History of Feminism
In reply to the discussion: Pornography is more popular in red states. Why is that? [View all]sigmasix
(794 posts)I am repeatedly amazed by the sweeping generalizations and appeals to emotional reactions amongst those that have a knee-jerk reaction to the stuff they call porn.
When the people fighting "porn" start to take the female version of male-objectifying-porn just as seriously, and condem all consumers of modern romance trash novels and their media equivilences that objectify men as non-human paycheck providers and social, as well as sexual, playthings and status inflators, I'll be willing to have a discussion with them. The modern romance novel industry and it's many media spin-offs represents an evil, insidious influence on our society that empowers women to treat men as objects for molding towards some sort of female-fantasy- an object that forever offers a standard of behavior, economic blandishments and sexual perfomance that dehumanizes men and trains women to view us as penises with lucrative jobs and social status conferees that are always there to do as they are told by the female definition of manliness and masculinity. Why is it that female purient desires and sexual bigotry is never recognized as a problem? So sexually explicit media somehow "hurts" people, but only the media that appeals to males. Where have I heard this point of view expressed before? hmmm.
Women objectify men and damage the universal self-image of men through their preferred form of objectification- yet we are left to deal with the damage to our relationships, family and children- with out so much as an "I'm sorry" from the anti-porn activists that claim they are just trying to help families and others objectified by the media that they have arbitrarily decided to be the prime culprit in causing so much destruction to women and families, while ignoring this very real problem. But when intelligent, honest individuals and studies point to the devious and damaging intention behind the female porn of choice, we are roundly laughed at and pronounced as mysogonists, thus cutting off any really substantive discussions about the subject.
Women objectify men as sex objects and unrealistic security providers all the time- they just prefer the written description of the male's destruction as an individual, instead of explicit film or pictures of the abuse.
When the porn warriors are offended, they claim the offensive material is damging to everyone in our society. Why do these offendees think that this is a one-way street that only admits thier particular pet social issue?
I think Mr. Zappa had some things to say to the porn worriors- but then he has been accused of being a producer of porn as well (art or porn, what's the difference, as long as someone gets to tell thier fellow Americans what images they can see and produce)- because everyone knows that picutures, videos and the written word hurts just like a knife. (um sarcasm)