General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: There is nothing wrong with Porn & Prostitution [View all]Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I'm worried about Ebola getting a foothold in Lagos, I'm not worried that any erstwhile porn banners on DU -if they actually exist- are ever going to succeed in getting rid of smut. That's just not going to happen.
You brought up "facials", which is directly from the same documentarian referenced upthread who believes the fact that porn regularly shows "men ejaculating in womens mouths" indicates misogyny or degradation. I don't want to get into TMI territory, but most sexually active adults have had oral sex of various configurations, with all sorts of end results, and most of them don't consider the act "degrading". The whole thing about ... that whole thing is totally arbitrary IMHO, and really just seems to reflect the fact that a particular act or combination of acts horrified one particular researcher.
I'm not telling you what to think. You seem awfully concerned with what I think- whether it be telling me what I think, telling me what I should think about, telling me what it "appears" that I think, etc. Here's a hint... if you have to go to great lengths to imagine what it "appears" that I think, I think you're doing it wrong. Maybe deal with my actual words, instead of what you imagine is going on in my head?
"Most porn is..." that's part of the problem. These relatively pointless exercises are sort of like someone making some scholarly-sounding ominous assertion that "most music has accordions", and then proceeding to go out and list a whole bunch of examples of music with accordions. Now leaving aside the question of whether accordions are objectively bad or not, the fact remains that if someone doesn't like accordion music, the thing to do is avoid it, and if someone thinks there are too many accordions in music, well, one answer might be to make some music without accordions. Going on about how music=accordions, is ludicrous. Music is too broad a category, a genre, a means of expression, to make those sorts of generalizations. Not to mention, "music" can include everything from a symphony to someone banging two rocks together.
Yes, I'm a grown up. I've spent enough years on this planet that I'm going to make up my own mind about stuff, and that includes consenting adult entertainment. It appears that I'm supposed to cluck appreciatively when provided with "education" on these matters which I apparently just don't understand, but if I protest or mention the fact that my own counsel will I keep, thank you very much, I'm being defensive/afraid.
No, I don't find it "odd" that I support the right of consenting adults to make their own damn decisions, and that includes the right of them to take off their clothes off in front of a camera. I'm not going to apologize for that fact. Some people find "porn" (again, ill-defined and broadly generalizing) "degrading" (again, ill-defined) many people DO NOT. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to "listen" to one opinion and then immediately accept that it is the only valid one. There are lots of people who don't agree. I've read the assertions, again, of the people who make broad generalizations about "degrading acts in porn" and then proceed to categorize many normal sex acts- like blowjobs- as degrading.
Dworkin is relevant, here, because she was coming from a place where the penetrative sex act itself, was inherently degrading to women, particularly when graphically displayed. And like it or not, that strain of thinking still rings through a great deal of porn "critique". But if you ask people who subscribe to that approach what sorts of graphic depictions of the sex act they would NOT consider degrading, generally there is no answer- because the answer is "none". I don't agree with that assessment, and neither do many women AND men. I'm sympathetic and empathetic to people who don't like porn, but there's a relatively simple solution- Don't like porn? Great, don't watch it. Simple enough.
I also haven't "defined" Feminism, what I've pointed out are two things, a) it's a label, and b) there are many Feminists who self-apply that label who don't feel there is anything inherently wrong with porn.
No one has told you you can't feel any particular way about porn. However, the insisitence that everyone else has to feel the same way (and if anyone disagrees, they're 'oddly arguing' 'not listening' and 'not sympathetic') is pretty goofy, especially given that this is a discussion board. You have an opinion, I don't agree. You can post youtube videos or links to insightful posts, I still won't agree. You can claim I'm not being sympathetic, try to divine my deeper motives, imply that I'm worried someone's gonna take all the pictures of naked women off the intertubes, I still won't agree. Sorry.
...that is the real crux of the issue.