Poll: Can pornography exist in a sexism free society?

[loa]

They wouldn't, they just wouldn't be able to satsify their sex drive via pornography. They could still masterbate of couse, just no porn.

Why no porn?
Why is "sexism free society" connected to "no more porn" in your mind?
You seem to think that being male and having a sex drive and "looking at a womens with lustful eyes" is always "objectification" and should be condemned at which point that term becomes so nebulous and dilluted, it's bullshit.
Are we supposed to be puritans who never look at the opposite sex or some shit?
Burkas for everyone?
Is that your merry utopia?

And I can easily argue that pornography, or at least certain forms of it, should be eliminated for the same reason female sexulization should be from other forms of media (games, movies, etc.): because it supports the idea that women are sexual objects instead of human beings. Child pornography is outlawed because it harms those involved and those who view it, and regular pornography, while not as horrifying or damaging, can easily be argued against for simlar reasons.

So you want to go full extremist thought police, huh?
Thank god you have no power.

Also warping the original argument of "hey women are people too" so you can ban stuff you don't like doesn't help your cause. It's why so many people don't want to identify as a feminist.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Of course it can. It's not something that'd just go away.

But I do wonder just how 'sexist' porn really is at the end of the day. Sure, it's something made for the sexual gratification of the viewer, and the 'actors' (and I use that term loosely in this case) are objectified to that end, at the same time .... not one of them isn't there by choice and doesn't know what the videos are going to be used for.


I guess what I'm asking is 'can it be called truely sexist if the parties involved are objectifying them selves of there own volition?'

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

There's a different between a porn actress and a normal actor: the type of action they're performing. Sex seems to tap into a more base part of the mind, and seeing it has a different effect than watching some guy act for a TV show. Because of that, someone seeing depictions of women as objects for sexual gratificaiton is going to have a much bigger impact on his mind than seeing an actor play a role in a TV show will, and that impact isn't going to be particularly good, as it will likely have the same result as women being presently soley as sexual objects does in other forms of media: men having a lack of respect for the wishing and feelings of women.

That's entirely absurd.

The only reason that sex it treated differently than other media is the stigma and taboo nature of sex in our current culture. Fix that stigma and taboo and you eliminate the problem.

Also, looking at people having sex has nothing to do with men lacking respect for the feelings of women - being taught that women's feelings don't matter is what does that.

 

[Gorrath]

The effect media has on people can't be argued against; obviously, what we see on our monitors/in books/etc. has an effect on the way we live and think. Recently, the effects media has on the way the male population thinks of the other half of the population is being discussed more and more, with the general consencious being that too much media exposure that shows women in dehumanizing/objectifing forms causes men to view the whole gender with less respect. With that thought in mind, wouldn't pornography be the biggest source of this ill as it focused purely around present women as sexual objects?

In the end, only insane people would try to recreate pornos in real life, but if someone said that frequent causes men to think of women more as sexual objects then people, I could see where they're coming from. Wouldn't agree with them, but I can see how they'd reach that conclusion.

The effect media has on people is still a point of academic study. If you want to argue that media has some effect on the way people think and that the effect it has varies based on the individual, I'm on board with you. If you start claiming that we need to ban media because some of it has an effect on the way people view the world that you don't like, then I won't agree with you at all. Banning particular media because you don't like the way it makes people think is paramount to thought policing, and I don't make that comparison loosely. Even if you could demonstrate a correlation between how much objectifying porn a man watched and what his views were on the opposite sex, that should not be used as a justification for outright banning the content.

Also, saying that links between how women are treated in media and how that affects what men actually think of women or how they treat women are being talked about doesn't demonstrate anything other then a discussion is happening, a discussion that seems to be rather loaded with a hell of a lot of speculation and very little scientific backing. While I think it is great we have that discussion, and that we reinforce how much fantasy and reality need to remain separate, we are engaging in folly if we start jumping to unfounded conclusions or extreme reactions to what data does present itself. Most healthy minded people have no issue separating fantasy and reality. If we're going to hand out content bans because media might make people think thoughts we don't like, I have a list that starts with video games and ends with music and has every other bit of media listed in between.

I could see how a person might reach the conclusion you mention too and like you, I'd very much disagree unless they could prove it. And even if they could prove it I still wouldn't accept that as a reason for a ban. We have no moral or ethical responsibility or right to police how people think, even if we find their thoughts detestable.

