Porn And Feminism

Stumbled across this:
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20091011_the_victims_of_pornography/

makes me want to swear off porn altogether. I'm not a heavy consumer of it and I always tell myself I have "red lines" about certain kinds of degrading content, but this makes me feel like the whole industry enterprise is fucked up beyond help, and like a lot of rationalizations are illusions ("they do it by choice" "they get paid well" "it's just a show" etc.). I do think there's a question raised in there that needs further exploration about why so many men gravitate toward this sort of thing (I don't want to say "like" because it seems sort of compulsive for a lot of them). I mean everyone is capable of the impulses to dominate, humiliate, hurt, etc., and obviously there are some ways of expressing these impulses that are healthier than others. But it seems like this kind of porn just stokes those desires until they engulf other ones.

But it seems like this kind of porn just stokes those desires until they engulf other ones.

Is this kind of porn only popular in the US (and thus more tied to our culture)?

no, it's not.

Some porn is horrific. Don't watch horrific porn. That's ... kind of it?

basically.

One of the peculiarities of human sexuality is the degree to which it can become bound up with completely arbitrary elements, such as fetish objects like shoes, leather or rubber, or startrekman's amatory inclilnation to tailpipes. In milder forms, this expresses itself as attachments to breasts, butts, legs, beards or feet (see: Tarantino, Quentin).

Once this idea thoroughly sinks in, that almost anything or any act can become sexual to somebody, then porn that seems crazy-strange or even horrific becomes more understandable. Not a big comfort, but it helps.

Is this kind of porn only popular in the US (and thus more tied to our culture)?

There is a website (http://www.pornmd.com/sex-search) that breaks down porn-related searches by US states and countries around the world, which allows you to make vague observations about global tastes. Basically, far more people are looking for gay porn in places where homosexuality is less tolerated, and beyond that what the world wants is anal teens/milfs.

or startrekman's amatory inclilnation to tailpipes.

hey man that wasn't the startrekman!!

No, he was into Jeffries Tubes.

On May 8, 2013, the editors of the Feminist Porn Book will hold The Feminist Porn Mini Con at the Pollock Theater and the Annenberg Conference Room on UCSB’s campus. The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (The Feminist Press, 2013) is a co-edited volume produced by three UC Santa Barbara professors—Mireille Miller-Young, Constance Penley, and Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and author/filmmaker Tristan Taormino. As faculty at UCSB, Miller-Young, Penley, and Parreñas Shimizu have created, through their research and teaching, one of the most important hubs for the study of adult entertainment media industries in the world.

This is the FIRST Feminist Porn Conference hosted in the United States!

In conjunction with Professor Penley’s Film and Media Studies 150 course, and the IHC’s New Sexualities Research Focus Group, we intend to present two panels consisting of scholars and industry workers who are contributing authors to the book, and which will include interactive discussion periods for attendees. In addition, our contributing editor, Tristan Taormino, will present an educational talk on the history of women’s interventions in modern pornography. Conference is free and open to all 18 years old or over. *Warning: We will screen explicit and sensitive images.

The event is sponsored and endorsed by:
The Interdisciplinary Humanities New Sexualities RFG, Asian American Studies, Film and Media Studies, Hull Chair of Feminist Studies, the Multicultural Center, the SAGE Sara Miller McCune Dean of Social Sciences, the Carsey-Wolf Center, KUFF, Women, Gender, and Sexual Equity, Womyn's Commission, Queer Commission, The Student Commission on Racial Equality (SCORE), Take Back the Night, Human Rights Board, AS Office of the Student Advocate, PRIDE.

The Feminist Porn Conference will greatly benefit the UCSB community. Intellectual exchange facilitates the critical thinking and growth that is at the center of higher education. Bringing renowned scholars, artists, and activists to UCSB encourages this dialogue. With controversial issues like pornography, we believe it crucial to sustain an open dialogue on our campus. The three UCSB professors who are editors and authors of this book all teach courses on pornography and sex work and have been involved (in Professor Penley’s case, since 1993) in the education of our students about the vital need to apply serious study and critique to all forms of popular culture, no matter how taboo.

When: Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Where: Pollock Theater and Annenberg Conference Room, (3-5 PM @ the State Street Room in the 1st floor of the UCEN)
Time: 12pm-9pm

REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE HERE: http://tinyurl.com/fempornregform and Join our Facebook Event page: http://tiny.cc/fempornucsb

Our list of Speakers include:
• Tristan Taormino—Filmmaker, Author, Sex Educator, Contributing Editor of The Feminist Porn Book
• Mireille Miller-Young, Associate Professor, Feminist Studies, UCSB
• Celine Parreñas Shimizu—Professor, Asian American Studies, UCSB
• Constance Penley—Professor, Film and Media Studies, UCSB
• Dylan Ryan—Performer
• Jiz Lee—Performer
• Sinnamon Love--Performer
• April Flores and Carlos Batts—Performer and Director team

Agenda
12:00-2:00 pm: The Feminist Porn Book Keynote Panel Pollock Theater What is feminist pornography? The editors and authors of The Feminist Porn Book discuss the new movement of feminist pornography production. Speakers include Tristan Taormino, Jiz Lee, Dylan Ryan, Sinnamon Love, April Flores and Carlos Batts and UCSB professors Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Mireille Miller-Young.

3:00-5:00 pm: Sex Ed! Education and Activism Workshop State Street Room, UCEN Take part in a ground-breaking, interactive dialogue facilitated by UCSB student orgs and sex industry professionals as they take on sex education and sexual activism.

7:00- 9:00 pm: The Feminist Porn Show with Tristan Taormino Pollock Theater Join us for a special evening showcasing feminist porn, a genre of adult film and a growing movement. Tristan Taormino will share a brief history and definition of feminist porn, then screen a special compilation curated by her, which includes clips from the work of feminist porn pioneers and newcomers including Candida Royalle, Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Petra Joy, Erika Lust, Shine Louise Houston, Madison Young, Courtney Trouble, and more. The screening will be followed by a facilitated discussion, where we'll explore some of the current issues surrounding feminist porn.

If you have any questions regarding the conference, please contact any of the student organizers at:


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Replies to this address will not be read or responded to.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/sevenxviii/ThereISfeministpornyouknow.jpg

Some porn is horrific. Don't watch horrific porn. That's ... kind of it?

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, May 3, 2013 1:06 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically.

― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, May 3, 2013 1:14 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't really agree with this anymore -- so much of the relatively more and less horrific porn is created by the same studios, stars, etc. The whole system is gross. I guess you could argue for only watching porn from COMPANIES that don't do the horrific stuff, but that's not usually the most obviously, easily available porn.

Are the companies turning us into horrific porn watchers or are they simply tapping into need?

Because really, I find it very easy to avoid horrific porn. And there's a shit ton of porn coming from amateurs with no affiliation to the big exploitative companies. You could probably make an argument that the barriers to entry have fallen a lot in porn, at least from a production standpoint.

"porn coming from amateurs" -- and how exactly are you verifying this?

"well the camera is all grainy"

"Are the companies turning us into horrific porn watchers or are they simply tapping into need?"

The classic libertarian question!

Anyway, I don't know for sure, but I think the idea that people just have static "needs" that can't be stoked or increased is rather ridiculous.

"porn coming from amateurs" -- and how exactly are you verifying this?

I guess it depends on what you think porn is, but I know it when I see it. But you can Google things like "rise of amateur porn" and see results like: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15631011

"Are the companies turning us into horrific porn watchers or are they simply tapping into need?"

I ask that more for how to prevent or even regulate horrific porn. The barrier to entry and distribution stands at basically nothing. All it takes is one horrific person and they can make horrific, legal porn with their iPhone and then post it on the Internet, and a google search can find it.

Maybe part of it is that people intuitively know that their wildest imaginations are probably visually available somewhere on the internet, and thus they seek it out?

don otm

not arguing for banning porn

or horrific porn (beyond what is already illegal)

tapping into need?

Desire can be increased indefinitely, while need has natural limits. Porn relates far more to desires than needs.

I don't really understand how big porn companies are staying in business tbh. internet ads I guess.

Perhaps there is a kind of expertise available to those big porn companies that gives them a slight edge?

I guess to be clear though, I'm not saying that I think porn is some kind of gateway drug thing where people go from nude shots to hardcore to gonzo to child porn. But there's a less clear line where you go from, like, regular hardcore porn to "hmm, maybe that hurts, but IDK she seems ok," and this is particularly damaging for teenagers who see this before ever even having sex or having any concept of these sorts of things. Like a 16 year old can see stuff -- not even what you might call 'horrific" porn but just what now passes as regular hardcore porn, and not realize that what he's seeing is actually massively awful and unpleasant for the actress, who is doing a great job acting like she likes it because she is being paid (and in some cases also coerced) to do so.

Desire can be increased indefinitely

That's an interesting concept Aimless.

Do you think porn is some kind of gateway drug?

fapping into need

sometimes i wonder if generations before internet porn even knew what turned them on

also, Rule 34

sometimes i wonder if generations before internet porn even knew what turned them on

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Friday, May 3, 2013 3:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well actually, I think anyone who is honest with themselves and watches porn can think of things they never would have thought of as turn ons if not for porn

"porn coming from amateurs" -- and how exactly are you verifying this?

― huun huurt 2 (Hurting 2), Friday, May 3, 2013 3:00 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

USDA Organic label iirc; cage-free pasture-raised porn.

it's more the trained expectation that your desires will be hyperspecifically fulfilled that i fear than a distortion of the desires themselves

good post

altho that just skips over the whole cutting-edge-of-dehumanization trend that seems to be contemporary porn's version of the loudness war. dunno what to say about that besides ~capitalism~

a generation that grew up listening to dan savage

I don't know if this is what you're getting at with the dan savage comment, but I think part of the problem is that "sex-positivity", which is perfectly legit in itself, winds up giving cover to a lot of things that are not actually all that sex-positive.

sex-positivity is great and all but it's another one of those Revolutions that's cheerfully absorbed by the existing system with pretty much zero disruption, so everyone wakes up at two in the afternoon the day after like wait why are we still being exploited

^ p much what this book is about http://i.imgur.com/fynjm4o.jpg

so even if the capitalistic momentum is gone, we're still left with horrific porn

I'm fascinated that there are stories about "women porn directors" that turned out to be fronts for the same old porn dudes. People are so hungry for an approval stamp/guilt assuager.

I think part of it might be that even beyond porn, the most known sex columnists don't discuss sex in human everyday terms but they come across as more or less playing a game of sexual one upping or they're very "amanda palmer ted talk" about their exploits or they discuss more extreme uncommon experiences that make for flashier copy but don't reflect most people's experiences or for that matter realistic possibilities. Tristan t and Dan savage kind of among them.

i don't listen to dan savage anymore but back when i did i always got the feeling that he believed the prime directive of any relationship, marriage included, was the permanent long-term satisfaction of both (or more!) parties' sexual desires, everything else be damned

Just rambling there slightly off topic. But also porn turning into some kind of savage unpleasant genre (in terms of tone and often action) really is off putting too.

I've read savage columns where people described happy seeming marriages but one party wasn't into sex as much anymore and he was like "dump them" or close to it.

yeah that always bothered me a little about dan savage. He has some line about how the role of each person in a relationship is to be a "complete and total whore" for the other person's desires, and I remember reading that still pretty young and kind of scracthing my head at it.

i don't listen to dan savage anymore but back when i did i always got the feeling that he believed the prime directive of any relationship, marriage included, was the permanent long-term satisfaction of both (or more!) parties' sexual desires, everything else be damned

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I stopped reading his column.

or when he said black homophobia was worse than white racism. he's a sharp one

the prime directive of any relationship, marriage included, was the permanent long-term satisfaction of both (or more!) parties' sexual desires

well there is a bit of a caveat - when one partner in the marriage/ltr won't satisfy the others' desires, Savage routinely says that the unsatisfied partner has the right to obtain satisfaction elsewhere (and that the other partner has no right to complain). I think you're underlying point is correct though, Savage clearly believes all sexual desires need a "healthy" outlet

i'm generally in favor of savage's sexual ethics, even though he seems to be totally clueless and bigoted about a bunch of other things

this is a great analysis and criticism of the limits of his approach:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2011/1103.dueholm.html

As it happens, this vision fits rather well in a society built around consumption. If Savage’s ethical guidelines—disclosure, autonomy, mutual exchange, and minimum standards of performance—seem familiar or intuitive, it’s probably because they also govern expectations in the markets for goods and services. No false advertising, no lemons, nothing omitted from the fine print: in the deregulated marketplace of modern intimacy, Dan Savage has become a kind of Better Business Bureau, laying out the rules by which individuals, as rationally optimizing firms, negotiate their wildly diverse transactions.

Classical liberalism, however, may prove just as inadequate in the bedroom as it has in the global economy, and for many of the same reasons. It takes into account only a narrow range of our motivations, overstates our rationality and our foresight, downplays the costs of transactions, and ignores the asymmetries of information that complicate any exchange of love or money. For society as a whole, it entails a utopian faith in the capacity of millions of appetites to work themselves out into an optimal economy of sex—a trading floor where the cultural institutions of domesticity once stood. And for the individual, it may only replace the old sexual frustrations with new emotional ones. People who think they are motivated only by lust may end up feeling love; people who forswear any strings may feel them forming; and perfect transparency may prove an ideal no less unattainable than perfect monogamy. I think of a heartbreaking letter in 2010 that illustrated many of these problems at once. A man who saw a woman every other week for four months heard from her, two months after ending things, that she had gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage. Savage was all but certain that the woman’s story was false. But regardless, he said, “your emotional obligations to her ended when the relationship did, and your financial obligations ended with the miscarriage.” Savage’s advice may have been practical, but it had all the warmth of a legal waiver of liability.

i realize i'm not really talking about porn here; i'm pretty sure i posted that to a dan savage thread at the time.

dan savage for all his occasional OTMness seems like a major dbag

I mostly watch user submitted amateur porn on xtube and the like, and/or anything on nofauxxx.com

but most porn is pretty horrific

to go all the way back up to that before you guys go in on dan savage

first, hedges. i take issue with his shocked tone about what happens at a porn convention or in porn... what does he expect of a porn convention? what is proper post cumshot etiquette on a porn set? i also question his reliance (and it's an excerpt from a larger work but i think i can see where he's going) on the sole testimony of an antiporn group.

the way that the porn industry in its dying days is run is completely fucked, but he seems to be mixing up the fucked up treatment of its participants with the viewer's experience, if that makes sense. by that i mean, a lot of the degradation of the woman in the piece occurred with the cameras off or far far away from cameras. there was no one beating off to a video of her having a fetus sucked out of her. i understand that he's saying that the porn industry is a monolithic degrader of women, but i think you have to differentiate between staged, compensated, consented to degradation on camera and whatever fucked up shit happens in its aftermath.

