I believe porn isn't really a feminist issue.

[caseymoz]

It's an issue between people with a high sex drives versus people with low sex drives. This includes the debate about the sex industry in general.

Evidence? Not all feminists are anti-sex. Pro-sex are usually treated by others of the ideology with contempt. Also, many males are also vehemently opposed to porn. More and more women are watching porn, and the difference seeming to be a matter of the ease at which females can feel sympathetic pleasure from watching sex and the ability to reach orgasm. The sales of sex toys, I've heard, now outpaces the sales of iPhones, so it looks like porn is going to gain more female subscribers.

Opposition to porn cuts across genders and ideologies. There are plenty of non-feminist who are as anti-sex as the worst feminists. Though not a lot of Christians would say they're pro-porn or pro-sex industry, there are definitely those who don't consider it a social priority, or who indulge in the sin of it, and ask God's forgiveness, and don't judge others who look at porn. Among the Jews, the pros and antis are easily recognized.

This pattern seems to hold throughout history. No, porn didn't start in the '60s. I saw some of the stag movies from the 1920s, and though their cameras were more immobile, they were in other ways just as explicit as anything in the 1970s.It's a myth that the '60s were a "sexual revolution," at least outside the gay community. What actually happened during the '60s was that censorship broke down. Movies were showing it, and TV was talking about it. Apparently the debate about whether sex should be written or shown in the contemporary goes back to the printing press. The first thing printed was the Bible and the second thing printed was pornography. Even in lascivious Roman times, you had prudes like Pliny the Younger writing that if this lasciviousness didn't stop, Rome was going to fall. And Pliny was right. Just 400 years after he wrote that and after those prudish Christians took over, Rome fell.

And that's my evidence. What does this mean? It means this split has existed as long as there have been cultures. It's based in human biology and it's not going to be settled. The sex industry is going to go through cycles of relative tolerance to extreme crackdowns.

Another conclusion, the pros and antis are not going agree what they see with erotica. They can look at the same work. One sees an erotic picture. The other sees the look of distress in the woman's eye and imagines the gun pointing at her head off frame. The low-sex drive people are perfectly content with monogamy and do not understand visual stimulation any more than a color blind person understands the color red.

But it's even deeper than just not understanding. There's also a nausea effect. Sex acts a person can't enjoy tend to nauseate them. There's also suspicion. They can't ascribe to it a desire to reach orgasm in a creative, memorable way. So, they'll constantly come up with nefarious motives.

I wish they could be injected with testosterone with a couple months and find out what they think about porn and the sex industry afterward. But probably afterward, they'll repent, and be just as sex negative as ever.

My final conclusion, if these prudes didn't have feminism, they would find another ideology for which to attack the sex industry. I mean, the Bolsheviks attacked porn. They found found a way to bend their atheist, non-feminist ideology to do so. The Nazis also cracked down on porn and most of those Nazis came of age in lascivious, freewheeling Wiemar Germany.

[Scuba]

1. Your premise seems to be that people who don't like porn don't like sex.

You need to back that up, or it's just your opinion, and I'll guess you'll hear about sex-loving porn-haters in 3..2...1

[caseymoz]

2. No, that's not my premise.

They simply don't like most sex, but might really enjoy the limited form and amount of sex they have, and probably don't even call sex outside their parameters "sex." I'm thinking not many would every think of having sex multiple times a day every day for years, with someone other than their monogamous partner.

In other words, they likely love sex within the narrow limits they impose on it. Or not.

Fact is, even the biggest prudes don't call themselves anti-sex. The most comical example is the Catholic clergy. No, they're not anti-sex. They just think sex is a mortal sine if you don't have married intercourse only (nor oral sex, no toys), and if you wish to avoid having children, you must have sex only a few day a month. No, that's not anti-sex. The fact that Humanae Vitae, the Vatican's guide to moral birth control, avoids mentioning the word "sex" throughout, instead calling it the "marriage act," doesn't indicate that they're anti-sex at all.

Prudes rarely see their motives as anti-sex, and they will be less than honest at proving they're not. (Everybody lies about sex, that was the first thing sexologists scientifically proved.) Since I can't spy on them without going to jail, I have no way of challenging what any one of them claims about their sex life.

However, you have no way of making assumptions either. However, I will make the hypothesis that if you actually observed their sex lives, they wouldn't be enjoying sex as much as they say, and some few might admit they don't enjoy sex at all and don't know how other people do.

