Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

[Darat]

"Hey, only one in six of you females have to deal with rape, and you're not being executed for it, so you should thank your blessings and just keep quiet" is perhaps not the message you want to send?

That's dishonest of you. The comment at its worse was about the link between pornography and rape, not that any level of rape is acceptable or an OK price to pay.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'll also note that there's never any discussion about the portrayal of rape in "romance" novels. Women's sexuality can never be problematic, even when it involves rape fantasies.

This is a bit of an aside, but what is depicted in romance novels isn't quite the same. It's not about wanting to be raped, it's about wanting a male to desire you so much that they surrender their control over themselves. And it's very rarely a situation where the man in question is focused solely on the female's body, they're entranced by the entirety of the female's being, including their mind and character.

That doesn't imply that it can't be problematic - it certainly can. But it's not generally the same kind of rape that happens in real life.

 

[Darat]

This is a bit of an aside, but what is depicted in romance novels isn't quite the same. It's not about wanting to be raped, it's about wanting a male to desire you so much that they surrender their control over themselves. And it's very rarely a situation where the man in question is focused solely on the female's body, they're entranced by the entirety of the female's being, including their mind and character.

That doesn't imply that it can't be problematic - it certainly can. But it's not generally the same kind of rape that happens in real life.

Load of crap - and let's be honest "romance novels" are porn - mostly soft porn but they are porn, we are being snobby because it's in "book" form.

You really need to branch out and see what is self-published these days, the day of Mills & Boon romance are long gone. (And even they publish stuff they will label "erotica". And the difference between erotica and romance is simple the difference between hardcore porn and softcore porn.)

A female character watching the "alpha" man slowly abuse and then rape a "beta" man ain't thinking it's about what is going on in their minds.

And to the highlighted part - I doubt that the fantasy rape in porn is ".... generally the same kind of rape that happens in real life".

 

[Emily's Cat]

No. My argument is essentially two pronged:

1) I have seen no evidence that easy access to porn leads to a culture of rape. In fact states that seem to have easy access to porn, ie Sweden, have lower incidences of rape than other countries where it is highly restricted. And, rape was acceptable in many societies in many circumstances long before porn existed. If anything, its generally less accepted now than at any time in human history at least in Western society.

I am not convinced that this correlation is causal. BAsed on what I can tell, it seems that Sweden has a pretty high reporting rate, and a high conviction rate for rapes than the US. I am inclined to think that rape being taken very seriously and punished very harshly has much more of an impact on the rate of rapes in Sweden than access to pornography does. Especially since access to porn is pretty damned easy in the US.

2) Making porn inaccessible on the internet is a far more challenging task and will require far more "big brother" intrusiveness into their internet traffic than many people realize, or would accept, I think. Do you want a government agent looking at everything you view, and if you were to use encryption or a VPN would you be OK with being arrested cause well, you could've used it to get around restrictions?

I think the amount of oversight that would be considered acceptable probably has a pretty big difference between males and females, as well as between parents and those without children.

I also think that "it's difficult" isn't a good reason for shirking a responsibility for reasonable oversight of an industry. There are many industries for which oversight is very complicated, but we do it because it limits the opportunity for exploitation and abuse.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Would you mind if I use this as an example of poisoning the well for Wikipedia?

Explain.

 

[Emily's Cat]

i'm the one who said that. what are you trying to imply?

Hey, I made an effort not to call you out specifically. But if you're going to own, it go ahead.

And what I'm "trying to say" seems pretty obvious - it appears that you've spent enough time trying to find that kind of porn to feel that you can speak to the difficulty of finding it authoritatively.

Perhaps there's some other explanation... but it seems to me that either you're making a sweeping assumption based on no actual information, or you're speaking from actual experience of being peeved at how hard it is for you to find rape and/or child porn these days.

 

[Ziggurat]

You really need to branch out and see what is self-published these days

I don't read the genre, but I was made aware of an amusing title for a self-published book:

Taken By Triceratops

Now part of a trilogy including Ravished By T-Rex and Captured By Pterodactyl. Not to be confused with Ravished By Triceratops.

