Mintball wrote:
but there's a crossover on the matter of 'the objectification of women'. In which case, a few fairly random thoughts.
And a few random ones of mine. Much of it may be devil's advocate, but I don't think any point made is necessarily invalidated by that.
Women have always been seen by at least a significant proportion of the population in various civilisations as either objects, or as having been objectified. In any society, there appears to be a "model" for the idealised female (and male). That is not necessarily a plump, Rubenesque nude, or a Playboy covergirl; for example, the idealised woman in a strict Muslim society may be one who fulfils the role of wife and mother, and is almost invisible to the rest of society.
One common thread between Muslim women in burqas and female sex workers as seen on Sexcetera and other TV shows is that if asked, seemingly many of them would tell you that (a) it is none of your business and (b) you have got it all wrong, it is their life, their body, their choice.
Huge numbers of people work in the sex /porn industry. If an actress chooses to spend many years playing the lead in hardcore porn, and makes more money than I ever will, is it any of my business? Maybe she is being exploited, or maybe she isn't, is she being exploited any more than someone working 12 hours a night on minimum wage in a meat packing factory? Or sewing clothes in some sweatshop?
If you feel the right to tell her what she shouldn't be doing - what then SHOULD she be doing?
Why is all talk of women in porn films being exploited sexually? there are as many male parts, if a man is in regular work due to a) being within the bounds of what is generally seemingly viewed as passably good looking, b) has a big dick and c) can perform on command time after time and day in, day out - why is there very little talk of him being exploited? If he looked like Eric Pickles or had a penis like a button mushroom then he wouldn't be in the job, so surely, he is being exploited for his physical appearance just as much as any woman.
WAGS. There is a popular picture, reinforced by series like Footballers' Wives, presenting some women as vacuous gold-diggers, who work their way into a jet-set lifestyle by looking a certain way. We all know there is much truth in that. They take a lot of stick. The whole lifestyle may have the appearance to some as just fake, with all the cars, jets, parties, exotic holidays etc. but if some young female who is in fact a minimally educated airhead works her life so she is living the champagne high life she craved, if that is her choice, why should I have a go at her? if not using her looks to achieve this, what else should or could she be doing?
I suppose, ultimately, if it is legal, who am I to decide whether or not a person is being "objectified" and anyway if they are adults of sound mind, what business is it of mine?
Mintball wrote:
The online porn issue is clearly one that goes far wider: Cameron is using it as a cover to get a whole range of online filters in place, on everything from 'extremist materials', which people might think fair enough, to 'alcohol' and 'smoking'. What do these even mean in terms of filters? Would it mean Alcoholics Anonymous would be censored by filter/search engine? We know that there have been problems in recent years with things such as 'breast cancer'.
But then the list also includes 'web forums' – so, RLFans – and, best of all, "esoteric materials". What? 'Things that are only understood by the initiated', goes a pretty standard definition. Well, you could use that for this forum. You could use it for any religious group. For trade unions – for just about anything that you wanted to use it for.
Anti-porn campaigners have been lulled into (metaphorical) bed on this – although some commentaries from some of them suggest that they really do think that everything else here is 'a price worth paying'. I find it hard to politely and objectively analyse this without simply decrying them all as an irresponsible bunch of imbeciles.
All agreed, and I have the feeling that perhaps the two main serious issues on the net, being (a) child abuse and (b) terrorist activities could and should be set apart and attacked and worked on in isolation. You are quite right in that the aim of the government seems to be a million miles wider than that, it will end up like some totalitarian old-Eastern-European stylee system where everything is monitored, all freedom is lost and you daren't post anything without fearing a boot on your door.
Mintball wrote:
As mentioned in more than one blog post, there is no evidence to support the claims that viewing porn turns men (because it's always about men) violent to women and children (because the victims are always women and children). People have been hunting for 30-plus years and they still haven't found any such evidence, any more than there is evidence that viewing violent entertainment makes you violent.
