I know many of us get ourselves into these arguments on and offline. I’m probably going to get into them again at uni this semester because I’m doing a unit called Ethics in the Social Sciences. I’m getting much better at arguing my position on issues I am passionate about without getting upset. Below is a list, which is a work in progress, of snappy soundbytes which we can use in porn debates. I would love it if readers would add their own and I will eventually compile a list to be included as a resource in the header or side bar. I find it handy to focus on the unethical practices of the industry, as a framework. Remember, this is for discussion with non-radical feminists and liberal men.
1. The sex industry trafficks hundreds of thousands of women and children every year.
2. The industry is racist; white women get paid more than black women.
3. Porn is used by pedophiles to groom children for sexual abuse.
4. Major themes in modern porn are to do with abuse, not sex.
5. Studies show that porn addiction ruins people’s sex lives.
6. Studies show that men are more aggressive towards women after watching porn.
7. Porn addiction is now the leading cause of divorce.
8. Domestic violence and sexual assault/abuse perpetrators get ideas from watching porn.
9. There are high rates of injury, infection and long term health problems among porn workers.
10. Workers in the industry are not protected by industrial or workplace legislation.
11. What about men who “choose” to watch people being abused in order to get off?
12. Oh so you think people “choose” to work in coal mines and then die of lung disease twenty years later?
13. Porn is not like it used to be (this one is handy for giving people an easy out and allowing them to save face and hence, neutralise their defensiveness).
14. Men don’t buy porn to see sex; they buy it to see women being punished (this helps makes the point that sex has nothing to do with it; porn is not sex; helpful when people try to shame you as being ‘anti-sex’ – maybe it’s really pornographers who are anti-sex).
15. When profits are involved, ethics and integrity go out the window (Socialists know this, and it might help to make the point that porn is the biggest industry in the world).
Whenever people talk about how the womyn choose to be there, I usually just say something along the lines of but what about the men who choose to watch it or point out that I used to watch it so, yes, I do know what I’m talking about re: content.
Thanks for this Linda, will definitely come in handy!
Yes, when the choosey choice justification comes up, as it invariably will, I use an analogy. I point out that we usually see the morality of standing up for exploited sweat-shop labourers in developing nations even though technically they are choosing to be there, so why not apply the same framework for understanding the porn industry? It’ s hard to argue against worker’s rights discourses. If you want it more concise you could come back with “Well don’t ALL workers choose their work? We still fight for their workplace rights though, don’t we?”
If things are going ok up to that point I might also admit that yes I have watched a lot of porn. Back in the 80s when we all first got VCRs it was cool to watch porn, but the themes in that porn, while still sexist, were nothing like this brutal shit that is modern porn. Older people think porn hasn’t changed since back then so it’s handy to go with the “Things have changed” line of arguing, and I tell people that I have done research on modern porn and watched a lot of it for that (which is true). If I’m feeling really hopeful, I will drop in a few graphic descriptions of current porn themes, like gag, a2m, anal pounding, triple penetration etc. Some people simply don’t realise what it is they are supporting.
Yeah when I would first get into arguments about shit like this (first with my mum,) I just told her to google it and see what it looked like, not what she thought it looked like. Now she agrees with me.
All that “porn for women” is usually that yesteryear style crap. I mean, look at Suicidee Girls for example, that’s what a lot of womyn my age think pornography is, but oh Lady, are they wrong.
Nice concise list, Linda. Thank you. I too get all a-flustered when talking about porn in “real life”, so it’s nice to have little things like this to recall when it comes up (if I can get the courage to actually speak).
Re: people “choosing” their work. In a radio interview, Gail Dines made a comment about how people don’t just “choose” to go down into coal mines and then die of black lung disease years later. That one always sticks with me as a go-to “soundbite” if I need it. Even supposed progressive folks just toss their leftist analysis of media, capitalism, etc out the window when it comes to porn and prostitution. It’s obnoxious. They should know better.
That’s an excellent one to add to the list, lishra. Gail Dines is good at that kind of stuff, and she was also very supportive of me in 2008 when I did an anti-porn presentation at uni. The only person who tried to argue with me that day was the arsehole professor.
Older people think porn hasn’t changed since back then so it’s handy to go with the “Things have changed” line of arguing, and I tell people that I have done research on modern porn and watched a lot of it for that
Oh absolutely. And the 70s/80s porn, apart from the rampant sexism as you say, was actually in many cases self-parodying comedy with moustachio’d dudes and twangy music.
