I think it's very difficult to define porn.
When is sexually related or sexually explicit material pornographic?
When the viewers masturbate?

Edited by - respect on 2/3/2005 8:54:21 AM

[Link]

2Big

[Link]

Jacco

[Link]

When you say 'we', I assume you mean yourself, as I am sure there are lots of women(and men) who will enjoy looking at that picture. You know there are poeple out there who( i know this is hard to believe) do like looking at pictures of naked men. How would you feel if someone said "Why do we have to look at that women with her breasts out" etc. I'm sure you wouldnt be best pleased if that were to happen.

If only more women liked looking at naked men, then us guys might benefit(sexually) from being 'objectified'. Oh what fun that would be!.

Edited by - England on 2/3/2005 12:06:39 PM

[Link]

Why is it that when Fox produces some lame-ass tv show like Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, everybody is free to comment on what crap it is, but comments on porn's social effects are immediately seen as some kind of first ammendment attack? Some porn is crap. Is it not okay to say so? Isn't it okay to have some porn that's crap, just like it's okay to have some tv that's crap (hopefully not a steady diet of it, hopefully some more nutritious alternatives available)? Is it not okay to say when some porn is crap?

If somebody says that porn doesn't objectify women, can't we just acknowledge that it's not an honest statement, admit that porn objectifies women, and move on?

Edited by - lindi on 2/3/2005 12:38:05 PM

[Link]

Porn reveals the viewer's sexuality, porn doesn't create it.

[Link]

A friend of ours from India who now works in the U.S. still eats all Indian food at home. He finds 'American' food bland. I must admit, when we were in India, we found the food spicy, and from time to time, I would have loved to have been able to get a bag of goldfish crackers.

I think it was BIGmike who posted over and over and over again for months and months how much he hated Max Hardcore, and later how disturbed he was to find himself liking it.

We are shaped by the culture around us. We shape it and it shapes us.

[Link]

England

mod note: I don't want to ruin the fun, but two copies of the same picture on the same page is almost 18Mb of data our dial-up participants have to download before they can read the posts. Therefor, I think we can do without the second verse, as it were.

Edited by - hardware on 2/3/2005 4:58:37 PM

[Link]

@Hardware, the photo size is only 9Kb, not 9Mb, but I agree, probably too much of a good thing

[Link]

Maybe it's just the male version of the mouth open "I'm a blow up doll" pose that most porn girls adopt - and I find equally baffling .

On the topic of the thread , maybe the bigger difference is that men are just more inclined to objectify their sexual urges and since most porn is made for men it simply ends up reflecting this . Some women I've spoken to who are anti-porn use the objectification argument and castigate men for not having the same view of intimate relationships as women . Why exactly women's view of life should be the right one and men's wrong is something I've never been able to figure out . Strangely , men don't often go around telling women they need to stop linking emotions into everything and that sometimes no strings fucking is a great way to clear out the cobwebs . Or do we ...?

Oh , and I agree with Lindi that some porn is probably doing harm to some of its viewers . To the young and naive , and especially the inexperienced , the more "cutting edge" sex flicks must create some very warped ideas of sex and women .

[Link]

This isn't always the case however.

[Link]

Oh, give us a break, Lindi.

Prof. Chyng Sun is a follower of Andrea Dworkin, as was made clear in her identification with 'radical feminists.' Nina referenced her experience with radical feminists at previous NOW conferences, several of which I attended with her.

Anti-porn feminists will often start off sounding rational, like "I'm against censorship". But, in fact, they support an anti-porn Model Ordinance that was rejected by state Supreme Courts and the ACLU as censorship nonetheless. They're like "creation scientists" who start off sounding reasonable when asking for equal time with evolution.

Prof. Sun made generalizations throughout her article without giving cites and examples (except for the Bang Bus). That methodology is typically Dworkinite.

Perhaps nobody is trying to ban porn HERE. But in the real world, Bush is trying to get PORN banned, but not the reality shows and other putrid examples of mainstream media. Do you get the difference?