[Scuba]

4. Conjecture, your honor.

And somewhat offensive to paint all anti-porn folks with the same brush.

[caseymoz]

5. So, I offend them.

I would be sinfully less than truthful if I didn't.

You conjecture as well, as I pointed out, and base your belief on it. You've just never had the conjecture challenged.

BTW, my post was rewritten several times before you answered. You should perhaps go back and reread it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. I agree.

I think that the OP is conflating things on this point.

It's reductionist to say that people who object to porn do so because they have a low sex drive. But I think the rest of the point is sound; people who support feminism should be able to disagree about porn.

[caseymoz]

11. Here's what has been noted scientifically:

First, women will tend to be attracted to different kinds of men, and dress differently when ovulating. The fact we needed scientific researchers to affirm this should tell you how reluctant people are to consider it.

Women on the pill are attracted to completely different men than ones they are attracted to when not on the pill.

Now, not quite scientifically demonstrated, we all know, or have heard of, the morning-after effect, where you wake up regretting who's in bed with you. You drank because you wanted to get laid, you get laid and you regret it. Part of it might be drinking, but part has to be the fact that you see the person post-coital and you just don't have the need anymore.

This carries over to porn, where guys will lose interest or might even experience being revolted by it almost immediately after orgasm. Many times alcohol is not even involved here.

Now, imagine being in that state all the time.

Personally, I had a roommate who could not see any use for porn. Even though he said he had no objection, he also said other things showing that he had contempt for it. He would not call it scornful. Turned out when he got married, his testosterone level was too low. He had to get patches, and considered having sex with his newly-wed wife a "chore." His word for it.

Now, you might accuse me of having my opinion due solely to that experience, but no, I've cited those other things. I've had other experiences, too that I could cite, including one that was even more personal.

[Scuba]

23. And your citations for these claims are your memory????

[caseymoz]

25. You're shocked! Shocked!

That in an informal conversation about common knowledge somebody wouldn't cite chapter and verse. You've never seen such a terrible discussion group faux paux. I bet it sets off your defib.

Now, if you want to formalize and professionalize the conversation and make it rigorously academic, then give me two weeks for prep and pay me. I'm broke and can't afford to write an academic digest free. But I can use a freelance assignment.

Do you mean to say that I'm a liar? That I actually read and experienced none of it? Also, can you promise that citing my sources and demonstrating that they report exactly what I say they did will convince you completely of my opinion?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no, you won't promise me any such thing. So, the citation of the sources would be completely irrelevant to your disagreeing.

I have an idea. How about citing reasons why you disagree with my opinion. Provide background. What have you read, at any time? What have you experienced? You haven't provided a counter-argument much less backed it up with a how and why you believe it. In fact, all you've been doing is heckling and trolling, telling me how my opinion must be offensive to other people.

Don't worry. I won't demand sources. But be honest. What really tells you I'm wrong here? And did you really arrive at them even indirectly, from academic research?

[NYC_SKP]

3. Everyone eats food. Not everyone enjoys food, and fewer still read about food.

But some people read and write about food and collect pictures of food.

Same difference, to me.

The "sex industry" and anything criminal or wrong about it has, as the basis of it's wrongness, the unacceptance of it by a few.

[caseymoz]

9. I would say that's the major basis of it.

But the sex industry covers a lot of ground and a lot of different acts. I've given up on thinking it will ever be completely legalized, and if it is, it will never stay that way.

And it's too bad. If this were any other issue but sex, it would be easy. However, sex just creates a lot of varied emotions. People can't stay rational about it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. In my experience, porn is primarily a 2nd wave jawbone with which to beat men.

And beating men (metaphorically) is some people's working definition of feminist.

It's got to cause some cognitive dissonance, "I believe that women should be empowered to do anything they want... So long as men don't like it."

I feel roughly the same way about porn as I do when I walk through a department store. I find it tawdry, superficial, manipulative and exploitative of the customers. But I don't think it has anything to do with feminism (or whatever the opposite of that would be)

[caseymoz]

8. No means no

I agree with that.

But yes doesn't mean yes?

For someone concerned about the plight of the poor women in the sex industry, sex-neg feminists treat them like dirt. I've seen them clash with on youtube and the sex-negs were absolutely cruel. They really have no use for women who are unrepentant about being in the industry. It would seem to me if they felt anything like humanitarianism, they would be at least cordial.

