Pornography

[sunny-side]

I think it really depends on the individual whether porn is healthy or unhealthy.

I've been in two relationships.  The first one was a selfish jerk who treated me as he treated the porn he was addicted to... as a means to quick gratification, and only his own gratification.  He was one of the types that people who are against porn always hold up as their example of porn making men objectify women.  The second one is with a very kind man who looks at it on occasion but recognizes the fact that it's kind of empty without a partner and would much rather do things with me.  I think he's probably even gotten ideas from what he has seen in ways to make it better for the both of us, which is pretty awesome, so I wouldn't want to take it away from him.  I have to admit I've looked a bit out of curiosity as well and I don't think I'm any worse for it either.

In my looking I've come across FTM transsexuals, or at least I think that's what they were, and they certainly seemed to be more objectified than most of the genetic-women I've seen, unfortunately. (to bring this back to the original point, I think).  It makes me rather sad the way that the men seem to both drool over them and totally ridicule them for being somewhere in between transition (usually still with breasts but male from the waist down).  It's sickening the way that they portray them as some sort of sexual fantasy freak show... D:  (No offense to any people who are in transition!  This is just what I have come across)

[tekla]

Violence is more natural to children than sex

Not sure if serious...



Oh yeah, everyone is objectified in porn.  No group is objectified more than any other group.  Be it: FtM, MtF, MLIFS, Grannys, Barely Legal, midget, every racial group.  Every body type.  Every combination of those too, so if fat Asian Grannies is your deal, you're in luck.  See: Rule 34.  Every type of wardrobe from lacy panties (regardless of gender) to business drag.  Yes women are objectified for parts of their body, big boobs or tiny tits, shaved beaver to hair to everywhere.  Ditto for men with the never ending dick of death.

[kate durcal]

I find it mindblowing that it is completely ok to let little Tommy and Jane watch a TV program with explicit murder scenes and society as a whole shrugs and thinks nothing of it.
But if they should see pornography there is an inquisition.

So it is perfectly ok to let a child see murder, but not procreation.

Kinda makes me think we live in a very sick society.

Inquistion? Somebody call me? Pornography is immoral and illegal.

Kate D

[cynthialee]

Last I checked porn was legal.
And morality has not been established to be absolute in this matter.

[sunny-side]

Legality may vary depending on location, I'm not entirely sure.

Morality varies upon belief system as far as this is concerned, I think, as well as the subject matter.  I'd hope that we could all agree that pedophilia and non-consensual pornography is immoral, but I suppose that even that might vary... 

I think it's like anger.  It can destroy you and you can do horrible things with it... or you can use it to learn and learn to use it in constructive ways.  Many coins have two sides, and often times only one is seen for whatever reason.

[kate durcal]

Pornography is wrong

Kate D

[cynthialee]

Pornography is wrong

Kate D

By your standards. Which do not hold sway on everyone else.

I can think of moral uses of porn.

Just because it engages your squik factor doesn't make it wrong.

(and I agree Sunnyside, kiddie porn and nonconsentual porn are abhorant)

[Wolfsnake]

I'm an artist who paints/draws what could be considered porn. I do it because heterosexual or heteronormative gay erotica (the vast majority of what's out there) is uninteresing to me, so I make up angrogynous, agendered, non-heteronormative stuff with interesting flawed people and put it on the Internets. I put filters/warnings on it, but kids do still look at it and comment. Nearly all of them are queer kids. I'm happy to give them a safe, relatively tame outlet with depictions of consensual non-hetero love, trust, and the beauty of gender nonconformity. So sue me. 

And I'm a dude, and yes, I do think about sex quite often. Erotica and fantasy are what I consider healthy outlets. They do not prevent me from enjoying the real deal. I've been in a monogamous long-distance relationship for six years (sometimes I only get to see my love every four to six months), and sometimes painting a little porn is all that keeps me sane. I'm sure I just got put on some hate lists, but I really don't care.

