Let's Ban Porn - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Hong Wu
#14888240
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opin ... york-times

It's a good article, I suggest people read it before commenting.

We seem to be moving past extreme freedom of speech in the west. The left wants speech controls more than the right does. At what point, in terms of the social problems it engenders, does porn become classified more akin to "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" than as expression? I've always found the argument that porn is expressive or makes a statement to be facetious anyway.
#14888247
The article nearly comes to the correct diagnosis, and then swings completely in the wrong direction:

NYT wrote:porn is also just a product — something made and distributed and sold, and therefore subject to regulation and restriction if we so desire.

The belief that it should not be restricted is a mistake; the belief that it cannot be censored is a superstition. Law and jurisprudence changed once and can change again, and while you can find anything somewhere on the internet, making hard-core porn something to be quested after in dark corners would dramatically reduce its pedagogical role, its cultural normalcy, its power over libidos everywhere.


The first sentence, that porn "is also just a product" is where everything lives and dies.

The fact is that all labour alienates the individual from themselves, each other, and the product that they produce.

This "product" is a symptom of capitalist exploitation.

In a similar vein, when the Bolsheviks took power in Russi Kollentai demanded that the prostitutes be considered part of the working class. Something that Lenin agreed to and that Luxemburg famously objected to in Germany.

Kollentai wrote:bourgeois science and its academics love to prove to the world, that prostitution is a pathological phenomenon, i.e. that it is the result of the abnormalities of certain women, just as some people are criminal by nature, some women, it is argued, are prostitutes by nature. Regardless of where or how such women might have lived, they would have turned to a life of sin. Marxists and the more conscientious scholars, doctors and statisticians have shown clearly that the idea of “inborn disposition” is false. Prostitution is above all a social phenomenon; it is closely connected to the needy position of woman and her economic dependence on man in marriage and the family. The roots of prostitution are m economics. Woman is on the one hand placed in an economically vulnerable position, and on the other hand has been conditioned by centuries of education to expect material favours from a man in return for sexual favours – whether these are given within or outside the marriage tie. This is the root of the problem. Here is the reason for prostitution.


The capitalists will have in both way in prostitution and not; in porn and not; in taking out the trash and not. They will dimly pretend that the world is equal for everyone and when this proves not to be the case, they'll blame drugs, abuse, or anything else for why their thesis is incorrect.

But it is only incorrect because Marxism is correct.

Liberate humanity from its alienation by destroying captaialism and the problem will be resolved.

Find liberal talking points in which to chat with other liberals about liberalism and liberalism will be maintained.
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By Hong Wu
#14888250
I'm not sure if your post has provided a clear answer to the question posed, though.

Are you saying that in socialism, porn would not be alienating or something? Are you for banning it or against it or something else?
#14888276
Hong Wu wrote:I'm not sure if your post has provided a clear answer to the question posed, though.

Are you saying that in socialism, porn would not be alienating or something? Are you for banning it or against it or something else?


I agree, @The Immortal Goon, I'm not quite sure what your conclusion is either, especially as it seems that early thinkers in the Marxist tradition were divided on this issue, just as they were divided on social issues in general and gender roles in particular.

For this reason, when it comes to pornography or prostitution for that matter, it seems highly unlikely that Marxism can provide a universal condemnation of the practice or a universal praise of the practice.

If I read you correctly, the closest approximation I read was that such can be purified of its exploitative capitalist elements, but still be retained as a practice? If this is so, would such become voluntary or a social service for the collective good?

I would like to see clarity as to your position on this.
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By Godstud
#14888291
If you don't like porn, then don't watch it. I don't like religion but I don't think we need to ban it(yet).

Banning it would be CONSERVATIVE action, not liberal.
#14888292
Godstud wrote:If you don't like porn, then don't watch it. I don't like religion but I don't think we need to ban it(yet).

Banning it would be CONSERVATIVE action, not liberal.


For someone who is generally anti-religion, you sure talk a lot about it, even when no one else is.

Why is that exactly?

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By Godstud
#14888293
I was merely making a point that if you don't like something, it doesn't mean you have to ban it, because someone else might. religion seemed to be an obvious thing to compare it too. Did I trigger you? Some of you guys get so defensive about things.
#14888295
Godstud wrote:I was merely making a point that if you don't like something, it doesn't mean you have to ban it, because someone else might. religion seemed to be an obvious thing to compare it too. Did I trigger you? Some of you guys get so defensive about things.


But many leftists are opposed to pornography because it objectifies women and perpetuates the sexualization of men and toxic masculinity. See, not a conservative argument, but anti-porn.

What says you to that? Third-Wave feminists generally tend to oppose pornography for these reasons.
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By Godstud
#14888306
I am a liberal and I feel it's a personal choice to watch pornography. What people do as adults, sexually, is up to them, and if it's consensual, then so be it. I am a feminist, but not a radical one that would have people divest themselves of their sexuality. I am for equal opportunity, and not for equal outcome.

I'm 50 years young. :D
#14888307
Godstud wrote:I am a liberal and I feel it's a personal choice to watch pornography. What people do as adults, sexually, is up to them, and if it's consensual, then so be it. I am a feminist, but not a radical one that would have people divest themselves of their sexuality. I am for equal opportunity, and not for equal outcome.

