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The Porn Princess Rant, Re-Written

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, September 17, 2012, 04:15:46 PM

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P3nT4gR4m

Rule no1: human beings have an utterly retarded attitude toward fucking. It's ingrained, probably hardwired into our DNA by now, from millenia of being retarded about fucking and passing the whole retarded thing onto their progeny.

Rule no2: (similar to Godwins law) As a conversation (on the interwebs or IRL) about fucking continues, the probability of it becoming retarded approaches 1

I get what you're saying, Hollis. I think a couple of of us do but the problem is that your position will never be accepted, given that, in the real world, the one in which your argument is framed, most human beings (even the enlightened ones on this forum, have a fucking retarded, superstitious, every time I masturbate god kills a puppy - attitude toward sex. It might not be in the forefront of your mind but the chances are it's niggling away in the background somewhere, elevating sex to something different in principle to eating, shitting or scratching your back.

The retarded attitude is why the sex industry, any attempt at a sex industry is all full of abuse and shit and venom and shredded lives. Any argument about how this shouldn't be the case is pretty much moot. Give it up.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
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Ayotollah of Ass

As fascinating as the translating vs. porn discussion is, you'll pardon me if I ignore it.   

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 24, 2012, 07:54:52 PM
I'd just like to point out that non-sexual employment tends to be vastly different than sexual employment, not just because of social mores; there are fundamentally different physical and chemical forces at play, because of the biology of sex.  Sex as a job simply doesn't equate to installing kitchens or entering data as a job, because of the endocrine cascade that sex produces.

"...not just because of social mores..." Ok, this is sensible. There feels like there should be a difference, but there's a very real possibility that as soon as you go this route, it gives you license to load up the topic with all your sex baggage. And it really is a nice way to smuggle in your social mores, feminist agenda or anything else you'd like. It also cries out to explain how this adds to the exploitation, which gets back to my questions about what constitutes exploitation. So maybe...

3. Differences in porn and/or sex work that make it different from other work.

If you could make a convincing argument here, then you could move to saying that porn is inherently exploitative. However, this brings me back to the first scenario. Or do you want to say the first scenario was also exploitative - even though no one got paid, everyone agreed, and in the end their was porn. It's an interesting question.

Quote from: VERBL on September 24, 2012, 08:16:22 PM
I dunno. Whenever I think about all of the awful, abusive things I've seen almost every fucking time I looked for porn I can enjoy, and the sheer ration of awful-to-nice that I've experienced on every single site, I can definitely say I don't think musicians and other non-sexual performers have it nearly as bad. Absolutely fucking awful seems to be the norm in mainstream porn.

This is true. But, the central issue is that this may be a problem with human sexuality, and not porn.

Quote from: v3x on September 24, 2012, 08:29:50 PM
I think on an intellectual level you can equate anything to anything if you build the right metaphors. That doesn't change that there is n honest comparison of porn and freelance writing. You can find yourself forced to write something or for someone you hate, but that isn't the same as being unable to claw your way out of a profession where the person you hate is physically violating you. The gist of this thread was how porn starts as a last resort and becomes a trap with diminishing returns. That can be said of many jobs, but most of the other jobs do not also involve your body becoming a literal commodity for use in the most depraved physical acts, with or without your agreement.

Don't porn star have access to police to address problems of sexual assault? Much of the discussion here is making assumptions like this one. I don't have any first-hand experience, but I don't know how much is going on without people's agreement. It may be police wouldn't really address that kind of charge, but by the same token, why would you go back to work someplace you have been sexually assaulted?

Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 09:45:32 PM
Life expectancy rates are always fucked up because of infant mortality rates.

I didn't look at the study, but one objection is that correlation doesn't equal causation. The central question is would their life expectancy be lower, even if the porn industry didn't exist? You are assuming it would be higher and these folks wouldn't engage in other, just as risky lines of work/lifestyles - perhaps prostitution. I'm not so sure we can say that.

