Feminism and porn

I attack both.

You'll have to quote me defending any of those things.

My apologies. So you do think the porn industry should be regulated?

You should watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDcTt0emXhE

So, are you saying that everyone who is working for a corporation is being exploited?

Is a performer in the pornography industry being exploited any more than a programmer working for Apple?

Oh no. There are lots of people in Apple and the porn industry who are not being exploited: the producers, directors, cameramen - as well as all the people running all the industries the porn industry interfaces with: the credit card companies, hotel companies, IT companies. They're doing just fine.

Oh.... so you were saying that Apple and Gap were just as bad.

Just to let you know where I am going with this (I am an honest person); my suspicion is that this is about Puritanism (rather than feminism). Our society, since before the time of the Puritans, have been scared of sexuality and have tried to regulate and restrict it. The attack on pornography was, and is, a part of it.

So my line of questioning is how a job involving sex is different than a job that doesn't involve sex.

Let's start with a job that has nothing to do with sex. Let's take a programmer. They do a job, and they get paid for doing the job. The employer doesn't really care about them as a person. The employer is only interested using them for a short period of time. The employer will fire them at any time it is profitable.

Why do you say that a performer in pornography is being exploited while a programmer at Apple isn't?

No not necessarily, if they're paid well and respected as a human being.

But do you think a woman being called a slag, slut, whore or bitch is respecting her as a human being?
Do you think titles like 'Ripped Anal Whores' 'Human Toilet Bowls' and 'First Time With Daddy' respects women as human beings?
Do you think women being dressed up as schoolgirls so pedophiles can legally masturbate to them is respecting women as human beings?
Do you think a penis being rammed so far down a woman's throat that she retches and vomits respects women as human beings?
Do you think women being urinated and defecated on respects them as human beings?

I mean I get why women do it. You're on a trailer park, aren't going to college and face a life of getting knocked about and waitressing for a pittance; or you can head for California and make a shedload. This makes it alright? No more than there that fact a small number of blacks did very nicely out of slavery. Furthermore, the naive trailer park girls arrives on her first set, and it's no what she thought. She's surrounded by men. A camera is up her vagina, another up her anus. The director's instruction is to 'wreck the bitch' (yes, this happened). One pulls her hair; another chokes her until she gags with his penis; and they all ejaculate all over her. Then she's all over the internet, forever - with the title 'dirty whore gets wrecked'.

So this is what counts as 'sex positive ' and 'empowering' these days?

Furthermore, I don't think a person should be fired 'just because it's profitable'.

You are raising a few different issues.

1) There is a difference between fantasy and reality. Lot's of literature contains fantasy scenes that we would never accept in real life. It is fiction.

2) There are many types of pornography. Some of them are pretty troubling (and you singled them out). There is plenty of pornography where women and men are portrayed as equals, and some where role reversals (women dominating men) is common.

Would you accept pornography that doesn't have the things you mention?

3) Some women make a good deal of money making and producing pornography including a couple of women who built multi-million dollar companies.

Would you deny these women their choice of profession, particularly when it has lead to success financially and professionally?

Employees working in producing pornography, including performers, should be protected from abuse (just like any other employment). You should realize that what they are producing is fantasy. They are actors producing fiction, and they should be seen and treated as such.

That happens in the real world... in most professions (including programming).

But this isn't fantasy. It isn't in a book. It's really happening. In real life.

As I said, there were black landowners who did very well in Jim Crow America. Did this make slavery okay?

And why should I give a bigger crap about the right of a few privileged women to make billions than all the ruined lives the porn industry leaves in its wake? **** their 'rights'.

You are saying the fact that some people make loads of money out of porn justifies all I listed above? And as for all the nice, amateur porn: how much of that really has been made by genuine amateurs? And how do you know that the people in them consented to it being put online? And how do you know how old the people in them are? You don't. When it comes down to it, someone is usually being exploited by someone else. And because porn is deregulated, you never know if what you're watching is a willing amateur or a trafficked Syrian refugee. You don't know the women in these films do you? You can't ask them.

There is very little pornography where men and women are portrayed as equals.

If you really think that it's all just fantasy, you presumably wouldn't object to films in which black people are led around on leashes and beaten and whipped to entertain racists? After all, if it's just fantasy then no big deal right?

But calling women sluts and bitches and stinking whores - that's fine. That's just fantasy. Well, if you fantasise about women being treated like dogs, you have a problem.

