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

[Lithrael]

Real and already illegal. Honestly it sounds like you'd be better off advocating for better enforcement of existing laws than trying to convince people we should ban porn. Even I agree we should figure out how to enforce existing laws more effectively.

 

[Lithrael]

Was it the norm to put the child in the bed so that they could see super close up penetration?

It probably wasn't the norm for the child to pay any attention to the uninteresting grownup stuff that had often been going on in the background their whole lives.

I mean, if what you're ag'in' is porn popups in unexpected places I'm with you actually.

 

[junkshop]

Popcorn, popcorn, getcha popcorn here!

 

[Lithrael]

Why and how does it become fiction only when actors consent?

I'm a little confused what you're asking here. The consent is what makes it not rape. The part where everyone involved in the production is doing so with as much free will as anybody can have. The part where it's part of a made-up narrative and not actually a nonconsensual scene makes it fiction.

Like, hypothetically, you could make a film that looked like gentle sunshine and roses but used someone who did not consent to sex and it would be an illegal rape film.

Or you could make something that looked like a nasty rape when it was all edited together, but made with everyone's enthusiastic and legal consent. That would be a film depicting, but crucially not actually containing, rape.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I apologise to you CY - I shouldn't have made that inflammatory reference to you regarding 9 year olds. I will say your post did and does allow for a cynical inference, but there was no need to go as far as I did.

Your apology would sound more sincere if you weren't about to go on and accuse me of the exact same thing you claim to be sorry about when you wrongly accused me of it the first time. Apology not accepted.

No one is innocent including me.

Yeah, the difference is that we don't all pretend to be as innocent as you, and use that as a weapon to accuse others of depravity.

Porn is hidden from general public view - it's viewed behind closed doors, so it begs the question as to what you think should happen to make it 'perfectly normal' without putting it on public display?

I eat my breakfast behind closed doors, hidden from public view. There is a difference between privacy and shame, a difference that has clearly escaped you. I eat my breakfast at home, without an audience, not because I'm ashamed of eating breakfast in public, but because I do some things in private as it suits me to do so. It's not your business to watch me have breakfast.

You are clearly incensed that anyone, religious or otherwise, would dare to suggest that porn is harmful.

The only thing I'm incensed about is you accusing me of depravity, and doubling down on it after an insincere "apology".
Oh, and this further misrepresentation of my argument. Darat called it: you are not arguing in good faith. My participation in this farcical excuse of a debate is rapidly drawing to a close.

You fail to deal with the fact that 9 year old are watching porn.

Thus sneakily and dishonestly side-stepping my point, to continue to accuse me of things I do not advocate.

Millions of young people will be watching right now. Adult society in general has chosen to satisfy an insatiable appetite at their expense (and we also know that porn is harmful to adults - particularly young men).

Bilge. Utter rubbish. And, no, I'm not going to elaborate. Anything I say to you will be twisted and thrown back at me as an unrecognisable travesty of my words. I refuse to give you the satisfaction. Get back under your bridge. I'm out.

 

[Poem]

Real and already illegal.

What is?

Honestly it sounds like you'd be better off advocating for better enforcement of existing laws than trying to convince people we should ban porn. Even I agree we should figure out how to enforce existing laws more effectively.

Simply, it's not working.

 

[Poem]

It probably wasn't the norm for the child to pay any attention to the uninteresting grownup stuff that had often been going on in the background their whole lives.

My point is is that your comparison isn't like for like.

I mean, if what you're ag'in' is porn popups in unexpected places I'm with you actually.

If you are against that then you should be against society leaving porn effectively lying around for youngsters to watch.,

 

[Poem]

Yeah, the difference is that we don't all pretend to be as innocent as you, and use that as a weapon to accuse others of depravity.

What about the statement, 'no one is innocent including me,' is difficult to comprehend?