'...makes me want to swear off porn altogether. I'm not a heavy consumer of it and I always tell myself I have "red lines" about certain kinds of degrading content, but this makes me feel like the whole industry enterprise is fucked up beyond help, and like a lot of rationalizations are illusions ("they do it by choice" "they get paid well" "it's just a show" etc.).'

what are those red lines? is there a large amount of porn that you're coming across that crosses those red lines? are your problems with what you're seeing onscreen or with the way that the industry brings you the product?

'I do think there's a question raised in there that needs further exploration about why so many men gravitate toward this sort of thing (I don't want to say "like" because it seems sort of compulsive for a lot of them).'

i sort of feel like it isn't a cabal of pornographers and basement dwelling ghetto gaggers fans waging a culture war against us but more the deep disgusting misogyny present in our culture that allows really foul shit to find a fertile lagoon to fester in.

maybe i'm missing something, though. that could be the case.

'Porn, which advertises itself as sex, is a bizarre, bleached pantomime of sex. The acts onscreen are beyond human endurance. The scenarios are absurd. The manicured and groomed bodies, the huge artificial breasts, the pouting, oversized lips, the erections that never go down, and the sculpted bodies are unreal. Makeup and production mask blemishes. There are no beads of sweat, no wrinkle lines, no human imperfections. Sex is reduced to a narrow spectrum of sterilized dimensions. It does not include the dank smell of human bodies, the thump of a pulse, taste, breath—or tenderness. Those in the films are puppets, packaged female commodities. They have no honest emotions, are devoid of authentic human beauty and resemble plastic.'

i can't get with this at all. porn advertises itself as porn. sex is sex. and i think that if he can't find the beauty (the 'authentic human' kind or otherwise) in porn or 'human imperfections' or whatever, i don't think he's looking in the right places.

it's one thing if the dude just thought it was fucked that women get brutalized in the sex industry but to write off all pornography like that, to misunderstand it so willfully... i find it hard to take him seriously.

'“Porn is like any other addiction,” Lubben says. “First, you are curious. Then you need harder and harder drugs to get off. You need gang bangs and bestiality and child porn."'

just wanted everyone to know that

yeah he kind of gets it wrong right off the bat. "beyond human endurance" = eh, obviously people are enduring it? "scenarios are absurd" = so what? they are just window dressing. all fantasies are absurd, that's why they're called fantasies. "manicured and groomed bodies" = eh okay this is common, but by no means universal. "the huge artificial breasts" = okay, this is definitely not universal, like, at all. each checkbox he counts off carries a ton of caveats (there is plenty of porn with sweat and wrinkles and "imperfections")

I was much more interested to recently come across David Thomson's somewhat dry, analytical take on the common formal structures of porn in "The Big Screen". He broke it down to what shots are most commonly used, how the experience of the viewer is constructed, what acts are most commonly shown etc.

it was just gratifying in an "oh look, here is a serious film critic taking this huge genre seriously" way, just breaking it down formally.

yes i had trouble with hedges' analysis but i can't really disagree with his conclusion that porn is a Rough Business

but i think you have to differentiate between staged, compensated, consented to degradation on camera and whatever fucked up shit happens in its aftermath.

...yeah well, maybe you don't!

Thomson draws similar conclusions - about its numbing effect, its blatant artificiality, etc - but he doesn't resort to this sort of loaded schoolmarm moralizing that Hedges does. it isn't necessary.

but... i guess i want to draw some kind of parallel between a dude picking up a prostitute and gagging her with his dick. she takes her fifty bucks and goes on to lead her fucked up life. it's not his desire to choke her with his dick or even the act of choking her with his dick that's going to result in, say, her continued substance abuse problems, her poor living conditions, etc. if she agrees to an aggressive sex act for money, the problem is not totally the result of a desire that a customer has for aggressive sex acts. the realities of the sex industry in which she has found herself and the sexism in her society and its attitudes toward sex work are the problem, i would say.

so, i want to say that consumers wanting to see what the author feels are abnormal sex acts is not really the problem. but he uses the problems in the industry (more the result of repressive social views on sex + a misogynistic culture than a consumer desire for depiction of violence or degradation) and his criticisms of them to launch a moral attack on the existence of porn.

i'm not sure if that's clear.

it's clear i just don't think it's a meaningful or even possible distinction

aight, i'm off to find some kiddie porn

if she agrees to an aggressive sex act for money, the problem is not totally the result of a desire that a customer has for aggressive sex acts. the realities of the sex industry in which she has found herself and the sexism in her society and its attitudes toward sex work are the problem, i would say.

this is circular. "individual john has a demand for rough sex" is the micro instance of the macro "realities of the sex industry and sexist society"

but more the deep disgusting misogyny present in our culture that allows really foul shit to find a fertile lagoon to fester in.

seems like "really foul shit" i.e. horrific porn is somewhat hard to define.

And it also seems like that definition has changed with the ubiquity of porn in the internet age.

this raises a tangential legal question I've never understood. it's illegal to pay for sex (prostitution) but it IS legal to pay for sex if it's filmed (porn)....? so why don't whores/johns just film everything.

oh don't go and sulk, i don't think that pedophilia is something that porn consumers can be, uh, inspired to.

i guess i'm trying to say individual demand for rough sex has not necessitated the creation of such a brutal clandestine system for the purchase of this rough sex act or the society in which the sex industry is allowed to be violent and hidden.

the desire for rough sex on video can be disconnected from the fact that there is a fucked up system of delivering it.

to repeat myself, i don't think you can wall off responsibility of the "individual demand" since, in the aggregate, that IS what has necessitated its system of delivery.

we're sort of in the same silo of your average cokehead being in some measure responsible for narco death squads. yes it would be nice if he could get his yay from an honest broker w/o any AKs in the supply chain, but...

and again i do think hedges' analysis of what he is looking at is really entry-level. a good test of a writers' ability to navigate this soup of coercion, desire and money would be a parallel analysis of how gay porn works, and i don't think i've ever seen one.

okay! i'm not trying to misunderstand on purpose. but i think in that situation you could say that social attitudes and moral concerns about drugs and the resulting legal situation create narco violence more than individual demand for cocaine does.

You will not explode if you don't get the most obviously, easily available porn is also a deep learning.

to repeat myself, i don't think you can wall off responsibility of the "individual demand" since, in the aggregate, that IS what has necessitated its system of delivery.

but only because without recent technology, the system of delivery was too great for the individual to accomplish?

walling off responsibility...always a trick

i don't get what you mean by that?

I don't understand how the individual demand as an aggregate necessitated a system of porn delivery that resulted in horrific porn.

also, I don't know how you wall off responsibility

beyond the legality angle, the drug analogy kind of breaks down. to get cocaine you just have to grow the plant somewhere, legally or not. the coercion all comes in the business, not the product itself (if you get me). to get a video of a woman having brutal sex with a bunch of dudes, that thing has to happen somewhere and be filmed. the product itself is under examination as morally queasy, which is why i think the, "but society!" stance is kind of a dodge.

i'm not going to be the desire police and say there are ZERO women with the genuine interest in being filmed having rough sex, but i do think the number of them is WAY LESS THAN what the porn industry wants to fill its product lines.

i recently watched a german-made documentary about porn in california that was pretty interesting/gross. not as moralizing as hedges but with plenty of perspective from longtime industry people and ex-performers. even if some of the worst stuff escaped its view, none of the men come off looking that great. some of the women who have gone the self-production route were interesting but that seems to be pretty rare.

I don't understand how the individual demand as an aggregate necessitated a system of porn delivery that resulted in horrific porn.

― I will forlornly return to my home planet soon (dandydonweiner), Friday, May 3, 2013 4:51 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because clearly there's a demand for 'horrific porn'? idk, this doesn't seem like a mysterious process at all to me!

Not really sure how individual demand requires a system that exploits people. Do you think that individual aggregate demand always results in an exploitative delivery system? Could be.

Also, you're making an argument that legitimate rough sex videos (whooo hoo lets not try to define that one) are a gateway drug for horrific rough sex videos, right? just clarifying, not trying to argue. I think, as Aimless noted, there's kind of an unlimited desire in humans, and that tapping into that unlimited desire probably naturally gets exploitative at some level.

problem is in defining that level. "I know it when I see it" et al.

maybe as industry begins to get largely vertical, it has a tendency to become more exploitative because relationships in the ladder are so disparate.

maybe as industry cock begins to get largely vertical, it has a tendency to become more exploitative because relationships in the ladder are so disparate.

'i'm not going to be the desire police and say there are ZERO women with the genuine interest in being filmed having rough sex, but i do think the number of them is WAY LESS THAN what the porn industry wants to fill its product lines.'

the woman in hedges article was making 100k a year. aren't there enough women who would make the rational decision to enter the sex industry (even better, a well regulated less shadowy fucked up sex industry) for fair compensation? was 100k a year fair compensation?

exotic dancers to thread pls

can't remember what the official relationship is between strippers and feminism, someone remind me

'i'm not going to say there are ZERO people with the genuine interest in emptying bins, but i do think the number of them is WAY LESS THAN what the garbage industry wants to clean everyone's bins.'

emptying bins is not something that might emotionally devastate you in the same way as porn (speaking from my experience in the former and an ex's experience in the latter.)

can't remember what the official relationship is between strippers and feminism, someone remind me

― I will forlornly return to my home planet soon (dandydonweiner), Friday, May 3, 2013 5:14 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

contrary to what you might have heard there isn't a politburo line on this

i really want to hear what cr1ms0nh3x4g0N has to say about this.

haha

commercial porn has sucked since the 80's change in lighting (brighter, harsher, less left to the imagination, shaved), I believe this was discussed somewhere else on ILX.

i grew up on an old microwave box of vhs tapes of 80s porn and i can't believe anyone still makes that claim.

we're living in a golden age of porn.

I was much more interested to recently come across David Thomson's somewhat dry, analytical take on the common formal structures of porn in "The Big Screen". He broke it down to what shots are most commonly used, how the experience of the viewer is constructed, what acts are most commonly shown etc.

"thats basically how i bust a nut to an extent"

I got the impression I was reading a gay man's dispassionately analytical take on hetero porn - but I could be wrong!

but lol

so much of the porn out there is gross and depressing. i can't help but assume a lot of the women were coerced into it. i don't believe that we are all totally free agents in a rational marketplace; economic pressure is a form of coercion. i also think this is different than emptying garbage bins because -- like it or not -- our culture is pretty shitty when it comes to the stigmatization of sex workers, and being a porn star comes at an enormous social cost.

also another thing that always fucked me up about porn was that so many of the actresses are, or claim to be, 18, 19, 20 or so years old. that is really young. too young, i think, to be expected to successfully navigate an environment like a porn shoot. i don't know what could be done about this, but basically everything about the porn industry as it currently operates bums me out. i agree with the article above that said dan savage style sex positivism is just applying the logic of consumerism to interpersonal relationships -- people have DESIRES that NEED to be fulfilled at ANY cost -- and i think it sucks, and isn't really sex positive at all because it puts a lot of pressure on people to fulfill other people's fantasies. in what other context do we expect our partners to "live up to our fantasies"?

i haven't read that hedges essay in years but i remember it suffering from being about exactly the same event as a david foster wallace essay

and "i am a floating eyeball unable to satisfactorily resolve any of the 92035782 unpleasant questions raised by what i see" was in this context more useful than "i used to be in the seminary but now i'm a fervent marxist, guess whether or not i am confident in my convictions"

glad goole reposted that article about dan savage because i read it when he posted it the first time and wanted to post it here but couldn't remember where i'd read it or any key googlable phrases; i thought it was otm

the dfw essay is classic. i think i am like him in that i don't really know what to think of it all, but i do know that i am wary of the libertarian argument that cries "censorship" whenever people ask any questions about whether it is a good thing or not for so much of our culture's erotica to be dehumanizing and misogyinistic. i guess i support more feminist porn directors and hope they make non-hateful stuff that floods the market.

Oh wait, it was Chris Hedges that prompted this thread revive? I like his writing from time to time but his tone is so momentous and humorless that I wish the guy would loosen up just a _little_.

I mean, you can address the heaviest shit possible, but I can't take reading too much of that if you don't work a trace of humor/wryness/snark/irony/sarcasm or SOMETHING.

I guess the primary conclusions I come to are two: (1) there should be more legal protection in place for porn workers and all kinds of sex workers, and (2) I support the idea that more men should make a personal decision to curtail their viewing in both quantity and kind of porn, largely because of the psychic impact on them and their views of sex, but also because changes in demand can affect what is produced. But I doubt the latter reason matters much -- porn is too much of an in-the-shadows thing for men to ever have a significant "organic, free-trade" kind of movement imo.

btw Kingfish I agree with you generally about Chris Hedges. He's kind of the classic Harper's-style everything is in decline writer.

I completely agree with your primary conclusions, just pointing out that jobs suck, and we should make all jobs better and better protected, but jobs suck, that's why we have to be paid for them.

