I'm not reading this right, am I?

[elfs]

I'm trying to parse this sentence, in an article about The Feminist Porn Awards:

The vast majority of explicit material is made for a male audience; at best, it is degrading, and at worst it is often physically harmful to the women featured in it.

I'm trying to figure out what the writer is saying here. Is she saying, "The vast majority of explicit material is degrading to women"? Or is she saying, "Explicit material made for a male audience is, at its best, degrading to women"?

If it's the first, I can see how someone could make that argument. It's an arguable position. I think it shows a deep misunderstanding of the marketplace of porn, and what porn is, who makes it, and who consumes it.

But it seems to me that she's making the second, which I would argue is not only not true, but it's deliberately and viciously androphobic. The assumption is that male pornography consumers (and creators) can only be expected to be degraders of women, and nothing more.

---

I also find the rest of the article degrading, as a man. The idea that "'depicting a woman thrust up against a nightclub wall by a man and [redacted] hard' is degrading" is degrading. I wouldn't mind being thrust up against a nightclub wall and [redacted] hard myself, by either a hot man or a hot woman. It's not the act, it's matters of consent and context.

Comments

[tehrasha.livejournal.com]

It's not the act, it's matters of consent and context.

Doesn't matter to the 'all sex is rape' crowd.

[amindofiron.livejournal.com]

sadly, this ^. In addition, the idea that it can only be this way regardless of consent and context has the added wonderful effect of stripping any kind of agency from either (or all) parties involved.

[kengr]

Ah, but you see, They are RIGHT, so anyone who thinks otherwise much be taught the error of their ways.

Or to put it more succintly: thoughtcrime

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

It's not so much 'all sex is rape' as the idea that proper sex must reject everything that's in the mainstream conception of sex, and therefore because the mainstream idea of sex includes the possibility of low-grade consensual violence, it's impossible for proper healthy sex to have any of those. So no getting [redacted] hard up against a wall, and anybody that says they want to be [redacted] hard up against a wall is a victim of false consciousness.

[kengr]

Right. Thoughtcrime.

[dossy.livejournal.com]

Redaction is degrading to writers.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Recent Facebook conversation with my daughter and her friends. The topic was "Should you date geeks?" I said, "Yes. Geeks know about that thing you do with your tongue."

There was much giggling. Later I said, "I didn't have any particular 'thing' in mind. I just knew if I said the word 'tongue' your dirty minds would fill in the blanks."

Sometimes, leaving the blank redacted has its uses.

[dossy.livejournal.com]

Taking redaction to the next level, have you seen/are you familiar with "Mormon bubble porn"?

http://izismile.com/2010/09/03/how_to_make_mormon_porn_38_pics.html

Or, the "unnecessary censorship" when conversations are bleeped out ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJc5EgDbKK4

;)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

I find a swath of gay porn to be misogynistic, specifically, those where the bottom is servicing the top. Compare and contrast to the amateur stuff. Both guys are enjoying themselves. The guy who's active and the guy who's "pitching" aren't necessarily the same. When the top is the one doing most of the work, he's focused as much if not more on pleasuring his man than himself.

In short, there's equality in good gay porn. I would assume/expect good str8 porn to have equality as well, only with a female+male dynamic. And I'd probably brand str8 porn that didn't as misogynistic. 'Cuz that's just how I see it. ^_^