Posted on 12/18/2010 8:01:19 AM PST by IbJensen
Pornography has invaded the world’s imagination. It is everywhere: On the Internet, in films, in movies, in rap music videos. Five-year-old girls dress and are taught to behave like pornography stars in order to win beauty contests. Ten- to twelve-year-old girls both dress and behave like the pornographic images that surround them—and they provide sexual services to young boys.
Opera—high culture—has also been increasingly “sexed up.” I have seen productions of “Carmen” and “Lulu” in which the lead diva was half-naked and in which she, too, sang the role as if she was a contemporary pornography star and prostitute.
No, I do not like any of this.
Yes, I take it all very seriously—as many Second Wave feminists and our Christian and conservative allies once did.
No, I do not think that hiding women beneath burqas is, therefore, any kind of solution. In fact, both pornography and prostitution are booming businesses in most Muslim countries.
Before we go any further, let’s play twenty questions. I really want your answers.
1. Is pornography “work” or is it a violent crime?
2. Is pornography “free speech” in action or is it a violent, often murderous crime?
3. Is pornography really a “victimless” crime?
4. Are pimps, johns, traffickers, and landlords being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining?
5. Are the people, mainly men, who buy and watch pornography being victimized? If so, why are they not complaining? Is anyone forcing them to consume pornography?
6. Are the seductive, taunting, smiling, naked girls and women who are being paid “good” money–victims? If so, why don’t they complain, leave, find some other job?
7. Isn’t working in pornography a job just like any other job–like any other acting job?
8. Aren’t pornography actors there of their own free will—for the easy money, the attention, the “stardom?”
9. Isn’t our right to see and read whatever interests us essential to our fundamental liberty?
10. Doesn’t the First Amendment guarantee us this right? If we criminalize one kind of “free speech,” where will it end? Who will decide what information or images we are allowed to see? Won’t state or religious censorship chill our rights, even our very thoughts?
11. On behalf of “free speech,” and privacy rights, didn’t Second Wave feminists avidly collaborate with pornographers to ensure that pornography remained a civil right?
12. Didn’t Second Wave feminists launch the battle against violence against women, which included sexual harassment, rape, incest, domestic battering—as well as the most serious battle against pornography and prostitution? Weren’t they vilified for collaborating with Christians and conservatives on the issue of pornography and prostitution?
13. How many women from wealthy and prominent families, or with advanced educations, “choose” to work in pornography or as prostitutes?
14. Did you know that, by definition, pornography is that which has to do with “prostitutes.” “Porne” in Greek is a “prostitute.” The so-called actresses in pornography are treated as if they are–and usually soon are–also “working” as prostitutes.
15. How different is being a prostitute from being a stripper, massage therapist, or a nurse?
16. How many prostituted girls and women are actually free to leave, walk out, give it all up?
17. Where might they go? Where might they call “home?” Who will help them get off drugs and alcohol, restore their ravaged health, support them as they deal with the sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, with which johns have infected them?
18. Do you have any idea of what the average age of a pornography actress/prostitute is?
19. How long a shelf-life does a “working girl” (prostitute, pornography actress) actually have?
20. Why does pornography “turn” people on?
I lived through the great feminist Sex Wars. I was both a participant and an eye-witness, as well as a confidante to feminists who were on both sides of this War. But before I share memories and analysis, I really want to hear from you. Your answers will help me understand how to share a vast body of knowledge and history with you in the most productive way. Here’s a hint to help you think through these questions.
Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry, right up there with guns and drugs. It is enormously profitable but not to the “workers,” most of whom are girls and women who have been sold by their parents, captured in war, kidnapped off the street, forced by their husbands, or who have been driven by poverty, racism, incest, and the most violent sexism into the arms of pimps, traffickers, landlords, advertisers, law enforcement officers, and johns.
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is an author, psychotherapist and an expert courtroom witness. She has lectured and organized political, legal, religious and human rights campaigns in the United States and in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. A popular guest on campuses and in national and international print, television, radio and online media, she has been an expert commentator on the major events of our time. She has lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, and in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She currently resides in Manhattan.
I agree completely with Jim’s statement in that thread: equal rights, not special rights.
