The idea that pornography only objectifies women is inherently sexist. There are men in porn too. I think people take this point of view out of some antiquated notion of chivaly: women need to be protected because they obviously can't do it for themselves.
Besides, you can't compare porn for men to porn for women. You have to compare it to romantic comedies, and romantic movies in general.
For example, watching Nights in Rodanthe, it was just ridiculous how much they mentioned that the guy Richard Gere plays is a doctor. His son was a doctor too. They must mention it eight times. Why? Because for a woman past her mid-thirties, there is no better thing to marry than a guy with a safe and very bankable job. Very objectified.
The vast majority of porn is created for men, and the men in these films are not objectified in the same way women are. This has nothing to do with chivalry.
The prevalence of 'porn for men' [1] doesn't counter the argument. You're just pointing out a (largely historically-biased) discrepancy in the target market.
'Porn for women' exists. The day it sells as well as 'porn for men', will something about 'porn for men' have magically changed?
Frankly, that it's not yet as popular says more about our society's remaining sexism [2] than it does about whether pornography, as a concept, is inherently sexist.
And I'd also argue the point of whether the male actors are objectified in the same way the women are.
There is no shortage of 'porn for men' that revolves around the concept of the 'hapless delivery guy as sexual object'.
The assumption that this isn't equivalent is purely sexist. The argument ("what red-blooded male isn't Ok with that?") presumes that no red-blooded female should be Ok with a 'hapless secretary as sexual object' fantasy.
And there's absolutely no basis for that assertion. Objectification is high on the list of fantasies for any gender and any orientation. Assuming it's something women shouldn't or don't want is sexist repression, pure and simple.
[1] The idea of 'porn for men' vs 'porn for women' is pretty useless. The genres of porn are many and varied and have wildly differing levels of objectification of the parties involved, wholly separate from the concern of who their typical consumers are.
[2] Our society holds women to a far higher sexual standard of chastity and more-harshly represses any exploration they may do, as compared to their male peers. To say nothing of what we imply their fantasies and erotic consumption habits are or should be.
Secretly, most, maybe all, women like be objectified to an extent, it's part of their dna. Find me a woman who says they wouldn't secretly like to show a bit of flesh in a magazine and i'll show a liar.
To some circles, you're sexist if you believe men and women are different at all. I call bs, we are inherently different in some ways. call me sexist if you like.
To the rest of the circles, you're sexist if you put any stock in any of what are usually considered negative stereotypes about women. (the key being for example if you believe women are more kind than men, that is not branded sexist!) This is ridiculous as well, imho. It's like the stereotypes about blacks and guns. Some rapper was arrested a few years ago for having a bunch of guns in his car, and he screams 'you racists'. Dude. You had guns in the car, if anything you're literally living up to the stereotype you're complaining about. You can't complain about being profiled in regards to 'riding dirty' if you were in fact 'riding dirty', imho.
I'm usually pretty bad at illustrating this half of the argument, but as unpopular as it may make me I believe many stereotypes are based on a truth. To apply them to ALL MEMBERS of the group is folly, but the inverse is also true- to assume that it applies to NO MEMBERS of the group, or even ALMOST NO MEMBERS of the group, is folly as well.
I should perhaps start constructing a counter-offense argument... after all, have you considered that the belief that women as a rule do NOT like being a little bit exhibitionist could also be considered sexist?
On the contrary, I don't think it's thrown around nearly often enough, at least in the tech/entrepreneurial community. In the name of rejecting political correctness, the cultural norm has swung in the complete opposite direction -- and virtually no one has been willing to speak out for putting the brakes on. (Those who do seem to end up branded a pariah or whiner.) Top tip: we can enjoy freedom of speech and insist upon basic politeness from our peers; they aren't mutually exclusive.
---
As to your anecdote: So, you're a racist too?