I find the progression of porn very telling. It’s like if you let men blabber on for long enough, they will reveal their (sexist) hand and put their foot in it. Porn has revealed its own agenda, female hatred. It’s so blatant now, it does not even need subtitles.
One angle I like to work is the paedophillia motif, schoolgirl outfits and the like. Peeps get very uncomfortable with that when it is pointed out, and explain it is not really harmless dress-ups.
That’s a really, really good point FAB Libber. Storing this one
I was recently in a conversation with a friend whose politics are very progressive. We were talking about all kinds of radical political ideas and she suddenly said that her husband and his friends make fun of her for being a “prude” because she doesn’t “believe in” porn (odd phrasing, that). I was so shocked all I could say was, that’s bullshit. This list – and the workplace argument, which will definitely get to her – is exactly what I need for the next time I have the chance to talk to her (and anyone else) about this. After talking to her that day I also wondered if saying to her, “is that how you want your sons to think of women?” and, “is that how you want men to think of your daughter?” I suspect any number of my straight female friends with progressive politics have this same problem with the men in their lives and are ashamed or afraid to talk about it. Sickeningly, a decision against porn probably feels to them like making a decision to be ostracized and alone because porn has become so normalized and “no big deal.”
Porn (and prostitution) has been so absorbed into mainstream now that it is white noise. The average person just does not notice the influences.
I have to share one of my old fuddy duddy stories. When I was a kid/teen, brassiere ads on TV always had the model wearing a black skivvy under the bra. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, when on the side of a lorry (truck), the entire side of it was one huge “Sloggi” ad (g-strings and stuff). Now seriously, is that stuff appropriate for little kids to see?
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The important thing about porn is that it is real violence done to real women and girl. I say this coz I am continually told that it must be fake – or the women are just plastic women.
If I say of mine or other women’s experiences of sexual torture and or mental degradation – we are told that just the extreme end or something that must of be illegal. Rather than the truth, that are experiences were the norm of most profitable porn – the rarity is soft-core porn, porn with limited violence and degradation of women. Say that porn is first and foremost about profits – profits come from promoting sadistic porn, not the “family-friendly” porn. (I am being sarcastic here).
Men do not consume porn to see “normal” sex – they want to see “whores” pushed into the dirt. That is the reality of porn – everything else said about porn is delusional.
Welcome, Fab Libber, and Rebecca. I think that’s a good one to add in, Rebecca, that it really has nothing to do with sex. Because that’s a common defense used by pro-porners – that we just must hate sex, be prudish etc. It will help to point out that sex has nothing to do with porn. We need to make that distinction. Also the bit about profits; socialist men need to hear it framed that way.
Fab Libber, I don’t remember any bra models wearing clothes under the bra, how strange lol…but I do recall when the model just wore a clingy top over the bra so that we could see how the garment “improved” the bust line.
It’s disturbing how porn normalisation is being sold to children and young people. References to porn appear in all number of family tv shows. I don’t say that out of concern for children’s “innocence” or anything like that. Children can deal with the human body and sex. But it’s conditioning future generations to hate women openly and viciously. I also note that there seems to be a lot of news stories coming out involving children sexually abusing each other, no doubt because they can access porn. Gail Dines makes a good point about how it has hijacked our real sexuality. Porn is robbing people of a meaningful sex life.
It’s also interesting to notice that references to “women in porn” are rare; it’s always just “porn” so that we don’t run the risk of remembering that it involves real human beings.
*headnod* I’m thinking arseholes like Lambs to the fucking slaughter my fucking right ovary.
Yes that’s why there were three/four young men and one young womon. Nothing dodgy or porn-influenced about that at all.
A mother throwing her own daughter under the bus so to speak, that is really, really fucking tragic.
Oh god I screwed up the HTML in that comment so bad, sorry
Is ok. I fix.
zmog, I could not believe that mother throwing her daughter under the bus like that. The mothers of the sons of course pleaded “boyz will be boyz, no harm, no foul”. Nor did the mini-dudes even get a custodial sentence, effectively just monitoring.
The courts were right to effectively disregard the statutory consent ages, when it goes beyond a couple – in this case, FOUR against one.
I don’t know if it is just my imagination, but teen group rapes seem far more common now?
The only “sacrificial lamb” in that story was the 14yo girl.
Not the teen rapists.
Thanks Linda,
FAB Lib, you are so right, it really does seem to be. More commonly occurring thing. I know a teenage girl or two who have had very similar experiences with teenage boys.
And people say it has nothing to do with porn saturation. Edgy.