Sorry to hear about your ex, al.

my job sucks but I don't get PTSD from it

That's good! You shouldn't!

jobs shouldn't suck though, not really.... you should be treated nicely, compensated fairly, and not feel "trapped." can't wait until after the revolution when these things will be true

i can't resolve this issue. it fucks me up. i'm down with sex positivity, homemade porn, feminist porn, fetish porn, porn of almost every imaginable sort, really. i enjoy sex, having it, thinking about it, talking about it and looking at it. i think people should, for the most part, be free to do and make and think and fuck as they want. i don't even have a problem with the industrialization of sex. so i should be like "fuck yeah, let's go do some porn!" right?

but to the extent that there's a culture of degradation, exploitation and outright abuse in porn - AND that women are the objects this bullshit - AND that women are already systematically degraded, exploited and outright abused in this society - i can't endorse that. i feel i can't allow it. i may skew libertarian in some ways (don't worry, not gonna vote for rand paul or anything), but i have a real problem with the suggestion that we should be able to purchase the abuse and violation rights to other people.

the law should not allow us to pay a bum $50 in exchange for the right to beat him bloody. it should not allow us to guarantee his heirs $10,000 for the right to kill him. and it should not allow a film producer to pay a woman $1000 to be dick choked until, weeping, she blacks out or pukes.

maybe i'm being naive. many would say that capitalism consists of nothing but such transactions: those with more buying off and using up parts of those with less. but i'm not a wingnut libertarian, or a communist. a line has to be drawn somewhere, right?

but FUCK, you can't draw that line in this case without seeming to deny that she's a responsible, intelligent adult who can make her own goddam decisions about dick choking. it's impossible. there's no way out. the intersecting logics and capitalism and individualism seem to demand this revolting fucking outcome.

BAN EYES. TEAR THEM FROM EVERY LIVING FACE.

i don't necessarily think it would be out of line to ban stuff where it seems like someone is actually getting hurt. maybe ever porno shoot should be supervised by some kind of state representative and shut down if they violate any established rules for workplace conduct, like how health inspectors can shut down restaurants for unhygienic practices. i don't know. i think radically regulating the industry to ensure that no harm comes to people would be fine. again, many of these women are really young and like a lot of young people have no goddamned money and so are vulnerable to exploitation, and are being exploited.

i am not at all libertarian though, i am a socialist who is wary of the way the market degrades interpersonal relationships.

in terms of protecting workers, i think the state should empower like, sex worker unions and things to make sure it is as safe as possible. my confusion only really enters into it with this question of how the material affects the viewers' sexuality. i think it probably does in some way, but it's hard to articulate how, or why, and if this is something we should be interested in controlling.

yeah sure, strong workplace protections would be great, but that would require a massive regulatory body (ahem). i don't see it happening in a meaningful way anytime soon. and i don't think depictions of what appears to be dangerously aggressive sex should be outright illegal. i guess the only solution is to consume less porn (which, hooray, cuz i'm not a customer), or at least to be awful damn selective about the porn you do consume. which is awesome, because this way i get to keep my eyes.

basically, i just don't want anyone in the world to be exploited. i'm confident in this position, but it's harder to figure out how to pull that off...

I Guess The Only Solution Is to Consume: Political Action in 21st-Century America

i don't necessarily think it would be out of line to ban stuff where it seems like someone is actually getting hurt.

I'm sympathetic, but in the US, OSHA is a semi-disaster; people get hurt and die at work every day.

yeah, that shouldn't be the case anymore in the world's richest nation in 2013. i'm not up on the actual issues surrounding OSHA, but do you think it would be more effective if it was reformed/better funded?

sure, the right way, which this long feature article in the NYT convinced me has no chance of happening.

Anyway if we can't protect factory workers from poison (or being blown up) no one in a position of authority is going to protect porn actors from assault/exploitation.

I Guess The Only Solution Is to Consume: Political Action in 21st-Century America

lol & all, but yeah! if the problem is consumption (and it is), then the solution must be to consume less. same applies to resource depletion and a bunch of other shit.

not that policy can't help, but i don't think anyone's put anything reasonable forward yet

but the problem isn't only consumption, it's what is consumed - there's no guarantee that, even if every human magically made the same decision to consume less pornography, the quality of what porn was still produced would change in the direction of non-exploitative, consensual, humane sex.

(I mean, with the internet, a lot of people have made the choice to buy significantly less pornography than they consume. What effect has that had on the porn industry? certainly there's now a strong niche of 'feminist porn' etc, but the balance seems to have also continued to tip in the direction of extreme porn)

One of the interesting things about porn is when you get around to some niche like amateur farm porn, and you realize there are hundreds and hundreds of movies all starring different people just in this weird little niche that you'd figure not all that many people would even go to. And then you extrapolate that out and it's like, if there's that many people doing amateur farm porn, how many people are starring in porn geared toward more mainstream tastes? It's gotta be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. As far as I can tell it's everybody but me, is basically the feeling that I get! Then I start to develop weird social anxiety issues about everyday interactions with strangers, like I can't look my gas station attendant in the eye. I'm sure he's in on this.

Everything on ilx just looks like porn names now. MATT YGLESIAS, Nikki Sudden, Jimmy Fucking Stewart...think i need a break.

It was Stewart fucking jimmy last week

Porn actresses need a competent union, really. I mean, could you imagine a porn strike?

i dont want to, its too horrific

Nothing to lose but yr daisy chains

Downing tools etc

It seems to me, only from very casual, anecdotal evidence, because who can know the truth in these situations, that folks who set very clear goals in this dubious industry sometimes manage to escape relatively unscathed, and the longer you extend/postpone those goals, the more the industry pushes back, until inevitably you hit some threshold of transgression and cross it. I've interviewed a few people in this profession, at least on the business end (so to speak), and a few of them have been really bright, with a good idea of boundaries. Some others ... less so. There are a couple of companies who operate with at least the illusion of standards, but I think many of them are beholden to the traditional model of doing business - DVD sales, budgets, contracts, that sort of thing - and may no longer be a match for the current free/cheap/amateur/extreme mode.

As for performers, there a few old school (female) stars who have survived or made it decades without incident - Veronica Hart, Nina Hartley, Asia Carrera, Seka, Traci Lords, a few others. Others get dragged back in and fall apart, like Marilyn Chambers. A few others, like Jenna Jameson, seem to have no excuse - she at one point was the biggest star in the world (as such) but somehow failed to parlay that into an escape plan. (or has she?) Some have had some really particularly extreme ups and downs, like Belladonna, who of course was famous for pushing herself, melted down and/or retired after an AIDS scare, had a family (I think?) then after a while returned to business as usual. Curious what happens to Sasha Grey, who is currently ostensibly retired but who will always be "Sasha Grey." She talked a lot of feminism and independence, but I wonder how that stance will hold up in a few years when the money starts to run out. Independence is the ability to say no when someone starts waving a pile of money at you. Once you take the bait, the power dynamic has shifted out of your favor.

Anyway, the names at the top that more people can recognize than others ("household names") are truly the tip of a very large iceberg, with the rest struggling underwater.

why can't you guys feel shame about watching porn bc of sexual repression like normal ppl?

^

Bust empowering feminist porn women, actually, iirc.

Then I start to develop weird social anxiety issues about everyday interactions with strangers, like I can't look my gas station attendant in the eye. I'm sure he's in on this.

Your toilet's been broken for a week, but you don't want to call for a plumber...

Josh, the examples you are describing are more a factor of social stigmatizing of porn stars / the media's desire for morality tales than anything to actually do with porn as a meat grinder. There are a lot of stars who move into the business end (which I'm guessing is not what you meant by that, which is interesting) - it has higher female representation on the directorial level than other tech industries.

i am not at all libertarian though, i am a socialist who is wary of the way the market degrades interpersonal relationships.

― rock 'em sock 'em (Treeship), Friday, May 3, 2013 8:31 PM (Yesterday)

i don't think those two tendencies are at all incompatible, though. i'm a social libertarian (i.e., a liberal), but i'm not a believer in the beneficence of the free market. same as you, it seems. i just describe it differently.

yeah, i figured you were saying you were some kind of left-libertarian; i think chomsky describes himself that way. these labels can be unwieldy, and often obscure more than they reveal.

Porn actresses need a competent union, really. I mean, could you imagine a porn strike?

There have been attempts at unionization (one was led by Nina Hartley and a few others); unfortunately, shocking as this may seem, women who work in porn can be quite mercenary and will happily sell out/underbid their "sisters" in order to keep working. It was proven all too easy for producers/directors to simply hire non-union girls instead of union-agitating girls, and the meat merry-go-round rolled merrily on.

Run the world (producers)

Still, I feel unions is perhaps the only way that actresses have to collectively empower themselves. You would think that at some point 'enough is enough'.

i imagine that the kind of people who gravitate toward porn don't tend to draw that line

But see, the performers are empowered, to an extent - they don't have to do it. Once they take the check, they lose some degree of power and independence, unless they set the strict terms of engagement. In this sense, many of the so-called "contract girls" work as a de facto sub-union. The same I guess could be said of some of the regulated brothels in Nevada, or wherever. I'm sure they've seen their share of horrible stuff, but there is some oversight/regulation.

It's also worth remembering that most girls aren't 100% independent contractors - they have agents, and some agents are very protective of their clients and very much focused on building a long-term brand name. Also, it's a small industry, and word travels fast. If you're a scumbag who abuses girls on set, if you're a director you'll start to find it very difficult to get girls to shoot for you, and if you're an actor you'll find it very hard to find girls who'll work with you.

Is there any exemple of self-producing actresses? Sounds like a viable option.

Plus having a bad name is one thing but I am certain it is not the most convincing deterrent.

Is there any exemple of self-producing actresses?

There are a few, I believe.

Yeah, just looking at the Evil Angel website, I see that Belladonna, Bobbi Starr, Dana Vespoli and Francesca Le (in partnership with her husband) produce and direct their own movies. Nina Hartley and her husband do the same thing, and I'm sure there are others.

ya but are any of them really happy

has anyone said "wankers control the means of production" yet

ya but are any of them really happy

As happy as anyone living in alienated post-industrial Western culture, I'd venture.

Most people are happier if they know they are having sex more often than their friends, according to new research published by Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/259266.php

http://nplusonemag.com/what-do-you-desire

god i love nplusone

great essay, although it left me feeling sort of sad in the end, which maybe is the intended tone of the essay. As a very much coupled-up person, and an east coast lifer, I felt like I could just as easily have been reading about another planet.

I don't know if it pushes one way or other in this debate -- it certainly gives an example of porn where the actresses (I think?) wholly willingly submit to some extreme stuff, but it's also clear that the lines are blurrier at best on some other porn shoots. It sounds to me that the women in those shoots (in the article) are sort of boundary-pushers and thrill-seekers.

I still can't help but wonder how much of the women's "enjoyment" in some cases is informed by the desire to make money, sort of the way I learn to "enjoy" certain aspects of my job but would never do it for free. But at least some of them may be the type who would do this sort of thing for free, idk.

i think we're also taught to seek things by culture, taught even to enjoy things, or to want to enjoy them. what's the line between thinking you enjoy something and enjoying it? is there such a line? that's what the article made me think, and that's some part of the point, imo.

when she breaks down after her interrogation, what's going on? is she responding to trauma or experiencing catharsis - and again, what's the difference? similarly, when the "fucked doll" porn performers describe the experience of emotionally collapsing (after being physically abused for hours - consensually of course) as liberating, what does that mean? is it really liberating, or is that just how they want to feel about it?

i guess we can't say, because we're us, they're them. they get to make the final call, but the whole thing left me feeling a bit empty, too. that's as much a product of the author's tone and apparent life situation as what she describes.

That was fascinating. That's all I want to say about it.

witt also wrote this, which i'm p sure got posted to the OKC thread:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n20/emily-witt/diary

which is even MORE interesting now, since she glancingly references the time in question in the n+1 piece

sex-positivity is great and all but it's another one of those Revolutions that's cheerfully absorbed by the existing system with pretty much zero disruption, so everyone wakes up at two in the afternoon the day after like wait why are we still being exploited

―the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour),

Qual

Its almost as if something

Watched a few docs on porn and porn stars and never walk away convinced that everyone is as happy, tough, in control or enjoying it all as they say they are. I want to for some reason.

I worked with a photographer who started his own porn business and he was not a happy man. He had been working for GSD&M ad agency in Austin for sometime then was fired. He ended up moderately successful in his business it and moved to California and ended up being the first one to photograph a number of stars in the industry before they were stars. He never struck me as a perv, just sad or frustrated maybe.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201107/porn-induced-sexual-dysfunction-growing-problem

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/therapy-matters/201205/does-porn-contribute-ed

hurting - what was your take on that nplusone article? I read that last night.

I mean, was that horrific porn to you?

this raises a tangential legal question I've never understood. it's illegal to pay for sex (prostitution) but it IS legal to pay for sex if it's filmed (porn)....? so why don't whores/johns just film everything.

― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, May 3, 2013 5:28 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

in the u.s., porn production is only legal in california

but i'm not ... a communist.

― controversial vegan pregnancy (contenderizer), Friday, May 3, 2013 11:25 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

why not

I think it's a really tough line. I think that the director goes out of her way to set limits and boundaries, as extreme as they may be, and to make sure that everything is consented to, which is sort of impressive given what they're doing. I seriously doubt there is that kind of controlled environment on most porn shoots and I am SURE that women are pushed beyond what they want or agree to do at the outset. The women in that particular article sound like they really do "enjoy" the shoots to some extent, but that shouldn't be taken as confirmation that all or most women in porn enjoy it, and I have heard plenty of interviews with porn stars or ex porn stars who say that they don't (and remember that while they are working, it's a big part of their job to act like they enjoy it, even in those on-set interviews between shoots). At least if porn is what you might call American "name-brand" porn, you can probably assume the women in the videos are not victims of human trafficking or something like that, which is not necessarily true with all porn, including some porn that passes itself off as "amateur." They are at least free to leave or quit, like some of these ex-porn-stars who become anti-porn advocates. I don't know how to accomplish it, but I think there ought to be higher barriers before an 18-year-old can fall into the industry.

has anyone said "wankers control the means of production" yet
--just dude intonation (wins)

hahaha

why not

― turds (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 7:07 AM (42 minutes ago)

i'm glad you asked that question...

*brews a pot of coffee*

*plants some coffee*

“You might think we are doing things to the model that are mean or humiliating, but don’t,” said Donna. “She’s signed an agreement.”

