Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

Utah, the Mormon state.

At the end of the day, no one is perfect, I guess conservatives have a societal standard they want everyone to strive for, despite everyones failings, and try to enforce it; while liberals acknowledge the failings but don't try to enforce any standard.

I agree with maysie.

I'll just repeat here what I said in the other thread on this:

I did have a second thought that the study perhaps reflects some other things beside a difference in porn consumption. Less availability of sex shops in conservative areas forcing more purchases on the net or perhaps just general backwardness of those areas - who actually buys porn anymore? So while it's fun to talk about this study might not reflect anything real. 

We are absolutely *not* hardwired to enjoy porn.

I think there are ideologues on the left who are as ardently anti-porn as any on the far right-- and probably for the same ultimate underlying reasons.

It'd be interesting to see the cookies on those left wing throbbing and thrusting hard drives.

 The conservatives may have honed hypocricy into an art form, but they by no means  have a monopoly in that market place.

But *which* images we find sexually attractive, and the finding of *images* attractive rather than, say, sounds or textures or words/text or smells, are completely socially constructed. 

How do we know this? Images have changed over time, from body sizes, body types, the racial backgrounds of the subjects, cross-culturally, need I go on?

Modern western society is very visual. So of course preferred modalities of porn and erotica will be visual. That has SFA to do with instincts. 

Many many things about our lives are taught to us (ie not instinctive), and of all the things taught to us, sexuality is by far the easiest to demonstrate how culturally-bound and contextualized it is.

Look at homophobia. Look at masculinity (if you must). Look at femininity. All constructed, all of them change over time, all completely made up. Poof! Think of it like the Easter bunny. If you believe, then it's real. Until you realize it isn't. You still can enjoy the chocolate eggs, though. 

In agree with Trapper: It is Nature, not Nurture, which causes an attraction to porn. Same as people enjoying it when they see a  fight in public, or taking a quick glance at a car accident.

If there is one thing that is hardwired in the human (and very other animal that reproduces sexually) genome it is sexual response - the single most important factor that assures the survival of the genes.

Blind people have just as strong sex drives as sighted people.

And we all have the same ancestors. 

Did I say that?

So, you're saying that someone raised in isolation, without any exposure with any form of sexuality at all, will not develop a sex drive? OMG, that is so funny. Thank you for my Thursday afternoon chuckle!

What's a fact, that we all get turned on by porn?

I'm amazed that people who consider themselves feminists could be so ignorant about human sexuality.

Porn is not sexuality!

Conservatives : redefining family values and Friday fun n games night

Could we please not personally attack each other in this thread?  I'm looking at you, M. Spector and remind.  We could have an interesting conversation and even manage to disagree with each other without turning it into an attack on each other.  Thanks!

You are correct Michelle, I should not have ridsen to his ugly and nasty feminist baiting, my apologies. But I guess feminist baiting is acceptable here to now.

All right, you got the last word, remind.  Now, let's continue with the thread.

Some people are hard wired; others are, I suppose, soft wired.

Can people go from hard to soft-wired, and vice versa?

I don't know, but this thread could make a decent comedy skit.

First, a little perspective.

The OP mentions that conservatives enjoy online pornography, which, I would hope that any progressive could agree, is vastly unrealistic, often misogynist, and issues from a corrupt and exploitive industry. Trapper turned around and said that it is normal to enjoy pornography because humans are hardwired to enjoy it. Maysie and remind disagreed with this statement, because it is obviously not true: we are not hardwired to enjoy cartoonishly inflated breasts and abusive, dominating sex acts--women are certainly not 'hardwired' to enjoy this. Then, somehow, Maysie's comment was construed as anti-sex. I don't speak for her, but there is a big difference between being anti-porn industry (which was the context of the discussion before her remarks) and anti-pornographic images in general. In fact, I think I recall other threads where Maysie  posted links to consensual, indeed, feminist, pornography. I would question the motives of those who chose to misconstrue her remarks. Actually, no, I wouldn't question them. I would call them vindictive, petty and disingenuous.