(The above was mostly tongue in cheek, but consider...) :
- There's no law against gun ownership -- the right to bear arms is a guaranteed one -- so why is the fact that this guy had guns named as if it were a valid cause for his arrest? Somehow I have trouble imagining stories of Jeff Foxworthy, a famous white man with a 'redneck' stereotype, being arrested "for having guns in his car" being passed around with the same tone of smug judgement.
- Don't forget the history of racist double standards when it came to black gun ownership in America, both recent and (comparatively) ancient. Nor the fact that law enforcement is often anything but colorblind.
I forget the details of the arrest, but there are plenty of reasons possessing a gun is illegal. Don't immediately assume he was innocent and rule out the possibilities that concealment laws or registration laws didn't come into play. Maybe he didn't violate any laws after all, but that wasn't his defense so it seems irrelevant to the topic.
I am not being smug or judgemental, and I wouldn't have batted an eye or cared in the least, if he hadn't tried to play the racism card. Maybe it's foolish of me, but let me try to illustrate with a more extreme example.
Suppose a black man was to commit some heinous crime, and we had irrefutable proof he was completely guilty (just suppose, bear with me). Normally, he'd be tried and put away. But what if this black man's defense was 'well, I was being profiled- if it wasn't for the stereotype that blacks are more violent and commit more crimes, I wouldn't have been caught so clearly this is unfair. I should go free.'
IMHO, you can file complaints and suits and get all the damages you like for being unfairly profiled, and I'll generally back you up, but as soon as you're guilty of what they profiled you for, you loose all my support and earn my disgust. He may be right, maybe through racism we catch more guilty blacks than whites or something, but either way the hypothetical man is guilty. The way to fix that flaw is not let him go but start catching the whites too.
re: double standards and corrupt law enforcement, I'll give you that.
A) There's two issues here: whether the incident was racism, and whether the retelling you gave was, due to the assumptions it carried. I was addressing the latter.
B) Of course you were being judgemental; the entire point was to communicate your judgement of the situation as a flagrant race card play. Smug is in the eye of the beholder; I'm certain it wasn't intentional.
C) Re: hypo. It can be true that he is guilty and that he was persecuted due to racism at the same time. Not mutually exclusive; just as in another situation someone fully guilty may be proven so by an illegal search. Its up to the courts to decide whether the violation of equality would prevent a conviction. (Currently: racism no; illegal search yes.)
D) Would you hold the same position if the crime was possession of a recreational amount of marijuana?
Showing a bit of flesh, or all your flesh for that matter, isn't objectification. Objectification is rooted in what's being communicated, so its much more dependent on the subject and publication's reasons and context.
Trite examples:
Picture of Bikini Clad girl visualizing results of weight loss through hard work, healthy eating, and going to gym for purposes of promoting a better lifestyle = not objectifying
Picture of Bikini Clad girl indicating you need to buy XYZ or you'll never be beautiful like this specimen = objectifying.
I don't intend to insult, but to actually answer the question: how about your mom or grandmother? Do you honestly believe they wish to "show a bit of flesh"?
When you stereotype women, don't forget that you're talking about your mother, and your grandmothers, and your sisters and aunts and any good female friends you have. That's all my point was.
I think the idea is that most porn focuses on the woman as the object of sexual gratification. The men involved are merely instrumental to getting the desired reaction out of the woman.
Of course, pornography makes victims of all of its constituents, viewers and participants included.
Yes. Pornography is deeply addictive. Many are drawn to pornography with woefully little warning or information on its dangers. Pornography is "false love". It is a counterfeit. It can destroy real love and hurt many innocent people.
Its producers exploit the human tendency toward it to make a lot of money while simultaneously victimizing and addicting their consumers. Pornography dealers are hard drug dealers.
These are pretty major claims you're making, do you have any data to back them? A lot of factors "can destroy real love", e.g. kids, marriage, TV, etc.
On a different note, why do you think there's an inherent "human tendency toward" porn, if it is such a disgusting and dangerous thing.
"Kids, marriage, TV, etc." can introduce strains or challenges in a relationship that can tear it down if not handled correctly. Pornography by its nature is harmful. It is poison to love. They are entirely different categories.
