Pynchme,

Chyng Sun's selective interviews are inevitably countered by those who work in the industry themselves. As a trivial response, I provide the following fron Nina Hartley (make sure you read this: http://www.counterpunch.org/hartley02022005.html) one of a number of self-described feminist porn actress. And even if one looks closely at the unreferenced comment by Sarah-Katherine closely, the answer should be obvious to anyone - Sarah-Katherine should work with scripts that are more to her liking. It is not as if there is high capital barriers to market entry.

As for your response to Whitty, actually they can have it both ways because what we are talking about is a genre, with diverse individual instances and expressions - it is as widespread as human sexuality itself. It is totally erroneous to classify all pornography as a single expression and such comments display a profound ignorance of not just this genre but of all genres.

Your beliefs (and indeed, that is what they are) are based on false assumptions rather than wide-scale empirical evidence collected without prejudice. Once again I ask to at least try to show some respect to those who engage in this line of work and not to condemn their activities simply because you can't get over you personal distate for it.

Lev,

you took the words out of my mouth.

Pynchme,

Your argument isn't coherrant. You put this huge jump of illogic that all porn is an expression of hatred of women, regardless of whether life imitates art or art imitates life.

'we have nothing to prove about porn specifically being harmful'
Just how do you come to this conclusion? I'm fascinated.

Just what kind of porn are you looking at, that's supposedly mainstream, that reflect hatred or a desire for violence? And as I said, if not mainstream, why do we only ever hear about this, and not the vast number of male domination and humiliation by a female porn?

'women in uncomfortable positions pretending they feel good'
Again, as I said, do you think that the men are enjoying themselves? It's called acting you know. And no it's not very good, that's why the real thing (amatuer) is becoming so popular. AV equipment has become cheaper, and porn actors are becoming redundant. The audience want's to be able to believe the participants are really enjoying themselves.

In summary, porn has many genres, spanning the whole of especially male sexuality, but people like youself cherrypick certain themes you find offensive to women, ignore themes where women are dominators or aggressors or humiliators, and make out all porn to be some expression of hatred of women. You're a wowser.

Pynchme “You seem to believe that the women that you're watching are enjoying their porn participation.”

There is nothing to suggest they are not and I assume they are rewarded well for their efforts.

I can distinguish between play acting and real life. It is not difficult for a developed mind to avoid confusion.

The costume drama of BBC Horatio Hornblower are depictions of life on an 18th century ship (sanitized ones at that, there was more buggery going on in real life). I do not think they actually killed any of those horrid Napoleonic Frenchies in the making of the series, despite them being blown up and falling down dead.

As for “I believe that much (perhaps all) of porn is harmful, dehumanizing to all humans, counter intuitive, contrary to evolution of the species; false, misleading, a lie, exploitative of humans and animals, destructive, cruel and unjustifiable.”

Good job you have a few commas in that list, you would have exploded without them.

For myself, I believe the moon is made of green cheese,
the bible has been to politically interfered with too many times to bear any resemblance to the word of God and

your list compiled was in haste and lacking in reasoned consideration, particularly the bit about “contrary to evolution of the species”

please do give us a larff, expand on that one.

We are all entitled to believe whatever we want.

However, such beliefs do not entitle us to censor or ban the actions of other cognitive individuals to indulge themselves in what ever sexual practices they choose, watching porn included.

Lev and Whitty, I agree with both your posts.

I have, in real life, experimented with some “women in uncomfortable positions”.

The result was they felt good, in a kinky way but you have to be there to understand and I am afraid much of “vanilla world” just don’t get it.

Their loss.

Most of my female partners have enjoyed watching "porn", the story of 'O' being particualrly popular among the ladies, the original book written by one too.

Dear Lev, Whitty and Col,

It's very difficult to respond to all 3 of you to the extent that your posts deserve with the posting and word length restrictions. So I'll do what I can in each post to all of you at once.

First Lev - thanks for the links. I think you'd better know up front that those sites were already known to me. I still read them all again. Of the first - Candida - have you read it in full yourself? I agree with of her stated opinions about the bulk of porn, sexuality and relationships, misuse of animals and so on.

