The purpose of the stuff in the WA case was to harass, as a puerile revenge for the fact that the women had complained about quite innocuous pinups. It was harassment, not "discrimination", although I'm sure the men were quite discriminating in their choice of pictures.

Let's face it, the women who men want to look at have no problem with men looking.

As a side note, I'm extremely affronted by the faminist propaganda "porn" that infests workplaces dominated by women. Why should I have to put up with "Girls can do anything" and "Girls: building the future" when I attend the office of my children's school? It's genuinely discrimination against boys and yet there is no possibility that I can complain, because the Antii-discrimination Commission has no heads of power to hear my claim.

If Miss Pringle is genuine about wanting to stop discrimination, perhaps she could start at her educational institution and campaign for equity for boys who seek to do higher study.

Yeah, right...

I'm sorry antiseptic, but you are wrong. The claim in this case was discrimination, not harassment. I am writing this quickly so as to nip any repetition of this error in the bud.
Helen

The claim was discrimination, because the Act existed. The intent was harassment: they complained about "victimisation", to use your word.

In the same way, the Bolt case was based on Racial Discrimination, when it was really about defamation. The battleground was carefully chosen.

A display of a calendar is no more than a display of a calendar, unless it is intended to harass or discriminate. The judge and the law are made simple ad absolute because they are intended to prevent frivolous complaint and hence a lot of misuse of court resources.

Complaining about other people's quiet enjoyment of the female (or male, have you seen some of the calendars aimed at women who like looking at men, not to mention Cleo) form is intended to prevent their quiet enjoyment of their own workplace.

It's harassment, Miss Pringle.

<The extra edge that kept audiences riveted was her charm, her good looks and her deliberate use of feminine wiles to add punch to her arguments and wrap men, and most importantly Kerry Packer, around her little finger. Ita's story is living proof of the power of what British sociologist Catherine Hakim calls "erotic capital" - an overlooked human asset she claims all women should exploit more fully.>
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/putting-erotic-capital-to-work-in-the-workplace/story-e6frg6zo-1226136165361

<We hear constantly about men in trouble over sex. Men in trouble for not keeping their trousers zipped, for groping and harassing women, men caught out looking at pornography, or gazing at women in the wrong way. But what we never hear about is men's restraint, the remarkable stoicism of current generations of heterosexual men who cop it sweet, despite their immense frustrations>
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/lust-for-life-20110820-1j3ed.html

"The dark side of Altruism" (New Scientist sept 2011)

The article starts with the case of where a woman (Carole Arden) shoots and kills her husband, she had an elaborate plan to hide her crime.

She plays the victim, who shot her husband in the back. many of her voiferous supporters continue to back her version of events, letting their good intentions blind them to the facts. "Pathological Altruism."

"Many of us imagine that we would never be duped, but it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking one is doing good, when that is not the case."

A further thought that occurred to me, is that whilst authors such as helen , nina, et al; believe that they are doing good, in reality all they are doing is using the technique known as 'grooming' to recruit people for their causes.

...And to shift the focus forward seventeen years from 1994 to the present, the rape of a female soldier on the front line in Afghanistan; what in Gods name are Women trying to achieve? Is it a case of equality or is the fact true, men are being subjected to a campaign by "certain" women to achieve an unrealistic form of equality which is, realistically, a revenge attack on the position of male dominance intended by an inclination of nature to be the true "way" and never to be otherwise, as it all should be girls!

...You may achieve a short sighted aim, as part of the campaign, to feminize boys and convert children into homosexuals by attempts to "normalize" abnormal sexual behavior (as an added example of quasi inequality of the sexes), but in the end it will all turn to "bite" you. Be happy and let the natural evolution of nature take its course; a world where women are women and men are men!

Oh Helen not again!

"Not having to work in an unsought sexually permeated work environment" is very different from someone enjoying pornography in the privacy of their own home.

When people ask you about the harm that pornography does, they are not talking about blatantly inappropriate examples such as this, but about the harm it "allegedly" does to relationships, and to the way men treat women, and think about women. The issue has nothing to do with men behaving like pigs and using pornography in what arguably is expressly intended to constitute the empirical equivalent of rolling someone else in one's own filth (which is to say, even though these actions are unacceptable, think about these men's upbringings and the kinds of trauma and deprivation that would lead them to behave in that way in the first place).

Actually, if you do want a far more indicting example of the harm pornography can do, look no further than probably the best-known porn film, "one night in Paris", in which some nasty little piece of vermin exploits the then 19-year-old Paris Hilton's trust and vulnerability in a bad-taste, mainstream porn-inspired romp.

But bad examples are not enough to demonstrate a phenomenon. The fundamental question here is whether pornography is *necessarily* harmful or not. And I think it was your fellow publisher Meagan Tyler who said that "What many pornography researchers, like myself, are calling for is a more open and honest discussion about pornography, inequality, sexism and sexual desire. These claims are more reasonable than radical."
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3299836.html

[cont]

I remember saying something like this in a comment somewhere else that I can't be bothered looking up, but basically I agree; I think that we need to be more open about pornography, and to develop a culture of critique of it, just as we have of non-pornographic films and photography, most importantly so that we can determine exactly what is exploitative and what is not - and we need to allow men like those who work a Digga Manufacturing to develop healthy attitudes to sexuality rather than to repress it (which I would say will inevitably lead to their fantasies becoming more and more violent/degrading/unrealistic, and more likely to be acted out).

This is something that will take a whole of society commitment, because we are so so far away from being able to do this that it's not funny. But you know, that's given me a great idea; make a website kind of like janesguide.com but which critiques porn not just for its quality but also for the extent of its exploitativeness, enlightenment, sophistication etc, just to give people a guide to responsible porn. I think you'll find that it's rare (in fact the only example I can think of is cleansheets.com though admittedly I haven't looked at that site for quite some time), but that it does exist, and that the more such material is exposed, the more people will cotton onto the fact that it's far more enjoyable than the woman-and-banana school of thought.

I started in the workplace in 1975 and remember the wall-paper vividly on the factory walls. There was pornography everywhere and this was a place that employed male and females in roughly equal measure. Being an adolescent male at the time I was titilated, but young girls, and older women, were exposed to these displays and were power;less to do anything but try to ignore it. Any female who ventured into the place, whether as an employee or a visitor, was exposed to the lurid sexual gaze of seemingly sex-starved men--of course they did it more to impress each other.
It was like that for years, and then it was banned some time in the late 80's, I think, and sexual harassment in the workplace became increasingly less tolerated, and women gradually became less discriminated against in other ways.
But it's only gone underground. The porn industry is predicated almost exclusively on demeaning women in the grossest ways imaginable--this is what sells!
Porn is a kind of virtual substance abuse that can reduce voyeurs to pathetically twisted individuals.
I'm only critical that women as a class are not more vocal and concerned to get to the bottom of male depravity. It's time the subject was brought out into the open and tackled as a psychological disease. If depression is classified a disease, then so should the violent and demeaning fantasy lives of so many men.
I encourage all women to think about this issue deeply, and engage with it--most of their men are "infected" to some extent. Merely condemning them and it only keeps the problem shamefully hidden and denied.

