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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The government, porn and censorship
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It is not a zero-sum equation.
Simply because other abuses exist, this does not mean working against porn is bad.
And I am fairly certain that the actual slavery used by some porn is difficult to top, abuse wise.
Exactly.
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But Cod didn't say that. His/her point is surely that if exploitation is really the issue with porn, then we would expect that campaigners to be up in arms against other forms of exploitation, and working actively to end them. Maybe they are.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Just another form of English puritanism, isn't it?
Some of us are indeed beginning get the feeling that a secular form of puritanism is creeping in through the back door, disguised as political correctness , aided and abetted by vocal minorities.
Or is it just us fellows mourning the passing of a male dominant society where the women folk were there simply to be protected, patronised or drooled over on the quiet ?
At the Catholic schools I attended, mid-80s, liberal and feminist anti-porn arguments dovetailed well with the official Catholic line, at least post-V2. In fact, my feminist-ish religion teacher was much more uncompromising in her condemnation of porn than she was about abortion, on which we were allowed to discuss the merits of pro-choice arguments. Possibly this reflected a female-centric bias, since the pro-choice arguments usually focussed on the well-being of the pregnant woman.
And yes, I too conisder the anti-porn movement a modern-day version of the old anti-vice crusades, eg. prohibition etc, which overlapped majorly with feminism.
H.L. Mencken made an amusing observation about the women involved in those earlier movements. He opined that they had an exaggerated view of just how debauched the average male was, and that furthermore, they got this view partly from listening to male preachers. The preachers in turn derived their view from thinking, quite delusionally(in Mencken's view) "If I myself were not saved, I surely would be the biggest skirt-chasing rogue in existence".
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Stetson
Yes, there seems to be a multi-layered structure of fantasies about porn. A lot of porn is fantasy stuff, well maybe all of it; and then there are numerous fantasies about what porn means, what its effects are, who uses it, its significance, and so on.
I think this is one reason that it is rather dizzying to deconstruct all of this. Linda Williams used to stop people in their tracks by asking, 'what does porn mean, and how do you know?' Well, there are some obvious answers to that, and maybe they are also fantasies.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
What about gay (visual) porn? ISTM that porn / ponographic images produced for heterosexual men are an easier target, but await correction.
I'm guessing 7 and 8 year olds viewing gay porn on their smart-phones is pretty much what Mr. C has on his mind, even though he's never going to admit to it.
The Western heterosexual man is taking a bit of a drubbing in general these days , so a small group of feminists taking away his page 3 lovelies is something of a side issue .
When it comes to porn and exploitation , (and it's something that crops up many times on these threads), who, exactly, is exploiting who ?
Surely it's simply just a supply and demand thing where the suppliers , provided they work in affluent areas, are handsomely rewarded.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I don't think anything being taken away is a side issue. It raises important issues about censorship and free speech.
Thus: who decides what is taken away? How is this decision arrived at? On what grounds? Is this all discussed openly in the 'public square', or is it hidden away in some political smoke-filled room? Who are the interested parties? Are the relevant discussions going to be published for public scrutiny?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
I concede to using some flippancy on the 'side issue' bit . It seems though , as often is the case when hot topics are in the spotlight, more than one thing is going on , and pressure groups are keen to stamp out all the perceived embers.
The British appetite for titillation goes a long long way back, and the simplest antidote for the page 3 girl is a page 4 man IMO .
As for the psychological damage done to young minds from the continual viewing of hard-porn ,( provided there is evidence to support that), people are naturally going to look to their government in order to restrict it .
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, but the arguments over the damage done by porn tend to be ideological. If you already believe hard porn is a bad thing, then naturally you will find 'evidence' that it is damaging; if you don't, then you won't.
The arguments that it is sexist are different; but they have to answer the charge that great chunks of popular culture are sexist (e.g. the fashion industry).
I suppose then a critic might say, yes, but porn is worse. Now we are back to subjective interpretations, and you can argue the reverse, that page 3 and the Daily Mail 'sidebar of shame' is worse, because it is mainstream, and accepted by politicians.
