Originally a comment by Marcus Ranum on Oops I forgot to do a title.
TRIGGER WARNING: serial killer, murder
1. The audience is different. Porn is for adults, whereas video games are generally at least in part intended for younger audiences.
Apparently you haven’t heard of the internet. Which is amazing, since you’re using it to post your comments.
2. Porn isn’t intended to be normative. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t function that way, of course, but it generally isn’t intended as such by either producer or consumer.
Intent is totally magical. Because if I don’t intend to hurt anyone when I drive drunk, it doesn’t count if I actually run over a dozen nuns, right? Of course porn is normative. Indeed, we have been effectively mainstreaming it and removing age controls for the last decade.
I don’t know if there have been any interesting advances in our understanding of fetishization and what used to be called paraphilias since I was an undergrad in the early 1980s but even at that time my impression was that “early impressions matter” (pace Freud) and a young person’s sexualization is critical to their adult sexuality (i.e.: sex is largely a learned behavior in humans). If that’s the case, then society may be reinforcing rape culture, dominance, and other fetishes in people at a younger age. If anyone reading this has any references on that subject, I’m interested; I’ll do some research of my own tonight during my evening reading time.
Kink exists. Kink is, in large part, about pretend scenarios of people abusing each other and getting off on it.
I am tempted to observe that you clearly know nothing about kink, or are so kinked that you see everything through the lens of your kink only.
Kink certainly exists. But, why? I am not saying there is anything wrong with kink – if you go back and re-read what I wrote earlier, the issue I am raising is whether there is something wrong with mainstreaming something that may not be understood by the viewer, deliberately or accidentally. I haven’t watched any gestapo/concentration camp porn but I’m rather willing to bet that the person in the SS uniform doesn’t grab the person in rags with the shaved head by the (oops, no hair) front of their rag smock and ask them politely if they consent. Maybe you can correct me, if I am wrong about this. I am very happy to be wrong about this.
Saying “kink exists” with the implication that kink will always exist does not get you automatically to “… therefore its OK.” Perhaps where we should be going is asking whether some kinds of kink reinforce and establish harmful societal norms. Perhaps some forms of kink should be put in the closet.
There are plenty of women who get off on porn that depicts women as weak and helpless. That’s not wrong.
I know a guy who gets off on porn that depicts women as murdered then used for sex. One of my kinkster model friends has been in a lot of those videos, covered in stage blood with a silicone throat-cut moulage. Sure, and it’s a safe and healthy way for a single mom to make a living but … sometimes she knows what’s going on in the videographer’s mind while he’s shooting it. Maybe what you see is a healthy escape-valve for a kinked guy and a safe living for a single mom who enjoys working the flexible hours. Me? It creeps me the fuck out, and I’m a kinkster and I’ve been a pornographer. I know another guy in the kink community (hey, maybe you know Moraxian?) whose idea of sexuality is pictures of girls (it’s always girls) “in distress” – by which I mean tied to a table about to be cut with a power-saw, or duct taped to a chair with a fake bomb in their lap. The images are consistently low quality and, when I asked him about it, he explained that high quality photography ruins his customers’ fantasies. Presumably because his customers’ fantasies consist of having a serial killer-style image stash. Who is unhealthy in that situation:
a) the photographer
b) the photographer’s customer
c) me, for thinking the photographer and his customers are disturbing
d) all of the above
The issue I am trying to expose here is the line between when two consenting adults do something for their own enjoyment, and when consenting adults mainstream something that may contribute to a dangerous cultural trend. Yes, we find it appropriate to critique mainstream movies (consider “Django Unchained” and its representation of racism and violence) if they appear to be promoting racism or sexism or fascism or … fuck, whatever’s dangerous. We find it appropriate when the Myth Busters say “don’t try this at home, kids!” when they are making explosions. We find it appropriate (most of us, anyhow, barring a few misogynist cranks) when someone makes a feminist critique of video games. It is appropriate to make a feminist critique of porn, too.