As if signing such an agreement in and of itself is not at all humiliating for many of the people who sign.

Am I the only person on ILX who's actually worked in the porn industry?

This seems pretty accurate, though:

The Kink actors were more like athletes, or stuntmen and -women performing punishing feats

At a certain point, it's not sex you're watching, but a stunt, or a freakshow, like a contortionist or the guy who lifts cinder blocks with his dick.

xpost I just assumed most of ILX has.

or polishes fenders.

that emily witt story was good. i went to the issue launch at st. marks and was disappointed that she wasn't there to talk about it. i think the position of noncommital skepticism -- which she evinces, much like dfw did -- is the only possible one, really, because you can't take a hard line against porn very easily while still being pro- all different kinds of artistic expression. that's why i think the labor angle is the main way to take the critique of porn: the issue isn't videos of people having sex, but that some people are being hurt and humiliated in this process and you'd have to be extremely naive or heartless or both to think that "signing a waiver" excuses this, or makes it less painful. i guess i don't think it would be bad to make it illegal for people to be treated the way that woman in the story was treated in her workplace, whether she consented to it or not. dr. morbius noted above that OSHA can't protect factory workers so they probably won't be able to take care of sex workers, but I think that... maybe... owing to the visibility of porn, the degree to which people in general are uncomfortable with this type of thing, which is only excusable by libertarian arguments about everyone being "absolutely free" to sell their labor however they wish.... i don't know. maybe it's not impossible to legislate against dangerous conditions in the porn industry.

i guess just from a left-wing standpoint, i don't like the idea that people can consent to be abused in exchange for a paycheck.

i guess i don't think it would be bad to make it illegal for people to be treated the way that woman in the story was treated in her workplace, whether she consented to it or not.

Lemme see if I have this right: People you don't know, grown adults who actively desire to be treated a certain way by other grown adults you don't know, should not be allowed to do so, because it makes you uncomfortable? Who are you, exactly?

there is a power imbalance between employers and the people they employ. if a factory worker consents to being verbally or physically abused in response to poor performance it doesn't matter, that's still not how that workplace is supposed to operate.

Abused any way or specifically physically/sexually? People take abuse in any number of jobs on a daily basis for a paycheck, xp now

yeah but there are lines. if a restaurant owner shouts racial epithets at their employees they can be sued.

had to be intentional on witt's part that the yuppie tech polyamorists came off way creepier than the bondage porn people, right?

Porn is not in any way analogous to factory work. Porn is performance art. Performers sign one-off contracts with filmmakers. Hell, lots of porn performers (Belladonna, Bobbi Starr, others) direct their own videos. Where is the employer/employee line there? If the director of a video says to her co-star, who she's paying, "OK, now you slap me and spit in my face," who's being exploited?

i guess just from a left-wing standpoint, i don't like the idea that people can consent to be abused in exchange for a paycheck.

but what if they're an actor in an off-broadway show about an abusive relationship? what if they're the actor in a domestic violence PSA? is it okay then?

great lengths are taken in theatre and filmmaking to ensure no one gets actually hurt in any way

except for that Spider-man musical

i admit it is hard to legally differentiate those scenarios and i don't want to prevent, for instance, marina abramovic from doing her thing. the issue is that a lot of fetish porn workers are being treated in ways they would never consent to if they weren't financially desperate. i don't know what to do, but i just think it SUCKS that sex workers are subject to poor treatment, and would like it to end, somehow. sorry, i guess.

the issue is that a lot of fetish porn workers are being treated in ways they would never consent to if they weren't financially desperate.

Where is your evidence for this claim?

do you think it's not true?

dude, no need to apologise! it is appalling the way that people can be exploited in the porn industry, but it's difficult to know what if anything can be done about it, as it is in the end adults making their own choices. and there are, it seems, people who want to be performing in this kind of porn, who get something more than monetary out of the experience.

they're exploited in the same way the cashier at mcdonalds is exploited; whats important is that they arent coerced

i think it's also important that we keep in mind that in a decent society there wouldn't be people being exploited ever, at all. the porn industry is just a particularly egregious instance of how vulnerable unskilled workers still are in our society.

(obviously i don't have the answer to how to end global exploitation/suffering. i still think it's a good ideal though, and i still think it's fine to object to specific instances of exploitation and say "that's not okay" and ask what can be done about it.)

xxxp - I don't think it is, necessarily. kink.com appears to be the biggest purveyor of the hardcore fetishy stuff, and it seems like they're seen as a performer-positive studio.

Going back to one of the early comments in the thread - "not even what you might call 'horrific" porn but just what now passes as regular hardcore porn" - to what extent is this old folks complaining about the kids' music being too loud? Is porn really worse than 10-20-30-40 years ago? Gangbangs (etc.) existed then, too. The earliest Howard Stern I remember hearing, when he was still on radio, he was interviewing a woman who got gangbanged by several hundred men to set a world record, circa the mid '90s.

We're still not getting back to the core of this - who are you exactly? Do you scale? Would you be interested in an experimental scheme where you can sit in on all of these scenes and report back regarding whether it's okay?

Legitimate arguments can be made about the effect of easy access to porn on young peoples' sexual mores (according to women I know who sleep with 20-21 year old dudes now, facials and anal are basically expected and that kind of thing), but I'm unconvinced that contemporary porn is more dehumanizing than what was happening to Linda Lovelace.

but what happened to Linda Lovelace is horrible, so I really don't get your point there

Porn is such a unique, contradictory, extreme form of expression (even when it's not "extreme"). When people leave the box factory, they don't make boxes at home. Correspondingly, only box makers make boxes. But everyone can and does have sex, and all kinds of sex, for free. That's one aspect that sets it apart from performance art, which almost by definition demands an audience. In porn people can and do many of the same things that they do without an audience; not a lot of people painting themselves silver and playing the human statue in their living room. AFAIK.

Money, as usual, is the mitigating factor in porn. Most people are "financially desperate," to some extent, in that we all absolutely need money to survive, and we all go about getting that money different ways, to varying degrees of desperation. But consent does not preclude exploitation. it sucks that any workers are subject to poor treatment. That's why all sorts of legal employment is still highly regulated. Dunno how it would work in porn. Unions couldn't hurt, but I can't imagine a porn standards and practices office.

Another contradiction: porn workers are simultaneously both acting and not acting. Sometimes they are simulating emotions, sometimes not (just like anyone). But they are never simulating the act itself, which is for many (most?) its appeal.

Well yeah, but so are fire-eaters.

but what happened to Linda Lovelace is horrible, so I really don't get your point there

I would like to know how the actors and actress were treated in the very first porn films of the silent era.

I will tell you what I know about the porn industry from having worked in it for five years (2000-2005). Porn sets in the US are (for the most part - there are always outliers) highly regulated, safe environments. It's a small world, so the performers and the directors all tend to know each other, except in the case of a brand new performer. Everything is about consent - not just in kink.com style scenes, but in regular scenes, as well, for the simple reason that the female performers' contracts are itemized like restaurant menus. Some girls do anal, some girls don't, and that's all laid out in black and white before the shoot is even booked. Also, the girls get extra money for performing specific acts - a scene without anal might pay $800, vs. $1000 for a scene with anal, for example. Also, girls can blacklist guys - they can say, "I won't work with that guy" and that will be that. There were a few male performers who got overly rough with girls in scenes and after a relatively short time, the majority of girls were saying they wouldn't work with those guys, and that was that - the guys were effectively out of the business. Porn, as a business, polices itself fairly well, all things considered.

what about the whole "gonzo" phenomenon? it's been written about as if it's significantly more coercive, this sense that people are rushed into it and it's harder on the performers -- do you think that's true?

maybe what's worrying is that it's 'easy money'? a thou for just an hour's work. same concern with athletes, maybe? and maybe the short timeframe that a lot of these performers work in, out of the industry by 25, or maybe relegated to 'milf' scenes or something once they're 30

all I know about gonzo porn is that is has come very close to ruining The Muppet Show for me

Nope. Gonzo is 100 percent staged. Stuff like BangBus (in which the concept is dudes driving around California in a bus/van and "enticing"/"luring" girls on board, at which point they get screwed by everyone in the bus/van) is made by experienced performers, male and female. The exact same girls that do more conventionally staged videos do gonzo stuff.

Now, bear in mind that I am only speaking about the US porn industry here. I have no idea what goes on in Eastern Europe or Brazil or wherever. There may be much more exploitation going on there.

might be worth noting that Max Hardcore, one of gonzo's "worst" purveyors, was sent to jail not for anything related to abusing performers or coercion or whatever but for simple obscenity.

xp

*brews a pot of coffee*

― 乒乓, Tuesday, May 7, 2013 7:54 AM (2 hours ago)

*doffs cap*

re: consent

okay, let't take sex out of this. i seem to recall the bumfights dudes getting into serious trouble for what they did. what they did was to pay people, including homeless people, a pittance to fight or take abuse. wiki sez:

The US-based National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) has stated that the Bumfights videos disseminate hate against the homeless and dehumanize them.[2] In April 2006, the four original filmmakers agreed not to produce any more "Bumfights" videos or distribute videos already made, and to pay three homeless men depicted in the videos, under a settlement announced as a lawsuit was to go to trial.

...In the state of California, both felony and misdemeanor charges were filed against the producers, as well as civil lawsuits; in 2005, the producers were sentenced to six months in prison for having failed to complete the community service to which they had previously been sentenced. The filmmakers maintain that the production of the video was a mutually beneficial arrangement and that the homeless people depicted freely chose to participate.

fundamental question: do we think it should be legal to offer people money in exchange for their willing endurance of extreme physical abuse? if so, are such transactions always okay, or only under certain circumstances? and if the latter, how do we draw the line?

i mean, would it be okay for me to make a video wherein i bring a woman into a bar and punch her bloody while inviting the bar patrons to join in? she's consented, after all, and been well paid. the film i produce has the appearance of verite violence, and she does sustain relatively minor injuries, but there's a medic on set, appropriate waivers, utmost care and concern for everyone involved. is that acceptable? what if she's a homeless mother, absolutely desperate for money? does that change things? how is the situation different if the violence is sexual?

the whole thing is fucked. i'm with treeship in wishing there were some simple solution available, but i'm afraid there isn't.

Boxing

What, in porn, is analogous to the beating you describe?

the scenario described in the emily witt article. she was being shocked with a taser-thingy and she was tied up and patrons at the bar were allowed to go up and grope her.

fundamental question: do we think it should be legal to offer people money in exchange for their willing endurance of extreme physical abuse? if so, are such transactions always okay, or only under certain circumstances? and if the latter, how do we draw the line?...i mean, would it be okay for me to make a video wherein i bring a woman into a bar and punch her bloody while inviting the bar patrons to join in? she's consented, after all, and been well paid. the film i produce has the appearance of verite violence, and she does sustain relatively minor injuries, but there's a medic on set, appropriate waivers, utmost care and concern for everyone involved. is that acceptable? what if she's a homeless mother, absolutely desperate for money? does that change things? how is the situation different if the violence is sexual?

Your definition of "extreme physical abuse" may not be the same as that of the person who's actually taking the hits. I mean, where do you stand on boxing? That's a situation in which two men are being paid, sometimes quite handsomely, to punch each other until one of them surrenders or is knocked unconscious. If they were being called sluts and whores prior to the commencement of the face-punching, would that make it better or worse, in your mind? What if they were not only punching each other in the face, but also jacking each other off, or fucking each other, between punches?

i have argued that boxing and (american) football should be illegal too. and the meat industry. i don't know where i stand on those things right now, but i do think that just because we take certain forms of harm and cruelty for granted doesn't mean they are right. i mean, every society in history has tolerated things that -- from our contemporary standpoint -- seem horrifying.

i have argued that boxing and (american) football should be illegal too. and the meat industry.

OK, there is an unbridgeable gulf between our philosophies/positions.

we should find some way to combine porn, boxing, American football and the meat industry; instant millionaires IMO

Okay, so extreme fetish porn - beyond even stuff like kink. Is that standard porn practice? Is it mainstream?
I remember hearing about the aforementioned Max Hardcore years ago, as the most abusive porn out there. He catered to a very niche audience - he was the Real Doll to regular porn's pocket pussy. It's hard to see why the extreme fringe colors the mainstream here.

we should find some way to combine porn, boxing, American football and the meat industry; instant millionaires IMO

Didn't you see the video Nine Inch Nails posted yesterday? Vimeo pulled it after like two hours - America's not ready.

the scenario described in the emily witt article. she was being shocked with a taser-thingy and she was tied up and patrons at the bar were allowed to go up and grope her.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8059792/Marina-Abramovic-Im-a-mirror-for-the-public.html

There's porn out there featuring two girls wrestling, pseudo-MMA style.

these debates kind of remind me of marijuana debates where stoners are going on about the merits of hemp fiber. "hey, it's hypocritical to not let these artists express themselves sexually on my computer in a world where people box and eat meat."

*unboxes meat, then eats it*

Focusing on the extremes of porn seems pointless to me.

The standard issue whore/slut-language, barely legal fantasizing, alterations to standard sexual practices, etc. are more problematic and more interesting IMO, if you want to deal with issues that affect society in a meaningful way.

Errrrr, not sure what eating meat's got to do with anything tbh

xpost i love marina abramovic. i think her work is deployed to a different end than the video described in the article, and the resemblance between those two things is superficial... again, i realize these distinctions are impossible to make from a legal standpoint, and i am no longer of the position i had in hs where i just wanted to legislate away stuff that i don't like. however, i think it's still important to have an open conversation about exploitation, and identify when, where, and how it occurs, and ask ourselves to what extent we should tolerate it. as contenderizer described with the bumfights scenario, there are obviously limits to what people can reasonably be expected to consent to. the question then becomes what are those limits? how do we determine them?