Quote from: Pixie on September 24, 2012, 10:21:02 PM
I think your view is pretty simplistic.

Let me see if I can reduce it to your core points and respond to each:

1. There's a large quantity of porn that is violent or racist.

Again, is it porn, or is it the fact that human sexuality is depraved that bothers you?

2. It's used as a sex ed tool, and it is not a good one.

Agreed. But, it isn't a sex ed tool, and while you might like to make it into one, it's not the point.

3. Society's poor attitude towards sex.

Agreed. But, I find most feminist ideas about how to change it is in some kind of deep denial about sexuality, particularly male sexuality. 50 Shades of Grey is a bestseller, but put that to film and watch the poop fly. (Although, I only have the vaguest idea of what is in 50 Shades, going off what I have gotten from ambient discussion, but you can pick you female wank erotica/romance novels of your choice.)

4. The time balance...

It's not made for woman. I don't complain about the time balance for men in romance novels. I understand this is flippant, but I'm just trying to point to the issue, and there's no good way to do it.

5. ...a feminist critique of the industry IS needed...

Absolutely, of the industry. But, much of your discussion focuses on the product, which has all the problems I point to above.

6. "In the world outside sex work, you can't put sex-work on your cv or resume, thus leaving a lot of people at a disadvantage, and stuck in the industry."

It's a choice. There may be a whole host of reasons to make it, but this notion that people have no other options is a bullshit copout. 

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 11:08:08 PM
It's a choice. There may be a whole host of reasons to make it, but this notion that people have no other options is a bullshit copout.

I am interested to know what expertise you are speaking from.

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Ayotollah of Ass

Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 11:38:45 PM
Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 11:08:08 PM
It's a choice. There may be a whole host of reasons to make it, but this notion that people have no other options is a bullshit copout.
I am interested to know what expertise you are speaking from.

Are you seriously suggesting that people have no other option than porn? Really? U.S. military? Temp work? Minimum wage employment of choice, e.g., grocery stores, fast food, etc.? Since we're going to be cute, let me add in being homeless and going to prison. Porn may be people's best option, given their preferences, but it ain't the only one.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: holist on September 24, 2012, 07:49:21 PM
Ayotollah, let me state that to my ears you sound like sense.

Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 03:25:22 PM
Everything turns some part of you into a commidity.  A carpenter sells his skills.  A scientist sells his knowledge.  Prostitutes and porn stars sell their own persons.

As a prostitute (a frontal lobe prostitute, FLP for short) I protest. We never sell our persons, only capacities, competencies, and our time.

The people who sell their persons are the persons who are taken in by pernicious ideology (there's a great variety of flavours on offer) and decide to let go of their lives so that others may take hold of it for them. You know the old adage about giving up freedom for security and not deserving either? That's selling your person. A bit of honest prostitution is not.

How many years of experience in selling your body for sex are you speaking from, to be able to make that comparison with such certainty?

Have you studied the effects of prostitution on the psyche? Have you studied the conditions of prostitution within the societies that exist (as opposed to fictional or ideal societies)?

I feel like you and that new guy are coming from deeply uninformed perspectives, in which you are giving an ideal reality which doesn't exist the same weight and value as the actual reality which does exist.

I am not saying that we shouldn't work to change the actual reality; I am saying that in order to do so, we first must recognize it.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 24, 2012, 07:54:52 PM
I'd just like to point out that non-sexual employment tends to be vastly different than sexual employment, not just because of social mores; there are fundamentally different physical and chemical forces at play, because of the biology of sex.  Sex as a job simply doesn't equate to installing kitchens or entering data as a job, because of the endocrine cascade that sex produces.

Thanks for bringing this up, LMNO.