Many of the arguments are suffused with political and ideological positions, which are often covert.
And then there is free speech.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Mogwai
Shipmate
# 13555
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Posted
What about free speech?
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:love:
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
The British appetite for titillation goes a long long way back, and the simplest antidote for the page 3 girl is a page 4 man IMO .
Hm? The Sun papers in the UK don't already do that? Their imitators in Canada have been doing it since they set up shop in the 1970s.
Sunshine Girls
Ah. Looking for some Boy photos, I found out that the feature was discontinued in 2006. But the boy was a daily feature prior to that.
As for the Girl, at least in Edmonton, I think she's been moved to the sports page in the print edition. I'm not sure what section the boy was in.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Interesting point about young girls, some of whom (in England anyway), seem to be very anxious about their body image, diet, clothes, weight, sexuality, and so on. In more extreme cases, this can lead to eating problems, such as anorexia, or self-harming, and other symptoms.
Is this attributable to porn? Well, it might be, but one might also cite the fashion industry, the image of women in popular magazines and newspapers, the emphasis on female celebs, and so on.
Should we then make the fashion industry illegal? Unlikely. Of course, you can campaign against very thin models, and so on.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Interesting point about young girls, some of whom (in England anyway), seem to be very anxious about their body image, diet, clothes, weight, sexuality, and so on. In more extreme cases, this can lead to eating problems, such as anorexia, or self-harming, and other symptoms.
Is this attributable to porn? Well, it might be, but one might also cite the fashion industry, the image of women in popular magazines and newspapers, the emphasis on female celebs, and so on.
Based on my anecdotal(yet fairly consistent) experience as a male growing up in the 70s/80s, I'd have to surmise that the fashion industry is a far bigger influence on adolescent girls than porn is.
I knew quite a few girls who claimed to have looked at porn, but not many of them evinced anything like the interest that teenaged boys did. For most of them, it was just something they looked at out of curiousity, and the reactions seemed to run a rather narrow gamut between dismissive disgust and mild amusement.
Whereas I wouldn't have to present a very detailed case to prove that many girls were paying close attention to what the fashion industry was doing. Even if a few skin mags went overboard in emphasizing the "perfect figure" thing(and a lot of them didn't), they'd still be outnumbered by a far larger volume of such material coming from fashion publications and whatnot.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
And fashion seems to favour tall thin models, doesn't it? Well, my wife works with young women a lot, (as a therapist), and she thinks that some of them hate their bodies for being too fat. I don't think that would come from porn, would it?
The curious thing in England is that the Daily Mail (arch-enemy of porn), seems to reinforce this scrutiny of the female body! Well, not just the DM, of course.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
And fashion seems to favour tall thin models, doesn't it? Well, my wife works with young women a lot, (as a therapist), and she thinks that some of them hate their bodies for being too fat. I don't think that would come from porn, would it?
No, I don't think it would. Though, depending on what type of porn a girl is looking at(I'm thinking Playboy and Paul Raymond here), she might be getting misleading messages about "perfect" breasts or other body parts.
But that does not neccessarily correlate with thinness. And anyway, fetishization of body parts is such a major aspect of mainstream media, the stuff in porn would be a drop in the bucket.
Overall, I think the biggest psychological risk from porn would be that it presents wildly unrealistic sexual scenarios which naive individuals may take as accurate representations of reality. That probably applies more to males than to females.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Hm? The Sun papers in the UK don't already do that? Their imitators in Canada have been doing it since they set up shop in the 1970s.
Sunshine Girls
Those Sunshine girls look overdressed for The Sun in the UK. They would be topless, with a short titillating comment asking men to fantasise about them.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Antisocial Alto
Shipmate
# 13810
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Overall, I think the biggest psychological risk from porn would be that it presents wildly unrealistic sexual scenarios which naive individuals may take as accurate representations of reality. That probably applies more to males than to females.
Yeah- what men expect their female partners to do in bed is definitely changing because of porn. Anal and Brazilian waxes, 'nuff said. Boys being exposed to tons of porn before they have any experience with a real girl is also really warping their beliefs about what female bodies look like and what women enjoy in bed. I have heard stories of teenage boys shocked to find that girls actually have pubic hair.
I can speak to this one. I hope it's not TMI to say that my husband, raised by fundies who wouldn't let him date in high school or college, got all his sexual knowledge before marriage from viewing porn on the sly. He really believed that women wanted to be humiliated and treated roughly in bed. It was hard for us to work past.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Hm? The Sun papers in the UK don't already do that? Their imitators in Canada have been doing it since they set up shop in the 1970s.
Sunshine Girls
Those Sunshine girls look overdressed for The Sun in the UK. They would be topless, with a short titillating comment asking men to fantasise about them.
Well you know, Canada, despite all the largely self-showered congratulation about same-sex marriage, does carry a reputation for having inherited the most puritan aspects of British culture. This image has especially befallen Toronto, which for many years bore the weight of an unflattering epithet to that effect.
"Toronto The Good" more or less correlates with "Banned In Boston" as a cultural indicator. Interestingly, it was that other puritan backwater, Massachusetts, which was the first state to recognize same-sex marriages, even beating Canada as a whole in that regard.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Well you know, Canada, despite all the largely self-showered congratulation about same-sex marriage, does carry a reputation for having inherited the most puritan aspects of British culture. ...
Maybe it's our Canadian puritanism that wants gay and lesbian couples to get married before having sex. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
That isn't my argument. My argument is that if ending exploitation etc is really the motive there are better targets than porn and that these better targets are overlooked indicates that exploitation etc isn't actually the motive.
Or alternatively it tells us that different people fight exploitation in different ways. Some people see one form as the worst and oppose that. Others fight other aspects. Personally I think sexual exploitation is far and away the worst form of exploitation, but others may think that people in Asia being paid less than we are is the worst.
I think they are being wrongheaded and their priorities are skewed, but I wouldn't sneer at their motives or say its all just Victorian prudishness.
Or at least not denigratively. We should be so lucky to have people like the Victorian social reformers in our own age. Stetson likens anti-porn campaigns to prohibition in an attempt to denigrate it. I would liken it to the factory and mine reforms or the anti-slavery movements of the 19th century. Standing up for moral campaigns is not a bad thing and its incredible that people mention prohibition or Mary Whitehouse and everyone assumes all moral campaigns are bad. Just because prohibition didn't work didn't mean their motives weren't right. It was an attempt to replicate the good work of the gin acts of the 18th century. Moral campaigners fight for the betterment of society and the people who live in it. The Victorians moral campaigners fought with courage and determination against entrenched ignorance and uncaring attitudes.
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
When it comes to porn and exploitation , (and it's something that crops up many times on these threads), who, exactly, is exploiting who ?
Surely it's simply just a supply and demand thing where the suppliers , provided they work in affluent areas, are handsomely rewarded.
Pimps are rewarded. Prostitutes are beaten. Strip club owners are rich, strippers desperately scrounge for tips. To assume the money always trickles down to the worker is naive. If a sex worker, it is even more naive.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Well you know, Canada, despite all the largely self-showered congratulation about same-sex marriage, does carry a reputation for having inherited the most puritan aspects of British culture. ...
Maybe it's our Canadian puritanism that wants gay and lesbian couples to get married before having sex.
Possibly something to that, actually, although not as directly as you jokingly suggest.
I don't know if you've ever read The Joy Of Presbyterian Sex by Camille Paglia, but she makes the argument that liberal protestant churches which were oh-so-happy to embrace gays in the 90s often did so, consciously or otherwise, by removing the more socially deviant(and in Paglia's view, vital) aspects of sex. To paraphrase: "They want nice, hand-holidng middle class gay couples, not leather men or toilet cruisers."
A brief summary of Paglia's essay
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Hawk wrote:
quote:
We should be so lucky to have people like the Victorian social reformers in our own age. Stetson likens anti-porn campaigns to prohibition in an attempt to denigrate it.
For the record, I wasn't really trying to denigrate the campaigns by comparing them to prohibition, I just thought it was historically accurate to posit the connection. Though I guess since prohibition is now recoginzed as a disastrous failure, the comparison is certainly open to a negative reading.
