Porn and rape
2006-02-26 16:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexibeastDiscussions around the regulation of porn1 (not to mention the regulation of sex work, and gun control) so often seem to fail to frame the discussion in the context of the society and culture in which such regulation is proposed. To me, such a discussion is necessary when we consider statistics which show that, despite more liberal attitudes towards porn, the Netherlands and Denmark actually have a third the number of rapes per capita than the US, and roughly an eighth of the number of rapes per capita than Australia. If porn is a primary cause of rape, how are we to explain such statistics? Perhaps the number of rapes is more determined by a given society's overall attitudes towards women - whether, for example, it regards only the "three Ks" - Kirche, Küche, Kinder, i.e. "Church, Kitchen, Children" - as the only 'proper' domains of women? Or maybe a determining factor is a given society's overall level of aggressiveness, which may perhaps be indicated by its military spending per capita? Perhaps it's only one of these things; perhaps it's both; perhaps it's neither, and the determining factor(s) is/are something else entirely. It's also worth keeping in mind recent Australian research regarding the extent to which porn objectifies women.
Given the above, some feminists' emphasis on fighting porn in general - rather than fighting sexism in porn, and fighting exploitation and coercion in the porn industry, campaigns which i wholeheartedly agree with - reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, by Leonore Tiefer (which i may have quoted here before):
1. By 'porn', i here mean "graphic descriptions or depictions of sexual activity involving adults". To me, 'porn' does not by definition involve violent behaviour (some anti-porn activists think it does, which makes those of us who defend porn look pretty unpleasant), although i certainly acknowledge that there is porn with such content. And as for porn involving underage people - that's just wrong, and i refuse to defend and/or condone it.
Given the above, some feminists' emphasis on fighting porn in general - rather than fighting sexism in porn, and fighting exploitation and coercion in the porn industry, campaigns which i wholeheartedly agree with - reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, by Leonore Tiefer (which i may have quoted here before):
"If the target of the feminist campaign is violence against women, the question must be asked whether pornography is really the best place to try to make some headway against violence. Mainstream movies and TV are notorious for their violent imagery, and the claim that sexuality is the prime locus for violence against women ignores these genres entirely. As feminists we might ask why sexuality and pornography need to be included at all. If what we are interested in eliminating is the subordination of women, why does it have to be sexually explicit material that we target? Servility, injury, enjoying pain - why do they get banned only if they involve sex? The honest political answer is that no one is about to ban violent images in this country [i.e. the US] - they are too mainstream. Only sexual images are sufficiently offensive to large diverse groups, and targeting seemingly violent sexual images would be the only way for feminists to get widespread public support. But the consequence of picking on sexual images is that sexuality itself becomes the target. This result is a major setback for those groups within the women's movement whose goal is to de-repress women's sexuality.
1. By 'porn', i here mean "graphic descriptions or depictions of sexual activity involving adults". To me, 'porn' does not by definition involve violent behaviour (some anti-porn activists think it does, which makes those of us who defend porn look pretty unpleasant), although i certainly acknowledge that there is porn with such content. And as for porn involving underage people - that's just wrong, and i refuse to defend and/or condone it.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 10:23 (UTC)And, in a moment of lightness.
From Absolutely Fabulous.
Pats and Eddie are looking at a porn mag. Eddie's daughter Saffy is shocked:
Saffy: That's degrading to women!
Pats: How's that degrading to women? She's holding the whip!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 05:03 (UTC):-)
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Date: 2006-02-26 12:21 (UTC)Not that one should be totally uncritical of porn and the patriarchal biases that regularly appear in it, nor should the idea that it has an informative impact on sexuality be totally thrown out of the window, but it definitely looks like just going ahead and banning it outright is at best pointless and at worst dangerous.
[1] I'm talking about porn that would be shocking to all but a small minority, perhaps in the extreme, but wherein all participants are adults of sound mind, consensually participating. For instance, necro/asphyxiation porn which is AFAIK exclusively simulated by actors: whilst there are hundreds of remarkably realistic fake snuff films around for instance, as far as I'm aware, there's never been a real one, and at least 80% of the stuff comes out of the US where producers of some of the more realistic material have had to go to great lengths to prove that the production of the films was ethically sound. Obviously I don't condone material which is created abusively/non-consensually and that consent has to involve some element of the participants being of sound mind.
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Date: 2006-02-27 04:18 (UTC)Exactly! Well put. :-)
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Date: 2006-02-26 16:36 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 03:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 13:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 13:42 (UTC)Speaking of which, i saw 'synaesthesia' on your i-list - if i may ask, are you a synaesthete yourself?
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Date: 2006-09-28 14:43 (UTC)Also, I have a couple of opt-in filters that I don't use all that frequently -- you're welcome on those if you'd like; more info's on my userinfo page.