Vanilla wrote:I like porn while I'm watching it but then often feel yucky when it's over.

Ever wonder why that is so? Or is your enquiring mind completely satisfied by the answer: "Apparently that's common" ?

Vanilla nothing is issue free. People who work in the industry CHOOSE to. NO ONE IS PUTTING A GUN TO THEIR HEAD. PERIOD.

CJ

‘Sorry to be pedantic, but strictly speaking 'polygyny' in humans is a variant of 'polygamy', whereby men have several wives.’

Sorry to be even more pedantic, but the variant is important. ‘Polygyny’ comes from two Greek roots: poly = many; and gynos = woman. ‘Polygamy’ comes from: poly = many; and gamos = marriage.

Most patriarchal societies are both monogamous and polygynous – that is, men are expected to marry one woman, but overall social mores maintain that men will want sex from many women both before and during marriage. This belief is upheld via various cultural, social, scientific and political means - particularly in the ongoing masculine domination of the worldwide pornography market. Even though mathematically the premise is completely unsound, the myth of polygyny allows men more choice, more mobility and consequently more power.

Conversely, patriarchal societies maintain the belief that women – whether married or not – are happier to practise one devotion to one man, sexual and otherwise. Although this double standard is changing in most Western societies, it stays alive in the culture through various morality fables like the 40-something woman who is successful and independent but full of regrets about her marriageless/childless existence, and ‘Sex and the City’ scenarios about lonely female sophisticates who can get all the sex they want but can’t get a man to commit.

While SJF's etymology is impeccable, I think that s/he is redefining the anthropological term 'polygyny' from its conventional sense to a broader term that conforms with the feminist agenda s/he is pushing in their analysis of pornography. While this may be convenient for their argument, it is misleading to equate polygyny with generalised male tendencies to promiscuity.

My references for insisting on the stricter definition of 'polygyny' include C. Levi-Strauss (1969) 'The Elementary Structures of Kinship' and R. Keesing and A. Strathern (1998) 'Cultural Anthropology: a Contemporary Perspective', among many others is my library. I would be interested to know from what authority SJF's redefinition of this orthodox anthropological term is derived.

Steel. Never suggested they had a gun to the head. I simply disagree that all women who work in porn enjoy their jobs, as you claimed. Many do, not all. And while I agree that nothing is issue free, I think it's in teasing out those issues that we turn up the interesting stuff.

Apis. Yep. I've thought about it a lot. I never intended my last post to serve as my definitive conclusion on the subject. However I get the feeling that you're not that convinced by my "inquiring mind", so I won't bore you with further thoughts.

CJ and SJF, to quote the most definitive source of all, Led Zeppelin, "you know sometimes words have two meanings." Either way, I entirely agree with your analysis SJF, and the original point you made to Whitty. Really made me think.

it is not mathematically unsound to claim that men will want more sex than women, only that men will have more (heterosexual) sex than women. i don't believe men have a greater desire for sex, but it's not a question of the mathematics.

not quite sure what any of this has to do with the original silly article.