Is Porn Bad for You?

[Peregrine]

Having emotions in public is shameful in itself

That statement right there really is quite sad. Not being sarcastic in any way, that really is sad.

Thankyou for your admission.

And that right there is a real cheap shot.

[Nordic]

Well, I don't mind people whoring their bodies but that's different. Commercial sex is one thing, commerical emotion is another. Having emotions in public is shameful in itself, allowing people to film it for money is one of the most despicable acts a human can commit.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

.

I guess Mr. Morgan doesn't go to a lot of movies, then.

Or else he does and feels very very dirty about it later.

[compared2what?]

Difficult to defend from any perspective, it's a great place to stuff all our general discomfort with sexuality.

The same could be said of pornography, though. I mean "in its defense."

I myself probably wouldn't say it, personally, but I would at least say something similar:

Pornography might not be a great place for people to stuff all their general discomfort with sexuality. But both traditionally and in the present, it does include facilities that are adaptable for that purpose en suite and at no extra charge. That's one of the chief reasons that it's been such an enduringly popular destination, imo.

It's frankly and utterly impossible to defend it on those terms from a social-ideals perspective. Needless to say. But as a matter of both social and cultural reality, it's equally impossible to consider the question "Is porn bad for you?" in any way that's wholly outside of them. I mean, some degree of general discomfort with sexuality is virtually universal, from a social and cultural perspective. It's probably even normal, strictly statistically speaking, although it's certainly not as normative as it used to be back when (for example) the state could still hold that Louis Malle movies were too obscene to be publically exhibited.

So. You can't realistically hope constructively to address any sex- or gender-inflected social question -- including how best to protect the once and future victims of sexual abuse, torture and exploitation by the pornography industry -- without making some accommodation for how it will affect and/or is affected by a pervasive atmosphere of general discomfort with sexuality.

And....Just in case this isn't clear: I'm not saying that general discomfort with sexuality is necessarily at the crux of every issue under discussion here, by any means. I'm just saying that in reality, all such discussions necessarily occur in that context, as a simple function of there being no real social or cultural alternative to it that isn't either reactionary or abreactionary. Or sometimes both.

My two cents.

[Project Willow]

Sim and wintler, noooooooooooo, you're two of my favorite people. I am certain there is overlap, we shall find it.

I'll just lay myself out on the table and raise a big, throbbing, uncomfortable issue. I know I have many internal contradictions when it comes to porn...

If you can see the problems with porn industry, can you admit that consuming the products of that industry might have problems?

I'll bet you can admit that for e.g. paedophilic porn; why not also for relentlessly sexist and degrading power-over fantasies?

I'll just come out and say what I wanted to say earlier because I think it's similar to what you're saying Wintler, it disturbs me that some men are consuming porn that to me looks like rape.

There's another step in that process though, what if the industry were regulated, then how much of it would look like rape? I'd like to think that play-acting rape would look a little different from actual rape, and that I could tell. I could obviously be and probably am wrong however.

We've seen the argument in this very thread a few times that providing people an outlet upon which to project their fantasies is healthier than trying to suppress them and may in fact help prevent physical violations IRL. Is that view supported by research? If so, does that mean that we women just need to become accustomed to the fact that some significant portion of men "get off" by witnessing rape? Please note, I acknowledge full well that there are many women who enjoy rape fantasies and that some number of these find ways to enact their wishes in the BDSM community and or through other consensual relationships, and I do not wish to shame any of these individuals.

It's just, I can't get beyond the signal that men are enjoying scenes of rape without the presentation of a qualifier, some kind of acknowledgement that it's role play, or something similar. I don't think I can be comfortable with that, and if my opinion lands me in barracuda's prude pen, then there I am.

[compared2what?]

Well, I don't mind people whoring their bodies but that's different. Commercial sex is one thing, commerical emotion is another. Having emotions in public is shameful in itself, allowing people to film it for money is one of the most despicable acts a human can commit.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

.

Surely we're all familiar with Mr. Morgan's exceptional gift for exposing the implicit premises on which the terms of the discussion rest while using nothing but his bare hands a straight face and a little wry commentary by now. Aren't we?

[Project Willow]

Surely we're all familiar with Mr. Morgan's exceptional gift for exposing the implicit premises on which the terms of the discussion rest while using nothing but his bare hands a straight face and a little wry commentary by now. Aren't we?

I'd be right there with you if I didn't titrate his inability to empathize with women first. He's his own worst enemy.

[compared2what?]

Sim and wintler, noooooooooooo, you're two of my favorite people. I am certain there is overlap, we shall find it.