Yes squeers, what's needed is radical Wowserism.

Sam Jandwich:

...Ahh..the joys and cheer bliss of a "sexually permeated work environment"; does one such still exist? especially as a comparison to the sad alternative of a workplace aggressively dominated with a culture of "misandry", for example teaching profession. It is little wonder men will not go where "angles fear to tread"!

I'm definitely not a wowser, Anti; and Dan, workplaces are still sexually permeated, though we all have to be careful of our conduct and whether suggestive behaviour is wanted. The modern workplace is definitely dangerous. I had a complaint raised against me by a female once because I apparently failed to respect her religious beliefs in conversation. I was advised to just apologise because being an "alpha male" (I was very flattered) I was never going to win against a comparatively helpless female. I did apologise, even though I felt, and still feel, I'd done nothing wrong; but it wasn't to save my neck, it was because talking it over I came to see that women really are very often at a "natural" disadvantage.
It's not only sexualised behaviour that's increasingly not tolerated.
The trouble with the codes of political correctness is that they often breed resentment, and in censoring the behaviour drive it underground, where the "impulse" to misbehave is nurtured.
You're fond of criticising women, Anti, I'm just saying why don't you try changing hats and turn that critical thinking on men?
I want to see the psychology of men put under the microscope, to see if anything can or should be done about their sexual obsessiveness, and to see whether they live up to their own or their loved ones' disingenuous assessments.
Women are complicit in their own degradation and it's about time they faced reality.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12717#219692
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12717#219732
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12717#219744

Squeers, Sam Jandwich & isabelberners, Q#1, what about all the feMANazi & GLBT porn out there?

Q#2, http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm read all of it, but pay particular attention to #24, #25, & #26. Given that we now know for a well documented, scientifically proven fact that our entire pornography industry was deliberately manufactured by devil worshipping, communazi, corporate paedophiles, for the specific purpose of grooming bourgoise, capitalist children for neglect & abuse, why are you suddenly complaining about it now?

Too little & half a century too late.

...Supporting the argument against "discrimination of women" in the workplace only becomes counterintuitive when the view of the woman is narrowed to the view of "sexuality" alone: But when women are viewed as a "personality" divorced from sexuality, then a new paradigm of equality emerges. This is a view from which I observe the reality of equality, and seemingly, so does Squeers it seems.

...So the opposite to the intended outcomes of the womens rights movement emerges when the natural positioning of men in the workforce is subservient to sexualisation of the female in the male environment, as is the current trend applicable to the male population of that workforce, as it does, by accusing men of discriminating against females by male traditions of self promotion.

...Such positioning of the argument of equal rights for women by the ant discrimination movement castigates or diverts the intended outcome and derails any honest attempt to arrive at an agreeable consensus of the mutual workplace genders, allowing for a peaceful and productive co-existence by segregating behavior exhibiting sexual innuendo to specific areas of the workplace as acknowledgement that such play on innuendo is perfectly natural to both male and female species of the human-race and therefore should be mutually acceptable to both, but overlaid with mutual respect for each other!

...What should eventuate as mutually agreeable to the advance of women into the male environment is for males to be suitably accommodated on their work-site by affording them the rights of male tradition and to think and act as males when in male company and not to be irrationally subsurved to an inferior position brought about by an irrationality born of feminisms natural desire to dominate their environment, thus creating disharmony and confusion to natural male respect towards women by so-doing.

I appeal to the Gentle men to rise up against the violence and demeaning comments made to and about good women in our society. Public displat of porne condition men such. I must admit many women are rather sleezy and believe such entice men. Human dignity has gone out the window, as I note young women travelling into the City by train on friday nights for a weekend of pleasure already half drunk. The biggest use of porne is currently being viewed by teenage girls as they imagine that to win men's favour they must behave such.

Helen,

I dislike extremisms of any ilk. While the behaviour of the men at the mine was out of the ordinary, the judgement effectively made anything that the women might find as having a sexual bent offensive as illegal. There are many old artworks by renowned masters that would effectively be banned or even pictures from Vogue. I personally have never put up any such material, but the banning of all calendars of attractive women holding drills is more than a little extreme. (and hardly pornography)

The judgement in the Bolt case is another example where causing offence is used to suppress individual comment or expression.

The judgements imply that the only way never to offend anyone is to say nothing, and silence is paramount over expression.

*I encourage all women to think about this issue deeply, and engage with it--most of their men are "infected" to some extent.*

LOL Squeers, most of their men actually have testosterone in their
veins and hormones affect human behaviour. Perhaps you should
pack up the philosophy books and learn a bit about endocrinology.

A bare breasted woman on a calender is hardly porn, its healthy
erotica. Quite natural and normal. Do you understand nothing
at all about nature?

Some of the most upset women that I've ever met, are those who
don't grow old gracefully. Over time that huge power which they
held over men for so long, diminishes. They get no attention and
panic sets in. They will buy every claimed youth treatment, spend
hundreds of millions on Botox etc. Many dream of having the power
of their youth back, but alas, nature doesen't work that way.

Stop trying to deny nature, just accept it gracefully.

James

Thank-you for the links. I loved the story about the Coolidge effect in the second article.

Yabby

I agree that there should be more discussion of female sexual power. There cannot be too many women who have-not taken advantage of this power. As you mentioned, some cannot function without it.

Yabby:

"Stop trying to deny nature, just accept it gracefully"

Yabby, you've been around long enough to know that the garage calendars are hung in protest at the moratorium on more explicit images; it's a protest of emasculated masculinity.
And while I most certainly do accept the sex drive, indeed take great pleasure in it; the issue for me is not just about a biological drive with which I sympathise, it's a) about men's perennial immaturity, with his pictures and cat calls and whistling and impressing his mates. And b) about the male obsession with demeaning women as sex objects to be dominated, humiliated and variously penetrated in order to appease their seemingly starving egos.
In my view the author should be less concerned about discrimination and more about the underlying dynamics.

So much twaddle.

If women really want to eliminate pornography it is so simple. All they have to do is get rid of their clothes, apart from what they need to keep them warm.

I spent quite a bit of time in areas of the Pacific islands, where there was only a village, or perhaps a village, with a plantation, with one white, or mixed race family running it.

In these places the women rarely wore anything but a grass skirt, although some substituted a hip sarong for this, when material was easily available. When I appeared, a single white man, some of the women would don a mother hubbard, or full sarong. This would usually only last a couple of days. Once they decided I was nothing special, they went back to their usual comfortable dress.

This was never in any way erotic, it was just normal. In fact occasionally there would be a lady villager who was home from school, or a job in a bigger centre. These would usually be more comfortable in town clothing, & drew more attention because of this.

One plantation owner told me that his wife usually went topless, & was only wearing a bikini top because of my presence. He told me he found it quite titillating when she took it off, after wearing it all day, & was quite surprised at his reaction.

So ladies, if you want to stop pornography, get your gear off, & very soon, no one will bother to look.

