Rug Burn Junky on 28/5/2007 at 14:46
Quote Posted by BR796164
Oh yes, I am raised and educated by female feminists, I'm a feminist myself and that's why emancipated women love me so much - they say I'm not an ordinary male sexist pig! :cheeky:
Yes, we already know that you're a big dweeb, there's no need for you to restate your credentials for us. The "I'm a sensitive feminist" rap is the last resort of losers who couldn't get a date in a whorehouse with a fistful of hundreds.
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Mind your own pathetic private life, captain meatball. Make girlfriends happy. Go cheating your wife.
4 days and the best you can come up with is some gibberish and "captain meatball?" You STILL suck at this whole insult thing. Please don't hurt yourself trying again.
OnionBob on 28/5/2007 at 15:04
BR, as a feminist, what do you think of the problems faced by the third wave compared with, say, the second wave? Do you even think the third wave is a tenable category?
Rogue Keeper on 28/5/2007 at 15:10
Quote Posted by mopgoblin
As I understand it, many of the contemporary varieties of feminism aren't really opposed to pornography in general. I do reckon there's certainly potential for exploitation within the industry, and that any reasonable person would agree that's a bad thing, but I'd also argue that's the case in a lot of industries and merely amplified by the sexual nature (and also some other aspects) of the porn industry; you can't find an effective solution to these problems if you start with notions like "porn is always bad". Feminism isn't mutually exclusive with acceptance (and even enjoyment) of pornography.
I'm sorry, I think you have pulled my comment out of context of my line with RBJ, with whom it's necessary to discuss on a little bit different level.
Anyway...
We have to differ between erotica and pornography. Feminism is not opposed to tasteful erotica and erotic material in which partners of both sexes are portrayed as equal, share the same pleasure out of the sexual act and nobody isn't being violently sexually exploited by the other. Feminism has problem with pornographic industry, prevailently led by men (most porn is made by men for men and portrays women more like obedient, mostly subordinate nymphomaniac things, always overfilled with sexual desires, demanding harsh manipulation to achieve orgasm, then often being paid with hard cash for the service). Fact is that men are the prevailent audience for pornographic pictures and video. Since female sexuality is less visually stimulated, women often enjoy other forms of pornography - erotic literature, which may of course describe less or more deviant sexual practices too, but fortunately no living human being is usually being practically humilated during it's production.
Put simply, erotica fulfills -at least- some basic aesthetic, humanist and social standards. Porno would completely lack all such standards. Not that it portrays human being as mere animal, that wouldn't be the core problem - afterall we are basically animals with instincts, but what is dreadfully important : it makes business out of our animalism and reduction of a person into grotesquely portrayed, more or less voluntarily sexually misbehaving human being. Yes, there is no clear line between erotica and porno, since it highly depends on individual perception and values, but such commercial pornography, intrusively killing all emotional intimacy between partners so exclusive to human sex, has a big influence on what we perceive as aesthetic, healthy and normal in sex, including pathologic sexual behavior.
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Actually, I'd like a good idea of the position you're arguing for a start. I'm not really sure how closely your position aligns with that of this website. Which bits of that "Who are the Victims Of Pornography?" section do you agree with, for example? As for arguments and sources, go for things that would indicate there's a link between pornography and the consequences you're predicting. Preferably things written without a strong a priori expectation of what the findings will be.
Righto, where to start? Pornography can have negative influence from several aspects. I have already mentioned why it is being criticized by feminists. Porno also portrays various forms of paraphilia as normal acceptable sexual behavior. It deforms developing opinions of young people who, despite all adult efforts to keep porn from adolescents, can easily access it on internet and of course the mass media are presenting them (but also to everyone) fake, stereotypical portraying of human sexuality : abnormal sexual excesses of celebrities, sexual stereotypes dependent on physical looks currently "in fashion", attractivity of sexual turism and side-jobs based on various forms of prostitution (easy money - how addictive that can be?). And of course more or less subtle appeals to make profit from sex, teaching us that making your body a product with certain financial price per coitus or "performance" is actually cool. Mass media make the society oversexualized.
And then, many people find themselves addicted to pornography.
All above mentioned problems would deserve separate discussion. Let's try to focus on the lastly mentioned for starters - dependence on pornography.
