Romance novels and slash are just socially acceptable softcore porn for women

[Sinful]

*Originally posted by Mr2001 *
**

If looking at centerfolds can make a man expect to meet unachievable women with perfect bodies, then reading romance novels can make a woman expect to meet The One handsome and charming man who sweeps her off her feet, whispers sweet nothing at every opportunity, knows exactly what she’s thinking without being told, and has been searching for her his whole life. **

There is a difference between wanting to be with someone who has been mutilated to fit an unrealistic image of what a woman “should” look like and wanting a man who “sweeps you off your feet and whispers sweet nothings”.

A primary difference being that romantic fiction is just that; fiction. Porn is a form of speech that violates and objectifies women.

In total, these studies show that viewing both violent and non-violent porn can

[ul]
[li]increase the acceptance of rape myths [/li][li]increase male aggression toward females [/li][li]decrease sensitivity to the crime of rape [/li][li]predispose willingness to rape [/li][li]increase the acceptance of violence against women [/li][li]decrease support for women’s rights [/li][li]alter perceptions of “common” sexual behavior [/li][li]decrease sexual satisfaction with self and partner [/li][/ul]

http://www.oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html

Too many men view women as sex objects. Too many people have unrealistic images of what a woman should look like. Too many people don’t believe a woman when she says that she has been raped because porn has desensitized them and made them believe that rape is funny or not even an issue. Too many porn stars were forced into the profession and too many porn stars are abused.

% who said they might after viewing 10 hours of violent porn: 57
% of boys who named porn their "most significant source’ of sex education: 29
% of serial killers interviewed by the FBI who named hard-core porn their “highest sexual interest”: 81%
The number of strip clubs in the US doubled between 1987 and 1992.
There are now more outlets for hard-core porn in America than McDonald’s restaurants.
The only two industries where women out-earn their male counterparts: porn and prostitution.
Rape in America has risen 500% since 1960.
Number of strip clubs in the US in 1999: 10,000
Percentage change since 1989: +300%
Number of strip clubs in Portland, OR (pop. 437, 319): 65
Number of strip clubs in Boston, Massachusetts (pop. 574, 283): 1
In Phoenix, neighborhoods with a porn outlet had 40% more property crime and 500% more sex offenses than neighborhoods without one.
After 150 adult businesses in Oklahoma City were shut down, the city’s rape rate declined 27% over 5 years.
Elsewhere in Oklahoma, reported rapes were up 19%.
% of convicted ******s who said they used porn regularly: 86%
% of them who said they imitated favorite porn scenes when committing their crimes: 57%
% of male college students who said they might rape a woman “if they could be assured of getting away with it”: 30 % who said they might after viewing 10 hours of violent porn: 57
(When the phrasing was changed to “force a woman into having sex”, 60% said yes.)
Once men are raped and silenced because of romance novels, perhaps your argument will hold some merit with me.

[Shirley_Ujest]

Y’know, Astro, there are some of us romance readers that actually skip the sex scenes because, frankly, simutaneous, splendorific orgasms are just so overdone.

Shirley, a former card carrying member of the RWA.

[Apos]

Porn is a form of speech that violates and objectifies women.

This is really more of a great debates issue. If you want to make your case there, you’re going to have to do a lot more than throw around a bunch of correlations can claim causation. While I agree that way too many men view women as sex objects (one reason I can’t stand being around most men, and almost all of my friends are women), I also don’t buy a lot of pop-theory-psychology thats put forth to explain it. Unfortunately, I’ve been burned way too many times by extremely sloppy social science research propigated as fact by foot-shooting feminists.

And broad statements like “A primary difference being that romantic fiction is just that; fiction. Porn is a form of speech that violates and objectifies women.” simply don’t hold any water with me. Porn is also fiction. In fact, in my case, the sort of porn I’ve spent any time looking at can ONLY be fiction, because it isn’t even possible in reality.

[Evil_Captor]

*Originally posted by Sinful *
**An incredible truckload of stuff that smells like it was yarped up wholesale after gorging at a Women’s Studies 101 course. **

Actually, great post, but maybe it deserves its own thread rather than hijacking this one.

