Lev - so you get to determine ‘consent’ do you? How do you know a woman is not trafficked or under some sort of duress including coercion or other factors such as addictions or poverty? You do know that around 75% of female porn performers are survivors of childhood sexual abuse; including incest? Namely "acting out" (Google it there’s tons of proof) And yes, fwiw, I am a sexual abuse/rape counsellor with over ten years experience.

You call this consent?

As far as “feminist pornography” goes… as long as we have patriarchy, there will not ever be “feminist porn” and after the collapse of the pat, it will be redundant anyway because we will not have the tight binary hierarchal codes of masculinity that we have now.

Re your cherished “empirical evidence” yes there is a study (someone may have the link here) which was so conclusive that they were forbid to repeat (by the psychological ethics committee) for fear of ‘damaging’ male participants. You do realise that pornography is ran by very RICH and POWERFUL men, who let's face it (men) run the entire world, so what is so amazing that anti porn research is blocked and silenced. It amazes me how many people think we live in this democratic - free world - free speech - utopia!

Look at what happened to this girl Lev and show some respect before you comment with your dripping male porn goggled vision on an article showing how porn has destroyed a young girls life…Bukkake anyone?

Freshly googled by newt...

“British Bukkake Babes features some of the cum hungriest, amateur sluts around. These girls love sex and are used to begging for cum. …”

So do Saatchi & Saatchi have to jump through empirical hoops to prove that THEIR advertising works? No because we all KNOW that propaganda, and lies work.

Lev you are a rape apologist - if not worse - and I refuse to engage with you further….skin crawling.

However, I guess you know that anyway - all part of the abuser mentality…

Chow.

Stormy1,

Your assertions, no matter how shrill, do not change the facts.

1) http://www.againstpornography.org/debunkmythofcatharsis.html

There is claimed empirical correlation that availability of pornography increases the reported incidence of rape is a largely study of the period 1964 to 1977 and was published in 1984 by Dr. John Court. I shall point out to you that Dr. Court is a former leader of the Festival of Light, an ultra-fundamentalist Christian sect. It is largely recognised that his work is not reliable. Indeed, Dr. Court cherry-picked the two dates and gave a percentage change rather and increment figure. "As Dr Brannigan notes Dr Court's data 'falsely depicts an increase where the trend has been the opposite'."

There is more on Dr. Court here: http://libertus.net/censor/xrhoax6.html

2) http://www.oneangrygirl.net/myth3.html

Shows correlations of surveyed laboratory experiments (I'm a little surprised they've left out more contemporary research, but perhaps that's not to their liking).

"And I also love those websites. They're so well made and well-researched (whether porn apologists believe it or not):"

Every single one provided fails basic html validation. They are poorly made and the quality of research is rather undergraduate.

3) http://www.dianarussell.com/porntoc.html

In the very opening chapter she excludes sexually explicit material which is considered to be "freely made" as pornography. However this is not followed in subsequent research. Thus the entire study is axiomatically flawed (not to mention working with material that's approximately 25 years old. Times - and material - has changed).

4) http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/articles_gender.html

Nothing of relevance.

"That poor young woman in Brisbane. Those ten men, who gang-raped her, have damaged her life forever."

Actually it matters a great deal. It matters because they did not respect her right to choose what she did with her own body. That's something you don't seem to respect either.

"It's very interesting to observe the level of denial whereby some people dismiss the power of images to influence one’s worldview" etc.

Once again there is the confusion between the content and consent. It seems that some people just lack the braion to tell the difference between a consensual sexual act and a forced sexual act.

Rychousmama

"TurningRightThenLeft
You think that rape is a natural instinct? You said it is "silly" to blame society and its media for forms of sexual terrorism like rape. Then what do you think is the cause of rape? If you really believed that rape is wrong you would never defend the very culture and its products that condone and perpetuate rape and rape-apologist attitudes."

You're misrepresenting me. That's dishonest.

Where the hell did I say rape was natural?

It's restrictive forms of social engineering I hate. If you're using quote marks, be precise as well - I never used the word "silly" but if you were just paraphrasing my views, then I suppose that sentence alone is accurate.

Murder isn't natural either - you going to ban murder mysteries? Action films? Thrillers? Dramas with violence?

You can argue that watching a rape DVD is unhealthy and it would be better if they didn't exist.