There is a lot of data to corroborate these ideas. There are many porn consumers who have recognized their addictions, even if they are not actively battling them. You can learn about these things by looking for them. http://obscenitycrimes.org/cline_unabridged.pdf is a 23-page (unfortunately magazine-like) overview of the research of one sex therapist; I couldn't find something more clinical in the brief time I was able to look.
Regarding the default tendency, there are many things that humans naturally prefer that are much, much worse than the alternatives. There is a default inclination toward drugs and other seriously harmful solutions, but that doesn't make heroin good, does it? Our attraction to these things is a very complex issue which I'm not fit to explain scientifically. That doesn't mean it's not real.
So I was reading through the PDF you linked to and I came to this:
Consider also the spread of sex education courses through schools in the United States. The assumption is that you can change attitudes and behavior about sex through some form of teaching and instruction. If you assume that this is so (still a controversial issue among researchers) ...
Still a controversial issue among researchers? Yeah, kind of like how evolution is still a controversial issue among researchers. So this guy is a sex therapist who doubts the value of sex education in schools? I then realised that this document is actually just thinly veiled social conservative propaganda. I then stopped reading and dragged it to the trash.
This Dr. Victor B. Cline obviously has a massive personal bias, I assume stemming from his own religious beliefs, though this in only a hunch. You're going to have to do better than this ready for Fox News crap.
This kind of binary, authoritarian view of any subject really gets my goat up. Who are they (the writer you cite) or you to be judging and telling anyone else how they should be living their life? Because face it, that's exactly what they're/you're doing.
There is a default inclination toward drugs and other seriously harmful solutions, but that doesn't make heroin good, does it?
Doesn't make it all bad either. Opiates are used as effective pain killers. The legal status of drugs seems to correlate very loosely with how harmful they are.
Right, sex isn't all bad, the things that make us attracted to naked bodies are good. Tearing those things out of context and exploiting them for personal enrichment (pornography) is just as wrong as tearing opiates out of their context in medical treatment and exploiting them for personal enrichment.
I don't know why you're coming in here talking about law because I never brought that up. It's a different issue.
I'm not telling anyone how to live his/her life. I'm just informing people and giving them facts I know. Each person is free to make his/her own choices and I don't endeavor to remove or abridge that freedom.
None of what you've said changes the fact that you're arguing for an absolute viewpoint. Porn == bad, no exceptions (unless I misunderstand you) and absolute viewpoints oversimplify the issues they pertain to.
I also don't agree with you that "tearing opiates out of their context in medical treatment" as you so negatively frame it is a bad thing either. Who are you to say that's the only legitimate context for them to be in? If people want to take smack or any other drug recreationally, then that should be up to them[1]. I trust you can see how I would look at this analogy relating to your view on porn.
I put in the line about law because it's a point I was reminded of as I was writing. I do that sometimes, including a thought that occurs to me in my writing. Even in replies I don't always feel the need to limit my prose to issues specifically raised by others.
These things you're informing people about may be something you "know" however you wish to define that, but I don't see many objectively verifiable facts. I will read the PDF you linked to when I get the time (I have only been able to scan over it at this point), but I don't expect to find anything that will persuade me that your absolutist view is justified.
[1] It's another thing entirely if they endanger others by e.g. driving while under the influence of said drug, but this as you have said to me on another matter, is a different issue.
No, but responsibility is a cure for the negative effects of drinking, like running over a kid or dissolving your marriage. Some people are just too retarded to be responsible. That's the point.
Comments
The idea that pornography only objectifies women is inherently sexist. There are men in porn too. I think people take this point of view out of some antiquated notion of chivaly: women need to be protected because they obviously can't do it for themselves.
Besides, you can't compare porn for men to porn for women. You have to compare it to romantic comedies, and romantic movies in general.
For example, watching Nights in Rodanthe, it was just ridiculous how much they mentioned that the guy Richard Gere plays is a doctor. His son was a doctor too. They must mention it eight times. Why? Because for a woman past her mid-thirties, there is no better thing to marry than a guy with a safe and very bankable job. Very objectified.
The vast majority of porn is created for men, and the men in these films are not objectified in the same way women are. This has nothing to do with chivalry.
The prevalence of 'porn for men' [1] doesn't counter the argument. You're just pointing out a (largely historically-biased) discrepancy in the target market.
'Porn for women' exists. The day it sells as well as 'porn for men', will something about 'porn for men' have magically changed?
Frankly, that it's not yet as popular says more about our society's remaining sexism [2] than it does about whether pornography, as a concept, is inherently sexist.
And I'd also argue the point of whether the male actors are objectified in the same way the women are.
There is no shortage of 'porn for men' that revolves around the concept of the 'hapless delivery guy as sexual object'.
The assumption that this isn't equivalent is purely sexist. The argument ("what red-blooded male isn't Ok with that?") presumes that no red-blooded female should be Ok with a 'hapless secretary as sexual object' fantasy.
And there's absolutely no basis for that assertion. Objectification is high on the list of fantasies for any gender and any orientation. Assuming it's something women shouldn't or don't want is sexist repression, pure and simple.
[1] The idea of 'porn for men' vs 'porn for women' is pretty useless. The genres of porn are many and varied and have wildly differing levels of objectification of the parties involved, wholly separate from the concern of who their typical consumers are.
[2] Our society holds women to a far higher sexual standard of chastity and more-harshly represses any exploration they may do, as compared to their male peers. To say nothing of what we imply their fantasies and erotic consumption habits are or should be.
Ebook sales are pretty revealing when you look at them. There's a lot of women-oriented erotica out there, selling well.
Ebooks remove the stigma both of purchasing and being seen with the erotica, so it's an interesting market to watch.
You've obviously never heard of a little thing called "gay porn".
Of course I have, but that appeals to maybe 10% of the market. The vast majority of porn is created for and consumed by men.
Secretly, most, maybe all, women like be objectified to an extent, it's part of their dna. Find me a woman who says they wouldn't secretly like to show a bit of flesh in a magazine and i'll show a liar.
I don't know about any of that stuff, but I think you've successfully shown me a sexist.
'Sexist' is thrown about too much, imho.
To some circles, you're sexist if you believe men and women are different at all. I call bs, we are inherently different in some ways. call me sexist if you like.
To the rest of the circles, you're sexist if you put any stock in any of what are usually considered negative stereotypes about women. (the key being for example if you believe women are more kind than men, that is not branded sexist!) This is ridiculous as well, imho. It's like the stereotypes about blacks and guns. Some rapper was arrested a few years ago for having a bunch of guns in his car, and he screams 'you racists'. Dude. You had guns in the car, if anything you're literally living up to the stereotype you're complaining about. You can't complain about being profiled in regards to 'riding dirty' if you were in fact 'riding dirty', imho.
I'm usually pretty bad at illustrating this half of the argument, but as unpopular as it may make me I believe many stereotypes are based on a truth. To apply them to ALL MEMBERS of the group is folly, but the inverse is also true- to assume that it applies to NO MEMBERS of the group, or even ALMOST NO MEMBERS of the group, is folly as well.
I should perhaps start constructing a counter-offense argument... after all, have you considered that the belief that women as a rule do NOT like being a little bit exhibitionist could also be considered sexist?
> 'Sexist' is thrown about too much, imho.
On the contrary, I don't think it's thrown around nearly often enough, at least in the tech/entrepreneurial community. In the name of rejecting political correctness, the cultural norm has swung in the complete opposite direction -- and virtually no one has been willing to speak out for putting the brakes on. (Those who do seem to end up branded a pariah or whiner.) Top tip: we can enjoy freedom of speech and insist upon basic politeness from our peers; they aren't mutually exclusive.
---
As to your anecdote: So, you're a racist too?
(The above was mostly tongue in cheek, but consider...) :
- There's no law against gun ownership -- the right to bear arms is a guaranteed one -- so why is the fact that this guy had guns named as if it were a valid cause for his arrest? Somehow I have trouble imagining stories of Jeff Foxworthy, a famous white man with a 'redneck' stereotype, being arrested "for having guns in his car" being passed around with the same tone of smug judgement.
- Don't forget the history of racist double standards when it came to black gun ownership in America, both recent and (comparatively) ancient. Nor the fact that law enforcement is often anything but colorblind.
I forget the details of the arrest, but there are plenty of reasons possessing a gun is illegal. Don't immediately assume he was innocent and rule out the possibilities that concealment laws or registration laws didn't come into play. Maybe he didn't violate any laws after all, but that wasn't his defense so it seems irrelevant to the topic.
I am not being smug or judgemental, and I wouldn't have batted an eye or cared in the least, if he hadn't tried to play the racism card. Maybe it's foolish of me, but let me try to illustrate with a more extreme example.
Suppose a black man was to commit some heinous crime, and we had irrefutable proof he was completely guilty (just suppose, bear with me). Normally, he'd be tried and put away. But what if this black man's defense was 'well, I was being profiled- if it wasn't for the stereotype that blacks are more violent and commit more crimes, I wouldn't have been caught so clearly this is unfair. I should go free.'
IMHO, you can file complaints and suits and get all the damages you like for being unfairly profiled, and I'll generally back you up, but as soon as you're guilty of what they profiled you for, you loose all my support and earn my disgust. He may be right, maybe through racism we catch more guilty blacks than whites or something, but either way the hypothetical man is guilty. The way to fix that flaw is not let him go but start catching the whites too.
re: double standards and corrupt law enforcement, I'll give you that.
On my phone,so pardon the terseness.
A) There's two issues here: whether the incident was racism, and whether the retelling you gave was, due to the assumptions it carried. I was addressing the latter.
B) Of course you were being judgemental; the entire point was to communicate your judgement of the situation as a flagrant race card play. Smug is in the eye of the beholder; I'm certain it wasn't intentional.
C) Re: hypo. It can be true that he is guilty and that he was persecuted due to racism at the same time. Not mutually exclusive; just as in another situation someone fully guilty may be proven so by an illegal search. Its up to the courts to decide whether the violation of equality would prevent a conviction. (Currently: racism no; illegal search yes.)
D) Would you hold the same position if the crime was possession of a recreational amount of marijuana?
Showing a bit of flesh, or all your flesh for that matter, isn't objectification. Objectification is rooted in what's being communicated, so its much more dependent on the subject and publication's reasons and context.
Trite examples: Picture of Bikini Clad girl visualizing results of weight loss through hard work, healthy eating, and going to gym for purposes of promoting a better lifestyle = not objectifying
Picture of Bikini Clad girl indicating you need to buy XYZ or you'll never be beautiful like this specimen = objectifying.
> Find me a woman...
I don't intend to insult, but to actually answer the question: how about your mom or grandmother? Do you honestly believe they wish to "show a bit of flesh"?
When you stereotype women, don't forget that you're talking about your mother, and your grandmothers, and your sisters and aunts and any good female friends you have. That's all my point was.
I think the idea is that most porn focuses on the woman as the object of sexual gratification. The men involved are merely instrumental to getting the desired reaction out of the woman.
Of course, pornography makes victims of all of its constituents, viewers and participants included.
Consumers of pornography are victims?
Yes. Pornography is deeply addictive. Many are drawn to pornography with woefully little warning or information on its dangers. Pornography is "false love". It is a counterfeit. It can destroy real love and hurt many innocent people.
Its producers exploit the human tendency toward it to make a lot of money while simultaneously victimizing and addicting their consumers. Pornography dealers are hard drug dealers.
These are pretty major claims you're making, do you have any data to back them? A lot of factors "can destroy real love", e.g. kids, marriage, TV, etc.
On a different note, why do you think there's an inherent "human tendency toward" porn, if it is such a disgusting and dangerous thing.