[Evil_Captor]

As for the OP … you’ve got to be KIDDING if you think Kirk/Spock slash will EVER be socially acceptable! I mean … how could you? … choke … sob … gasp … Never! … It’s SO WRONG!

[astro]

For whatever reason I was just in a teasing mood when I posted the OP and should have put a wink smiley to make that clear. Even though some slash and romance fiction are essentially soft (and hard) literary porn for women (not that there’s anything wrong with that Sinful) I really should have stopped and considered that many women take their romance fiction and slash very seriously and I apologize for offending anyone by sloppily labeling the entire genre as “porn”… he typed as his powerful fingers tripped caressingly over the pristine ivory keys, whose silky action yielded softly to his urgent and deliberate thrusting finger strokes.

[Miller]

http://www.oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html

That has got to be the single least compelling cite I’ve ever seen. At one point it bolsters its argument by citing an episode of Friends, f’rchrissake! What a mess of over-heated rhetoric and strawman logic. I’m bookmarking the cite and emailing it to all my friends. I haven’t seen anything that funny since Bonzai Kittens. Christ, I hadn’t thought of that: that site is on the level, right? Or are you whooshing me?

[cajela]

Antiporn site? I didn’t even look, read all the arguments long ago.

Dopers should be aware that there are plenty of feminists who disagree with a lot of this neo-puritan anti-porn stuff. There is not one single feminist line, and personally I’m a bit cranky about the hijacking of feminism by wowsers AGAIN. (See the post suffrage prohibition movement.)

Quick summary: Consensual sex good. Non-consensual sex bad. Violence very bad indeed if involved in non-consensual sex; but can be kinda cool if dressed up and clearly demarcated as fantasy/fiction. Safe, sane, consensual. “No” is allowed to not mean “no” IF and ONLY IF there is another word like “mercy” that really does mean no. Acting is not real life. Fantasy is not reality. Which returns one to the romance novels.

[Miller]

You should really read the site, cajela, it’s really quite funny. And we know that not all feminists are anti-porn. Hell, for my money, the best pornographers out there are feminists.

[Miller]

I wonder if I could have somehow worked the word “really” into the first sentence again.

[Sinful]

*Originally posted by Apos *
**Unfortunately, I’ve been burned way too many times by extremely sloppy social science research propigated as fact by foot-shooting feminists. **

If there is nothing wrong with porn, and porn doesn’t indeed objectify or silence women, then why do you think that feminists would have a problem with it? The question for me isn’t about whether it is harmful for women; of course it is harmful to women. It is harmful because it increases the rate of violent sex crimes, it is harmful because it causes someone to be less likely to believe a rape victim is telling the truth, hell; it could be harmful for the sole reason that it gives off an unrealistic image of women and that would still be bad enough for me.

Yes, I believe in free speech, if you can consider porn that. But I do think that there should be limits on free speech. The primary reason is that even if you do say that "a woman can choose whether or not to pose for porn and even if that were the case and all women had other options open to them and porn was not a last resort and that all men can choose whether or not to read porn then that would still be ignoring the millions upon millions of women who choose not to pose for porn and have to deal with the negative response and abuse that may result from men choosing to watch/look at it. (WOAH TALK ABOUT AN INCOHERENT RUN-ON SENTENCE!)

And broad statements like “A primary difference being that romantic fiction is just that; fiction. Porn is a form of speech that violates and objectifies women.” simply don’t hold any water with me. Porn is also fiction. In fact, in my case, the sort of porn I’ve spent any time looking at can ONLY be fiction, because it isn’t even possible in reality.

Porn is not fiction. Even disregarding snuff videos and that, porn is still very real. It is easy to believe that porn is some glamourous role-playing fiction, but then you are forgetting about the myriad women in the porn industry who are abused. You aren’t taking into hand the fact that the majority of porn stars have been abused. If we lived in a Utopian society where all women were given the choices to be whatever they wanted to be in life and rape didn’t exist and women and men were equal in every way and all men respected women, then I could see myself supporting non-violent erotica. But so long as women are forced into the profession due to poverty and injustices, and so long as porn eroticizes the abuse and subjugation of real women, I just cannot bring myself to condone it.

