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The Forum > Article Comments > An invasion of pornography > Comments

An invasion of pornography : Comments

By Melinda Tankard Reist, published 23/7/2007

At last, it is on the record: pornography is a significant factor in the violence and anarchy in Indigenous communities.

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Did anyone watch Insight on SBS last night? The audience was largely made up of Aboriginal people.

Not a word about porn. But lots about alcohol, drugs and the lack of ability to safely report the crime and safe houses and education.

Porn may excite the sensibilities of the Melindas, Whitehouses et al, but unfortunately criminal behaviour is not so easily solved by banning substances and censorship.

Anybody who has actually seen porn will tell you that generally it is boring, very often extremely poorly acted and unless this is all new territory works more often on the funny bone than the G spot.

Sure there is ugly violent porn, but those who get a kick out of that sort of stuff and want to 'act it out' would do so anyway. As the wowsers state 2/3 of offenders didn't need porn at all to violate others.

It is a myth that our society is more violent than in the past. Now we are made aware of it through news and crimes being reported. A woman is safer today unescorted by a man then she was a hundred years ago, even at night.

Nowadays, all persons, men, women and children are encouraged to report crimes of violence. In the past the shame of being beaten up or sexually assaulted by father, priest, uncle, anybody with authority kept victims and their families silent. This seems to be the case in remote aboriginal communities. I suspect it doesn't have as much to do with being Aboriginal as it does with remoteness and lack of independent law and order.
Posted by yvonne, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 2:14:15 PM
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STOP
we need to all remember the influence the church has had in these disenfranchised communities
and the law
many religious groups and other's whom had the trust of aboriginal children are responsible for abusing them!Monkey see, monkey do
-its only all just coming to the surface now (duh) being realistic its bigger than many want to admit. I met a fantastic Indigenous woman not so long ago whom told me that herself and a girlfriend were picked up by police one night and offered a lift home, the 'police' first took them somewhere else and demanded sex, thats just too horrible and, Ey, who would ever belive them...they just kept it too themselves.
Posted by mariah, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 8:19:16 PM
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If there were strong quality evidence that pornography (and that term seems in serious need of a firm definition), then maybe such interference is justifiable. Unfortunately it appears there just isn't any such evidence.

Almost all crimes: murder, sexual assault, child molestation, robbery, through to trivial offenses like trespass, are offensive in a liberal democracy like ours, because they involve one person's unjustifiable interference with another.

When a person tries to control what another can do or look at in the privacy of their own home, in the absence of a real justification, it is just another kind of unjustifiable intereference, and is similarly offensive.

In any case, our democracy cannot meaningfully survive in a society based on a theory that adults don't have the capacity to make free decisions.

If we truly are puppets of whatever we see or don't see, I would rather see 'everything' and have all those puppeteers fighting for control, than allowing myself to become the puppet of the likes of Melinda Reist, who would only let me see a world that suits her purposes.
Posted by Kalin1, Thursday, 26 July 2007 4:16:12 PM
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Pornography is Harmful!

Check my (non-religious) website:

http://www.againstpornography.org/

Regards,

Maggie.
Posted by MaggieHays, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 2:10:25 AM
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Maggies willingness to consider other points of view is expressed on her website

"WHAT THIS WEBSITE IS NOT FOR:

-- Defending pornography, stripping, and/or prostitution (if you send me any of your knee-jerk lame excuses such as "Women freely choose", "Porn reduces rape", "Freedom of expression", or "you pro-censorship anti-sex prude", etc., your e-mails will be ignored "

The list of things that get ignored goes on from there although if you send a really nasty insult Maggie might use it selectively to show the negative effects of porn "-- Sending your insults (if you send me any abusive e-mails, they will be ignored. Some might get published on this website and used against you as a proof of pornography's negative effects on you)."

White male hetrosexuals are the only ones who can be blamed for anything
"-- Insulting and/or blaming women, people of color, and/or homosexuals for anything (if you send me any such e-mails, they will be ignored; I might publish some of them in a new section just to further prove that there are misogynist, racist, and/or homophobic people like you out there)." (What about white male gay users of porn?)

My reading of her website so far can be summed up by the following - start with some assumptions, blend some truth with some not so true statements and ignore any claims or evidence to the contrary. Represent opposing viewpoints selectively to paint your opponents in a bad light.

I've skimmed the rest but what I saw was a very closed mind unwilling to consider other viewpoints, evidence to the contrary etc. I saw someone willing to misrepresent the other viewpoints to paint them in a bad light - not an uncommon tactic but a warning that anything said may be a misrepresentation.

Generally phrased in nice terms but seemingly driven by dogma rather than a desire for truth or understanding.

I've not read further on the website, maybe it get better elsewhere but the front page was enough to give me the message that there was no real likelyhood of honest discussion.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 7:28:16 PM
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What I find enormously irritating as a woman in this day and age is the persistent insistence of some feminists of the victimization of women by men and ignoring the complicity of women themselves. This goes for issues from FGM to pornography.

Women who are against pornography or even FGM must address women's victimization of other women first. Not ignore the active participation of women and only blame men. To address any injustice, perceived or real, against women women need to acknowledge the injustices that women perpetrate on each other first.

Some 'feminists' are still stuck in last century's mind set. We should be moving on to the next stage.
Posted by yvonne, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 8:19:17 PM
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