I do recognize that the prohibtionists were responding to genuine social problems. It's just that their solution amounted to a futile war against basic cultural tendencies(and let's be honest here, was more than a little informed by class and race prejudice). I think the same thing is more or less true of the left-wing anti-pornography movement.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
I would liken it to the factory and mine reforms or the anti-slavery movements of the 19th century.
Might be a workable comparison, if the anti-porn movement had confined itself to eliminating material that involved the use of actual people in its production.
However, that was never really their primary concern. They were essentially trying to eliminate the ideas that pornography conveyed. They objected to written and drawn material as much as they objected to photographs and movies.
It would be as if the factory-reformers in the 19th Century had busied themselves with trying to ban works of fiction that portrayed captains-of-industry in a positive light.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
There is also the phenomenon of moving the goal posts about porn. We see it here - first, it's 'oh think of the children', then it's the denigration of women via sexual imagery, then it's the exploitation of the porn actors, then it's personal disgust.
Kind of a moving target!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There is also the phenomenon of moving the goal posts about porn. We see it here - first, it's 'oh think of the children', then it's the denigration of women via sexual imagery, then it's the exploitation of the porn actors, then it's personal disgust.
Kind of a moving target!
That's because its such a big problem with so many interconnected multi-faceted aspects. If you want to simplify all of that into one easily dismissed 'target' that's your lookout. Just don't expect other people to play your game.
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
...if the anti-porn movement had confined itself to eliminating material that involved the use of actual people in its production.
However, that was never really their primary concern.
Who's this 'they' you're referring to of which you have such a deep understanding of their motives and thoughts? I'm not aware of one homogenous group authority on anti-porn myself. Lots of different people and groups have lots of different ideas about it. Shocking I know!
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I do recognize that the prohibtionists were responding to genuine social problems. It's just that their solution amounted to a futile war against basic cultural tendencies
So is every moral campaign. Doesn't mean we shoudn't try and make things better though.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Hawk wrote:
quote:
Who's this 'they' you're referring to of which you have such a deep understanding of their motives and thoughts? I'm not aware of one homogenous group authority on anti-porn myself.
Well, you seemed to have a pretty clear handle on what the "factory and mine reforms" and "anti-slavery movemments" were all about...
quote:
Stetson likens anti-porn campaigns to prohibition in an attempt to denigrate it. I would liken it to the factory and mine reforms or the anti-slavery movements of the 19th century.
quote:
Just because prohibition didn't work didn't mean their motives weren't right. It was an attempt to replicate the good work of the gin acts of the 18th century.
So, you seem to think(quite reasonably) that we can talk about those C19 movements as having a consistent focus among their followers, even though there were many of them, and possibly some who didn't share all the stated goals of the movement overall.
I have read a fair bit of stuff written by feminist anti-pornography campaigners of the 1970s/80s. And I could give you a list of writers who thought that written and drawn material was as bad as photographed and filmed. This is because their main rationale for regulating it was not harm to the participants, but harm to the overall society.
I will say that my comments were largely about the feminist anti-pornography movement which had its glory days around thirty years ago. I think someone like David Cameron today is pursuing a slightly different agenda, the ideological underpinnings of which have been discussed elsewhere on this thread.
(edited for punctuation)
[ 05. August 2013, 19:16: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Overall, I think the biggest psychological risk from porn would be that it presents wildly unrealistic sexual scenarios which naive individuals may take as accurate representations of reality. That probably applies more to males than to females.
Yeah- what men expect their female partners to do in bed is definitely changing because of porn. Anal and Brazilian waxes, 'nuff said. Boys being exposed to tons of porn before they have any experience with a real girl is also really warping their beliefs about what female bodies look like and what women enjoy in bed. I have heard stories of teenage boys shocked to find that girls actually have pubic hair.
I can speak to this one. I hope it's not TMI to say that my husband, raised by fundies who wouldn't let him date in high school or college, got all his sexual knowledge before marriage from viewing porn on the sly. He really believed that women wanted to be humiliated and treated roughly in bed. It was hard for us to work past.
