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

[Poem]

I clicked over to that article assuming it was going to discuss the difficulties of implementing ID checks vs privacy vs surveillance, but it's just a guy asserting a bunch of stuff about the social history of porn consumption and making a few leaps off of the point that people prefer to keep their pornography consumption private and anonymous.

The article affirms the colossal societal demand for porn which has driven tech advances facilitating provision tailored to the consumer's desire for anytime and anywhere content. If we compare that with what by all accounts appears to be a totally... flaccid...push back in the form of the UK's Online Safety Act, then it's no wonder previously cited barrister Roberts compared it to stopping a tsunami with a paddle. Note his reference to woefully inadequate powers and resources given to OFCOM. With the porn industry worth as much as $100,000,000,000 globally then I very much doubt they are quaking in their boots.

The UK bans porn that suggests the depiction of minors - but is the porn industry being held to account? No, they are not. They are indeed a gargantuan monolith riding roughshod over whatever and whomever comes up against them.

And your point is?

 

[Darat]

Porn Ban—Surge In VPN Demand Is A Threat To Users

With 97% of users watching on mobile devices, the ban changes everything—and most of the VPNs needed to watch porn are dangerous. Here's what you need to know.

www.forbes.com

 

[zooterkin]

Porn Ban—Surge In VPN Demand Is A Threat To Users

With 97% of users watching on mobile devices, the ban changes everything—and most of the VPNs needed to watch porn are dangerous. Here's what you need to know.

www.forbes.com

Good news for VPN sales.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The dirty secret that drives new technology: it's porn.​

"Camcorder and VHS video machines were pioneered by porn barons anxious to find a cheap way to mass market blue movies. Take-up of DVD players was driven by pornographers and their customers because the technology enabled users to skip to and from their favourite scenes."

This is true, but also not true. Home video recorders were pioneered by Sony with their Betamax system, released in Japan on May 10, 1975. JVC released their incompatible VHS system over a year later, on September 9, 1976. So Sony was the pioneer and JVC was just a copycat.

But what has this got to do with porn? The porn industry was quick to take advantage of this new technology, just like it had with photography and cinema film many years before. VHS had significantly worse image quality than Beta, but it had several advantages. Firstly the mechanism had fewer parts making it cheaper to manufacture. Secondly JVC carefully avoided Sony's patents and freely licensed the design to other manufacturers. Thirdly the larger cassette gave it a longer recording time. All these things made VHS more attractive to porn producers. Cheaper recoders meant more potential customers, and they could squeeze more onto a tape (porn consumers weren't so concerned about image quality).

Now the perverse part. Video hire shops rented out regular movies as well as porn, but porn was inially a large part of their business. Porn producers 'standardized' on VHS, which helped to make this format more popular. Video stores also stocked Beta movies for 'normal' customers who had Beta recorders. Initially the split was fairly even, but porn pushed the needle towards the poorer quality VHS. Eventually video stores stopped offering Beta because there weren't enough customers to justify stocking both formats. By this time porn was only a minor player in the video hire industry, but it contributed to the worse technology taking over the market.

Another interesting titbit is that Video CD, a format that failed in the West, was a popular format for porn in Asia. This was tied in with general piracy, particularly in countries which had strong anti-porn laws.

These are just examples of how the porn industry uses whatever technologies are useful for it. Computer porn started even before they had graphics, but the develpment of powerful PCs with photographic quality displays made it commercially viable. The internet then provided a more convenient distribution method. The final key was online payment via credit card. Therefore I expect you will now be riling against Visa and Mastercard for their part in it.

 

[Poem]

The dissolution of the nuclear family,

According to AI the family unit was pretty healthy in the 60s:
In the 1960s, 73% of children lived in a family with two married parents, but by 2023 that number had dropped to 46%.

the advent of cheap and effective birth control,

The pill (Gregory Pincus) was first introduced in 1960 in the USA and was being used by 1.2 million women by 1962.

and the sexual revolution. Which, in case you forgot, preceded the explosion of porn. Porn is a side effect, not the primary cause.

I'm not clear that that is so based on the above figures.

1959: Playboys monthly sales reached nearly 1 million.

According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/485332/playboy-circulation-worldwide/ Playboy had a circulation of over 3 million in 1965.

According to Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography
The first signs of the post–World War II “sexual revolution” appeared in the mid-sixties. In January 1964 Time magazine announced the arrival of a “second sexual revolution,” signalled, in the magazine’s view, by an increase in what it called “Spectator Sex”—representing a heightened degree of sexually explicitness in books, movies, and theatre.

 

[Poem]

That's not really how it works. Advertisers pay for traffic, but they pay at a rate that depends on conversions. If conversions are low (and unlike with many consumer goods, an online provider can measure this VERY directly), then they will only be willing to pay a low rate. If conversions are high, they will be willing to pay a higher rate. Spiking traffic with views that don't convert can increase ad revenues in the short term, but only in the short term, because that drops conversion rates and will drop the per view rate advertisers will pay. Long term it does nothing, because ad revenue isn't some magical font of money. It has to come from people making money on those advertisements. Which minors viewing porn doesn't do. In fact, it's worse than doing nothing, because those minors still contribute to their bandwidth/capacity costs.