Stop trying to justify right-wing politics and misogyny in this silly way.

Yes I know it happens in the world, but it shouldn't. There are lots of think that happen in the world that are wrong and shouldn't happen.

You aren't making sense on a couple of points.

1) The pornography I am defending involves performers who choose to be in the field of pornography and are being paid for doing so. They are doing this job because it benefits them. It is a choice.

2) You actually can often ask the performers if their work is consensual. There are established companies that produce pornography with fairly well known stars that give interviews.

Making pornography legal and making the consumption of pornography mainstream helps in this process. If it doesn't have to be done in secret, then the performers have more rights to discuss their craft in public.

3) I don't think you have watched very much pornography. There is quite a bit of porn where men and women are treated as equals. If you don't believe me, then you will have to ask other people who watch pornography (obviously people who have puritanical views are going to say this isn't the case).

One good part about pornography is that it explores different aspects of sexuality in an open and frank way. There are the types of pornography you describe (where women are degraded). There are pornography with rather sweet consensual relationship. There are different types of sexual relationships explored including polyamory and shared couples.

4) You are focusing on one type of pornography and ignoring the others. But, let's talk about literature that calls women "sluts" or "whores" or has women on leashes (or men on leashes which is more common then you would think).

The fact is that this is fictional. When this type of pornography is made by established companies, often with well known and well-regarded porn stars, everyone knows it is fantasy. You can claim it is "real" because the stars really have sex and really wear leashes. But it isn't real in the fact that the stars do this voluntarily, they aren't actually physically hurt or forced and they go home at the end of the day with a paycheck they earned.

5) Fantasies are fantasies. You can't regulate fantasies. I personally don't understand why some people fantasized about other people being treated like dogs (actually both men and women are portrayed this way in pornography).

You can make a personal judgement. But if a man or woman has this fantasy, and wants a fictional representation of it, then what is the problem in a free society?

I also find it amusing that you are taking a right wing position on regulating sexuality... yet you are accusing me of "right-wing" politics.

I think you are making the right wing argument here. I believe largely in sexual freedom. Women or men should be free to use their bodies as they choose.

I strongly support laws to protect children, and to ensure that any performers are acting on their own choice. But beyond this, consenting adults should be free to express their own sexuality as they see fit.

No you believe in the freedom of capitalist markets. This isn't about people's 'private' sex lives, this is about an industry: a vast, multi-billion dollar industry that exists purely to make profit.

So what sort of laws to protect children do you believe in? Name some.

Don't make a strawman. I can speak for myself about what I believe. I am an American liberal who believes in a regulated free market. I want fairness... but I also like owning a smart phone (another multi-billion dollar industry that exists only to make a profit).

You and I would probably agree on many laws to protect children. For example, I believe that anyone who uses a child to make pornography should face a significant jail term.

So presumably you believe that all porn distributors - whether professional or amateur - should be made to provide documentary evidence that the people in their videos are over 18? And presumably you would also support an age verification system that ensured children could not access pornography?

Yes. Requiring that performers are over 18 sounds perfectly legitimate. It is my understanding that this is already the case... but I must admit that I am not sure. I would support this law.

Age verification systems for viewers are more difficult. I would have to see the specifics. I have raised 3 children, keeping them from material that would harm them wasn't too difficult.

Well I'm a British socialist. I believe capitalism has its place (as do smartphones), but I believe it should exist in the context of a moral culture so that the humanity of all those participating in it is recognised; and I also believe the state has a vital role in ensuring social justice by regulating markets.

Furthermore, I believe there are territories of human culture in which the market has no place. One of these is sex. If sex becomes another market commodity then human culture is warped. Sex then becomes an inverted parody of itself: rather than being predicated on love and life it becomes a thing of hate and death. This is why so much internet porn has themes of incest, degradation, excretion, abuse and hatred. It has to appeal to the darkest areas of the human psyche in order to fascinate with the requisite transgressive novelty. But like all compulsive consumers, porn users need more extreme thrills. At its worst, this can be child abuse videos, bestiality, rape porn, animals being tortured and killed. This is why even legal, mainstream porn has become more and more extreme, and why more and more of it is free. Why do you think free sites started? Were the porn barons feeling generous? No. Who doesn't have credit cards? Children. Free sites draw in children, get them hooked, and every hit Pornhub gets makes people money. Lots of money. And all the while children get their innocence ruined and minds warped watching girls being treated like subhuman filth for cultural entertainment.