Not TMI and very relevant, in my opinion.
I imagine that the number of teenage boys who are shocked to discover pubic hair on women is probably pretty small. I reckon it would have caused more shock on wedding nights back in the Victorian age when porn wasn't available to many people at all.
The only exposure to porn I ever had when growing up was a) a half-glance at a magazine being chucked around on the train to school and b) the occasional Page 3. I remember being .. well, shocked and intimidated the first time I saw a naked woman - my girlfriend of the time in her bed as it happens.
I don't see that comparative ignorance of what the female body looks like is really preferable, and in any event, whether this is really a problem depends on what sort of porn is actually commonly viewed. An interesting point raised in the Radio 4 programme I referenced earlier is that according to Internet searches, the type of porn most commonly sought out isn't particularly unrepresentative of reality. Most commonly, it is young women of average slimness, and not just young women either. It appears that heterosexual men's taste in porn is surprisingly normal.
It was also pointed out that porn didn't seem to tie in with aggressive sexual behaviour except in those who appear to have had problems with aggression beforehand.
Another point worth noting is that when the topic of pubic topiary is raised on Internet forums, time and again, the men express no preference or, frequently, preference for au naturel.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
That isn't my argument. My argument is that if ending exploitation etc is really the motive there are better targets than porn and that these better targets are overlooked indicates that exploitation etc isn't actually the motive.
Or alternatively it tells us that different people fight exploitation in different ways. Some people see one form as the worst and oppose that. Others fight other aspects. Personally I think sexual exploitation is far and away the worst form of exploitation, but others may think that people in Asia being paid less than we are is the worst.
I think having a factory collapse on your head, or dying of silicosis is worse than being under the delusion that taking off one's clothes for the camera constitutes a decent day's work for substantially more than the minimum wage - if delusion it is.
I have no doubt that plenty of porn is produced through exploitation, and I believe more should be done to prevent this. However, the argument raised by anti-porn campaigners is that porn is necessarily exploitative of those making it. This argument, as far as I can tell, assumes that anyone involved in porn, down to the women on page 3 of the Sun are suffering from false consciousness, and if they were made aware of their true dignity they wouldn't do it. This is a very different definition of exploitation and one which, with respect, doesn't compare with those who toil in the garment factories of Bangladesh.
quote:
Stetson likens anti-porn campaigns to prohibition in an attempt to denigrate it. I would liken it to the factory and mine reforms or the anti-slavery movements of the 19th century. Standing up for moral campaigns is not a bad thing and its incredible that people mention prohibition or Mary Whitehouse and everyone assumes all moral campaigns are bad.
Naturally I think campaigns to promote the morals I believe in are good.
I think the proper equivalent to the very valuable factory and mine campaigns of the nineteenth century would be similar campaigns to protect the rights of people producing porn. I would absolutely support such a campaign.
Victorian reformers didn't advocate the closing down of industries - not even the white lead factories or match factories, which were particularly dangerous to work in.
quote:
Pimps are rewarded. Prostitutes are beaten. Strip club owners are rich, strippers desperately scrounge for tips. To assume the money always trickles down to the worker is naive. If a sex worker, it is even more naive.
For this point to have any value, you need to show that the porn industry is necessarily exploitative and cannot be any other way. Otherwise it is just a criticism of the sex industry as it is: in any event, prostitution raises a whole heap of issues that porn doesn't IMO.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
This is a very different definition of exploitation and one which, with respect, doesn't compare with those who toil in the garment factories of Bangladesh.
I agree they are very different types of exploitation and I would oppose both of them equally as separate evils. It’s very hard to compare apples and oranges and say one is worse than the other.
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I think the proper equivalent to the very valuable factory and mine campaigns of the nineteenth century would be similar campaigns to protect the rights of people producing porn. I would absolutely support such a campaign.
Victorian reformers didn't advocate the closing down of industries - not even the white lead factories or match factories, which were particularly dangerous to work in.
