Am I Being A Prude, Or Overly Sensitive?

[StellaBlue]

So my question is, are you in favor of criminalizing legal porn because there happens to be illegal porn for horrible people out there?

The issue isn't as simple as determining whether or not porn is "legal" or "illegal". For me, pornography is dehumanizing. It takes one of the most beautiful and intimate actions human beings can have and turns it into something else entirely. Do I think porn should be criminalized? No. Do I think, as a society, we need to look at why porn - especially porn that glorifies criminal and degrading acts such as rape - exists? Absolutely.

 

[somerandomguy]

Do I think, as a society, we need to look at why porn - especially porn that glorifies criminal and degrading acts such as rape - exists? Absolutely.

Well, I agree, and I've seen plenty of thinkpieces about why online pornography and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue both suck, both online and in the print media. So it's not like things like this are being swept under the rug.

Thoughtful thinkpieces are more rare, though, than hysterical ones.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Do I think porn should be criminalized? No. Do I think, as a society, we need to look at why porn - especially porn that glorifies criminal and degrading acts such as rape - exists? Absolutely.

Agreed. It's important to take a look at the things that arouse people, and whether those are healthy. Take one look at a porn site, the majority of those videos makes me ashamed for humankind (yes, I watched a few). Aside from the videos in which 16 year old school girls just love it to be done by a bunch of older, ugly guys, I think the very fact that love is absent from all of those videos makes it totally weird (JMO).

I can relate to versions that actually involve love, like tantric sex, much better. In the end intimacy is a journey of discovering each other, (again, my opinion), not just pleasing your own ego and genitals. Seems kinda weird. But I kinda went off topic.

 

[Neverthesame]

This may not be a overly popular opinion. Normally I wouldn't touch this thread with a ten foot pole. But, here goes.

I see things like this as a good thing, the human form is a beautiful thing. All shapes, sizes and colours. It is what we are, we should not be ashamed of it.

When looking at the argument that this medium negatively objectifies women in the eyes of men. I don't think so. Sex is what we do and why we are here. We have eyes for a reason, to be used to see our world around us. To warn us of incoming threats, to establish the exact location of food and to read the communication from our own species which cannot be detected by our other senses.

Do I think everyone should walk around naked all the time? Nope. I live in Canada, winter is bad enough without frostbite on your unmentionables.

What I do think objectifies women as sexual objects is simply labelling anyone appears in print wearing very little as, trashy, slutty, scandalous, ect, ect. When we apply static labels to a person, whom we know nothing about. People are dynamic, our minds fluid and ever changing. I am not the exact same person I was yesterday, nor will I be the same tomorrow.

Now comes the bad. Now what I do think is bad about that sort of media, is the fact that you only see one type of person. A very narrow representation of a very broad spectrum of people. Selling that unobtainable appearance as what is "good", that is wrong.

No one looks like that in real life. If wasn't for photoshop, you would never see someone who looks that "perfect". Putting across the false impression that all women should strive to look like that is totally ridiculous, offensive even.

Finally comes equality. Men should also be included. Scantily clad men aren't my cup of tea, but that does not mean that it isn't someone else's. Seeing such things does me no harm, aside from the fact that I don't have muscle definition like that, nor is my skin that perfect.

That is my opinion on this anyway. Everyone is allowed to feel differently. I firmly believe when it comes to topics such as this, I should hold no judgment on others. Nor is it my place to attempt to change anyone's minds. Very interesting topic to be sure.

 

[darrenS]

In this commercial world, both men and women are 'objectified' because it sells. I don't believe that I'm in anyway causing women to be raped or abused just because I enjoy the magazine. There are no excuses for violence or rape, whatsoever.

I have no problems with nudity etc , what i do have a problem with is the overt sexialization involved in marketing, since the launch of the internet and ready access to porn , it has influenced general marketing to the point that before the internet ,the public would have been outraged as what passes now. Its no longer just nudity or mild suggestion , its become midly and sometimes openly pornagraphic. This has also influenced peoples sexual activities with many young guys now thinking all sex is like a porn movie, and performance is the driving factor, not intimacy.

I dont know if rape figures have increased or anything like that , but it has certainly changed how the younger set view sex and what it involves.

And if you have young female children , it is a constant battle now to keep them safe and not overly influenced by the overt sexualization of their gender by marketing companies pushing out the latest styles. I think the negatives are there , its just many refuse to see them.

