I remember, in my feminist phase in my early twenties, all these women studies in the social sciences saying how porn would objectify women, leading to all sorts of wrongs, including rape. Now it seems the opposite is true. On the other hand, a new wave of feminism claims that porn does have a detrimental effect, in that more and more women take their standards of beauty and attractiveness from porn. Hence all the boobjobs and pole dancing classes.
What say you, Dopers? From a feminist standpoint, all trends considered, is porn a good thing, or a bad thing?
I think one part of it, is that the seventies were, on the whole, extremely violent, and that violent cromes in general have been going down. The book Freakonomicsattributes this to more women having acess to safe abortions, hence less unwanted children growing up in bad circumstances. (the cite says that theory might be wrong, however).
The claim that porn caused violence was always a political one, with little or no evidence to back it up. As was the claim that it would objectify women; men look at a picture of a naked woman as an object because it is an object. And men who are inclined that way appear to have no problems objectifying an actual living woman who is right in front of them. And societies with little to no access to porn are neither less violent nor more respectful of women.
I regard it primarily as a fantasy deriving from the sex-is-male-oppression wing of the feminists and the sex-is-sin fundies. Who are actually quite similar.
From a social scientific standpoint, doubts have long been raised concerning a direct relationship between pornography and rape or sexual assault. A 1970 study commissioned by Lyndon B. Johnson found no support for the use of pornography leading to adults or juveniles committing such offences. A later study from the Attorney General’s Commission (Meese 1986) which did find a causal relationship is known not to have involved any direct research, or scientists on the commission, and ignored testimony that contradicted its findings. Two of the only three women on the panel, later stated that the findings were unsupported by social science data. No strong evidence was found connecting magazines or adult theatres to sexual assault (Baron and Straus 1987; Scott and Schwalm 1988; Langevin et al. 1988; Winick and Evans 1996). The same lack of evidence has been identified by the Department of Justice of Canada, which highlighted that ‘no consistent body of evidence existed’. In the UK the Home Office found that ‘the role of pornography in influencing the state of society is a minor one’. Other parts of Europe (Denmark, W. Germany and Sweden) also found no correlation.
Japan provides an interesting test case, having had sexually explicit material prohibited following WWII up until 1951, and restricted into the 1980s. It is now freely proliferated. This massive increase in available pornography has, contrary to certain feminist expectations, been correlated with a ‘dramatic decrease in sexual crimes and most so among youngsters as perpetrators or victims’ (Diamond and Uchiyama 1999).
Early 70s Feminism got it wrong? Hold the front page.
It’s just not very subtle reasoning is it, nor was it based on anything other than ideologically convenient thinking. It was about as deep as smoking grass leads to heroin addiction.
Part of the problem there, (other than, of course, the fact that the research falsifies the claim) is that “objectification” is a hopelessly useless weasel word in virtually every context it’s used in. It can mean everything from “treating a women as a physical possession which you own and can control” to “only being interested in fucking and not caring about a women’s (or a man’s) mind/career/soul beyond how those things can be used to invent new sexual positions.”
The idea that men being able to satisfy their sexual urges by watching women having sex only makes sense as a precursor to increased rape if “feeling horny and not wanting an emotional connection with some who freely agrees to a sexual event” is “objectification” in the sense of “believing that you can treat women like property and do whatever you want to them if you want sex, even if they don’t consent.”
With that being said…
That miiiiiight have some validity, but we need to see if that’s necessarily a bad thing, even from a feminist standpoint.
It, essentially, argues that American male sexuality, in general, finds certain things attractive, in general. And that if women try to be sexy to men, that’s bad. From where I sit, that’s got nothing to do with feminism in any appreciable way.
At least, not any more than it’d make sense if someone said “American women generally prefer men who have good jobs and are physically fit. So trying to have a good career and working out are bad things for men to do since it’s totally selling out to the Matriarchy.”