I don't know if sexuality is biologically hardwired or not. It's not a very useful statement at any rate. Certainly, humans harbour some biological predisposition to have sexual responses to visual, oral and tactile stimulations, but this in no way defines sexuality. What images? What touches? Wherefore, God, and when?

I can also say that the way babblers have chosen to interpret 'taught' sexual response is again crude and disingenuous. This doesn't mean that adults sit us down and teach us which kind of breasts, calves and pectoral muscles we find attractive. We learn sexuality the way we learn language: by accident. Or rather, it learns us. You see, sexuality is cultural, and like language, it's always pre-human. That is, it exists before we are born and we're kind of dropped into it. It inhabits us and colonizes us. I suppose this could mean we're biologically hardwired, but that's not really the way it works. I remember when I was ten or so and I started noticing the bottoms of my female classmates. I'd say to myself 'I like that.' I don't know whom I was trying to convince.

As for this nonsense about symmetrical or comely faces, well, I don't know what to say. I could point to a recent study and article in the New York Times that showed, in fact, there doesn't seem to be much correlation between biological impeteus and arousal. Women, both heterosexual and homosexual, for example, reacted more to an 'attractive' woman than to a man attractive according to the same conventions. I'm not sure what this has to say about so-called 'hardwiring', but it does question it as a scientific certainty.

I'll finish by only commenting that on a purportedly progressive website, there seems to be an awful lot of apologetics for the capitalist pornography industry, which, like any capitalist enterprise, distorts social relations, dehumanizes the actors, and relies on exploitation, oppression and blood to earn its keep. Those posters who generally have a pretty good handle on such things when it comes to economics should perhaps question why they have such a blind spot when it comes to pornography. Indeed, all topics touching on pornography should be in the feminist forum for precisely this reason.

That was a great post Catchfire I agree.

Maysie & Catchfire (or anyone else I guess), how do you feel about the word "porn"? I'm curious as to whether you'd apply the term when referring to sexually stimulating material without the exploitation, without its portrayal of women, without the abuse. I guess what I am wondering is, if we can agree porn as it is defined and produced in this culture is bad, how can we go about re-defining sexually stimulating material so that we don't confuse "porn is bad" with "sexuality is bad"... as so many conservatives (and over the years many leftists as well) have done; and as Catchfire points out many in this thread are doing as well. Afterall we can all agree sexuality isn't a bad thing right?

I enjoyed that joke; I know a few who wouldn't consider that statement a joke

I also enjoy Savage Love, its carried by Halifax's weekly free paper The Coast and as such Haligonians have the chance to read it regularly; living there for a decade I followed his column as well, I still read it online from time to time.

Well thats just the point though, opposition to "porn" takes two forms, opposition to sexuality and opposition to exploitation; I think its obvious to all of us which is the opposition of the right and which is the opposition of the left. Its a fine line for too many though, as you're correct that "bad" porn is often defined by the (dangerous) sexuality it expresses; even on the left there's always been a surprising willingness to write-off all porn as degenerate, and not for the despicable norms of the industry. All too often opposition to porn is about marginalizing the different.

Thats certainly true! Still rather than falling into opposing porn in all forms I'm interested in re-defining the "good" and "bad" in it, even if its an impossibly difficult task for this thread alone!

Maysie wrote:

Good luck with that.

Thanks, I know I have my work cut out for me!

To answer your other question I am in no city, I live in a tiny rural town in Nova Scotia; thats about to change however, due to work, and I will be finding myself somewhere bigger with (hopefully) more prospects very soon. In all likelihood I will be back in Halifax; far from all those interesting events which only seem to take place in TO! There's a good pro-woman sex store in Halifax called Venus Envy, I don't know whether they do anything like those awards but I'm sure they support the efforts in TO. I'll certainly check out that website when I have a chance (thanks)!