You assume that working regulations are both enforceable and would remove the exploitation entirely. Personally I think paying people to have sex automatically leads to exploitation. I think combining sex with capitalism is unethical by its nature. But this is a personal opinion, and I would support more stringent workers’ rights and regulations. If the industry cannot be eradicated, the damage it causes can at least be moderated.
My own argument for a necessary and urgent first step would be to ban videos of the most overtly violent and degrading sexual acts from being sold or distributed. One method would be to ban the production of these but since porn is produced in numerous legal jurisdictions this is impossible for one country to enforce. The only method that would work is to create financial sanctions through censorship. If you remove the ability of the pornographers to sell into your market, they will be forced to produce more of the stuff that can be sold, and less of the stuff that can’t be. Censorship is the only practical option of regulating porn and improving workers’ rights in a global business.
It’s the same method that is used to improve workers conditions in Asia and similar places. We cannot legislate directly, but we can pressure them through market forces by for instance only buying clothes produced ethically, or shaming supermarkets that stock unethically produced clothes. If the government cared enough they could make this a national sanction rather than leaving it up to individuals to investigate the source of produce and attempt to do this on a small scale. Together we can be more effective, individually it will only ever be a piecemeal effect. For those who care about workers exploitation in foreign countries, perhaps the government should be put under pressure to do this nationally, perhaps by only allowing imports of ethically produced products.
And the Victorians did close down industries. Mills and factories that were bad enough were closed down. They banned women and children from working in certain industries entirely because they felt it was degrading (though they felt it was okay to degrade adult men apparently).
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
prostitution raises a whole heap of issues that porn doesn't IMO.
What is the difference between porn and prostitution for you and what issues does prostitution raise that porn doesn’t? Surely paying people to have sex is prostitution, whether you film it and sell the recording or not.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Alex Cockell
Ship’s penguin
# 7487
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Overall, I think the biggest psychological risk from porn would be that it presents wildly unrealistic sexual scenarios which naive individuals may take as accurate representations of reality. That probably applies more to males than to females.
Yeah- what men expect their female partners to do in bed is definitely changing because of porn. Anal and Brazilian waxes, 'nuff said. Boys being exposed to tons of porn before they have any experience with a real girl is also really warping their beliefs about what female bodies look like and what women enjoy in bed. I have heard stories of teenage boys shocked to find that girls actually have pubic hair.
I can speak to this one. I hope it's not TMI to say that my husband, raised by fundies who wouldn't let him date in high school or college, got all his sexual knowledge before marriage from viewing porn on the sly. He really believed that women wanted to be humiliated and treated roughly in bed. It was hard for us to work past.
Hmm - I'm still a virgin - but count me as one bloke who's turned OFF by signs of duress...
Posts: 2146 | From: Reading, Berkshire UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
prostitution raises a whole heap of issues that porn doesn't IMO.
What is the difference between porn and prostitution for you and what issues does prostitution raise that porn doesn’t? Surely paying people to have sex is prostitution, whether you film it and sell the recording or not.
By legal definition they are not the same.
In porn, everyone is being paid to perform, there is no physical interaction with the customer. In prostitution, there is direct interaction and one participant is paying the other.
An example might be paying to watch a boxing match vs. paying someone to beat you.
So, no, porn =/= prostitution.
Morally, one may feel differently. But morals are subjective.
Whilst both porn and prostitution can raise the same issues regarding exploitation, prostitution appears to have more problems with this on balance.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Cod wrote:
quote:
I imagine that the number of teenage boys who are shocked to discover pubic hair on women is probably pretty small. I reckon it would have caused more shock on wedding nights back in the Victorian age when porn wasn't available to many people at all.
John Ruskin's misadventures on his wedding-night come to mind here.
quote:
I think the proper equivalent to the very valuable factory and mine campaigns of the nineteenth century would be similar campaigns to protect the rights of people producing porn. I would absolutely support such a campaign.
Might have mentioned this earlier, but Los Angeles voters in the last American election passed a ballot measure mandating condom use in porn production.
The bill WAS opposed by most of the industry, not sure whether that was because they didn't like the extra costs, or because it would displease the customers. I seem to recall that the LA Times came out against it as well. And the inestimable Ron Jeremy made a TV ad against it.
