Wage Slavery

[Freeky]

For the benefit of AA, on going to recount a conversation I had with my bestie Torch, who has had to return to stripping. I have to get my comp out for this, gimmie a minute.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And as far as drawing a moral line goes, that's like asking "at what point does stomping on kittens become immoral?"

If you hire a prostitute, you are immoral.  Not because of the sex, but because you have treated a human being like a rental car.

Porn is a little less clear, for obvious reasons.  Someone puts up a video of themselves getting off, I can't see any problem with that.  Renting a copy of "Double Anal Quakers" is probably immoral, because there comes a certain point where you CAN'T produce the movie without SOMEONE being abused in one manner or another.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

For the benefit of AA, on going to recount a conversation I had with my bestie Torch, who has had to return to stripping. I have to get my comp out for this, gimmie a minute.

Stripping is just dismal.

[Freeky]

First, a little back story on Torchie.

Torch has done porn before.  These are the things I remember what she told me:
-She only did lesbian porn, because if she did straight porn it would fuck her brain up, what with the attachment chemicals and whatnot.
-She will never ever return to porn, ever.  She'd hook first.

I also know she knows what it's like to hook, and she told me she'd rather hook than have her daughter starve.  She never told me what it was like about hooking, but here's what she had to say about stripping, the least of all person commoditification evils:

"I try not to let it affect me, but it does.  It affects my personal relationships.  When I'm stripping for a living, my first instinct is to get you to like me, because you liking me means you'll give me more stuff.  So I end up having ulterior motives for making friends and getting to know people.  And it sucks, and I know it's a shitty thing to be thinking, but I can't help it."

[Ayotollah of Ass]

No real understanding of the reality of sex work?

There are a metric boatload of blogs and testimonies from ex-prostitutes and porn stars, they aren't that hard to find.

I just think you don't WANT to see the reality of the situation.

How easy is it to see the parts of porn that are alright when you are viewing it through a "metric boatload of blogs and testimonies from ex-prostitutes and porn stars"? Ever read a "I dabbled in porn and it didn't leave me irrevocably damaged" blog? How about the "I worked in a strip club to pay for college" blog? Because the now successful lawyers and moms want to highlight this information in a world that would stigmatize them if they were to find out about this part of their lives?

Having had contact with the local porn industry, I can say with 169% certainty that is is nothing short of dehumanizing.

Can't speak about anywhere else, but I suspect it's the same.

Roger, I think the Ayatollah is chasing unicorns, personally.

My argument is simple.

1. There is porn that is okay by practically anyone's definition, e.g., a self-filmed masturbation video uploaded by the person themselves. (This basically destroys the bullshit "unicorn" argument.)

2. If there is porn that is okay, we need a way to differentiate it from porn that is not okay, e.g., we might say that any "industry produced" porn is not okay because of the typical working conditions in "industry produced" porn. If you go with that, it would probably useful to layout some conception of what a non-exploitative porn industry might look like and how we might get there, and during the exercise, you might come to the conclusion that it isn't possible. However, then you'd have to explain 1. Presumably the industry could change to a self-publishing format that would enable okay porn by some definition. The only real failure in doing this is limited imaginations and we're lazy. Easier just to say, porn is bad.

C. We need a way to differentiate porn that is okay from porn that is not okay.

The responses basically reduce to some version of the following:

1. You're chasing unicorns (or porn is always bad). I specifically went to the trouble to lay out an acceptable type. If you want to go the unicorns route, you have to explain why 1. is exploitative, which no one wants to do because that's a stupid argument.

2. The porn industry is dirty and nasty. I agree. So, is it inherently so? You argue yes. But, what if people choose it because it is their best option? Enter the soft paternalism charge no one wants to answer.

Can it be regulated and cleaned up? No one wants to do that either because then you'd have to define what the problems are and how they might be solved. And you're not interested in that project, you just want to say porn is inherently bad, which you can do, but you need to do the work first of laying out something a little better than anecdotal evidence based on your perception of a preponderance of blog posts and the problem posed by premise 1.