ETA: I just read your PS, interesting... I mostly agree, for example about the "home improvement porn" etc. That also touchs on the "can't have" element of porn, since I'm assuming the most evocative home renovations are also unattainable for most of their audience.

Thanks catchfire excellent post!

That was my point about priests. I heard an interview on CBC latenight about a priest in seattle and he talked about eing in thr priesthood from the age 14 till about 25 when he was put into a parish. Despite being in a non female no sex environment he found he had longings for women. He had a few affairs and eventually left the priesthood to marry one of the parishioner.

That is taking out of the equation as much nurture as possible but yet he liked women. So how do you explain this. Do you guys think he had a porn website back in the 70's he liked to visit? NO it's part of the animal portion of the brain that gives us chemical responses to phermones and symetry. Or in otherwords, hardwired stuff that we can choose to accept or ignore. But it is real and is present in most everyone. Even if some like to  supress those basic instincts.

'Scientifically wrong'? You must be privy to some kind of science that most sex experts aren't, M. Spector. I didn't think you are the kind of person to bandy about such adverbs without cause and evidence.

This is a bit of an aside, but an instructive one. I don't recall saying that we learn language by accident, but I'm also not sure what that means. And as for the statement--'we are deliberately taught language...by adults'--well, I don't know how you could possibly back up an assertion like that. Do adults sit prelingual children down and teach them the difference between a predicate and an adjectival noun? And of course, language is much more than just grammar. It's about knowing the difference between 'elucidation' and 'clarification', between jet black and midnight black. It carries cultural and social material in its essence. I haven't read Pinker, but I have read Chomsky's Cognitive Linguistics (surely a source text for Pinker), as well as De Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida and a great deal of other sources on the subject of language. My research has taught me two things relevant to this discussion: first, that no side can claim definitive authority on the subject, and second, that both explanations really point to the same conclusion. That is, that all of human history has moved us toward our present linguistic culmination. Either through some genomic circuitry or through cultural development. I can say, however, that those on the cultural side provide us with much more useful models on understanding language as a social phenomenon.

So too, with sex. You make--to be honest, rather crude--gestures towards 'animals having sex' as if the urge to procreate, mate or dominate is a correlation for 'sexuality'. Indeed, you castigated Maysie (rather unfairly)  for committing the same verbal slip. What kind of pornography do animals enjoy, I wonder. How do you respond to my suggestion that capitalism has altered pornography (and therefore, human sexual response) through the same way it has corrupted labour and social relations in general?

thorin, I'm sorry I offended you, but I did not mean to pass judgement: I'm not immune to the porn industry any more than someone who chooses to 'buy green' invariably encounters an impasse. I'm not sure what else to make of your words, but I urge you to reconsider my earlier post not as an attack on you (I hadn't thought of you at all while writing that post) but rather as a critique of the porn industry and an attack on capitalism.

No big deal writing doesn't always convey what we want to say as well as speech. The porn industry has a level of exploitation. As do most any industries though. My point is this, we have whole shows devoted to how the porn industry works, Seymour Butts does his show and porn with his mom(not with his mom but she is a producer heh) There are movies describing the porn industry, documentaries on the coke, vd etc. I would say you would have a much better idea of what that job encompasses pros/cons than a hell of a  lot of other jobs. I put it in the category of prostitution but not as exploitive.

Many would prefer prostitution is regulated like in my city. We rarely see streetwalkers. Or you don't notice them in most cases. They are checked every 2 weeks in order to retain their license. Must use a rubber. It works out well.  I put it into the vice you would have a hard time getting rid of so might as well regulate scenario. Along with pot booze prostitution abortion(not a vice but you get the picture) I don't know about cocaine, the chemical addition is far to high and the end result is horrible. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite? But I also think that prescriptions are all too often the easy solution.

Which is why I said in the end of my post that as long as no one hurts someone else (because if you enjoy masacism that is your choice) I am OK with porn. Yes some people get pulled into the wrong direction. Put that could very well have happened outside of the industry as well as in. How does one get to be a dentist and have the means to snort coke, or a rock star that likes heroine. There is an exploited industry, music. Anyway just trying to say that the porn industry is no better no worse than most jobs people can get. I guess it depends on your mentality for such a job.

