on deductive supposition?
Speaking of theory. Mandolin, Thanks for the links. Twisty is certainly a lively and gifted writer. Alas, not lively or gifted enough to overcome the reductionism of her first post. I think the most outstanding irony it contained follows:
our world order is predicated on binary sex roles, one of which is privileged and dominant, the other of which is oppressed and submissive.
Yet even as she appears to deplore this state of affairs it’s evident that she embraces it as a primary foundation of her theoretical construct as well as a fundamental principal of her own politics. Her’s is a manichean conception where biology is destiny as surely as it is in the preachments of reactionary patriarchs such as Robertson, Dobson or Perkins.
All the tropes she employs struck me as far more plausible when I first heard them more than 35 years ago. Of course, many things seemed plausible in those days. Yet, even then there was a hint of mechanistic mustiness about these formulations. No doubt due to the adoption of so many elements of an already obsolescent 19th century Marxism, combined with crude analogies to nationalist struggles.
The reification of social relations into absolute categories of victim and oppressor. The fact that large numbers of the oppressed either do not recognize their condition, actively embrace it or otherwise dissent from from the accepted theory explained away as false consciousness. The theory of false consciousness in turn used validate the role of an enlightened vanguard. All carrying a very radical flavor. It’s easy to see why the lone individual, struggling against the weight of patriarchical tradition and the constant of sexual exploitation would find such conceptions empowering, inspiring, even liberating.
There’s a difficulty though. After nearly 4 decades it’s necessary to ask what this variety of radicalism has accomplished . Now one can argue that the theoretical concepts championed by twisty contributed to the larger struggle for women’s rights and I certainly wouldn’t dispute that. When we inquire as to more tangible accomplishments though, the record is more than a little skimpy.
Judging from what I read , I suspect that twisty would consider most of what is described as advancement for women over the last 4 decades to be reformist accomodation to the Patriarchy. Take the right to reproductive freedom for example. This is widely considered to be a profound and necessary precondition for the liberation of women. Yet it can be and has been argued that its establishment actually constitutes another means by which the Patriarchy maintains women’s sexual accessibility to men. I wouldn’t be surprised if twisty was sympathetic to this argument. It would be of a piece with her overall view that not much has really changed. The Patriarchy rules and everything in our society and culture that does not directly challenge her conception of male domination objectively supports and cultivates the oppression of women.
This continues the parallel with obsolete Marxism, wherein every reformist gain is simply a snare of the oppressor class that deludes the oppressed and delays the day liberation.
The fundamental problem I have with Twisty’s brand of radical feminist analysis is two fold. First, I don’t think it’s an analysis so much as it is a rationale for social and political irrelevance. Secondly and connected with the first, I don’t see much radical about it other than its rejectionist posture. Accepting existing inequities as so pervasive as to divide the world between a few righteous non-participants and the many who are labeled as active collaborators, hardly constitutes a radical challenge to the status quo.
It does constitute an ideology well suited to small communities of true believers who are uninterested in the complexities, ambiguities and heartbreak of actual social-political struggles. That’s not to say that it excludes participation in such struggles. It does lend such action a very particular character though. When you look at the world through a telescope of theory, your vision may reach farther but all you will see is a magnified detail rather than the broad sweep. You’ll be blind to those beside you and overlook what is immediately before you.
Which brings me to the second link you provided Mandolin. I’d thought that the post would elaborate on Twisty’s comment about Gay men being men. I was sadly disappointed. Her point actually seems to be that Gay Male porn isn’t germane to her argument because Gay men are, well, men. This isn’t terribly logical though, since she is the one who made the sweeping declaration that all porn was the graphic depiction of patriarchy and male oppression of the sex class. It looks very much as though she is simply dismissing that which contradicts her assumptions. Does she engage in the same cavalier dismissal regarding lesbian porn? If she is really only talking about hetero porn why not say so? Given her general theoretical frame, that porn reinforces the patriarchy, I’d say she is obligated to explain how and why this does or doesn’t apply to gay and lesbian porn.
Regarding your discription of the dominance and submission subtext of pornography, I’d say that Twisty goes much farther. She flatly denies the possibility of agency for women who participate in porn. In Twisty’s view, the Patriarchy is so pervasive and controlling that no one is really capable of making such a choice, even if they believe that they have done.
MRA’s and anti feminists also say the same thing about rape, the wage gap, reproduction rights etc.. I hope you’re not making a variation of ” Im sick of hearing about it so people should just stop talking about it”
Perhaps thats because when those of us who do say ” Ok, I accept and respect you defining your experience in the industry” (meaning I accept your differering opinion that varies from the victim, hated it etc) we dont get the same response when we define how that industry you’re a part of affects US.
Pheeno:
I just don’t see why EVERY thread on porn has to become…the same thread? All the time? Every time? Without failure?
And I believe I did acknowledge that I am part of an industry that affects people, in a great variety of ways.
I’d say that has more to do with people’s opinions not changing and there not being an varied amount of opinions on it. It’s not that different from discussions on any subject, really. Most discussions on abortion are the same discussion, different players.
And I took you at your word and didnt insist you just must not realize how your choice was made. So see? This discussion on it *is* a bit different than the norm. Progress. ;)