Pornography, “Family Values”, and a Sexually Liberal Society

[JohnnyB]

On the topic of Japanese porn and how weird it is, Ive heard people suggest that Japanese porn is a kind of outlet for men in a culture that is very emotionally repressive. Now I don't really know how much truth there is in that but it does raise the question of what roles porn can play in a society and what role it's playing in North American society. How about in European countries? I just don't know, but I suppose that you could probably separate the effects that porn has upon people neurologically and physiologically from the function it plays in their life or their culture.

I'm just throwing ideas out there, but it seems to me those would be two separate and equally interesting discussions to have.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

Anyways I'm not saying you're a d-bag or bad boy ............or are you?
I'm just saying maybe your girlfriend picked you because you're pretty and/or a badass mofo.

Well I mean, us poli-sci undergrads are about as bad ass as they come.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Always an interesting day when mikey emerges from his cryostasis.

Love him or hate him, he does actually make CP better.

[yads]

Originally Posted by bcsoda

I don't think you're really comparing the same things here. Porn is people committing real explicit sexual acts, not pretending to do so. Movies depict something that isn't actually a man getting shot. If you saw a person actually getting shot on tv that takes away the fantasy part of it and makes it real life.

(the rest of your post I appreciated and enjoyed though, just wanted to point that out so I don't just seem argumentative)

Do you honestly believe those women are teachers or those guys are really picking up random girls at the mall? Do you think the submissive in BDSM play is not enjoying it?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

In case anyone is actually interested, a more modern theory concerning fertility decline is the kin influence hypothesis, something that is actually being supported by an accumulating body of empirical evidence.

I don't have time to read that whole thing right now, but I am going to guess that I agree with it.

I am basing that opinion solely on the fact that when I went to my sister's house when she had 4 young kids, it made me want less kids.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

On the topic of Japanese porn and how weird it is, Ive heard people suggest that Japanese porn is a kind of outlet for men in a culture that is very emotionally repressive.

I found it interesting that they're one of (the only?) first world countries that has needed to set up women-only passenger mass transit cars. Such a problem with groping.

[Morning Wood]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I found it interesting that they're one of (the only?) first world countries that has needed to set up women-only passenger mass transit cars. Such a problem with groping.

Wow.... Just.... Wow....

[vektor]

lust, pornography, sexuality is like every single other thing in life. It has its benefits, but it also has its downfalls. And like most things that have benefits the downfalls come from it becoming a focal point in your life and taking it to the extreme. Masturbating for hours on end, watching extreme pornography and lusting after every person that walks by you isn't healthy.

If you can't balance your sexual desires then yeah it's not good for the individual or society. I like to look at things less from a moral perspective (because that's endlessly debatable) and more from a mental and societal health perspective. If you are sneaking out to jack off at work you have a problem, if you occasionally like to watch porn that's not illegal or deranged then whatever. Basically anything that's detrimental to your work or social life is bad for you, if you can add it into a balanced lifestyle and it's not hurting anyone then it's not a disorder. As far as it messing up relationships because it messes up expectations yeah that's possible, but sometimes your partner can also just be lazy and unhealthy and they are the ones killing the attraction and they are the ones driving you to the porn so it's really case sensitive.

[bcsoda]

Originally Posted by gargamel

In the vast majority of non-Asian porn that I've seen, both the men and the women appear to be enjoying the experience (the Japanese are up to some weird stuff, but that's a topic for another day). To think that this is somehow demeaning to women would require the kind of sexist attitude that rubecube pretty well deconstructed earlier in this thread.

I haven't read the whole book yet, but just reading a few quotes from Jenna Jameson's book is enough to make me think that, yes, this is demeaning towards women.

“It was such a challenge to look sexy and relaxed while manipulating my body into the various uncomfortable contortions…Even for… the simplest pose, like looking over my shoulder with my back to the camera, I had to arch so hard that my lower back cramped. When I see those photos now, it seems obvious that the sexy pout I thought I was giving the camera was just a poorly disguised grimace of pain.”

“To keep all of my body in focus and in the light, I had to bend and contort into all sorts of unnatural positions that were supposed to look effortless… But this time I had to hold the positions much longer and wait for them to meter the light, take a Polaroid, and check the light again before they even started shooting. I was so out of shape from my unhealthy lifestyle that my knees would suddenly start knocking during a pose or my lower back would spasm when I arched it for too long…. I really wanted to please Suze, so I was willing to hold my knees over my head for twenty minutes straight, until my spine felt like it was going to snap.”

“Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive ####### who thinks her name is Bitch.”

“It was the most irritating shoot of my life. When I spread for him, he joked about there being an echo in the room. When I went into a doggie position, he commented on needing a fish-eye lens for my ass. All evening, he kept making comments that one shouldn’t make around a woman, especially if one wants her to feel sexy.”

“A week into shooting, I did a scene with Kylie Ireland, Felicia, and Vince Voyeur. That night, when I returned from work, I had a sore throat…. By the end of the movie, my throat was so swollen it hurt to swallow and I was so weak I could barely hold a conversation."