No puns intended btw (xp)

yeah sorry i brought the meat industry up, i was just kind of disclosing my history of being scandalized by things other people aren't bothered by, and saying that it is not in itself ridiculous to question the merits of boxing as entertainment

No puns intended btw (xp)

I was about to ask for a round of applause for the gigantic amount of restraint I decided to exercise in the face of that post

Like, I'll wager more people have had a bad time sexually because one party didn't understand the amount of lube used off-camera for the anal scene vs crazy BDSM scenes.

Boxing's merits are entertainment are undeniable to me, whether I think it's right or not isn't

I mean, where do you stand on boxing? That's a situation in which two men are being paid, sometimes quite handsomely, to punch each other until one of them surrenders or is knocked unconscious. If they were being called sluts and whores prior to the commencement of the face-punching, would that make it better or worse, in your mind? What if they were not only punching each other in the face, but also jacking each other off, or fucking each other, between punches?

― 誤訳侮辱, Tuesday, May 7, 2013 10:32 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, exactly! i'm not proposing an answer, i'm asking the same questions you are. if boxing and extreme porn are okay, then why shouldn't bumfights be okay? or the "woman beaten bloody" scenario i proposed?

let's say i make a secretarial job available. i offer to pay whoever i hire quite well, but they have to legally consent to my pissing in their face every day at lunchtime. is that okay? let's say i own a factory, and hire desperate people from a poor community to do something similar, for very little money. like maybe they get to butcher chickens for $7 an hour. thing is, at the end of their shift, they have to stand naked while being pelted with offal and verbally degraded. is that okay?

what is "consent" where one party has a massive economic advantage? i guess that's the key question for progressive capitalists. and what is sexual consent, in an industrial context, where the whole culture is predicated on the systematic degradation of women? i'm not saying that anything we're discussing should be outright illegal, but i do have serious qualms about some of it.

porn: cause of qualms

How much of this is "yeah but sex is different" and to what extent is that a justifiable position

^

xp all of those things are ok, or should it be you who decides for those ppl (because you're the educated dude with the money)?

that's the thing - when people do the "well how can you have qualms about this when this other thing is happening?" well, if you don't get a thrill on some arguably exploitative vice, be it porn or papa's johns, you tend to consider it more expendable

The instructions to finding an abridged version of the video described in the article are given in the article, and I don't know if ir's responsible to opine about this without looking. I looked. It's very very fucking heavy, definitely not my cup of tea, but the exit interview is not fake and it does not appear that woman interviewed is traumatized or not consenting.

let's say i make a secretarial job available. i offer to pay whoever i hire quite well, but they have to legally consent to my pissing in their face every day at lunchtime. is that okay?

What is the business justification behind pissing in your secretary's face?

et's say i own a factory, and hire desperate people from a poor community to do something similar, for very little money. like maybe they get to butcher chickens for $7 an hour. thing is, at the end of their shift, they have to stand naked while being pelted with offal and verbally degraded. is that okay?

What is the business justification behind verbally degrading your workforce and pelting them with offal as they stand naked?

You seem to be missing a gigantic piece of the puzzle here.

One difference between bumfights and boxing is that the latter is legal in a highly controlled atmosphere, with medical involvement before, during and after the fight: fighters are licensed by the state, as are refs and promoters.

How much regulatory oversight exists in porn?

I know there's regular testing for big diseases, but to what extent is that legally required vs agreed upon?

back to browse this thread after its revival, a couple questions:

- has there only been one woman who's posted here in the last week?
- is 誤訳侮辱 the ilxor formerly known as table or someone else idk?

i have no idea who's a woman or who's not, don't ruin it for me please

I was gonna come back to make just djp's point re justification. Ppl's consent doesnt mean yr not an animal for proposing these things.

just some dudes thinkin bout porn

thinking really hard, with one woman in the middle

thoughts getting everywhere

Wouldnt that make you the onlooking wankers

.......

How much of this is "yeah but sex is different" and to what extent is that a justifiable position

It seems clear to me that sex is different because there are women who legitimately crave the kind of treatment described in the Witt article. There may be people who want to slaughter chickens and get pelted with offal, but I haven't heard of them (yet). Obviously, the money angle makes everything much more complicated. Also, I've probably never heard of the types of porn some of you are having qualms about, and that complicates things, too.

thread needs more dworkin

"legitimately crave" is meaningless in a society where desire is structured by the patriarchy

Says the man, prescriptively, about women's desires.

xp all of those things are ok, or should it be you who decides for those ppl (because you're the educated dude with the money)?

― al leong the watchtower (darraghmac), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 10:48 AM (32 seconds ago)

i'm not that much of a libertarian. i'm certainly not an absolutist about it. as a general operating principle, i think it's perfectly appropriate for any society to make decisions about what is an isn't acceptable within it - even when such standards infringe on personal freedom. the question, to me, is where such lines should be drawn, not whether or not they should ever be drawn in the first place.

i don't think we should protect the right of employers to abuse their employees. i'm not denying anybody's ability or right to give consent, but i am willing to consider the idea that certain exchanges should be barred from the public marketplace - or permitted only under tightly controlled circumstances. like, i don't think it should be illegal to try to sell the broadcast rights to your own suicide. but i do think it should be illegal to offer money in exchange for such rights or to profit from whatever "content" might be generated.

i agree with max fwiw. although i think i agree with (i think) foucault too who said that we can still re-contextualize these desires in ways that are empowering and that sex can be a site of micro-resistance maybe.

Those who go beyond the pale (so to speak) often make for easy targets. See (or don't) Max Hardcore. Who, according to the wiki,

stated in a February 2012 interview that he "wants to do good in the world", and has now gone back into the porn industry.

I imagine, as described several posts above, that a lot of the porn industry is pretty self-policing. The question is, as always, related to the margins, the people in no position to do credible justice to the term "consent;" if someone is so desperate they consent to something they might not normally do (itself impossible to define) for the promise of money, then that's pretty much the definition of exploitation. It's another of porn's contradictions/hypocrisies: one can consent to be exploited, but to be the one exploiting is considered morally dubious.

This (sort of) crosses over with whomever I was arguing with on the child molester death penalty thread. A good percentage of porn workers come from damaged backgrounds (as do we all, sigh). Is a person who compulsively seeks out or craves demeaning, abusive, extreme sex performance in a position/condition to consent? It's a slippery slope.

the road to hell is greased with lube etc

why is the female sex workers more exploited by capitalism than the viewer? at least the sex worker gets paid to participate in a real sex act. the viewer pays to farm out his own sexual participation to another couple - interpassively having sex through the mediated image. he pays for the pleasure of excising his own sexuality, substituting a monitor for a flesh and blood interaction. capitalism deep-throats us all.

Another irony: female sex workers are exploitable because they are in a position of power. There can be no porn without them, which makes more readily commodified.

interesting thought, josh

porn producers are less exploited than performers and audiences. that's the crucial distinction, imo.

isn't that just the central irony of capitalism though? there can be no capitalism without the workers, yet they are still disenfranchised because their true worth is not fully recognized/renumerated.

sorry x post to Josh

trees otm

regarding the thread title: i dont think that's a circle that can be squared. max otm.

i can't help but suspect this conversation is just a bunch of over-educated liberals feeling the normal shame about consuming porn but putting a social justice veneer over it

yeah it's because they are too educated

well sure. you can just admit that despite strong commitments to sex positivity, watching other ppl have sex is a taboo that isn't easily elided

i don't think that is what this is about.

moooorrrdddy

not everything is about overeducated liberals and social justice. you sound like camille paglia!

This is an impressive thread today. Seriously.

plz, it's a bunch of middle aged dudes fretting over the pornography they watch and whether it's exploitive or not. it's def about overeducated liberals + social justice.

capitalism deep-throats us all.

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 7, 2013 2:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

loooool

but wait, does that mean that capitalism throatfucks us or swallows us?

it swallows our procreative juices and channels it into a non-creative capacity

gentlemen I think we're close to cracking this feminism and porn thing

xpost let the record show that i am not middle aged.

thread needs more dworkin
― max, Tuesday, May 7, 2013

can i dworkin? let me work in. i put my thing down, flip it and reverse in.

your posts about this seem ad hominem mordy. why don't you think the labor conditions of sex workers is a legitimate topic of conversation?

just some dudes thinkin bout porn

― max, Tuesday, May 7, 2013 12:58 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm yes

plz, it's a bunch of middle aged dudes fretting over the pornography they watch.

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 7, 2013 11:36 AM (3 minutes ago)

armond white level redirect there. respect.

it swallows our procreative juices and channels it into a non-creative capacity

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 7, 2013 2:38 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, indeed, like the porn star, capitalism lures us into a pointless act that we perceive as expressing aggression and power but in fact is empty and without consequence

it's not an ad hominem - i'm not arguing that you're that wrong about sex workers. it's ad freudian. i'm psychoanalyzing + suggesting that you're in denial about the topic you really want to discuss which is your anxiety about watching sex acts performed on your laptop and whether you are being judged for spilling your seed.

"legitimately crave" is meaningless in a society where desire is structured by the patriarchy

It's a fascinating thread, and I'm not a middle-aged dude. But I don't agree with max, at least not entirely. Are you talking about all sexual desire, or only this type you have qualms about?

What if one consents to be fucked by capitalism?

you can't consent to be fucked by capitalism. you don't have consent to give inside the capitalist paradigm. you're like a minor.

I'm still back on contendo's terrible "what if someone has you sign a form to consent to humiliation and degradation completely unrelated to your job" analogies

the more accurate analogy would be "what if the customer service wing of your business created a position whose main function was to act as a physical punching bag for unhappy/frustrated customers" and even that is missing the concept behind these extreme porn shoots that there are ground rules that both of the participating parties have signed off on before anything is even filmed

you can't just tack gross dehumanizing shit onto a regular job and say "what if this happened here?" because the entire point of extreme gonzo porn is that a gross, dehumanizing act is being filmed for the purposes of sexual titillation; it's not an unhappy side-effect, it's the entire point of the shoot and, if you really want to discuss the issue, should be treated as a primary focus rather than an incidental thing that has no business being there

whether you are being judged for spilling your seed.

you're making the assumption that the pornography succeeds in fulfilling a psychological and/or physical need. perhaps the viewer does not fulfill their aspirations due to the false nature of these exploitative works and goes away unfulfilled.

i just mean that desire is formed and organized by and w/in the constraints of an oppressive system. its kind of useless to talk about whether or not someone "legitimately" craves to be tased and groped on stage when that "legitimacy" exists in a framework that is by definition anti-woman.

none of which is to say that pax's desire isnt "real" or that she shouldnt act on it.

nice work putting the religious phrasing and traditional moral framework on to this though xxp

i mean idk im not really a dworkinian about this, even if i think dworkins structural analysis is largely right. i think if penny pax likes what she does and feels empowered by it, im not going to tell her to stop or prevent her from doing so. you get yours, penny

can i dworkin? let me work in. i put my thing down, flip it and reverse in.

― UTW, USA, ILX LIFER (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 2:40 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she say she dworkin it for daddy
dwork-dworkin it for daddy

you're making the assumption that the pornography succeeds in fulfilling a psychological and/or physical need. perhaps the viewer does not fulfill their aspirations due to the false nature of these exploitative works and goes away unfulfilled.

No I'm not! I'm arguing precisely the opposite, that the viewer is left unfulfilled by outsourcing their own sexual congress.

lol first "franchise" (to describe voting) and now "sexual congress"

the empowerment/exploitation angle often makes me uncomfortable, because is it ok to just do actions that you find reasonable, if not a turn-on, and not really feel empowered or exploited? I think in the questioning of things so far out of what we view as norms they have to seem like one or the other but maybe they're not to the people involved

"you may call fisting empowering, but I just call it Tuesday"

I guess I'm suggesting that the anxiety about the exploitation of the sex worker is actually a projection of the viewer's own anxiety about being exploited. I feel degraded by watching porn and so I assume that the subject is being degraded as well - and maybe that's true - maybe the very discomfort that underscores the squeamishness about porn is a transference of affect from the performer to the viewer (acknowledging how powerful performance is as a transmitter of affect).

re mordy's comments: i think this thread raises some interesting questions that have nothing to do with porn.

does an overriding commitment to "individual freedom" become reactionary when the freedom in question = the right to economically exploit? and what about the right to be exploited? i'm not sure individual freedom is always the ideal conceptual frame, especially where capitalism is concerned.

after all, defenders of unrestricted capitalism routinely deflect criticism by means of appeal to liberty. capitalist systems must keep the focus on individual freedom above all else. that's how they exert and perpetuate their power.

Acknowledging such a framework doesnt delegitimize the behaviours nor desires of those within it, nor is doing so an argument that the discussion in itself is pointless

I have to go eat some sushi. I'll bbl.

i agree darraghmac

you can't just tack gross dehumanizing shit onto a regular job and say "what if this happened here?" because the entire point of extreme gonzo porn is that a gross, dehumanizing act is being filmed for the purposes of sexual titillation; it's not an unhappy side-effect, it's the entire point of the shoot and, if you really want to discuss the issue, should be treated as a primary focus rather than an incidental thing that has no business being there

― far too much asshole flesh (DJP), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 11:47 AM (6 minutes ago)

i disagree completely. the question, to me, is whether or not it is acceptable to hire people explicitly for the purpose of abusing and degrading them. why you might want to such a thing is beside the point, imo. the moral dimension of the question does not depend on there being a demand, and is not obviated by the existence of one.

since boxing was brought up, football might be a better comparison: americans love it; the players can tell you what it means to them but it doesn't seem to excuse critical analysis of their narrowed circumstances; everybody knows it's risky but the true dangers to those involved might be masked; a few superstars and 'with it' empowered operators notwithstanding, there is a much larger lower tier of the pyramid made up of the burned out, addicted, infected and discarded; and, rex ryan.

mysteriously I find football grosser than pornography for some of those reasons, but it might be due to the potential for physical trauma instead of psychological

Since I don't speak philosophy, my only contributions to thread would be my personal experiences/interactions with the topic and frankly I'm not going to share those, which is an unfortunate condition that takes me out of the discussion.

the tenuous office job "what if?" scenarios here keep making me think of Helen DeWitt's Lightning Rods.

rex ryan produces his own videos iirc

i think asking "desire" (even particular sexual desire) to square up with ethical/moral/social justice concerns is a fool's errand. you can hold on to desire qua desire as way to disrupt or question the hegemonic dominance of particular forms of those concerns, but it'll never fall in line with them. that's why i dont think you get to have your porn and your feminism too, at least not as things are will be for the foreseeable future.

in orbit, knowing you're at least hovering here makes me feel better about the thread rolling on

i mean, this is classic "riding the back of a tiger" kinda stuff for me. desire isn't something that contributes to self-expression or is amendable to control.

xp It shouldn't, because I'm not that comfortable w the discussion.

yeah, I'm outta here

I assume (hope?) you mean for personal reasons and not because we're discussing this in an offensive way?

has there only been one woman who's posted here in the last week?