"The walls of the garage, the clubroom, the fire station, the camp or the Digga factory form ‘an environment which itself amounts to sexual discrimination’. "

Well the last garage I was in I didn't see any sexual discrimination hanging from the walls, the last clubhouse I was in I didn't see any sexual discrimination hanging from the walls, and I have spent many years in factories, and only occasionally have I seen suggestive calendars or pictures in those places.

I think most of this so called sexual discrimination is exaggerated in an attempt to once again find fault with the male gender, and make women look oppressed.

Feminists could always build and run their own garages, build and run their own clubs, and build and run their own factories.

But they won't. Much easier to complain about those evil "males" instead.

When Oh When will a feminist ever say something positive about the male gender, or is there a law against this.

The vast majority of porn is revolting and demeaning to the status of women.They are portrayed in servile mechanical manner that also lowers the aspirations of their male stupid wank#ig masters.This type of porn is truly evil and demeaning to all our humanity.

Vanna,

During my teens, I worked at a car-wash attached to a service station.The walls had the usual tame calenders on the walls, but it was the little tea room where the more raunchy pics were displayed (away from the public) Being the only girl in the establishment, I was always called upon to make the tea and coffee.
I asked one day jokingly, that since I was the one who spent the most time in the tea room, why it was that it was full of pictures of naked nubile women.
The next morning when I went to make the coffee, I found the walls plastered with pictures of naked men

Poirot,
I have never been in a workplace where a woman was expected to make the coffee.

I think you are making that up.

But I have been in a number workplaces where a number of men did not want to work with women, to protect themselves from claims of sexual harassment.

I think that will be a growing trend.

Interesting post Hasbeen you write

'So ladies, if you want to stop pornography, get your gear off, & very soon, no one will bother to look.'

Many are all in favour of porn until asked whether they would be happy if it was their mother, sister or daughter that was involved. I doubt whether anyone would be handing a video around boasting about their daughters acting ability

*Yabby, you've been around long enough to know that the garage calendars are hung in protest at the moratorium on more explicit images; it's a protest of emasculated masculinity.*

Nope Squeers, no normal male has ever told me that. In fact I even
stuck up one of those garage calenders in my workshop, because it
looked far better then the boring old pictures normally on calenders.
I was protesting about nothing at the time. It just so happens I
guess, that some supplier companies give them away for nothing,
and they will far more likely make it onto the wall then the many
calenders which are slung in the bin. Its good marketing.

*it's a) about men's perennial immaturity, with his pictures and cat calls and whistling and impressing his mates.*

Gawd Squeers, little boys grow up into big boys. Where is your tolerance and your
sense of humour? Now I know where the term "grumpy old men" comes
from. One only has to read some of the posts on this thread.

Vanna,

I am not making that up. I usually made the coffee, but it was no big deal - and if I may say (without offending your misogynist principles) my coffee tasted a lot better than theirs.

Poirot,
The word mysoginist has been said so often it has no meaning.

It is something feminists say when they can't think of a word.

All the author's arguments were refuted in her article on prostitution, which argued similarly that something is harmful - without any evidence of it being actually harmful - for no other reason than that opinionated third parties from the coercive anti-sex brigade declare it to be harmful.

She was unable to defend her stupid argument then, and she's unable to defend it now.

Her argument here is pornography is "harm" because a Tribunal said it is. So what? That's completely circular. It's harmful because a Tribunal said it is, and a Tribunal said it is because it's harm.

The fact that someone sees something they don't like, doesn't mean they're being discriminated against, let alone "harmed". It means the author's fundamental tenet - that people are entitled to employment without seeing anything they don't like - is morally wrong. If those women didn't like working there, they should have quit and got a job where their delicate sensibilities were not disturbed by the need to tolerate other human beings.

Sexuality is normal and natural and if people want to display pictures of it in their own private property that is all of their business and none of anyone else's. Those who don't like it should go and start their own business!

Besides, all human action intrinsically involves discrimination, and sex is intrinsically sexually discrminatory. According to the author's imbecile logic, sexual preference should be illegal because it's "disciminatory". Public male/female toilets should be illegal - "discriminatory". Having separate toilets is so "harmful". That's the intellectual level of this drivel.

You are discriminating against me in writing your article. You are making expressions that I find offensive, and calling for the use of violence that I find threatening and humiliating. *Therefore* according to your own logic, please admit that you should be imprisoned for this offence, you fascist idiot.

Runner my post was only very slightly tongue in cheek.

Although I was even then a bit of an old prude, I found that all the boobs & barely covered butts were of no interest at all. Probably the fact that, unlike bikini babes on the Gold Coast beaches, these bodies were not being displayed, they were just there, & so matter of fact that they were not interesting.

As a bloke who had come to build a jetty, or sort out the power house, I was "plantation" business, & of little interest to the locals.

Vanna,

That's rich coming from someone who rarely posts a sentence on this forum without utilising the word "feminist" in a derogatory manner.(Boring...zzzzzz)

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12717#219809

Poirot, feMANazism was invented by closet communazi, corporate paedophiles & fauxMANistas for the specific purpose of destroying the family on the way to creating an international socialist nirvana after the family & PROTESTANT christian democracy was destroyed.

All loony left political literature, policy & principle platforms calls unequivocally for the destruction of centrist christian family democracy first, so that marxists can "stride through the wreckage creators". All of it also calls for the destruction of all systems of morals & ethics as well as no mercy for the children of the middle class bourgoise, that is every Australian child, Poirot, if you are incapable of reading/understanding plain simple english.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN05DHO9bJw&feature=related misogynist oppression of women by the filthy stinking, super rich, international banksters/socialists & feMANazis.

http://femkgb.blogspot.com/2010/11/julia-dillhard-and-feminist-kgb-in.html this one is a beauty guys the article has hyperlinks to heaps of other articles on the net.

Oh & Poirot, i have never, ever seen Vanna or any other male say anything even slightly negative about women in general, we have only ever questioned the extremism of the noisy minority of feMANazis.

Formersnag,

Absolutely!...we're so lucky on OLO to have such a wise commentator as yourself - in fact, you've turned out to be a veritable font of Protestant wisdom.

I would have never gleaned for myself the threat emanating from such avenues, but for your far-ranging commentary. It's spot-on in its assertions regarding feMANazi-aliceinwonderland-you-name-it-communist-corporate- filthy-stinking-rich-banksters-conspiracies-not-to-mention-its penchant-for-verbal-diarrhea....... it's great that you have taken up the cudgel with your regular balanced and reasonable warnings on such matters.

Bravo!

(Oh, and Formersnag, it wouldn't take me long to rustle up plenty of negative aspersions cast (why are aspersions always cast?) by the inimitable vanna - which, if I get the time, I might do a little later in the day : )

Gotta love your posts, Arjay.

>>The vast majority of porn is revolting and demeaning to the status of women... This type of porn is truly evil and demeaning to all our humanity.<<

You're obviously quite knowledgeable on the subject, so what, in your opinion, would be the sort of porn that is not "revolting and demeaning to the status of women"?

I know you tell us this category is only in the minority, but I'm just curious to understand where you see the boundary line to be.

Not this rubbish again.
There are already strong standards that ban most of the porn listed by anti-porn advocates, as well as keep pornographic material out of they public eye and the workplace, and laws that prevent people from sexually harassing or demeaning others in the workplace also- whether those men were porn consumers, or simply people who were too used to getting sex in clubs.