And I was surprised to read in the article that the only two states where porn production is legal are California and...New Hampshire? Live free or die, I guess, but I was sure I'd heard Nevada at least as being one of them.
Hawk wrote:
quote:
What is the difference between porn and prostitution for you and what issues does prostitution raise that porn doesn’t? Surely paying people to have sex is prostitution, whether you film it and sell the recording or not.
Yeah, I agree, I don't see an ethical difference, but the law in some places does make a clear distinction between the two types of sex-for-cash. I guess it boils down to: If Person A pays Person B to have sex with Person A, it's illegal. But if a third party pays them both to have sex with each other, it's okay.
I really can't make any sense of that, except to think it's the same sort of inconsistency by which the law mandates seat-belts, but allows people to ride motorcycles, which don't have seat belts. "Okay, logically, we should outlaw motorcycles, but that's just not socially or economically feasible".
With porn, maybe it's just that some locales like the revenue, and it's now such an accepted part of the mainstream culture, the state doesn't want to give itself the headache.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Hmm, I seem to have cross-posted with the Buddha on the topic of porn vs. prostitution. One thing...
quote:
An example might be paying to watch a boxing match vs. paying someone to beat you.
So, no, porn =/= prostitution.
Actually, IS it illegal to pay someone to punch you in the face, if that's what you wanna do? I'm not sure what laws, if any, would cover that.
I'm still thinking that the continued legality of porn, in places that outlaw prostitution, has more to do with pragmatic politics and economic opportunism than with any clearly perceived ethical difference between the two.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Something I just thought of...
quote:
IS it illegal to pay someone to punch you in the face, if that's what you wanna do?
If I hire someone to be my boxing trainer, I am essentially paying him to punch me in the face. Or, at least, try to.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Personally I think paying people to have sex automatically leads to exploitation.
How? And why are we moving from porn to a particular subset of it?
quote:
I think combining sex with capitalism is unethical by its nature.
How? And what has that got to do with exploitation?
Leaving aside the question of not-for-profit porn, for want of a better expression.
quote:
My own argument for a necessary and urgent first step would be to ban videos of the most overtly violent and degrading sexual acts from being sold or distributed.
You move seamlessly from discussing porn to "overtly violent and degrading sexual acts" to...
quote:
since porn is produced in numerous legal jurisdictions
... porn generally, which suggests that you aren't making any important distinction between, on the one hand, simulated rape and a woman on Page 3 on the other.
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And the Victorians did close down industries. Mills and factories that were bad enough were closed down. They banned women and children from working in certain industries entirely because they felt it was degrading (though they felt it was okay to degrade adult men apparently).
So what entire industries (as opposed to individual mills and factories) did they close?
Arguably they didn't even stop the slave trade. Consider the working conditions of Chinese immigrants to South Africa in the early twentieth century. They were no better than slaves.
As for the banning of women and children working in certain industries: that was for a variety of reasons, including education and domestic life, but the main one was reducing exploitation.
quote:
What is the difference between porn and prostitution for you and what issues does prostitution raise that porn doesn’t? Surely paying people to have sex is prostitution, whether you film it and sell the recording or not.
Well to start with, porn doesn't have to involve sex, merely sexual expression.
And if you can't see the difference between watching a person having sex and actually having sex with that person, I am ... surprised.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Mogwai
Shipmate
# 13555
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Posted
quote:
And if you can't see the difference between watching a person having sex and actually having sex with that person, I am ... surprised.
I would imagine the point being suggested is that there's no moral difference between the two. ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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:love:
Posts: 704 | Registered: Apr 2008
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Personally I think paying people to have sex automatically leads to exploitation.
How? And why are we moving from porn to a particular subset of it?
Most porn involves paying the performers. There are other types such as voyeuristic porn (i.e upskirt, revenge videos, etc.) and that is also exploitative but since it is done without the consent of the person being filmed it is rarely defended. That is why I’m talking about porn that is transactional. Because some people consider anything okay if the parties consent. My point is that just because the parties consent, that doesn’t mean everything’s okay. Even with consent there is still rife exploitation.