[Annah]

In my opinion, porn is fine between two consential adults and can be used as an aid for sex. However, once it becomes an addiction for either person, then it is no longer healthy for that individual.

Porn, in my opinion is a lot like alcohol, smoking or whatever else that could be habit forming. If you are responsible enough to watch it, then have at it. If you begin to abuse it and become addicted, then you need to realize you have a problem.

I also draw the line at letting children watch porn. I won't even go into an explanation why as I do not feel that I should warrant one.

[Tammy Hope]

ok, I'm gonna jump in without having read many responses because I'm getting too many competing thoughts in my head.

My first thought about the easier access to porn now is one I don't think I've seen discussed much and It has a parallel to trans people in a subtle way.

IMO, the majority of people have SOME sexual fetish.  Some are more respectable than others (such as the proverbial girl who is drawn to "bad boys") and many are even unknown because that button has never been pushed.

But they are often there just the same.

what internet porn (not really porn actually, just sexually driven material) has done is "normalize" many fetishes. that is, if you are a woman in a small rural town in, say, 1975 - and you happen to enjoy the fetish of being spanked, the LAST thing you want to do is let ANY other human find out, because you think it's weird. After all, no one you know likes it, right? (in other words, they too are scared to say so)

Comes the internet and it turns out that, apparently, lots of people share that fetish - suddenly you are not a "pervert" anymore. you can apply this to all sorts of fetishistic behavior in both sexes. Everything from swinging to crossdressing to amatuer night at the strip club is more "normal" because there are others like you after all.
Alongside that comes the perhaps unwarranted assumptions some will make  - "I see women who like to be dominated, therefore all women like to be dominated" which is of course nonsense, but it's typical of the human tendency to stereotype ("I know one dumb country person, therefore all country people are dumb" and so forth) so you probably do get some men who are assuming all women are sluts based on their internet "learning"
But I think to an extent many women (not all!) are less reserved sexually because they see less of the "good girl" attitude being modeled. "Maybe the whole "good girls don't" thing isn't really true?" as it were - or even "i have as much right to casual sex as any man does"

Which, of course, re-enforces the misconceptions the guys I spoke of have. Only the more liberated (sexually) the average woman is, the less it's a misconception that she's available.

this isn't just the internet of course, it's in all media.


Honestly, I have a difficult time processing what i think of all this because my self-understanding of my female identity is not, frankly, that of a "good girl" and never has been, going back to my youth when none of these electronic influences were a part of my life. One of the things I mourn about my late transition and general unattractiveness is that I'll never likely be in a position to incorporate that part of my personality into my actual life - but I LIKE the idea of being very comfortable with being highly desirable sexually and not being constrained by a set of expectations about what "good girls" do. At least in principle.

So I'm not sure I see this as a bad thing. I rather think that the notion of everyone going around wearing masks to hide what their particular "deviancy" is  may well me the more unhealthy model.

And to explain my comment about parallels - how many of us found the courage to be ourselves only after finding out there were many more others like us than we had imagined? how many of us didn't fully understand the whole TS/TG community until the internet was freely available? We were less likely to see ourselves as "freaks" when we knew how much we were not alone.

and we are healthier, mentally, for having the ability to take off our masks, no?

[ninjaboi]

My dad was addicted to alcohol and porn. Growing up it made me feel disgusted with being female even more than i normally would. I remember when i was 15 years old, my parents were having problems, dads drinking was as usual terrible, he moved into what was my bedroom, i had to move into the smaller one. He completely plastered the walls in pornographic pictures. When i saw it, you can imagine my horror!

There are times when Porn is really bad!

Now Im much older and wiser... and Soft porn to me is okay, mags like playboy. But i still have trouble with accepting hard porn. Thats just my opinion on it and why i probably see things the way i do now. My dad really made me see porn as something to be ashamed of, something degrading to women.

I'm one of those FTM who actually aren't into porn!