This fetishization of "hard-wiring" (and just how hard, sir?) to justify some men's choices - and a huge industry to boot - is quite amusing (if not "titulating"), as in any claim of deterministic teleology* voiced by a ny freedom fundamentalist...

Indeed, are thorin_bane and M. Spector ready to consider that their energetic responses to us are equally "hard-wired", presumably manipulated by their personal library's will to survive any unforeseen growth in their ethics?

Or is this "hard-wiring" model something reserved for the hoi polloi (great unwashed)?

*ETA: (Sorry for the big words - Teleology (Greek: telos: end, purpose) is the philosophical study of design and purpose. A teleological school of thought is one that holds all things to be designed for or directed toward a final result(...))

Martin, you are personally attacking two people here by claiming that they have "personal libraries" of porn, when there is absolutely no proof of this being true.  Stop now.

You're right. I'm not.

But you must be privy to the entire educational background of "most sex experts" to be able to make that claim.

Perhaps you could use that vast knowledge to point us to a single reputable scientist who says that sexual response is transmitted entirely through culture and not through the genome (i.e., it's not "hardwired" but "taught").

Christ, I even quoted where you said that in my post. Do these words ring a bell at all?

I learned to speak from my parents, my teachers, and, to a lesser extent, my friends. It was no "accident".

Who taught you to speak?

It's not either/or. It's both.

And it's certainly nothing to do with "accident".

I don't know where you're getting this from. Why are you pretending to quote phrases that I never wrote, while in the same breath accusing me of being crude?

And the word "dominate" is the product of your own imagination, not mine.

Perhaps you could enlighten us about animal sexuality - in a less crude way, of course. What is it, for example, that determines how animals respond to sexual cues? Their genes or their culture?

I don't know what "verbal slip" you are talking about. If Maysie had made a verbal slip, it would have been easy to correct the slip, but she has not done so.

No, what she said was considered, deliberate, and categorical: "Sexual response is not coded and is not hardwired. It's taught."

If you think there was a verbal slip involved here, why don't you tell us what you thought she really meant to say, and then we can see if she agrees with you.

What a foolish conjecture. Of course animals don't "enjoy pornography". I'm sure your answer to my above question (what determines how animals respond to sexual cues?) will acknowledge that fact.

I agree that capitalism, like other pre-capitalist patriarchal societies, has altered pornography, but human sexual response does not depend on pornography for its existence. Like our animal ancestors we come with built-in sexual responses that ensure the survival of our genes through procreation. The only animals that don't come with sexual response built in are those that evolved asexual means of reproduction.

Nobody who recognizes that could possibly maintain with a straight face that "sexual response is not coded and is not hardwired. It's taught."

It seems to me that the disagreement is in the interpretation of the word "response". Although response to many merely physical stimuli is spontaneous, I think that Maysie is right - males in our society are definitely "taught" to have a positive response to sexual stereotypes over and above other signals and even to assault against women, for instance, as promoted my most pornography. Now whodathunk we'd still be arguing nature vs. nurture in this day and age, ignoring that human beings' nature (however wired) is mostly their culture?

Edited for clarity: I read no such thing in Maysie's or anyone's posts. You are the one implictly equating human sexuality (drum roll) with most men's response to pornography - definitely a construct.

What buoyant confidence you must have, Spector, to make such claims without evidence. Myself, I said I wasn't sure whether sexual response (which, I agree with martin, hasn't been satisfactorily defined on this thread) was hardwired or taught. You seem definitively positive, yet haven't offered a single shred of evidence to back that up. What faith! I thought you were an atheist...

I admit that my usage of accident was rhetorical--although I'm not sure this justifies the way you latch on to it--as if hardwiring is determinate and cultural development is accidental. Like I said, that is a false binary, and I'm beginning to think your fanatical insistence of the hardwiring theory is a bit fetishistic. But, as this thread surely demonstrates, à chacun son goût.