How about a feminist critique of fundamentalist Christianity’s patriarchial “Christian Domestic Discipline” (CDD)? This is a community that promotes child-beating (in one book unfortunately popular among these twisted individuals, starting at 3 months). Surprise, surprise, when the adults don’t seem to get past that and incorporate wife-spanking into their relationship. For those who would like a bit more information, here are a few sites that review more disturbing sites:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2007/05/shes-no-pervert.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20070805071450/http://infidelismaximus.blogspot.com/2007/07/ive-seen-it-all-now-i-can-die.html
Oh, you better believe there’s more – this one’s a serious site – be warned: https://web.archive.org/web/20080912215124/http://blog.christiandomesticdiscipline.com/
The blogger wisely took it down some years back when the two reporters above caused unwelcome attention to be focused on their seamy little subculture, but nothing truly disappears off the internet.
It’s an entire subculture with special clothes (just for the abused wives), special beating tools (for their ever-lovin’ dom husbands), and special novels where those uppity, rebellious women are spanked into joyful, grateful submission by their God-appointed rulers, their husbands. With lots of Jesus, naturally. It’s ghastly, but these are individuals who were beaten as children and who never were able to develop any sense of outrage at this indignity/violation of their basic human rights. Thus, they are doomed to repeat it. Until they die, or get it right so that their husbands no longer believe they need “correction”. And that’s never going to happen, honey.
Marcus, thanks for the thoughtful comment. I have been trying to articulate what I find troubling about porn, the internet, culture and kids and I think you’ve done a good job. So my question is this, what do we do? Should we do anything? For those who have kids what should they do? I think of all the teenagers out there (and younger kids too!) with their smart phones and access to literally anything, and that the porn industry is putting forth porn that has themes that I don’t think should necessarily shape the sexuality of young people, or teach them about what sex is. I just don’t know how it should be handled, if it should be handled.
The problem is not critiquing porn or video games, the problem is when people make biased critiques based on blatantly untrue claims or misleading generalizations.
For example, recently in my Facebook feed, someone posts an article about seven men and one woman arrested for prostitution. The police put out a self-congratulating PR claiming that their sting operation has prevented the evils of human trafficking. Only the woman hasn’t complained about being trafficked and is presumably none too happy about being charged with prostitution. So we have the urban legend that every prostitute is the victim of human trafficking being used to justify criminalizing a victimless crime.
There are certainly some video games that have appalling sexist and violent plot lines. The Grand Theft Auto series seems to have been written by a bunch of thugs. But very few of the folk who use GTA as an example of a sick video game acknowledge that it is an exception rather than the rule.
This is even more so with porn. The dirty secret of the porn industry is that people don’t actually look very different when they take their clothes off and there are only so many orifices and so many ways they can be penetrated, only so many genders, skin tones, body styles, etc. While the combinatorics are large, they are not infinite and the Internet porn mountain exhausted them all years ago.
So we are now at a point where the law of supply and demand have driven the cost of vanilla porn down to essentially zero. There is no shortage of sites who will provide unlimited access to 500+ hours worth of porn for $30/month (of which half goes to the affiliate in referral fees). And much of that content has bled out to outlets like tumblr where it can be found for free (try site:tumblr.com and your favorite porn keywords on a google image search).
As a result, commercial porn has been forced to go outside the mainstream because that is the only area where there is margin left. And even that is under threat from sites like fetlife where people put up pictures of themselves for free.
Yes there are some horrid things on the Internet. But until they regulate the guns, I am not prepared to see any of it regulated. If a video game might encourage violent behavior then how much more powerful is giving a person access to a tool whose sole purposes are to kill people and to stroke the egos of the people who own them by the fact they are tools to kill people. If violent porn might encourage violence then how much more encouraging is a tool whose sole purpose is to make death easy?
The research results as they currently stand are fairly clear: violent media decreases violence in society, increased availability of pornography decreases rape.
So which is more important: your personal ick-reaction from a kink you don’t share, or the effect on society as a whole? And if you’re going to claim that something is dangerous to society, shouldn’t you have a responsibility to produce evidence to that effect?
@Andrew G.
Do you have any examples of the research you’re referring to? I’m not challenging your statement, just that I’ve been looking for good studies on the topic for a while, and the ones I’ve seen are mostly inconclusive either way (or have poor methodology).