If you ever see any shows that have women giving pro- and con- porn or prostitution views, you may notice an interesting thing: unlike any other issue, they never have them on at the same time. Now, maybe it's happened when I didn't see it, but noticed that, and noticed no other issue is treated like that.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Here's my take: One, it IS an issue to SOME Feminists, because they consider it one.

I mean, whether or not other people think it is a legitimate issue, or whether or not one agrees with their assessments of it, or think their arguments are valid... they believe it's an issue, so to them, by definition, it's an "issue".

My take is very simple: Consenting Adults. Is everyone involved a consenting adult? Is everyone watching a consenting adult? Then it's not anyone else's business. That goes to my core beliefs about letting people make their own decisions, control their own bodies, decide for themselves about sex and reproduction, etc. The reason it comes up around here, I think, is because unlike other issues of what I consider personal self-determination, like the right of the terminally ill to control their end of life destiny, say, or the drug war, or reproductive choice, or equal rights for GLBT citizens, I think is because there are people whose ideology have led them to believe that this is the one case where "yes, but, unless" applies. The place where it's okay to put an asterisk after choice.

Yes, women should be able to control their bodies, but/unless they decide to have sex in front of a camera. Then they're not really consenting, they don't know what they're doing, they're unable to make up their own minds.

Yes, I'm pro choice*... *as long as I agree with the choice.

It causes friction not just because it bangs up against (and yes, Archer, I'm aware of the phrasing again) the 1st Amendment, but also because it so glaringly conflicts with those areas where there IS wide agreement on the left. Most people on the left, those not involved with the pharma industry or the Drug War/Industrial complex, at least, acknowledge that pot prohibition is a massive failure, and it's probably time to end it. You would be hard pressed to find too many folks who really oppose letting the terminally ill have a pain free exit on their own terms, outside of the religious right.

Yet, as I said, there has been an ideological strain that has convinced some people on the left that censoring depictions of consensual sex acts is a societal good, even necessity. It is, to my mind, a glaring philosophical contradiction with everything I believe progressivism and liberalism are supposed to be about.


Lastly, casey, let me add this: I have made a personal note to myself to try to move away from anything that could be construed as personal name-calling on this board, in an effort to try to relax some of the stress and bad feelings that have been going around lately. If it were me, I might not use the word "prudes" in my op in such a way that anyone HERE might infer that you were talking about them, personally. Obviously, we can't control how people interpret things.. I found out last night that my snap, crackle, pop OP, which was a spoof on the M&M thread- was being taken as a personal attack by some people. That said, I can't control how you express yourself, nor do I want to. But for me, while I might believe strongly that prudishness drives some of these agendas, I wouldn't use the label 'prudes'. We can attack the concepts and the opinions without insulting people.

Just my 2 cents.

[Gore1FL]

12. Snap Crackle and Pop was taken as a personal attack?

That was completely harmless. Anyone who took offense at that was looking for something to take offense at.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. It reads like satire, doesn't it?

But, no. Apparently, for real.

[Gore1FL]

15. Let me guess...

...was it because there were three of them?

[caseymoz]

17. If I didn't say "prude" I'd have to come up with another term.

Since I'm trying to say the phenomenon is wider than feminism and isn't really based uniquely in the ideology, I can't really say "radical feminists." "Sex negative" has its own problem, because as I explain, they can be quite positive within the narrower boundaries for sex that they're drives allow.

It can't be a personal insult if I didn't aim it at anybody personally. I'm careful not to, because it's futile to try to infer unconscious motives in a particular person and then try to argue against them. If the motives are unconscious, there's no way the person can acknowledge it or change it, without years of therapy.

No, you have to deal with their conscious arguments.

[caseymoz]

20. A good point . . .

It's an issue for women who also identify themselves as feminists. This is a different thing from being a feminist issue.

What I meant by it not being a feminist issue is: its one that also exists separate from feminism, and in fact, has more non-feminists opposing it, and 2) is it one that feminists originated, as they did the issue of equal pay for women, or is it one that they joined?

I agree with you about consent. Women could bring a halt 98% of the hetero porn currently being produced. Here's the plan: don't volunteer to be in a porn shoot. The other two percent represent porn that's actually made without consent, and that percentage is probably much lower than that. Of course porn that's already been made and downloaded everywhere is going to continue circulating.

I agree that no means no. Why doesn't yes mean yes? Especially when it's repeated by these performers signing several releases? Feminists will say these poor women have been oppressed and abused through their lives. Either they're insane, then, and their not responsible for any of their decisions, or they're adults whose choices must be respected.

