Not another Porn Thread!!!!

[¿Que?]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...of-smut&page=2

Thoughts?

[CommieTroll]

Maybe this will get my school to unblock pornhub

[¿Que?]

Maybe this will get my school to unblock pornhub

Haha, I doubt it. In any case, if you google it, you can find the whole article. It actually says nothing about the effects of pornography on the performers themselves tho. And considering that internet access is largely determined along economic lines (as is sex work for that matter) could there a bourgeois bias in this article?

[Sasha]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...of-smut&page=2

Thoughts?

exactly what i and a lot of other users have been arguing in the last porn thread...

[Nox]

The internet is for porn, the internet is for porn. Why d'ya think the net was born? Porn! Porn! Porn!

[Luc]

Haha, I doubt it. In any case, if you google it, you can find the whole article. It actually says nothing about the effects of pornography on the performers themselves tho. And considering that internet access is largely determined along economic lines (as is sex work for that matter) could there a bourgeois bias in this article?

Good point, when I am "using the internet" (hint) there are ads for this site called Brazzers and it looks like all rape and violence towards women.
Says "Watch her punishment". Makes me sick and pissed off

[Rafiq]

I find porn, not morally, but generally disgusting. I don't know how people get turned on by it..

[¿Que?]

exactly what i and a lot of other users have been arguing in the last porn thread...

They used statistics showing how the rate of sexual assault dropped between 1980 and 2000 at the point when the internet, and thus, internet porn was becoming more prevalent. However, like the article says, there is an association, but it can't really be considered a cause. The explanation for the observed effect, it seems, is mostly speculation. The increase in network technology occurred concurrently with the increase in mechanisms of social surveillance, which could also explain the observed effect.

Good point, when I am "using the internet" (hint) there are ads for this site called Brazzers and it looks like all rape and violence towards women.
Says "Watch her punishment". Makes me sick and pissed off

But that's what the article is arguing. That watching sites like that is an outlet for "deviant" sexual activity. It implies, although I wouldn't say it argues, that not watching porn puts you at an increased probability of sexually assaulting someone, because it suggests an effect between lower levels of sexual assault, and increase in access to porn.

I find porn, not morally, but generally disgusting. I don't know how people get turned on by it..

Sex is dirty man, what can I say.

[caramelpence]

Sex is dirty man, what can I say.

I didn't read through the last porn thread, but it seems really problematic to see porn as an actual depiction of sex, or of what sex should be like. See, my perspective is that porn is deeply ironic in nature - ironic because even though porn and the liberalization of laws and conventions relating to porn have an obviously ability to provoke unease and even anger amongst people who hold prudish views of sex, porn is itself one of the most deeply conservative forms of culture. It is conservative because the main body of porn transforms sex into something that is reified and fetishized, and it does so through the repetition of an extremely narrow range of cliches and acts that totally ignore and repress the potential and even extant diversity of sexual interaction. The image of sex that is promoted through porn is that the sexual act necessarily has to begin with fellatio, that women have no need of anything other than vaginal intercourse, that penetration is continuous until the end rather than being interspersed with non-penetrative forms of stimulation and breaks - and so on. This is at complete variance both with the reality of sex even under capitalist society and with what a liberated sexuality could look like. Porn is in fact the complete opposite of sex, it is not spontaneous, it is formulaic, it is not sensuous and diverse, it is narrow and constrained.

[Sasha]

They used statistics showing how the rate of sexual assault dropped between 1980 and 2000 at the point when the internet, and thus, internet porn was becoming more prevalent. However, like the article says, there is an association, but it can't really be considered a cause. The explanation for the observed effect, it seems, is mostly speculation. The increase in network technology occurred concurrently with the increase in mechanisms of social surveillance, which could also explain the observed effect.

and again that was exactly what i was arguing, that (although i have an suspicion its more than an association) i cant proof that "more porn = less rape" but that its getting pretty clear that the unholy alliance of puritan-conservatives and sex-negative feminists who for decades have been claiming that "more porn = more rape" have been wrong for sure.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It actually says nothing about the effects of pornography on the performers themselves tho.

"I've had very few experiences on porn sets that I would classify as 'degrading.' I've had infinitely more degrading experiences as a waitress or a barista in a chain coffeeshop than I've ever had on set. That, of course, has everything to do with working conditions and nothing to do with what I'm actually doing as my job." - Lorelei Lee

I didn't read through the last porn thread, but it seems really problematic to see porn as an actual depiction of sex, or of what sex should be like.

"People get hysterical about sex. They want pornography to do the job that they themselves are not doing, which is educating our young people how to be safer. Unless a pornography movie is advertised as educational [...], it is not educational. And the fact that people are reduced to looking at an entertainment medium to find out about sex is sad. It would be less sad if it wasn't so tragic. Watching pornography to find out about how sex works is like watching a James Bond movie to find out how spies do their job." - Nina Hartley, porn veteran; former socialist

See, my perspective is that porn is deeply ironic in nature - ironic because even though porn and the liberalization of laws and conventions relating to porn have an obviously ability to provoke unease and even anger amongst people who hold prudish views of sex, porn is itself one of the most deeply conservative forms of culture. It is conservative because the main body of porn transforms sex into something that is reified and fetishized, and it does so through the repetition of an extremely narrow range of cliches and acts that totally ignore and repress the potential and even extant diversity of sexual interaction. The image of sex that is promoted through porn is that the sexual act necessarily has to begin with fellatio, that women have no need of anything other than vaginal intercourse, that penetration is continuous until the end rather than being interspersed with non-penetrative forms of stimulation and breaks - and so on. This is at complete variance both with the reality of sex even under capitalist society and with what a liberated sexuality could look like. Porn is in fact the complete opposite of sex, it is not spontaneous, it is formulaic, it is not sensuous and diverse, it is narrow and constrained.