@Andrew G. Citation needed. Stop with the hand-waving sociology.
Andrew G.
I don’t think that is so much the question. People have kinks, and as long as they are engaging with other consenting adults, I have no problem. What I do question is the online mainstreaming of certain kinks so that they are the first sexual images that many young people may encounter. Porn, by itself, is beautiful people having sexy times, in a clearly consenting and sexily presented way, no? Which is great. Whatevs. But that is not what you get when you google for porn. You get specific, graphic and sometimes violently themed images (that while they may appeal to a certain kink demographic, are not necessarily a beneficial heuristic for every curios teen) that that teen will masturbate to. And probably orgasm. And orgasm is a hell of a reinforcement. Leading me to wonder if we are shaping and guiding our youth with a somewhat skewed idea of what sexuality is.
–
Sure, some women get off on being slapped, forcefully penetrated, and covered in ejaculate by multiple men, but that is not every woman’s cup of tea. If this is what young people are seeing as regular sex., I think there could be a problem. There was the recent case of the students in Oklahoma (I think) with a high school rapist, he showed a video of his assault of one young woman to another young woman and her response was something like “She was screaming, they were having sex. I didn’t know it was rape”. And therein lies my worry. If kink porn is all the porn that is easily accessed, without the understanding of the nuanced level of consent, how will young people be able to navigate sexual encounters?
(Interesting that commercial porn has descended into psychopathic criminality because everything less revolting is already out there for cheap and free. I hadn’t heard that before, but it rings true.)
Anyway, what I got into comments for was to say two things. 1) Expressions whose purpose is to hurt a specific class of people are hate speech. Women are the only group where people, plenty of them women, don’t, won’t, or can’t see that. That tells you something, no?
2) Porn is in the business of using bodies, mainly female, to make money in some way. That’s on the same continuum as slavery, no matter whether users make quick denials. Buying people, including temporarily, including long distance, is participating in slavery. That is not okay.
How on earth could anyone apply those principles? No idea, of course.
Nonetheless, for groups other than women, when people have managed to get their heads around the concept that it is a Bad Thing to dump on them, then at least in mainstream society much of the dumping stops. So maybe if people of goodwill stopped trying to convince themselves that hurting women is okay because look! sex! then this garbage might pollute fewer humans.
Quixote, no. Women are not the only group dumped on by society. Porn is not on the continuum on slavery. Just no.
Haven’t read the comments above, but I have to say I agree with you Marcus (&, apparently Ophelia). And I found Greta’s recent article which basically said anything in porn goes as long as participants (i.e. the real people, though not necessarily the portrayed characters) consent, to be uncomfortable and problematic. How can it be that in video games raping, degrading, objectifying, and dehumanising women is objectionable, but in porn it’s transformed into being “kink” so now it’s magically okay?
And pulling out the consent card can’t really do the job, since the “women” in video games don’t even actually exist–they were created out of pure imagination, more like characters in written erotica than people portrayed in porn.
*In terms of consent that is. Of course in terms of how they would affect normalisation, video game women and live action porn women are more similar.
Here’s a review article: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2005to2009/2009-pornography-acceptance-crime.html
See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/22/social-psychology-is-a-flamethrower/ which has more links
I did a fairly extensive hunt for material on both sides of the issue back in the early days of Taslima’s blog here where she did some anti-porn and anti-sex-work posts (and before that in an old dust-up on Scienceblogs). There are some very limited studies that exposed individual subjects to a lot of porn and found some kind of change in reported attitude to rape, but it’s very hard to show that these mean anything at all outside the lab; in contrast, we have the observational evidence from legalization of porn and spread of internet access in many countries.
RE @4 Andrew and @3: “If a video game might encourage violent behavior”
That’s not what we’re seeing. A chart drawn from Department of Justice statistics: http://mic.com/articles/24531/video-games-and-gun-violence-no-studies-link-games-to-gun-crime
It’s just down the article a bit. We are seeing HISTORIC low rates of crime – lower than ever before in history. And the violent criminals are also less likely to be consumers of such media.
