iemanja
iemanja's JournalThat depends on how you define socialism
In a state run system, like Cuba before the fall of the USSR, there was very little private enterprise, so not much space for porn. Porn is a commerce. It yields profit. If a society is not built around profit, there would likely be some underground porn passed around between people but not the massive for-profit industry that results in tremendous labor exploitation and even slavery.
If on the other hand you are imagining a European social democratic system, the principal difference would be that a guarantee of a basic fair wage for work likely reduce the numbers of those who would choose to work in porn.
Neither of these scenarios, of course, account for the international commerce of porn and the internet.
My point, however, was not to imagine different forms of government that would eliminate porn but rather to point out that the emphasis on individual liberty that is the justification for porn--along with much else in American society--comes to us courtesy of capitalism. Our notion of rights as resting in the individual rather than the people as a whole is itself a capitalist notion. Our constitution is a liberal document--representing liberalism in its classical sense, in keeping with Adam Smith, John Locke, etc. . . Liberalism emerged as the political ideology underlying and justifying capitalism, which came to displace mercantilism.
Not only are notions of liberty tied to the emphasis on the individual essential to capitalism, but in reconciling competing rights, the marketplace--meaning corporate profit--becomes the determining factor. Money is defined as free speech because the ruling class benefits from such a notion. The Second Amendment emerges as inviolate because that conception guarantees profits for gun manufacturers, while porn is justified according to free speech and liberty because it yields profits for pornographers. Whenever rights come into conflict, as they very often do, they tend to be reconciled in ways that further the accumulation of capital (corporate profit).
Missing from Thanksgiving
32,000 families have one less seat at the Thanksgiving table this year due to gun violence.
Below are faces of children, age 0-16, killed by guns from May-Aug. Keep them in your thoughts this holiday season, and work to keep all of our families safe by supporting sensible gun control measures.
Happy Thanksgiving 
I think there are two fundamentally different wordviews
One based on individual liberty and the other on the social good. In my view, the problem with placing such high value on the individual's rights is that it elevates those with wealth and status above those without, which often tend to be women and people of color. Capitalism, and hence the US form of government, is based on the rights of the individual to acquire property, wealth, and privilege with little regard to those affected as a result. I see porn much like any capitalist industry, not dissimilar to gun manufacturers. Those who own companies and can afford to purchase goods assume their rights are universal. Of course they are not. They are the product of varying degrees of wealth and privilege that exceed the status of workers in those industries and those hurt by the violence both engender. In my view, Ignoring the social good in favor of the individual's liberty leads to even further inequality and exploitation. Socialism envisions a greater role for the state to correct such imbalances, but of course this is not a socialist country. Individual liberty, wielded disproportionately by the privileged, trumps the social good. Capitalism requires such a conception of individual rights in order to justify the accumulation of capital and exploitation of labor integral to the system.
Even those without significant wealth or status vigorously defend the rights of the individual because they have been taught those values, which ultimately serve to justify capitalist accumulation and inequality. Or they defend the individual rights they see as benefiting them. For example, many here insist rape porn is protected by the First Amendment while rejecting the idea that money equals speech. Some insist the 2nd Amendment is inviolate while others reject that notion. Despite such differences, all of these conceptions of rights center around the individual because they come from the US constitution, which is the quintessential liberal document. That is, liberal in its classical sense, as the political corollary of capitalism.
Access to brutal porn is framed in terms of individual liberty. As with all rights based on the individual, it inevitably overlooks consequences to the greater society.
Thank you, Jesus, for this food
Remember who harvested your food this Thanksgiving.
It has not gone unnoticed (re: porn)
That the mantra about "banning" violent rape porn, to those who not in fact advocated banning, is a transparent effort to silence those who question privilege. The hue and cry about "authoritarianism" is rather a concerted effort to silence the free speech of those who assert the rights of women and rape victims, male and female alike.
We too have a right to choose, and we have a right to speak.
Since the subject has come up: This OP was prompted by blanket condemnations and accusations of trolling visited on another poster, not myself. No one silences me.