[Tammy Hope]

I find it mindblowing that it is completely ok to let little Tommy and Jane watch a TV program with explicit murder scenes and society as a whole shrugs and thinks nothing of it.
But if they should see pornography there is an inquisition.

So it is perfectly ok to let a child see murder, but not procreation.

Kinda makes me think we live in a very sick society.

I don't entierly disagree except in this regard:

What you see on mainstream TV is SIMULATED death, we all agree.

but in the same manner, it's quite possible for them to see a good bit of SIMULATED sexuality as well. Not as much as porn, but enough to suggest that both are fairly well available.Honestly, i think the ship has sailed on "what children are exposed to" - the difference between what I could POSSIBLY see in the 70's (yes, a few had access to adult material readily because of location or parental neglect but a distinct minority) and what my son can see without trying hard in the last decade is almost immeasurable.

[Cindy]

To me, this article sounds sickening. It seems like it's making sexist, generalisations of men, because as we all know all men are sex obsessed and capable of rape.

As I understand it, it's not called being adventurous in the bed room, it's the man being perverse, forcing his fantasy on his female partner.

Sorry Angel.
From the article ; most men (sic) are reported to want nothing but sexual intercourse,

I had put (sic) after the quote telling people that was what written in the article and not my belief.

Hugs

Cindy

[Cindy]

Some interesting responses.
But few have tackled do 'we' look at porn that 'interest' us or do we get addicted to prn and wish to live out those fanatsies, no matter what harm it may do to others?

A few thoughts. Many violent rapists were found to enjoy watching violent rape type porn. Did they develop their evil from watching the porn, or did they become attracted to violent porn because that was what they liked?

I was thinking of, possibly, the only experiment that has, accidentally, been carried out to test that hypothesis..

Many people responded that paedophilia porn was totally unacceptable. And indeed calling it pornography is almost justifying a sick criminality.

But paedophilia porn must be one of the truly disgusting events that is also viewed by people who have no interest in it. Law enforcement people, judges, lawyers etc  have to look at such material as part of their job to arrest and prosecute offenders. There is no evidence that I am aware of that any of these people have taken up a prurient interest in such material.
Yes there are members of these professions who are paedophiles. But there is no evidence that viewing material made them so - they would use it as a defence, and I can't recall that happening.

So does this suggest 'we' don't become addicted?

Cindy 

[tekla]

Pornography is immoral and illegal.
You forgot fattening.  And in most of the US it's not illegal, and in at least one part (the San Fernando Valley) it's a major industry.  And some moralities seem to be against it, but many are not sexually repressed and prudish and see such things as a natural part of life.



Well I never knowingly let my kids watch porn, I was just saying that if it were Throat or Rambo I find Throat a lot less disgusting, and a lot more wholesome.  Which is not any sort of endorsement for Deep Throat, it's more along the lines of how perverted and truly disturbing Rambo really is.

If the choice is between sex and violence, how sick do you have to be to choose violence?  If it's all the same I'd just as soon hang out with the sex people than the violence people.  Let's see... one one hand we have fistfights, guns and knives, and on the other side we have boobies, naked bodies, and a heavy emphasis on oral stimulation and pretty lingerie.  Oh yeah, the sex people throw much, much better parties for sure on that.


What you see on mainstream TV is SIMULATED death
Perhaps, but the brain does not process it that way.  Indeed movies and TV shows take on a hyper-reality that make them seem/feel very real.  It creates reference points that can often overwhelm reality.  Which is why so many people when asked how they would handle something refer to some movie/TV show and not lessons from their own life - many people have more memories of what they've seen on TV then they do of their own real life.  And among the reasons that it works that way is that big production shows as close as they can get to killing without offing the person.  Rule 1 in the Union Stagehand Guide is (and this is true): The gun is always real.  The gun is always loaded.  The Feds have a department in the ATF where all they do is send agents to film and TV shoots to make sure the guns are OK, and the gun laws are followed.  It's like a car crash in the movies.  Yes it's scripted.  Yes it's highly designed.  Yes there are camera and editing tricks at work.  But when the director says 'action' that car is going to crash, for real.  A controlled crash, but a car crash none the less.

