It's stupid when feminists say that porn is misogynistic

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As much as I agree with the basic tenets of feminism I think those who have an agenda against porn generally give feminism a bad name. Have they seriously never heard of gay porn? What about the poor oppressed little guys in midget porn?!

I barely ever see women in my porn, so I have no idea where 'violence against women' comes about, but I certainly don't think that's a reason to censor all kinds of porn!

I'm pretty sure that when feminists rail against porn, they are railing against a "porn culture" that objectifies woman as sex objects (i.e. advertisements, videogame/sports culture, movies) rather than the actual porn industry.

Essentially, stuff that you (and impresionable young people) can routinely see daily on television rather than something you keep hidden under your bed or on a flash drive.

Frankly, feminists (as a whole) only care about women. If men were hooked into "milking machines" and treated like caged animals, most probably wouldn't be bothered by it.

No, a lot of feminists are actually anti-porn. The sex-positive feminists are the ones that aren't though.

The untrue "all guys look at porn" stereotype was also probably invented by feminists which is one reason why I don't view porn since I know it shows any woman who actually believes it is stupid for thinking that.

No, they are ranting against the porn industry because a lot of professional porn is actually dehumanising to the women pornstars and you can tell many women don't seem to enjoy doing those scenes much despite their fake smiles and bad acting. Even I as someone who's anti-feminist have noted this.

Pornography laws by country (green is legal, red is illegal)


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

Now compare this global distribution with these *five* different indices of gender equality:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-a ... women/907/

Feminism in the west has accomplished pretty much all of its goals, for its continued existence as a ideology it needs something to scream victimization and oppression about even tho by all accounts its much easier to to be a woman now than it is to be a man. In Nordic countries where pornography and strip clubs are borderline illegal, they'll piss and moan(no pun intended) about men urinating standing up. It'll never stop, for the radicals it's a supremacist ideology.

Which makes it different than working at McDonald's how? Unless you want to argue that those women are in that profession against their will, I'm not sure what your point is, as a lot of jobs are dehumanizing and unenjoyable. On the other hand, there are women who work in porn who really love the work, why do they never get mentioned by anti porn feminists? Ironically, they're being very paternalistic on this one.

I minored in Women's and Gender Studies in university, and I am a feminist, so this thread caught my attention.

Oddly enough, most real feminists are definitely not anti-porn, most of the feminists I know actually watch porn themselves, and enjoy it. Modern feminism is anti sex-trade, where women and children are forced into being abused, but pornography has come a long way since the sixties and there's something for everyone out there. The women in it have to be willing participants, by law, at least in North America.

If I've heard "all men watch porn" from anyone, it's been the men who watch porn. The feminists I know (academic feminists, mostly) don't think all men act like anything. Men are as varied and as different as women are. People who don't study gender roles, etc are far more likely to stereotype and generalize than people who are more aware of them.

Just my two cents.

This was the anecdotal impression I had, but I can't find any surveys to back it up. Do you have any links or references to such data?

Men are "objectified" just as much by porn, as are women.

ruveyn

So radical feminists who are anti-porn aren't real feminists? That's a bit harsh. I don't agree with them either, but they're still feminists. Most of the feminists I know are grassroots activists and they are 50/50 on the anti-porn thing.

I do agree with you in general, however. The 'all men watch porn' thing comes from men who watch (a lot of) porn.

As for my opinion, I think the porn industry objectifies everyone involved - it's like capitalism at its most crass - but the desire to look at naughty images is pretty healthy and harmless.

Being critical of the content of porn does not equal wanting to make it illegal.

As someone who sees quite a lot of women in my porn, I think I know what they're talking about. You don't have to look terribly hard to find something described as "painful anal" as if that were a good thing, for example. There's a series of DVDs that were titled "<insert pornstar name here> is a filthy whore" or something along those lines. I can think of some other examples off the top of my head that might not pass moderator scrutiny for PPR. There really is a misogynistic streak in some porn.

That said, calling it "violence against women" is rather silly. There is quite a lot of porn that lacks this misogynistic streak. Even for most of the truly misogynistic stuff, "violence" is the wrong word. "Degrading" or "misogynistic" or "really annoying to those of us who don't like that sort of thing", but not "violent". The stuff that would most closely fit the word "violent" is BDSM stuff. I haven't watched a lot of it, but my impression is that BDSM thinks of pain and degradation as the fun part, and seems to distribute it more evenly among men and women. Some stuff that isn't BDSM exactly still treats degradation as the fun part. There are plenty of scenes where the girl makes the guy smell her dirty socks while calling him a pathetic loser, and these scenes are made for guys to enjoy while fantasizing that they're the ones who are being forced to smell dirty socks and being called losers. Whatever else it may be, forcing a guy to smell a girl's socks is not violence against women.