I missed this upthread, but since it's become an issue, I'll admit I'm female. I don't speak philosophy either, so I can only participate on the fringes. I'm reading, though, and not uncomfortable with the discussion at all.

- is 誤訳侮辱 the ilxor formerly known as table or someone else idk?

I have used other names here but "table" has never been one of them. I am male.

oh, no idea who you are, then

can i dworkin? let me work in. i put my thing down, flip it and reverse in.

forks u killin me in this thread

lol @ all of us. We are men. Serious men. Who have come together to determine just what is to be done about the pornography problem.

no for real p good thread though

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24376264.jpg

lol, guys all bashful now

caught talkin'

about porn

I'm not sure I want to contribute either, but I'm reading this thread with interest and am not distressed by it. And am a feminist.

And a female also.

moodle's said on the clusterfuck thread that this thread could really benefit from more of a female perspective

and i think this is an understatement, but yes yes. also maybe a gay perspective? i don't know if i have encountered any feminist critiques of pornography that accommodate a critique of gay pornography, but i'm sure they have been made!

dude u don't need to warm up if you want to talk about porn, just start talking. what shit are you into?

construction sites, submarines, & rugby locker rooms.

I'm not specifically upset enough to want to call anyone out, but there's an overall tone like this is a problem that "we", where "we" is the speakers, can solve, first of all--like everyone can't just accept information and file it away for nuancing future thoughts or for contemplation, without having to regurgitate it along with some conclusion right away. Absorb the articles and stuff, and have and tell us your thoughts about them, but it makes me uncomf when the way of discussing something is so...makes the presumption that the speaker(s) are able to and entitled to reach definitive conclusions.

Also the fact that for a signif amt of time, this happened without anyone saying that it was an all-male convo that was tending more and more to a kind of cerebral/hypothetical level that's out of reach of a lot of people whose contributions might be just as deserving, if not more so based on their own involvement or experience.

Which brings me to a third point which is that the theoretical/philosophical level gets to be the only way a lot of things are EVER discussed because admitting to HAVING a personal stake in...intimate or private matters is exposing in a way that may not be comfortable or feel "safe" if you think you may be belittled or dismissed or that the information you're revealing about yourself will never be used in an undesirable way in the future.

Sorry if parts of that are unpolished or unclear, just throwing some thoughts down before I get xp'ed into oblivion.

i don't think you will be!

perhaps the old-school judgment that is still hanging over this is not that it is 'degrading' to be a performer in porn but that it is pathetic to enjoy it

I would also, if it were in my power, like to permanently veto the whole line about female porn stars having been abused or raped or somehow permanently damaged in sexual ways as if some kind of personal brokenness is necessary to be willing to do sex work.

It's patronizing and takes agency away from everyone it targets--also fits with what goole just said about what we consider "pathetic" and pitiful. Also, is it just me or does no one ever say that about MEN in porn??

i'm sure they do, but usually only about gay-for-pay performers

Right, so only for those who accept a "submissive" or penetrated role. As it ever was.

I remember reading an old mark s article where, as an aside, he speculated that female stars are often have complete control over what they do in a shoot whereas male performers (who aren't really "stars" in the same way) almost never do, they can't even come unless cued &c

xp Or, well, sorry, I don't watch gay porn or know anything about the reality of the gay-for-pay world, so maybe they say it about those guys even if they don't receive anal or w/e but the stigma is already attached via the "gay" association regardless of what acts they perform, I think.

can't find it now cause it was in the middle of an article about something completely unrelated xp

I've always assumed male porn stars are desperately sad/needy people a la Ron Jeremy

xps to me, I found it and it's completely related to the rest of the article actually:

Because most videos now sell on name-and-face recognition, those women who become triple-X superstars not only command higher fees than anyone else on a shoot, but - and this is new - a significant degree of production control. They get to hire and fire directors, cameramen, co-stars; they even get - within obvious limits - plot approval. The men, by contrast, are increasingly so much performing meat, hired for stamina and ejaculation-on-demand: the fans have never been less interested in them as names or faces. The power-shift has left many wannabe studs confused, angry, even impotent, in the face of focused market demand. As a profession, it still entails immense physical risk, not least unprotected sex with any number of utterly dodgy folk; but those few women who do emerge from the nightmare labyrinth of its lower reaches have won themselves - in collusion with their sad and scattered mass audience - a degree of artistic autonomy only matched at the highest levels of the recording industry.

(written in 1996 btw)

i'm not arguing against anything you've said, in orbit, but i'd like to think that we can express concern about the systematic/industrial exploitation of female sex workers without negating their agency. i know it's a fine line though.

I think it's often taken for granted that men are the stand-ins for the viewers and are always pathetic in porn, and that the power dynamic is about enforcing that there's no source of power necessary (looks, economics, age) for the men other than... being male.

That's from the all-sex-is-a-power-play school, but I think there's something to that

xxp i imagine the rise of "amateur" porn has altered that landscape considerably, especially in the lower economic rungs of the porn ladder.

Is kink.com stuff considered gonzo? I guess that's not even clear b/c they have like 6 categories which may not all work out the same at all.

Also the fact that for a signif amt of time, this happened without anyone saying that it was an all-male convo that was tending more and more to a kind of cerebral/hypothetical level that's out of reach of a lot of people whose contributions might be just as deserving, if not more so based on their own involvement or experience.

― lets just remember to blame the patriarchy for (in orbit), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 21:02 (21 minutes ago)

if someone had intimate personal involvement in the subject i'm fairly sure they would be considered a hundred times more interesting than the undergrad ethics spiel itt, even by the amateur ethicists themselves

if someone had intimate personal involvement in the subject

uh some people in this thread have and have brought up their own experiences

or at least alluded to them...

I have several friends who worked in the industry for a few years but their second-hand reportage is as close as I get

idk i haven't read it forensically but the only person afaict is <string of sinitic characters> who claims to have worked in the industry but doesn't discuss their own involvement

When I say personal involvement or experience I also mean the section where there was talk about what women want, the "WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?" story and how the author might have felt about that and whether we can reach any conclusions based on what little she told us, whether performers can and sometimes do like it, how do you ascertain "legitimacy" of desires when the parameters of all kinds of sexual experience & performance are set by patriarchy. Not only "Have u participated in the porn industry?" which is a pretty narrow question imo.

idg the inference in some of this. the conversation is happening, preferably or ideally it would have input from group or groups x, if there is no such input (for w/ever reason) then .... the conversation should stop? Acknowledge the limits of the group having it every couple of posts? Sackcloth and ash up in order to justify itself? idk.

Like I am not going to tell tt about the porn I watch or what I like or what I've done, and neither are the overwhelming majority of people, male OR female but possibly especially female because it's just oogier to be a woman telling men about your sexual self given that the real world is what it is, so KNOWING THAT, it would be really cool if when people talked about women's viewpoints and experiences it was with less desire to conclude something final about them as if all the evidence was in.

following up and departing slightly from in orbit's eloquent point, id actually be really curious to read something along the lines of a really thoughtful and careful account of what it's like to watch pornography, apart from the conditions of its production. like, a "phenomenology of porn" kinda thing. what do you see/feel/think when you see this?

poll: what kind of porn kinks you like: Y/N?

maybe think about the limitations of what you can assume and state those borders instead of pondering what other non-represented people want or making judgments about women in porn when their voices aren't represented? xxp

fwiw I've known a handful of women who are much more into gay porn (m/m) than they are m/f porn for a number of reasons

more penises?

j/k yeah I have anecdotally heard that as well

usually when hanging out at Good Vibrations lol

idg the inference in some of this. the conversation is happening, preferably or ideally it would have input from group or groups x, if there is no such input (for w/ever reason) then .... the conversation should stop? Acknowledge the limits of the group having it every couple of posts? Sackcloth and ash up in order to justify itself? idk.

interesting discussions are occasionally undone by ILX's inevitable "oh no, we're discussing this wrong!" moment, but i think it's constructive more often than not. i'm betting on this thread. i think it'll pull through.

For instance, it's the opposite of supportive to describe speakers having to double-check that their collective tone is respectful and thoughtful enough, esp if none of the discussed group is contributing, as "undoing" an "interesting" discussion. Maybe for someone who didn't have a problem with the tone that's true, but it pre-judges everyone who DID as obstructing a fascinating intellectual pursuit oh noes won't anyone think of the entertainment of the uninvolved. C'mon, dude, I know you don't mean exactly that but your choice of words SAYS that even if you didn't.

thats to prejudge that it can happen!

let's construct our positive feminist take on pornography without women

A 25-30 year old woman can take her own photos, make her own videos, post them on her own tumblr page, blog or create her own website and advertise using her blog, tumblr, porn forums or Facebook and charge "clients" using a PayPal account. She can do live cam on her own. She can be a teen, MILF, do lesbian, masturbation...sell her dirty panties, torn stockings, take photos of her feet, sell her stilettos one at a time, bras, anything she wears, used toys even.

I don't know how many porn companies are out there right now making it look like you just happened upon an enterprising sorority girl or housewife in some corner of cyberspace or how many real women are out there making money on their own. I'd like to have an idea though.

For instance, it's the opposite of supportive to describe speakers having to double-check that their collective tone is respectful and thoughtful enough, esp if none of the discussed group is contributing, as "undoing" an "interesting" discussion. Maybe for someone who didn't have a problem with the tone that's true, but it pre-judges everyone who DID as obstructing a fascinating intellectual pursuit oh noes won't anyone think of the entertainment of the uninvolved.

i was going for levity (a tricky move, i know). didn't intend to dismiss your reasonable concerns.

Though I'm still not sure which of my desires are legitimate within the patriarchal framework (haha), I've definitely enjoyed the whole discussion, but that's almost always true for me at ILX. There's a lot of common sense here.

tera: http://gizmodo.com/5941976/indentured-servitude-money-laundering-and-piles-of-money-the-crazy-secrets-of-internet-cam-girls-nsfw

I don't know how many porn companies are out there right now making it look like you just happened upon an enterprising sorority girl or housewife in some corner of cyberspace or how many real women are out there making money on their own. I'd like to have an idea though.

a big clue is gonna be if you're seeing ads for them

Yeah prolly. Look for the promotional push.

I read a history of porn book way back when which pointed out that one of the early avid consumers of porn - we're talking well before the '70s breakthrough - was the gay male audience. The porn itself was heterosexual, but a big portion of the audience was apparently deeply closeted gay men who did not otherwise have a lot of opportunities to ogle naked men. External money shot I believe evolved in part to appease that audience. Not sure where that plays into this conversation, but from the start men in porn have rarely been much more than animatronic props hired mostly for reliability, which is why so many stick around so long while the female performers cycle in and out.

that's a pretty novel etiology for the money shot but i don't buy it tbh

yeah I've read a lot of other explanations of the money shot that ring truer to me

curious what those are, this is something I've always found v offputting in hetero porn

Like I am not going to tell tt about the porn I watch or what I like or what I've done, and neither are the overwhelming majority of people, male OR female but possibly especially female because it's just oogier to be a woman telling men about your sexual self given that the real world is what it is, so KNOWING THAT, it would be really cool if when people talked about women's viewpoints and experiences it was with less desire to conclude something final about them as if all the evidence was in.

― lets just remember to blame the patriarchy for (in orbit), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 4:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is totally OTM btw, but let me also suggest that a lot of dudes in this thread are partly talking about things this way in order to dance around talking about their own porn habits and tastes because that's pretty uncomfortable as well?

curious what those are, this is something I've always found v offputting in hetero porn

― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 5:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dominance, "safe" symbolic violence, a visual analogue for pleasure and release, a cinematic (in the crudest sense) way of marking the end of a scene

others too, lots of interesting theories -- e.g. woman's "acceptance" of something the man is taught to think is wrong and dirty

or it could just be like a female porn actor recently blogged that she finds the alternative gross to film and also it cuts one risk vector a little further

that might be so! but when it comes to the world of gay barebacking porn (and believe me i'm not eager to delve into that ethical quagmire itt) the presentation of the cumshot gets complicated

there's a hetero genre like that, if we're traveling on the same subway here

I think facial cumshots are a little bit of everything mentioned thus far along with external cumshots (whether on the face or elsewhere) being further evidence of the reality of the sex act.

I don't think it's the fantasy of many men (aside from porn-induced, now) to stop sex or a blowjob in order to masturbate onto a partner - but the two alternatives are relatively unfilmable (though I was rick-rolled with a sex ed video with a camera inside the vagina that makes things altogether too real) and in one case introduce, as noted, further complications.

Technically unless Rick Astley was dancing inside of that vagina I don't think you were rickrolled

I don't think it's the fantasy of many men (aside from porn-induced, now) to stop sex or a blowjob in order to masturbate onto a partner

It seems like the kind of thing that would probably only have OCCURRED to like 1/100 as many men if it wasn't in porn so much, but that doesn't help explain why it caught on so heavily

cold-cocked

astley-2-m

It seems like the kind of thing that would probably only have OCCURRED to like 1/100 as many men if it wasn't in porn so much, but that doesn't help explain why it caught on so heavily

Otherwise it is called impregnation porn.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=creampie

sometimes it seems like porn is anti-sex propaganda.

Haven't been able to look at a money shot the same way since reading "Satori & Pornography: Canonization through Degradation" in the first Apocalypse Culture.

