Porn/Depiction of Women

[Solitary]

Did you guys know that almost all het porn is out there made for men? From male point, to serve to the male pleasure...No?

Jodi Foster would disagree!  :P  Solitary

[Jason78]

Did you guys know that almost all het porn is out there made for men? From male point, to serve to the male pleasure...No?

So that means almost some of it isn't!

[hillbillyatheist]

What's het porn?

Also why are markets geared toward men bad?

Romance novels, soap operas and daytime talk shows are marketed to women.

Is that bad?

[mykcob4]

Since this issue seems to have come up this year on the interwebs I think it's important to put out the discussion. What are your views on the sexual depiction of women in art/media/porn/etc.? Now anyone who knows me probably knows where I stand and I wrote a short essay of my thoughts but for now I will keep quiet. How do you feel about these depictions? Do you take a feminist view or not or something not as conventional? I eagerly await your response.

I am male and heteralsexual. I am not a femminist or even an activist. I do want equality for women and I hate men that are so crass and shallow that all they can do is objectify women.
Porno does this unabashedly, and that is the only problem I have with the modern porno industry. Other than that the porno industry is like any other industry.
I don't watch porno because I just don't get arroused by some ficticious crap. I am much more intersted in spending time with my girlfriend, and I mean all the time. Sexual or nonsexual, every moment spent with her is satisfying.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Did you guys know that almost all het porn is out there made for men? From male point, to serve to the male pleasure...No?

I would think that has more to do with consumption than anything. Heterosexual porn is mainly consumed, or at least paid for, by heterosexual males.

I would just like to point out that many objections to pornography dissolve when the porn involves gay men, although I'm sure there is a feminist out there who would complain that women are underrepresented gay male porn industry.

:rollin:
Gay male porn is truly the most misogynist industry at all. Did you know that not a single woman has gotten an award at any of the award ceremonies for gay male porn?

In fact, in all the gay porn I've watched I don't think I've seen a single woman performer....and I don't ever want to see one. Damn...I think that means I'm a woman hater...

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

What's an "empowered role" for women in porn?  Are we talking like Joanna Angel here?

Femdom.

By the way, someone needs to make femdom porn that isn't just a woman with a strap on fucking a guy or weird foot worship crap. I want to watch a woman in a dominant role have sex with a man, not what is essentially just gay bondage porn that happens to feature a woman as the top.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

The industry is all over the place with a niche for any taste imaginable from people getting off watching others shit to getting beaten to strung up by their balls to just plain great sensual porn. If you don't have an appetite somewhere in porn you're either asexual or so utterly sexually satisfied at home on demand or maybe a little of both. Maybe your gentials were blown off in a war, but there's probably a niche somewhere in porn for that too..
Next niche! Total impotence porn!

[Triple Nine]

Well, now that we got some responses I am sure many of you know I am very into porn, mainly the big-bust genre that is most prevalent in Score/Scoreland. I also have other, far less prominent fetishes such as being a sadist. I have seriously thought about this issue and in the end I can't think of a good reason why porn should be bad. I wrote an essay on this which you can read below if you got a few minutes. I did it really fast so it may have some errors in it.