Saying that sex work is no different from, say, masonry, completely disregards neuroscience. It is like saying that having babies and selling them for a living has no different effect on a person's psyche than washing dishes for a living.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: holist on September 24, 2012, 08:02:36 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 24, 2012, 07:54:52 PM
I'd just like to point out that non-sexual employment tends to be vastly different than sexual employment, not just because of social mores; there are fundamentally different physical and chemical forces at play, because of the biology of sex.  Sex as a job simply doesn't equate to installing kitchens or entering data as a job, because of the endocrine cascade that sex produces.

Yes, but on the other hand it is not fundamentally different (in that way, I mean) to acting or dancing or the circus or making music (the performing arts) as forms of earning money: all of those, if they are any good, involve tremendous hormonal cascades in the performer as well.

Yes, it is. Please do some research on this so that you can understand how laughable your claim that performing arts trigger the same endocrine reaction as sex. They share some of the same endocrine reactions (and so does pooping, FFS), but they are not the same.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Don Coyote

Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 11:59:18 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 11:38:45 PM
Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 11:08:08 PM
It's a choice. There may be a whole host of reasons to make it, but this notion that people have no other options is a bullshit copout.
I am interested to know what expertise you are speaking from.

Are you seriously suggesting that people have no other option than porn? Really? U.S. military? Temp work? Minimum wage employment of choice, e.g., grocery stores, fast food, etc.? Since we're going to be cute, let me add in being homeless and going to prison. Porn may be people's best option, given their preferences, but it ain't the only one.

Dude, like it was mentioned before, you can only put sex work on a resume for more sex work, unlike temp work, or the military. In fact, having military in your resume is usually seen as a positive thing.

ALSO
Quote from: A Very Hairy Monkey In An Ill-Fitting Tunic on September 25, 2012, 12:37:29 AM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on September 24, 2012, 07:54:52 PM
I'd just like to point out that non-sexual employment tends to be vastly different than sexual employment, not just because of social mores; there are fundamentally different physical and chemical forces at play, because of the biology of sex.  Sex as a job simply doesn't equate to installing kitchens or entering data as a job, because of the endocrine cascade that sex produces.

Thanks for bringing this up, LMNO.

Saying that sex work is no different from, say, masonry, completely disregards neuroscience. It is like saying that having babies and selling them for a living has no different effect on a person's psyche than washing dishes for a living.

THIS

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 05:51:29 PM
Quote from: Pixie on September 24, 2012, 03:11:02 PM
Mine is not a puritan bias at all, and more of a socialist worker's rights bias, and a feminist bias. If there is no dire financial need, someone is a hardcore exhibitionist and really wants to film themselves fucking and has agency to do this or anything else to make money, then I'm cool with it. I'm just pretty sure this example is pretty unicorn-like, and do not wish for my money or revenue generated from advertising related to my usage of free sites to further the exploitative parts of the industry.  If I ever watch anything like that I want to be 100% sure that the performers have agency and that there is genuine enthusiastic consent. If you add to the serious lack of focus on genuine female pleasure in a majority of porn to the too often racist and misogynistic attitudes in the films then I'm out.

What I don't want to be complicit in is this kind of event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Roxx, who in a double anal scene caught HIV after being in porn for 2 months.

What is also unicorn-like are these kinds of requirements for exploitation, and what makes it special is its sex. Are you as concerned about your local corporation's management serious lack of focus on their employees enjoying their work? Probably not, because sex work is different. Are you as concerned about health care providers, law enforcement, etc. getting HIV through needlestick injuries - and have this same standard that this should NEVER happen? It wouldn't make sense. But, why does it make sense here rather than some basic common sense protocol for preventing transmission? No, instead, the solution is how about we just try abstinence. You don't really NEED to have sex, after all. That dog's not going to hunt.

The bottom line is that human sexuality is filled with all kinds of dark, horry desires. And while there's a place for feminist critique, the place for it isn't in evaluating other people's kink or trying to fence it in so that its safe. It's never going to be safe.

Quote from: A Very Hairy Monkey In An Ill-Fitting Tunic on September 24, 2012, 03:23:46 PMSo you're only going to address the individual components, and ignore the social aspects entirely?

If you want to offer up a social theory about the negative effects of pornography, I'm all ears. But, this thread thus far, unless I missed something, didn't have much of one. I think my comment above gets to my first thoughts on the matter. Social control of an individual's sexuality, beyond the kinds of obvious things such as consent and getting more into the realm of feminist critique of allowing or disallowing certain desires as approved or not approved, is not generally something I'd want to endorse.

Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 03:25:22 PM
Everything turns some part of you into a commidity.  A carpenter sells his skills.  A scientist sells his knowledge.  Prostitutes and porn stars sell their own persons.

As long as it isn't something "special", then that's great. One of my objections here is that it often is treated as special. Commodify a woman's work at the check out counter? Great. As soon as she decides to make some money by lifting her skirt and making her vagina the center of her work rather than her arms, then it's all sisters of the world unite. Maybe this is right, but I'm not a woman. So, maybe there's a lot going on here I don't understand.

You clearly either missed a lot of posts, or don't understand what social theory is. There was an extensive conversation about it earlier in the thread.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: v3x on September 24, 2012, 08:35:54 PM
Quote from: holist on September 24, 2012, 08:31:40 PM
Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on September 24, 2012, 08:25:35 PM
Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on September 24, 2012, 08:20:11 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 08:19:04 PM
So, Holist doesn't do enough translating business today.  His pimp comes by and chokes him out, kicks him around a little, and then rents him out to rough trade for a week.

Yeah, the two jobs are identical.

Absolutely!

Not to mention the diseases you can catch while translating. Move over AIDS! Here comes dry mouth!

Well, and chronic carpal tunnel syndrome (because why not work 15 hours a day for a few weeks if I can pull a decent load), chronic back-pain (because buying decent office furniture for the home office somehow tends to slide down the list of priorities), a variety of eye problems from looking at a screen for far too long, irritability, headaches, spontaneous translation (happens after long symultaneous interpretation gigs). There's nothing to match AIDS, for sure, but there are plenty of opportunities to get crippled. I am not in any way trying to belittle the plight of exploited porn-stars and prostitutes. Exploitation is terrible. But I agree with the Ayotollah: there is some undeclared bias here due to the sex thing. And I know that there exist (not a majority, but by no means unicorns) people who spend a year or two in the sex business, save up and lie back while they figure out what to do with their lives afterwards. They may discover, even years later, that they had bitten off more than they could chew... but that's not necessarily the case.

I advise you to step back, and reevaluate your position, maybe with a dash of human compassion thrown in. You know, just in case we are talking about real people.

This right here. LMNO said it too. They are both right.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: VERBL on September 24, 2012, 09:13:43 PM
Quote from: v3x on September 24, 2012, 08:57:33 PM
Right, except working in porn features all the same stressors that your job features - deciding which jobs to do, selling your abilities, aligning yourself with the right people, and taking the right kind of risks. These are equal, sure. But on top of all that, when you work in porn, you also have to have your body used like a cheap toy from Hong Kong. Your body, which is for all intents an purposes you yourself -- your mortal coil -- the very tie that binds you to this plane of existence -- in a very real sense everything you have and, in porn, everything you are. That seems to me like it would hit much closer to home, and be that much more intense, than getting a wrist cramp or pining over writing an uncomfortable kind of propaganda. You can identify with all the business aspects of working as a porn star maybe, but business ain't the half of it.
This.

And also this:
You mention social biases regarding sex. They affect the people working in it, not only those discussing it. And the way these biases work, in all cases I'm familiar with, is that they are jarringly unbalanced in their treatment of men and women. In the specific context of mainstream porn, they are at their highest potential: the women are literally selling their body for money and having sex with multiple strangers, opening them up to all sorts of abuse just for the fact of doing what they, while the men are doing the same thing, which perversely puts them in a position of power and envy. And if that imbalance were to come to the fore, and a male performer were to get abusive with his partner, even if "only" on camera, "only" as an act, the female performer is required to act like she's enjoying the shit out of it. At that point the exploitation specific to that line of work meets the normal exploitation involved in all paid work – she has to do her job to have money for her basic needs (including self-realization, which I'm glad to hear you know people who found after working in porn.) And unlike most other professions, there is hardly a single other industry in which she can later sport her hard work on a resume.

