Degradation used to sell to the weak-minded and insecure...
I think that one of the selling points of pornography IS the degradation. This is why it bothers me. It bothers me for the same reason people have ever been bothered by "free speech" that is simply used to tap into insecurities that make a buck...
I see it all through our culture. These cartoonish women selling products in cosmetic advertisments. The cartoons that hardly represent the realness of humanity.
I watched a movie recently... Ghost World - I have no idea why I never watched it previously but for some reason, I added it to our Netflix account. I had no idea what the movie was about (I added it a LONG time ago).
In the movie - the younger woman befriends an older guy who champions his Jazz records. While at his place, she came across an old advertisement for "Coon's Kitchen" - which had been renamed "Cook's Kitchen" after the racist advertisements were banned. I found myself thinking - what person would it take to go eat at a place called "Coon's Kitchen" and I started thinking about how racism and prejudice in general is very closely related to insecurity.
The type of people who would go to "Coon's Kitchen" are the same type of people who want to feel superior - to anything, to something. Did they feel superior upon entering under that sign?
And the cartoon is obviously offensive. But what is more offensive is how willing people are to cater to their insecurities and defend this catering.
I feel that pornography taps into the same kind of subconscious thinking.
Not only do people repress their sexualities through pornography but they also repress their female hatred (and I'm talking about hetero gonzo consumers, just to make it clear). It's like a "safe" place to hate women. And by god, do people treat it that way, almost to an extreme. They want to preserve it as a nice little happy fantasy world to hate women and other races.
ANY disccusion about it is about trying to control womens bodies, at least, that is what we are told.
Whenever these blown up arguments happen around sex work - women, especially, are conflated or their positions are exaggerated. Arguing against the "Coon's Kitchen" name isn't the same as denouncing POC. It's not the same as denouncing places that produce food or even necessarily about censorship (although, I believe it led to that) - it's about arguing against this offensive cartoon being used to sell shit to insecure people. The way people paint anti-porn folks or just people who have issues with the porn industry and conflate or exaggerate our positions reminds me of this. How many white fuck-heads argued against this cartoon ban in the name of freedom of speech? or accused the POC who found it offensive of trying to shut down every kitchen owned by white folks? I bet it happened more than we know.
Someone mentioned that the fucked up imagery found in porn is related to sexual repression and how pornography isn't the problem itself but just the taboos surrounding sex are... But I tend to think that pornography adds to it - not liberate it. The way that pornographers treat sex as something "dirty", as some sort of power play, as some sort of vehicle to hate women - tends to add to the problem, no? I mean - I think about all the normalized misogynistic bullshit found in media - and I tie that in with an orgasm and I have to wonder - maybe it's a bigger driver than people want to admit. Not to mention - porn has made "vanilla" or boring sex taboo. It's made sex that is purely for pleasure/love taboo and now sex is taboo unless it's about some sort of performence or "act" (especially the expectations placed on women). It creates a taboo around women claiming their sexuality and only doing things that give her pleasure. THIS is the taboo porn is creating.
Then someone brought up that they felt that we should focus on the other sexist problems in the world and how focusing on porn doesn't really get to the heart of the problem but I tend to think it's a good vehicle for discussion - even if other people wish to ignore it and act like it has no affect on society (which is a bunch of bullocks in my estimation). Maybe it's one of the many hearts to the problem? I tend to think so.
I really don't understand this fear everyone has to discuss the topic (of course, unless they are triggered by it - which is very understandable)... And that fear to even address the imagery found in their beloved "art" makes me so incredibly suspicious of it. They want their freedom of speech to have freedom from speech.
I see it all through our culture. These cartoonish women selling products in cosmetic advertisments. The cartoons that hardly represent the realness of humanity.
I watched a movie recently... Ghost World - I have no idea why I never watched it previously but for some reason, I added it to our Netflix account. I had no idea what the movie was about (I added it a LONG time ago).
In the movie - the younger woman befriends an older guy who champions his Jazz records. While at his place, she came across an old advertisement for "Coon's Kitchen" - which had been renamed "Cook's Kitchen" after the racist advertisements were banned. I found myself thinking - what person would it take to go eat at a place called "Coon's Kitchen" and I started thinking about how racism and prejudice in general is very closely related to insecurity.
The type of people who would go to "Coon's Kitchen" are the same type of people who want to feel superior - to anything, to something. Did they feel superior upon entering under that sign?
And the cartoon is obviously offensive. But what is more offensive is how willing people are to cater to their insecurities and defend this catering.
I feel that pornography taps into the same kind of subconscious thinking.
Not only do people repress their sexualities through pornography but they also repress their female hatred (and I'm talking about hetero gonzo consumers, just to make it clear). It's like a "safe" place to hate women. And by god, do people treat it that way, almost to an extreme. They want to preserve it as a nice little happy fantasy world to hate women and other races.
ANY disccusion about it is about trying to control womens bodies, at least, that is what we are told.
Whenever these blown up arguments happen around sex work - women, especially, are conflated or their positions are exaggerated. Arguing against the "Coon's Kitchen" name isn't the same as denouncing POC. It's not the same as denouncing places that produce food or even necessarily about censorship (although, I believe it led to that) - it's about arguing against this offensive cartoon being used to sell shit to insecure people. The way people paint anti-porn folks or just people who have issues with the porn industry and conflate or exaggerate our positions reminds me of this. How many white fuck-heads argued against this cartoon ban in the name of freedom of speech? or accused the POC who found it offensive of trying to shut down every kitchen owned by white folks? I bet it happened more than we know.
Someone mentioned that the fucked up imagery found in porn is related to sexual repression and how pornography isn't the problem itself but just the taboos surrounding sex are... But I tend to think that pornography adds to it - not liberate it. The way that pornographers treat sex as something "dirty", as some sort of power play, as some sort of vehicle to hate women - tends to add to the problem, no? I mean - I think about all the normalized misogynistic bullshit found in media - and I tie that in with an orgasm and I have to wonder - maybe it's a bigger driver than people want to admit. Not to mention - porn has made "vanilla" or boring sex taboo. It's made sex that is purely for pleasure/love taboo and now sex is taboo unless it's about some sort of performence or "act" (especially the expectations placed on women). It creates a taboo around women claiming their sexuality and only doing things that give her pleasure. THIS is the taboo porn is creating.
Then someone brought up that they felt that we should focus on the other sexist problems in the world and how focusing on porn doesn't really get to the heart of the problem but I tend to think it's a good vehicle for discussion - even if other people wish to ignore it and act like it has no affect on society (which is a bunch of bullocks in my estimation). Maybe it's one of the many hearts to the problem? I tend to think so.
I really don't understand this fear everyone has to discuss the topic (of course, unless they are triggered by it - which is very understandable)... And that fear to even address the imagery found in their beloved "art" makes me so incredibly suspicious of it. They want their freedom of speech to have freedom from speech.