“While I was waiting for my first sex scene, my co-star, a gentleman I had never met before named Arnold Biltmore, sat next to me. He had a soft, pasty body; a porous, greasy complexion; and a kindergarten haircut, parted in the middle and combed to either side. Nothing about Arnold Biltmore turned me on. And in ten minutes I was supposed to have sex with him. When our scene started, he tried to kiss me. I turned my head away from the camera, so that no one could see me grimace…. As my head kept bumping into his stomach while I gave him head, all I could think was, ‘What the hell am I doing here? This is disgusting.’ A bead of sweat on Arnold’s forehead…swelled and grew until it turned into a bubble, and then slowly pried itself free of his forehead…. When it smacked me between the eye, it flipped a switch in my head. ‘I’m done,’ I thought. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

"“When they were finally ready to shoot, J.B. came into the makeup room and ordered: ‘Get your whore ass on set and do what you do best.'"

How can you say porn isn't demeaning to women when these are the honest stories you get from it? And these are only a handful of them, coming from a big name in the industry. I can't imagine it's better for anyone else.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by bcsoda

I haven't read the whole book yet, but just reading a few quotes from Jenna Jameson's book is enough to make me think that, yes, this is demeaning towards women.

Jenna Jameson is a nitwit, I guess she didn't find being a hooker at 18 "demeaning" but having sex with porn actors was huh? even after she quit performing she produced hundreds of videos all in the name of her millions...hypocrite ######bag !!















How can you say porn isn't demeaning to women when these are the honest stories you get from it? And these are only a handful of them, coming from a big name in the industry. I can't imagine it's better for anyone else.[/QUOTE]

[vektor]

Originally Posted by bcsoda

How can you say porn isn't demeaning to women when these are the honest stories you get from it? And these are only a handful of them, coming from a big name in the industry. I can't imagine it's better for anyone else.

Anyone who thinks that is clueless. Much much worse things happen than that, the guys who direct and produce porn movies are often complete scumbags. I remember one porno I saw with a mainstream actress in what looked like a normal budget silicone valley porno and the guy was threatening her to do what he said or he'd make her cry again (insinuating he was going to hit her, again). After that porn kinda lost it's interest to me, I figure the large majority of women do not want to be doing it and are only doing it out of necessity. It's far worse than demeaning, it's abusive, how anyone can enjoy watching a women get abused for money is beyond me. Even worse is that it creates the ideations of the stereotypical patriarch in mens minds, they feel that women are to be subservient to them. The amateur kinds of porn that people do for fun are the only kind that I don't find repulsive.

[bcsoda]

Originally Posted by T@T

Jenna Jameson is a nitwit, I guess she didn't find being a hooker at 18 "demeaning" but having sex with porn actors was huh? even after she quit performing she produced hundreds of videos all in the name of her millions...hypocrite ######bag !!

Just curious, did she say somewhere she didn't find being a prostitute demeaning? And whether or not she's a hypocrite doesn't take away from the fact that porn is often demeaning, degrading, and abusive, even if it doesn't appear that way on camera.

[Itse]

I've also worked at jobs where most of the bosses where scumbags, the jobs were demeaning and the relationship to workers could easily be called abusive. This is hardly something unique to the sex business. Conventional models and actors often get treated terribly too, and their bosses saying awful things about them and their looks is very common. Ballet dancers too.

There is a lot of crap going in any business where only a few people can make a lot of money and be famous, but a lot of people come in hoping to be that person.

Heck, taxi drivers (a job I did for five years) tend to have pretty bad health due to the nature of their job and essentially all long-term taxi drivers are divorced or never married. (One of the reasons why I got out of that business.) Yes, the risks of doing porn are propably greater, but then again no taxi driver gets to retire at age of 21 like Sasha Grey did.

Enough of retired porn start have said that they don't regret their careers for me to believe them. Is it a dream job for their (or my) sons/daughters? No, but neither is a taxi driver, a factory worker or a cleaning lady. Doesn't mean we should boycott those fields too.

And btw, AFAIK Jenna Jameson has never seriously regretted being in the porn business or called it a terrible business. The fact that she does talk about the downsides of the profession while still working in the industry is in my eyes honesty and the ability to see both sides of things. So basicly the opposite of hypocrisy.

[vektor]

Difference being you don't get strangled, spit on and beaten in most terrible jobs. I've been in terrible jobs too where some of the women have literally ran home crying from abusive men being mean to them, but it's not like they are physically traumatized for life. For every Jenna Jameson there is an Amee Donovan

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by vektor

Difference being you don't get strangled, spit on and beaten in most terrible jobs. I've been in terrible jobs too where some of the women have literally ran home crying from abusive men being mean to them, but it's not like they are physically traumatized for life. For every Jenna Jameson there is an Amee Donovan

These guys say "Hi."

[octothorp]

I'm going to try to redirect this back to the original question a little bit: to what extent do you think that a viewer of porn should feel morally culpable for the general ills of the industry (and I don't think anyone would deny that this is a very troubled industry)? Either through a religious or secular moral framework?