Without defending what the mother has said can I ask that we not throw her under a bus either? If we do we run the risk of stealing attention from the rapists and making mum’s apologism seem somehow worse than the rape. We’ve most of us internalised the idea that our sexual assault was consensual and therefore our responsibility. Mum has probably been a victim of rape herself at some time and been told that it was her fault. Now she is passing that down to her daughter. She is officially a Bad Mother however she handles it; bad mother for raising such a low budget slut. Then there could be other stuff going on. Many of us have minimised our own sexual assault, told ourselves it was all our fault, as a way of escaping the horrible truth of what happened to us. Mothers do this too, when it happens to their daughters, because they have already done it when it happened to them. Let’s save our rage for the rapists, the law, the media etc.
Without defending what the mother has said can I ask that we not throw her under a bus either?
It is a very fine line to walk though, isn’t it?
I don’t think anyone here is maintaining what the mother did is *somehow worse* than what the little rapist-pricks did. But it is fair to point out that whilst mothers will normally defend their kids no matter what, this one is not only not defending her own, but siding with the mothers of the boys. I think that the underlying concern/fear/shock that we have is that we know just how damaging it will be for this girl’s future. This point in history will have lasting ramifications. Actually, I would predict that this girl’s self-esteem and self-worth, already low, will probably lead her into a life of prostitution. This is how many prostituted women are made. They aren’t born, they are broken into it.
But it is fair to point out that whilst mothers will normally defend their kids no matter what
They defend their boy children no matter what; girls are another story.
I don’t need to explain to feminists that when women and girls are raped, society blames women and girls. Other women happily line up to cry slut and blame us for our own rapes. This girl’s mother is a part of that society and she is going along with society. I don’t hold her up to any higher standard just because she gave birth to the girl. I’d like to know where the girl’s father is, too. Why is he not more visible? I wouldn’t be betting on his support where ever he is. I doubt that the girl or the mum are getting much support. Who knows what the mother even really said; knowing our newspapers they could be preparing for a Bad Mother story cos they do love those in this country. It sounds like the furore has so far been centred on the unfairness to the poor little rapists, so before this part of the story hit the news the girl and her mum were probably under enormous pressure to diffuse that.
I’m not excusing the mother in any way, I’d love to have a word with her, but we side with patriarchy if we crucify her for not caring enough.
Who knows what the mother even really said; knowing our newspapers they could be preparing for a Bad Mother story cos they do love those in this country.
Given the actual quotation marks, it would be fairly safe to assume that she said it (they would open themselves up to libel too easily, the way it was presented). And yes, I have worked in meeja, so pretty savvy as to what goes on with twists and biases.
We get into it further in my Lambs post over at mine, exploring the issue a bit more.
Fab Libber, I don’t remember any bra models wearing clothes under the bra, how strange lol…but I do recall when the model just wore a clingy top over the bra so that we could see how the garment “improved” the bust line.
(B&W) TV ads only, probably late 1960s, maybe early 70s. I just remember my pre-pubescent child brain going “wtf, why is that woman wearing her clothes inside-out?”. I believe that in womans’ magazines at the time, the black skivvy was not necessary, only for TV modesty. Most of those TV ads probably did not survive.
When I was searching for an online pic of the TV ad, came across this one from the 1970s, nipple bras! Yes look like you are perma turned-on (or cold!):
http://www.pastreunited.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/23735102601880-30172809.jpg.w300h333.jpg
Yes, Gail Dines is correct when porn (and mainstream porn-influenced media) are hijacking sexuality. The effect on children, esp girl children, to be bombarded with ‘woman is sex object’ images 24/7 is abusive to their natural development. It is grooming. Grooming young girls into being sexual and sex object.
Yeah that might be a good idea to incorporate into the grooming argument, actually. Even if children are not deliberately exposed to it by pedos, the broader cultural forces are doing the job for them.
That bra – wow – I never saw that. I do recall an ad for one with sections cut out of the cup so the real nipples could be visible under clothing, but that one has inbuilt fake nipples, yeah? Unless I’m mistaken. Probably because of the trend to go braless during the second wave, I’m guessing.
Even if children are not deliberately exposed to it by pedos, the broader cultural forces are doing the job for them.
Precisely my point in my “Grooming” post (27 Feb).
Cut-outs for nipples, holy fucking shit.
One of the best phrases I have to use in these conversations is, “I don’t care.”
As in, “I don’t care about the incredible minority of women who enjoy it. I care about the majority of them, who were forced into pornography and prostitution.”
As in, “I don’t care whether or not you like porn. I care about those hurt by it.”
