General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: With all the anti-pornography talk, can we have a sex positive thread? [View all]rrneck
(17,671 posts)It's not, and I am somewhat offended that you would think that is the case. But I'm not angry and I don't think you are a bad person for your unfortunate evaluation of me.
And I think you're wrong to think sex is not a tool. It is the oldest and most important tool we have. It's the tool we use to turn resources into offspring. Throughout our history that tool has had a number of accessories attached to it from a means to deeply and emotionally understand each other, to barter for parity and as a weapon of war. All of those accessories helped us survive as a species. The application of those accessories depend on the context in which the tool is used.
But the issue is not about sex. It's about art. That's right, the skeeziest most disgusting porn out there is art. Really, really bad art. Just like any art it explores the extremity of human experience. And just like any bad art is delivers little more than a a tiny slice of it.
You will never get evidence that such material is harmless because it's impossible to prove a negative. There is no way to prove that it causes nothing. But there is abundant evidence that censorship of the arts, even bad art, stultifies cultures and narrows people's ability to produce creative solutions to problems. Soviet and Fascist German art are the most common examples, although corporate advertising are equally appropriate even though our culture is so inundated with it we don't notice it.
Ever seen First Monday in October? It's an old favorite of mine. These debates always remind me of that movie. One of the sub plots deals with pornography and at one point Walther Matthau says, "Crap's got the right to be crap."
You're perfectly free to be disgusted right along with the rest of us. But you and I are not free to tell people how they are supposed to feel about something. And we certainly are not free to legislate those feelings. If you want to change peoples feelings you have to teach them, not beat them.