It turns out Fox really isn't a danger to American political life
or our democracy. Thanks to consumers of rape porn, I've learned that media has no impact on one's consciousness, no matter how much time someone spends watching it. Therefore all the worrying about Fox News contaminating the minds of American voters cannot be true. Whether one watches PBS, Democracy Now, MSNBC or Fox, it apparently doesn't matter. There is a firm wall between media and reality. So no more worrying about the fairness doctrine. We can breath a sigh of relief.
Women are empowered, but not allowed to choose to be free from violence
Because men find it erotic and you think 95% of women do because you saw it in a porno.
That porn isn't about light spanking. That is pure bullshit. I did a Google Search yesterday and found ads for "Indian gang rape, " "drunk girls raped," "military women raped," "basement sex" with women locked in cellars, a la Ariel Castro. That is geared for men who see a report of a woman gang raped and killed in India and think, "that sounds hot, I need to find some porn for that." Those were the first ads that came up when I did a search for rape porn, meaning they were the moist popular results. No one is stupid enough to believe that porn is about "light spanking." And really, I could care less what anyone you have sex with wants. Why you think your sex life has any relevance here, I can't begin to imagine. Except you are determined to use it to justify rape porn, and not just porn, actual real life violence that women like me are supposed to find erotic because you saw it in a porno.
You claim you see women are empowered individuals, yet you are here insisting that we in this safe haven group have no right to be free from your efforts to justify violence, not just in porn, but in our lives. How is it that this so called respect you have for "empowered women" only applies to those who are targets of male violence and not those of us who insist we will not have that in our lives? You don't respect women's choices. You insist women behave as you want. You have come here to ridicule women who have the audacity to not want to be beaten for male pleasure and don't welcome the active propagation of rape culture.
I'm a hypocrite because I don't want to revisit the rape and domestic battery I've experienced in my life. But the porno you saw said women enjoy pain, so I should what. . . lay back and enjoy it? You know everything there is to know about women, enough to determine my rights and choices inconsequential.
You of course wouldn't be a hypocrite for having a post in your journal about labor rights yet giving not one iota of concerns for the rights of the women in porn. When faced with something important such as your sexual excitement, their working conditions no longer are relevant. They choose that work, just like Walmart workers choose to go hungry on Thanksgiving. They choose to be beaten all day long, just factory workers choose to incur injuries on the job. Women in porn choose to incur STDs, just like coal miners choose to develop black lung. Except of course when the women don't choose, when millions of them are trafficked, enslaved for sex work and porn. But you don't worry about the enslaved or workers rights. It's all a matter of choice. They could, after all, risk their lives to escape slavery. They could commit suicide, and the women that do consent to that work could always starve instead. They could be hedge fund managers if only they applied themselves. The choice argument is identical to what the right says in dismissing workers rights.
A basic requisite for feminism is liking women. Your determination to invade this space and laugh at survivors of rape and domestic violence who do not share your determination to propagate rape culture through porn and justify violence against women in real life based on what you think you see in that porn shows that you don't even respect our lives, let alone equal rights.
So take your version of feminism to the other save haven group where you can complain how oppressed men are for being "harangued" by "misandrist" rape prevention campaigns that mention the word men rather than placing full responsibility for rape on the victim, where they insist in belongs. Join them in their outrage that rape victims don't share their fetishization for brutalizing women for kicks, and tell them what hypocrites we are for believing we can have one corner of DU where our lives actually matter. Complain to them that we natter on about the real life effects of violence against women rather than keeping our mouth shuts like we are supposed to and recognizing that violence against women should only be discussed in terms of male arousal.
Feminism starts with basic respect for women, something you have demonstrated a complete lack of here. I very much hope that the hosts do ban you, since I have no interest in conversing with anyone who has such clear contempt for the rights of women in this group.
It doesn't turn peaceful men who like women into rapists
Those men don't watch rape porn in the first place. Those who do are already disposed to rape. They wouldn't watch rape porn in the first place if they didn't find violation of women erotic. The porn normalizes rape, breaks down their inhibitions, over time it no longer satisfies their desires, and eventually some turn to rape.
