Recently we had a debate competition in the university about Pornography Objectifies Women? I heard some interesting points raised in the debate and some good counter arguments too. So I think it's kinda global question of ethics, and it's relevant to this forum, if the Mods and Admin. don't approve/encourage such type of discussion then feel free to delete it. I'm anxiously awaiting to hear the replies from the advocators of the "self", "I am"etc..... Question :- Is it wrong for men to see women in a sexual light? Surely objectification would only come through exposure to women solely through pornography? Is it healthy to see all male sexual interests as objectification? Surely when someone complains of such objectification it says more about their own problems with sexuality than those of the person they're accusing. - or - It's about the feminist claim that pornography objectifies women. P.S Comparing porn to real life sex is like comparing movies to life. We understand movies because they have similarities with out life, but never the less, much more of it is fiction and we very well recognize the fact. When I watch a movie, I want to be cheated. So long as its done well, I have no problem. your point of view please?
I'm sorry but porn is nothing more than comedy. It has very little basis in reality, it is no different from reading a comic book. Also the objectification complaint is not limited to men, women do it too. Many women read those stupid romance books which are more akin to garbage than proper reading material. What people just need to understand is that men are more visual than women. No matter the medium the objective is the same, personal gratification for both sexes.
Male and female energies .. Female = Keeper of the sacred flame Male = Protector of the sacred flame The balance of these energies or identities is paramount in a wholesome home and society IMHO. It is natural law
I wouldn't go "metaphysical" in any regard, this one included... So, one must historicise and contextualise etc. Before one proceeds one should allow for various perspectives, depending on many elements in the background: political (Lib, Con or Left), social (intellectual school of thought, religious etc.), economic ([in]direct interest or class etc.) or just ethical (would you like to see your mother, sister, daughter or father, brother, son, for that matter - "do this for a living"; or would you like to see them see you use those "services"; worse still, would you like to see your enemies or friends "use" them for their "letting off the steam"?!?) etc. etc. 1) Capitalism objectifies. Full stop! Men and women. Some women go into prostitution, some voluntarily, some not so... Ever more men go into prostitution, mostly voluntarily but some... hmmm... Shall we see how many men have lost their jobs and can't find a decent new job? 2) Prostitution is not just selling your body to be used and abused sexually directly but also indirectly (mags, porn, peep shows etc.). Prostitution is selling your body (what you can do) to Capital. 3) When one states that "men rule the world" - let's get serious for a moment: how many men actually ran anything at all?!? Just how many are owners of anything serious in terms of Capital? And if they do - who owns whom in that case? I would urge everybody to read Fromm's "The Art of Loving" to get a better grip of our "nature" as it is "directed" by Capitalism... What one considers "natural" (before thinking it all through carefully) might soon be very questionable (having informed oneself from the best, critically minded authors)...
Natural law is not something I personally would quantify as Metaphysical by definition but if that is your conclusion so be it
It takes a Subject to proclaim it "natural"... And then, another subject comes along and says "Not at all, this is what it's like..." Our perception of "nature" and subsequent interpretation of what is "natural" keeps changing... Nature may have remained fairly static in the last few thousand years, in which our understanding of it changed drastically... Even more controversial is our understanding how, if at all, do we fit into the "natural scheme of things"... So, easy on the metaphysics, please...
"Pornography Objectifies Women?" No, not pornography does. And it's also not gender related. It are the ‘actors’ who are advertising / offering their bodies as pure object or object related 'actions'. And it are the consumers objectifying the persons / actors. 'Pornography' itself does not. It are the persons, better said their egos. Capitalism itself is an instrument already, yes used to objectify, but reason for capitalism is also the ego's main attribute: greed. To compare porn with 'movies'. We have the actors objectifying themselves (playing a 'role') and we have the consumers objectifying their actors / consume article by creating idoles / fantasies. Mechanism is to consume an object, an idea which seems to be lacking for one's ego. Creating a 'must have'. One offers a product and an idea of oneself which the one represents. Advertising of that offers that artificial and emphasized 'product' to potential consumers by addressing greed. The only difference is that a porn movie also satisfies sexual greed and that pornography is an issue at some cultures. I guess nobody ever has the claim that a porn movie has to be conform to real life. It should satisfy sexual fantasies and sexual greed then this consume article has done its job. I fully agree with 2) at gorski's previous post. To 1) I have to say that capitalism is the instrument of the ego to objectify. I have a problem when one says capitalism is responsible for to objectify. It is, yes, that isn’t the question but the reason for capitalism is the ego’s attribute greed. To objectify means to reduce one's real Self to an idea (which can be a movie hero or idol, simply an object), to the one’s manifestation, appearance. Most famous actors have problems to be objectified and have problems with self-identity. That’s the reason why most actors are married but soon get divorced again. To objectify is a general sickness of the mind and pornography is nothing extraordinary compared to that sickness. It’s generally prostitution that somebody creates an object / product of one’s self to be sold and consumed. The history of the human’s ego shows clearly that a strong ego feels far more comfortable at males. To the self-preservation of the ego it was important to oppress females. So we had the Spanish Inquisition and still have cultures where females are suppressed and must not show their natural body shape. We had almost exclusively male dictators and tyrants in history. And we have today, just watch the news.... So the question "Pornography Objectifies Women?" is still a relict of that ego evolution and patriarchy and the reaction of the females (feminism). And it’s a product of natural / biological instinctive arrangements of the roles even though that is a minor aspect in a today's capitalistic society. To 3). I guess that is not really the point here, it is a point of capitalism, though. The point is how many percent of females have their jobs in leading positions (‘owned’ by capital or not)? Those positions are still dominated by males.