[Upton]

16. I think there are a lot of issues at work here..

Last edited Mon May 21, 2012, 01:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Not the least of which is the difference in the genders. Some women have a natural aversion towards porn, for others their dislike is rooted in more complicated and contentious issues, but whatever the reasoning, I look upon anti porn radfem theory as nothing more than a convenient vehicle for those who can't abide the sex industry to express their distaste.

Weird thing is, left of center anti pornographers gravitate towards radical feminism, while right of center antis become fundamentalist Christians..And what's even stranger and more telling is, despite their political differences, the two sides goal is exactly the same...and that means doing away with the sex industry.

You know, I remember when Dworkin and Mackinnon first managed to get one of their anti porn ordinances passed in Bellingham, WA..At the time I was living in Snohomish County, about an hour so south. Fortunately, it was later overturned, and Dworkin in particular, along with her insane ramblings, screeds, and alliances with the religious right, was later discredited and rejected by the liberal community.

Still though, here at DU, you see stuff posted that comes right out of Andrea Dworkin's anti porn playbook. And if you challenge it in any way, the usual suspects are immediately there to alert, insinuate you're a misogynist, or both. I find this whole thing very strange and detrimental to the spirit of DU...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. it can be. improving the life of sex workers and creating laws to prohibit

sexual harassment/abuse etc of sex workers could be and is often a feminist issue

[caseymoz]

19. That's the way it should work.

However, I've seen that the sex-negative feminists despise unrepentant women in the business. I mean they're as hostile to them as they accuse some of the worst men of being. Some of the battles on youtube between them have been both epic and sad.

And nothing told me more that feminist opposition to porn is not about morality. They don't give a rat's ass for the sex workers, unless they renounce the industry first. Then they're used to uphold the narrative.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. yeah but i dont think it has to do with low sex drives. it has to do with a belief

that objectification only occurs in one direction, and that it is inherently wrong. that society would be better and could exist without it.

historically it has occurred in only direction because of economics. however with women making money and a hope that in fifty years there will be no pay gap, i suspect we'll start seeing that objectification happens in all directions. definitely see that in the gay community, with men objectifying other men.

i also realistically do not see a society without sex-work. all i see is a possibility of making the lives of sex workers less shitty.

ofcourse when someone quotes me on this they'll misconstrue what is said to be "people like you think sex work is empowering and glamorous and here is article to prove you wrong" . though that is CLEARLY not what i am saying.

[caseymoz]

26. Well, there is that.

Yes, there's a belief system constructed that objectification only happens to females. I already explained in different thread that women objectify men. And generally, until a guy shows he's worthy of attention, he's an object the woman doesn't want. I explain, and I don't resent it. I think it's pretty much the way nature meant it.

When we think of people starving 5,000 miles away, everyone sees them as objects, "statistics" is the term.

I don't agree that opposition to porn has to do with misunderstanding objectification. It's far too passionate an opposition to be generated by such an abstract psychological concept. No, I think they came up with objectification theory due to how they are wired sexually.

Sorry, when some people actually can't look at a picture of consensual intercourse, and they immediately react to it like a spider in their bathtub, that's not generated by reasoning out a concept like objectification. You wonder why some women's groups just couldn't go through Craigslist (or Backpage) ads every morning and report the ones that look like they're advertising children, it's because they couldn't stand to read the ads.

I've also noticed that Dworkin and other feminist who describe the content of porn seem to be making it up. Researchers come up with the wildest things about porn or the sex industry or strip clubs, and it's the worst thing because they're informing people who also don't watch or look at porn or visit strip clubs to form an opinion. Fact is, none of them can stand to do it.

When they get absolutely spiteful, as in threatening and trying to ruin the lives, of women in the industry who disagree with them and who don't support their narrative, that's not due to any abstract principle. The pseudo-scientific principle is just a pre-conscious way to rationalize the aversion and disgust they already have. If they didn't have objectification, they would come up with something else. Anti-sex industry forces in the early 20th century didn't have objectification theory. They were about as passionate as the opposition is now.

There's something defective about the term objectification when it applies to sex, abuse or any interaction. Men don't direct anger at just any object. Objects don't draw emotions--- generally speaking. You really can't have it both ways. If a man objectifies a woman, but in some way, is aroused by her, in some way, that woman is not an object to him. If there's abuse involved, he's doing it because it hurts her, not because she's an object.

Moreover, if he has commercial sex with her, or uses her image for sexual pleasure, those are something that an object can't fulfill. If he fantasizes about her image, he's injecting a different personality into her. Generally (and one would hope) one that consents to sex with him in the way he likes it.

