I'm not sure what 'realistic bodies' mean in this context (is it no silicon or plastic surgery?), but clear consent from actors is certainly very important.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:12 am the ethics are not so much to do with triggering as to do with presenting something that is sex positive, progressive, with clear consent from actors, realistic depictions of bodies etc.
If. What if the bulk of the p.rn is consensual and positive instead? The problem with the non-consensual violent stuff is what it is, not what the rest is like. (I don't actually know what Mindgeek is but I think I get the idea.)lpm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 9:39 am Who cares? If it's 1% "ethical" and 99% the MindGeek stuff, why bother making a split?
Lots of research out there. Here's a recent systematic review of research on the content of p.rn videos:Martin Y wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:47 amIf. What if the bulk of the p.rn is consensual and positive instead? The problem with the non-consensual violent stuff is what it is, not what the rest is like. (I don't actually know what Mindgeek is but I think I get the idea.)lpm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 9:39 am Who cares? If it's 1% "ethical" and 99% the MindGeek stuff, why bother making a split?
I wonder if there's a "gateway" problem that people think their p.rn habit is probably illegal so they're already outside the law. The UK used to be very buttoned up about what p.rn could legally be published in the pre-internet age. Hardcore p.rn, like drugs, was around but not legal to sell. Now it seems like anything you could publish in the US is basically unstoppable and I honestly don't know what its legal position is now.
There are of course lots of problems in how sex is depicted in such scenes:First, the most common sexual behaviors observed in these are those that some argue to be mainstream, normative or nondeviant in Western culture. For example, in heterosexual p.rnography, the most common behaviors were fellatio and vaginal intercourse, whereas in in gay male p.rnography, the most common behaviors were fellatio and anal intercourse. Kissing and cunnilingus were also common (but not universally depicted) in heterosexual p.rnography, although estimates varied significantly by study. This content is most likely reflecting current sexual norms.
in internet p.rnography, Klaassen and Peter [27] found that 76% of sex scenes depicted a man having an orgasm, compared with 17% of sex scenes depicting female orgasms. Fritz and Paul [51] found female orgasms in 20% feminist videos, 10% “for women” videos and 15% mainstream videos. Comparatively, they found male orgasms in 53% feminist videos, 63% “for women” videos and 61% mainstream videos.
For heterosexual p.rnography, condom use was typically rare. Studies of DVDs found condom use in of 5% to 11% [17,44,45] of sex scenes. In internet samples, 2 studies found condom use in 2% of videos [20,49].
People have mentioned choking, one study looked at choking in internet videos and "0% of scenes involved men being choked while 1% involved women being choked." In keeping with the point made in the above quote, older research on VHS and DVDs found much higher percentages that involved choking.Contrary to concerns cited by many commentators [19,62], some types of aggression and violence appear to be more common in older forms of p.rnography compared with the internet p.rnography. Explicit acts of violence, including rape, appear to be rare in internet mainstream p.rnography based on the available data. Most studies found that forms of violence such as punching, kicking, torture or murder were only observed a handful of times in the p.rnography they sampled. However, it is important to note that certain authors (eg, Palys [35]) were able to seek out violent genres of p.rnography, suggesting that more violent p.rnography is readily accessible. One study not included in this review demonstrated that it is easy to access internet rape videos if specifically searching for such content [63].
Other forms of aggression appear to be reasonably common, although there was significant variability across estimations. An interesting pattern was observed with spanking, with it not being studied in any VHS studies, being common in 2 DVD studies (ie, Sun et al [44] and Bridges et al [17], who both found spanking in the majority of popular DVDs), while internet studies found spanking in up to a third of content. This pattern suggests that spanking is fairly normalized in mainstream content, although it is difficult to interpret whether spanking is becoming more or less common. Regardless of the nature and frequency of these behaviors, a clear pattern emerged indicating that in general or heterosexual p.rnography, when aggression and violence occurs, it is more commonly directed toward women, by men. This pattern has also been observed across several studies which used summary measures of violence, which could not be synthesized in this review [17,20,42,44,50].
Again, its notable that older DVDs and VHS videos appeared to have a higher proportion depicting rape. Assuming its a real trend, one explanation may be that DVD and VHS p.rn was much less mainstream and catered to people with extreme tastes. They haven't gone away, but may have been outnumbered by internet p.rn users who are more interested in consensual sex. ETA it is though very likely that the absolute quantity of videos including rape and other violent acts is much higher among internet p.rn compared to VHS and DVD.A total of 10 studies examined rape. Most VHS and DVD studies found rape to be uncommon; depicted in 0% to 8% of scenes [17,21,36,39,40,42] or 0.17 instances per film [37]. However, 1 VHS study, which oversampled violent films, found rape in 31% of sexually violent scenes [35], Cowan et al [36] found that rape occurred in 51% of videos within their sample, and Garcia and Milano [37] found rape in 20% of videos in their sample. One internet study found that “explicit rape” (not defined) occurred in <1% of teen videos [48] while another internet study found rape in 6% scenes [27].
Yes, indeed.lpm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 9:04 amRight, it's not just the impact on men of men watching p.rnography. If a joke could upset victims, you'd also have to acknowledge that someone groped on a train is going to be upset that men watch videos of women being fictionally groped on a train and she becomes eager for sex as a result.sheldrake wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 8:32 am My reason for disapproving of rape jokes is different. It’s not that I think they cause rapes, but that they would be extremely upsetting to anybody who has been sexually assaulted or had a loved one assaulted. And literally anybody you encounter could be in that position. You might have known them for years without them raising it.
I suspect the primary cause of sexual assaults and rapes would be pretty deep seated in the offender’s upbringing (and possibly even neurology in some cases). People with these kind of psychological issues might view p.rn obsessively as a symptom.
