NP - Porn hurting male libido/attitude towards women??

[Daniel Harper]

Note that the author of the piece largely disagrees with the author she
reviews. The two books mentioned do tend to agree with you, however.

There are basically two main groups arguing against porn in any organized
way today: conservative Christian groups and a subset of the modern feminist
movement. It's said that politics make strange bedfellows (no pun intended),
but for those two groups to have any common cause strikes me as so bizarre
as to, well, belong in a Pynchon novel.

The conservatives use a twin-pronged attack wherein they first argue against
porn from a "family first" POV, ie all that gush about how much porn hurts
families and such. So far as I know, there is no scientific basis for this
claim -- the community of scientists and scholars who study this field are
largely in agreement that pornography has no causal link to broken families
and whatever other social ills the conservatives blame on it. The second
prong is that porn is anti-Biblical and anti-Christian and that no Godly(tm)
community would tolerate such filth. Since we live in a secular society with
freedom of speech (and not all of us are Christians, and not even all of us
who are Christians believe the way they do), this argument should really
hold much, much less sway than it does with modern 21st century adults.
<sigh>

The feminist arguments are slightly more substantive, in that they are
grounded in philosophical tradition rather than religious dogma. They argue
that porn reflects a linguistic and visual oppression of women that has no
place in a just society in which women are valued. They go on at great
length discussing the effect of pornography on women (always negatively) and
will usually discuss self-described "sex-positive feminists" as essentially
deluded individuals working for their own destruction. They tend to end on
statistical arguments that pornography is a precursor to rape, to hatred of
women, et cetera. The last argument is generally pseudoscientific, and so
far as I know there is no generally accepted theory among psychologists or
sociologists that pornography is particularly responsible for negative
impacts on women, especially of the violent kind.

That said, I do think there are issues brought up by this class of feminists
that are arguable, and I can understand that many people agree with their
points. Which the Christian conservative argument is pretty easily knocked
down if one isn't a Christian, the feminist arguments are more subtle and
demand more attention, although I do not personally find them convincing.
For one thing, many of the persons arguing against modern porn clearly have
very little exposure to modern porn, and in particular use the ass-end,
horrible-example segment of the industry to castigate the whole -- a bit
like arguing that textile manufacturing is evil because sweatshops are bad
places to work.

I'm going to end this now because it's way off-topic and I'm not trying to
overwhelm anyone with my own point of view. I, personally, am a regular
viewer of pornography of different kinds, and feel it has an overall
positive impact on society, and don't think that any of the anti-porn
arguments hold a significant amount of water, but I can also agree to
disagree if you like so we can get back to chatting more directly about
Pynchon.

I have enjoyed this exchange, and hope I have not offended anyone. If I
have, my apologies.