I'm 50 years young


So is it fair to say you reject the whole third-wave feminism's war on the sex industry? Because you sound like an old-school pro-sex second-wave feminist, not a third wave feminist like I have to deal with in my generation.....

What is your opinion of banning bikini bod ads because its "fat shaming?"
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By Godstud
#14888312
I don't think we should be banning bikini adds simply because some fat people might be offended. I'm not exactly slim, and I don't get upset when I see a man with washboard abs in Speedos. :lol:

Let's be realistic, here. Obesity is a problem, and we should be promoting healthier lifestyles, and holding fitness and health up as examples is not a bad things to do.

I guess I am a "second-wave " feminist, and I was mostly unaware of feminism's fight against the porn industry. Is it because the male stars get paid more and they want them to get paid as much as women?
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By Rancid
#14888316
I do wonder what the super easy access to porn is doing to young minds. My suspicion is it's going to create very unrealistic expectations about sex, and thus, you're going to have a lot of sexually dysfunctional people. I don't mean they are going to be depraved; what I mean is, we're going to have a lot of people that can't have sex. Like, you won't be able to get a aroused by an actual person.

I wonder if sex robots will have the same affect on us as well.
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By Godstud
#14888319
Rancid wrote: Like, you won't be able to get a aroused by an actual person.
:lol: I don't buy that argument. Watching porn is significantly different from engaging in sex. it may make people more adventurous and maybe try different things, but that's about it.

I've looked at porn, and yet I don't have a problem with real sex, because they are significantly different from each other. One is virtual and the other is real. It's hard to mistake the two for each other. Have you eaten a virtual hamburger? Same thing.

Rancid wrote:I wonder if sex robots will have the same affect on us as well.
Unless they are exactly like humans, they will be about on the same level as masturbation. There is an emotional connection that humans have that can't be simulated well with a robot. If they are identical to humans, well then, we'll have to see what happens. That might be a very interesting plot for a movie.
#14888320
Godstud wrote:I guess I am a "second-wave " feminist(whatever that entails), and I was unaware of feminism's fight against the pron industry. Is it because the male stars get paid more and they want them to get paid as much as women?


No its because pornography perpetuates the objectification of women and promotes toxic masculinity. The split between pro-sex and anti-sex feminists happened in the late 70s with the latter group become more "Academic" and begetting the third-wave feminist movement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_feminism

Some became involved in the sex-positive feminist movement in response to efforts by anti-pornography feminists to put pornography at the center of a feminist explanation of women's oppression.[1] This period of intense debate and acrimony between sex-positive and anti-pornography feminists during the early 1980s is often referred to as the feminist sex wars. Other feminists identifying as sex-positive became involved in the debate, not in opposition to other feminists, but in direct response to what they saw as patriarchal control of sexuality.

Some radical feminists reject the dichotomy of "sex-positive" and "sex-negative" feminism, suggesting that instead the real divide is between liberal feminism and radical feminism.[2]


This article on wikipedia is actually very good and also has links to the critiques by the sex-negative and radical feminists (third-wave) who oppose sex workers, pornography, and often times embrace anti-natalism and the view that any sex with a man can amount to a form of rape. Many echoes of third-wave feminism and sex-negative feminism are echoed in the #metoo movement which is why it makes some right-wingers jumpy.
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By Rancid
#14888322
Godstud wrote: :lol: I don't buy that argument. Watching porn is significantly different from engaging in sex. it may make people more adventurous and maybe try different things, but that's about it.

I've looked at porn, and yet I don't have a problem with real sex, because they are significantly different from each other. One is virtual and the other is real. It's hard to mistake the two for each other. Have you eaten a virtual hamburger? Same thing.

Unless they are exactly like humans, they will be about on the same level as masturbation. There is an emotional connection that humans have that can't be simulated well with a robot. If they are identical to humans, well then, we'll have to see what happens. That might be a very interesting plot for a movie.


Never say never man. Everything has a psychological effect.

At the very least, I don't think we should be so quick to brush it off like you just did. It should be studied.
By Pants-of-dog
#14888324
@Godstud

If you do not mind me asking, when did you first watch pornography? As a pre-internet kid, I did not watch porn until many years after I became sexually active. Thus, my expectations when it came to sex were not based on porn. This may no longer be the case for most young men.

———————-

@Victoribus Spolia

This whole second wave / third wave feminism thing seems to be a US phenomenon. It does not seem applicable to other contexts.
User avatar
By Godstud
#14888325
I'm all for studying it, but until we know a heck of a lot more, banning it is pretty dumb.

I first saw porn as a teenager.

I think most intelligent people know that sex in porn movies is not like real sex. It doesn't take much to realize that movies are not real life. if you can't differentiate between these things, then you have bigger problems.
Last edited by Godstud on 12 Feb 2018 15:14, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Rancid
#14888326
Godstud wrote:I'm all for studying it, but until we know a heck of a lot more, banning it is pretty dumb.


Well... I never said it should be banned.
#14888368
For some clarification, you won't ban porn any more than you could ban drinking.

I'm not against porn, I'm against the porn industry because I'm against all capitalist industries.
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