And this is where the whole 'porn is bad for society' argument really falls apart; hardly anyone actually VIEWS porn. Internet statistics show the vast majority of internet activity is for research, communication and business. Usually most people who view porn are recreational couples, or individuals who are at the point in their lives where they are unable, or uncomfortable in a relationship for existing reasons to prompt their habits (young males, or older single males), and usually curious more than anything.

Instead, the majority of other people in society get negative sexual stereotypes from prime-time TV and music videos that their children watch.

Ironically, the people that advocate against porn would be appalled at the prospect of being expected to entertain a relationship with the kind of people they are banning from porn- yet fail to realize that they are doing the exact same thing TO those people, who might not want to engage in relationships of any sort.

In the same vein of 'husbands looking at porn'- that is called adultery- yet we don't ban extra-marital sex to prevent that.

Poirot,
"negative aspersions"

Negative aspersions!

Well isn't that what feminism is all about. Boiling up a witch’s brew of negative aspersions about those evil males.

There are even some evil males that have girlie calendars hanging on the wall.

Imagine that.

Just waiting for a feminist to build and run a garage to see what they hang on the wall.

In fact, still waiting for a feminist to build and run a garage.

If we must clean up the visual violence against women, we must start by reassuring young girls they are accepted without having to undress to appeal to men. The problem is not the men it is the insecure women who feel they must undress to appeal to men.

Philo,
"Visual violence" is it now?

Sorry to disapoint you, but many women (if not most) want to be seen.

Here are some pictures of women who want to be seen.

http://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/

"The problem is not the men it is the insecure women who feel they must undress to appeal to men."

I don't think there's any problem with women who feel they must undress to appeal to men. What problem is there in that? That's an absurd suggestion.

Peter Hume,
I probably need to clarify. Women who undress for money and are willing to pose as subservent animals are no more than prostitutes. These women are of the opinion to please men they must demean themselves as mere objects of male pleasure.

Philo

Insecure is the last word that I would use to describe strippers. They have egos like circus tents.

Believing in low self esteem is like believing in the zodiac. Once you decide to believe, you will always find evidence.

Many people have an abiding hatred of sex and sexuality, don't they?

Dear Helen Pringle,

Could you please define 'porn' for me, as you intended it in your article? The reason is that you may be using this term narrowly and selectively, so that you are referring to particular subject areas only. Or you may be using this term in a society-wide context. Or something else again.

Reading your article along with the numerous comments towards same, there seems to be a great deal of confusion as to exactly what it is that is being discussed. At the same time I find this topic of significant ambiguity in common usage. We all seem to claim to know the others' minds when we are each unclear about what it is that we each believe it to mean.

Given that Western civilisation and religion serve as a defence against nature in all its chthonian rawness. Feminist, Camille Paglia, writing on men's cultural achievements as a flight from nature and defence against the mystery and power of women, posits the following in "Sexual Personae"

"Happy are the period's when marriage and religion are strong. System and order shelter us against sex and nature. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the chaos of sex has broken into the open....Historiography's most glaring error has been its assertion that Judeo-Christianity defeated paganism. Paganism has survived in the thousand forms of sex, art, and now the modern media. Christianity has made adjustment after adjustment, ingeniously absorbing its opposition (as during the Italian Renaissance)and diluting its dogma to change with the changing times. But a critical point has been reached. With the rebirth of the gods in the massive idolatries of popular culture, with the eruption of sex and violence in every corner of the ubiquitous mass media.....Western civilisation has profited enormously from the sublimation Christianity forced on sex. Christianity works least when sex is constantly stimulated from other directions as it is now. No transcendental religion can compete with the spectacular pagan nearness and concreteness of the carnal-red media. Our eyes and ears are drowned in asexual torrent."

Deadly
“Could you please define 'porn' for me, as you intended it in your article?”

Aye there’s the rub. Of course those who condemn pornography as “degrading” and so on, presume to know what is the norm for human sexuality, and to identify deviations from it. But how could such a definition be anything other than arbitrary?

Women, in common with females of other species, adopt a sexually receptive posture without which sexual congress can’t take place. Those vilifying pornography are offended at the fact of sexuality itself; what they mean by “degrading” is “sexual”.

Poirot
Cthonian rawness, wow, that had me diving for the dictionary.

“with the eruption of sex and violence in every corner of the ubiquitous mass media…”

You hear that kind of thing a lot, and I can understand as to violence, but I don’t see it as to sex. There’s lots of violence. It seems like every night on TV there’s multiple programs about murder, often actually depicting it, not just shootings, but for example a while ago there was someone getting their ankles smashed with a sledge-hammer, and of course there’s the decayed bodies, the gruesome woundings, and all the rest of it. All the time.

But sex? I don’t think so. Pouting models, yes. Sex, no. Even the dancing is not all that sexy compared to sexy dancing from other cultures and times. In fact I think we live in one of the most sexually repressed societies in history. For example I read a history of 19th century London, and it was much more like Bangkok today than any western city.

Did you ever read ‘Sex in History” by Gordon Rattary Taylor? It was written in the 50s. Some examples: in pre-Christian Ireland, the ladies of the court used to great returning warriors by upping their skirts to show their privy parts. In mediaeval Italy, brothels were state-provided. In ancient Rome, public decoration included phalluses and vulvas, for example on public fountains. In short, many societies were far more open and positive about sex and sexuality than modern western society.

I remember also reading an interview with a Thai woman about the difference between American and Thai sexuality and she said "The difference is that in America you can talk about anything sexual, you just can't do it; in Thailand you can do anything sexual, you just can't talk about it."

The west is only drenched in public expressions of sexuality from the point of view of traditional Christianity. But that has always been *the* most sex-negative belief system in the history of the world, so that's hardly surprising.

Peter,

If you get the chance and you're interested in Paglia's theory, the first chapter of "Sexual Personae" titled "Sex and Violence, or Nature and Art" is where she lays down her main themes....it's an interesting read.

Her opening lines:

"In the beginning was nature. The background from which and against which our ideas of God were formed, nature remains the supreme moral problem. We cannot hope to understand sex and gender until we clarify our attitude toward nature. Sex is a subset to nature. Sex is the natural in man.
Society is an artificial construction, a defence against nature's power. Without society we would be storm-tossed on the barbarous sea that is nature. Society is a system of inherited forms reducing our humiliating passivity to nature.....Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements....Civilised man man conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. the grandeur of culture, the consolation of religion absorb his attention and win his faith. But let nature shrug and all is in ruin...Civilised life requires a state of illusion. The idea that the ultimate benevolence of nature and God is the most potent of man's survival mechanisms. without it, culture would revert to fear and despair."

I can't really understand what distinction she's trying to make.