Edited by - Sheldon on 2/3/2005 10:37:12 PM

[Link]

Edited by - lindi on 2/4/2005 12:00:06 AM

[Link]

I took everything here at face value, and didn't read anywhere about Sun being a radical feminist either. She didn't come across that way to me.

This is why I dislike reading any articles on porn, it seems they are almost always slanted one way or another, and I've seen enough of it myself to form my own opinions. Sun's article addressed some of the concerns that I now have. That's all.

[Link]

She also slants the article with numerous statements which I will paraphrase as "Porn is misogynistic." She never points out that she is referring only to some porn. In fact she does the opposite, implying, while cutely avoiding the actual false statement, that "Bang Bus" is the "nice" end of the spectrum, and everything else at the expo is so bad it "can't be described for a general audience." While her statements are thus technically correct, she is remiss in encouraging her readers to interpret this as all porn is misogynistic, a viewpoint that is right in line with the extremist end of the feminist movement.

You can analyse her text carefully, and see that she has spoken the literal truth all the way, but slanted her words to communicate an entirely false meaning to the reader. It's a rhetorical technique beloved of politicians and political academics. A professor would not do this by accident. There is clearly an agenda being served here.

[Link]

Hint: here's one of Sun's quotes that I almost posted:

[Link]

The second statement is worthy of discussion, but I personally don't have enough facts to either support or refute it.

[Link]

I don't really understand why there is a market for these things. The criticism is certainly happening on this site. There seem to be equal numbers of posters at ADT protesting against "circus acts" and calling "bring back straight 1 on 1 porn".

I don't think Professor Sun is helping matters by lumping those people in with the mysogynists.

[Link]

These "non-radical" feminists are doing their thing as they did 30 years ago - maybe with a little more sugar coating.
As far as I recall in intervalls of about five years something like the PorNO campaign is launched in Germany.
Their [invalid URL removed]leader thinks Helmut Newton did "pornography", BTW.

Edited by - Zartyr on 2/4/2005 4:39:51 AM

[Link]

"Three decades ago, radical feminists began to raise concerns about pornography's link to sexual aggression and violence, and despite the ways in which the culture avoids the issue, it is still crucial."

They did not 'raise concerns' - that implies a genuine search for truth and understanding. They were interetsed in suppressing truths about porn they found uncomfortable by promoting their own brand of censorship. Worse, one of their leaders, Catherine MacKinnon, denounced feminists who protect the rights of any of us to post here (this includes you, dumbblonde and lindi) as "Uncle Toms" of the women's movement.

MacKinnon, incidentally, was an early supporter of Clarence Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court until she found out he was (allegedly) a porn consumer.

Invoking uncritically the mantra of 'radical feminism' signifies approval of all that.

Now, several of Sun's statements about some porn may indeed be accurate, but we would be gravely wrong if we ignored the context in which they were made and the agenda served.

Citing the statements of someone who wants to destroy us and then giving that person respect is very different
from citing similar statements from internal critics. Imagine if a KKK flyer mentioned certain facets of inner city crime and some African-Americans said, "Y'know, there are some interesting issues being raised here" as if Bill Cosby hadn't raised those issues already.

Nina Hartley did not personally attack Chyng Sun. The quote cited has her criticizing her actions as a professor. The job does not equal the person, last I checked. Nina's hypothesizing about Sun's attitude toward sex workers is based on a well-developed and time-tested gut instinct that goes back around 20 years.

The fact that 2 'moderators' were very quick to disparage her remarks suggests a pre-existing hostility toward her. Did I miss something?

Edited by - Sheldon on 2/4/2005 8:00:54 AM

[Link]

This site has a powerful search function. You can used it to browse the thousands of posts that both Lindi and Dumblonde have made to this board, and then draw your own conclusions about what, if any, pre-existing hostility they have towards Ms. Hartley and/or pornography.

-T.C.