"Kids, marriage, TV, etc." can introduce strains or challenges in a relationship that can tear it down if not handled correctly. Pornography by its nature is harmful. It is poison to love. They are entirely different categories.
There is a lot of data to corroborate these ideas. There are many porn consumers who have recognized their addictions, even if they are not actively battling them. You can learn about these things by looking for them. http://obscenitycrimes.org/cline_unabridged.pdf is a 23-page (unfortunately magazine-like) overview of the research of one sex therapist; I couldn't find something more clinical in the brief time I was able to look.
Regarding the default tendency, there are many things that humans naturally prefer that are much, much worse than the alternatives. There is a default inclination toward drugs and other seriously harmful solutions, but that doesn't make heroin good, does it? Our attraction to these things is a very complex issue which I'm not fit to explain scientifically. That doesn't mean it's not real.
So I was reading through the PDF you linked to and I came to this:
Consider also the spread of sex education courses through schools in the United States. The assumption is that you can change attitudes and behavior about sex through some form of teaching and instruction. If you assume that this is so (still a controversial issue among researchers) ...
Still a controversial issue among researchers? Yeah, kind of like how evolution is still a controversial issue among researchers. So this guy is a sex therapist who doubts the value of sex education in schools? I then realised that this document is actually just thinly veiled social conservative propaganda. I then stopped reading and dragged it to the trash.
This Dr. Victor B. Cline obviously has a massive personal bias, I assume stemming from his own religious beliefs, though this in only a hunch. You're going to have to do better than this ready for Fox News crap.
This kind of binary, authoritarian view of any subject really gets my goat up. Who are they (the writer you cite) or you to be judging and telling anyone else how they should be living their life? Because face it, that's exactly what they're/you're doing.
There is a default inclination toward drugs and other seriously harmful solutions, but that doesn't make heroin good, does it?
Doesn't make it all bad either. Opiates are used as effective pain killers. The legal status of drugs seems to correlate very loosely with how harmful they are.
Right, sex isn't all bad, the things that make us attracted to naked bodies are good. Tearing those things out of context and exploiting them for personal enrichment (pornography) is just as wrong as tearing opiates out of their context in medical treatment and exploiting them for personal enrichment.
I don't know why you're coming in here talking about law because I never brought that up. It's a different issue.
I'm not telling anyone how to live his/her life. I'm just informing people and giving them facts I know. Each person is free to make his/her own choices and I don't endeavor to remove or abridge that freedom.
None of what you've said changes the fact that you're arguing for an absolute viewpoint. Porn == bad, no exceptions (unless I misunderstand you) and absolute viewpoints oversimplify the issues they pertain to.
I also don't agree with you that "tearing opiates out of their context in medical treatment" as you so negatively frame it is a bad thing either. Who are you to say that's the only legitimate context for them to be in? If people want to take smack or any other drug recreationally, then that should be up to them[1]. I trust you can see how I would look at this analogy relating to your view on porn.
I put in the line about law because it's a point I was reminded of as I was writing. I do that sometimes, including a thought that occurs to me in my writing. Even in replies I don't always feel the need to limit my prose to issues specifically raised by others.
These things you're informing people about may be something you "know" however you wish to define that, but I don't see many objectively verifiable facts. I will read the PDF you linked to when I get the time (I have only been able to scan over it at this point), but I don't expect to find anything that will persuade me that your absolutist view is justified.
[1] It's another thing entirely if they endanger others by e.g. driving while under the influence of said drug, but this as you have said to me on another matter, is a different issue.
You're doing it wrong.
Got any tips for doing it right?
Use it responsibly, like alcohol?
There is no way to use it responsibly. It is toxic in all amounts. Any pornography consumption is too much pornography consumption.
Because telling people to be responsible has stopped all binge drinking.
No, but responsibility is a cure for the negative effects of drinking, like running over a kid or dissolving your marriage. Some people are just too retarded to be responsible. That's the point.