The No-Porn Pledge
I wish I could say I'm surprised this exists, but I'm not.
It's a site on which people can pledge not to use pornography, and not only that, to refuse to have an intimate relationship with anyone who does.
Which, yeah, hardly news, some conservatives do that sort of thing all the time, right? Except that this appears to be linked to anti-porn ( Read more... )
It's a site on which people can pledge not to use pornography, and not only that, to refuse to have an intimate relationship with anyone who does.
Which, yeah, hardly news, some conservatives do that sort of thing all the time, right? Except that this appears to be linked to anti-porn ( Read more... )
I'm not sure if this is responding to anything I said. Saying that arousing media can be fun for people isn't saying they'll die without it. So I think you've misinterpreted me, unless you said that to agree with me. :)
There are heaps of people who consider themselves pro-porn feminists who go on to watch porn that treats women like they are nothing.
Well, that's true; the position I hold is that anyone should have the right to look at anything they want, and not just the right but also shouldn't be harassed or bothered for it. So yes, some people will definitely be using all kinds of porn. And yeah, I don't really have the same sort of problem with that that you do. I don't think that looking at porn is any different from, say, watching movies -- and while I don't like some of the very sensationalistic stuff Hollywood comes up with, I also don't think that most people who choose to, say, watch realistic psychothrillers want to commit violence.
In order to believe that pornography does cause violence, I'd need to see proof. I have never seen decisive studies -- and, well, my mind flashes back right now to the bit in the Penn & Teller episode on porn where they're talking to Gail Dines, and ask "Could you cite some studies" and she snaps, "You keep hounding me about that, but the fact of the matter is there are no good studies! I just know what I do because I've studied media."
And the thing is, that's just plain not good science. And this was Gail Dines, luminary of anti-porn feminism, flat out saying this. So it's not something my side just magically concluded -- it's something a bigwig of your side said, straight out.
I suppose someone could retort "I'm not interested in science, I'm interested in women." But the thing is, here "science" isn't some kind of masculinist edifice but rather... what you do to know that there are in fact real, existing social trends that should influence social policy. If the data isn't there, there's no way to know whether the theory is something that actually holds up in the real world, or just an internally consistent way of thinking. And I personally am very, very leery of telling people how they ought to behave based on a theory that there's no data to support. So I'm going to have to ask you if you've got the data -- not to bully you or hold something over your head, but just because it makes no sense to me to agree that people should do something based on a theory there isn't data to support.
I think the fact that even people who claim to be against violence against women then go on to watch that kind of stuff and see it as normal because they do watch it and don't want to think of themselves as bad people.
Again... where's your data here? Where do you get this from? Why do you think that people's sexual desires vary that much? From what I gather from talking to people (which is not scientific data either, ftr) most people have a general sexual profile or identity and then can vary within that. I know plenty of people that have never and would never like the things I like, and there are plenty of things I've never been into that I'm still not into, despite considering myself pretty adventurous. So where is the data -- not just the theory -- to back up your claim here?
WIthout that element I think most people who watch porn would get very bored, very quickly because they get off on the violence more than they get off on the sex.
Again, where's the data? You keep saying that you think you know what porn users do, but you're not one yourself so why should I trust you as someone who knows better than us what we're doing?
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Sure. Why wouldn't I? Or anyone else for that matter?
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in reference to proof, and the ole herring: the plurual of anecdote is not data. some data includes:
In Harms Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, eds Dworkin and MacKinnon
Diana Russell's work (eg http://dianarussell.com/porntoc.html)
Pornography and Sexual Aggression by Neil Malamuth, and The Question of Pornography: Research Findings and Policy Implications by Edward Donnerstein, et al.
http://www.oneangrygirl.net/myth3.html
"In total, these studies show that viewing both violent and non-violent pornography can:
*increase the acceptance of rape myths
*increase male aggression toward females
*decrease sensitivity to the crime of rape
*predispose willingness to rape
*increase the acceptance of violence against women
*decrease support for women’s rights
*alter perceptions of “common” sexual behavior
*decrease sexual satisfaction with self and partner"
and this 2002 study, of 12000 people. That is a shitload of "anecdote":
"There has been some debate among researchers about the degree of negative
consequences of habitual use of pornography, but we feel confident in our findings that pornography is harmful," researcher Dr Claudio Violato noted. "Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses. I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever. "
Edward Donnerstein has even stated: "The relationship between particularly sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression...is much stronger statistically than the relationship between smoking and lung cancer."
it is very noteworthy that there has been virtually no research on whether hate propaganda causes violence against the targeted groups, yet a lot of research does exist which correlates violence against women with pornography. victimised men (when victimised as blacks, Jews, gay men, etc) are far more likely to be believed than women when they are victimised as women.
is the view that hate propaganda can engender hate and violence also dismissed as anecdotal?...oh, wait, other oppressed groups aren't expected to prove it to ridiculously high standards before anything will be done to stop it.