Can't argue with this.

Porn providers don't target children because children aren't profitable.

They are when they turn 18 (or if a minor is added to an adults account). Pornhub make no serious effort to block children and know that they are criminally cultivating the next generation of paid users.

The problem is simply that they don't want to erect barriers that would stop any potentially paying adult customers turned away by inconvenience, and that makes it easy for children to access porn.

It's not a problem for responsible people - it's as Rachel De Souza says:
...how many times are we going to let children be the victims of tech companies’ inability to put protection before profits?

This is a de facto assertion that such companies are showing porn to kids. It indicts the consumers too...she's being diplomatic in not explicitly saying so .

Which is a problem, sure, but it's not quite the problem you're portraying, and I don't see you proposing solutions which don't create problems of their own.

It is the problem Ziggurat. Profits BEFORE protection.

The solution is quite simple - ban porn until children are 100% protected (I doubt they ever will be based on their business model). De Souza rightly asks where the moral compass is for these people.

Trivializing this is part of the definition of rape culture of course. Yes, i know....people don't like hearing that.

 

[Poem]

That's not really how it works. Advertisers pay for traffic, but they pay at a rate that depends on conversions. If conversions are low (and unlike with many consumer goods, an online provider can measure this VERY directly), then they will only be willing to pay a low rate. If conversions are high, they will be willing to pay a higher rate. Spiking traffic with views that don't convert can increase ad revenues in the short term, but only in the short term, because that drops conversion rates and will drop the per view rate advertisers will pay. Long term it does nothing, because ad revenue isn't some magical font of money. It has to come from people making money on those advertisements. Which minors viewing porn doesn't do. In fact, it's worse than doing nothing, because those minors still contribute to their bandwidth/capacity costs.

I said I couldn't argue - but, actually, one can according to Fight The New Drug:

It is incredibly lucrative for MindGeek to use its proprietary algorithms to keep the tens (and hundreds) of millions of users who consume the ‘free’ content on Pornhub watching and coming back for more. As users do that, MindGeek captures and harvests their data. That data and user profiling is then monetized by MindGeek as it sells advertising opportunities which are processed through…TrafficJunky.

 

[Lithrael]

Innocent young kids who stumble upon porn or search it up as a shock activity are not gonna be interested enough to hang around and become commercial conversions. That 'market' would be older kids who actually do want to view porn on purpose for the normal reasons and have or are about to have their own credit cards.

Porn is just not that titillating to an actual innocent little kid. It's not really relevant to a porn site's financial interests to care whether it's out where a kid can see it or not. That it is, is purely a side effect of the site's commercial interest in visibility to potentially paying customers, full stop.

Again I am not against a bit more of a barrier to access than we have now but requiring personal ID is, imo, a huge invasion of privacy and so I'm ag'in' it. Any time you create this sort of data there's an opportunity to misuse it.

Not to mention that whatever barriers we end up enforcing, they will only apply to legitimate sites. The ◊◊◊◊◊◊, fly by night ones that already care the least about appropriately targeting ads (and have the nastiest content) will still operate, exactly the same way that all the spam email screaming v1@gra c1@llis does. Half the reason legit sites resist barriers is that they are competing with sites that will never have any.

And I too would prefer if nasty, mean porn wasn't out there, but censorship is a nasty, mean beast itself, and I don't like to unleash one on the other.

 

[Ziggurat]

I said I couldn't argue - but, actually, one can according to Fight The New Drug:

It is incredibly lucrative for MindGeek to use its proprietary algorithms to keep the tens (and hundreds) of millions of users who consume the ‘free’ content on Pornhub watching and coming back for more. As users do that, MindGeek captures and harvests their data. That data and user profiling is then monetized by MindGeek as it sells advertising opportunities which are processed through…TrafficJunky.

Why do you think that changes anything I said? It doesn't. That data and those profiles are only useful, and only worth paying for, to the extent that the users can be coaxed into buying things. Which minors generally can't be online. You can drive up the numbers short term, but long term you're just diluting the value.

 

[Ziggurat]

This is a de facto assertion that such companies are showing porn to kids. It indicts the consumers too...she's being diplomatic in not explicitly saying so .

She's being a coward by not saying so. The primary problem with kids isn't the porn, it's the parents. But that's not an easy problem to market, because it's hard to make money off selling a solution to it.

Trivializing this is part of the definition of rape culture of course.

Your definition of rape culture is garbage. We've been over this before. Any definition of rape culture that applies even in the absence of ANY rape isn't a definition that's worth taking seriously.

 

[Poem]

Your definition of rape culture is garbage. We've been over this before. Any definition of rape culture that applies even in the absence of ANY rape isn't a definition that's worth taking seriously.