As I said, I am not the one to leap into metaphysics... I'll give you an example... or three... Sexual greed? Some are watching it only and solely because their natural, legitimate needs are not met... for various reasons... Or because of the nature of "single partner", sexually exclusive partnerships we are forming for a while now (inheritance driven), one needs a "booster", to get the old "imagination" going... To 'objectify' in this context means to take away one's sexual subjectivity, i.e. turn a person who has no inner purpose, whose innermost, natural need for another and subsequently two-way (mutual) sexual gratification is taken away and that person is then turned into a sexual object, i.e. one is there to serve another. Some such sex servants might even be gratified during those activities but that is irrelevant/beside the point here. And to Capital it doesn't matter who's gonna lend a hand, in its need to exploit... It objectifies full stop. Hence above. There were researchers who went to study the "primitives" and there they found very different sexual practices. It turns out that our sexuality is not that "metaphysical" and that a good part of it is very "malleable", depending on one's epoch, one's civilisational and cultural background, one's economic and other context. Hence, one can say that the largest sexual organ is the brain... if we discount huge boobs and small heads/brains, I suppose... Hence the need for "dominatrix" and similar s**te, where one even chokes a partner... or worse...
Heh, one more: "The history of the human’s ego shows clearly that a strong ego feels far more comfortable at males." Yen, have you ever been married? Have you ever watched a "strong woman" twist everyone's balls to her satisfaction? No "uncomfortable" feeling when you're in her shoes, you know... And such women are not exactly few and far between... especially nowadays, with economic independence for women, generally speaking... I mean, in the Balkans, the cradle of primitive patriarchy, at some point of crisis, they elected a woman to be the prime minister and lead them out of the hole they dug out for themselves...
I can trace my ancestry back at least to some extent thousands of years and from that lineage speak to the relationships that developed for survival of the next seven generations, that is and was the wisdom of our elders. A people who before any capitalistic tendencies elected their Chief through the Women's council and whose character had to represent the whole of his people .. There is no Metaphysics involved in oral history .. I am speaking from my personal experience and I am also quite familiar with a portion of other cultures who because of their ignorance of our way quickly try to define it in a way that demeans and disrespects that way .. The Natural for me is a harmony steeped in thousands of years of History so @gorski you make the classic mistake of most men your age and that is you know less than you think you know
hm.. i guess a dirty mind is a joy forever.. porn has played a role in any society unless that society was too backward to be able to produce it. and present day technology makes the implementation/ production easier than ever before.. so we get more of it.and we get it for free.. i guess the porn industry looses more more money on copyright than hollywood and the music industry combined.. and it is less capable to bless us with acta, sopa, etc.. there are mainly cultural differences as to the nature of the porn a society tends to produce.. [to these old eyes, what they make in the us today is more alien than the keystone cops from the 1920`s.. but that`s just me..] after this long preamble, let me get to the point. yes porn objectifies. for any reason, it does not matter which.. and it is not limited to women, either.. the fact is, that so far, mankind has failed to produce a society that allows every individual a free choice on how to make a decent living. and so long as we fail to do that, people are bound to try to make a living by their exploiting their sexuality, if for whatever reason [ economics, coercion, greed, beauty] it happens to be their most obvious choice, in that stage of their lives.. metaphysics are not involved, and neither is rocket science.. as for the consumers of the products, i guess they are just victims of marketing.. and they do do a wicked thing. but like lemmings jumping off cliff, they have not learned to know better..