It takes all kinds, I guess.

 

[lobosrul5]

I am not convinced that this correlation is causal. BAsed on what I can tell, it seems that Sweden has a pretty high reporting rate, and a high conviction rate for rapes than the US. I am inclined to think that rape being taken very seriously and punished very harshly has much more of an impact on the rate of rapes in Sweden than access to pornography does. Especially since access to porn is pretty damned easy in the US.

And porn access in Sweden is just as easy. When controlling for other factors porn access does not seem to effect rates of rape or attempted rape.

I think the amount of oversight that would be considered acceptable probably has a pretty big difference between males and females, as well as between parents and those without children.

I also think that "it's difficult" isn't a good reason for shirking a responsibility for reasonable oversight of an industry. There are many industries for which oversight is very complicated, but we do it because it limits the opportunity for exploitation and abuse.

So you are OK with constant government oversight of your personal communications, "great firewall" of China style, because you theorize without evidence that porn leads to higher incidence of rape or other undesirable (in your opinion) behavior? As for parents, they can setup their own monitoring tools all they like.

And thats perfectly fine that there should be greater regulatory oversight of porn websites, depending on what it is I'd certainly agree. However, PH, the website we have talked about the most in this thread is not within the United States' jurisdiction. So, the US State Dept puts pressure on Canada, to change their ways with threats to, I dunno, throw a huge tariff on maple syrup imports. And a new PH pops up in some other country and on and on.

I'm not willing to give up my 4th amendment rights so little Johnny's parents don't have to monitor his internet usage, nor am I willing to because maybe without proof it might reduce rates of rape. I've seen social acceptance within my peer group of jokes, or acceptance of rape and sexual assault against women fall in my lifetime. Why is this so when the ease of access to porn has greatly increased in that time?

 

[dirtywick]

Hey, I made an effort not to call you out specifically. But if you're going to own, it go ahead.

And what I'm "trying to say" seems pretty obvious - it appears that you've spent enough time trying to find that kind of porn to feel that you can speak to the difficulty of finding it authoritatively.

yeah it did seem obvious, but i wouldn't have wanted to say something so incredibly rude to someone either. i didn't want to think that was the explanation so i asked, but as they say, if you're going to own it go ahead.

Perhaps there's some other explanation... but it seems to me that either you're making a sweeping assumption based on no actual information, or you're speaking from actual experience of being peeved at how hard it is for you to find rape and/or child porn these days.

yeah of course there's plenty of other explanations that aren't that. simplest is casual browsing of porn sites doesn't include stumbling upon that kind of content, so if it's on the site but not really accessible to casual browsing, you have to go find it.

 

[Ziggurat]

I am not convinced that this correlation is causal. BAsed on what I can tell, it seems that Sweden has a pretty high reporting rate, and a high conviction rate for rapes than the US. I am inclined to think that rape being taken very seriously and punished very harshly has much more of an impact on the rate of rapes in Sweden than access to pornography does. Especially since access to porn is pretty damned easy in the US.

That's quite plausible. But I would argue it also suggests that better enforcement of the existing prohibition on rape will do more to lower rape rates than additional prohibitions on pornography.

I think the amount of oversight that would be considered acceptable probably has a pretty big difference between males and females, as well as between parents and those without children.

I will point out again that we should be very explicit about the distinction between child and rape porn and consensual porn (even porn with fictitious depictions of rape), and what kind of porn we're talking about. His comment only says porn, it isn't specific to these sub-categories. If you frame the question of what to restrict more narrowly, I think you may find more common ground.

 

[lobosrul5]

That's quite plausible. But I would argue it also suggests that better enforcement of the existing prohibition on rape will do more to lower rape rates than additional prohibitions on pornography.



I will point out again that we should be very explicit about the distinction between child and rape porn and consensual porn (even porn with fictitious depictions of rape), and what kind of porn we're talking about. His comment only says porn, it isn't specific to these sub-categories. If you frame the question of what to restrict more narrowly, I think you may find more common ground.