One likely scenario is that young men, who constitute the most likely demographic for violent crime, are staying home to play violent video games instead of going out roaming the streets and looking for trouble. From what I’ve seen, having cultivated a “boys’ house” where the neighborhood teen males could hang out and, yes, play violent video games (with plenty of delicious snacks and positive, affirmative interactions with the resident adults), none has used drugs or become involved with “bad influences”, including gangs. Oh, there was lots of salty language, to be sure, but no violence, whether between the boys observed or between them and other boys in the community (unlike other groups of teen boys left roaming the neighborhood instead of reporting to a similar “boys’ house”).
Marcus:
I think it’s a very, very bad way of formulating the problem. Practically everything *may* not be understood and in general it’s not a reason to treat something as an “issue”. Example: are you criticizing sexist tropes? Well, you *may* be misunderstood then and received as a sex-hating prude. Yes, you *may*. The question is: so what? Does criticizing sexist tropes become an “issue” because of this? Is a mere indication of such a possibility a valid antifeminist objection? I don’t think so, do you?
This formulation is imo much better. Here you are asking about facts, not about mere possibilities. What are our facts, then?
For God’s sake, can we stop using the “may” word? Do we really want to shame and marginalize people, do we want to “put them in the closet” (whatever that means: would a good ole fashioned public humiliation be enough? Or is a legal ban called for?) for what *may* happen?
Sorry Marcus (and Ibis #10, by the way), but in this I’m with Greta. I think it’s indeed appropriate to make a feminist critique of porn. I remember Greta wrote this as well (very explicitly). This is not the issue. The issue is rather *how* to criticize it without shaming and marginalizing kinksters for being kinky. How to find a proper balance – that’s what I see as the real task.
How about saying goodbye to this horrible “may” word for a start? How about claiming instead that “this-and-this contributes to a dangerous cultural trend” (no “may”), with real arguments given in support of factual claims? How about being very careful with declaring someone’s fantasies as unhealthy and creepy?
Two remarks about “unhealthy and creepy” for the end.
Firstly: Marcus, you described yourself as a “kinkster and a pornographer”. I’m sure you realize that for some people this in itself would be enough to see you as “unhealthy and creepy”, do you? Do you really think that in the context of discussing social effects of porn, it’s such a good idea to promote our individual boundaries?
Secondly: shame and guilt are very real. Marginalization is also real and painfully felt. I hope you won’t mind me saying that I know it from my own experience. It took me over 13 years of marriage to be open, even with the person who has my full love and trust. Believe me, it’s real. What I wrote about the need for balance was not a mere rhetoric.
@Ariel
Do you or do you not accept that rape culture exists? Do you accept that real women are objectified and dehumanised in most media? Do you honestly want to suggest that the normalisation of sexual objectification has no effect whatsoever on the way that people behave or the attitudes they hold? As far as I can see, the only other option is to conclude as the religious fundamentalists and MRAs do–that men are inherently misogynist assholes that are hardwired to treat women like property for their own gratification, so we’d best suck it up and stop trying to change society.
So porn became easily available so it became more difficult for producers to come up with new material. I understand so far.
What I don’t understand is why the next step is violence. I don’t understand why there’s supposed to be this automatic, natural link between the two, or even the idea that they’re the same thing, with sex the mild version and violence the “extreme” version.
I don’t understand why we don’t (and don’t prefer to) see them as radically different, instead.
Ibis #15
Thank you for starting with questions. Seriously. It’s good to be reminded that there are people who ask first.
Your questions are pretty general and frankly, I would be surprised to discover a serious disagreement between us on such a general level. Objectification and dehumanization of women in the media? Sure, there is plenty of it! Rape culture? I use this term very rarely, but again, I would be surprised if we were not in agreement on most elements. As to your specific question:
The answer is: on the contrary, such a suggestion would be patently false.
Ibis, it’s not here where we disagree. The disagreement lies elsewhere.
The fragment of the OP which provoked me most was about “some forms of kink” which “should be put in the closet”. I read also the comments, with your remark about Greta’s latest piece. You know – her latest piece concerned the law. It was not about culture. It was about a legal ban.