 

[Something Amyss]

Not sure I want to know what that is now...

Tommy was The Who's big Rock Opera, which was about a "deaf dumb and blind" child named Tommy. One of the songs is called "Fiddle About" and involves sexual abuse. And then there's a line near the end of the album that always creeped me the fuck out by itself, but in the context that Townshend may have himself been sexually abused (or the alternative, that he was actually into kiddie porn), it just....

Yeah, maybe you don't want to know.

Unfortunately, the album also has some really kickass songs.

This sounds like a personal problem. Generally if I am unhappy at the job I work at, I find a new one and quit the old one. I worked at Walmart for all of 2 days and the BS there was not my cup of tea so I moved on.

I get this creeping suspicion that you probably didn't actually have to work there. That you use it as though it's a particularly egregious example suggests a fairly sheltered experience. I'm glad that you've had this freedom of economic mobility, but let's not pretend everyone has it. That's the sort of naivety I expect from Trsutafarians.

And you know what? It's fine if you've never had to really work. But don't pretend there aren't people out there holding down three jobs and barely staying afloat. Or that someone might not have the same freedom of "choice" that you do.

 

[Leonardo Huizar]

As a "enthusiast", who only by coincidence has a mighty left grip, Im in full support of "Consenting human Adult" pornography.

Thats the only law I feel should be required for sale or for uploading online. Some people are into classroom fantasies, some are into costumes, some are into enlarged gender specific body part, some are into beating the crap out of each other and im in full support of that.

But again we live in a world where apparently the already millions of variations of what can get your rocks off is still not enough for some people. And those should either be put in a Asylum, imprisoned, medicated, or in the extreme case lobotomized or castrated.

and I mean that for any MEN & WOMEN who arent into "consenting adult" sexuality

 

[CrystalShadow]

Spoiler: My original post

... I don't really know how to answer the question as given.

To be honest, I used to be a lot more relaxed about porn than I am now.

Can't look at it myself, or at least, haven't found any that doesn't usually make me feel slightly sick, rather than aroused, but that's a minor issue.

What really made me aware of why perhaps it's more of an issue than I originally thought is... Because I was abused (arguably even raped) by a guy... Who for some reason I let come back anyway.
It was actually possible to have a reasonable conversation with him though, and ironically I wouldn't say he's a horrible person... But what I did come to understand was largely from a moment he decided to try and show me porn...
I'm sure he was hoping it would excite me somehow, but instead it just caused me to have a sudden realisation.
His lack of regard for my feelings, and weird ideas of what was possible to do sexually (many of which made me quite uncomfortable) were quite clearly related to the porn he had been watching.
It became obvious he had unrealistic expectations about sex, because he was assuming that what he saw in porn could be applied directly to reality. (When in fact porn is in many ways just as fake as any other kind of 'entertainment' media)...

That realisation really forced me to stop and think about this...

However, all it's really done is left me rather confused. I don't like banning things as a principle, yet I can see, and have first-hand experience of the subtle negative effects it can have...

I just... Don't know what to think, at this point.

I'm sorry to hear that, and it highlights what's wrong with the society's attitude towards sex.
If these subjects can't be openly discussed, if people have no clear idea how sex even works, or take their partner's feelings into account, then this kind of bad and unrealistic porn is a problem.

I'd chalk that one more up to a sexually repressed society than porn.
We are terrified of sex so we never talk about it, especially not to children. How can you even form realistic expectations that way?
While it is true that porn -like any fiction- can create unrealistic expectations of sex, strict regulations will most likely not fix that and may even make it worse since sweeping it under the rug is the core problem to begin with.
So I think the key to solving this issue is communication, not regulation.

I think I know what you two are getting at (since you both seem to be saying roughly the same thing, I'm answering both together.)

Probably this wouldn't happen so much if we were all more open about sexuality in general. These things may be inter-related... Porn may only be damaging as a side effect of this larger issue.

I wouldn't really know though.

That unfortunately seems to be a lack of perspective on the guy's part if he's so tunnel-visioned that he can't acknowledge other people's feelings. It's hard to say what causes that kind of mentality but I believe there are studies that conclude far too much porn viewing causes changes in the brain I believe similar to drug use in that it alters brain sensitivity to neurotransmitters. How it could go about altering perception and attitudes I'm can't say for sure, but too much of something without perspective is never a good thing. I agree with you that banning and censorship do little good in principle, but there are things that, left unchecked, can indeed cause harm. It's definitely confusing and doesn't have a clear answer, but it's why we should be having this debate.


