Posted on 12/18/2010 8:01:19 AM PST by IbJensen
Pornography has invaded the world’s imagination. It is everywhere: On the Internet, in films, in movies, in rap music videos. Five-year-old girls dress and are taught to behave like pornography stars in order to win beauty contests. Ten- to twelve-year-old girls both dress and behave like the pornographic images that surround them—and they provide sexual services to young boys.
Opera—high culture—has also been increasingly “sexed up.” I have seen productions of “Carmen” and “Lulu” in which the lead diva was half-naked and in which she, too, sang the role as if she was a contemporary pornography star and prostitute.
No, I do not like any of this.
Yes, I take it all very seriously—as many Second Wave feminists and our Christian and conservative allies once did.
No, I do not think that hiding women beneath burqas is, therefore, any kind of solution. In fact, both pornography and prostitution are booming businesses in most Muslim countries.
Before we go any further, let’s play twenty questions. I really want your answers.
1. Is pornography “work” or is it a violent crime?
2. Is pornography “free speech” in action or is it a violent, often murderous crime?
3. Is pornography really a “victimless” crime?
4. Are pimps, johns, traffickers, and landlords being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining?
5. Are the people, mainly men, who buy and watch pornography being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining? Is anyone forcing them to consume pornography?
6. Are the seductive, taunting, smiling, naked girls and women who are being paid “good” money–victims? If so, why don’t they complain, leave, find some other job?
7. Isn’t working in pornography a job just like any other job–like any other acting job?
8. Aren’t pornography actors there of their own free will—for the easy money, the attention, the “stardom?”
9. Isn’t our right to see and read whatever interests us essential to our fundamental liberty?
10. Doesn’t the First Amendment guarantee us this right? If we criminalize one kind of “free speech,” where will it end? Who will decide what information or images we are allowed to see? Won’t state or religious censorship chill our rights, even our very thoughts?
11. On behalf of “free speech,” and privacy rights, didn’t Second Wave feminists avidly collaborate with pornographers to ensure that pornography remained a civil right?
12. Didn’t Second Wave feminists launch the battle against violence against women, which included sexual harassment, rape, incest, domestic battering—as well as the most serious battle against pornography and prostitution? Weren’t they vilified for collaborating with Christians and conservatives on the issue of pornography and prostitution?
13. How many women from wealthy and prominent families, or with advanced educations, “choose” to work in pornography or as prostitutes?
14. Did you know that, by definition, pornography is that which has to do with “prostitutes.” “Porne” in Greek is a “prostitute.” The so-called actresses in pornography are treated as if they are–and usually soon are–also “working” as prostitutes.
15. How different is being a prostitute from being a stripper, massage therapist, or a nurse?
16. How many prostituted girls and women are actually free to leave, walk out, give it all up?
17. Where might they go? Where might they call “home?” Who will help them get off drugs and alcohol, restore their ravaged health, support them as they deal with the sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, with which johns have infected them?
18. Do you have any idea of what the average age of a pornography actress/prostitute is?
19. How long a shelf-life does a “working girl” (prostitute, pornography actress) actually have?
20. Why does pornography “turn” people on?
I lived through the great feminist Sex Wars. I was both a participant and an eye-witness, as well as a confidante to feminists who were on both sides of this War. But before I share memories and analysis, I really want to hear from you. Your answers will help me understand how to share a vast body of knowledge and history with you in the most productive way. Here’s a hint to help you think through these questions.
Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry, right up there with guns and drugs. It is enormously profitable but not to the “workers,” most of whom are girls and women who have been sold by their parents, captured in war, kidnapped off the street, forced by their husbands, or who have been driven by poverty, racism, incest, and the most violent sexism into the arms of pimps, traffickers, landlords, advertisers, law enforcement officers, and johns.
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is an author, psychotherapist and an expert courtroom witness. She has lectured and organized political, legal, religious and human rights campaigns in the United States and in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. A popular guest on campuses and in national and international print, television, radio and online media, she has been an expert commentator on the major events of our time. She has lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, and in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She currently resides in Manhattan.