As in, “I don’t care about ‘free choice’ in a culture that doesn’t value ‘free choice’ except when it can get something out of it.”
The biggest thing to remember is that these arguments are self-defending: when you engage in something that hurts people, you’re going to use really, really stupid arguments to maintain mental equilibrium on the subject. When I watched porn, I too used these excuses: “It’s just this once,” “it’s free, it’s not like I’m supporting it,” etc. Oppression is rendered about ten thousand times more powerful by the fact that personal benefit and satisfaction can be derived from it.
Here via Against All Evidence. Hi!
Echidne (of the Snakes) said something which perfectly articulates the reason for the gut revulsion I get every time I see sexism. Paraphrasing quite freely, she said something like : Advertising, sex shops, porn etc aren’t merely “selling sex” — as if men and women enjoy the pleasure in equal amounts — though that equality is what they prefer you see. Instead, what male supremacists are really selling is “the sexual availibility of women for the benefit of men”.
Never again am I gonna hear that “but sex sells!” as anything but a re-framing technique.
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Hey Savage Rabbit, I’m so sorry you were stuck in moderation, nice arguing against the neo-liberal position there. I think this is the way to go myself; fuck those few who find it “liberating” let’s consider the majority who are literally trapped by it.
m Andrea, hello and welcome.
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With guys I find it useful to point to someone like Robert Jensen. You can say there’s serious research about this issue, educate yourself.
(For some reason it helps the researcher is a straight white guy..)
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/articles_gender.html
By the way, has anyone seen “The Price of Pleasure”?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316606/
But if someone can get these issues only when a guy says it, we haven’t gotten very far. I have a “feminist” friend who will only believe something if a man has said it. She doesn’t realize she does this, it’s knee jerk. I have to point it out to her every single time she does it and yet it persists. Her’s is just the typical response in a patriarchy: men know best and if a man says it, it’s legitimate.
Radical feminism is specifically about women speaking for themselves. Women have been silenced, discounted, and ignored for plenty long enough. Even when correct, a man giving his two cents is only that. We have developed our own position statements and arguments, because a large part of gaining status as “equals” (what a sorry state that would be, but for argument sake let’s say that’s what we want) is not falling back on what men say, believe, and argue.
Noanodyne, I think ANR was specifying:
With guys I find it useful to point to someone like Robert Jensen.
Because dudes still ONLY listen to other dudes.
I always point our auxiliary members (XYs) to educate their dudebros, rather than get in the way of XX-XX discussions.
But yeah, some FABs are so brainwashed they still only take dudes as the authoritah on everything.
I get exactly why (AN)R was saying that and my comment is addressed specifically to that. I used a female as an example, because if someone of the oppressed class has that hard a time getting it, especially someone who supposedly gets the politics and even with repeated reminders, there’s no chance in hell someone of the oppressor class (and a whiny one at that) is going to get it and especially when they can comfort themselves with yet another version of male exceptionalism (those clueless dudebros need extra special attention with help getting that women are human). And the idea that some idiot man is going to suddenly have an ah-ha moment because Robert Jensen said it, misses the point of why men don’t get it in the first place. They don’t get it because it’s not in their interest to get it, not because it hasn’t been explained by one of their own.
And let’s picture an analogous scenario. An African-American argues that the rate of imprisonment for black men in the U.S. is akin to genocide. White man argues the point until another white man tells him, you really should go read what this white guy has said about it, then you’ll get it. Voila, instant dismissal of the African American by two white guys and full support for the hegemony of political discourse that the privileged class of people already enjoys. If white people don’t want to listen to POC/black people/African Americans, sending them to listen to a white person doesn’t solve that problem. It reinforces the idea that those people can’t speak for themselves and when they attempt to, white people can do it better. And if they can’t speak for themselves, obviously they are less than and the privileged class can go right ahead and keep treating them the same way (while enjoying a cigar with their smarter mates).
It’s inviting paternalism to point the way to the uber male authority and doing so for men who are only too happy to be told that men make more sense than women. Giving that message to people who are already acting out their entitlement and privilege is counterproductive. The people who should be reading Robert Jensen are radical feminist women who have already read our own classics and current radical women’s writings, plus had long, deep discussions with each other. We can appreciate his arguments as being part of our own and in a continuum.
And as to the hope that liberal dudebros will get it by reading Jensen, has that EVER been born out in reality? What I’ve seen is those obnoxious knobs QUOTING Jensen to try to make a woman look silly next to the oh-so authoritative academic man’s argument. If a man is going to get our arguments and come to believe that women are human, he damn well better be listening to us, the humans in question.