Your argument remains, as posted previously, with the Oxford dictionary:

a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.

(Google’s English dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages. Oxford Languages is the world’s leading dictionary publisher, with over 150 years of experience creating and delivering authoritative dictionaries globally in more than 50 languages).

Since 'rape' comes under the umbrella term 'sexual assault':

NHS.UK:
A sexual assault is any sexual act that a person did not consent to or is forced into against their will. It's a form of sexual violence and includes rape...

...then your refusal to accept their definition is...well, garbage.

 

[Ziggurat]

Your argument remains, as posted previously, with the Oxford dictionary:

What, are they somehow forcing you to use their definition?

Are they holding your loved ones hostage? Blink twice for yes.

The irony, though, is that you aren't even sticking to their definition.

 

[Poem]

What, are they somehow forcing you to use their definition?

Are they holding your loved ones hostage? Blink twice for yes.

You have the same authority as Oxford dictionaries? What source are you citing that defines it otherwise...let alone as you do?

Since rape comes under sexual assault then what exactly are you protesting about?

The irony, though, is that you aren't even sticking to their definition.

Maybe...but where is your reasoning?

 

[Ziggurat]

You have the same authority as Oxford dictionaries?

You don't have to use my definition. But you are absolutely responsible for your choice of definition. If you choose to use Oxford's definition, you are responsible for that choice. You can't pawn that responsibility off on them, as if they somehow required you to use their definition.

What source are you citing that defines it otherwise...let alone as you do?

I'm fairly flexible on what definition you want to use, so long as it actually involves rape. But you don't.

Nor do you even stick to the Oxford definition, because your definition doesn't actually require sexual assault either.

Maybe...but where is your reasoning?

Because you're applying it to stuff that doesn't necessarily even involve rape or sexual assault, under the tenuous assertion that it COULD sometimes involve portrayals of such.

 

[Poem]

You don't have to use my definition. But you are absolutely responsible for your choice of definition. If you choose to use Oxford's definition, you are responsible for that choice. You can't pawn that responsibility off on them, as if they somehow required you to use their definition.

Your definition? By which authority?

When Trump shoved his digit into E. Jean Carroll in 1996, it wasn't rape as defined by the state of New York's narrow penal law....but who cares - he did sexually assault her...the finger in the vagina was as unwanted as his penis.

What does this say about the US of A voting this man as president? The guy was 50 years old when it happened...it wasn't some teenage fumbling.

I'm fairly flexible on what definition you want to use, so long as it actually involves rape. But you don't.

You aren't trivializing non-rape sexual assault?

Nor do you even stick to the Oxford definition, because your definition doesn't actually require sexual assault either.
Because you're applying it to stuff that doesn't necessarily even involve rape or sexual assault, under the tenuous assertion that it COULD sometimes involve portrayals of such.

Sorry, but you will have to spell it out...if you don't mind....please.

 

[Ziggurat]

When Trump shoved his digit into E. Jean Carroll in 1996

When it happened? If it happened.

What does this say about the US of A voting this man as president?

That they don't believe Carroll, and think she's a liar.

The guy was 50 years old when it happened

You're presuming that it happened. You only have her word for it.

Sorry, but you will have to spell it out...if you don't mind....please.

I do mind. You grow tiresome, and I don't find your efforts here honest. Perhaps I might come back to this at some point, but for now, I've spent enough energy and time on this matter, and don't intend to spend more.

 

[theprestige]

Which website?

...but no citation.

Undemonstrated.

You badly misunderstand our relationship. I'm not trying to convince you. You're trying to convince me. You could start by assuming I'm being honest in expressing my reservations about your thesis and argument. Rather than looking for excuses to dismiss my feedback at every turn.

 

[Poem]

When it happened? If it happened.

That they don't believe Carroll, and think she's a liar.

You're presuming that it happened. You only have her word for it.

No, we have a civil court verdict and a recent federal appeals court that upheld the assault. Americans have voted in what most would define as a rapist.

Watch enough porn...violent porn...and you'll start to get hazy about what is and what isn't transgressive.

 

[Ziggurat]

No, we have a civil court verdict and a recent federal appeals court that upheld the assault.

The jury had only her word. The jury decided that she was telling the truth, but we still only have her word for it, it's not like the jury saw what happened and came to some independent evaluation of events. Everything depended on her word, and her word alone. There was no independent evidence.

And do you think juries never get it wrong? You think people aren't capable of reaching independent judgments? As for the appeals court, I think you're confused about what they do and what they do not do. What they do not do is second-guess juries. They are not allowed to second-guess juries. But no such restriction is imposed on voters.

 

[Lithrael]

Yeah, I know a LOT of Trump voters whose pov seems to be, I'm a nice guy, I love Trump, Trump must be a nice guy like me and any story about him doing anything bad is down to mean nasty lying people who just wanna GET him.

They are lionizing their populist leader, not trivializing rape. They straight up don't believe the accusations even a little bit.