Its a shame that, as technology progresses, I won't be able leave my once complete collection of Candida Royale tapes to any potential teen San-spawnlings. I'd much rather see curious kids get exposed to normal, affectionate sex first, rather than random youpr0n search results.

lol "candida", etc

She's been doing the "feminist porn" perhaps longer than anyone (since 1984). And yep, I caught the yeast reference the first time I saw her name.

fantasy of many men (aside from porn-induced, now) to stop sex or a blowjob in order to masturbate onto a partner

One reason it happens in film so much is that supposedly the studs have too much trouble climaxing any other way. A convenient inconvenience.

a visual analogue for pleasure and release

This is often largely (er) on the money. There is no real clear visual representation of the female orgasm, and even then, they can be faked. The male equivalent, on the other hand (er, again) "proves' the deed has been done so dudes can identify.

^ suspect it's this more than anything else. male orgasm seems to be the "point" of sex from porn's pov. it's certainly the goal of the legions of male masturbators who consume porn. i don't imagine that's coincidental.

There was a black male porn star who had a blog and related the shame of being the guy who finishes to early during an orgy, iirc.

did he take a nap while everyone else finished up or

money shot also being a feature of porn's fetish for authenticity, as also displayed in gonzo porn - can't fake throwing up a goldfish etc.

pretty sure you can fake throwing up a goldfish

No, you dont understand, "you can't fake throwing up a goldfish" is an irish proverb

is goldfish vomiting a new gonzo theme?

jesus i hope not.

Two hurls one hiccup

SEXY

http://drawception.com/pub/panels/2013/4-1/wnGCM4zjzt-2.png

lol did you just draw that?

ejaculating a candiru fish

xp no, a GIS for "goldfish vomiting" is surprisingly fruitful and mostly SFW.

the internet has gotten so much better in the last five years

There's a funny Seth Meyers gag about going to college at the worst time possible, post-AIDS but pre-internet.

that's been bill simmons line for year, very likely that's where meyers picked it up

man, i wished there was no internet when i was in college. i would have probably been much more productive and involved on campus.

*wish

I probably would have switched colleges

hm, i might have as well bc freshman year would have been less bearable. however, i would have been more "out there" presumably, and would have met the people who would become my friends sooner. interesting thought experiment.

I'd be president by now

i probably would have been in the gym this whole time, doing plyometrics. i would be able to dunk.

in the absence of the internet, we relied on drugs to reveal secret messages in the carpet

Was going to say, I solved any productivity issues I might have had with copious amounts of weed

i had an open script for either adderall or dexedrine (i went back and forth) through college. god knows what objects my obsessive concentration would have zeroed in on if it wasn't for the internet's source of constant mental stimulation. i'm imagining an alternate universe where i read even more books by derrida and it is making me feel afraid. (love derrida... but doing my undergrad thesis on him, reading him late at night, nearly drove me mad)

(also when you try to jump into really dense critical theory without a solid philosophy background, the experience is pretty similar to looking for secret messages in the carpet.)

You know what I have wondered for years is: why can't people just use their imaginations when jerking it instead of watching pornography? This might sound facile and naive, but, wouldn't it be so much easier, morally? You'd never have to worry abut some performer accidentally getting butt herpes because YOU needed to masturbate.

Not trying to suggest some kind of gender essentialist thing at all but like that's basically all I've ever done, as a woman. There is a foolish, sentimental, probably terrible, Luddite part of myself, that thinks BEFORE the erotic daguerreotype started turning ladies into laudanum hussies, most everyone probably just had to think about someone they fancied –– and I find that way less repugnant than pornography, which can't be guaranteed not to be expolitative. Is it unfair to assume most people probably did that? Like that American Splendor strip where Harvey jerks it just thinking about an old lover. This is the safe and easy way!! Or maybe I am a prude!!

I like erotic fiction

Yeah I guess it is really film pornography that puts me off the most, old Hustler meat grinder cover & its ironic message aside.

why can't people just use their imaginations when jerking it instead of watching pornography? This might sound facile and naive, but, wouldn't it be so much easier, morally?

i gather you've never seen my imagination

The Creaming of Lot 49

i agree with you crabbits. i get that the human sexual imagination can be a scary place sometimes, and sexual fantasies will never be PC all the time. but why implicate real human beings in all of this? filmed porn no longer exists on the plane of fantasy because it really happened to a real person. that's why i was trying to tackle this from a labor angle rather than the era of asking whether porn is or is not "sexist." like, some sexual fantasies are weird, rooted in blah blah blah but the more pertinent question wrt porn is whether or not actual people are being hurt/exploited in this process

comes down to the old "why watch television, books are a better medium" thing maybe? I don't know, most people aren't very creative.

my visual imagination was always really bad. I still can't really create coherent-looking breasts for a particular woman in my mind

imagining is more work

i think i wrote a poem years ago where i used the phrase "incoherent breasts," but i'm not sure.

you should definitely participate in the ilx poetry contest

i plan to. i'm excited about it.

Probably if I was more gifted at drawing, I would have drawn a lot of women. I remember once as an adolescent I did a sort of passable job of drawing a naked woman and was very proud of myself, and I kept it under my bed. Weird sort of nostalgia for those days, when finding a single Playboy was a really big deal.

huh. i've always been perfectly satisfied with the incoherent coherence of imagination. it's like dreaming. things may not be fully formed, but i don't notice the fuzzy areas and bad joins. the meaning comes through.

i was about to say that even the most ardent porn consumers probably use their imaginations more often than not - but maybe that's not the case. it's weird to think about not being able to conjure up whatever one might want.

isn't the problem with imagination that it conjures up things you don't want? ex: jar-jar, for geo. lucas

that is def a problem for me, overactive mind, lots of distractions coming in

yeah i don't think i can stick to a single narrative, but montages are cool too

also xpost to philip, good example with jar jar lol

ium so horney

let's all beat off to fanfic, problem solved

xpost 'meesa horny' surely

For me, visual stimulus is a nice starter, but then sense-memory takes over to some extent.

My imagination's very adept. But even the best imagination needs something to start with, and for me that's always been words, not pictures. I guess that's kind of weird.

nah, when i was young, most of my sexual fantasies were based on the dirty parts of sci-fi books and stories i'd read. feel i dodged a bullet in not being sexually attracted to ipads or w/e.

A certain men's cologne is orgasmic simply because the guy who slow danced with me in the sixth grade was wearing it when he put his hand on the small of my back and gave me the creamies for the first time.

xp i think the words over images thing seems preferable, because you are grounding your fantasies in situations/narratives rather than projecting them onto "objects" of desire. maybe. laura mulvey to the thread.

haha, imagination. how am i supposed to jank my crinkle cut spud to that crap. *boots up jerkotron mark iv and virtual pusseys start squirting at my face* http://oi49.tinypic.com/33wy4au.jpg

i wonder if there are people who would love to wack off to the infinite number of free porn clips on the internet but choose to spank it to literature or memories instead out of a sense of social responsibility

sometimes it's just a sign that whatever you want to see can't legally be done

or physically!

first porn I ever found was a Penthouse Forum, I vividly remember a story involving Dr. Crusher's misuse of a sickbay bed and violation of doctor-patient ethics.

My imagination is much slower than the internet and my own personal fantasies are much too vague, dull, and non-addictive.

re: dr. crusher, the story where she humps her dead great-grandmother's alien ghost boytoy IS AN ACTUAL EPISODE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23pJ0aiyqk

Re: imagination. During the times on my life when pen/the internet wasn't readily available, my main inspiration were the people I was in love with or had crushes on, or like people I went to school with or coworkers.

These days, I for the most part use internet porn and do not fantasize about, for example, a female friend or the woman two cubicles down from mine or whatever. I haven't reflected on this for very long, but at the moment, I think it's probably way less creepy.

nah, fantasizing abt the people you know is way less weird than porn. like, i understand that some people fantasize about hot celebrities. i don't think i've ever done that.

xp Are those your only options though? I make an effort to keep my imagination imaginary.

A healthy(?) mix of various approaches works best

why is everybody saying what's "best"? different strokes, people. different strokes.

Mordy won the thread!

Isn't this thread about ethics, though? 'Best' is an ambiguous word in this context.

Tom D, I can't believe you actually used that word.

people didn't really need cameras. we are talking paleolithic here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_erotic_depictions

in other words, as old as sin!

there isn't really any ethical excuse for men. in the perfect sci-fi universe males would have testosterone levels lowered at birth (and semen would be harvested to meet responsible ecologically-sustainable population quotas) thus avoiding war, porn, and people being chained in basements for ten years. and then we would all be Canadian. but that might take a while.

http://femitheistreborn.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/international-castration-day-refined.html

ugh, please, acting like "testosterone" is an actual reason for any hateful thing is the same as acting like "testosterone" is an excuse for it.

- the production of "erotic depictions" has never been the sole province of men
- plenty of people with a full fucking testosterone load are capable of not harming others
- plenty of people with low levels of testosterone are capable of harming others
- if you don't think canadians have committed appalling crimes can in interest you in an interesting website known as google
- also connecting being canadian with being low-testosterone when you are identifying testosterone with masculinity (even if you are adopting a "no ethical excuse for men" pose) is a really bad look
- i guess what i'm saying is: i know you think that paragraph was cute but it was not cute

C sharp major otm

the "c" in "c sharp major" stands for "Canadian" and you'd best not forget that.

(and semen would be harvested to meet responsible ecologically-sustainable population quotas)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B01iNuhg0zk

I wasn't being cute. i'm all for nullifying the violent/aggressive behavior in men! true, I don't know what actually creates it or how to stop it, but its just a daydream anyway. just another wild fantasy really.

how's life, maybe it is YOU who are the canadian, did you think of that

I am an American of Canadian descent. I mean no harm.

The sharp def stands for sharp tho

the problem with phrases like "perfect sci-fi universe", "wild fantasy" is that they are precious in an alice-in-wonderland kind of way. it's a way of saying that there are only two possibilities: the actually existing world and a world that is impossible and unrealisable and founded in nothing other than parody of where we are now.

saying "there's no ethical excuse for men" is like saying "there is no ethical excuse for protein" -- it is an exaggeration that moves the playing field so somewhere so uneven that discussion is impossible.

i'm not actually canadian btw ;_;

well really there's no ethical excuse for anything so that comment didn't really bother me

i understand now! i just read an article. apparently if women had as much power as men have had they would be chaining people in basements just as much as men do. (in fact women ARE becoming more violent cuzza increased economic power.)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/experiments-in-philosophy/201202/why-are-men-so-violent

i apologize to all the men. its not your fault. it's just power's fault.

see, i figured out the world in an hour. there's hope yet...

like Kanye said, no one man should have all that power

and there's godwin's law satisfied, can we all go home now

sometimes it's just a sign that whatever you want to see can't legally be done

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, May 8, 2013 1:20 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or physically!

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, May 8, 2013 1:21 AM (10 hours ago)

whoa what kind of crazy shit are you into man

transsubstantiation

Body of christ compels u

"eat me as a wafer, oh yeah, that's it"

fjc

scott and DJP, you are killing me

Mordy won the thread!

― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, May 8, 2013 5:32 AM (7 hours ago)

yup :(

I'm sure he's delighted

Agree with Crabbits. My weird brain produces much hotter stuff than I can ever find in porn format. Most of the time when I decide to watch porn I spend more time searching for something good than actually watching it.

incidentally, I keep rereading that n+1 essay -- so fantastically good, and about a lot more than just this thread although relevant

I keep wondering if I'm somehow closed minded because so many of the depictions in that story either frighten, worry, or repulse me.

Don I think the writer is experiencing some of the same feelings you are feeling. Maybe she's not repulsed, but she seems to feel pretty distant from and baffled (if not judgmentally so) by the culture she's describing.

This line captures it, e.g.:

Sexual freedom has now extended to people who never wanted to shake off the old institutions, except to the extent of showing solidarity with friends who did. I have not sought so much choice for myself, and when I found myself with no possibilities except total sexual freedom, I was unhappy.

I used to find BDSM/fetish-stuff bizarre, if not repulsive, but after listening to a couple of podcasts I started to understand it more as something I don't think I could experience - 'entering into the scene,' inner exploration, engaging in the moment, etc.; language that's completely foreign to me just as when people talk about acting or improv. Only this involves sex and whips, which makes it even more foreign.

The older I get, and the more I understand the complicated nest of instinct/inhibition/influence I call my own desires, the less baffled I am by anyone else's.

acc to salon's sex writer, consent and abuse are real problems in bdsm scenes

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/03/a_bdsm_blacklist/
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/29/real_abuse_in_bdsm/

Er, worth pointing out that sex is not porn.

mm, but the n+1 article that this thread was most recently revived for does focus quite heavily on bdsm porn whose creators use the language and concepts of the bdsm scene.

I thought it was another article, the nplusone handwringing came a bit later?But crucially the abuse in the S+M scene (and I'm definitely not saying there isn't any) is not the same context as "Let's get a film crew in here and waivers for everyone"

What does ilx think about prostitution? Should it be legal?

http://www.ilxor.com/s.png

What does ilx think about prostitution? Should it be legal?

― Mordy , donderdag 9 mei 2013 17:04 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The question, star boy, should be if it should be or stay illegal imho

How exactly does your question differ from mine?

World of difference. To ~think about it~ from the complete other side. If you can answer why it should be illegal (or not), perhaps it makes the question if it should be legal much easier to answer.

I don't know where you are but in most of the United States it is currently illegal. My asking if it should be legal was simply acknowledging that current legal precedent. I think both questions are functionally equivalent though: should it be illegal? should it be legal? Both ask you to make a judgement about its state of legality. I'm not sure that changing the wording is as enlightening as you're suggesting.

Apparently in HK prostitution legal, pimping illegal. interesting solution.

Mordy you're just thinking about it, you need to ~think about it~. The world of difference I assure you.

Ok Mordy, I understand (thought you were in the UK all this time btw! - not that prostitution is legal there, but). My remark probably came from being in a country where it is legal, albeit under restrictions getting tightened all the time. Nevermind me turning it around, sorry to confuse.