[DeadlyAccurate]

*Originally posted by elfkin477 *
**What a startling revelation. Next you’ll be telling us that men prefer movies with explosions to those in which every character spends the whole movie wallowing in misery. **

Hell, I prefer movies with explosions over wallowing characters.

I’m not embarrassed to admit I read romance novels. I prefer those with little to no sex, though, and skip over any sex a book has. It always strikes me as just plain silly.

[Apos]

Since this isn’t great debates, I’m going to take more of an esoteric lit-point of view here, and if that isn’t what you want, you can always start a GD thread. You cite a number of claims that I don’t think you haven’t really provided any serious support for, nor placed any scope on their claims, but that’s really out of the realm of Cafe Society and I don’t want to get into it here.

The thing is, not all feminists are against porn. Many feminists produce porn, and not all of it simple erotica. In college, I took a joint women’s studies/Lit class on porn, and our final project was to produce a pornographic work. Feminists all, but none all of it was simple erotica, and some wasn’t even unapologetically not simple erotica.

Porn is not fiction. Even disregarding snuff videos and that, porn is still very real.

Again, I find that a little hard to buy, given that most of the porn I’ve been involved with is not even possible in real life. It’s entirely fictional. I agree that there are horrendous abuses of women in the industry.

However, I don’t agree that this automagically makes all porn bad. Does gay male porn objectify men? How about porn in which the fantasy is a female dom enslaving a man and doing all sorts of degrading things to him? (I can’t imagine why someone would want his balls crushed by high heels, but I guess it takes all kinds of kink)

There are plenty of women who don’t really feel like waiting around for all men to wise up before they support some pornography. The point is simply not to put up with harming women in any circumstance: not to simply dismiss the making or viewing of pr0n period.

[Short_Guy]

But I do think that there should be limits on free speech.

Yes, I know this isn’t GD, but I just wanted to single this out and let it shine in its glorious state of paradox.

[Short_Guy]

Hmm… The above should be “quote” coded, not bold.

[Mr2001]

*Originally posted by Sinful *
**There is a difference between wanting to be with someone who has been mutilated to fit an unrealistic image of what a woman “should” look like and wanting a man who “sweeps you off your feet and whispers sweet nothings”. **

Not a significant difference. Visual porn shows unrealistic depictions of what women should look like (how does mutilation enter into it, BTW?); romance novels show unrealistic depictions of what men should act like.

**In Phoenix, neighborhoods with a porn outlet had 40% more property crime and 500% more sex offenses than neighborhoods without one. **

Could it be because porn outlets tend to be located in seedier neighborhoods? Spokane has a porn shop right on the main drag, as well as about 4 head shops, and that street hasn’t magically gotten any worse.

**Once men are raped and silenced because of romance novels, perhaps your argument will hold some merit with me. **

Once you prove that women are commonly raped or silenced because of men viewing porn, perhaps your statement will be relevant.

[Lamia]

*Originally posted by Evil Captor *
**As for the OP … you’ve got to be KIDDING if you think Kirk/Spock slash will EVER be socially acceptable! I mean … how could you? … choke … sob … gasp … Never! … It’s SO WRONG! **

I know! Spock could have done so much better.

[Miller]

*Originally posted by Sinful *
If there is nothing wrong with porn, and porn doesn’t indeed objectify or silence women, then why do you think that feminists would have a problem with it?

This is a falsehood. “Feminists” as a group do not have a problem with porn. Some feminists do, but it is by no means all, or even most, feminists. There’s a word you need to learn if you want to debate around here, and it’s spelled C.I.T.E. Now you try it:

The question for me isn’t about whether it is harmful for women; of course it is harmful to women.

Cite?

It is harmful because it increases the rate of violent sex crimes…

Cite?

…it is harmful because it causes someone to be less likely to believe a rape victim is telling the truth

Cite?

…hell; it could be harmful for the sole reason that it gives off an unrealistic image of women and that would still be bad enough for me.