This is a very different moral argument then we started out in with this thread, which was essentially that viewing porn could be considered equivalent to adultery; in other words, the consideration was how this act affects your relationships and the people closest to you. Now you're talking about it in a very different way: how does watching porn make someone morally responsible for the lives of the people involved in making it? People you've never met, whose name and situations you might never know?

Does it matter whether the act depicted is extreme or conservative? Does it matter whether the performers are enjoying it (or appear to be enjoying it... they are performers after all). Does it matter whether you pay for it; after all, if you're not paying for it, you aren't financially supporting the industry, and is at worst a victimless crime? (And if this is the case, could you argue that stealing porn is actually more morally defensible than paying for porn?!) Should one do research and decide what porn is ethically produced? Is it fair to say that amateur porn is automatically more moral, or is that simply making further assumptions about the people involved that may not be true?

[Daradon]

Yeah the thread did move in many different directions, but all very interesting and thought provoking I thought. Going back to the original post though, I was going to hit on Textcritic's biblical quote.

'You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell'

I had heard that quote before and always disliked it. Aside from the second part having a very old testament feel, which you didn't usually get in Jesus' teachings, the first part makes me mad for a few reasons.

First, I do believe the action of a crime or sin is worse than the thought of it. We all get tempted, we all have bad ideas, we all lose our path. It's the struggle and the overcoming of it that makes us human and is a moral triumph. Without the temptation, there would be no triumph. There would be no free will, no point, and no reason for Jesus to even have to teach us.

Secondly we are biologically programmed to feel desire, to look for people we find attractive. However you want to break it down, if it's for propagation of the species, a mental precursor to love and other emotions, whatever, it's a very natural human feeling. How can it be evil?

I guess it depends on how you define 'lust'. If it is how I'm hearing it, like a deep but natural desire, I don't like the quote. But maybe it means more of a mental acceptance of the desire, engaging fantasies etc. I'm still not sure that's too terrible, but it could be a warning that like coveting other goods that you may never have, it could really just bring you unhappiness. When you are obsessed with obtaining it can often bring heartbreak. The happiest people are often the ones who are happy with what they have. Not to say you shouldn't try to achieve, but I think that we could all agree that an over-consuming desire to acquire and have whatever we want whenever we want it, is probably a bad thing.

I feel that if you are starting an argument or thesis based on this quote or the ideas of it, it may be flawed from the start, because I don't think the idea is very philosophically or even morally sound.

[Daradon]

Oops, double post.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm going to try to redirect this back to the original question a little bit: to what extent do you think that a viewer of porn should feel morally culpable for the general ills of the industry (and I don't think anyone would deny that this is a very troubled industry)? Either through a religious or secular moral framework?

This is a very different moral argument then we started out in with this thread, which was essentially that viewing porn could be considered equivalent to adultery; in other words, the consideration was how this act affects your relationships and the people closest to you. Now you're talking about it in a very different way: how does watching porn make someone morally responsible for the lives of the people involved in making it? People you've never met, whose name and situations you might never know?

Does it matter whether the act depicted is extreme or conservative? Does it matter whether the performers are enjoying it (or appear to be enjoying it... they are performers after all). Does it matter whether you pay for it; after all, if you're not paying for it, you aren't financially supporting the industry, and is at worst a victimless crime? (And if this is the case, could you argue that stealing porn is actually more morally defensible than paying for porn?!) Should one do research and decide what porn is ethically produced? Is it fair to say that amateur porn is automatically more moral, or is that simply making further assumptions about the people involved that may not be true?

Well, go down that route and few people wouldn't end up culpable for some abusive situations including women and children in the production of what they consume. I suppose you could say porn is easier to say no to than any product with "made in China" printed on it, but I would think just as few people consider the violence in the making of porn when consuming it as consider the violence in factory production when consuming other imported products from locations with poor production standards.

That is an extreme argument to make, and the questions about how porn affects a person socially, emotionally and neurologically is much more interesting.

[gargamel]

Originally Posted by bcsoda

How can you say porn isn't demeaning to women when these are the honest stories you get from it? And these are only a handful of them, coming from a big name in the industry. I can't imagine it's better for anyone else.

Originally Posted by vektor

Much much worse things happen than that, the guys who direct and produce porn movies are often complete scumbags.

I'm not denying that there are bad people involved in the porn industry, but that doesn't mean that the industry itself is bad or that people who watch porn are implicitly condoning that behavior. Have you read about the way that migrant farm workers are treated? I'm going to guess that you blame the specific farmers who treat them that way, and don't jump to the conclusion that tomatoes are demeaning to men.

As for the on-screen stuff, I suspect that our perceptions of what is demeaning differ greatly. For example, is the woman being demeaned if she's on her back while one man has sex with her and another pumps away at her mouth? What if a man is on his back and one woman has sex with him while another rides his face? I suspect that you believe that none of the three men in those two scenarios are "demeaned," while at least one if not all three of the women are. Why is that? Is it because you view sex as something that is more for the enjoyment of men than for women? If so, that's very sad, not to mention sexist.