TurnRightThenLeft. Re: banning porn. No and yes. Yes, certain kinds such as websites that show women being raped. Scream and Cream and MILF (Mums I like to F*#k) sites are downright dangerous and immoral. Impressionable young boys can access this stuff easily. I say drive ‘em (the porn merchants) underground and thus help create a culture where this type of stuff is regarded as underground and unacceptable to normal, well- adjusted people.

Further underground there is already something much more sinister such as kidnapping and sexual slavery to feed the growing market for those looking for more and more extreme titillation. So by leaving this stuff out there the underground just grows and gets more extreme. Apply your logic TRTL to paedophile sites. Do you want to leave them proliferate? Please rethink your position.

Percy Shelley once said that poetry is more powerful than philosophy and has the power to change people’s thinking. And this instinctual and sensible comment has been confirmed recently with the discovery that the adult brain continues to change. Brain scans -- aren’t they wonderful? Scientists have found that our brains are altered whenever we learn something, and new connections are forged in our network of nerve cells. These changes are triggered by thought but more so by emotions. For instance, Vietnam Vets develop something like hard wiring that sees them responding to, I know it’s a cliché, the sound of a helicopter. War veterans can go into combat mode in response to the emotion that a certain situation evokes. Very scary. I’ve witnessed this reaction first hand with my Dad and family have seen a mild-mannered Vietnam Vet flip right out. It follows that being exposed to porn on a regular basis, especially without a countering influence, may negatively alter ones emotions in relation to women and change the thinking from a positive respect to a negative disregard.

Our genes also play a part. A difference in genetic disposition will see one affected and another less troubled.

Just to clarify, re: the media. I was referring to the pop music industry and magazines which have a lot of influence over youngsters. Rages top fifty, for instance, is mostly teens crawling around the on the floor showing off there bits and not singing anything of substance. This is counter to say punk culture which sees this as hilarious behaviour. A punk rockers response: “Faackenell look at this, would ya’ .
"Faacken got ‘er by the short an’ faaken curlies – idiot cant.”

Girls providing little boys with a masturbation aid. Madona, who helped start this nonsense, is a mensa with an IQ over 170, so work out whose exploiting who.

The media is a mirror. That’s half the problem with censorship. The government uses community standards as the guide. So a community that is exposed to more and more extreme porn becomes the guide for more and more extreme porn. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a bit like Hitler asking the German population at the height of anti-Semitism if they liked his message. Sooner or later the extreme is sort after in reality and in this context here - women are the ones targeted.

I mentioned education. It is my belief that (because youTRTL are probably correct and there will always be negative influences and porn - I to am against banning certain movies that are regarded by some, especially Christians, as porn) our children must be shown how to be true individuals with the self confidence to piss the pack off. To tell the pack: “Faackenell I don’t give toss if you think I is weird - shove it up ya’ arse with ya’ g-string.”

TurnRightTurnLeft your opinions are well put and I agree with the rest of your points - especially the last two paras.

ronnie - I think we largely agree on most points. While I would be stridently opposed to banning porn en masse, violence is another issue entirely - and I would class rape as very strong violence. This argument can be extended to paedophilia as well, though I do have some reservations about how the law is being applied in some cases.

Few would defend paedophilia as acceptable and I certainly don't - though a recent US case where a man received jail time for simply writing lurid thoughts about paedophilia in a diary was overstepping that mark.
While I believe censorship may be acceptable in cases of sexual violence, somebody expressing destructive thoughts in the privacy of their own home is another matter - provided they aren't actually hurting, or even influencing anyone.

It can be a difficult line to draw when sex, violence and censorship come together in this manner - but as I see it, the identfying mark is whether it portrays consenting adults. In other words - if the pornography corresponds with the laws regarding sex in general.
That makes a yes or no answer a bit easier, both for paedohilia and violent pornography.

This is probably a bit lateral, but why are we discussing women as though they're a homogenous group? Remember the second wave of feminism?

Some will pole dance, lap dance, prostitute themselves, domesticate themselves, surgically alter themselves and so on because they want to. Others have these things thrust upon them but I suspect that most women are somewhere in the middle.

Still, there's no question that a woman, or a man for that matter, should be able to wander around in public without fear. Violence, from rape to sexual harrassment to the voyeurism opportunities available in kiddy clothing catalogues seem to be the bigger problem. Without these women and kids would be far better off.

chainsmoker, good post. I'm still trying to make sense of why the choices of some indicate that feminism has failed. The author makes points which may suggest that it's not all roses but the issues she raises seem to be overall cultural failings rather than failings of feminism.

I know young women who seem very much in control of their own choices about sexuality, they like the rest of us may not always make the best choices but they are their own choices.

Young women who can have sexual relationships (or not) without feeling that they must conform to someone elses standards. Who don't appear to be stuck between the slut/frigid tags that those who have less sense of control over their own lives struggle with.

As a society we can do much better than we do at helping young people appreciate that their value lies in who they are rather than how well they meet others expectations. We can teach our sons to value women for more than a certain type of look, we can teach our daugthers to value men for more than their income.

I think that the issue lies with what we teach kids to value in others, what we as adults all too often value in others.

R0bert

A very interesting article. I am the mother of a young teenage girl and two young adult men.

The issue I find saddest in Reist’s article is the continuing ambivalent feelings both women and men have about that half of the human race who do not have a penis and sexuality in general.

The attitude portrayed is a prevailing misogynist attitude. The sad thing is that misogyny is not only a man thing, but also afflicts some women.

Why is it that when a boy dresses up in an ‘adult’ manner and looks all ‘masculine’ he’s so cute, but when a little girl does the female equivalent she is sexual prey? It’s somehow OK for a boy or man to flex his masculinity so to speak. Now why is that?

The appalling lyrics of some music, the lap dancing, pole dancing and overt public sexual display, actually does not only reflect poorly on women who participate in this, but most especially on men who condone, consume and apparently demand this.

Adults, parents in particular, both men and women, have to educate our sons, that women, no matter how they are dressed, no matter what they say, are NEVER to be seen as prey. My husband has at times very strongly confronted his sons during their growing up when ‘jokes’ were made, certain music was played or the manner in which girls were spoken about.

As to children in general, that’s more a question for us adults. Why are parents so obsessed with establishing and imprinting the sexuality of their children as early as possible?

So, women have come a very long way. It is many, many men and some women who still have problems seeing females as being a human being and not only a potential sexual conquest. Let’s have a debate about what is a healthy attitude towards sex, sexuality and sensuality instead or is it time for a Men's Movement?