I already knew what wavelength you were on, and where you were coming from Noanodyne, but for the newbies and peeps who don’t know you like ANR, it could have been seen as ignoring their point when in reality you were just skipping ahead. Esp when they name themselves (A New) Reader!
Do you get where I was coming from on that?
I know, sometimes it is easy to forget the newbie stuff or learning curves.
Hear hear, Noanodyne! That was so well put!
Totally agree. Awesome comment, Noan. And it is also at the heart of the trans debate – that women’s issues are suddenly only important as soon as a man thinks he has experienced them.
I do however, believe that it’s men’s job to educate other men, not our’s. So given that the post is to do with planting seeds in the minds of the unenlightened, I do support, in principle, the idea of steering men toward Jensen. I’ve done this myself so I’d be a hypocrite if I rejected it. I think men need to hear that not all men support the porn industry. There might be some men looking for an alternative view, like we know that there are a lot of people looking for an alternative view of trans, and I’m happy to facilitate that. Even though in theory, I agree with you 100% that men need to learn to listen to us, at this point I don’t envision the porn industry doing anything but flourishing in my life time, so I may be getting desperate here.
Thanks, Linda. I definitely agree that it would be great for men to be able to educate each other and understand why it might be helpful in some cases to refer to Jensen, but (AN)R’s comment doesn’t just say, yeah, and you can also send them to Jensen. It says there’s “serious research” by a “straight white guy” and it’s “useful” to send guys to read it. You know, because if it’s not just women running their whiny little mouths, it’s more legitimate. It’s not a black person doing the research. It’s not a gay or lesbian person doing the research (what could they know about how porn affects human beings?!?!). No, it’s a fully-credentialed member of the patriarchy, you can trust what he says!! What does it accomplish when a woman gives that much ground to a man who can’t get this concept?
Obviously, women speaking of their own experiences and women’s in-depth research and analysis aren’t enough for some men to get this. And heaven forbid if it was a black lesbian who said it, that’s utterly worthless. And is the type of man that has to be trained by a patriarch the kind of man who is actually going to get it at a core level? My comment to (AN)R is in the context of your post. Any one of the items on your excellent list should be enough to give any decent human being pause. The weight and import of the list as a whole is more than enough to clarify the issue utterly for anyone capable of understanding the concepts, without any help from white male academics. The man who can’t get this is a man who has a major stake in not getting it and the underlying issue is not that he hasn’t read the right things, but that he can’t accept that any one of these things (let alone all of them!!!) is more important than him getting off.
My biggest issue with current porn is that kids start watching it to be ‘cool’ some before they have even had sex and so assume that An*l, a2m etc is how everyone does it, that it is normal.
Any one of the items on your excellent list should be enough to give any decent human being pause.
Noan,this is so true, and thanks for bringing the thread back to the original point. Having the handy comebacks and using them is important for putting the issues into discourse.
Hi Mindy, how you going? You’re right, there is already evidence that porn is destroying human sexuality.
The fact that at uni I actually over hear conversations between young men talking about this brutal porn, or this hilarious porn or this XYZ porn would be another good response to if you don’t like it don’t look at it schtick the pro pay per rapists love so much. Even when I actively avoid it still comes up in my face, and I’m sure others too.
Mindy you have an awesome point, watching porn before I had sex did immeasurable damage to my sexuality, one I still struggle with. One of the womyn on my blog roll did a post on it actually I believe.
You’re right, there is already evidence that porn is destroying human sexuality.
I can only offer up anecdotal evidence, the changes in dudes’ sexual behaviours and performance during the rise of more freely available porn. The more porn became available and accepted, the more useless (and self-centred) they became. Mindless pounding became de rigueur.
This is interesting:
http://www.theleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/pornography-a-lonely-dangerous-fantasy/2106397.aspx
This my local paper. If you can’t be bothered clicking through, it’s a doctor splaining about the poor menz who are getting all addicted and being robbed of meaningful sex because of pornography. Cos that’s the most important social concern that the porn industry throws up. We could bomb the comments thread. I think I will also write a proper grown up response to be published in the regular hard copy edition, as a concerned social worker, using the comebacks that have been generated by this thread. Good idea?
It’s funny how people can accept that in say Clint Eastwood movies or even the latest chick flick the actors are acting. But they seem to believe that actors in porn films aren’t acting. I wonder why?
But they seem to believe that actors in porn films aren’t acting. I wonder why?
Yes, very strange.