It is here, in this context, where I find normalization arguments dangerous. Kinky porn normalizes violence and objectification, you say, and normalization influences people? Therefore … therefore what, Ibis? Therefore, some forms of kink should be put in the closet? (Which forms and why only those? Are other forms less effective in normalizing violence? If so, how do we know it? Or is it just that the chosen forms are more … you know, more ew?) Therefore, kinksters should be made ashamed of themselves, full of guilt and fear? Therefore, kinky materials should be banned? Please, tell me which of these conclusions you accept.
If your only reaction is readiness for some cultural criticism, then … fine, go ahead. But if you opt for anything more radical, please, be prepared to produce radically strong arguments. You must be able to explain why those-and-those forms of kink were singled out. You must explain why the people who already know a lot about shame, will be shamed by you even more. You should explain it to those who are going to pay the price.
Wait a damn minute there. Why are you even asking that question? Is Anita Sarkeesian trying to pass laws regulating video games? Is she calling for such laws? No, she’s calling for creators to do better. Why assume anything else is at stake here?
This is a classic strawman, equating criticism with demands for repressive laws.
Ophelia #18, the question was directed to Ibis, who wrote (see #10):
Greta’s recent article concerned a legal ban. Ibis called this article “uncomfortable and problematic”. That was the reason to ask the question. See the connection? The question was directed to Ibis and Ibis only. It has nothing to do with Anita Sarkeesian.
It’s not the next step. It’s one subcategory among many. This survey of mainstream internet pornography found that most videos did not have violence and that the most common violence (spanking) was very rarely portrayed as non-consensual or displeasing to the recipient. As the paper notes, on the other hand, pornography featuring non-consensual violence absolutely does exit among a diverse number of other categories.
Ariel – ok. Beg pardon for the acerbity of my response.
Link didn’t work – http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2014.976781#tabModule
until they regulate the guns, I am not prepared to see any of it regulated
“Dear Muslima….”
I’m not talking about regulation. Critique is not regulation. I think it is reasonable to ask “why is X crap?” for any given X, with the understanding that people may disagree. This applies to games, literature, porn, and Michael Bay movies. Especially Michael Bay movies.
For God’s sake, can we stop using the “may” word?
No. I use the word “may” to indicate that I don’t know something. Hence it may be one thing, or it may be another – I don’t know. I’m not going to make dogmatic assertions and have you attack my words as making dogmatic assertions, but I see that you’re going to attack my words as waffling, too. Motivated reasoning much?
There are things that I don’t think we know enough about, which may or may not have impact on social well-being and social equality. Are you saying that because we don’t know those things, that we should ignore them? Ostrich much?
The fragment of the OP which provoked me most was about “some forms of kink” which “should be put in the closet”. I read also the comments, with your remark about Greta’s latest piece. You know – her latest piece concerned the law. It was not about culture. It was about a legal ban.
A legal ban is not putting something in the closet, that’s “a legal ban” “Putting something in the closet” is making it shameful enough that people keep it secret and engage in it covertly. Essentially un-mainstreaming it, as many have tried to do with racism and other forms of abuse. There isn’t a legal ban that I am aware of against making a horribly racist or misogynist movie, but the market’s reaction and public critique might amount to making it commercially unsuccessful.
Remember a few years ago when someone was producing “hunting porn” in which nude women were hunted by guys in camo with paintball guns, like they were deer? There was a public outcry against that as horrifyingly misogynist and tasteless, and I believe that the people who were producing it either stopped or went back into the closet. This is not a call for making anything illegal, I am not sure if anyone called for legislation against such videos — but lots of people fairly accurately called it crap.
I am not calling for banning anything. But I’m wondering why so many people stick up so fervently for crap if it’s porn. Or, apparently, video games. But lots of people are comfortable with calling Michael Bay’s latest movies crap. Why is porn (and apparently video games) immune from aesthetic critique?
Why is porn (and apparently video games) immune from aesthetic critique?
Because the line between aesthetic critique often becomes blurred with calls for legal bans. Especially at this particular moment, given the UK porn ban.
At the very least,* we should have free rein to critique and shame creators of porn that features non-consensual sex (aka sexual assault/rape), also that which portrays sexualised violence against people (i.e. in which someone is shown to be physically injured or tortured), also portrayals of non-consensual degradation/humiliation, also porn that promotes hate against a protected group (i.e. race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity etc.). Why those? because those are the things we don’t want to see condoned and normalised.
