Even then I don’t think it ought to be a crime. Reprehensible, yes. However, the only person who is personally harming anybody is the rapist/photographer himself. Let him be punished.
I thought that was “obscenity,” rather than pornography. By my current scemantic understanding of those two words, not all porn is obscene.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but most pornography is about power. It is about men dominating women. It doesn’t have to be a picture involving domination to be about power; the entire premise of pornography is about power. People are making millions of dollars off of men wanting to see women in positions of (in essence) servitude. It’s women working to get men off. If an industry based on providing men serving women for their sexual gratification isn’t about power, I don’t know what is.
I’m afraid I have to disagree. If we go on the assumption that all hetero sex is degrading to women and puts women in positions of servitude, then you are correct. But I don’t buy that malarky. Some women actually do enjoy sex.
If they are filmed doing this, does that suddenly make them powerless? What if they do so willingly, and make scads of money doing it? And if a woman enjoys viewing porn, does she suddenly become an oppressor?
tdn: I certainly see your point, and on even numbered days I would agree with you, but it’s the 11th, so I don’t! Sex itself does not put women in positions of servitude. Pornography does. This is an industry primarially run/owned/operated by men who, as I said, are in the business of providing serving women. Serving women for men’s sexual gratification. Even if it is consensual (and there is certainly room for debate on that issue) there is definitely a power dynamic to it. Pornography is about the women (or whoever) in the pornography pleasing the men. The pleasure of the women in the pornography is irrelevant, it only is important in that their pleasure might cause pleasure to the observer. To compare sex, where both partners’ (or however many you may desire) pleasure is important, to pornography, where only the pleasure of one person matters, shows how it is a power issue. I am not making any sort of judgments about its morality, just making it clear that inherent in pornography is this power dynamic.
Also, yes, if a woman is watching porn, then she is in the position of power. It is about objectification as opposed to participation. Whoever is viewing the porn is objectifing the actor/actress, no matter what sex that person may be.
Eonwe, I see your point as well. By your line of thinking, If a gay man watches gay porn, then he is in the position of power as well (replace this with all females, same thing). But if I watch porn (which I do on rare occasion), the last thing on my mind is how much power I’m weilding over the actress (and actor, by the way). I’m more aware of the power she has over me.
We can also extend your line of thought outwards. When I make love to my girlfriend, of course she is a sex object to me. As I am to her. When we go out to the movies, she is a movie companion object. When we share pillow talk, she is a conversation object.
Let’s take it in another direction. If I meet a woman at a bank, and she takes my money and gives me a receipt, she is a teller object. I’m not interested in her as a person, only as a banker. And I weild some power over her. She is there for my banking gratification, and if she is unsatisfactory, I can cause her to be fired. That’s her job. She gets paid for it. When she seeks my professional services, then I become the object. Which I am willing to be, because I get a paycheck.
When I see Meryl Streep in a movie, she is an actress object. I would hope that she enjoys her work, but let’s face it - she is on that screen for my personal movie-going gratification. I have power over her - if I don’t like her, I won’t see her movies, and she’ll be out of work (unfortunately, I tried this with Leonardo DiCaprio, but it didn’t work).
Are these examples of power and objectification? Your call. But I’m not sure how pornography differs.
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- The net has resulted in a unique situation: you can easily be a distributor of material that didn’t originate in your country, and never was physically located in your country. When you say “obtaining”, do you mean filming little kids screwing, or posting downloadables of existing material? The first I’d definitely assume to be illegal, the second I’m not real sure.
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- Something to know: a few days back on http://www.portalofevil.com they featured a commercial site named “Little Virgins”: girls, “16 and under” is what they claim, and it’s true. Some look 10, 8 maybe. All usually totally naked, but not actually doing anything with anyone, except maybe standing next to each other.(Yea, I know, I looked, but only because it was on Portal of Evil. I don’t go looking for the stuff, and I didn’t pay for it.)
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- Their claim on the (L-V) site is that it’s not pornographic, because no sex acts are being committed, which I tend to believe. You hear about police nabbing child-porn collectors on the net a lot, but it’s not real difficult to go into any large bookstore and find artists’ reference books that show kids (people) of all ages naked, from every angle. They aren’t actually doing anything to anyone, but that’s a precious small distinction. If you’re filming this stuff and you get caught and it’s illegal in your country, then you should get whatever’s coming to you according to local laws. Different countries have different legal and social standards though (L-V says half their material originates from FSRs), and I don’t see the benefit of locking up US citizens for looking at stuff that the US government can’t PROVE they were the cause of, or even happened on US soil, or involved any US citizens, or that anyone involved in the production even objected to.
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- It could be argued that allowing kiddy porn to be cirulated encourages its production, but any single gov’t. cannot control production of material on the net, and only wastes money and looks foolish trying to do so. All they can really do is throw their own citizens in jail for looking at it. I’d prefer they track it to its source to make sure it isn’t domestically produced. - MC
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Porn is whatever society in a particular time and place says it is, although it seems to always be exclusively about sex; anything else forbidden is defined as taboo. The reason chicken legs are called drumsticks is because at one time “leg” was considered an obscene word.
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- I thought it was because people in the Flintstones cartoons played the drums with them? - MC
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I think what is porn is different for every person. Perhaps a good definition is “Your porn is whatever turns you on enough to masturbate to.”
tdn…
hm… objects objects objects… I guess that it’s true, that for my concept of this to be consistant with any sort of real viewpoint everything/everybody would then become objects of other people’s desires/needs or whatever. Since I don’t think it’s true that everybody becomes objects in everybody else’s lives, I need to re-evaluate my position. I still think that pornography embodies a real power issue, now I’ve just got to go figure out how I can explain it!