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
What is the difference between porn and prostitution for you and what issues does prostitution raise that porn doesn’t? Surely paying people to have sex is prostitution, whether you film it and sell the recording or not.
Well to start with, porn doesn't have to involve sex, merely sexual expression.
And if you can't see the difference between watching a person having sex and actually having sex with that person, I am ... surprised.
As Mogwai explained, I don’t mean the physical difference. What is the moral difference? You are still paying someone to provide you sexual favours, even if those sexual favours are enjoyed voyeuristically rather than physically. Morally speaking paying a woman to have sex with another man for your sexual pleasure is the same as paying her to have sex with you for your sexual pleasure. You’re still paying for sex, and she’s still having sex with someone for money.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
So, then, what about amateur porn? People who film themselves having sex and then trade/distribute it for free?
You are alright with this, yeah?
[ 08. August 2013, 16:13: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
If no exchange of money is involved whatsoever and no other conditions are imposed then I would have thought it not to be a moral issue at all. A legal matter maybe , if someone wants to press charges over indecent exposure.
Prior to to the Fall there was no sin in Adam and Eve gazing on each-other's nakedness . Living post-Fall as we do, things have a little more awkward where such things are concerned.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Honest question for the anti-porn side: what about popular non-porn movies based on best-selling books that are loaded with violence and sex?
quote:
Nope, too disgusting for me to quote. Read the parent advisory, which is NSFW.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
That movie grossed $10,095,170 in the USA, in it's original Swedish version. The Hollywood remake grossed $102,515,793 in the USA.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
So do you think there is no moral difference between paying a prostitute for sex and buying a pornographic magazine from the local newsagent?
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
...she’s still having sex with someone for money.
In porn, so is he. Why do you focus only on the women?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
So do you think there is no moral difference between paying a prostitute for sex and buying a pornographic magazine from the local newsagent?
There is, but I would say the difference is quantitative and not qualitative. In both situations someone is being paid to perform a sexual act; the difference is mainly in the consumer's degree of removal from that act.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
I suppose one could say that all sin is sin and murder is only qualitatively different from stealing 50 cents. I'm not sure such an approach is particularly illuminating.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I suppose one could say that all sin is sin and murder is only qualitatively different from stealing 50 cents. I'm not sure such an approach is particularly illuminating.
Well, this might be a better comparison...
A. I get off on saeing people murdered, so I hire a hit man to kill people in my basement while I watch.
B. I get off on seeing people murdered, so I buy videos from the hit man, that he has already made, of himself murdering people.
Now, I personally don't have an ethical problem with people paying for sex. But if one does have such a problem, then Example A, insofar as we are talking about proximity to the immoral actions, is akin to prostitution. Example B is comparable to pornography.
And as someone who DOES have a problem with people being murdered for money, I'd rank the customer in A as roughly on par with the customer in B. Though I do recognize that the law might make a neccessary distinction, to the benefit of the B customer.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I suppose one could say that all sin is sin and murder is only qualitatively different from stealing 50 cents. I'm not sure such an approach is particularly illuminating.
You might be able to make such an argument, but you couldn't make it using the reasoning I applied to prostitution and pornography.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
Both examples are only qualitatively different in the sense they are both sin.
The better question is to ask whether there is nothing else that distinguishes between the two activities.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Dragging up an old thread here, but I couldn't resist a recent example of filter-bollocky-itis. A guy in the British Library wanted to look up a quotation in 'Hamlet', and used the inhouse wi-fi, which returned the helpful message, 'request blocked - violent content'.
And of course, it is a violent text, and has the c-word in it as well. Avoid, if you are of a delicate disposition.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
No, I saw it in the papers. I'm sort of making a casual collection of odd things blocked by filters - so far, the Bible is the corker, but also Hamlet, this forum, a ton of other forums, a friend's pagan website, martial arts websites, and a video of an Andy Williams Christmas Special. Reason given for that one? - hate. And the Horniman museum.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Hate and the Horniman don't belong in the same sentence.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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