Sadly it doesn't take 13 year old girls long go from being sexually harassed on the street, to learning that boys and men watch videos of men having sex with women dressed in school uniform, to learning that these websites have videos of women dressed in school uniform being subjected to violent sex or non-consensual sex or multiple partners. In fact it's quite likely that boys at school will show them these videos on their phones as part of bullying or harassing behaviour.
It's very easy to fall into the default-male trap and consider only the impact on men and male offenders. It's not just whether it makes men assault or harass. It's also whether it damages women and adds to the constraints on public life that they're forced to impose on themselves. For example the favoured misogynistic abuse sent online to women come straight from p.rnography - "choke on my cock bitch" and the like.
Call me a socialist but one method would be to look at who is in control of the production and who is profiting from it. If the answer to both is women then it probably isn't misogynistic.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:48 am Definition of misogyny in p.rn would be tricky, if the suggestion is to tighten regulation.
But violent men know exactly what sex and biology is.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:00 pm You can’t regulate on that basis though. Also gender in p.rn can be very fluid!
Sorry, I should have been clearer - this was a direct reply to woodchopper’s last post.purplehaze wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:02 pmBut violent men know exactly what sex and biology is.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:00 pm You can’t regulate on that basis though. Also gender in p.rn can be very fluid!
I don't think there could be any ethical p.rn if it features children. Even p.rn featuring actors over 16/18, if they are acting as underage characters, surely can't be 'ethical' at all? It would be depicting an illegal activity.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:16 am Also the conversation around p.rn is wider than just women, e.g. the rapid proliferation of p.rn featuring children etc. To deny there's an ethical spectrum for this vast and often hidden industry seems bonkers to me.
yes, that’s my point.Martin_B wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:09 pmI don't think there could be any ethical p.rn if it features children. Even p.rn featuring actors over 16/18, if they are acting as underage characters, surely can't be 'ethical' at all? It would be depicting an illegal activity.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:16 am Also the conversation around p.rn is wider than just women, e.g. the rapid proliferation of p.rn featuring children etc. To deny there's an ethical spectrum for this vast and often hidden industry seems bonkers to me.
But the whole question of whether ethical p.rn exists doesn't, to me, matter when talking about the matter at hand. Even if there is p.rn which depicts 'realistic bodies', consensual sex, respect for women, etc, and people were watching this, this probably wouldn't be the sort of p.rn which results in violence and harassment of women; that would be the non-ethical p.rn which abounds on various websites and is (apparently!) available at the click of a couple of buttons.
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021Lets think about the case of 50 Shades of Gray.Woodchopper wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:56 amCall me a socialist but one method would be to look at who is in control of the production and who is profiting from it. If the answer to both is women then it probably isn't misogynistic.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:48 am Definition of misogyny in p.rn would be tricky, if the suggestion is to tighten regulation.
I assume that most of the directors of videos and owners of companies are men though.
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021I don’t think that’s at all clear. However, if it is purely a demand problem then p.rn is a symptom, rather than a cause of attitudes, no?lpm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:37 pm Well it's a demand problem, isn't it? Changing supply won't matter.
Older actors playing underage is ethically worrying yes, but a large proportion of mainstream films depict illegal activity. The difference, I suppose, is that you're not intended to think (most of) the murders etc are okay, but you are supposed to be entertained. Thrillers are intended to thrill.Martin_B wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:09 pm I don't think there could be any ethical p.rn if it features children. Even p.rn featuring actors over 16/18, if they are acting as underage characters, surely can't be 'ethical' at all? It would be depicting an illegal activity.
Not just men, but sanitised organised crime. These are scum capitalist companies. OnlyFans gets celebrated as a marvellous place where creators, often women, get paid - but it's owned by an alleged money laundering operation that has been accused of outright stealing from these creators and accused of inflating credit card charges to customers. Fundamentally this is a high risk industry with large financial flows going to and from places like Ukraine, Columbia and Philippines where much of the content is created, leading to laundering risks. Sex workers complain that credit card companies refuse to deal with these companies, seeing it as stigma, but it's actually due to the overwhelming tide of fraudulent transactions and the obvious legal risks.Woodchopper wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:56 amCall me a socialist but one method would be to look at who is in control of the production and who is profiting from it. If the answer to both is women then it probably isn't misogynistic.plodder wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:48 am Definition of misogyny in p.rn would be tricky, if the suggestion is to tighten regulation.
I assume that most of the directors of videos and owners of companies are men though.
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021Well, if your long term strategy is fear of being flooded by criminals then good luck to you. My preference is to look at what the cool kid pioneers are doing for solutions further down the line.lpm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:19 pm Not just men, but sanitised organised crime. These are scum capitalist companies. OnlyFans gets celebrated as a marvellous place where creators, often women, get paid - but it's owned by an alleged money laundering operation that has been accused of outright stealing from these creators and accused of inflating credit card charges to customers. Fundamentally this is a high risk industry with large financial flows going to and from places like Ukraine, Columbia and Philippines where much of the content is created, leading to laundering risks. Sex workers complain that credit card companies refuse to deal with these companies, seeing it as stigma, but it's actually due to the overwhelming tide of fraudulent transactions and the obvious legal risks.
I fear Plodder's niche of legitimate ethical companies is always going to get flooded from the tidal waves of content from the scum companies. There could well be a hidden subsidy coming from the laundering operations.
I'm sure you are well able to answer that question yourself.sheldrake wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:27 pm 50 shades of Gray was one of the most popular works of p.rnography of all time, written by a woman, largely purchased by women and focussing on the sub-dom relationship between a submissive woman and a controlling man.
Is this the result of women internalizing their oppression and should be considered 'harmful', or is it something else?