I agree. But banning a depiction because you don't approve of it is unacceptable. That's the key difference I'm making - I accept the banning of child pornography and the filming of actual rape scenes as opposed to depictions because those things are illegal, not to mention heinous.

But you can't mould society by telling people what they can't watch.

I don't trust anyone to do that.

Sure, you can indulge in social engineering via soft things like recommendations for healthy food and the like, but you can't go that extra step and ban junk food..

As for those who are claiming censorship isn't their goal, what is? To raise awareness it's destructive? (Which in terms of viewers, not porn actors, I think the evidence indicates the opposite).

It's not going to go away. Then what?

I'm also curious as to the morality of denying any pornography to people who have say, a physical deformity, but still have sexual urges.

Final points: Why the hell are you protesting porn, but not picketing gruesome movies about serial killers? If it's about rape porn, where's the acceptance that standard porn is harmless?

Eyeofnewt “Lev so you get to determine ‘consent’ do you?“

You are construing a presumptive condition.

Asking Lev to defend the issue of “consent”

It is not up to him to determine that consent has been given but up to you to prove it has not.

“You do know that around 75% of female porn performers are survivors of childhood sexual abuse; including incest?”

The activities of adult pornography performers is, logically, subsequent to whatever childhood they may have had and, thus, not a contributory factor in their childhood abuse.

Thus, whilst a 75% of female porn performers may well have been abused in their past and 25% not so suffered, it is their current cognitive reasoning which allows them to “consent” to participation in any porn production.

I would also suggest, a sense of “exhibitionism” is among the personal characteristics which allow ladies to perform in a pornographic act or the production of pornographic media, regardless of her childhood experiences.

“(men) run the entire world”

I must tell you of my admiration for Margaret Thatcher one day.

Of course, the “men who run the world”, in a western democratic sense, are elected by all and thus if women do not like it they are free and entitled to stand for positions of power.

“forbid to repeat (by the psychological ethics committee) “

I have run the ethic committee of a professional body. Such action would only be taken because the text improperly, unfairly and possibly illegally, trampled upon the reputation of the profession.

Googling “female pornography performers and sexual abuse”

Apart from propaganda from the misandrist industry, this is objective

Conclusions of http://www.porn-report.com/402-performers-in-pornography.htm

“The approach we propose in this area is a cautious but urgent one. Caution we believe to be required from the incomplete character of the evidence currently available. Urgency, however, arises from the extremely serious nature of the harms apparently being inflicted on many young and vulnerable people.

“young and vulnerable” can only pertain to below age of consent and not “Consenting Adults”

Regarding “harm”, Silicosis is known to be harmful but miners still mine coal.

Eep - I did use the word silly in my earlier posts (I was looking at the more recent ones).

Nevertheless, as I said, that sentence is accurate, though it's the only one, and it's still evident that equating a position that opposes censorship, as being supportive of rape is dishonest.

EotN,

No, I don't get to determine consent and nor do you. It is up to the participant themselves to decide that - unless they are so mentally incompetent or immature that they cannot make decisions about their own body.

We don't have patriarchy and haven't for decades. Patriarchy is the formal and exclusive rule by men. The suffragettes put an end to that, thank goodness, and was followed up by various anti-discrimination laws. At best one can say there is patriarchial (adjective) system, but not a patriarchy (noun). We certainly don't have tight binary codes of masculinity either - masclinity is a very fluid concept.

Thus, despite your claims, there is such a thing as feminist pornography. You might not like it, but feminism is a pretty diverse ideology (although clearly some wish that it wasn't). Yes, the majority of sexually explicit material is financed and produced by men and for a male market, which is hardly surprising given the distribution of wealth and income. According to contemporary research that is changing significantly (cf.,: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23317844-5003900,00.html)

Empirical evidence is indeed cherished by me. I am the sort of person who can only be swayed by the better argument, not the loudest assertion. I do not treat any propositions with religious adherence. YMMV.

Once again I note a failure to distinguish between sexual content and sexual consent. The fact that advertisers or anyone else suggests that some people enjoy a particular sex act, no matter how distatesful to an individual (it may even make your skin crawl), does not make an iota difference to the actual conditions of consent. That is what is actually important here; it wasn't the act of bukkake that was morally wrong, it was the fact that the victim didn't have a choice.