...I asserting that he did and guys that think otherwise are seriously deluding themselves or the most proficient liars amongst mankind.
I'll close by stating, that no matter a person's religion, politics, social standing, or gender, I've see sex, or the chance to acquire it, make hypocrites out of many of them.
I'll add to that, that most straight guys would be amazed to know how many "straight" guys have been with / got it on with a pre-op Transsexual (also known as trannys in street lingo). Such as rapper Clingy, actor Eddie Murphy, singer Teddy Pendergrass, etc.
Many of these trannies are not truly gender dysphoric transsexual women in a man's body, but are gay boys who figured out they could make a lot more money and'or make it much faster and farther up the social ladder with a feminine body catering to "straight" men who want something a bit "different".
And this includes experiencing being on the receiving end, as the person they are with is in their minds a "girl", not a boy.
This has been and is currently a problem for the girlfriends and/or wives of these guys, as well as for public health, as the street trannies and escorts and party "girls" have a higher HIV + rate than even gay men do, and the guys who get it on with them consider themselves "straight" and not as "Men who have sex with men". So they lie to their girlfriends and/or wives and when they give blood about being 100% heterosexual...
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
http://richb4rich.com/profiles/blogs/pics-of-the-tranny-that-chingy
(Link probably not safe for work...)
It produces a reaction in me as well!
I am not sure what ‘record’ you refer to. I would also be careful defining my reasoning as *not* Christian. The measure you use etc.
As Christians we defend others right to ignore God in terms of social organisation.
Certainly theologically no one has the right to ‘sin’. On that I agree.
OMG! We found something Laz wouldn’t hit!
Same shelf life. Fewer replays.
Thank you for that response, you might have noticed I was censured for it in another place.
I might only add that law should properly be used to protect minors and other clearly vulnerable people from being recruited into the pornographic sphere.
Hollywood and the entertainment industry are by no means "normative".
Nice try, though.
They are both being paid, and not by each other.
So whether it’s moral or not depends on who “signs the check”?
I didn’t know we were talking about criminal activity (against it), child porn (against), or human trafficking (against). Playboy and snuff films? Yea, they’re both the same. Snuff films involve murder (against). And I’m not the one who equated my right to own guns with porn and drugs. The writer of this P.O.S. stupid “answer these questions or else” article did.
So, how illogical is it to equate reading Playboy to a snuff film?
So the legality/morality of an activity depends on how common it is?
“Yelling fire can be harmful to the person’s physical person if panic ensues. The harmful you speak of is spiritual and emotional, which doesnt hurt a person physically.”
Quite right about physical harm—but Spiritual and emotional harm is worse than physical; it can lead to physical harm (suicide, nervous breakdown); lasts longer and can be more painful than physical harm.
Additionally, there is real physical harm with pornography; many participants come down with STD’s; many viewers tend to “act out” what they see, harming themselves and others; promiscuity is promoted, which leads to STD’s. And I’m just scratching the surface of the harm that is caused and documented.
For the record, the common interpretation of this command is
“Thou shalt not Murder” or unlawful killing
killing in self defense is permitted, for example,
under the Ten Commandments
Defensive Acts of War are permitted
The Death Penalty is permitted under some interpretations as
a defensive act of society
Owie.
Like adoption? Military service? Having their formal unions recognized as marriage? Ending any hints of condemnation or second rate status in school textbooks and curricula?
Nice try, though.
Well, I am trying to make a point, but not that it is normal.
Just using the examples of a few big names that hit the news to make a point. Most guys never get caught and if the average Joe does get caught up in something like that it doesn't make the news.
I did not mean to imply that it is normal. It is really just a small percentage of "straight" guys who do this. But even a small percentage of a large number can be a bigger number than most people would expect it to be.
Just to illustrate that it's out there more than people imagine, and to be aware that there is the danger of apparent straight guys at high risk of picking up / carrying / passing around HIV.
The bigger picture as I see it is not only what porn is on the computer or on the DVDs or in whatever form and wherever the porn is kept, is what other secrets are kept and are rationalized away.
Cheers!
No, whether it is prostitution or not does.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.