The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Pornography: Who’s sleeping with whom? > Comments

Pornography: Who’s sleeping with whom? : Comments

By Helen Pringle, published 8/9/2011

Locating the political, civic and equity impact of recent pornography debate.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. Page 9
  10. 10
  11. All
Formerrsnag <"suzeonline, or any other feMANazis care to comment on this link?"
Ooh, I love it when you talk rough, Neversnag!

This link is about pornography, not communism.
Start your own thread.
Posted by suzeonline, Saturday, 10 September 2011 3:27:14 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12579#217626

suzeonline, the link i posted was about feMANazi/communists promoting pornography. Did you not read that, or are you lying deliberately, or are you too brain dead to understand the direct link between these 2 issues?
Posted by Formersnag, Sunday, 11 September 2011 3:33:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Oh come now, Formersnag, there's no need for that level of attack. I don't think feminists are out to destroy the world. Indeed, some of the best arguments for pornography come from avowed feminists.

@chloeraina, suzeonline
While it may have been correct to argue in the heyday of Playboy, and even up to the turn of the millennium that pornography was big business, that isn't true today. Record numbers of pornographic companies have been closing over the last three to four years. Rates for all involved have declined as studios can no longer afford to pay the rates they did 10 years ago. The rise of amateur pornography and the increase in piracy has meant there is far less money then in times past.

I agree that pornography should be critiqued as any other business or product. All for it. The trouble is that rarely happens. Indeed, I'd say it is over-critiqued for what it is. It is a luxury good, certainly, but the conditions and messages are overanalysed compared with other luxury goods. Consumer electronics manufactured in China in very poor conditions, using rare-Earth metals mined by children in Africa. Diamonds, which are also a purely luxury good, which come with the hidden costs of blood of innocents. Gold mining and the associated environmental damage gets little attention. Indeed, in terms of gender implications, jewellery and the expectation many women have that the men in the lives provide them with it, is just as worthy of debate as pornography, but gets no coverage at all. That's not to say any of these things are evil, or can't be produced or consumed ethically. So yeah, proper critique, sure, but some perspective too.
Posted by SilverInCanberra, Monday, 12 September 2011 9:52:54 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
@isabelberner (Helen) I don't think requesting that someone making a critique of pornography or those who oppose it should first define her terms is complaining that the writer doesn't cover everything. The definition of terms in such an argument is a fairly foundational requirement I think, and in this argument, absolutely essential. When you use the word pornography, I don't know your meaning because you don't tell me.

Perhaps you have defined your terms in other places, but it is a little arrogant for a writer to assume every reader is fully acquainted with everything the writer has written. One should surely start from the assumption that one's views are not universally known no matter if they've been previously publicly expressed, unless one is enormously famous for them.

In this debate, there is enormous confusion and disagreement about what is actually being defined as pornographic and why. This is one of the major difficulties in addressing the topic and a major reason why people with very good intentions and very good arguments consistently get an awful lot of other people off-side.
Posted by briar rose, Monday, 12 September 2011 12:59:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
'It is a luxury good, certainly, but the conditions and messages are overanalysed compared with other luxury goods. .... Indeed, in terms of gender implications, jewellery and the expectation many women have that the men in the lives provide them with it, is just as worthy of debate as pornography, but gets no coverage at all.'

Ah so very true! But all those other things you mention don't involve s-e-x. Sex is on this pedestal where people think it must remain personal or spiritual or 'pure' to everyone. But therein lies the paradox. It's the people who think sex should be behind closed doors that want control over how others percieve and express their sexuality.

If sex is something apart, something personal, not to be turned into a comodity, it's also something for which individual expression must rule; If some guys are into violent porn, ie fantasy, who is to tell them this private kink is not allowed to be entertained.

The feminist critique I often read about laments that women have their sexuality defined by men due to porn culture that caters for mens taste. But, somehow, this rejection of mens fantasy in porn by feminists doesn't count as women defining what is allowable male sexual fantasy. What a surprise!

PS: With the jewlery thing, you have to look it through a woman=victim lens. Even though the social expectation is on the man to provide a symbol of his provider ability, status and intentions, any feminist will see it as an abusive 'owning of women' by the abusive patriarchical male.

Yes, the feminist is more than happy for men to continue to compete for women's affection with trinkets and sparkly things, but not for women to have 'unrealistic expectations' thrust upon them via consumption of porn. That and it's always a source of feminist resentment for men to have their sexual needs gratified or to be allowed any sexual fantasies independent of the women they bought diamonds for.
Posted by Houellebecq, Monday, 12 September 2011 3:15:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
All this talk of pornography has got me thinking, why is "porn culture" so different from what I (speaking as the universal "I", because I don't believe porn is a particularly good representation of what *anyone* finds arousing) think of as arousing? What would "good" porn look like?

Porn culture is just that - a culture. It has grown up out of a situation where women were, arguably, highly disadvantaged. Let's say, it has its roots in the era when people first started manipulating bodies and using cameras (comic strip/animated porn doesn't count because actually, some of that's rather good!). Porn developed within something of a cultural vacuum, inhabited by a small, fringed-off clique of pornographers whose only source of inspiration was their knowledge of what sold - and the fact that it wasn't widely talked about allowed it to morph into this monster which inflates women's breasts to an unnatural size and causes men to withdraw *before* they ejaculate. What a mess!

But when I for one first came across pornographic magazines - I turned 11 before the internet was invented - I remember having a very strong reaction of "that's not what real people are like!". And that's been my reaction to "pure" porn ever since. Some peaple have even tried to write about this:http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/169/1/sexuality.pdf. So what I'm thinking is, I'm almost tempted to try to write a porn film myself, which would satisfy the dual exigencies of good taste and intelligent titillation, but isn't far-fetched or degrading. I remember reading recently that a panel of some sort had voted the spanking scene in Secretary as the best sex scene in mainstream cinema. My personal favourites are those in Lust:Caution and My Own Private Idaho. What these scenes have in common is discretion. They don't just lay it all out; they leave something to the imagination. The eroticism they evoque comes from what the sex acts mean to the relationships between the characters, rather than from the acts themselves, or the bodies that are doing it. So that can be my starting point! Anyone wanna fund me? Helen??
Posted by Sam Jandwich, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 1:41:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. Page 9
  10. 10
  11. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy