Is porn bad now? I find it a weird topic for anything called "Democratic Underground"...

[gollygee]

122. No, that would be the broad brush

It is not about "shamefulness" although I know that's how some are trying to paint it that way. Nor is it anti-sex, or sex negative, or whatever else people are saying to distract from the issue.

It is about a few things:

1. Rape shown as erotic, which is then watched by kids in places like Steubenville who think it's cool and awesome to rape and then videotape it and show it around. I personally would like to see videos that are of rape or even claim on the packaging to be rape banned.

2. Women (and men for that matter) who work in porn being in conditions where they are seriously hurt simply as a part of doing their job - not even in an accident on the job, but as a part of the job. I don't think people, men or women, should be in jobs where they have to be hurt in order to do their job. However, I don't think that's a necessary component of porn.

So I don't think porn should be banned. I just would like to see those two things changed.

3. Not an issue of banning but I do have something I've heard but don't know first hand. Is it true that the majority of porn is considered erotic in ways that are violent to women or in ways where most women would feel humiliated - where violence and humiliation are the main things that are "sexy" about them, and the more they do those two things they sexier they are considered? I guess that gives me pause and makes me wonder why that would be what made porn "better porn" if that's the case, but I'm not an expert on porn and I can't say more than that since I only know what I've read about it. Again, I'm not talking about BDSM or anything like that, and if it were a sub-genre of porn that were like that I wouldn't probably think much of it either, but if what I've read is true, that is what porn in general is like, and I wonder why. I would think that sexiness would be related to pleasure and orgasm, not violence and humiliation, except maybe in a sub-genre that was for people into violence and humiliation. However, again, this does not make me think it should be banned, and I'm not sure even how correct I am about this kind of thing, so I don't generally comment on that.

I worry about how the media in general - not porn specifically but TV and movies and music in general - create a culture where women are treated most often as sexual objects rather than sexual participants, but that's more of a general societal critique than an issue with porn. Porn can be one place to point that out, but it's not just porn. And I know women like sometimes to be treated as sexual objects in play, and that's fine and not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about an overwhelming culture where that's all or almost all there is all or almost all the time. That culture isn't just natural but is created through media. We take in a lot from media and it changes us. I would rather see women treated as sexual participants more often and sexual objects less often, but again that isn't just porn and isn't an issue of banning.