I tend to disagree. At one time I wouldn't have, but I do now think that everything we take in and absorb from an early age helps to form and mould our future personalities and attitudes. I also now understand a whole lot more about brainwashing, and flooding and desensitisation techniques, and I have no doubt that exposing people to anything, (and not just porn) can desensitise them to it. In this sense, viewing things online isn't materially different from viewing things in real life. It's just viewing things. One random illustration is the series "Mad Men". The attitude of men towards women is brilliantly portrayed and that is how it was, across the board (still is of course in some ways and some places, if much less overt). Now, those guys didn't view women as pretty little things who shouldn't bother their pretty little heads and who should know their place, as a result of anything genetic, or from watching misogynist and sexist videos, but because that was the way it was while they were growing up, and they became a product of their own times.
Mintball wrote:
But on to the lads' mags.
Personally, I have an issue with some of the behaviour of 'lads' behaving 'laddishly' – it's not pleasant. But I have no illusions that it's caused by such magazines.
And the whole concentration on these publications alone is, if not hypocritical, then massively simplistic. Not least because huge amounts of women's magazines display fairly flesh-filled covers – and fairly sexually-charged cover lines ('How to get your best orgasm' on the likes of Cosmo, for instance). What about the likes of Men's Health, with its naked torsos – doesn't this 'objectify' men? What about gay publications – or adverts for men's underwear (Aussie Bum, for instance, or the David Beckham ones). What about the Mail with its acres of comment on women's bodies – how much damage does that do? I use the word 'damage' very deliberately, because I think that the Mail actually spreads a culture of self-loathing.
So where does all this come in the equation? It doesn't. In other words, the concentration on 'lads' mags' is not critically rigorous, but reveals an agenda that, when examined critically, fails.
Absolutely. And, i think also pretty much where I came in.
Mintball wrote:
I think that the ultimate problem in the UK is that we have a culture that is, on the one hand, hugely prurient, but on the other, still massively puritanical. And it's an unhealthy mix.
I tend to disagree to some extent. To the extent that you're right, I have come to the conclusion that ultimately, and across all civilisations so far as I can see, we are genetically programmed towards mate selection and sex, and I don't think anything will ever change that. The default position of most people when seeing another person for the first time is, across the board, to instantly judge them physically, and I think that's just the way it will always be (even if the criteria on which the judgment is based will substantially vary).
Mintball wrote:
An element of what we're seeing is the pushing of an agenda that wishes to portray female victimhood (and probably, in doing that, ensures more women are). Apart from it being inherently patronising (matronisng?) it also plays with an idea of women inherently 'nicer' than men – which is nonsense. And it continues to push an idea that women see sex in a completely different way to men.
I don't think it's nonsense, though. Physically men and women do not produce the same cocktails of chemicals, which control behaviours and urges, and the main of these is testosterone. I would be prepared, from my years on the planet, to concede that women are, inherently, 'nicer' than men. (Which is of course not the same as saying that ALL are, or that that there are not wimpish men, or highly aggressive women). And to say that, on average, women see sex in a completely different way to men is I think pretty fair comment.
Mintball wrote:
... Or rather, there is no more a single female view of sex than there is a single male view of sex.
I think there is, though. Certainly if we are talking about adolescence and young adulthood.
Mintball wrote:
As only a slight aside, I'd say that in my experience (thus this is anecdote) the men who treat women with least respect are the sexually screwed-up and the puritans. ...
... I am not sure it is fair to dismiss your considered view of observed human relationships as "anecdote".
Mintball wrote:
Those I have known who either have no particular personal axe to grind with the sex industry as a whole (whether they are consumers themselves or not) or who are themselves consumers (and guilt free about it) are far more respecting of women in general.
I think that many people mature into realising that everyone has their own sexual preferences, desires and needs, which are valid and to be respected as much as the persons themselves. But I think that
some of the objectification of women (I have in mind especially stuff like the media such as the Mail, but also as endless harems of video hoes etc.) does, to whatever extent, serve to form and entrench negative attitudes, and presents a substantial impediment to the formation of a culture of respect and equality.
So much for potted random ramblings for the day!