Just like watching Fox news makes people more likely to vote Republican. A sold Democrat won't watch much Fox to begin with, but someone disposed to that view point will, and their political views will change over time.
Moreover, what you "believe" is entirely irrelevant. There is an extensive body of academic literature showing a causal relation. You can natter on endlessly about the nonexistence of articles you haven't bothered to look for. It only highlights how desperate you are to justify rape porn, which is central to maintaining rape culture. That is why rape survivors here find the whole commerce so objectionable.
And if I hear one more fool natter on about how we're trying to ban BDSM or BDSM porn, I'll scream. It makes me wonder what is it is that makes so many unable to distinguish consensual BDSM from rape, which is defined by the absence of consent.
Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz
Several times this week I've been reminded of the film by Maria Luisa Bemberg, "Yo la peor de todas (I, the Worst of All) on the life of the 17th-century Mexican poet and writer, Sister Juana Inez de la Cruz. In an age when few men were literate, Sor Juana wrote prolifically and was said to have the largest library in New Spain. (New Spain was a Spanish colony that encompassed Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Western United States. Its capital was Mexico City).
As a woman, Juana was denied access to higher education. At age 16, she attempted to dress as a boy in an effort to attend university in Mexico City. Unsuccessful, she was able to cultivate the patronage of Leonor Carreto, the wife of Antonio Sebastián de Toledo who occupied the position of Viceroy of New Spain, the highest office in the colony. She would later benefit from the patronage of the subsequent viceregal families.
Women of her class and era had two choices: marry or enter a convent. Refusing several proposals of marriage, Juana chose to become a Hieronimyte nun, for the cloister allowed her to live a life devoted to letters. The luxury afforded Juana did not extend to all nuns but came largely from the patronage of the Viceregal families, most notably that of the marquis and marquise de la Laguna from 1680 to 1688. She is also rumored to have been romantically involves with vicerene Maria Luisa de Paredes.
Maria Luisa Bemberg's film, "Yo la peor de todas," is based on a novel by Octavio Paz on Sor Juana's life. It captures the cloistered world of nuns, confined to cells and kept from the world. Her cage was filled with books, musical, and scientific instruments. Rarely able to leave the convent, Sor Juana received Maria Luisa de Paredes in her cell. Juana produced a large body of literary works that would result in her standing as the most important literary figure of colonial Spanish America. Her renowned, however, was not without costs. She made the grave mistake of entering into an ecclesiastical disagreement with the church hierarchy over interpretation of a sermon by the Portuguese Jesuit, Antonio Vieira. When the Bishop of Puebla published Juana's essay on Vieira without her permission, she became the subject of intense criticism, warned in print to keep to her place. Juana's response was to publish a treatise on the rights of all women to knowledge, Repuesta a Sor Filotea. That radical piece of writing would spell her undoing. She was stripped of her books and possessions, kept from writing, and put to domestic service in the convent before eventually dying from the plague in 1695, at 43 years of age.
Bemberg captures the intense misogyny of 17th century clergy, so repulsed by women they recoil in horror when Sor Juana nearly brushes against them. Women were temptresses, whose power to arouse men was seen as coming from Satan himself. (Recent writings on school girls' dressing as sluts brought this to mind.) Most threatening, however, was Sor Juana's keen intellect and strength of will to challenge a subjugation of women so great, the word patriarchy doesn't do it justice. Bemberg demonstrates the sadism of the priests who enjoyed watching Juana's fall from grace to domestic service, reduced to her rightful place as a woman: demure, obedient, and disarmed of her pen. Her punishment amounted to a metaphorical rape of her mind and soul--the essence of Juana as person. The film ends with her signing a final confession in blood, Juana Ines de la Cruz, "Yo la peor de todas," I, the worst of all.
The full film is available on YouTube:
For a summary of her life and contributions, see: http://www.britannica.com/women/article-9028065
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