Sex and Violence
So, I'm reading this thesis published in 2001, called "One Index Finger on the Mouse Scroll Bar and the Other on My Clit", by Kelly Simca Boyd. So far, I'm only on page 40, but there have been some fine points made on feminism and pornography, and one line in particular has caught my attention.
"They, and other anti-pornography feminists, believed that the real purpose of pornography was to debase and demean women and turn them into sexual objects, thus dehumanizing them (Dworkin, 1981, MacKinnon, 1993, Butterworth, 1996, McElroy, 1995)."
Okay, so, this is something that has always bugged the shit out of me. The purpose of pornography is sexual excitation and potentially gratification of an audience. If it is not intended to be titillating, it is not pornography. If it fails to produce a sexual response in its intended audience, it is shitty pornography. Any demeaning, debasing, dehumanising, or anything else that may occur as a result of certain types of pornographic material is a failure of the surrounding culture (and I mean that in terms of national and geographical space, not professional space), and not of the overarching concept of pornography or pornographic goods.
OMG! How dare I blame the innocent people who don't even like pornography and want to see those lovely ladies rescued from its evil clutches? Simple. I blame them for precisely that attitude. While pornography is legal, it is in a grey area in many places, in which those who perform and produce it are looked down upon in very public ways, even by those who enjoy the product, lest they too be shunned. Every time someone talks about saving a deluded victim of pornography, there's a porn actress they'd be too disgusted to shake hands with.
The problem is not the production of pornography, the problem is the idea that sexual gratification of any sort is inherently evil, and it's only even slightly okay between a married man and his wife, when they want to have children. Sex is not wrong, bad, evil, or unnatural, and is, in fact a primary component of social interaction and negotiation between Bonobo chimpanzees, to whom mankind is genetically closer than any other species on the planet. When people don't have sex, they do stupid shit like punch each other in the face. But, because of the attitude that Sister Y calls 'cheery social policy', the 'belief that we need not use extraordinary means to achieve a happy and meaningful life', any extraneous source of happiness or pleasure that is rooted in something other than working hard for the good of the community is labelled as an evil. Thus, sex becomes an evil, and those who participate in publicising sex are evil people who are ruining the 'right kind of sex' (heterosexual reproductive encounters) for the rest of mankind.
For the record? You cheery fuckheads are fucked up, and you've got no right.
Pornography, prostitution, and every other form of sex work have become somewhat less than easy fields to choose to work in, because of the idea that they are degrading society, and anyone who chooses to work in them (but no one does, because sex is bad and women should be protected from it) is inherently wicked and should be treated as less than human, in person, but held up as victims to be protected, in public. The conversation tends to go, 'Oh, look at this poor deluded victim!' 'Excuse me, I enjoy my job and I make quite a bit. I have an excellent retirement fund set up, and I intend to take it and buy a horse ranch in Mexico, when I'm forty.' '... ... YOU PROFIT FROM SIN AND EXPLOITATION! YOU'RE EVIL BECAUSE YOU CAN'T ACCEPT THAT YOU'RE A VICTIM, AND NOW YOU'RE LEADING PEOPLE ASTRAY!' '... Fwhat?'
Now, with the legitimisation of any type of work, the quality of life and working environment of the employees goes up, and the actually dangerous and illegal crap tends to come down, a bit, because those employees are no longer afraid to ask for help or to tell others what they do for a living. It becomes possible for someone living on the edge of society to become a productive member of it, while maintaining a profession they are skilled in and enjoy. And it becomes easier to exit a legitimate profession that one does not enjoy: you quit and get another job, just like any other, and you enjoy the same access to assistance for jobseekers and those looking to change fields that any other person in your area has, because you do not need to say you have been 'unemployed' for those years in these fields, to avoid prosecution or persecution.
Anyway, I'm exhausted and I forgot what I was talking about. Point here is that pornography doesn't degrade people, cultural expectations degrade people. Also, Andrea Dworkin is a fucking moron, and you can quote me. And why does everything involving porn and victims revolve around women? Are no men victimised by sexual misuse in this worldview? Are men's experiences immediately disposable? If so, it's even more wrong than I thought.