I eat my breakfast behind closed doors, hidden from public view. There is a difference between privacy and shame, a difference that has clearly escaped you. I eat my breakfast at home, without an audience, not because I'm ashamed of eating breakfast in public, but because I do some things in private as it suits me to do so. It's not your business to watch me have breakfast.

I sometimes eat in public.

Watching porn is fuelling the harms outlined in this thread. That is a simple fact.

The only thing I'm incensed about is you accusing me of depravity, and doubling down on it after an insincere "apology".
Oh, and this further misrepresentation of my argument. Darat called it: you are not arguing in good faith. My participation in this farcical excuse of a debate is rapidly drawing to a close.

This in response to 'porn is harmful'? What are you talking about CY?

Thus sneakily and dishonestly side-stepping my point, to continue to accuse me of things I do not advocate.

No - it's not sneaky - it's a fact - 9 year old are watching porn. Your comparison with alcohol is wrong - children aren't stumbling on mountains of free booze available 24/7 are they?

Bilge. Utter rubbish. And, no, I'm not going to elaborate. Anything I say to you will be twisted and thrown back at me as an unrecognisable travesty of my words. I refuse to give you the satisfaction. Get back under your bridge. I'm out.

Zero argument.

 

[3point14]

I think we can all agree that children watching porn is a bad thing and shouldn't be allowed.

We can have a flaming row about how to achieve that though.

 

[Poem]

I'm a little confused what you're asking here. The consent is what makes it not rape. The part where everyone involved in the production is doing so with as much free will as anybody can have. The part where it's part of a made-up narrative and not actually a nonconsensual scene makes it fiction.

Like, hypothetically, you could make a film that looked like gentle sunshine and roses but used someone who did not consent to sex and it would be an illegal rape film.

Or you could make something that looked like a nasty rape when it was all edited together, but made with everyone's enthusiastic and legal consent. That would be a film depicting, but crucially not actually containing, rape.

I thought my line of argument might lead to some clarity - but it hasn't.

Let's just isolate a sex scene where real semen is clearly visible after a sex act - are you still maintaining that that is fiction when viewed as a video? If so, what is fictitious about it?

 

[theprestige]

Poem, if you think the recording and publishing of sex acts for entertainment should be banned, because of the risk that minors might come in contact with it, just say so, and make your argument. Stop trying shame and inveigle everyone else into agreeing with you. Nobody likes that, and nobody wants to play along with that.

 

[Poem]

Poem, if you think the recording and publishing of sex acts for entertainment should be banned, because of the risk that minors might come in contact with it, just say so, and make your argument. Stop trying shame and inveigle everyone else into agreeing with you. Nobody likes that, and nobody wants to play along with that.

Stating that it is wrong to fuel the porn industry at the expense of minors (and, indeed, society as a whole) does not implicate anyone here in particular. There is nothing wrong with stating what is factual (at least in the opinion of the poster).

I used to watch porn - so I have played my part.

I would suggest your post constitutes a lack of awareness on the magnitude of this. Sure, you disagree - but what of people like Wilberforce? Discussing the issue of slavery would also have engendered such uncomfortable insinuations.

This will always be an uncomfortable subject.

 

[Chanakya]

Oops, looks like I was a few pages out of date. But yeah, I'm with Chanakya here. YOU may not be talking about whether young viewers mistake the narrative for how things really work in real life, but Poem definitely was. Half the point of Poem saying 'so much porn is violent!' was about young people making the same kind of error as thinking that, say, a show about a bunch of antisocial characters, represents how it's acceptable to act, and the young audience going on to try to emulate those antisocial behaviours on their peers.

It was not about how the piece of fiction got made, and how much trickery was or was not involved in producing it.

A punch or a sex act done after someone yells 'action' is a real act done in service of a fiction, and the fiction may contain real acts, but the context matters, and the context is that it is something made by actors specifically to create what you are watching.

That is to say, it may be, but is in no way guaranteed to be and often isn't, as a whole, at all realistic. Or a good idea to emulate or to use as a basis for forming real-world impressions, without first finding out how realistic the narrative was.