I'll just lay myself out on the table and raise a big, throbbing, uncomfortable issue. I know I have many internal contradictions when it comes to porn...

If you can see the problems with porn industry, can you admit that consuming the products of that industry might have problems?

I'll bet you can admit that for e.g. paedophilic porn; why not also for relentlessly sexist and degrading power-over fantasies?

I'll just come out and say what I wanted to say earlier because I think it's similar to what you're saying Wintler, it disturbs me that some men are consuming porn that to me looks like rape.

There's another step in that process though, what if the industry were regulated, then how much of it would look like rape? I'd like to think that play-acting rape would look a little different from actual rape, and that I could tell. I could obviously be and probably am wrong however.

We've seen the argument in this very thread a few times that providing people an outlet upon which to project their fantasies is healthier than trying to suppress them and may in fact help prevent physical violations IRL. Is that view supported by research? If so, does that mean that we women just need to become accustomed to the fact that some significant portion of men "get off" by witnessing rape? Please note, I acknowledge full well that there are many women who enjoy rape fantasies and that some number of these find ways to enact their wishes in the BDSM community and or through other consensual relationships, and I do not wish to shame any of these individuals.

It's just, I can't get beyond the signal that men are enjoying scenes of rape without the presentation of a qualifier, some kind of acknowledgement that it's role play, or something similar. I don't think I can be comfortable with that, and if my opinion lands me in barracuda's prude pen, then there I am.

....

I don't think there will ever be any way to resolve that or any similar conflict that's fully satisfactory and just to the comfort of all parties, except between (or among) some number of consenting adult individuals.

Because among other things, the presentation of a qualifier is in the eye of the beholder, within fairly broad parameters. I mean, assuming that we're talking about men and women who are capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality, that distinction itself is a pretty significant qualification in itself, from the fantasizer's perspective.

And once that's granted, the question then devolves again to how much due diligence it's realistically possible for anyone to exercise wrt whether the scene in question is a fantasy representation of something or a documentary photograph of it. Which is always going to be largely a judgment call, no matter who makes it or on what grounds -- ie, naturally, every individual is going to trust his or her lying eyes over somebody else's, absent some more reliably definitive option.

IOW: Functionally speaking, it's a picture of whatever the person looking at it sees, given the basic presumption of rationality and responsibility and....I don't know. All the other "r" words that describe the basic perceptual powers that adults are commonly presumed to have, less because there's any certainty that they do than because there's no feasible way to determine whether they do or don't.

In which case, the question then devolves again to prevention.

Right? And that's not a rhetorical question, btw. I'm actually not sure whether or not I'm right.

[Simulist]

Peregrine, it's a too-rare treat in these busy times to see your name, but what you have to say is appreciated and your remarks on this topic in particular have been indispensable in the past in other discussion threads.

And Project Willow, thank you for your even-handed approach to this topic.

Watching someone actually get "raped" would not only be a big turn-OFF for this male, I'd also be eager to help ALL of those responsible into nice clean prison cell for a very, very long stay. Even rape scenes that are not real and are just acted-out leave me cold, personally; the reality that the acting represents it just too big an elephant in the room for me to get passed — and I don't much like elephants either in politics or in porn. For me, any sorts of "violent" fantasies being acted out need to involve fully willing participants; anything else is… okay, let's just say that a quickly-leaking helium balloon comes to mind.

That said, I have no problems whatsoever with… well… pretty much anything two or more fully-consenting adults want to do with each other, either in private or in front of a camera. What they do may not turn me on — and may, in fact, have the exact opposite effect — but I'm disinclined to judge it.

[wintler2]

Thankyou for your admission.

And that right there is a real cheap shot.

I have no idea if my implicit message fits Simulist, i was trying for rhetorical jujitsu/lulz rather than truth and would have tried it on anyone, hence my emoticon (but consider: the extent to which we react to shit thrown at us is directly proportional to how well it sticks). My bad, for sure, when theres real work to be done..

..it disturbs me that some men are consuming porn that to me looks like rape. ..

[Project Willow]

C2W?...

This discussion could devolve into the mechanics of prevention, which are inevitably part of the equation in reality and we could go on for quite a while debating which process or another might be effective, and if any could be effective, however, that gets us off into meta concerns and away from the central question.

So if we can presume that it is possible to depend upon some sort of regulation, what then do you do with the central question? Are you positing that it is impossible to measure what percentage of men derive pleasure from witnessing rape? I'd really like to know actually, because again, from casual witnessing it is not an insignificant proportion of consumers, if the market is to be trusted as a measure of what people want.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Much much much 'worse for you' is the negative framing of females and violence promotion by CIA media targeting children in the formative years before the age of 10 years old.