"They, and other anti-pornography feminists, believed that the real purpose of pornography was to debase and demean women and turn them into sexual objects, thus dehumanizing them (Dworkin, 1981, MacKinnon, 1993, Butterworth, 1996, McElroy, 1995)."
Okay, so, this is something that has always bugged the shit out of me. The purpose of pornography is sexual excitation and potentially gratification of an audience. If it is not intended to be titillating, it is not pornography. If it fails to produce a sexual response in its intended audience, it is shitty pornography. Any demeaning, debasing, dehumanising, or anything else that may occur as a result of certain types of pornographic material is a failure of the surrounding culture (and I mean that in terms of national and geographical space, not professional space), and not of the overarching concept of pornography or pornographic goods.
OMG! How dare I blame the innocent people who don't even like pornography and want to see those lovely ladies rescued from its evil clutches? Simple. I blame them for precisely that attitude. While pornography is legal, it is in a grey area in many places, in which those who perform and produce it are looked down upon in very public ways, even by those who enjoy the product, lest they too be shunned. Every time someone talks about saving a deluded victim of pornography, there's a porn actress they'd be too disgusted to shake hands with.
The problem is not the production of pornography, the problem is the idea that sexual gratification of any sort is inherently evil, and it's only even slightly okay between a married man and his wife, when they want to have children. Sex is not wrong, bad, evil, or unnatural, and is, in fact a primary component of social interaction and negotiation between Bonobo chimpanzees, to whom mankind is genetically closer than any other species on the planet. When people don't have sex, they do stupid shit like punch each other in the face. But, because of the attitude that Sister Y calls 'cheery social policy', the 'belief that we need not use extraordinary means to achieve a happy and meaningful life', any extraneous source of happiness or pleasure that is rooted in something other than working hard for the good of the community is labelled as an evil. Thus, sex becomes an evil, and those who participate in publicising sex are evil people who are ruining the 'right kind of sex' (heterosexual reproductive encounters) for the rest of mankind.
For the record? You cheery fuckheads are fucked up, and you've got no right.
Pornography, prostitution, and every other form of sex work have become somewhat less than easy fields to choose to work in, because of the idea that they are degrading society, and anyone who chooses to work in them (but no one does, because sex is bad and women should be protected from it) is inherently wicked and should be treated as less than human, in person, but held up as victims to be protected, in public. The conversation tends to go, 'Oh, look at this poor deluded victim!' 'Excuse me, I enjoy my job and I make quite a bit. I have an excellent retirement fund set up, and I intend to take it and buy a horse ranch in Mexico, when I'm forty.' '... ... YOU PROFIT FROM SIN AND EXPLOITATION! YOU'RE EVIL BECAUSE YOU CAN'T ACCEPT THAT YOU'RE A VICTIM, AND NOW YOU'RE LEADING PEOPLE ASTRAY!' '... Fwhat?'
Now, with the legitimisation of any type of work, the quality of life and working environment of the employees goes up, and the actually dangerous and illegal crap tends to come down, a bit, because those employees are no longer afraid to ask for help or to tell others what they do for a living. It becomes possible for someone living on the edge of society to become a productive member of it, while maintaining a profession they are skilled in and enjoy. And it becomes easier to exit a legitimate profession that one does not enjoy: you quit and get another job, just like any other, and you enjoy the same access to assistance for jobseekers and those looking to change fields that any other person in your area has, because you do not need to say you have been 'unemployed' for those years in these fields, to avoid prosecution or persecution.
Anyway, I'm exhausted and I forgot what I was talking about. Point here is that pornography doesn't degrade people, cultural expectations degrade people. Also, Andrea Dworkin is a fucking moron, and you can quote me. And why does everything involving porn and victims revolve around women? Are no men victimised by sexual misuse in this worldview? Are men's experiences immediately disposable? If so, it's even more wrong than I thought.