@Philip, it depends on the definition of a 'pimp', but I can see that, for 'pimps' can easily exploit women. Do you mean in HK all prostitutes work for themselves? Have their own business, in that regard?

xp

lol

I just really wanted to say "star boy" tbh

I'm actually very gratified that you thought I was from the UK. Almost all my favorite posters are.

boy_estrella xp

ahem, favourite* xp

lol in my (totes affectionate) screen name parody I found it hard not to type "mouldy"

That 'almost' saves yr ass

i assumed he was thinking of u when he wrote uk

we're almost uk tbrr

^citizen of the auk

I was totes thinking of you, darragh!

Aukland

di gyal dem wah star bwoy, him derail thread about di blue movies

(sorry had to)

I thought that was Welsh for a second.

Hebrew iirc

so that witt essay has hit a nerve!

a whole passel of conservative dudes have reacted to it and batted around a bunch of its key concepts; all of which is summarized, with his own reactions, by pascal gobry here:

http://theamericanscene.com/2013/05/15/a-glimpse-of-hell

needless to say the worldview and frame of ref is perfectly 180 degrees set against the general tenor of this thread, but it's pretty interesting stuff nonetheless. alan jacobs quotes a nice sharon olds poem in entirety. so there's that.

What’s most striking about BDSM is how much of a prisoner it is of Christian sexual ethics. For all the talk of BDSM practitioners about how they are free from “vanilla” sexuality, they are in fact their slave: they simply take vanilla sexuality, and then do the opposite. If you define yourself in opposition to something you are not free from it; you are enslaved to it.

this thought has often occurred to me tbh. kinda like how Satanism is only really interesting if yr a Catholic/Xtian etc

i don't really agree w/ his take on BDSM, but you're right about satanism!

somehow I don't think "I'm freaking out the Christians!" is high in the thought processes of someone getting tied up and smacked with a paddle

do you think the concept of transgression is central to BDSM y/n?

xp

i think that's a minor concern, honestly. main drivers are what it says on the label: control and pain! i'm not in 'the scene' tho so what do i know.

all cards on the table here, as you may have guessed I'm not into BDSM or part of the "scene" here in SF and the majority of my familiarity with it comes from hanging around people who are/were into it (primarily when I was in my 20s) and talking with them about it. and yes for some of them the primary motivation did seem to be "ooh look how naughty I am being, freaking out the SQUARES" - which, you know, okay whatever floats your boat, it makes no difference to me, but why do you care what squares think anyway.

well let's be fair, for a significant portion of ppl in their 20s pick their shoes based on whether or not it will freak out the SQUARES; the impulse may not actually be about sexual gratification at all

most bdsm people just want to do the things that peel their spud without anyone bothering them or making a big deal out of it

huh, that though has never occurred to me.

i've always seen BDSM as its own thing, a standalone that exists independent of any other conception of sex & romance. it reaches out into other conceptions, but isn't necessarily dependent on them. of course this doesn't prevent people from seeking it out as a "satanic" alternative to "normal sex", but i don't imagine that's at the root of most BDSM. i see power as the root of BDSM, the unvarnished interest in power as an important aspect of human relations.

tbh, and in stark contrast to what PE gobry argues in piece linked, i see power as an essential component of traditional christian marriage and relationship models, too. i.e., this is horseshit:

If you could have a definition of Christian sex, a good one would be “a radical denunciation of power”—so of course BDSM must be all about power. If Christian sex is all about self-giving, then BDSM is all about possession.

"that thought" being the "BDSM = look mom & dad, i'm a naughty satanist!" thing

transgression is a good point though. i think a lot of kink (not all, but a lot) is about transgression. and contemporary american christianity is about non-transgression, about orthodox conformity. so in that sense they are opposed, but both are cart and neither the horse.

I think explicitly tagging it as Xtian is kind of a red herring - the transgression angle, the flaunting of/challenge to orthodoxy, the doing something that is "wrong" (and reveling in the shame/punishment related to same) seems to be the central aspect

that Christian angle is funny since you could argue that sex within the context of christianity is all about BDSM and that the sort of thing going on in the Witt essay is just the substance of the thing minus the ideological context which makes it meaningfully transgressive. but there's always been a, let's call it "sexual," dynamic to self-abasement. Nietzsche memorably states that the radical acetic is the most perverted of all because they've made the denial of desire itself into a fetish.

ascetic that is.

the thing about BDSM i could never get my head around is that the enjoyment of it, the enjoyment produced by the thrill of coming up against a limit point at which self-identity and control are truly on the verge of being lost, would seem to predicate that you honestly feel not in control of the situation, or that the "punishment" actually hurt--but in so many of these cases, even if the pain or loss of control is in some sense real, it's still a highly controlled situation. it's hard to see how that could lead to the desired effect.

on the other hand, i think a lot of sexual fantasies for many people are most exciting as fantasy. if they became real they'd be weird or scary somehow. and perhaps what BDSM allows is simply a more fully realized fantasy than a taste of the "real," so to speak. put another way, it's just as much a performance as traditional sexual relationships.

you'd be surprised how real shit gets

i phrased that poorly: i mean that BDSM in the psychoanalytic sense merely enacts a performance of the "real" (and thus a kind of suture of it) rather than a real threat of it.

xpost: im sure i would! just vanilla dude here thinking out loud.

i phrased that poorly: i mean that BDSM in the psychoanalytic sense merely enacts a performance of the "real" (and thus a kind of suture of it) rather than a real threat of it.

― ryan, Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this is true too though

the enjoyment of it, the enjoyment produced by the thrill of coming up against a limit point at which self-identity and control are truly on the verge of being lost, would seem to predicate that you honestly feel not in control of the situation, or that the "punishment" actually hurt--but in so many of these cases, even if the pain or loss of control is in some sense real, it's still a highly controlled situation. it's hard to see how that could lead to the desired effect.

well, we know that the things we see in horror movies aren't real. still get a thrill from the fear tho. generally speaking, the satisfaction of sexual fantasies doesn't necessarily depend on the belief that the fantasy-state is literally attained (or even attainable). sometimes a diaper, or a "schoolgirl" dress, or a pair of handcuffs will be enough.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/the-ethics-of-extreme-porn-is-some-sex-wrong-even-among-consenting-adults/275898/

That pretty much exactly nails my feelings on it.

more musing: it's funny how much this discussion seems parallel to a book im currently reading on aesthetic theory after adorno--that is, the fate of art after the "end of tradition" in which all forms and materials become available. what's left, argues the author, is the reproduction of art's difference from other forms of communication. so postmodern art reproduces the distinct art/non-art within art.

if you applied that logic here you'd probably say something like "extreme porn" reproduces the pleasure/pain distinction on the side of pleasure ("sexual" pleasure) as a way of making it new, interesting, vital, etc. this isn't to make a moral judgment on it one way or the other though.

idk, it is interesting that this article has touched off such a big discussion in the 'thoughtful' christian man zone of the blogosfeer. none of these guys seems willing to go down two different avenues tho (imo): first, what exactly do they mean by 'degradation' how does that map precisely onto bdsm acts in sex; second, apart from consent making 'degradation' ok (or not), how do they account for the desire itself? ie the desire some have to be dominating, to be rough, and of others, to be dominated, to be roughed up. do they think that desire like this precedes 'christian' attempts to keep humans pointed toward the light -- or is it the opposite, that people would be a lot more loving had not the internet put bdsm acts in front of them? this would seem to be a crucial question for that worldview but none of them go near it (if it even matters if they did...)

makes me think of the old cliche: if everything is sexual or "pornified" (as some might argue about our society) then nothing is. likewise, in a strictly puritan society i can imagine everything has the potential for a sexual charge. (thinking about Victorians getting hot and bothered at the sight of an ankle).

or really (to bring the "fuck you jesus" discussion back) how their wish to see everyone behave is maybe sort of a little bit related to the desire to sexually dominate someone? there's a reason doms dress like nazis, right? crucial insight from bdsm people seems to be that questions of possession and power are inextricable from any kind of sex -- and these commentators are reacting by saying a religious or traditional worldview insists on the radical equality of men and women in sexual matters, which, you know, bullshit!

questions of possession and power are inextricable from any kind of sex

but not really

cosign, "this is what's actually true of sex for all people" is permanently a bad look

yep

+1

there's a reason doms dress like nazis, right?

brb need to rewatch The Night Porter for important thread research

the thing about BDSM i could never get my head around is that the enjoyment of it, the enjoyment produced by the thrill of coming up against a limit point at which self-identity and control are truly on the verge of being lost, would seem to predicate that you honestly feel not in control of the situation, or that the "punishment" actually hurt--but in so many of these cases, even if the pain or loss of control is in some sense real, it's still a highly controlled situation. it's hard to see how that could lead to the desired effect.

on the other hand, i think a lot of sexual fantasies for many people are most exciting as fantasy. if they became real they'd be weird or scary somehow. and perhaps what BDSM allows is simply a more fully realized fantasy than a taste of the "real," so to speak. put another way, it's just as much a performance as traditional sexual relationships.

― ryan, Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i dunno if sex and desire can be ascribed such willfulness, seems like what turns the crank for some people is just this thing that turns the crank - oftentimes inexplicable, of course rationalizable after the fact, but those rationales don't work for everyone or even for other members of the same scene

speaking as a vanilla straight white dude btw

hmmmm

now is not the time for motorboating

speaking as a vanilla straight white dude btw

― 乒乓

wtf... i thought 乒乓 was dayo

lol DJP

im white btw

dayo is white

乒乓, i think i agree. part of the difficulty of talking about something like this is that it's too easy to slip between doing a kind of ethnography of the BDSM "scene," or an analysis of BDSM as a kind of social communication, and then the individual psychology of particular members (which can include as many reasons for their involvement as there individuals). and im not sure you can really square any of these analyses with any of the others.

is this thread unreadable should I try

i think the consent question is interesting because, even if we can question all day what it means to "consent" to something, for BDSM it seems like part of the game is to give consent to have things like control, determination, gratification (momentarily) taken away from you. like a form of autoimmunity! consent shading into non-consent, or at least pushing at the limit of what consent can, well, consent to.

the whole point strikes me identifying consent as a paradox, but one safely within a normal societal standard (even a legalistic one) of consent.

except until you consent to have somebody else cut off your penis, sauté it in butter, feed it to you, then kill you and hang you up in their meat locker

haha, yes exactly.

don't knock it till you've tried it

eh sorry to sound normative there, dudes, i was presenting what i take to be (vaguely) the 'bdsm theoretical' position on what desire is or how it works. and it's not like i have any particular thinker in mind. the point is the christian men who started this part of the discussion apparently have NO concept of what desire is or how it works, which leads into why consent is so crucial, imo.

questions of possession and power are inextricable from any kind of sex

but not really

― i gave ten pounds and all i got was a lousy * (darraghmac), Thursday, May 16, 2013 12:05 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, in the most banal sense everything is implicated in everything else. so they have a point, insofar as the notion "the personal is political" has any meaning at all

but stuff like this fails to make distinctions between personal activities that are like, deeply implicated in power imbalances and those where it's not a huge factor

more generalizations at 11

they also miss that the importance of power imbalance, play and transaction in human sexual relations is subjective and mostly a product of interest level. if you're obsessed with such things, then of course they seem not only crucial but omnipresent. if, otoh, you're not at all interested, they become a trivial detail.

That Atlantic essay is must-read. Between the Witt and this, it's kind of remarkable that this subject is being discussed and debated to this degree of civility and intelligence. Who found have guessed that extreme BDSM would be the getaway to some pretty heady and heavy philosophical juggling?

the Marquis de Sade?

Nah, that dude was a chump.

S&M is not a relationship between he (or she) who suffers and he (or she) who inflicts suffering, but between the master and the one on whom he exercises his mastery.
http://trikster.net/blog/wp-content/2010/09/michel-foucault-300x300.jpg

Obv needed quotes there. Full quote from noted BDSM practioner Michel Foucault:

S&M is not a relationship between he (or she) who suffers and he (or she) who inflicts suffering, but between the master and the one on whom he exercises his mastery. What interests the practitioner of S&M is that the relationship is at the same time regulated and open. It resembles a chess game in the sense that one can win and the other lose. The master can lose in the S&M game if he finds he is unable to respond to the needs and trials of his victim. Conversely, the servant can lose if he fails to meet or can’t stand meeting the challenge thrown at him by the master. This mixture of rules and openness has the effect of intensifying sexual relations by introducing a perpetual novelty, which the simple consummation of the act lacks.

that sounds really stressful

Don't ask me - I'm nowhere near finding vanilla sex boring and pretty much avoid drama whenever possible. But I can appreciate that if sex is a big enough part of someone's life, a bit a novelty would be welcome.

My novelties of late have come in the form of beans.

where do you put them

Stews, mostly.

oh some kinda masterchef game cool

My understanding (2nd hand and perhaps dated) is that there's a strong disproportion in the BDSM community between willing servants and rare (good) masters.

There are vaguely similar dynamics of control and instinctive acquiescence in social dancing, and on that subject I can say good leaders are a good deal rarer than good followers - in part this is because the form prohibits dominant/games playing women from taking the leader role.

http://pedapostmoderna.tumblr.com/post/52042207690/dirty-coursebooks-by-pavel-fuksa-and-karolina-gal-cz

lol this graphic

http://25.media.tumblr.com/693f3aaaf571909f29380cc532d80467/tumblr_mnrai5tCzI1qzamioo4_250.jpg

curious as to what folks think about something like MakeLoveNotPorn.tv regarding this threads subjects

NSFW ^^ sorry forgot to flag it

haha somehow I don't think that being NSFW should be a surprise

well, lest the "NotPorn" part mislead anybody

MakeLoveNotPorn.AmishStyle.tv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWpHRrXa9c8

well, lest the "NotPorn" part mislead anybody

― ⚓ (elmo argonaut), Thursday, June 6, 2013 3:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't care _what_ kind of porn it is!

i haven't really looked into it closely but i thought it might be an interesting evolution on the amateur / exhibitionist / participatory aspects of internet porn, but with a mission of content from "real people" that's focused on consent & context? sure seems pretty ambitious tho