Pornography can become easily addictive. Dependance on pornography is sometimes referred as pictophilia. There is still a big discussion among the psychiatrist crowd, whether this can be really defined as proper disorder, since cases of porn addiction contain many variables. Some even hold opinion that dependance on pornography is a form of chronic voyeurism. Which presents a problem of acceptability of voyeurism - what level of voyeurism can be socially tolerated and where is the healthy border?
Some useful references:
*(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction)
*Irons/Schneider : "Differential Diagnosis of Addictive Sexual Disorders Using the DSM-IV", (
http://www.jenniferschneider.com/articles/diagnos.html)
*R. Kubey, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey : "Television Dependence, Diagnosis, and Prevention: With Commentary on Video Games, Pornography and Media Education" (
http://www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu/depend.pdf)
*Hill A,Briken P, Berner W., Universitatsklinikum, Hamburg-Eppendorf, BRD : "Pornography and sexual abuse in the Internet" (Abstract)
(
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17177094&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_docsum)
*Hayez JY., Unite de pedopsychiatrie, cliniques universitaires, Bruxelles : "Confrontation of children and adolescents with pornography"
(
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12503513&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_docsum)
*J.M.Maney "Teenagers and Pornography Addiction: Treating the Silent Epidemic" - mass media/social aspect, with references to medical studies
(
http://counselingoutfitters.com/vistas/vistas06/vistas06.10.pdf)
*Stein DJ, Black DW, Shapira NA, Spitzer RL, Department of Psychiatry, University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa : "Hypersexual disorder and preoccupation with internet pornography" (no abstract - pity, this could be interesting!) (
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11578986&itool=iconfft&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_docsum)
*There is a site dedicated to provide help to individuals who are aware of their addiction to pornography and want to get rid themselves of it: (
http://www.no-porn.com/)
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As for what I perceive as extreme? Any source so strongly wedded to a particular ideology that it'll dishonestly evade any evidence or argument that is too difficult to argue against, rather than either attempting to form a rational counter-argument or conceding the relevant points. Similarly, any source that'll make claims without backing them up with reasonable evidence or sound arguments.
Ideology? Ideology is just an opinional package. Any collection of opinions and concepts is basically an ideology, a set of personal opinions on certain matter shared with group of similarly thinking people. It would be stupid to think that any individual human mind can completely free itself of ideological thinking patterns. Of course, ideology opposed to yours or mine can be perceived as extreme, the more it differs from ours. Ideologies usually take inspirations in empiric researches, too.
EDIT :
OnionBob : The third wave is certainly better in reflection of complex relationships between genders and social roles in modern society. Like in that book called "Fuck & Go" which I had luck to put my hands on recently, in which female author (damn, I can't recall her name now) has put a lot of criticism on her own gender : "Why modern men refuse serious relationshops and why it's womens' fault?"
RBJ : Ooops, I hit the right nerve. Please continue making a cretin out of yourself.
Aerothorn on 28/5/2007 at 15:18
BR#, you do NOT want to get into a pissing contest with RBJ. He will destroy you. LEAVE IT.
Gingerbread Man on 28/5/2007 at 15:50
"Looking at pornography leads to fucking ten year-old Thai boys in the bum" is as specious and ignorant an argument as "Smoking weed leads to murdering innocent families so you can buy your next veinful of heroin"
Gorgonseye on 28/5/2007 at 15:56
Quote Posted by BR796164
It deforms developing opinions of young people who, despite all adult efforts to keep porn from adolescents, can easily access it on internet...
Yea, I know all about that stuff!
*Bow chica wow wowww*
Thank you...thank you!
...What? Yea yea okay...going
Rogue Keeper on 28/5/2007 at 15:58
GBM, I don't like such deceptive and simplifying hyperboles myself if they're told that way. :erg:
Gingerbread Man on 28/5/2007 at 16:04
When it's spelled out reductio ad absurdum you can see it for what it is: There are people who don't like the idea of pornography for whatever reasons, and they pull the old arguments that are always used. Dancing leads to sex. Kissing leads to unwed teenage pregnancy. Etc.
It's all just propaganda, and both sides do it. It's just that the Anti sides tend to do it with a little less regard for causative logic.
Rogue Keeper on 28/5/2007 at 16:16
and chicken makes eggs ... life causes death ... posting leads to replying... :p
Causative logic. What would we do if we didn't start to think about cause and results ? We'd be still hang down from the trees. Now tell me, applying causative logic, would you like to be a barely self-aware monkey instead of who you are here and now? :D
fett on 28/5/2007 at 16:29
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