CAPTCHA - "Open Wide" ...must you, here?

~facepalm~ Captcha being weird there... XD

We should be talking about this more I suppose, if we can't get people to talk about reality, how do they have any context for at the least, understanding what is a reasonable expectation of reality, compared to what is either entirely fiction, and what is perhaps something that is much more difficult and dangerous than it appears to be...

Banning porn probably really won't help.

In spite of what's happened, I don't even think I mind. If people want to watch porn, that's fine. Even the nasty stuff. Whatever.

But when you try and drag that stuff into reality and force it on me, as though I should just be OK doing it too, that's clearly not right... And something, somewhere has gone wrong if that happens...

 

[Lieju]

Most healthy minded people have no issue separating fantasy and reality.

And there I'd disagree.
If you don't have enough information about reality then mistaking fantasy for truth is easy.
If you have no context for what risks are included, how things feel like to the opposite sex, what the usual look for genitalia even is, why wouldn't porn misinform you and create false expectations?

Banning them is not the answer, however, but increased education and encouraging dialogue between partners is.
And of course bad porn can be critiqued.

Bad porn in itself (just like any entertainment) doesn't make you sexist or racist etc but it's a feedback loop that reinforces pre-existing attitudes.

You too are deluded on things, mistaking fantasy for reality. I do too. Everyone does. We are fed misconceptions all the time through media and cursory knowledge of subjects we either don't need to have indepth knowledge of, or don't care.

Some (even most) of those misconceptions are harmless. Some less so.

 

[Dragonbums]

As long as the porn video is coming from 100% consented adults, that weren't backed into a corner to do it (ala I need the money real bad, and I don't want to do this, but I have no choice), and greater society is aware that this video was made under ethical, clean conditions than porn is totally fine with me.

 

[Ramzal]

This sounds like a personal problem. Generally if I am unhappy at the job I work at, I find a new one and quit the old one. I worked at Walmart for all of 2 days and the BS there was not my cup of tea so I moved on.

I get this creeping suspicion that you probably didn't actually have to work there. That you use it as though it's a particularly egregious example suggests a fairly sheltered experience. I'm glad that you've had this freedom of economic mobility, but let's not pretend everyone has it. That's the sort of naivety I expect from Trsutafarians.

And you know what? It's fine if you've never had to really work. But don't pretend there aren't people out there holding down three jobs and barely staying afloat. Or that someone might not have the same freedom of "choice" that you do.

Okay this is actually where I am pretty pissed off. I DID have to work. I'm a student with loan debt that surpasses 50K and I don't live with my mother/father, on top of working for everything I own. I never had anything handed to me on a silver platter nor am I someone who doesn't understand the need for work when it is severe. What I DID do is save money over time so that should I actually come to a situation where I was forced out of work or I disliked the work I was in, I can have something to live off of should I not be employed. I've been saving money for situations like this since I started working in a pharmacy when I was 15 and living in Harlem where we'd barely be able to go to work without being harassed by some jackass who wants to take what little I have.

Just for your information, I HAVE TO WORK to help with finances at home with my wife. She needs the car and we only have one of them, so what do I do when I have to go to work and she needs to attend her 24/7 job? I have to wake up and haul my ass at least 2 miles in what can be -30 degree weather at worst by means of walking. Everything I have, everything I do, and everything that I am I worked for and made my decisions on how to maintain my own financial and personal happiness. I REFUSE to work someone I am not happy with and I based a lot of time and money on this premise.

FYI, I lived in poverty for 98% of my life never making more than 13 dollars an hour so far and I am technically still in it. I based my life on securing my own "choice" and my own happiness. Keep this in mind the next time you decide you have this "Creeping suspicion" and decide to judge someone's lifestyle that you have no damn idea about. I am being a bit defensive and I hope that I am not penalized for this but you really had no right to assume jack-shit about my life when you don't know a damn thing about me. I know what a hungry stomach feels like, I'd had months where all I could sustain myself on was soups, rice, and even mushrooms that I found around the town I am in now. (I know enough about fungi to know which are inedible and edible. So yes, I am careful as I took a year of education on campus about fungi.)