Thank you, yes, that does clearly sum up what I've been arguing --- or at any rate, that part of what I've been arguing.

 

[theprestige]

Stating that it is wrong to fuel the porn industry at the expense of minors (and, indeed, society as a whole) does not implicate anyone here in particular. There is nothing wrong with stating what is factual (at least in the opinion of the poster).

I used to watch porn - so I have played my part.

I would suggest your post constitutes a lack of awareness on the magnitude of this. Sure, you disagree - but what of people like Wilberforce? Discussing the issue of slavery would also have engendered such uncomfortable insinuations.

This will always be an uncomfortable subject.

If you think the recording and publishing of sex acts for entertainment should be banned, because of the risk that minors might come in contact with it, just say so.

 

[Poem]

If you think the recording and publishing of sex acts for entertainment should be banned, because of the risk that minors might come in contact with it, just say so.

I have - too many times.

 

[Lithrael]

(...) what is fictitious about it?

Ok this is genuinely getting into the weeds and one could have a whole essay about the semantics here. The quick and dirty definition of fiction is that it's a made up story, but of course any time you make a performance of a fictitious story, some real actions are carried out. However the real actions often are not the same as the fictitious scenario the audience observed. A real fist really thrown in a choreographed fight may create the impression of a strike when there is none, or there may be a real connection but the real blow only a tap and the rest, acting. The fight is clearly fictitious, nevertheless.

A money shot in a pornographic movie is probably a real ejaculation; one in a comedy might be silly string. Either way the real action was performed in service of the fictional story. The actor may have enough control to 'get there' without much real engagement at all, or he may have found the scene agreeable and genuinely enjoyed it. We don't generally know just from what is on screen in the final product. But either way he was doing it because he was playing a role he had been hired to play, to create a performance for an audience. That is the part that is clearly fictional. The performance; not necessarily all of the actions that make up the performance.

I think that asking to be shown exactly why and how something 'becomes fiction' is like pointing at a photograph of a person who was running and going 'explain where the running is.' If I step to the left to hit my mark, I have taken a real step; it is for no other reason than to be in the right place in the shot. It's part of a fictional performance.

Not to mention media that makes it messy by blurring the lines between improv, performance art, etc, where it's less clear how fictional it is. An example of this would be your 'reality tv' shows, which can in truth be anywhere from a fully scripted fiction, to a documentary style exploration of people consenting to participate in a contrived situation, to something with as little fiction as possible, such as a genuine documentary created with minimal disruption to someone's real life, only edited to show a particular slice of that. As the audience, it can be difficult to tell where on this spectrum any particular peice of media lies.

The important part as far as young people seeking out porn, is that someone has helped them to aquire either enough media literacy or enough sex ed/general social skills to know they should not assume it is realistic or appropriate to emulate, for example, violent acts they might see in porn, as though it was supposed to be instructive.

 

[Chanakya]

Semantics Chanakya.

Are you implying that the 'porn set' of a forced rape is real but fiction when it's seen on Pornhub?

I explain clearly why it isn't semantics, particularly in context of what we'd been discussing, you and I, over the last many days: and "Semantics Chanakya" is all you have to say to that? ...And also, our discussion throughout has been about porn, porn in general. You'd suggested to me that you'd want porn to be proscribed. To now limit your reaction merely to "forced rape" is a blatant, brazen goalpost-shift. Unless it is the case that you now retract your suggestion about proscribing porn in general, and limit that to merely "forced rape" porn.

I'm now starting to agree with the others here who have suggested that you're not doing this in good faith. I don't mean this as a put-down, but the above does point in that direction. If all you want is to interminably dance the dance, and go through the motions of rational thought and discourse, while leaving out the core of skeptical thinking, which is sincerity of intent: well then, you can do that with the one or two others on this thread who clearly share that inclination. I myself have neither the time nor the stomach for it.