That's not simply objectifying. That's injecting a different personality. In other words, that's taking an image and personalizing it.

Now that doesn't make the process sound any better, and I don't make it to. But it would more accurately describe what happens.

Either way, no, I don't think the objectification concept is going to develop so it works both ways. No, it will be discarded before the defect is corrected' and they will be using another pop concept.

I want to add: a lower sex drive doesn't imply apathy. If there's no arousal or pleasure, secondary emotions about sex become dominant. Those are not positive emotions. Sex has some very complex neuro-psychological effects.

I remember when I was 15 and I was first exposed to really graphic porn. That is to say intercourse and oral sex. I didn't feel immediate arousal. I felt nausea. I felt curiosity too.

I felt aroused only later. So I asked myself: what would my outlook on porn be if the nausea didn't pass and the arousal never kicked in?

Answer: I would be just as disdainful of it now as I was then, and feel just as much contempt for people reading it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

31. This is an interesting post.

I'm still not buying the low sex drive = porn aversion angle, but this;

There's something defective about the term objectification when it applies to sex, abuse or any interaction. Men don't direct anger at just any object. Objects don't draw emotions--- generally speaking. You really can't have it both ways. If a man objectifies a woman, but in some way, is aroused by her, in some way, that woman is not an object to him. If there's abuse involved, he's doing it because it hurts her, not because she's an object.

Moreover, if he has commercial sex with her, or uses her image for sexual pleasure, those are something that an object can't fulfill. If he fantasizes about her image, he's injecting a different personality into her. Generally (and one would hope) one that consents to sex with him in the way he likes it.

... is a thought provoking take on the issue.

[caseymoz]

33. Maybe I should clarify 'low sex drive.'

Last edited Wed May 23, 2012, 11:04 AM - Edit history (1)

I would like to say "narrow sex drive," but that sounds like a tautology. In fact, it isn't. It also sounds like it's similar to the notion of narrow-mindedness. It isn't.

Think of a sex drive as being like a faucet of variable width. It can have a narrow hard flow, it can have a broader weak flow, a narrow weak flow or even a broad hard flow.

The width represents the number of different sexual practices a person is capable of feeling even a small amount of pleasure from, and therefore can understand other people who also have that pleasure.

A person who doesn't respond at all to voyeurism is not going to understand porn. Also, voyeurs are going to seem weird to them. Understanding arousal from such a thing is, for them, like a colorblind person understanding red. They are going to be suspicious about people who do respond to voyeurism.

I'm also not talking about someone who is apathetic about sex. Sex is powerful in its psychological effects. Given the weirdness and creepiness that they're already going to feel, there are secondary emotions about sex that are usually superseded by pleasure. If they can't feel pleasure toward a sex act, what's bound to be dominant are things like nausea, jealousy, disgust.

This is not similar to narrow-mindedness either, in that responses to different sexual stimuli (or even sexually related stimuli) is unconscious. It's not anything a person can willfully alter. Though it's not necessarily fixed.

So, I don't think the sex industry is ever going to be in a fully accepted and legal. I don't think we're going to change any minds about it, and I think any intellectual justification for objections, like patriarchal theory or objectification, are actually rationalizations for very primal emotions.

I can add that this can also applies the other way. People with more "understanding" due to a broader sex drive are as motivated by their unconscious. They can't understand where we see red, and we can't understand where they see gray.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. As we are all no doubt aware, "Feminist" thought is by no means uniform on this issue.

Personally, I agree with you 100%.

[Warren Stupidity]

27. porn goes back to the paleolithic art.

why wouldn't it?

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Well, sure, who wants to just draw antelope all day?

[caseymoz]

29. And there we people disturbed by it then.

Obviously.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

30. I don't care if someone doesn't like porn

I know people who I'm fairly certain have pretty good sex lives that say they don't watch porn and don't care for it.

I know a lot of people who have some fairly fascinating ideas about sex that would seem prudish. I knew a girl who had no qualms about always having a "friend with benefits" on call to fulfill her needs. When I suggested masturbation as an alternative, in her words, that was "totally disgusting" and she had never done it.

I don't want anyone to watch porn who doesn't want to, as long as they don't wish to restrict others from viewing it.

[4th law of robotics]

32. Masturbation was disgusting to her?

Weird. I wonder where she got that notion. I would say a crazy religious upbringing but that is at odds with the friends with benefits part.