Redroad, this may well be a classic case of "misunderstanding"... I mean, I thought you were joking... a lot... as that post sounds to me like something I once or thrice heard in a Holys**te movie, in a comedy sense of the word... And you really made me laugh! In a good sense! I thought this guy has a wicked sense of humour! No kidding! Whatever you wrote may well be true for your tribe (or whatever you want to call your people) for this period of their history. Even though I would struggle to put any serious content to your cryptic post, I must say - but that's just me, I guess... But that doesn't make what I wrote untrue, i.e. the roles/views of sex relationships may well change over time/epoch/civilisation/culture/etc. Metaphysical, in this sense, means "out of time" and "allegedly universal", regardless of everything, i.e. not related to anything man-made, that is to say "natural", as in "absolute", therefore unrelated to whatever we do/make of ourselves, as we change all our relationships. I mean, these concepts (historicity, for instance) are well established in not only Philosophy, although they came from Philosophy, and have a specific meaning, related to a development in Philosophy, especially with the change of Epoch (Feudalism to Modernity, i.e. change of mode of production, American/French great Revolutions and more precisely German Classical Philosophy development to the Left in general and Marx, in particular). Just as the concept of "metaphysical" came out of Ancient Greece some 2.500 thousand years ago and has a very specific meaning, also (at least from Aristotle and onwards). I wonder what you understand I meant... Maybe you gave them a very different meaning to me? And since we are at it: I presume you are American Indian - correct? Was there such a concept (or were there such concepts: prostitution, pornography etc. related) among your people, before the onslaught by Europeans began? I mean, can you even go back that far and really trace them/be aware of/'know' these concepts at all, back then? And how, if there was no written document on the topic, say a thousand years back? Was there sexual slavery, for instance? How did that 'work', if the 'concept'/practice did exist, say as "spoils of war" product?
@gorski let me begin here Yes, I am a "native american" and I was born a Haudenosaunee (People of the long house - Iroquois Nation) and from an earlier time, before we were over taken, I am also Megumawaach (People of the Red Earth) The thing I believe that might have significance, for purposes of this conversation, is that our Nation is Matrilineal .. That being said a Woman's role and power has been defined along those lines. You can see, given a woman’s role and power, she would hardly choose or allow something contrary to that sacred identity to be established. Was there slavery? Or for that matter sexual slavery? I am sad to say yes .. Was it a widely an accepted practice? I don’t believe it was but that is only speculation on my part. [FONT="]A belief of the highest order or importance for my people is decisions are made for the good of all and the next seven generations .. That being said you can see it would be hard to imagine a defined role for a woman or a man that would include what is being discussed here however some of our traditions have been eroded in ways that can only sadden those who have lived long enough to measure the difference. I suppose that for some my point of view could be considered cryptic[/FONT] but I only ask that you be kind enough to consider that I am one of those who have lived long enough to measure the difference. Let me say I appreciate and often enjoy your points of view. I also believe some of the essence of who we each are and our individual points of view is lost in translation. We are a global society in some ways now so our words have a reach beyond our individual communities.. So basketball guy bring your A game
There is no metaphysics concerning pornography. Pornography is pure object related hence related to appearance and form. It's rather physics like movements.... And yes it is sexual greed that is responsible to consume pornography. But there is nothing wrong with it and I know the reasons (you have posted) why there is a market for it. As I have posted pornography itself does neither objectify nor it is specially 'bad'. It is an attribute of the ego to objectify and to me there is no difference if a porn actor is reduced or objectified to an 'simple' idea or an other actor is reduced or objectified to his role the one plays either in a movie (e.g. the actor of Darth Vader) or to the role the one plays in real life. To me the major problem I have (here) is that humans are always creating de-personalized terms to deny responsibility of something. So it is pornography that objectifies and not one's ego..... So it is capitalism that objectifies, but not the human ('s ego).......people should wake up and get that our sickness is our ego which has taken on a dramatic scale. But how to achieve that when the ego always is the judge??? The ego rather invents capitalism and pornography and then assigns its bad attributes to those artificial terms... What are your examples worth compared to burning of witches and holocaust I had mentioned? Don't tell me you want to state that females were / are as bad as males concerning oppression of humans (especially the other gender)..in history and in today's parts of the Arabic world......
The problems is that most people self objectify, we live in a facile society so why an issue with just pornography ?
Sorry for the late reply. Okay, I agree with you but pornography, especially "modern" pornography, objectifies women without a question. Because I think almost 12% of all websites are dedicated to porn nowadays. The content of pornographic material has changed. In the past there was more dialogue, more of a story, the encounter was still between partners in a sense. But nowadays, it consists of female degradation. There is no intimacy, only f***ing. And the women are degraded, the lines they speak are "F**k me hard", "I'm a c**t", "I'm a whore", etc.... No modern porn movies seems to escape degrading the women to something to be used by men as a commodity, to be paid and bought.
Yen sir, please read Catharine MacKinnon's "Pornography and Trafficking" with regard to the US situation.