One avenue is saying that the social effects of porn are ultimately negative, and it's a social problem. People going this route would have to address: a) the fundamental problem of providing evidence for this claim, and 2) even if we accept this is true, why does society's interest trump the individual's? Easier just to say I don't know much about social theory (which is true, I don't, but I do know logic) and ignore the soft paternalism here too. And ultimately, there still is the fact of premise 1. There are parts of "porn" that you aren't including in your critique (1. isn't dirty or nasty), because that'd make it messy.

Can't think of any other real objections that have been raised, maybe I most those postings too. But, my sense of the discussion here is there is a whole lot of group think going on. You have a legitimate issue about we need to think harder about the ethical and social implications of porn, and then you go fuck it up by painting with an overly broad brush and sweeping generalities.

Hey kids, the answer to teenage pregnancies, STDs and sexuality in general is just to have no sex! Well, thank you moms and dads for your very helpful insight into this matter. You're offering up the abstinence education argument, and it sucks just as much here.

[Freeky]

Also, with regard to people who strip to pay their way through college, I really think that's an outlier to the point of being a myth.  Has anyone ever met these strippers-turned-lawyers?

I know for a fact that the ones Torch works with are really, honestly dumb.  Just dumb. 

[trippinprincezz13]

I grew up in a country that has a mountain carved into the shape of Presidents, and that has exactly jack shit to do with anything. I asked you to please elucidate on where you are coming from with your insistence that the freelance worker who is in control and contact with the product of their labor from beginning to end is alienated according to Marx.

Resorting to ad-hominem like "fashion lefties" is not strengthening your point, it's making you look like you don't know what you're talking about.

No ad hominem intended. I hope you agree that there are many fashion-lefties in the West with no personal experience of any attempts at putting communism or marxism or indeed socialism (monopolistic state capitalism) into practice? I mentioned them.

"the freelance worker who is in control and contact with the product of their labor from beginning to end" - this could be true of the freelance novelist (some of them, anyway, probably not those that churn out pulp for a living). It is not at all a good description of the "industrial" (quotes meant to indicate figurative use - comment, again, not intended as an ad hominem, I'm simply being cagey) freelance brainwork I have in mind. I am not in contact with the product beginning to end, and I see most of it as essentially pointless. I would not do it if I could develop a better way of making a living. But the freelancing tends to get in the way of that a lot. And I'm lazy.

So because not every job is THE MOST INTERESTING THING EVER and it's hard to come by business sometimes, you're life is just like that of a prostitute.  Really? Do you realize how much of a spoiled brat that makes you sound like? Reminds me of a friend that I got a job with/for me, filing papers. She was genuinely disappointed that the job was not as interesting as she had imagined it. Well no shit, sherlock! Filing probably isn't going to be...whatever the hell she thought it would be (I find it relaxing).

Most cases my boss deals with aren't terribly exciting, some can be quite depressing. On top of that sometimes there are deadlines and I get pretty stressed. Sometimes I have to deal with assholes or mentally unstable (or both) people rambling, ranting or screaming at me. Sometimes certain things do wear on me. But yet, I am not abused or degraded (someone may yell at me, but I certainly don't have to go anywhere near their disgusting, horrible bodies and can call the police should things get out of had - haven't had to in the 10 years I've been doing this, and it's highly unlikely). I haven't picked up some terrible drug addiction that traps me in this work. And I am perfectly safe to seek out other career options without fear of being hurt or killed, even if I might have to tighten the budget for a while.

Not to mention, I deal and have dealt with several court reporters/stenographers/interpreters and yes, even some translators. And well, rather than continuing on, let's just say, I wouldn't compare their situations as anything close to a sex worker's. Business sometimes slow/uninteresting? Yes, but that's where any comparison ends, FAR from any real similarity. Did you even read Cain's post on narrowness?

17 years eh? Sounds like plenty of time to evaluate your life and make some long-term goals about a career change. But that would require actual effort right? Or is the big translator pimp going to come and kill you if you decide to quit? What's soul crushing, is pathetic lazy fucks like you that don't want to do any actual work to earn a living and blame everyone else around them for their lack of enjoyment.

[Freeky]

DAYUM. 

Note to self:  Don't act like a holist when trippinprincesz is around.

