Posted on 06/17/2002 8:25:38 PM PDT by JMJ333
No, you're wrong. They are not the same thing. I didn't say that men can't be responsible, they can. I said that the way women used to behave (a real thing) tended to cause men to behave in a more responsible way (a real effect). I never said that men shouldn't or couldn't behave more responsibly all by themselves. (They should, and could!) - - But the result of women having lost that mode of behavior has not been good. They have lowered themselves, on average, to the low level of men, on average.
I agree, absolutely. My wife wouldn't have married me if I were a porno freak, or if I frequented whorehouses, or if I dated women for sex.
This is a great book. Highly recommended to anyone.
Yendu: I don't think porn is predominantly about the communication of ideas and concepts. It's about sexually arousing the viewer (and not much more than that).
I couldn't disagree more. Porn is portraying a wide range of concepts and ideas
One (of many) concepts porn promotes is of sex on demand and female compliance. The message being sent is the setting of a standard of sexual response in women that is not attainable nor desirable for most women. This sets the standard for what the porn consumer wants a "sexual" or sensual woman to be. How she is to be defined and identified in the larger society. The primary message underlying it though is that she not set that standard herself.
The underlying premise is that women are not sexual beings in their own right by their own standards and with their own sexual desires and goals ___ ie women's individualism (in all aspects including her individual sexuality, the most intimate and personal part of herself) are subordinate to men's. She does not "own" her own sexuality, others do. It is imposed on her, does not originate with her as an autonomous (sexual) human being.
IMO this message hardly needs reinforcing in our society. We can see evidence here of men presuming to "own" women's sexuality by presuming to speak on her behalf about her sexual nature eg "women don't have as strong a sex drive as mens" (again men setting the standard). There are no shortage of men in society who TELL women what women's sexuality is ... or should be ... every step of the way. This is a concept reinforced in porn.
Porn sends many messages, again just as all of media, tv music etc. does about our society. A good part of "entertainment" is actually marketing of social ideals and concepts. Your Sex in the City references are a good example of this. This is not only entertainment it is prosyletizing a concept lifestyle ... or selling it as the "norm" when it clearly is not (yet) the norm. There is an agenda in all media, whether overt or covert. This includes porn.
Most of them have small minds, if you know what I mean.
Fair enough. I agree on this. But of course, as I was saying, women these days hardly need porn to send that message.
We can see evidence here of men presuming to "own" women's sexuality by presuming to speak on her behalf about her sexual nature eg "women don't have as strong a sex drive as mens" (again men setting the standard).
In the first statement of yours above, you say that men are setting too high a sexual response standard for women. In the second, you accuse men for saying women don't have as high a sexual response as men. It could just be, Lorianne, that women, on average, as a factual matter, are less interested in sex than men. (Without any agendas, or oppression, or anything like that.) That's been my observation, all my life, and of the vast majority of people I know.
Well, no one is forcing women to listen!!! (Men's) Porn is just men's fantasies about what men want sexually. The problem, as I see it, is that so many women today think 1) that they can get what they want by having unbridled sex (a big mistake, if they're looking for commitment) and 2) that that liberates them (big misconception) and 3) that men respect them more for their licentiousness (big mistake).
I agree with what you say about the media. But porn is by far for the most part designed to stimulate men sexually (and it's very competitive). I don't think the purveyors of porn are trying to send any message. They want men to be attracted (and even, better, addicted) to it, so that they pay up for their fixes. What bothers you is that what men fantasize about sexually doesnt' represent the reality of women's sexuality. That's true. Traditional sexual mores (marriage, chastity before marriage, etc.) were designed in part to tame men's inflamed sexuality. Those have been cast aside.
If I might jump in, this exactly true, and because of the addictive nature and need to for ever more intense 'imagery/fantasy' to achieve the same level of interst/stimulation in the sexually and morally 'numbed' receiver, the porn gets worse, the user gets more depraved (even if hidden), and it all spirals down.
The reverse can be acheived, but it is an uphill battle when porn is so pervasive and seemingly too few people perceive it's corrosive effects on society.
Like other corruptive influences, the bad effects will be obvious to us long after the damage has been done. A little like the Catholic Church, which allowed active homosexuality to flourish in seminaries and dioceses, and then ended up with priests (in Boston) promoting man/boy sex and then with raped and molested teenage boys all over the country.
There is a spiritual component to sexual corruption that is difficult to discuss on a pluralistic, secular thread.
The reality is 'we battle not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities'. The enemy knows us exceedingly well and exploits disbelief to maxium effect.
Do you have documentation for this? I would love to be able to dry up the ACLU's money flow.
The truth of this resides all around us.
I don't agree. If you set the standards then everyone else is graded on the curve of your benchmark. If you say interest is sex is detemined by _x_ then this becomes the standard for everyone (roughly 6.3 billion people). How are you measuring "interest in sex" and what is your sample size? One person, two persons? It is by this type of reasoning that men arrogantly assume "ownership" of women's sexuality. This is a constantly reinforced theme in porn (and other media). Men dictating women's sexuality and defining it for them, placing women in sexual categories from saint to whore, slut to prude. [Also in one fell swoop individual differences between women are negated in favor of an "everywoman" which is just what porn projects].
I reject that premise from the ground up. I object to it in porn and every other media as well.
Men's sexuality is collectively defined in relation to women as "high interest" and this in turn is given a positive "spin" in the media. Not so women's sexuality. Women's collective sexual personae is "owned" by men and given positive and negative "spin" as a means of control.
By defining the standards for women in relation to themselves men control the benchmarking process. This gives them the tools to categorize/chastize/shame women for either wanting sex "too much" or "not enough" or "not in the proper context". We've seen all of these tactics used on this very thread.
I assure you I have no interest in 'ownership' of women's sexuality. (How would I do that anyway?)
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