And, it's one thing to know all of that on an intellectual level.  Yes, it's a set, they are actors not the people they are portraying - we know this, yet our feelings and emotions easily overwhelm that intellectual notion.  That's why people cry at sad and/or emotional moments in a good movie.  That's why people scream at a horror flick.  The ability to do that is one of the 20th Centuries true art forms, and it's also why the good people get paid so much to do it.  When you're watching Titanic are you thinking (like I am) 'how exactly did they get that effect?' or are you (like most people) thinking: Damn get out of that ship, it's sinking. (Which is also why people don't like watching movies with me)

And people know that no matter how 'real' porn is, it's a staged thing through and through.  A few years ago they shot a bunch of porno on super-high def and the result was: Yeah, we really don't want to see that much reality in that kind of detail.

Tammy is spot on about the net linking up people of persuasions not considered inside the norm with each other.  Alt.sex was The Social Network 1.0 in the early days of the 'WELL and other pioneers of on-line (and back then it was phone lines and an acoustic coupler) access.  I think that the Furry and the Sissies of Petticoat Pond are perfect examples of such networks forming and/or radically growing from almost day one of public access to the Web.

 

[sunny-side]

I have to agree with Tammy as well.  The ease of access that the internet now provides helps people to feel more normal about the fetishes that they already had and were ashamed of because they see others with the same, and honestly (in most cases) that's a good thing!  No one should feel ashamed about what they desire to do in bed, or in the kitchen, etc... and it may also help them find someone who is more compatible for them in these areas if they feel like they can talk about the subject without a great deal of shame and fear of rejection looming over them.

And honestly I'm quite glad for the parallel that Tammy drew.  I would've had no clue why something felt off about myself if it weren't for the internet as I thought that all transgendered people were transsexuals and I knew that I didn't fit there either.  The internet is helping me explore my gender (or possible lack thereof) in the same way that it helps me explore my sexuality and many others do the same. (though I have found I'm just as vanilla as before I started looking, lol XD)

[ninjaboi]

I believe you have got to have something wrong with you in the first place. I play video games that can be considered violent and im a peaceful person. I really believe the tendency needs to be there in the first place for someone to be effected by it. Games and videos are just fantasy. Unfortunately some people out there cant tell the difference.

[Pica Pica]

Regardless of porn, we live in a world where people are thought of (and think of themselves) in terms of tools or products to be consumed - ask anyone who has applied for a job. At least in porn there is a given understanding all round that each member (and each member's member) is being objectivised. I say, sort out the cold, compartmentalised areas of normal life before going for porn.

[RebeccaFog]

Hello,

There is a point of view that no one now thinks of. Houses with separate bedrooms are fairly historically new. For most of human history, children heard and saw their parents doing naked, or half-naked, stuff. People lived in huts, cabins, and even tents. Not much was hidden.

The same with violence. Think of all the stupid wars, raiding parties, general violence of the past 50,000 years. Children not only witnessed it but were a part of it.

There have always been violent freaks and there always will be. There will also always be viscous sexual assaults.  Blaming any kind of porn media doesn't completely do the job of getting to the root causes of sex crimes. Which, in my opinion, is human nature.

Whether porn causes its viewers to become desensitized is not really important as long as no one is being hurt. On the other hand, some people may be influenced to the point where they forget there are consequences for their actions and step over the line. My personal thinking is that these people are the ones we'd have to look out for in centuries past. There's not a lot you can do about it except, teach your children how to be safe and if you see anyone going down the wrong path, try to influence them in positive ways.


Just my imagination, I mean, thoughts. Sorry for misspellings and the like.


ps.

as Pica said - we're all a bunch of tools.

[Pica Pica]

Trust it to be the porn topic that pulls you out of the void - how you doing you ol' slapper?