To me, the tension is about the connection between men, sex and babies. I believe that originally - what Paglia is calling in the state of nature - people didn't understand physical paternity, an ignorance that our ancestors shared with other species. In that original condition, a man did not make any contribution to his offspring in the social role of father because no-one knew what a father was. His contribution was in his capacity as the mother's sexual partner. Many times he would in fact be contributing to his own offspring, but the point is, no-one knew that. Women obtained supplementary subsistence by exchanging sexual favours for material favours. Patriarchy (father-rule) didn't exist, because social paternity didn't exist, because no-one knew what physical paternity was. The mother's main support in looking after her children was the maternal grandmother. Society was matricentric. Women had greater sexual freedom and economic independence, and much less security. Religion was polytheistic. Monogamous marriage was much less secure than today. The predominant mode of heterosexuality was what we would today call promiscuity/prostitution - the open trading of sexual favours.

The recognition of physical paternity led to a moral and economic revolution, as the woman, for the first time, was able to condition her consent to sex on an ongoing commitment in exchange for sex. The role of the male was recognised, his obligation to support her children was entrenched, and he gained the corresponding right to know that the children were his. This involved the woman sacrificing her former sexual independence, and therefore her former economic independence. Husband as woman's main support in raising children. Rise of patriarchy. Monotheism, stern god, inveighing against all sex outside monogamous marriage, and all that. Villification of prostitution. Much greater security, but less freedom, for women. What Paglia apparently calls "society".

These modern haters of sex and prostitution and pornography are just coming from that latter tradition. Just like the Christians, they think sex is intrinsically degrading and repugnant, but cannot give any rational reason for their censoriousness.

I see the ongoing comments as still circling around the concept of pornography without actually addressing same. Probably because there is no rigidly defined concept of 'porn' that is universally accepted by our society (or maybe any society). In fact, I DON'T CONSIDER THAT PORNOGRAPHY ACTUALLY EXISTS, outside someone's imagination, that is.

To explain, the original article was about objections to some tea-room posters depicting a variety of sexual activities, which were adjudged as offensive to some viewers, and empathised by a judge. However it is possible to visit any number of world leading art galleries and museums and view similar images depicting almost identical activities being performed by men; women; animals and mythical entities, displaying similar genitals and the priviledge of owning these pieces of art cost milions of pounds/dollars, if they can be bought. Add to this a statement like: 'everything is art!'

To summate, the offensive seems to be simply the setting within which the pieces of art were presented and viewed? Or perhaps, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then porn is .....?

deadly comes to the only conclusion moral relativist can ever come to. He/She writes 'I DON'T CONSIDER THAT PORNOGRAPHY ACTUALLY EXISTS, outside someone's imagination, that is.'

The same reasoning leads to some claiming sex with animals is ok and even sex with minors. A lot of ártist'would agree with deadly's pervese conclusion.

runner shows the underlying Christian view that everything other than monogamous married sex is a distortion of human sexuality.

Peter,

Which is what Paglia was positing - that Christianity sublimated human sexuality and contained it inside the vessel of marriage.

We exist psychologically suspended between two worlds. The carnal reality of the human condition assaults our civilised sensibilities. Our intellect rejects our animality (and the possibility that the only pertinent meaning of life is that we propagate the species)...but we can't accept such a position as it's incompatible with our potential for systems and reason and "civilisation".

The Christian paradigm struggles amidst the explosion of profitable media which persists in chinking the curtain and exposes us as we really are.

Given the things "moses" is allegedly recorded as having done to the children of vanquished tribes, it is impossible for a biblical literalist to be a moral tutor. Pornography may be bad, but if so, biblical literalists can only tell it is by the happy accident that others have drastically improved our culture beyond the vile and stunted visions of such a (ninety-)ninth-rate prophet.

Of course, one fundy here has already claimed child-murder and child-rape by "moses" followers was "justified".

Rusty.

Poirot
“…Christianity sublimated human sexuality and contained it inside the vessel of marriage.”

In theory it did. It never did in practice – far from it. As Kinsey showed, even the people who believed it don’t practise it. Virtually no Christian ever complies with the orthodox Christian idea of what is normal sexuality.

Evolutionary psychology, not the Bible, explains this fact.

“Our intellect rejects our animality”.

Speak for yourself. I accept sex as a normal, natural, healthy, pleasurable part of life. It is harmless so long as it does not involve an act of aggression or fraud against the person or property of others.

Whereas without Helen’s assumption both in this article and her article on prostitution that sex is intrinsically abusive and degrading, her whole argument doesn’t make sense.

Helen
None of the above discussion frees you of charges of intellectual dishonesty and gutlessness, and moral stupidity.

Your conclusion depends on your premise that sexual discrimination is ipso facto harmful, which you establish not by reason but by appeal to authority.

Yet what is discrimination but preference by another name? Please admit that, according to your logic, all sexual preference whatsoever is “harmful” and should be illegal.

You are asked to define “porn”, on which your whole argument depends, and you go quiet.

You can’t distinguish “degrading” from non-degrading porn because you assume sex itself is intrinsically degrading.

On the one hand, you think that consensual sex, people’s peaceful expressions, and freedom of association are abusive and should be overridden backed by threats of force. On the other, you think that human rights are whatever the most violent party declares them to be, even if you can give no reason but self-contradiction and claims that contradict fundamental principles of human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The fact that your work may be approved in universities, which are supposed to be centres of enlightenment, humanity, and rational learning, only shows how far they have degenerated into hothouses of any kind of irrational and violent meddling intolerance.

Peter,

"In theory it did. It never id in practice-..."

I did say we were psychologically suspended between two worlds. Sex for most people means a loosening of the bindings - an disengagement from one mode of behaviour in favour of another. Constraint and self-consciousness are replaced with a rhythmic freedom of physical expression.

Regarding my statement that humans reject their animality - what I meant was that we mentally compartmentalise it. Certain behaviours and biological necessities are usually hidden from public gaze. All societies have taboos on what is and what is not acceptable in the realm of public display of bodily functions.

Paglia points out that the modern media has opened the floodgates and allowed carnality to rush into the fray amidst our Apollonian civilised life, thus blurring the edges around our self-constructed psychological elevation as above and beyond nature.

Okay now I get it.

Temple Grandin's perspective is interesting. You know her autism showed a genius for understanding animals, which made her the world's leading designer of stock-handling facilities? Don't know if you've seen the strange curved cattle races that are used in stockyards these days? Apparently stock don't like walking up a straight race - they like it to curve away into mystery.

She was talking about the various parts of the brain. The mid-brain functions, which we share with other mammals, include dominance, submission, hierarchy, groupthink, the fear of ostracism, and such like. The strong feelings of jealousy towards others having sex is common to many species, even non-mammals. For example, rams can't stand seeing another ram topping a ewe, and will charge him, and can break his leg in doing so. Same with bulls - and men! These base passions are very strong and anti-social, and a lot of the pleasurable and anguished feelings we get from sexual relations, I believe are mid-brain phenomena. Sex in humans is almost universally a private activity.

The forebrain phenomena include speech, logic, serial analysis. So the all the discussion and theory is a forebrain phenomenon, intellectualising about mid-brain phenomena. That's the "psychological elevation as above and beyond nature" bit.

However mass carnality in the media is an expression of the mass of people's driving interest in sex. It probably "will out" whatever the prevailing rules trying to restrict it, because it's so strong and fundamental. Perhaps instead of the media opening the floodgates, Christianity merely succeeded, very imperfectly, in suppressing such expressions for a relatively short period of history for certain activities in a minority of cultures.

