teh_steve said:
However, yes. Porn is misogynistic. Objectification of someone; completely ignoring their personality or any other aspect of them in favour of their body is misogynistic.
Firstly, you just said calling porn "misogynistic" was incorrect because not all porn is focused around women, and then you used the word as well.
Secondly: performing in pornography is entertainment. It's attempting to instill a positive reaction in an audience by demonstrating some talent or attribute. Contortionists have freaky joints, and if I go to see one, you could just as easily make the case that I'm "ignoring their personality in favor of their body," but does that make watching them misogynistic? Or if they're male: does that make it misandristic?
No, because we're not really, "ignoring their personality," are we, any more than we're "ignoring" the classical education background of a fart-based stand-up comedian or, for that matter, "ignoring" the impressive gastric range of a classical literature critic. It's not what we're there for, but there's nothing actually wrong with that. People enjoy looking at naked , so when they see a naked , they go, "Phwoar, look at that naked ." But that doesn't affect how they deal with, for example, clothed . I could look at a million naked dudes or ladies in an explicitly sexual context and at the end of the day, once the study-corrupting arousal phase wears off, it won't have changed my fundamental understanding of how humans operate, any more than watching a dozen contortionists will make me go slackjawed and bored the next time I talk to a friend, before finally giving up and yelling, "Dazzling feats of manipulation or GTFO!"
And that's ignoring the fact that women in the porn industry are quite often...
1) Heavily coerced or intimidated (read: raped)
2) financially forced (read: raped)
3) physically forced (read: raped)
4) underaged (read: raped)
5) addicted to drugs, and fueling their habit
Some of them are. That's bad. That's actually the fucking definition of bad, right there. Anyone who supports pornography has an obligation to be very damn sure that they're supporting an ethical studio, or else independent artists. But these people do exist, and it's wrong to assert that absolutely all porn actors are "coerced."
You think because some girl looks like she's "loving it" and begs for more cock she's actually enjoying a second of it?
Well, tricky question, because the actual performance part is apparently pretty boring. It's grind a couple seconds, change angles, freshen makeup, grind a couple seconds. Some people do enjoy it, though. Why not? The human sex drive is powerful enough to support this billion-dollar industry. Surely there have to be a few men and women who actually, you know, like HAVING sex instead of just masturbating to it.
Scenario: Girl does a couple of scenes she's ok with, then director says "ok, now I want 4 guys on you" 4 guys grab her and go at her director:"oh, and by the way, if you don't look like you're enjoying it you're not getting paid for ANY scenes".
And that's relatively light. The camera can lie.
Again, this is bad. This is very bad. This is rape. But you can be a discerning consumer in this instance. You can find sites that are transparent about the shooting and hiring process, and who publish copies of the contracts their stars sign. Or you can just look at softcore shoots from independent artists.
And at the end of the day, porn is prostitution.
And prostitution is not inherently evil. People have the rights to their bodies. People have the right do whatever they want with their bodies. There is exploitative prostitution; and then, there is prostitution that is not exploitative.