Comstock Films: Films For People Who Like Sex

[Link]

It's sad that people have such a knee-jerk reaction to what is, as Lindi said, a pretty honest piece. Sure, she made some generalizations that I thought were troubling. But she also brought up some points that few, if any, are trying to bring to light. As a HUGE fan of Nina Hartley, I was a little disappointed by her reaction, even if I understand why it happened. After so many years of being one of the lone feminists defending porn, I'd imagine it would be hard to read that article for what it is - a nuanced argument about porn. Porn, as it happens, that sucks.

Porn can't be impervious to criticism simply because there are many who would like to restrict or destroy it. As porn consumers, we're the ones who are fighting to keep (all of) it legal, but that doesn't mean that we can't call a duck a duck and point out stuff that sucks.

[Link]

Max Hardcore's early work did away with two dominant paradigms -the 70s paradigm, namely, that porn is just an extension of the hippie movement (Nina Hartley still exemplifies this), and the 80s paradigm, namely, that porn is glamorous, made with/by girls and guys with big hairdos, lots of mascara and one foot on the set of Miami Vice.

Max Hardcore introduced the idea of the male as a sexual predator, out for himself only, preying on innocent girls. Look at the locations of some of his early work: amusement parks, college campuses, clubs, coffee shops.

He was the "beast" who picked up the "beauties," took them to his home and had his way with them, throat-fucking them, drilling out their assholes - this just 5 minutes after the girl had been drinking a caffee latte at the local starbuck's

At the end of each scene, the girl was left a quivering, shitting, farting mess, drenched in cum. IMHO, Max Hardcore was the first one to truly "objectify" women. In doing so, he exposed the "false consciousness" of previous porn.

2Big

[Link]

How did Max Hardcore expose this false consciousness?

Edited by - respect on 2/4/2005 9:47:59 PM

[Link]

AlisonB raises a good point. Certainly, lots of porn merits criticism, not just on artistic grounds but humanistic as well. If Prof. Chyng Sun wanted to be taken seriously by decent, thoughtful folks, all she had to do was disassociate herself from the "MacDworkinite" legal agenda of 'civil' censorship, acknowledge the diversity of porn and then mouth off about Bang Bus WITHIN that context.

But look a bit more closely at this Sun that sheds no light. She won't describe other convention's booths she finds offensive because it might turn off a general audience. But the Counterpunch and Alternet audiences are not at all 'general', but a place for leftists and policy wonks to gather and exchange ideas - so why is she coming across as prudish if that's not, in fact, the place where she's coming from?

She claims that the porn industry is NOT worried about censorship because porn is mainstream - whose ass did she pull that out of??

Prof. Sun's previous documentary was on the cartoons of Walt Disney (BTW, her point of view is that no Disney cartoons should be seen by any child under 5.). Her anti-porn screed is shot full with Mickey Mouse logic.

[Link]

If there is some bad blood between Nina and Dr. Sun that I was not aware of, her reaction is more understandable. I know very little about Sun, Dworkin, McKinnon, or any of these other radical feminists from 20 - 30 years ago. What I'm interested in discussing are issues regarding today's porn, and I felt that Sun's article brought up some valid points.

Okay, could I now post a pic of a naked Jamie Gillis? Just kidding, I'm not that mean.

[Link]

As the father of a pre-school aged daughter, and a Disney shareholder, this is some of the most sensible childrearing advice I've ever read.

-T.C.

[Link]

I also agree with Tony C., in regards to the Disney movie 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'. A movie that's about a gypsy woman falsely accused of murder was marketed to pre-schoolers as if it was a SpongeBob Squarepants cartoon. (I know, my four year old niece was crazy about that Disney film).

I want to add, I agree with alison b's previous post.

[Link]

In the "real world" press, I've written about the industry in Shmate and Jewish Currents, with an emphasis on Jewish porn stars (you'll see my posts in those threads here). I organized panels at New York's Socialist Scholars Conference in the 1990's, where Nina keynoted twice, and have myself debated anti-porners, both there and in other venues.