For the last time: What is happening on the set, and what is being depicted, those are two different things. To keep the former safe and healthy for all is a matter of regulation, that I have already supported, as you have not. The latter is what the audience will end up viewing; and, while certainly there's certainly space for regulation as far as the latter as well, but it is this latter that is fictive, and any viewer that does not recognize that and understand the implications of it, should be educated towards that end. Your conflation of these two is what is confusing you, or at any rate confusing the issue as you present it here.

In any case, trying to proscribe porn is just as silly an idea as wanting to proscribe violence in movies and shows: and I'd support neither of those, not in principle, and not in practice. There's certainly room for regulation there, both in how porn (or violence) is actually shot at the level of the actors, as well as in how they are depicted and to what kind of audience and with what kind of control: and certainly you can bring up better means of enforcing those and future regulations: but again, a ban is completely out, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

What about the statement, 'no one is innocent including me,' is difficult to comprehend?

Nothing. It's isn't that I don't understand your post: it's that I have a very low opinion of your honesty.

I sometimes eat in public.

With children watching?

Watching porn is fuelling the harms outlined in this thread. That is a simple fact.

No, that's your opinion. As theprestige noted, you are trying to pressgang everyone else on this thread into agreeing with you. Not going to happen, old bean.

This in response to 'porn is harmful'? What are you talking about CY?

I didn't know 'tripling down' was a thing, but apparently, it is. That was not in response to 'porn is harmful', as you know full well. Stop lying. You see, this is why I neither believed nor accepted your apology. You're not sorry at all: if you were, you wouldn't continue to lie like this.

No - it's not sneaky - it's a fact - 9 year old are watching porn. Your comparison with alcohol is wrong - children aren't stumbling on mountains of free booze available 24/7 are they?

Are you saying that no underage drinkers exist, anywhere? If not, what is your point?
Plus, you are still avoiding my main point, presumably because you've got no answer for it, and so prefer to pretend my point doesn't exist. Yet more tr***ish behaviour from you there.

Zero argument.

Correct. That wasn't an argument. That was a criticism of your dishonesty.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I have - too many times.

And is the repetition achieving anything?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

No - it's not sneaky - it's a fact - 9 year old are watching porn. Your comparison with alcohol is wrong - children aren't stumbling on mountains of free booze available 24/7 are they?

9 year olds aren't stumbling on mountains of free porn available 24/7 either.

I was 9 once. And I stumbled on 'mountains' of 'free' Playboy magazines. Of course I read them, as any inquisitive 9 year old would. Guess what? The nudity and sex stories didn't interest me at all. I do remember one letter to the editor where the guy explained how he or his girlfriend would stick their nether regions up to the car exhaust while the other one revved the engine. According to him she liked rapidly pulsing the throttle, while he preferred a constant 6,000 rpm. As an adult this might be slightly arousing, but to a 9 year old it was pure parody. Obviously the writer was taking the piss out of those equally silly letters where men described their supposed sexual exploits. Or was he?

I bet the average 9 year old would have the same reaction to porn that I did - it's boring! Why do adults do it? It will be a few years before they begin to understand, by which time they are not really 'children'.

But plenty of 9 year olds are constantly exposed to booze-fueled violence, including members of the family being beaten up and even raped. Often they themselves are the victims. And in many homes the booze is not kept away from the children. Also unlike sex, even 9 year olds could be attracted to booze. If young children aren't drinking it's only due to 'parental controls', same as porn - except they are far less likely to be interested in watching porn (beyond simply because it's forbidden).

So again I have to ask - why are you singling out relatively harmless porn, when alcohol is a much more clear and present danger? That's not rhetorical. You say you used to watch porn. So why did you stop? Logically It can't be to reduce the risk of rape, since the effect of one person not doing it is miniscule. In fact there is credicble evidence that eliminating porn would increase the incidence of rape. So what's your real reason for railing against it?