Yeah, probably, but I’d put more of the blame for that on Cosmo than on Hustler. Hell, most girls in Hustler look significantly healthier than the models in most “women’s” magazines. Turns out, most heterosexual guys aren’t attracted to women who look like prepubescent boys. Generally, they like women with big tits and substantial asses, which is not the sort of body type you get via eating disorder. And, again, you’re making sweeping generalizations about a very heterogenous group: there’s porn featuring literally every body type imaginable out there. Is “big and beautiful” porn more or less damaging than porn featuring anorexic heroin addicts?

Yes, I believe in free speech, if you can consider porn that. But I do think that there should be limits on free speech.

These two sentences are mutually exclusive. Thought you’d like to know.

The primary reason is that even if you do say that "a woman can choose whether or not to pose for porn and even if that were the case and all women had other options open to them and porn was not a last resort and that all men can choose whether or not to read porn then that would still be ignoring the millions upon millions of women who choose not to pose for porn and have to deal with the negative response and abuse that may result from men choosing to watch/look at it. (WOAH TALK ABOUT AN INCOHERENT RUN-ON SENTENCE!)

Yeah, that “freedom of choice” is a real bitch: some people are going to make choices you don’t like. Deal.

Porn is not fiction.

It’s not? Maybe you should define “fiction,” because I think we might be working from different definitions.

Even disregarding snuff videos and that, porn is still very real.

Porn is real in the sense that it actually exsists, sure. This makes it distinct from snuff videos, which are nothing more than a particularly tenacious urban legend. However, to say that the events depicted in your average porn video are an accurate reflection of the events that took place on the set of that film shows, at the very least, a profound lack of knowledge about the basics of movie-making. However, if all you’re trying to say is that, “Those people fucking on the tape were fucking in real life” all I can say is, “Yes. And?”

It is easy to believe that porn is some glamourous role-playing fiction, but then you are forgetting about the myriad women in the porn industry who are abused.

True enough, but I would submit that this abuse is made possible at least in part because of porn’s quasi-legal status and the moral opprobrium leveled at the industry by crusaders such as yourself, which make the women who work in the industry ashamed of their job and unwilling to agitate for better working conditions or Federal oversight.

You aren’t taking into hand the fact that the majority of porn stars have been abused.

Cite?

If we lived in a Utopian society where all women were given the choices to be whatever they wanted to be in life and rape didn’t exist and women and men were equal in every way and all men respected women, then I could see myself supporting non-violent erotica.

You have still failed to show that gender inequity can be postively linked to pornography.

But so long as women are forced into the profession due to poverty and injustices, and so long as porn eroticizes the abuse and subjugation of real women, I just cannot bring myself to condone it.

You say that like it’s a bad thing. Not big on the S&M lifestyle, I assume? Me, I try not to judge. Consenting adults and all that.

At any rate, not all porn eroticizes the abuse and subjugation of women, real or otherwise. I tend to prefer stuff that shows some degree of tenderness or intimacy between the participants. I’m romantic like that. In addition, a huge fraction of pornography out there doesn’t feature any women at all. How does gay male porn fit into your cramped little world view? Or better yet, how about the magazine On Our Backs, which is produced entirely by lesbians for lesbians? (That link is work safe, but eventually leads to pages that… aren’t.) Are there a bunch of misogynist lebians out there disrgarding rape accusations and being violent towards women as a result? Will buying a copy of Inches magazine make gay guys start treating women as sex objects?

I tend to think not.

[cajela]

Hey Miller, thanks for the tip, but seriously I have read so much on this that I’m now either bored senseless or seriously irritated by it. I did have a quick look, but I have too much else to do with my life. (Err, like wasting time on message boards.) And the quiz wasn’t even a quiz. Lame.

Well done on the dissection of Sinful’s post. BTW, isn’t that a very odd name for an anti-porn activist? Sounds like a naughty catholic schoolgirl fantasy invitation. Just sayin’.

Glad to hear you know about the feminist erotica/pr0n writers. Susie Bright rocks; she was the first one I discovered, and the first writer I saw use the term “sex-positive feminism”.

[Apos]

Point of interest: many gay male romance novels are huge hits among straight women, to the point where some writers get more straight women at their signings then gay men.