To 193 - I did ask and his answer was that he’d throw her out of the house and get a divorce.
Porn isn’t a good thing for the people who work in it....Asbestos isn’t a good thing for the people who work in it, but it’s the only thing they can get that pays well.
Eyewash needed after looking at that horrific unfeminine battleax.
The irony about the whole Feminazi anti-porn movement is that their party line was “pornography CAUSES rape.”
However, since internet porn has become so readily available, the rape statistics have plummeted bigtime.
Very funny. Thanks for the laugh.....and for the clarification.
You presume falsely.
As far as I can see, there is nothing compelling a jurisdiction to permit the sale, distribution and operation of pornography should the people choose to bar it.
Except that the Supreme Court has ruled in numerous cases that porn is covered under First Amendment protection.
On a humorous note at a small city I once resided it was pretty well known about a guy who would don female clothes and a wig and work the streets downtown. Funny thing was he was an approx 6'5 weightlifter who looked like an NFL defensive lineman in a dress. If he fooled anyone it was only because they wanted to be.
I’m not argueing that girls/women don’t need to be smart/safe. They do.
What I’m saying is the attitude that “boys will be boys” is dangerous culturally to ALL girls/women because it exemmpts boys/men from the culutural expectation to act responsibily.
That attitude should not be promoted. It is dangerous (not to mention hypocritical).
Parents should not raise their boys to be “weak” and with a “boys will be boys” attitude.
Let’s see now ... the presence of a camera makes prostitution moral because it makes it more common/frequent, therefore it’s not moral?
Excellent statement!! It is very dangerous and I find it very concerning that pro life advocates think and promote "boys will be boys" while blaming only women for unplanned pregnancies and abortions. Unintended consequences of "that's what men do".
So if I pay a woman for sex with me it’s prostitution but if I pay her for sex with another guy it’s not prostitution?
Here’s a novel legal defense concept - Bill and Bob want to hire hookers, but don’t want to break any laws - so Bill hires a hooker to service Bob and Bob hires a hooker to service Bill, and they both film it - this somehow converts illegal prostitution into legal porn?
That doesn't look like a response to #219.
I'd be tempted to say "Come again?" but it would be in poor taste.
I think your reply should have been a continuation of #197, in which you asked:
So somehow the presence or absence of a camera alters the nature of the activity?
To which I answered "yes" -- explaining both how the frequency and purpose of the activity (sexual relations for money between adults) changed: because the essential nature of the activity is not the sexual gratification of the recipient of the sexual favors, but earning money by people paying for the opportunity to WATCH the sexual activity.
I then pointed out that in the adult film industry, there are employees ("fluffers") whose purpose is NOT to bring the participant to climax, but merely to maintain that participant's state of arousal in order that said participant be ready to resume *filming* after a break, with minimal delay.
All these things are a COMPOUNDING of the immorality, not a justification.
Cheers!
Just to show, it takes all kinds...
Certainly not an unknown phenomenon. Phil Vassar made an interesting song about a former linebacker / present day tow truck driver who showed up at the local bar / hang-out dressed as woman a while back... (*smile*)
Phil Vassar - Bobbi With An I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCpuPZ73wfA
He would have hit it. He was worse than Laz.
If Bill paid Bob and the woman to have sex with each other and he had sex with neither, then it works. If they buy hookers for each other, they are still buying hookers.
So if Bill pays for Bob and Bambi to have sex with each other, then it’s legal porn, but if Bob then pays for Bill and Trixi to have sex with each other, then they’re all involved in illegal prostitution?
“No, not HER.”
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Who are you tryin’ to Shiite?
I hate it to break it to you... We are can’t go back to the 1950’s world nor should we..
Yes, I agree. It is properly “Thou shall not murder”, but most Christians of all eras would still interpret everyday Viking behavior as violating that commandment, which was my point.
Placemark for pingout. Didn’t get to it today.
Yeah but a pro Athelete doesn’t have anal prolapse, do they?
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