I'm not saying – and I don't hear almost anyone here saying, but correct me if I'm wrong – that all porn work is necessarily worse than all other work. It's more that taken as a whole, the reality of porn work is awful in a whole other way, in a significant proportion of cases.

And this, also.

Man, I think that pretty much everything I wanted to say has already been covered by you, Castro, LMNO, v3x and Freeky.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: holist on September 24, 2012, 10:23:44 PM
Quote from: Luna on September 24, 2012, 10:18:05 PM
You do realize that every time you refer to your job as "prostitution" or "FLP," your credibility circles the bowl another time, right?

No. Does it? I mean, I described the similarities I see, I also made it very clear that I don't see them as identical, far from it... so why? The essence of prostitution, for me (and I am very willing to use a different word for this, only I haven't found one) is doing something purely because someone will pay for it. Not because I enjoy it, not because it interests me, not because I think I may learn from it, not because I am doing it as a favour for someone else... purely, and simply, because someone will give me money for it and I need money to survive.

What would you call that?

There are similarities between every job, but that doesn't justify playing fast and loose with the definition of "prostitution". That's sort of up there with playing fast and loose with the definition of "rape", which is another thing that people seem to like to do.

Jobs that are not prostitution may be exploitative. That does not make them "prostitution". They may be degrading. That does not make them "prostitution". Arguing that the fact that something has things in common with something else actually makes it a subset of the other thing is fallacious thinking; it's false equivalency. It's like saying that since washing dishes involves getting wet, and ocean biology involves getting wet, washing dishes is a type of ocean biology.

Prostitution has a definition. Here it is:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prostitution

QuoteDefinition of PROSTITUTION
1
: the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations especially for money
2
: the state of being prostituted : debasement
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Ayotollah of Ass

Quote from: Guru Qu1x073 on September 25, 2012, 12:39:59 AM
Dude, like it was mentioned before, you can only put sex work on a resume for more sex work, unlike temp work, or the military. In fact, having military in your resume is usually seen as a positive thing.

The question was what other options do porn actors have. I was suggesting the military as one option, partly because it is resume building and is often the option of choice among those with few options.

Quote from: A Very Hairy Monkey In An Ill-Fitting Tunic on September 25, 2012, 12:41:17 AM
You clearly either missed a lot of posts, or don't understand what social theory is. There was an extensive conversation about it earlier in the thread.

Well, I'll say it is difficult to respond to a claim that it was all covered before and I missed it and/or I'm ignorant of social theory. I may have or may be, but unless you or someone makes it clear what you are talking about, it's difficult to respond to and I'm not particularly interested in re-reading and trying to guess.




The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 11:59:18 PM
Quote from: Fidel Castro on September 24, 2012, 11:38:45 PM
Quote from: Ayotollah of Assehollah on September 24, 2012, 11:08:08 PM
It's a choice. There may be a whole host of reasons to make it, but this notion that people have no other options is a bullshit copout.
I am interested to know what expertise you are speaking from.

Are you seriously suggesting that people have no other option than porn? Really? U.S. military? Temp work? Minimum wage employment of choice, e.g., grocery stores, fast food, etc.? Since we're going to be cute, let me add in being homeless and going to prison. Porn may be people's best option, given their preferences, but it ain't the only one.

Sorry, I was talking about prostitution. There are two conversations going on, it seems.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Kai

I'm sort of stunned that someone is actually equating sex work (and yes, I include pornography in that; you're being payed, to have sex with someone, whether or not it is on camera is irrelevant) with translation services. It's pure idiocy.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

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