Children aged 3 or 7 or 10 DO NOT SEE PORN.
They see gender role models, stereotypes, in-group/out-group parasocial interaction constructed by CIA media experts transmitting social control memes through Disney, Nickelodeon, and other CIA media-for-kidz.

http://www.lastcombat.com/Maleficent_vs_Sea_Hag.html

Maleficent vs Sea Hag
Now it's up to you to decide which one is the best Fictional witch!


Maleficent
Killed 28 times


Sea Hag
Killed 35 times

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Watch videos about Sea Hag
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4
Burn!


4
Shoot!


4
Hang!


4
Drown!


4
Explode!


4
Behead!


4
Poison!


5
Burn!


5
Shoot!


5
Hang!


5
Drown!


5
Explode!


5
Behead!


5
Poison!

[Simulist]

Thankyou for your admission.

And that right there is a real cheap shot.

I have no idea if my implicit message fits Simulist, i was trying for rhetorical jujitsu/lulz rather than truth and would have tried it on anyone, hence my emoticon (but consider: the extent to which we react to shit thrown at us is directly proportional to how well it sticks).

No it isn't. Try throwing shit at someone when the shit only grazes their lapel. You'll probably not like the reaction.

[barracuda]

We've seen the argument in this very thread a few times that providing people an outlet upon which to project their fantasies is healthier than trying to suppress them and may in fact help prevent physical violations IRL. Is that view supported by research?

As you might imagine, the question involves a fairly complex set of rather poorly defined relationships and attitudes to attempt to coorelate in a statistical sense. But inasmch as people have conscienciously tried, here is an overview of a number of such studies.

[barracuda]

Are you positing that it is impossible to measure what percentage of men derive pleasure from witnessing rape? I'd really like to know actually, because again, from casual witnessing it is not an insignificant proportion of consumers, if the market is to be trusted as a measure of what people want.

Anecdotally, it appears to me that rape-based porn is only a very small part of the marketplace. I'm no expert here, but a casual perusal of the titles available on a popular porn site such a Red Tube seems to back this up.

Sea Hag

I heart Sea Hag.

But is King Features Syndicate now considered a part of the evil CIA for kidz nexus? Is nothing sacred??

[compared2what?]

If you can see the problems with porn industry, can you admit that consuming the products of that industry might have problems?

Absolutely. I admit that it might.

But since your own response to consuming the products of that industry was to reject it and everything that you perceived it to represent, can you deny that it also might not?

Because if you can, I don't really see how you're going to get around that disproving-the-truth-of-your-own-witness thing.

And if you can't, can you see how there might very well be 8 million stories in the naked city (so to speak) and not just two, in light of the inherently complex and subtle dynamic interplay between (among other things) thought/expression; expression/action; fantasy/reality; wishes/fears; dreams/plans; cause/effect; nature/nurture; concept of self/concept of other; innocence/experience; and/or [ARBITRARY HYPOTHETICAL INFLUENCE/ARBITRARY HYPOTHETICAL COUNTER-INFLUENCE OF YOUR CHOICE HERE] might reasonably be supposed to have shaped the sexual tastes, responses and discretion of each and every individual on planet earth, as far as you or I or the state will ever know, since it would be totally and completely beyond anybody's power to determine whether they did or didn't even were it certainly known to anybody that any, all, or none of those things actually does have a determined role on the formation of sexual taste, response and discretion? Which it isn't?

Anyway. Simple yes-or-no questions, they're my stock-in-trade, doncha know.

I'll bet you can admit that for e.g. paedophilic porn; why not also for relentlessly sexist and degrading power-over fantasies?

The production of pedophiliac porn entails criminal acts on an ipso facto basis, whereas the production of porn that depicts (granted-for-the-sake-of-argument) relentlessly sexist and degrading power-over fantasies does not. So the two are not really comparable in any way, except that there's equally little reason to think that exposure to either is capable of creating a literal-minded desire or any kind of desire in an adult who is otherwise inclined and disposed.

So: No. I can't admit that.

Children shouldn't be exposed to explicit sexual materials and/or acts, though. And hypothetically, that would apply equally to explicit sexual materials and/or acts that were exemplary symbolic representations of healthy sexual relations between consenting adults who shared a lasting bond based on mutual respect, trust and affection and those that didn't. If such were generically identifiable. Which (once again) THEY'RE NOT.

I am perfectly willing to admit that much.