As for my talk about crudeness, my point was that human sexuality is about a lot more than the biological urge to procreate. It is social, it is pleasurable, and it is communicational. My comment about animal pornography was meant ironically, although I realize that ideologues don't go in for that much. You said:

As if sexuality stared and ended with animalistic urges. Surely this is part of it, but the point is that animals don't watch pornography, yet humans have developed it as part of their sexuality.  Would you care to explain how creating, distributing, watching and arousal from pornography is inscribed in our genome? What about the mating ritual? What chromosome tells what kind of ice cream soda to order, and when to reach for the popcorn in the hopes you and your mate might touch? Sting, from the Police, famously said that sex for him lasted eight hours and included dinner and a movie. To call this biologically hardwired seems like an awful lot to chew on, so to speak.

Finally, I'm not sure why you feel the need to be such a prick (as it were) when discussing this with other people. I am aware that opinions different from mine are out there, and I'm not driven to insult those that disagree with me (although I do capitualte to that hardwired urge, from time to time) but you seem to take it up as part and parcel of your argument. It should stop.

And Doug:

Quite right. Guilty as charged.

Of course it makes a difference!

Now maybe the others who so promptly agreed with your incorrect categorical statement of scientific fact will acknowledge their error as well.

"Animal sexuality is based entirely on what you call "the urge to procreate." Gee, you ought to come tell that to the monkeys at my local zoo; they seem to indulge in all sorts of beside-oestrus activities. (Ah, but of course you used the vague "based on"... rhetoric is all.)

Just wanted to add, given what pornography is as outlined correctly by Dworkin, is it any wonder that Conservatives are the biggest partakers?

thorin did you actually read and hear what dworkin states?

Yes, Dworkin was a powerful writer.

Her views on porn have been discussed and debated many times over in feminist circles.

Unbiased, you are a man, and you are a straight man. This matters, which you've named but not elaborated on. What does is *mean* that you're a man having this discussion?

All men, even nice lefty men, have been taught to objectify and sexualize women. Many men struggle against this early training/brainwashing and succeed, but the grains are still there, and may enact themselves in ways you have no idea. The men I know who have unpacked this bullshit say it's always there, and it's a conscious struggle for them to actively engage in shutting it down, and replace the brainwashing with what they know is true. That women are complex, sexual, fabulous and a million other things. 

Yes, Dworkin's assumption is that porn by definition is degrading to women. If feminist porn had existed when she was alive she may have said that it is merely women participating in their own degradation rather than being victims of it. And many would agree with her.

I believe that even in the most "vanilla" scene in straight porn, Dworkin would still find it degrading to women since this type of porn is produced primarily for the male gaze. Women are passive, their pleasure is connected only to his pleasure, their orgasms non-existent except for magically appearing when his does.

I respect her position, even as I disagree with it. It holds only for very specific straight porn, and the analysis falls apart when confronted with the same male gaze, but directed towards other male bodies. But my analysis is that a depiction of graphic sexuality, even from a mainstream context, is not necessarily degrading to women.

If the internet had existed, and its effects on the porn industry, I wonder if it would have had a big effect on her critique. On one hand in dollar terms the industry has grown with the internet (and new opportunities for gross exploitation have arisen), on the other hand the internet has provided a tool to democratize porn (as has happened with all media) undermining the industry (and arguably providing a counter to its exploitation). I hope she'd see hope there, since I read her critique as directed primarily at the porn industry. Its difficult to tell what will become of porn, with these significant technological (and cultural) changes, but it certainly won't be reclaimed from the exploitative capitalist patriarchal system that Dworkin's railing against if progressives can't move past her (increasingly dated) position (like Maysie so eloquently does above!)

Interesting..

as it happens I knew Linda Lee Tracy remind. She was a dancer in Montreal.

Was it Bonnie Klein ?

I don't remember.

