Oh yeah, as if you're thinking of anything else anyway!
Seriously, since I'm not into it, felt fine with that, and wanted to put a finer point on it, I went a-scrougin' for someone who was well-researced and better spoken on the topic. I mean, porn is everywhere -- what's up wih that? Enter the Manchester Guardian:
www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/...6,00.html
Just putting it out there... I'm especially interested in the ultimately unsatisfying aspect of porn, and its use to project frustrated hate on women (I'm thinking specifically of things like c*m shots in women's faces, its use as a "2nd / other woman" in relationships, etc.
Interesting that: the most downloaded porn image on the net (according to the researchers) isn't mere porn, but images of a horse doing a woman...
Check out the article first if you can, there are a lot of points to consider in there... not to mention their quotes from Ted Bundy... :0
Seriously, since I'm not into it, felt fine with that, and wanted to put a finer point on it, I went a-scrougin' for someone who was well-researced and better spoken on the topic. I mean, porn is everywhere -- what's up wih that? Enter the Manchester Guardian:
www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/...6,00.html
Just putting it out there... I'm especially interested in the ultimately unsatisfying aspect of porn, and its use to project frustrated hate on women (I'm thinking specifically of things like c*m shots in women's faces, its use as a "2nd / other woman" in relationships, etc.
Interesting that: the most downloaded porn image on the net (according to the researchers) isn't mere porn, but images of a horse doing a woman...
Check out the article first if you can, there are a lot of points to consider in there... not to mention their quotes from Ted Bundy... :0
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Fri, June 1, 2007 - 11:56 PMI think this is a really interesting discussion point, and one with no real, clear cut conclusions; actually maybe that's what makes it interesting. I'm trying to remember all of the 70's and 80's cultural theorists who posited that the male gaze is in and of itself violent, because of it's inherent position of power over what it captures. Grad school was such a lifetime ago for me, does anyone remember those arguments? -
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Sat, June 2, 2007 - 1:46 AMDid you read the article yet? It's pretty interesting, and fairly updated vs. 70's
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Thu, June 7, 2007 - 4:53 AMA good start for deciding whether something is well-researched is whether it cites any, ummm, published research. This collection of anecdotes and quotes from "experts" who are almost uniformly anti-porn activists or therapists does not.
Now there is in fact plenty of research out there on video games, violent television, action movies, porn, and other highly charged media. Findings are all over the place, but it's probably safe to stay that a diet of nothing but such stuff is not the greatest idea, and while there's debate about whether "addiction" is a physiologically accurate term, some people can be said to watch an unhealthy amount. But the truth is a far cry from the portrayal given in this article.
Personally, I think the messages conveyed by the widespread use of sexual images to sell pretty much everything are much more harmful, but there's even less solid research on that.
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Fri, June 8, 2007 - 10:34 AMI think what most struck me was the use of porn to assuage lonliness. Or as someone in another tribe once mentioned, the fleetingness of the feelings, hence the urge to repeat...
I wouldn't say it's the end-all for the topic, but I thought they brought up some pretty good points, not all of them anti-porn...
It also made me wonder too, whether high porn use might also influence men to approach sexual relationships as a game of musical chairs. Not that women would never, but women's porn use hardly compares. Plus the oxytocin element works against the flowers going from bee to bee, overall.
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Sat, June 16, 2007 - 8:37 PMAnother aspect not addressed in the article is the kind of porn being viewed. I think that looking at nothing but bad mainstream porn is not healthy, where it's all about the anal sex (hello, women have no prostate gland!), anal-to-mouth play, bestiality, or "degrading" women with facial cum-shots and such, as the article states. My pet theory is that much of this sort of porn is all about selling an activity that most men don't have access to and is forbidden to them, which keeps them coming back for more because they can't get it at home.
I also think there is porn out there that is healthy to view. I think SuicideGirls is great, as all the photo shoots are designed by the models themselves, and only photos they like (and the site's proprietors like) are posted online. People being seen as they want to be seen - I don't see any harm in that, even if they are being lascivious exhibitionists.
Oh, and I don't think the horse shot is really "porn", it's more of a novelty image, and humans are novelty-seeking creatures. I don't know of anyone that wanks off to bestiality porn: the reaction is more like "eww" while continuing to look at the image with one eye, squinting. I'm sure there are some people, but it's certainly not the most popular porn image. -
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Sun, June 17, 2007 - 9:09 PMI thought that was an oddly retro article. My undergrad work in the 80s was in the area of pornography and censorship, and this felt like something that could have been published around the time of the Meese Commission, except for the Internet references. So much shame and the highly specious notion that viewing straight porn leads almost inexorably to child abuse.
Also, I realize it was specifically an article about men & porn, but the lack of any acknowledgment that women watch and enjoy porn seemed odd. There are fairly reliable statistics showing that much of what had been assumed to be a biological difference (women are just not wired to enjoy porn) is in fact cultural, and now that women are empowered to look, we're liking it. And not just the soft-focus pretty stuff. I myself enjoy the nasty, violent porn--as long as everyone is clearly enjoying themselves. And yes, you can tell. I know that I enjoy nasty violent sex, and I can tell the difference between having fun and paying the rent. Let alone between a hot rape fantasy and actual rape. (By the way, Tomm, I agree with most of your points, and thanks for making them, but just as a point of order, actually women do more or less have a prostate. The G spot serves this function, and is the reason many women can come from anal sex. Jut FYI. And if they stop making anal sex porn out of respect for women I'll be very upset! It's the only kind I really enjoy . . . although all those annoying laws about not being able to have beating and sex in one film make it less satisfying than it could be. Thank heavens we have written porn for that . . . The Leather Daddy and the Femme, highly recommended one-handed reading . . .) -
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Wed, June 20, 2007 - 7:23 PMInteresting new data. I'm at the Kinsey Institute this week for work, and was chatting in the hallway with one of the fellows about my interest in porn and the female gaze. She mentioned that one of their postdocs had done a study using computer tracking of where viewers' eyes actually go when watching pornography. It generated a lot of buzz because it didn't generate the results academia and the media had been expecting (although somehow I'm not surprised). They found that men tend to look at the performers' faces, women tend to look at the genitals . . . UNLESS they're on the pill. Women on the pill tend to look at the hairdosm the backgrounds, the set styling, etc. So pretty much, if your body thinks you're infertile, you turn into a Jewish princess "Oh my god, can you believe they're doing it in that tacky hotel room. Hmmm, are those Vuiton shoes? Who did her hair, it doesn't go with those nails at all . . ." There's room for a "carpet and drapes match" joke in there somewhere . . -
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Re: Thoughts on porn
Sun, November 25, 2007 - 1:34 PMhmm. i do trust anathema's slightly more expert opinions on this subject...i sometimes enjoy porn myself...and i agree the article was one-sided and failed to delve how women respond to porn, but i agree with wyre's quote at the end, "The very least pornography does is make sexism sexy."
whether we like porn or not, it is a sexist industry and it propagates sexism.
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