Depictions of Women in Art and Media

[spoil:2ayg7jyk]There has recently been discussion about many issues concerning women's rights in the public sphere such as abortion, equal pay, and contraceptive use. This is important we talk about these issues so we can insure the rights for all people. However, on the internet there has been a smaller but also important discussion about how women are depicted. This discussion was spurred by two controversies, Atheism Plus and Anita Sarkesian's project. The main question in both of these projects is the way depicted in the art and media, such as video games, are sexist. The main argument is that in many cases the women are sexualized, which is sexist. I strongly disagree with this analysis. Without getting into the two controversies that started this debate online.
   The first point that is often not paid attention by the people arguing the side that the depictions of women are sexist is recognizing the factors of targeted audience and economics. Companies are trying to sell a product in the case of something such as video games. For many "hardcore" games the majority of the audience is males. Why this it became this way is hard to explain because many early video games in the 1970s and 1980s lacked strong tones in gender. Nevertheless, the majority audience over gamers worldwide are male, most males are heterosexual, and thus it makes sense to use a variety of attractive women in the product. Sex is one of the most basic instincts most people have, it is only natural for it to be used in products to attract the general audience that would be potentially interested in the product, mostly heterosexual males. To downplay this important detail is to downplay the reason why you see much of sexualization you see in advertising and products that are targeted toward.  This is a matter of trying to sell a product using a natural instinct that the majority of people have.
   The second point that is short but still important is that men are also sexualized. Despite men being the key audience in many products, even men like to see themselves as sexually attractive. Again, in the case of video games, if there is a male protagonist it's very common for him to be muscular and physically fit and has physical and fashion elements that many would consider cool and attractive. Just because men are the key audience doesn't downplay the fact that men are still depicted sexually. The amazing thing is that men want to be depicted this way because people like to play roles and be someone they are not. When people want to pretend to be someone else, generally the desired figure is attractive as a personally and in this case, physically.
   The next two points are important to note because it goes to heart of where the problem lies. People have different sexual tastes. One word that is repeatedly used by the other side is "oversexualization". Often times when this word is used along with "exaggerated" it describes a very specific sort of body set. This usually with depictions with women who have more fat in sexualized areas such as large breasts or large thighs, not to be explicit. Now these are not the only features many men find attractive, in fact many men do not find these features attractive. Even in many products and art depict different "body types" for attractive women to appeal to a large number of men who have different sexual tastes. So what is "exaggerated"? In this case I feel there is a bias against women with this certain body type, because the language used acts like there isn't women with these body features. To make matters worse, to expect no sexualization in media and art is a bit ridiculous, but that seems to be what the other side is expecting. Even art where there isn't some sort of monetary gain like a company people incorporate sexual elements because the artist(s) like sex. For people on the other side who feel further sexualization is fine, they want a change in the body types of the women to not be what they described as the "exaggerated" body types earlier. Never mind the fact that they already have different body types represented as stated earlier in vast majority of cases. The obvious rationalization is that these "new" body types would reflect "normal" women. This is a contradiction though because it still leaves out women who have the "exaggerated" body types described earlier and as much as some men like that body type these women also have insecure feelings about their bodies. All body types of women will be loved by some but also disliked by many, this includes the body types of women described as "exaggerated", which in of itself is an attack on these body types. There will always be people left out in these cases, and changing or increasing who is doesn't get represented doesn't make things any better.
   The last thing about this that I feel the other side doesn't understand that much of sex is fantasy. Sex is often an area where otherwise risqué or even otherwise immoral actions can be acted out in the imagination. We have no right to impose our sexual tastes on to someone else and as long as they are not hurting others they can fantasize about anything they want. Just like killing and violence in movies and books, just because someone fantasizes and role-plays something otherwise immoral in any other situation doesn't mean they would do that in real life and in the public sphere. With the exception of people who may already have a problem, most realize their sexual fantasies are just that, fantasies they would not do or want to do in real situations. In the case of not actions but body features, none of us have the right to codemn a person's body or someone's attraction to certain features as "sexist". It is completely natural and people have the right to feel comfortable with the body they have or the physical features the are attracted to. Let's also not forget that you can't choose what your sexually attracted to either. To condemn something someone has no control over isn't fair.
   In conclusion I feel that much of the accusations of sexism is important to consider but ultimately falls flat. When I analyzed the claims and arguments they seemed mostly rooted in confirmation bias and generally anti-sex attitudes. Now I believe there are issues that are important concerning women such as the right to an abortion, a right to contraceptives, and a way to try and balance the inequalities in pay concerning men and women due to a variety of practices such as job placement. I believe in women's rights and equality for all people regardless of who they are or what situation they are in or born into. We should also be concerned about issues concerning men to however such as the fathers' rights. I believe in gender equality and we should focus on all the problems that are caused currently by certain outdated gender roles. This debate is important but I do believe there are much more pressing issues at hand, speaking how this whole debate has yet to leave from the various internet communities it started in. There are more important matters in the developed and developing world to be concerned with.[/spoil:2ayg7jyk]

[EntirelyOfThisWorld]

When I was twelve years old I and my buddies would sneak peaks at the Playboys at certain liquor stores where we knew they were left in reach.  The adolescent hormone grapevine was full of lore about which liquor stores had the harder core stuff, like Gent, or Adam.  (This was before even hustler, and by those standards were still pretty tame).  At some of these the guys at the counter would tolerate a fair amount of snooping before chasing us off. (These were often the ones that would later be lax about asking for ID when we went in to buy booze at 17 or 18.)