Peter,

I think you're right that Christianity did succeed in suppressing such expressions. However, humanity tends to utilise sexual suppression as a mechanism to accommodate the differing realms of our experience. Taboo, as I mentioned, is practiced in varying degrees in all societies.

It's interesting that Christianity is a "sky cult" which offers reward in an afterlife as opposed to a belief system that concentrates on earthbound imperatives. In aiming our trajectory beyond the world in which we are physically immersed, man's Christianity (which is of a patriarchal construct) veered away from the femaleness of nature as source and succour to guide his conduct and consciousness, thereby furnishing him with a divided psychological experience of life.

"...man's Christianity (which is of a patriarchal construct) veered away from the femaleness of nature as source and succour to guide his conduct and consciousness..."

Well it did, and it didn't.

It is very much a deep part of female consciousness to seek support for her child from someone, and patriarchy provides for that security, by entrenching a moral and legal obligation on the man to provide material support for his acknowledged offspring, and later, any offspring. This could not have been reasonable unless he was given assurance that the child was his. And that could not have been achieved but at the cost of her sexual freedom. And since, in the days before patriarchy, her sexual freedom was her economic freedom, the cost of that securitisation was her dependence: the wife-as-chattel situation.

However imagine a situation in which there is neither moral nor legal obligation on a man to provide for his biological offspring: no statutory child support, no child maintenance as a matter of family or de facto relationships law, no family provision act, no laws of automatic inheritance; and no tradition of any such father-specific provisions as to give rise to more general provisions such as public schooling and other welfare state provisions. That is what patriarchy did for women. So I don't think it's true that it ignored the female nurturing and succouring side. On the contrary, in that, it probably provided more for women's own most urgent and important values, than would have the old regime of her sexual and economic independence combined with great material insecurity.

To me, the big divided psychological experience of life that Christianity advanced, was not so much between the mundane and after-life, but between monogamous marriage, and the pre-dominant mode of heterosexuality before paternity was recognised, a matri-centric society based around what later came to be called, and vilified as, prostitution.

Peter,

What I meant was that women mirror more closely the mystery and Dionysian nature of the natural world.
I think mankind as a collective entity embraced civilisation as a protection from "Mother earth"...however,humans can't escape the "nature" that is inherent in their own physicality.

Tell me about these matriarchal societies (serious question) I'd always believed that most societies, even in antiquity, modelled themselves on the "man as hunter and protector" - "woman as forager and nurturer" paradigm.

Poirot:"I think mankind as a collective entity embraced civilisation as a protection from "Mother earth""

I think that's stretching it. All sorts of animals form social groups for very good reasons. Humanity, as is the way of the "thinking ape", sought ways to make the interactions within the group less primitively based on simple strength imbalances, as they largely are in other primates and as they are in primitive human tribal cultures, such as gangs.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/porn-is-not-a-dirty-word-20111015-1lqqe.html

Porn is not a dirty word, Bettina Arndt.

It really is a shame the OLO has a plethora of pathological altruist's, who seem to want to ban any form of sex that they find objectionable.

So it is a shame that there are not more writers like Bettina to add some sort of balance to the so far bias of OLO.

Anti,

I'm talking here about the "grandeur" of culture - art, religion, science, great metropolises. Humans have a capability of pushing back nature, of creating environments that shield them from the vagaries of the natural world.
The modern world, for example,almost completely shields its inhabitants from realities that more primitive societies confront on a daily basis.

Of course social grouping is an integral part of life on earth for most species, and mammalian humans are no different in that respect. However, man's ability to construct material and theoretical buffers to lessen his vulnerability to nature is an important and defining factor in his technological advancement.

JamesH
Please don’t dignify the author’s obnoxious prurience with the name of altruism.

Pious hypocrisy, yes. Bullying intolerance, yes. Bustling officious meddling, yes. Lemon-sucking sex-hating, yes. “The-world-revolves-around-my-prejudiced-opinions”-type egotism, yes. Zealous wowserism, yes.

Altruism? No.

Poirot
By matri-centic I mean a society in which the main family grouping is a woman and her children (often or usually by several men), with the maternal grandmother as her main support. The family role of a man is as the mother’s sexual partner, not as the children’s father.

(Matriarchal society is only a notional construct, because none has ever existed. Matrilineal society is one in which property passes in the female line.)

It is only speculation that matri-centric society preceded the discovery of paternity, but the premise is well-grounded because it follows from the theory of evolution. The original condition must have been ignorance of paternity.

(Matri-centric society accounts, btw, for the evolution of menopause. The risks of child-bearing - both to a woman and her child – increase with her age. When the risk becomes approximately double that of her adult daughter’s, a unit of the grandmother’s reproductive energy is better devoted to her grandchild, than having a child herself.)

Matricentric society is also what we see where the modern welfare state has subsidized the breakdown of traditional father-headed families. It’s like matri-centrism is society’s default mode.

Also there is ample ethnographic evidence of societies that did not understand physical paternity. Homer mentions them. C.P. Mountford describes a conversation with an Aranda (Uluru) woman in 1948. She told him that a child can have one father, several, or none.

Since such societies existed until recently, it is reasonable to think that the discovery of paternity didn’t happen until evolutionarily recently. Thus societies were probably matri-centric for 99 percent of the time of human evolution; patriarchy being, relatively speaking, very recent.

“What I meant was that women mirror more closely the mystery and Dionysian nature of the natural world.”

I don’t see how that statement could ever be verified or falsified.

But certainly before paternity was discovered, reproduction must have seemed …

(cont.)

… a peculiarly female thing: a product of femaleness and the spirit world. (And even now of course it’s amazing and awe-inspiring.)

As for the "grandeur" of culture - art, religion, science - evolutionary psychology theorises that such arose by sexual selection. This is where traits evolve because they confer an increased chance of reproductive success, rather than of increased survival. The peacock’s tail is an example. Sexually selected traits may even confer an active disadvantage when it comes to survival – for example the peacock’s increased risk of predation. But so long as the opposite sex is attracted to prefer such traits, they confer an advantage in reproduction.

According to this theory, the human mind is a software version of the peacock’s tail. For example, we only have to consider the sexual opportunities of a rock star, compared to an ordinary guy, to see how sexual selection for musicality might work. Man’s religious tendencies could also have been sexually selected. Even in sex-hating Christianity, the increased chance of reproductive success of its vectors – not just the harems of Moses and Abraham, but also Knox (5 wives), and Joseph Smith – as well as the ordinary clergy for many centuries! – has explaining power.

It is no answer to assert that art, morality, science, etc. are “socially constructed”. This only begs the question how and why the brain hardware to socially construct such things evolved in the first place.

Just as Christianity was wrong about the nature and origin of languages, and of geological formations, and species, and planets, it is probably wrong in its understanding of the nature of human sexuality too.

Christianity’s view is - with the unrealistic exception of monogamous life-long marriage as virgins having sex only for reproduction - that sex is shameful, sinful, wicked, degraded, loathsome, repugnant and generally negative, as Helen Pringle assumes.

But most probably the truth is that human sexuality – including the tendency of men to philander, and women to have sex for material advantage - more than anything, has given rise to the distinctive wonders of the human mind.

Peter Hume,
What a lot of feminist speak.

As far back as recorded history, there has been marriage in nearly all societies, and children knew their mother and their father. This occurs in Aborigional tribes right through to Eskimos.

Outside my window are a pair of Magpies that are raising young in a nest. They have been doing this each year for a number of years. They are a male and a female. Only a feminist would think they are both female.

As for pictures on the wall, what is the difference between a woman walking down the street wearing suggestive clothing, and a picture of a woman wearing suggestive clothing.

Not much difference.

"It's a wise man who knows his own father."

Homer

Peter Hume,
And Homer knew who the mothers and the fathers and the children were in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I can’t quite imagine a feminist writing the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Me neither; they weren't exactly in touch with their nurturing side.

And I admit that's the first time anyone has accused me of being a feminist.

The point is, the discovery of paternity must have happened at some time. The fact that biological paternity exists in birds doesn't mean that they understand the connection between males and offspring, and the same must have applied to people before they first understood the connection. How far back in time it first happened is a matter of speculation, but there is reason to think that it happened more recently rather than longer ago. I didn't say Homer didn't understand it, I said he referred to societies whose people didn't understand it.

My hypothesis is not feminist; on the contrary, it undermines feminist theory more than any other critique of it, by showing that if women should not be bound by the obligations of patriarchy, neither should men. The feminists are hoist with their own petard and herefore the key benefit to women of patriarchy - compulsion on men to pay for women's children - should also be abolished. What has enabled all that is offensive about feminism is the enforcement of a double standard by which women have the advantages of patriarchy - obligation on men to provide child support - without the disadvantages, while men have the disadvantages both ways.

Peter Hume, please read "The dark side of Altruism" New Scientist magazine.

Peter,

I've written before that a community of humans could be viewed as a living organism. One which instinctively seeks to continue its survival by the procreation of future generations. It has recourse to complementary genders to achieve this aim. How do you reason that leaving women to solely support and nurture future generations is going to suffice? (notwithstanding that advanced Western culture has significantly warped traditional gender roles)

“I've written before that a community of humans could be viewed as a living organism.”

It could also be viewed as a beehive, a battery, or a bicycle. But it isn’t any of these things.

But I get it, it’s an analogy. So athletes could be thought of as the muscles of this “organism”, and rock stars as the larynx, and so on, right?

The problem with using models as analogies of human society is that unless they are accurate representations of relevant phenomena, they lead to wrong conclusions. It’s like the neo-classical economists with their models of perfect this and perfect that. Perfection is not of this world, so it’s not much use modeling human society on something that doesn’t exist, is it?

By the same token, your model is inaccurate and untrue. A human community is not “a living organism”, it’s an association of organisms of one species. The difference is that an organism has 100 percent of its genes in common with itself. But you have fewer genes in common with your own offspring than with yourself, and they have more or fewer in various degrees with other kin and strangers. There is a conflict of interest between the members of a community that there is not as between a living organism and itself.

It’s true that humans more than any other creature have been able to harmonise this conflict by means of social co-operation based on the division of labour and voluntary exchanges, and thus have been able to greatly expand the welfare possibilities for all. But the conflict of interest is real and legitimate, and is not to be conjured away by pretending it doesn’t exist. It is to be harmonized by social co-operation, not by prisons.

“How do you reason that leaving women to solely support and nurture future generations is going to suffice?”

Suffice for what?

I’m not reasoning for women’s sole support for children; only that relations must be based on consent.

Since patriarchal obligations are anathema for women, why shouldn’t they be for men?

I notice the author hasn't come back to answer the many questions put to her.
It comes as no surprise to see that when academics, particularly Humanities academics, step outside the Academe and their lofty ideals meet the real world they crumble. They're rarely made accountable in the Academe because they just have to submit their articles to a journal that is already subservient to the ideals they subscribe to.
The real test comes when they submit them to the public arena.

Aristocrat, Peter Hume et al.:
What extraordinary presumption you have to suggest that I have 'gone quiet' in the face of your ludicrous abuse. As a matter of fact, I am in the middle of marking. When that is done, perhaps I might be able to read your abuse carefully and come up with a few points worth addressing. But other deadlines call. In fact, I only reply now because a friend alerted me to your peculiar claims about me, and suggested I should add this note.
Helen

Good. You could start by explaining why, according to your logic, sexual preference should not be illegal, as constituting "the harm of discrimination".

[Deleted for abuse.]

[Deleted for abuse.]

Peter Hume & Aristocrat, to say "I am marking" is not meant to show how important I am, geez are you guys crazy? Have you ever spent a couple of weeks marking? The last thing marking makes you feel is important. It is meant to say how it is impossible to think of other things.
So here's the deal guys: why don't you come and do my marking and then you can feel important (doh) and I can have time time to reply to you crazy chaps. Deal?

isabelberners,

I sympathise; I'm marking too; and I don't feel important either.

isabelberners,

Have just looked again at your article and it occurs to me to ask, what about women's involvement in the porn industry? There's no shortage of ladies ready to make a fast buck by indulging predominantly male fantasy in the porn trade. It could be argued that the market for degrading porn is as much manufactured as it is responsive, perhaps more so. Male fantasy is a world of cliche and commodification, and in terms of competition, merely a matter of escalation--one-upmanship--like adding more fat and sugar in an unregulated market and propagating addiction. The real offenders are the capitalists. The guys with the callendars, the miscreants, are just the dupes, no different to their brain-dead shopaholic girlfriends. And that brings me to the more important point I presume you've considered: by demonising the consumer, rather than the pusher, the capitalist (who also ultimately pays your stipend/salary), you are legitimising his/her business.
You accept the state of affairs just as they are then?
We just need to punish those whose weaknesses are successfully exploited by the market?

I've noticed that the police were involving the prostitution task force in cracking down on females showing their (.Y.) from high rise balconies during the Gold Coast 600.

I've got to wonder just how many people at a motor racing event would actually find the sight of breast's offensive. Is it pornography for a woman to show her breast's from a high rise? What if she shifts down a few floors and across the street to the beach?

I find the whole idea of a special police presence to deal with women exposing their chests so out of place it's almost surreal.