That **** should totally be illegal, like 20 year sentence in the state pen. But again, the only way to catch people watching it, if they have any sort of technical savvy, will violate the 4thA. Consensual porn that depicts fictitious rape I think is one of those things that has been ruled legal due to the 1stA.

Sorry for the American centric few to some of our int'l posters. But both EC and I, (and Zig I think) are Americans.

 

[Ziggurat]

That **** should totally be illegal, like 20 year sentence in the state pen. But again, the only way to catch people watching it, if they have any sort of technical savvy, will violate the 4thA.

I think the complaint at the moment is that Pornhub was hosting a bunch of it. And that is definitely a problem and isn't OK, I don't think anyone here is against forcing that stuff off the platform. But the framing, particularly by some of the links posted earlier, seemed like it was advocating that pornography in general should be blocked because some of it is this really bad stuff. And that conflation in framing I think caused some pushback which got interpreted as indifference to the problematic stuff, when I don't think it really is.

 

[dirtywick]

I think the complaint at the moment is that Pornhub was hosting a bunch of it. And that is definitely a problem and isn't OK, I don't think anyone here is against forcing that stuff off the platform. But the framing, particularly by some of the links posted earlier, seemed like it was advocating that pornography in general should be blocked because some of it is this really bad stuff. And that conflation in framing I think caused some pushback which got interpreted as indifference to the problematic stuff, when I don't think it really is.

i also object to the framing that the hosting is so pervasive that it's fostering a rape culture amongst it's users, which i think is questionable and i think the keyword search study bears that out. most of the objectionable content they found in that study was not non consensual rape or underage content

 

[lobosrul5]

I think the complaint at the moment is that Pornhub was hosting a bunch of it. And that is definitely a problem and isn't OK, I don't think anyone here is against forcing that stuff off the platform. But the framing, particularly by some of the links posted earlier, seemed like it was advocating that pornography in general should be blocked because some of it is this really bad stuff. And that conflation in framing I think caused some pushback which got interpreted as indifference to the problematic stuff, when I don't think it really is.

All true. And Canada should get PH to clean up their act if it hasn't been done already. And just because its "going to be hosted somewhere else" (ETA: and due to the nature of the internet, accessible in the USA) does not mean I think within our jurisdiction we shouldn't enforce laws against the manufacture and hosting of illegal stuff. Only that its gonna be in other jurisdictions where we have no control and there is nothing effective beyond very extreme measures that we can do about it.

I do believe that EC is arguing against the legalization of porn in general though.

 

[Emily's Cat]

That's probably true.

I don't really think that's what anyone here is arguing. As lobosrul5 pointed out, though, it's very hard to make porn categorically inaccessible without severely compromising free speech rights. Also, it's a mistake to lump all porn together, as if there's no distinction between actual child porn and rape videos versus consensual adult content.

Prohibit the hosting and sharing of amateur or user-uploaded content completely. Only allow the hosting of professionally produced content, subject to regulatory oversight.

Yes, that means people might have to *gasp* pay to get access to porn instead of getting user-shared content for free. That doesn't seem like such a difficult thing to do, nor does it seem to violate free speech rights. That's how it worked prior to the internet.

Everyone has a right to sexual satisfaction. Wouldn't you find it weird if someone wanted to prohibit the sale of dildos or vibrators? What people don't have the right to is compelling anyone else to participate in that sexual satisfaction. This distinction is important. And yes, that is perhaps a very male view, but likewise it's a very female view to ignore it.

No, people don't have a "right" to sexual satisfaction. I would agree that the government has no right to prohibit anyone from attaining orgasm in a consenting fashion, but that's not equivalent to what you said.

No, this is a misrepresentation of the argument. It's not that it's difficult to find. It's that you generally won't find it if you aren't looking. Yes, this is a male perspective, but at the risk of mansplaining, I suspect it's a perspective with more experience than yours. I have never been interested in rape or child porn, I have never looked for rape or child porn. But I have looked for porn. And I have never come across rape or child porn while looking for ordinary porn. Can it happen by accident? Probably. Is it the typical experience of most porn watchers? I don't think it is.