 

[Friday]

And if you have young female children , it is a constant battle now to keep them safe and not overly influenced by the overt sexualization of their gender by marketing companies pushing out the latest styles. I think the negatives are there , its just many refuse to see them.

I would argue that's been the case, in the Christian West, since conversion by the sword. We have pretty well documented parents lamenting about the styles and fashions of youth for about 2,000 years. From the Romans to the Elizabethans to the Rational Dress Movement of the 1890s to present day. The laments have always changed with the fashions, but the general outcry that everything is going to hell, and that daughters want to dress like trollops, is almost scripted.

 

[darrenS]

lol so true Friday and an excellent point, lets start a new crusade ...onward and forward atheist soldiers :)

 

[Neverthesame]

What I feel is at the end of the day, parenting really is the most important thing. Educating children to be able to look at that sort of media, to see it for what it is. (Edit: I am referring to later in life, I do not think it appropriate to expose young children to sexuality) A picture, fantasy, fiction, unrealistic idea there only for the purpose of making money.

That sort of image, should not be given any more power than it has. Simply fuel for the human libido. Not a role model, or cookie cutter idea of what beauty is. Never something one should aspire to be. But at same time, nothing to be frightened of either.

It is what it is.

 

[Eleanor]

Abusers don't need "permission" to victimize women. If their excuse is that looking at pictures of near-naked women caused them to abuse, they are lying.

Obviously not.

Here is my two cents - mostly people act on the stories they carry around in their heads. If it is a story everyone tells themselves, then the expectations of a community are shaped to respond to them. In some sense, the stories a community's members tell themselves ARE the expectations of the community.

So if people have porn stories, they get porn expectations. Most people have other more powerful stories. But here is the thing - a student recently told this story: he lives in an apt. with three other guys. One day, they noticed that, due to some error on the cable company's part, they were getting the porn stations! (Which they couldn't otherwise afford.) So, since who knew how long this was going to last, they watched at every opportunity, so... a lot for a couple of weeks. Then one night they ordered a pizza. The delivery driver was female. She delivered the pizza without incident and left. The guys all kind of stopped and one said, "Hey, we didn't have sex with her." Then they all looked at each other and said, "We've got to stop watching this stuff."

My point is NOT that porn or objectifying images makes people bad per se. My point is that this stuff shapes how we view others. Look, if we were equally inundated with stories about, and images of loving relationships, and people treating each other well, and everyday heroism, or even vaguely positive representations of human sexuality I'd not be too concerned. But we are not. They are actually pretty hard to find.

It is easy to not think about other human beings as real three dimensional thinking feeling beings. It is hard to really respect their humanity and figure out how to meet our own needs AND treat everybody else with respect and compassion. I'm pretty sure putting soft porn on network tv and national magazine covers doesn't really help that cause. I'm not saying we should ban anything or punish people. I'm just saying, that ... well this:

 

[Eleanor]

As an aside a famous porn star, Cytherea, was recently ganged raped in her home, it was a horrible and violent attack at gunpoint

And what would you have them say? That this is a horrible crime and the police should hunt down the perps and put them in jail? That she should have access to rape counsellors and therapists who know how to help people heal from violent crimes? That rape is outrageous no matter who gets raped? That porn actors should have decent working conditions and be protected from sexually transmitted diseases? But the feminists I know of DO say all these things, and more - and the fact that anyone is paying ANY ATTENTION AT ALL to a porn star being raped is precisely because feminists have been pissing people off for decades by insisting on just those things.

Will this rape victim have a good lawyer? I hope so. Will she get the support and care she needs? I hope so. She's famous so maybe she'll have a better chance than the not famous nobody victims. I think blaming nameless individuals who belong to a category for NOT doing something (to prove what?) is a very strange kind of reaction to have. I'm sorry if you've had bad experiences with people calling themselves feminists - and in my experience asshole-ism knows no social, cultural, religious, gender, political or any other kind of boundaries. The assholes are always with us.

 

[StellaBlue]

@Eleanor - your last two posts are eloquent and articulate and I agree with them 100%.

 

[Ed Norton]

Yes @Eleanor I would have expected them to say those things that you mentioned in your post. But they didn't, in fact I happened to find the story on no-name news by accident. It was almost completely ignored. Sometimes feminist, not all of them, but some are very elitist with respect to whom they'll rally around. I just don't think that she was important enough for their cause. The majority of feminist that I've met are very similar to you, in terms of viewpoint. But I have indeed met a few "assholish" ones too, I do indeed hope that it is the minority

Here's link to the story...Link Removed