Because they don’t contain violence to normalise. Instead they are normalising things like respect and sexual equality and enthusiastic consent.
Well, yes. Rape *is* ew. Unless you’re referring to something else? If so, perhaps you should be specific and ask me about that.
*And yes, for the record, I’d go so far as to support legal bans of such porn.
Rape fantasies aren’t *ew* for everybody.
“Women’s Erotic Rape Fantasies: An Evaluation of Theory and Research”
I didn’t say they were, qwints. I said *rape* was ew. So don’t fucking put words in my mouth.
@29 qwints:
You should also know, if you read Greta’s blog, that very very few, if any, of those women who entertain rape fantasies actually want to be raped. And a good portion of them don’t even want the fantasies to play out in any consensual environment apart from their minds. So, as Ibis3 said, rape *is* ew. And to use the fact that women have rape fantasies to counter that point is pretty disgusting…
Ibis, yes, what you say interests me a lot and I will indeed ask about some specifics.
You want to have a free reign to critique/shame/ban:
I understand that it includes the films and literature in which consent is not explicitly expressed. Does it include also those productions where consent is expressed but later a non-consensual scene is played out? Do you think that such works do not normalize violence any more? Or are you afraid that the viewers will just skip the initial scene and because of that, they are on an equal par and should be banned/shamed into oblivion as well?
Does it include all films and books with spanking and bondage? Do spanking and bondage (in a staged out “non-consensual” scene) qualify as sexualized violence by your standards?
Again: how important is the expression of consent before (or after) a scene of played out “non-consensual” degradation/humiliation? Do you want to ban/shame into oblivion all forms of expressions containing it? If not, what makes you think that pieces with consent explicitly expressed do not normalize violence? What if the viewers treat consent scenes as the readers in the Soviet Union treated the customary reference to Stalin – that is, what if they just skip them and move on? (Or what if the viewers simply cut out their favorite scenes?)
Answering my question “Are other forms less effective in normalizing violence? If so, how do we know it?” you answered:
That’s really the reason I asked my questions: you see, I’m inclined to think that the forms which do not contain “violence to normalize” are mostly those that do not contain any violence at all. Few exceptions, if any.
One additional question:
If normalizing sexual violence is your primary worry – if excluding forms of expression which contribute to such a normalization is what you are after – would you be ready to ban/shame into oblivion people like me, who explicitly state and support views contrary to yours? In other words, how willing are you to accept the following argument:
Public manifestations of sexualization of violence are inadmissible, because they normalize sexual violence. In effect when someone expresses support for such sexualization (e.g. when someone claims that it should remain legal or that it doesn’t deserve to be shamed), s/he contributes to normalizing sexual violence. Moreover, it is a serious contribution – if such views become popular, their normalizing effect will be considerable. Therefore expressing support for public manifestations of sexualization of violence should be banned/shamed into oblivion.
Thanks in advance.
(Marcus, after reading your replies I came to the conclusion that our standpoints are far less different than I initially thought.)
It’s not immune from aesthetic critique. It’s just that aesthetic critique of porn almost invariably comes across as inherently ridiculous. “That scene was terrible – the lighting was too flat, there was an obvious continuity error when they cut between the wide-shot and the close-up, and goodness me the plot – it made no sense at all.” Porn has one job, and for each individual it either succeeds or fails in that job, and beyond a certain level of basic competence the production values are practically irrelevant to its success.
I’m surprised more people aren’t reacting more strongly to this. Who gets to decide? You? The government? Some appointed body? What criteria do you propose to apply? Because you’re pretty clear that there is some material explicity featuring only consenting adults that you would “put in the closet”, but you don’t specify exactly what, or even what “put in the closet” actually means on a practical level. Not a legal ban, but…? And what practices would you “closet”? All sex? Just teh gayz? Sex that’s “rough”? How rough? Groups? Furries?
Talk of making other people’s sexual preferences something to be ashamed of sounds like the worst kind of authoritarian, one might even say religious, dictatorship.