A huge portion of online porn is homemade amateur stuff. It's also the fastest growing and most popular type of porn.

...commercial sites aren't nearly as popular as sites hosting free videos made by "regular people" who want to share them with others. And that huge numbers of people are creating and uploading those videos. Porn for profit is loosing out to videos of people having sex, shared freely.

The real problem, as it always does, comes down to the private ownership of the means of producing and distributing the things people want and need. That's a social question, dealing with the nature of capitalism and class society. Just as the problem with nuclear energy is not with that technology itself, but rather its control by a minority concerned only with profit, the problem with porn is that the main avenues for creating and distributing it are owned by a handful of people seeking to enrich themselves.

"Video hosting service 'tube' websites feature free user-uploaded amateur pornography, and have become the most visited pornography websites on the internet." - wiki

"YouPorn is a free pornographic video sharing website. Since starting in August 2006, it has become the most popular pornographic website and the 47th most popular website overall as of August 2009." - wiki

"YouPorn has been called 'a good role model for the sexually naive', as many of its homemade videos depict amateur couples having ordinary sex, as opposed to the often unreal scenarios of commercial porn." - wiki

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't see how being anti-porn is "sex-negative". There's noting inherently wrong with depictions of sex or people masterbating to them, however, there's all kinds of wrong with a for-profit industry that commodifies sex, breaks sex-acts and even women's body parts down into little sellable niche categories and then uses violence and the degregation of women and racism as the forms major tropes. Porn is sex-negative and an obstacle to real sexual liberation since heterosexual porn denies that sex involved the pleasure of 1/2 of the participants and pits men and women against eachother. Porn is to real (even masturbatory) sexual gratification what Twinkies are to a real meal - sure you can eat it and it get's the job done, but most people would want real food (or even a real sweetened pastry) all else being equal.

I find this "evidence" of less assault less than convincing. What are they talking about here, outright violent forced sex in a parking lot or something? Are they talking about date-rape? And saying that reported incidents of attacks (still far below actual rates of attacks) have gone down from 1980 (this is also the exact period of reaction AGAINST feminism) is ridiculous since for most of that time-period, hardly anyone was masturbating to internet images! I went to college in the 1990s and people tried but dial-up wasn't very efficient for drunk frat-boys back then so most people just used Baywatch and MTV.

Also, caramelpence, hit the nail on the head - porn is extremely conservative despite opposition from the evangelical right-wing. It re-enforces the "slut"/"good-girl" myth, promotes of view of sex in which women are only a recipient not a mutual actor, promotes the use of social power over women to force them to have sex, promotes the idea of sex as a commodity that women can trade and so on.

IMO the left should not support criminalization of porn (or prostitution for that matter) by the government because it would only come back to bite us and it would mean that the people most hurt by porn and prostitution would be forced deeper into hiding (and therefore more dependent on their sex-"bosses") and probably be the main ones being arrested. But we also shouldn't give the industry a pass and certainty shouldn't say that porn is socially positive in capitalism. How porn looks now is a symptom of a deeply fucked up society where people make money off of making empty-calorie masturbatory aids that are ultimately unsatisfying and mind-fucks (no pun intended) to the consumer (let alone what it does to how all people view sexuality). Sex could be presented as a mutual and fun activity, but it is promoted as a game of dominance and power because it plays on people's feeling of powerlessness in this society and there's nothing liberating for anyone in the process. Men, women, gay, straight - none are liberated or helped by the porn industry.

[Sasha]

the problem with the porn industry is that its an industry...

[Tim Finnegan]

Also, caramelpence, hit the nail on the head - porn is extremely conservative despite opposition from the evangelical right-wing. It re-enforces the "slut"/"good-girl" myth, promotes of view of sex in which women are only a recipient not a mutual actor, promotes the use of social power over women to force them to have sex, promotes the idea of sex as a commodity that women can trade and so on.

Most porn, and certainly mainstream porn, but not all porn, as you seem to imply. These are ubiquitous characteristics, no question, but not generic ones.

[Lobotomy]

porn is extremely conservative despite opposition from the evangelical right-wing.

Despite that opposition, I suspect that there is a lot of overlap between the right wingers who actively oppose porn and the greater consumers of it, so in some ways it isn't surprising.

[Ocean Seal]

Much like those who make associations between porn causing violence I find these associations somewhat weak. Porn will not cause the end of the world, and its also probably not going to bring about world peace. That being said, I know that the article also mentioned my point above. So more or less, at least this puts the anti-pornography points into perspective.

[Olentzero]

I actually do want to come back and contribute something more thought-out to this thread, but this caught my eye almost immediately:

Nina Hartley, porn veteran; former socialist

Say what?! You got something to back this up? 'Cos, um... nina hartley... yeah.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Nina Hartley? She was a socialist for a long time, and even around the Sparts for while. She now considers herself a social-democrat.

http://advant.blogspot.com/2006/10/n...nist-porn.html

[Olentzero]

Well, I'll be damned. Her grandfather was one of the Scottsboro lawyers?

[Coggeh]

Think about it this way, if porn was banned from the internet I promise you there would be just one site left, and that site would be called "BRING BACK THE PORN". Porn is here to stay, and as NHIS pointed out is rapidily becoming de(?)-commercialized.