[Ayotollah of Ass]

AA, something I think you might just be missing here is the odd focus on reality here on PDCOM. Unlike discussions on this kind if topic in most places, the focus here seems to me first and foremost – especially in this discussion – to lie in understanding reality. Not in making normative statements (i.e. "x is badwrong") or imaginary policy concepts (i.e. "x should be banned") and when people do make normative statements, the culture here seems to, perhaps unusually, not add an implication of policy, public or otherwise. In other words, the discussion of porn, to me and to many of the others, I suspect, is not about what should be done, but about how things are. Not about drawing sharp lines that can be used in some imaginary world in which we dictate policy, not even sharp lines for personal policy – since the conclusion on personal policy is typically "think for yourself, schmuck." I think this community sees itself more as a way to thoroughly inform oneself, and to hash out ideas, but emphatically not a way to hash out guidelines for life, personal or public.

I see that you understand this to a degree, I just feel your line of argumentation assumes an implication that is not there. It's a valid pursuit to try to figure out where one should draw the line, and you raise interesting thoughts and questions. I just think you're missing something fundamental about how this community approaches this kind of discussion, or at least the discussion this thread branched off from. When another thread is started with a clear mission statement, that'll be a different situation, and might possibly generate less animosity, at least in a perfect world where this thread never happened so people aren't predisposed to that animosity.

I'm very open to the possibility that I'm speaking out of my anus here, BTW.

VERB,
Amateur Interweb anthropologist

I hear you. My question is whose and what reality? Let's say we gloss over all the problems I've been hammering away at here, and let's suppose for a moment that we accept something like this argument.

1. Porn is inherently exploitative and dehumanizing.
2. If something in inherently exploitative and dehumanizing, then we should not support/do it.
C. We should not support/do porn.

Fine. Now, what happens to whatever needs/desires that were being met by porn? Maybe you guys should start a fun thread of all the ways people could get off without it? Should people sit on top of their washing machines? Read romance novels? Maybe find real people (because no one consuming porn thought of that)? Personally, I'm going to check in with the Cistercians, because nothing is hotter than a man in uniform.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Enter the soft paternalism charge no one wants to answer.

I'll answer that.

I have already said I have no wish to ban porn.  I'm pretty sure that most people here don't, either.  I can render a judgment, my own opinion, all day long without becoming paternal. 

Fact:  It's bad for people.

Fact:  So is smoking.

Fact:  Barring or shutting down discussion of a subject because we don't want to look "paternal" is no different than shutting down a conversation because one side has a perceived privilege from which they are speaking.  Talking about it doesn't suddenly make everyone a limosine liberal.

[Freeky]

The fuck is "soft paternalism" supposed to mean, anyway?

[Freeky]

And I guess a firsthand (well, secondhand now, I guess) story that falsifies AA's what-if sccenario deserves to get ignored, because it doesn't line up with his argument.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

1. Porn is inherently exploitative and dehumanizing.
2. If something in inherently exploitative and dehumanizing, then we should not support/do it.
C. We should not support/do porn.

I don't agree with #1.  It's not inherent.  It IS, however, endemic.

Fine. Now, what happens to whatever needs/desires that were being met by porn?

Pretty sure porn's not going away. 

In addition, there's the "Little Angels Hentai" argument.  It was a board we trolled out of existence about 6 years ago or so.  These freaks spent all day drawing pictures of little girls being abused, etc (it turns out that drawn images of kiddie porn aren't illegal, just photographs).  When we started burning their board down, they screeched shit like "This is what gets us through the day!  MAYBE THIS IS KEEPING US FROM BECOMING REAL PEDOPHILES!"

Two problems with that:

1.  They were already real pedophiles.

2.  You don't get rid of a fixation by indulging it.  There is not some finite quantity of evil in the human soul...It is a learned behavior, and the more you indulge it, the more you want it, and the more intense it has to be to satisfy you.  This goes for degrading porn, too.  You don't feel less of a need to use a woman as a sex toilet by watching it, you become even more desensitized to the idea that women are human beings (or men, whichever).

Fact is, the question ought to be "WHY is there a need for porn to get certain people off?".

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The fuck is "soft paternalism" supposed to mean, anyway?

White Man's Burden.

[Freeky]

The fuck is "soft paternalism" supposed to mean, anyway?

White Man's Burden.

Ah.