Well; the more sensible arguments I’ve heard for why it’s a problem boil down to the fact that it’s an unrealistic standard; one that normal women just can’t meet. Of course, that falls flat as an anti-porn argument because it’s not a problem specific to porn; female entertainers in general benefit from everything from lucky genes to photographs/film carefully made to show them at their best to outright modification of the images to eliminate imperfection. Not to mention that people don’t look quite the same on a screen as they do in person.
While an understandable complaint I don’t really see what can practically be done about it. What would be the solution? Forbid women who are too attractive from going into entertainment? Ugly woman quotas?
Of course the people who get jobs where attractiveness and the ability to strike a sexy pose (or look hot while having sex) are key will tend to be much more attractive than those at the middle (or the left) of the bell curve. But so what? Having brilliant people become our scientists also creates an ‘unrealistic standard’ for people who aren’t that intelligent. Having physically gifted people be our star athletes creates an ‘unrealistic standard’ for people who aren’t that good at sports. Having excellent race car drivers creates an ‘unrealistic standard’ for people who aren’t very good at driving cars.
I don’t see it as a valid complaint to say that any particular woman, or man, is considered more attractive by society than some other person, and that other person can’t do a thing in hell to eliminate that gap, ever. That most women wouldn’t look like Jeri Ryan in skin tight plastic isn’t a “feminist issue” any more than the fact that I couldn’t look like Brad Pitt for all the tea in china is a “humanist issue”. Hell, even that Playboy models, photographed just right and then airbrushed, are more attractive than may even be possible for any human being without airbrushing isn’t really a “feminist issue” either.
Men or women who have unrealistic standards of approachable attractiveness aren’t any more of a real “issue” than spouses who expect their partner to cook like Julia Child and earn cash like Warren Buffet.
And while pretty well accepted by academic feminists of the 1970s and early 80s, even then there were the “pro-sex” feminist who argued that a woman’s sexuality was part of her power. I think the pro-sex feminists won out in the end - by the time I left school in 1988 (with a Women’s Studies minor) a lot of professors were openly mocking the ‘sex is male oppression’ wing.
The weird thing is, I actually believed the porn=evil meme at the time. That and my “save the whales’-ism” is the closest thing I’ve come to a religion. Being a feminist defined me, defined my mission, defined “the enemy”. But even then, my belief was… flawed, luke warm. I remember being tintillated by the examples of porn quoted in my feminist tekstbooks, and thinking to myself: " wow, this porn is some strong stuff". And then reading the offending passages again, and again.
In the 70’s it was impossible to get enough porn. This lead to sexually frustrated and aggressive men, just as the feminists said it would.
Nowadays it is impossible to get too little porn. This leads to the opposite problem.
IOW, it’s easy to construct an argument that validates the 70’s feminists, and conforms to today’s reality.
Maybe pornography and rape have nothing to do with each other?
Maybe there are other reasons why rape is down? …
…maybe it it easier to have sex with women now without force them?
…maybe because since the mid-1980’s 48 states now allow women to carry concealed handguns?
…maybe a man cant be in 2 places at once… if a guy is at home sitting in front of his computer watching porn for 12 straight hours, then he is not out on the street raping real live women.
Rape being down 85% is impressive indeed. To credit pornography requires more serious research. The change in the availability of pornography isn’t the only other social factor to have changed in the last several decades. Cell phones, personal computers/laptops.
I wish we could say the same for child molestation. I understand that since the internet started, Americans have supported a child porn industry worth billions of dollars, and the news appears to indicate an explosion of convicted sex offenders being registered at the same time.
http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.edu/Adobefiles/porn.pdf Nixon commissioned a rape study which he was sure would show the dangers of pornography. he was furious when the conclusions came out the opposite of what he knew was true. He suppressed it of course. But eventually it trickled out.
This cite is by one of the people who served on the panel that studied it.
Among other things, the problem with objectification and images of women does not begin and end with porn. The issue does not resolve easily from a single simple premise.