Oh, just so you know I also know what it's like to work 3 jobs just to keep things afloat. Did it when my brothers left me and my mother alone when she got sick. One of those jobs I was dealing with an overly verbally abusive boss while time continued on and I quit that job when a broad line was crossed. No one HAS to do anything. We are adults that have choices and decisions to make and though it seems at times where we don't have choices, we often do. If you stay where you are miserable you have no one to blame but yourself for STAYING.

Check yourself the next time you decide to come after someone personally.

TLDR: Don't ever try to judge me, you don't know the first thing about what I the hell I have been through nor do you know what my current situation is. If I get a hit from a mod from this than I apologize to them but I feel I had to speak up for myself there.

 

[EyeReaper]

See, this is why I only support Hentai and other forms of animated porn. Think about it, they're virtual characters, So you never need to worry about legal age, or consent, or sleazy abusive higher-ups, And they can fufil virtually every fetish, no matter how implausible (*cough* Vore *cough cough* Guro) Hell, I once read a doujinshi about Roll.exe from megaman Having her arm liquified in acid then forced to drink said arm juice out of her boot. That's fucked up. Would I ever say it should be banned? No, never, and neither should any other type of (legal) porn. Judging someone by their fetishes is exactly the same as judging them by their sexuality, and rape-porn has no more reason to be banned than gay, scat, BDSM, or even just vanilla.

And yes, in the "sexist-free society" I do believe porn would still exist, exactly the same as it would be now. Just like I believe Bowser would still be capturing Peach in this egalitarian utopia. I like to think that in a society like this, sex and violence are equals, with neither being more taboo than the other.

 

[Something Amyss]

Depends what you want done about that mistreatment. If you are Ok with it, then pornography, as it is now, wouldn't change, but if you find such things dangeriously objectifying, and you want such things to go away, then you'd want pornography to change.

So if I'm fine with porn as it is onscreen (even if a lot of it isn't my cup of tea), but dislike the treatment of the performers, I should vote for change? I only ask (and I know I'm probably taking an internet poll way too seriously) because that strikes me as sending the wrong message.

I mean, basically, take the filthiest, most disgusting porn you can imagine, and as long as it's legal and the people are consenting, I'm fine with it. I wouldn't want to watch it (probably >.> DON'T JUDGE ME!) but I would be fine with it existing.

I'm pro-porn and pro-sex workers, is basically what I'm saying.

 

[carnex]

As long as the porn video is coming from 100% consented adults, that weren't backed into a corner to do it (ala I need the money real bad, and I don't want to do this, but I have no choice), and greater society is aware that this video was made under ethical, clean conditions than porn is totally fine with me.

Wait, what's wrong with people going that route to earn money when they can't do it in other way. Should they starve?

 

[Dragonbums]

As long as the porn video is coming from 100% consented adults, that weren't backed into a corner to do it (ala I need the money real bad, and I don't want to do this, but I have no choice), and greater society is aware that this video was made under ethical, clean conditions than porn is totally fine with me.

Wait, what's wrong with people going that route to earn money when they can't do it in other way. Should they starve?

Did I say they should starve? I don't remember saying they should starve. Don't try to build a strawman argument out of something I never meant to say.


Just like non consensual porn vids, it's really damn sad when someone male or female has to do something they really don't like because they have no other fucking choice.

I.e shitty porn directors forcing porn actors/actresses into doing things they aren't comfortable with by dangling money or no money scenarios over their heads.

 

[carnex]

As long as the porn video is coming from 100% consented adults, that weren't backed into a corner to do it (ala I need the money real bad, and I don't want to do this, but I have no choice), and greater society is aware that this video was made under ethical, clean conditions than porn is totally fine with me.

Wait, what's wrong with people going that route to earn money when they can't do it in other way. Should they starve?

Did I say they should starve? I don't remember saying they should starve. Don't try to build a strawman argument out of something I never meant to say.


Just like non consensual porn vids, it's really damn sad when someone male or female has to do something they really don't like because they have no other fucking choice.

I.e shitty porn directors forcing porn actors/actresses into doing things they aren't comfortable with by dangling money or no money scenarios over their heads.

Sorry, I was overly melodramatic in my reply, should have responded with more tact and less hyperbole.

What you described can be applied to so many jobs put there. I worked at jobs I despised. I know plenty of others that have same experience. Porn is, or it should be at least, just another employment opportunity. Unfortunately it's not due to social stigma it has now (and due to most people seeing sex as something really intimate and not for sharing around especially when you are in a committed relationship), but thanks to the private shows and small productions and many other factors stigma is slowly getting deflated.