Of the second link - very USA. It's quite interesting that she refers to the division of feminist views and of course tries to align anti-porn feminists with conservatism - yet nothing could be more conservative than selling out to the traditional, patriarchal money market. At the same time she attempts to disassociate herself from expressions of more lurid pornography. Quite a feat when pornographers and pro-porn advocates themselves raise the impossibility of distinguishing even between extreme and ordinary porn (whatever that is)in their opposition to censorship. Anyway, you might read up on the recent UK enquiry and debate on that.

Maybe more women as producers of pornography is the answer to many of my concerns; however, I doubt it. At base it is still about trading in human bodies and lives at the push of market forces. It is still trafficking. It misrepresents the beauty of sex and ignores emotional depth. In any case, female directed porn is a very small enclave in the industry.

As for not respecting the human rights of sex workers, I'd be most interested to hear more on that in detail.

As to Col's remark about punctuation; that wasn't an expression of emotion - it was listed so because of post restrictions.

As for selecting quotes; I can find hundreds. Perhaps you should do the same; you might learn something. You can also consider stories like those of Linda Marciano, Traci Lords, Texas and others.

http://nopornnorthampton.org/2007/06/02/what-porn-is-selections-from-mainstream-porn.aspx

Pynchme,

I have been an active political supporter of Candida and her reformist allies for the better part of a decade. I am yet to encounter anything she says which I disagree with. There is nothing "American" about Nina Hartley's article with the exception of the context in which it is set. Politically she is discussing the universal right of people to control their own bodies.

I cannot accept the claim that "nothing could be more conservative than selling out to the traditional, patriarchal money market". That suggests that anyone who works with money and in the marketplace is now in that category, including yourself perhaps. The butcher, the baker, the weaver and spinner; all do their work for money and we all better off for it. Being able to receive recompense for one's labours and to be able to freely trade goods and services is an act of emancipation, not oppression.

By the same token, it is quite evident that there is a gender imbalance in the distribution of wealth and (to a lesser extent) income. Because of that reason it is not at all surprising that most erotica is produced for male purchase. In popular tourist destinations in developing nations it is not at all uncommon for wealthy older women to hire young men for their pleasures.

Whilst there is people who are prepared to buy sexual services and there are people who are prepared to provide that service for financial recompense, it will exist - and it is their right to do so.

I went through the hyperlink you provided in detail - and every single instance of concern is a matter of better regulation, not abolition. Which makes the title of the site erroneous.

By respecting the rights of sex workers what I mean is that you grant the people concerned to have control of their own bodies. I would hope that you are capable of doing this, on the recipricol basis that you probably want to have the right to control your own body. At the moment you are not doing this.

Miss Moderate here, embarking on a post that will slightly agree and slightly disagree with everyone.

Enjoying watching other people have sex is a deeply human thing. Particularly a male thing, but also something women enjoy. It's not going anywhere - getting rid of it would just drive it underground. It's true that it reduces both women and men to their constituent parts — to bum and breast and dick. But who cares? Watching raw naked bodies is fun.

My view is that it's safe enough for consumers, but we do need to work on making it safer for participants.

That Col thinks he can tell whether porn actors are enjoying it is laughable. This is the one thing that Whitty gets that men-in-general often don't. I am pro-porn, but I am anti-fooling yourself that porn is anything other than a pretty depressing industry. It is an *absolute myth* that, as Col suggests, the actors are "handsomely rewarded". Like the real acting world, a few stars make gazillions, most get about the same amount of money they'd get turning a trick.

And everyone has simply ignored drugs. Porn sets are saturated in drugs, they are the reason why people are there and the reason why they can get through it. Dealing with the porn industry necessarily involves dealing with its drug issues.

I'm not suggesting it's all doom and gloom, but for every empowered "I'm working my way through law school!" babe there are a hundred young women who have been sexually abused or, for whatever reasons, have few options, but are extremely pretty. They are very often not happy people. It is very hard to get real statistics about the porn industry because most people have some barrow to push, but some women who work in the industry believe that *most* women who end up acting in porn were sexually abused as children.