Perhaps you're right, and it doesn't show up unless you look for it. On the other hand... There are enough people uploading it and looking for it that it caused some serious repercussions for pornhub... and let's be honest, PH is probably the *best* regulated hosting site out there. Even if it doesn't just accidentally show up for most people - because the vast majority of people aren't perverse predators - there's still enough people intentionally going after it for it to be concerning, at least to me.

Any hurdles? Absolutely no one here thinks it's wrong to put up any hurdles. Everyone here is fine with prohibiting rape. Everyone here is fine with prohibiting child pornography. But beyond that, the details of the prohibition matter. Not all prohibitions are worth doing, even if they have some beneficial effects. The downsides can be worse.

I think you're misreading the intentions of other posters because their primary focus isn't matching yours. And there's nothing wrong with you wanting more focus on what you care about. But I suspect that if you just ask posters here if they would like more steps to be taken to prevent sites like Pornhub from posting child and rape porn, most would say yes. I would. But again, that distinction between different kinds of porn is important, because both legally and morally they really aren't the same, and you have to make that distinction explicit in your discussions.

I rearranged one of your paragraphs - these two make more sense to respond to together than to keep them as originally ordered.

I do make a distinction between different types of porn. The single largest distinction I make is between professionally produced porn coming out of licensed studies that are regulated and have some oversight... and stuff uploaded by randos without any real oversight or safeguards at all.

The kinds of porn that are a problem that we all agree on - porn involving minors, rape porn, and revenge porn - those aren't coming out of studios.

 

[Ziggurat]

I do believe that EC is arguing against the legalization of porn in general though.

I didn't get that sense, but she can probably clarify that and maybe we can find more common ground.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Perhaps or perhaps not. But my comment was in response to "Pornhub clearly wants children to access their material; why else are they suing?" Pornhub doesn't want (and certainly not "clearly want") children to access their material; Pornhub wants to make money. (Which children do not even have, usually.) Which is their motivation for suing.

I get your response. And perhaps pornhub doesn't *want* kids watching their material... but I think it's fair to say that pornhub doesn't give a **** if kids watch their material. They don't NOT want kids to access their site.

And like most other social media sites out there, PH doesn't make most of its money from customer payments, it makes most of it from advertisers that use their site. So the more people accessing their site - regardless of their age - the more money they make.

 

[lobosrul5]

I get your response. And perhaps pornhub doesn't *want* kids watching their material... but I think it's fair to say that pornhub doesn't give a **** if kids watch their material. They don't NOT want kids to access their site.

And like most other social media sites out there, PH doesn't make most of its money from customer payments, it makes most of it from advertisers that use their site. So the more people accessing their site - regardless of their age - the more money they make.

Depends on their ad model. Views, click thru, or cut of money spent on the advertised product.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Males absolutely should take sex a lot more seriously.

But you haven't been paying attention to the modern hookup scene if you think females don't need to take it a lot more seriously as well. This is a general social dysfunction, it is by no means limited to males. Look up some of the @whatever podcast clips to see how deep the delusions can go among females. It will horrify you.

And note: I'm not saying women are worse than men. But they aren't necessarily better either. Their dysfunctions just manifest differently than men's.

Those are very fair points.

I could go to great lengths about my personal perspective on the entire hookup culture and the kinds of dysfunctions we're seeing, as well as what I think influences them... but that's beyond the scope here, and I've already put my soap box away, I don't want to drag it back out unless I really really have to.

 

[lobosrul5]

Prohibit the hosting and sharing of amateur or user-uploaded content completely. Only allow the hosting of professionally produced content, subject to regulatory oversight.

Yes, that means people might have to *gasp* pay to get access to porn instead of getting user-shared content for free. That doesn't seem like such a difficult thing to do, nor does it seem to violate free speech rights. That's how it worked prior to the internet.

That would most certainly fall afoul of 1A protections. It was never illegal AFAIK to produce or share porn you made of yourself federally. Mailing it or the public display was however.

It would would probably be constitutional to require any commercial enterprises to require age verification in hosting user created porn. But I don't think you could for a couple just opening port 80 on their router and running a webserver with video of themselves.