To refute the lie that U.S. pornography is primarily misogynistic, in 1990 I compiled a list of over 70 hardcore features called, "Progressive Pornography on Video: A List of Lust for the Politically Correct". I distributed this at the 1991 national NOW conference in NYC, where it was written up by D. Keith Mano for Playboy later that year.

Since then, that list is well over 100 (lots of Adam & Eve stuff there, as you can well imagine).

Both Nina and I are in our mid-40s - it seems that those here who think that Prof. Sun has 'a point' are much younger and have not seen what we have seen - the bigger picture, as it were.

Prof. Sun comes off as somewhat nice in tone, and you want to believe the best in people. It seems that you have not encountered the censorious, indeed fascist, face of 'radical feminism' up close and personal - well, when you will, you'll probably criticize me for not having warned you sooner. I tend to be lucky that way...

Please don't mistake my self-confidence for close-mindedness. When new facts present themselves, I am always up to reconsider things.

P.S. I wasn't making any big deal about Sun's policy prescriptions about Disney (that's why I had it tucked away in parenthesis LIKE THIS), but come to think of it, a pattern does suggest itself - she is always looking to get rid of this or get rid of that without suggesting a concrete alternative. Sun doesn't tell us what 'good' porn would look like, thereby implying that such a creature can not exist.

[Link]

And:

[Link]

I have been watching porn since well before you were doing reviews for AVN. There is a great deal of porn which I wouldn't recommend anyone watch whose desire is to celebrate women, unless your idea of women is as plastic fuck-toys. If you have another word besides misogynistic to describe such fair I'd be interested to hear it, though I can't guarantee I'll accept it.

[Link]

What I found truly bemusing was that although I am a veteran male professional pornographer, I found myself able to identify with and recognize as clear-sighted the points of view in her essay far more comfortably than the self-serving claptrap of those in the porn industry who adopt a "you're either with us, or against us" attitude that smacks of Stalinism (gratuitous Communist ref. to keep one of the thread's subtexts alive!).

To answer the quite reasonable issues over which she's concerned through ad hominem attacks on her "ivory tower attitude" and canned recitations of party-line San Francisco-style, psuedo-populist "sex-positive" ideals sprung more from wishful thinking than real-world practicalities is ironic, considering that by doing so any such party is aligning themselves with who should be their real natural enemy -- the "Bang Bus crowd."

And to tell the truth, I've often wondered before where the Free Speech Coalition gets off naming themselves that when they concentrate solely on issues regarding the First Amendment as it applies to capitalists within the pornography industry. Not that I'm arguing over whether that's a worthwhile cause, but, uh ... truth in advertising?

If the porn industry suffers legal setbacks or cultural censure in the near future, it will not be only the "fault" of those factions in society ideologically opposed to the open depiction of sexual behavior. Just as responsible will be the "reasonable" members of this industry who rather than show the courage and independent thought to stand up and criticize the inhumane & psychopathically sadistic shit that's overwhelming us, will point to their own "clean hands" in that regard and continue to support the status quo for fear of losing their comfortable places within it.

To say that first we must address the threats from outside before dealing with the issues within that threaten to destroy us personally as well as professionally is an attitude that I'm sure our current President would applaud. (please note cheap shot meant to raise blood pressure of smug Volvo Liberals)

dac

[Link]

Are most porno movies misogynistic ? Yep . I'd say so . But then the questions arrise : it that necessarily a bad thing , and if it is should anything be done about it ? A good way to decide whether most porn is misogynistic might be to try and find what could be considered the average flick . Astro would probably be the best person to carry off that trick as he's watched more porn than I've had hot meals , though if I had to guess I'd say Strip Tease then Fuck by ZT is more or less in the middle ground .

100 movies represents , what , 0.1% of porn available today ? I'm unsure what exactly that small sampling proves . ( And Hardware , are you sure those are 3000 films not 3000 tapes being made every year ? Sorry to get all pedantic on you but I could hear TonyC's teeth starting to grind even from the other side of the Atlantic ! )

[Link]