R0bert

Peter,
If I thought as you imply I would be a wowser.
I'm contending that the porn industry is competitive, fired as it is by the same profit motive as every other industry, and that like capitalism generally it is unimpeded by any ethical considerations. Novelty, as anti, says--but let's call it "innovation"--seems the only way to secure market share. Thanks to this crude dynamic a visceral form of creative destruction ensues and we get child porn, bestiality and all manner of brutal and disgusting representation that demeans all concerned and victimises and destroys many others. But it's ok--that's capitalism!
I suspect it is the competitive dynamic that drives "innovation" to "cultivate" rather than "respond" to demand.
I realise that some porn seems comparatively harmless--though it's hard to come by these days--but whether you like it or not we live in complex societies where sexuality has to be governed by regulation and codes of conduct in public. Commercial premises that are open to the public should not display sexualised images, especially if they're dominated by one sexual persuasion and the place is dripping with virility and testosterone. A woman might well feel intimidated, imposed upon and discriminated against in that she is expected to suffer it in silence. We're not just talking about a calendar, but all the intangibles (in terms of male attitude and even the "attitude" of the place) that can accumulate to make such places highly unsavoury to sensitive females. And let's not forget that a large percentage of females "have been" subjected to one form of sexualised abuse or another. So it's not simply a matter of feminist hypersensitivity or hysterics (a convenient disorder that's often been attributed to women); the offence taken could be legitimately inferred from a history of overbearing, sexually charged, patronising or belittling behaviours females are often forced to endure.
The reason we still live in societies dominated by male culture and chauvinism is because not enough women speak out! or because they're desensitised to their own degradation.
This is only a one-sided view and a great deal of qualification is needed.

Squeers

I applaud your posts regarding the 'cultivation' of demand that is a part of unregulated capitalism. I agree both men and women are complicit in the escalation of porn into something that was entertaining into a gross distortion of joyful and robust sex acts.

You stated: " The reason we still live in societies dominated by male culture and chauvinism is because not enough women speak out! "

I cannot answer for all women, but for 9 years I was in an abusive (mentally and physically) marriage and find responding to some of the supporters of unlimited pornography difficult to construct debates - bringing back past experiences I would rather forget.

I protest when I can as best as I can. And thank you for your very thoughtful posts on this topic.

Yes, Peter, here you go again criticising on the grounds of personal insult - followed up with your own brand of name-calling. (keeps happening)

You can bang on all you like about "freedom of expression", but the fact remains that sexual expression is modified in all societies as far as its display in the public arena.

Ever asked yourself why "women's workplaces" aren't festooned with pictures of scantily clad blokes? It's because women don't feel the need to reduce men to merely a sexual entity. One can only assume that it's men's way of "putting them in their place" as an expression of a will to power and rising in proportion to women's increased autonomy.

Squeers is right in his assertion regarding capitalism, which has harnessed both genders to it's agenda in all spheres of life.

Thanks Ammonite and Poirot for the endorsement.

I have three daughters and three sons so have to try to see both sides!

As a male myself it's a comfort to think that the taste for a lot of sick porn is cultivated rather than innate. If habits like smoking--sucking toxic muck into your lungs, even enduring the body's initial objections--can be cultivated, I guess anything can--maybe even salubrious habits, which can afford rarer pleasures than the gross matter of all kinds we're daily encouraged to consume, and so lose that capacity, that part of the aesthetic spectrum of the mind, for finer things and feelings.

Squeers

With three of each gender - when do you find the energy, let alone the time to write? And with such gusto.

It is disturbing to note that those who endorse all forms of pornography do so by invoking 'free speech'. I see see nothing liberating in the humiliation of men, women and children for sexual gratification. I do see a lot of money that can be made be maintaining this faux form of libertarianism - the "cultivation of demand". I also note that it is the same posters (usual suspects?) on OLO who protest most loudly when any criticism of the most base, dark and downright disturbing pornography is uttered.

Yay, Mine's the 100th comment!

R0bert, this is why the police care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgANT0OjKBQ

As regards the debate at hand, I'd just like to throw in again that it's not from the point of view of free speech that pornography advocates (at least us sensible, well-balanced ones) argue that pornography shouldn't be controlled or thought of as dangerous. We (ok, I) think rather that that the best way to develop healthy society-wide attitudes to sexuality is not to repress it, but to talk about it more openly, to examine why it is that people develop their sexual tastes, and how we can learn as a society to respect each other, and to express ourselves (not just sexually but the whole gammut of expression, as it's all intrinsically linked)in ways that don't damage, coerce, or dismay other people.

If, as Squeers and others have said, it's possible to cultivate one's approach to life, then I'd suggest that cultivating out the conservative elements of society is a first step to having more healthy discussions on sexuality.

The thread above will probably not make quite as much sense as it did as I have deleted a number of posts without the customary note as to why. They have all been deleted for abuse, but there were so many of them I didn't have the time to leave the notifications on all but the first couple.

I do not understand why commenters would want to abuse an author who does engage. It's rare for authors to engage at all, and it's to Helen's credit that she will, and it is probably one reason other authors don't when this sort of behaviour occurs.

It can also be difficult to recruit writers because of nonsense like this. Unfortunately writers think the comments are typical of our readership.

No-one has a right to have any of their arguments answered by anyone else. It is a privilege. What I saw in this thread was cyber bullying. I've handed-out some suspensions.

Graham Young

Dear Graham Young,

Whilst I wont criticise your actions, as I empathise with your description of a number of the over-the-top comments by posters, I would like to simultaneously point out that this article and subsequent responses to it have been excellent in terms of engagement and readers’ interest.

Kind regards.

Poirot, "Ever asked yourself why "women's workplaces" aren't festooned with pictures of scantily clad blokes? It's because women don't feel the need to reduce men to merely a sexual entity. One can only assume that it's men's way of "putting them in their place" as an expression of a will to power and rising in proportion to women's increased autonomy."

That's given some food for thought. The workplaces I've been have not generally been ones where festooning is allowed, the closest I can recall was a welders bay many years ago and the impression was more of shrine than putting anyone in their place. I've little doubt that the other occurs but it's worth remembering that different people have different reasons for their choices.

I have seen the fireman's calendars hanging from more than one woman's office desk in environments where similar pictures of women would have earned at best a requirement for swift removal and possibly disciplinary action.

I do think that overall there are some difference in the way men and women think about that stuff. Men do seem to be more driven by looks in the same way that women are more driven by a males ability to provide. Neither are absolutes nor do they encompass all that most see in the other gender.

I don't think that a lot men reduce women "to merely a sexual entity". It's an aspect of women that's important to men but not the only one. More easily pot into a picture than the others perhaps and probably more relevant in a picture of someone you are never likely to know.

I'd also been thinking about the contents of women's magazines and how much of the content of them is scantly clad women.

R0bert

Yes R0bert, I agree: "I don't think that a lot men reduce women "to merely a sexual entity". It's an aspect of women that's important to men but not the only one. More easily pot into a picture than the others perhaps and probably more relevant in a picture of someone you are never likely to know."

I think that when a man looks at a picture of a beautiful women he doesn't just see a body; he sees a human being, and as well as thinking she's beautiful and sexy-looking he makes a judgement about the sort of person she is. It might be wrong, it might be an idealisation, but it's there, and it doesn't just consist of sex-related thoughts."Shrine" is an excellent way of describing what you'd find in a welder's bay. I quite like that.

One of the difficult things about talking about pornography is that there are so many presumptions that exist in our culture to the effect that men "experience certain things", that you need to unpack them all in the course of the discussion - which is difficult because these things so dominate the language that is used to talk about pornography that without them it's hard to find the words to talk about it with. To say for example that men "objectify" women is totally absurd, and misanthropic, but for whatever reason (as in, men have been saying "whatever" to that accusation for longer than is good for them), that concept has become so ubiquitous that it is now the default that men have to defend themselves from, even though they never did it to begin with.