What I do remember is that I felt the movie was deeply flawed. Something about it felt contrived and wrong to me. It just seemed fake and belied what I knew of Linda Lee.

Please don't misunderstand me. I deplore and rail against violence to woman.. Let me amend that, violence in any form. I deplore and rail against depersonalization in any form. Human interreaction and sexuality is a complex subject. I do not pretend to understand it. I can only speak as a man who is trying to come to terms with it in his own life. Tonight my girlfriend was browsing some 2,000 photos on Flickr of advertisements from the past (mostlyy 50's and 60's)... I found myself horrified at the unbelievable sexism expressed there. I grew up then.. My views are of necessity shaped by my upbringing but I have tried to use rationality to overcome my upbringing.

Maysie; forgive me if I don't respond to your comment now. I seriously need time to think it over before answering. I will acceed to your according Andrea Dworkin her position on straight porn but I need time to integrate your thoughts before responding.

umm. Maysie..?

Just an addendum to the post above.

You described me as a "straight" man.

If you meant heterosexual, you were correct. How you knew that from my post is a mystery to me. I didn't think I had mentioned that.

As for whether Dworkin was critiquing the porn industry or porn itself, it's pretty clear. No matter who makes the images, if the images are of women as described in remind's post #70, that is pornography, to Dworkin, and therefore degrading, etc.

I guess I should be clear that where I agree with Dworkin is that, yes, there are images in porn that I feel are degrading to women, etc. If it's a venn diagram, then I'm a small circle inside Dworkin's larger one. Her analysis stands, it's just not as widespread and all-encompassing, at least for this feminist.

Maysie: I deleted my post. However I disagree that asking for a personal opinion is inappropriate on babble and there was no need for remind to disclose anything other than her opinion (which she has been very willing to share so far) in order to answer my question. But you're the mod and if you see some distinction between personal opinions on sexuality and personal opinions on other subjects (baring in mind that this thread is in the media forum and has potential as a fascinating discussion of sexuality in the media) then I respect that.

Thanks for your clarification Maysie, how is my post #87, I think its a better way of asking my question anyway so thanks for helping me rephrase it!

I bought into that too a while back.

A friend of mine, biology major, told me a while back that sex also had the evolutionary purpose of pair bonding. Made sense, explains a lot with very little, fits the data, and so I accepted it immediately.

I don't think the distinction between "pornography" and "the pornography industry" is valid. As quoted above, Dworkin and McKinnon described pornography as a practice, something that is there, not just something to discuss in a vacuum. And it's there because of a multi-billion industry forcing it on everyone of us, whether we think of ourselves as "erotica connoisseurs", libertarians, passers-by, whatever. I think it is an idealist - and therefore dangerous - argument to try and discuss "pornography" in a vacuum, as some kind of idea, e.g. nudity with incidental spectators. It's a mega-business based on men's interests and power and carefully calibrated to enhance their feeling of power over women (or objectified men): deal with it.

Sure, someone can invent something different and call that X or Y pornography. But unless it sells and satisfies a mega-audience, I don't think it qualifies as pornography, as that elephant in our lives. It may be creative, perhaps even "feminist" in the ultra-vague liberal/post-mo/"anything done by a woman" sense, but is doesn't really relate to the industry - the one that Dworkin challenged with her life - in other ways than to try and blur the distinction - which tends to get the industry off the hook.

I disagree with Maysie's assessment that "Dworkin's assumption is that porn by definition is degrading to women." Dworkin really analyzed it - painstakingly - as a practice, and it was empirically - what it showed, said and did to women - that she ferreted out its messages. To anyone who doubts this, I suggest reading Chapter 1 of her fabulous "Pornography: Men Possessing Women" (Perigee). Her argument is anything but idealist or essentialist. And modern-day pornography proves it a lot more than it rebuts it.