--Daniel

On 5/20/07, Bryan Snyder <wilsonistrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Here's someone who agrees with me… thank god.
>
>
>
> http://www.slate.com/id/2126570/entry/2126575/
>
>
>
> lol… at least I found one…
>
>
>
> *From:* Daniel Harper [mailto:daniel.e.harper at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Saturday, May 19, 2007 7:50 PM
> *To:* wilsonistrey at gmail.com; pynchon-l at waste.org
> *Subject:* Re: So where in the world is Nina Hartley ...?
>
>
>
> There are a couple of separate issues here. One is why P doesn't respond
> to his niece. I was really just throwing the issue out and hoping for some
> response, and it appears that I've gotten that. My apologies if I've ruffled
> any feathers or hit a nerve.
>
> The second is a non-P issue of the respectability of porn in general.
> Since it's not-P, I'm going to limit my discussion of this issue to this
> post, unless there is wider discussion afterwards.
>
> On 5/19/07, *Bryan Snyder* <wilsonistrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hmmm… lol we just disagree on a lot.
>
>
>
> Ok. First off… I'm not revolted by porn, but I also don't fool myself into
> anything other than what it is: a medium to prompt masturbation, mainly for
> men and if you continue to break it down, those with high porn habits don't
> normally date, have intimacy issues etc.
>
>
> I don't think that's true. Porn consumers look like, well, they look like
> all of us, because they _are_ us. Most of the web-savvy people I know are
> fairly avid consumers of some type of pornography, and they have a wide
> variety of success with relationships. Porn can be a negative aspect on a
> relationship or a positive one -- in and of itself it exists as a morally
> neutral item.
>
>
>
>
>  Studies are starting to show (since the real porn explosion on the
> internet) that men's sex drives are decreasing because of the fantasy porn
> implants into male minds (and female minds too, with different effects).
>
>
> I googled a bit for this info and couldn't find anything. I've not seen
> reputable data to his effect; are you in possession of a link or other type
> of reference?
>
>
>
>
>   Above all, it's just not art in my book.  Eroticism is artistic and is
> hard to do well, porn is not hard to accomplish.
>
>
> In other words, you don't like porn. And since you don't elucidate a
> substantive difference between porn and erotica, I'm guessing you hold the
> definition the way most people do, either erotica is "porn with good
> lighting," or it's, "porn that I personally like." I don't deny that there's
> a lot of really bad porn out there, but that's just Sturgeon's Law for you.
>
>
>
>
> I was more arguing against, and I can't figure out a better way to say it,
> Taormino being praised in that article as some sort of porn genius… they
> referred to her as an auteur, and I have a serious problem with that because
> personally I think anyone (and I mean *anyone*) can shoot, write, direct,
> light, edit and soundtrack a porn film.  The porn criticism just seems like
> the industry's own creation to provide a veneer of legitimacy to its "Art"
> and what I think about that I probably clear; I don't think there's anything
> artistic to it.  Nude photography is not porn, though… totally different.
>
>
> It sounds like you've defined porn as, "stuff that gets the other guy
> off," that by definition doesn't have artistic merit. I'd argue that making
> a porn video that is well-received and of generally high-quality is about as
> difficult as making any other kind of artistic statement. If porn doesn't
> have any Pynchons or even Quentin Tarantinos working in the industry that's
> because it's a different kind of medium -- Belladonna is as good at what she
> does as Tarantino is at what he does, and why should we negate any idea of
> quality from the former just because it has different goals from the latter?
>
>
>    I could go on and on about the suicide of feminism that lies in the
> center of modern porn too, obviously all opinion, but I think the idea that
> women are empowered by showcasing their sexuality and therefore porn is
> acceptable as a career is a total joke.  It's the Frankenstein's monster of
> the women's movement.  All those porn actress empowering themselves are
> still serving male domination.
>
>
> I'm not interested in arguing the feminist issues involved with porn right
> now, as it would make this message way overlong and would take us wildly
> off-topic. I will make two points only: 1) most of those who make the
> argument that porn is intrinsically demeaning to women have little to no
> experience with modern porn and 2) it's funny how images of a man and a
> woman both nude having intercourse is only seen as being demeaning to the
> woman -- isn't the man doing much the same thing she is?
>
>
>
> There's erotica and porn… one is hard to do and its most certainly NOT the
> latter.  I would be more just as harsh with her if she were a sitcom actress
> IF SHE WERE BAD, but my point would be that then at least she's got a chance
> to not be.
>
>
> You can be a basically good person who's bad at what you do, and you can
> have a career that's basically meaningless in the sense of affecting the
> world around you. Assuming that porn is intrinsically bad and that there's
> no way of being good at it, would it be any better if she was a bad
> accountant or a surly cashier at Wal-Mart?
>
>
>
> So with that saying, I see or rather consider TRP to be a fairly moral,
> intelligent and most importantly probably very secure person and people who
> are somewhat moral (nobody's perfect), intelligent and, again most
> importantly, secure are the kind of people who are not "into" porn.  Again…
> this is all opinion, no studies have been consulted or anything, except for
> the sex drive and porn one, which I've seen on CNN, Slate, NY Times … a
> bunch of places.
>
>
> I think your opinion is not based on facts. I've seen no such reputable
> study, although conservative think-tanks like to throw lots of numbers
> around about how dirty pictures are ruining the family and America and such.
> I'd love to look at your data if you have a link for me.
>
>
>
> I don't think someone so committed to seclusion would appreciate the
> connection to his niece's work, I just don't – no proof or anything.  I also
> don't think TRP is ok with scenes like the Anibus from GR… or the Yash, Reef
> and Cyp stuff in AtD… I think he's mocking the human sexual weirdness… not
> banging a podium against it but I don't read those scenes as him being "Ok"
> with such debauchery.
>
>
> Haven't read those sequences yet. (SPOILER FOR ATD) He treats the
> three-way sexual experimentation of Yashmeen, Reef, and Cyprian towards the
> end of ATD with a great tenderness, though. (END SPOILER FOR ATD.)
>
>
>
>
> As far as the CNN thing… I just would have considered that a no-brainer,
> but I have a very high level of respect for TRP and what he's given us, so I
> would not be so adamant about someone whom I don't feel so strongly about…
> so lucky to have stumbled over his work… cross paths, etc.
>
>
>
> Fair enough.
>
>
>
> But I am certainly not revolted by porn, I'm a human… watching sex is
> certainly a turn on, but I do have a habit of feeling bad for the ladies.
>
>
> Again, why only the ladies? There's a lot of porn out there, and I'm sure
> some of it is made in less-than-benign circumstances, but the majority of
> "mainstream" and even "alt" porn is made by people who are consummate
> professionals who are paid quite well for their efforts. (If I had the kind
> of physique that people would pay me that kind of money to get naked a have
> sex on camera, I wouldn't have a problem with it necessarily -- except that
> there are plenty of people who would look down on my decision to do so and
> who might have enough power to keep me out of places where I might want to
> someday be.)
>
>
>
> Here's a real question to ponder – how long does one continue watching
> porn after orgasm?  Answer: not very.
>
>
> How long does one continue to eat a gourmet meal after feeling full?
> Answer: not very.
>
>
>
> Good questions though Dan.
>
> B
>
>
> I am sorry if I've come across as a bit arrogant or short-tempered in this
> message, as that really wasn't my intent. I have enormous respect for your
> point of view, and hope that this exchange will not effect our ability to
> discuss P on this list in the future. We do have wildly divergent points of
> view, though, and I think it's interesting to compare them.
>
> Thanks for the conversation, and for being reasonable in allowing me to
> have my say.
>
>
> --Daniel
>
> <snip old message>
>
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