But that doesn't change the fact that people do things they don't like or don't want to do because there is a financial or other reward in the end. It's not tied to one industry in particular, it's just nature of a limited availability of workplaces.

 

[mecegirl]

As long as the porn video is coming from 100% consented adults, that weren't backed into a corner to do it (ala I need the money real bad, and I don't want to do this, but I have no choice), and greater society is aware that this video was made under ethical, clean conditions than porn is totally fine with me.

Wait, what's wrong with people going that route to earn money when they can't do it in other way. Should they starve?

Did I say they should starve? I don't remember saying they should starve. Don't try to build a strawman argument out of something I never meant to say.


Just like non consensual porn vids, it's really damn sad when someone male or female has to do something they really don't like because they have no other fucking choice.

I.e shitty porn directors forcing porn actors/actresses into doing things they aren't comfortable with by dangling money or no money scenarios over their heads.

What you describe sounds like rape to me. To my knowledge most performers have a general idea of what acts they are expected to perform. But if a director changes the script last minute and threatens to withhold payment that's rape by coercion. Especially if it happens to happen after filming has started. But even that sounds "better" than what ex actress Corina Taylor said happened to her. At least in that scenario there is some verbal communication.

I'm gonna quote her, so content warning i guess.

Spoiler

When I did a scene for Red Light District, Vince Voyer gave me a ride to the set and he asked me for ?road head?. He called me a whore and told me I had to do it. So I did. When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy scene. But during the scene with male porn star Eric Everhard, he forced himself anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed no over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I was in shock and my body went limp. I couldn?t fight him off anymore. After the scene, they wouldn?t give me a ride home. I called a taxi and went to a medical clinic to check me out due to the severe pain I was in. A day later I received a phone call from Vince to keep my mouth shut about the rape. He threatened me that I didn?t know who I was messing with and that his edited footage of what happened would prove me a liar. When I went to Red Light District to get my check, I was only paid for vaginal, not the anal rape. The anal scene was so traumatizing that I hid out for six weeks.
https://www.thepinkcross.org/pinkcross-articles/october-2011/ex-porn-star-corina-taylor-story

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Tommy was The Who's big Rock Opera, which was about a "deaf dumb and blind" child named Tommy. One of the songs is called "Fiddle About" and involves sexual abuse. And then there's a line near the end of the album that always creeped me the fuck out by itself, but in the context that Townshend may have himself been sexually abused (or the alternative, that he was actually into kiddie porn), it just....

Yeah, maybe you don't want to know.

Unfortunately, the album also has some really kickass songs.

One of my favorite albums of all time...

Remember though, John Entwistle wrote Fiddle About (as well as Cousin Kevin) and, ever since the album's release in '69, Townshend praised Entwistle for doing so, stating that he could never have written the song himself given what happened in his own childhood.

Townshend alluded to his abuse for over 30 years before the whole "scandal" occurred.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What you describe sounds like rape to me. To my knowledge most performers have a general idea of what acts they are expected to perform. But if a director changes the script last minute and threatens to withhold payment that's rape by coercion.

Or demands that she pay for the cost of the filming herself. Max Hardcore liked doing that, also selecting women from out of the country with no local support base, taking them to isolated areas where it's just them and a bunch of guys on his side before springing that on them.

 

[carnex]

I'm aware of multiple horrific practices in porn industry, often borderline human trafficking too. But that's, in great part due to twin evils of social stigma and by large part illegality of sex industry. If all aspects of sex industry was legalized and social stigma was washed (you can't wash it away totally, many people still would not be romantic with ex sex actress, and I'm free to assume wast majority wouldn't even consider such with active one) people who are in driving position would have mach less leverage and it will fall down to rest of the film industry level of abuse. Which is still horrific to be honest.

 

[slacker2]

Your premise is fundamentally flawed and makes your post basically a loaded question; sexualising is not objectification. There's nothing wrong with sex, and I can't believe this needs to be said. Being interested only in the sex that you're seeing on your screen when you want to get off is really noi different than being interested only in ,well, the ... sex you're having ... when you're having sex ¯\_(&#12484_/¯. Being interested only on an aspect of somebody at a given time doesn't mean that you equate that person only with that thing. If you're hot and I don't know anything else about you, then all I know about you is that you're hot. What exactly is controversial about that?