Of course, that is merely a (straight) man's opinion. What does it "mean" that I am having this discussion?" Good and important question. I would answer: Probably much the same that when I am discussing how easily male abusers of women and children get off the hook when the system does it very best to deny a systemic oppression. As a man, I have been raised in this sexist culture that is beneficial for me and other men, and I can attest to that, against more reassuring views.

BTW, Dworkin did live alongside so-called "feminist porn"; that was already around when she first published in the late seventies. She wrote and spoke earnestly about its promise and its deception. She also saw the Internet revolution and the industry's million-dollar figures grow into billions.

Coincidentally - This just in:

Dear Supporters,

Stop Porn Culture will be holding our next slideshow training at
Wheelock College in Boston, MA. The dates are June 5-7, 2009. The cost is $50 with no one turned away for lack of funds. Email us back if you want more information - info@stoppornculture.org 

Yet like martin, the rest of their website makes no distinction, standing in contradiction to this statement (with which I personally agree).

One can see pornography as the process by which women and girls are commodified to suit the pleasures of men.

The outcome of this commodification is objectification.

The outcome of objectification is a dehumanizing perception where a woman exists as "the body" subject in one dimensional form, no thoughts feelings or desires of their own. A woman becomes "the" woman object, in as much as the boat, the car, the snowmobile, are in fact objects for use with no dimention, and no purpose, other than to exist to service the pleasures of those who use them.

If women do not meet the objectification criteria, then they are obliged to meet it as best they can. Boob jobs, labia reductions, tummy tucks, etc. become the physical norm.

Emotionally, women must deaden themselves, and silence their voices in order to meet the requirements of being an object.

In this instance, I am reminded of a February issue of Penthouse, where the cover had a woman on it, hands retricted, on her knees,  no clothes, with one of those ball things in her mouth and of course no way to remove it. This image is a powerful one, that states this is how a woman should be, and what the male really wants for "Valentine's Day", a silenced, bound and objectified body, for their personal use in whatever way they want it to be.

Meanwhile, women are reading Cosmo and seeing headlines that shout, "what does your man want for Valentine's Day" and the article goes on to list all the sexual desire fulfilments that women can give a man.

So where is what a woman wants in this scenario? There is no acknowlegement of a woman as being anything more than what a man wants and desires.

The objectification is complete and women are dehumanized  into being a commodity, that is owned, used, and then disposed of, when it suits the male desire, no different than "the" boat or "the" car.

I can't make heads or tails of your argument (humans expressing their sexuality through industry, really?), but I certainly DON'T make a distinction between porn and the porn industry. I have said the exact opposite above, in post #93.

In this post (#98), you are the one obfuscating by presenting the porn industry as "the media available" and disguising its dynamics by calling it "humans expressing their sexuality".

B.-S.

What is in fact happening is that a specific vision of women as objects, esp. racialized women - a vision that "remind" has summarized admirably - and the same goes for men and children in other genres, is constructed by the industry, based on women's and racialized groups' long-standing political oppression, and foisted on us as "sexuality".

That a diverse sexuality often becomes pigeon-holed by that is a consequence, not an explanation of what the industry puts out.

I would think with some of the responses that many of you haven't seen much variety in porn. It is an industry, so are making cars. Do none of you drive cars? Most of you ignored every aspect of my posts so I guess I should do the same. I guess it's easier to debate without even bringing up the points of the opposition. Here is my flounce from this thread.

Well, thorin, you just  examplified my point about objectification! Porn is an "industry" just like making cars you say!

I would suggest that the problem isn't limited to the right wing of the political spectrum: there are a lot of left-wingers - mostly men - ranting about equality and justice for the consumption of the masses, but whose sexual identity is predicated on inequality - indeed domination - and the infliction of pain, as conveyed by allegedly transgressive porn.

Yeah, I thought that song was a hoot too... 45 years ago. Since then, I have read prostitutes writing about the psychic damage they experienced acting out rich males' fantasies, and I am not so sure anymore.

Okay, looks like a good time to close this thread. Another was opened around the same time that I closed a while back. I'll open that up.

It would be marvelous if everyone could avoid personal attacks too.