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You've seen that movie? What are you going off of? Doesn't say anything about a cum shot there, so unless you have seen it, I'm gonna have to say you're not making much sense.
And hey, even if it does include such an image... why does that somehow magically negate the point I was making, which is that someone who chooses to watch that is not necessarily someone who also chooses to watch images of degradation.
As far as the studies, I appreciate you (unlike, say, Gail Dines) providing some, but I would like to ask why they're all so old. The Violato is fairly current, but when I was working on my thesis and citing studies, anything older than about 2000 was looked at pretty askance by my committee. If it's so easy to show this causation, why is almost everything there from the 80's?
Which, of course, is *prior* to the Internet, and therefore *prior* to a serious change in what is consumed and how. (NB: I'm not here implying that porn has gotten less violent, saying that. It may well be it's gotten worse. I'm just saying it's a serious fault that the studies of it would mainly be from the pre-Internet era. That would be like saying you can talk coherently about cars by studying covered wagons.)
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i would argue that negating genuine female pleasure and orgasm, which is typically produced through direct vulval and clitoral stimulation, is a form of degradation. degradation means a reduction of status, value, respect; abasement. If negating women's actual experiences with orgasm, being inclusive of clitorocentric sexuality, and so forth is not denying women value, respect, and status as humans with subjectivity, what is? calling opposite experiences equality is naive at best (eg in fellatio or intercourse the OPPOSITE things are occuring to the person whose mouth, vagina, or anus is being engaged as opposed to the one's whose penis it is).
They are so old because the research has already been done. Why replicate, over and over, what is already known to have negative effects? Not to mention that this research would have a more difficult time getting funding, considering both the results and the power of the pornography industry. For example, why would an institution fund a study in which the participants would become more likely to aggress against women, more likely to believe rape myths, perceive rape as less harmful to the victims, etc?
Gail Dines didn't produce studies in that Bullshit Penn and Teller episode. I just last week saw that episode--it was absolutely ridiculous. Russell, Dines, etc were edited to the point of making an absolute mockery out of them and their work. It's comedy, but it was fucking shameful for Penn and Teller to be such bullshitters themselves when they are making a claim to truth.
Again, why are women's lives reduced to anecdote? Why are books, that utilise studies and interviews, such as Pamela Paul's Pornified mocked with such fierceness (I know, Paul didn't get everything right, eg she seemed to have some traditional notions of sexuality, such that women have slow arousal and orgasm, when the reality is that often the correct stimulation just isn't there)? Why is any critical study of pornography, such as Jensen and Stoltenberg, vociferously objected to, based mainly on their maleness? Why is 4 cities civil rights hearings on pornography as discrimination against women dismissed as "so old"? Studies in the 2000s HAVE been done; but they have been dismissed as anecdotal, "not scientific," etc. THIS IS THE SAME RECEPTION THE 1980s STUDIES GOT WHEN THEY WERE PUBLISHED, AND CONTINUE TO GET OT THIS DAY.
I was pro-porn from the age of 8 until 12, as much as a preteen can be considered such. I've read numerous proporn, and even more antiporn, books. I've catalogued pornography that is available on Rogers, I've looked through hundreds of YouPorn videos, etc. They've not been published, obviously, but I do feel qualified to speak on this.
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Errm, because the effects may have changed in the absence of the context that the studies were conducted in? People and society change, any studies that discuss effects on society or people need constant reevaluation to ensure that they are still relevant! People aren't like physics - you can't study them once and be done with them!
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The work on pornography that is most important at the moment now focusses not on the representation of women in these images, but the economic/business side of the industry and how that affects what we see. I would argue that personal narrative is as important as empirical data in this work, but there are also a vast number of women who freely use pornography or take part in pornography and they are rarely given voices at all in the kind of research you're quoting -- or, indeed, at all -- because they don't say what anti-porn campaigners want to hear. However, I recommend Druscilla Cornell's work, by the way.
As for using Donnerstein as "evidence", where did you lift that quote from? The rest of his study does not back that theory up.
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CONSUMERS and PORNOGRAPHERS sexually objectify women, not antiporn feminists. Many antiporn feminists were in the sex industry themselves. Considering we are talking about her, Dworkin was a prostitute in her late teens to her mid twenties, off and on. So I guess I'm dumb, unlike you're first years who can suss it out--I'm entering my third-year, in women's studies, and sociology/global studies. Guess I'm just too simpleminded.
I got that Donnerstein quote from OneAngryGirl, among others. http://www.oneangrygirl.net/myth3.html. I believe he was commenting on the research as a whole, not just the study he did on his own. this is the bibliographical citing for where he said it:
Donnerstein, Edward. (1983). Unpublished transcript of testimony to the Public Hearings on Ordinances to Add Pornography as Discrimination against Women. Committee on Government Operations, City Council, Minneapolis, MN pp. 4-12.