Where to draw the line between art and smut?  When I was passing puberty I knew nothing about exploitation.  Smut was smut.  The women were viewed as sluts by "righteous" society, and viewed with longing by my awakening genitals.  I grew up in a society were I was told it was wrong, but was never told the truth about what exactly was wrong with it.

I just watched the Daily Show where John Oliver interviewed Hank Azaria about his role in the new movie "Lovelace".  I saw the movie Deep Throat as a newly minted "young adult" at the Pussycat Theater in San Diego, where it would wind up running for years, making the producers millionaires, while Linda Lovelace got literally fucked out of every penny.

So, have I changed my views on porn?  Well, I am certainly more educated, and in retrospect regret contributing to the fortune Linda saw not a penny of.  Am I opposed to it in all forms?  No.  I still view it occasionally.  Many of the women involved are well compensated, but I still see examples of women who are very likely victims of exploitation.  Banning it will not stop the exploitation.  De-stigmatizing the actors involved will help.

[Saul the not so great!]

My problem is less with porn, but the assumption that women who do porn and women who have certain fetishes are less "valuable" and "respectable" than other people in society.
Many people don't make the distinction between being treated as a mere object with being the object of sexual desire or any desire for that matter. The difference is clear: you don't ask MERE objects for mutual consent beforehand and care what they want.

Note- I don't care much for the porn business because they don't treat the actors and actresses well.

[Colanth]

That is, obviously, a key question and one not answered in the NPR piece. I managed to find the study not behind a $30 pay-wall, and while I have not read all of it, this seems to be the relevant passage:

Two coding guides for disempowering and empowering factors were created to quantify
the level of disempowerment and empowerment in each pornographic image. Prior content
analyses of pornography have predominantly focused on identifying negative or disempowering
factors (Dworkin, 1981; Cowan, Lee, Levy, & Snyder, 1988; Cowan and Dunn, 1994). Thus, the
disempowerment coding guide was compiled from what past research has deemed demeaning or
degrading towards women. The disempowerment scale is a 24-item measure, consisting of yes/
no indicators to identify the presence of factors such as:
•
The woman being bound and dominated, indicated by the use of props like leashes,
collars, gags, or handcuffs;

Someone doesn't understand the D/s dynamic.

[Poison Tree]

There often seems to be a strange disconnect between which depictions of sex society sees as empowering to women and which acts the women preforming them think of as empowering (as Colanth hints at with regard to the D/s dynamic). It brought to mind this opinion piece. The gist of it is that porn actresses are often viewed as being degraded by their work, even (perhaps especially) if they voice enjoyment of it; yet legitimate actresses are lauded for doing often-called empowering sex scenes, even when they describe the experience as violating and terrifying and describe using alcohol to get through/over the scene while crying and feeling "a little raped" (though obviously not everyone from each group feels the same).


Unless we have some hypothetical overwhelming reason, I think we must accept at face value when a women says that preforming an action made her feel humiliated or empowered. Which brings me to twin (perhaps rhetorical) questions:
If a women says she feels empowered (or even simply neutral) preforming an act, can society decide that it is demeaning to her or women to at large? Similarly, if an actress describes her feeling after doing a scene with the sentiments quoted in this piece, who is society to deem it as empowering?

[Jason78]

Romance novels, soap operas and daytime talk shows are marketed to women.

Is that bad?

Yes.  Soap operas do not represent a normal healthy adult relationship.

[Hydra009]

Romance novels, soap operas and daytime talk shows are marketed to women.

Is that bad?

Yes.  Soap operas do not represent a normal healthy adult relationship.

Of course.  But do women watch them with the expectation that that's a normal and healthy sort of relationship?  Or as a pleasing fantasy?

The idea that men get their cues from porn could use a little scrutiny, imho.

[Satt]

My wife and I really enjoy nude artwork and have several nude sculptures in our house. I don't have a problem in general with porn either. When I was younger, [s:1rq5malv]I[/s:1rq5malv] my friends watched TONS of if. The ONLY thing that bothers me about it nowadays is a report I saw on the news where women were being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade and forced to do porn. Every time I see porn now, that's all I can think about. I always wonder if by watching porn, am I supporting human trafficing and illegal sex trade?  :shock: