[gargamel]

Originally Posted by vektor

This is just an ignorant straw man argument. Men aren't getting beaten and abused on porn sets, women are. Imagine signing a contract because you don't have enough money to eat then you keep getting smacked in the face, if you complain you don't get paid... oh my god I'm so sexist.

If you're saying that some women are horribly mistreated in porn, then I agree with you. Women getting smacked in the face is disgusting, but, while I'm sure that it does happen, I firmly believe that is not the norm. If you're saying that porn as a whole is demeaning to women, then I don't think that I've made a straw man argument at all. For the most part, men and women in porn are treated similarly, so I think society's biases regarding the proper sexual roles of men and women are very much worth noting.

Originally Posted by bcsoda

I'm not sure why you make assumptions about my thoughts and then go on to question them and call me sexist for a thought I don't even have. Were you actually interested in hearing my answer or opinion, or did you just want to make a point?

Fair enough. I was basing my assumption on your previous statement in this thread that most porn is disrespectful of women and my perception that most porn is more tame than the two scenes I described. Since male-female-female scenes are at least as common as male-male-female scenes, I thought you'd have said that porn is disrespectful of men and women if you really thought the man was being disrespected in either of those scenes, but I shouldn't have made that assumption.

Originally Posted by bcsoda

If it appears that they're being forced into it and treated as sexual objects (which from your description it sounds like they are) then it sounds pretty demeaning to both the woman and the man in those situations respectively. Demean is defined as "to lower in dignity, honour, or standing", and forcing someone to perform a sex act if nothing else lowers their standing, and one could argue it would lower their dignity and honour as well. Also, I think breaking it down into one sex act is overly simplistic. Even if the specific acts you described weren't demeaning to anyone, I imagine the majority of pornographic videos don't consist of solely one moment or sex act.

I don't think it's fair to assume that any of those parties are being forced to perform a sex act. Just as a man can enjoy being in a threesome with two women, a woman can enjoy being in a threesome with two men. Just as a man can enjoy being temporarily treated as a sex object, so can a woman. If they don't feel that their dignity is lowered, who are we to say that they're wrong? If their honour or standing is lowered, it's only lowered by other people imparting their own sexual values onto them. I don't think any less of a woman who has filmed a porn scene, and if she doesn't think any less of herself, then the only one lowering her standing is the bystanders who say that she has been demeaned.