That manuscript is published now; in the In Harm's Way book.
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You are also assuming I am "pro-porn". Since when was every feminist confined to one camp or the other simply because she doesn't like the holy rhetoric of Dworkin and Mackinnon? And the same goes for our first years. That doesn't make them or anyone "dumb" (tad aggressive to assume I was calling you that!). They are just given the critical tools available to see that we need to go beyond this tired old debate that the self-identified "anti-porns" have continued to press on with, despite the glaring limitations of their arguments. I'm pretty porn-neutral, as it happens. I think the representation of women (and men, for that matter -- I tend to think porn is sometimes misanthropic rather than misogynist) in a lot of porn stinks, but I do not believe in censorship.
As I said (which you chose to ignore) I believe in changing the production values of the industry, the business side of things, removing the stigma attached. Only then will we see the representation of women in pornography change. Anti-porn feminists tend to show no interest or acknowledgement of the significant volume of research that has been done into that side of the industry and continue to plough over what's in the material itself. Until these women show some interest in the female performers as workers rather than victims, and some interest in destigmatising the industry rather than pushing it further underground, no progress will be made.
As for that Donnerstein quote, thanks for the reference. However, the rest of his studies do not confirm these findings and he has since gone out of his way to stress the flaws in the methodologies used to obtain data in that early study. He also did not advocate state censorship as a result, saying that "it makes little sense in light of the data produced".
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Needless to say I disagree with your assertion that consumers and pornographers are not the ones that objectify women, which is what you seemed to be saying in your first sentence. I hardly spelt out her history to you, I merely mentioned a major fact of her life.
I've read her for the past 6 and a half years--before and during that time, I also read pro-porn ideology. I've seen porn, I've heard testimony from women who have escaped it, I've been sexually harassed by boys clearly influenced by porn, etc. I think I know of which I speak.
Honestly, reform is not the solution I'm out for. Honestly, it's like asking racists to be nicer racists. Is "stigmatising" hate literature just pushing it further underground?
"Anti-porn feminists tend to show no interest or acknowledgement of the significant volume of research that has been done into that side of the industry and continue to plough over what's in the material itself."
I'm not sure what you're saying here. What side? Candida Royalle's side?
I think it's very glaring that the fact that men and boys have filmed gang rapes and put it on dvd and/or the internet hasn't been mentioned yet. Most of them, also, never get any jail time.
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I'm not prepared to list my "creds", but I assure you I know what I'm talking about just as much as you do. I would never dismiss what you claim to know; we have just come to different conclusions.
As for the "other side" of the industry: I'm talking about business, economics, treating the adult industry as an industry, and the women as workers, not utterly mindless victims who need to be rescued. Anyway, I'm repeating myself as I've said the above already. As I've said, it's that side of the industry that needs to change dramatically before any progress can be made -- and I still think radical feminists would do well to acknowledge it rather than focussing on how much the representation of women in porn upsets them.
I am absolutely in favour of free speech, even when it's right-wingers expressing heinous racist views. Frankly, I'd far rather know what we're dealing with than pretend it doesn't exist. Hence my firm belief that the porn industry and the spaces it inhabits need to be treated as a workplace, like any other. THEN we have greater access and more possibilities for change.
Oh, and I don't believe there's such a thing as a "pro-porn ideology". Again, you seem a little keen to lump anyone who doesn't agree with you into a very particular category. Every writer differs from others, and there's plenty of pro-porn material out there that I think is as banal and idiotic as Mackinnon's work on porn (I mean, she doesn't believe women can even develop a sense of subjectivity while porn exists, which surely, surely, any feminist must know is not only nonsense, but downright offensive).
And back to Donnerstein -- I've just been reading that he actually complained consistently about the misappropriation of inconclusive research by feminist anti-pornographers with the purpose of strengthening obscenity laws. (and if you want a ref, see The Question of Pornography, p. 78). :)
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Pro-porn: I've read Patrick Califia, Susie Bright, Wendy McElroy, Varda Burstyn, Renegade Evolution, and a host of others who are pro-porn. I feel more than safe in calling them out as such.
Prostitution, including pornography, is not a job like any other. That's similar reasoning to those who consider rape to be just like a punch in the face during a barroom brawl. What jobs have pregnancy as an "occupational hazard"? What job is defined by the sexual availability of the employee to touch, photographing, penetration of body orifices, etc? What job has the vast majority of its employees sexually abused as children? What job has most of its workers enter before the age of 16? In what job is rape, people who take half to all your money, beatings, PTSD, dissociation, etc common? In what job does up to 96% of the participants want to escape? In what job is the product human beings? In what job are 85% of the employees female, with almost all the customers and employers male? What job demands the faking of sexual arousal and orgasm? What job demands sexual availability in order to get paid?
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