Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site shark.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch
From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.legal,net.women
Subject: Re: Pornography doesn't degrade anybody
Message-ID: <1211@shark.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 15:54:03 EST
Article-I.D.: shark.1211
Posted: Fri Jan 11 15:54:03 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jan-85 08:12:49 EST
References: <4699@tektronix.UUCP> <2758@ncsu.UUCP>
Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 64
Keywords: pronography, sex
Xref: watmath net.books:1205 net.legal:1294 net.women:4061
Summary: 



In article <2758@ncsu.UUCP> mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney) writes:
>>  Not quite.  Pornography truly degrades all people, men as well as women, by
>>  reducing us to an extremely base level.
>>  paul dubuc
>
>I fail to see what is degrading about sex.  Most of the people on Earth
>engage in a screwing activity sometime during their lives,  and most of
>them do it repeatedly.  Are your parents degraded because they had sex?

Indeed, but Paul didn't say that sex was degrading.  He said that pornography
was degrading.  The difference is pretty obvious.  Read more carefully.

The following is my own opinion if anyone cares:
Sex is a personal act (usually) between two people, and erotica is (are?) the
depiction of that act or things designed to strongly remind you of that act,
and pornography can be seen as FAILED erotica, as a depiction that causes
the viewer to see sex as something one does to a thing, rather than as an
enjoyable mutually voluntary sharing of pleasure.

Pornography (the word literally means pictures of sex) is typically done as
a person, with whom we are made to identify, treating another person, with
whom we really cannot identify, as an object suitable primarily for sex.
But we humans are very good at generalizing, and when we see pornography,
especially the kind that by skillful design places us inside a particular
point of view, we tend to generalize the ideas presented.  It takes a real
conscious effort sometimes NOT to do this, especially if we are exposed to
it a lot.

Incidentally, a porno picture will disturb me, a male heterosexual, for
different reasons than it will disturb a female heterosexual.  (Note that
the only reason I make this distinction is because I don't want to generalize
to other sexual orientations, even though I think the generalization is a
valid one.)

I will be bothered by pictures of a woman in the standard (boring) pink
crotch, come-hither shots, because it implies that I a man must perforce
accept this as a definition of what I must find stimulating.

Were I a woman, I would be even more bothered because I would be hard
pressed NOT to identify with the woman in the picture, and she is being
represented as an object for sex.  Therefore I as a woman must also be
so defined, whether or not I want to be.

THAT is what the problem is with pornography, a matter of intent AND degree.
The intent is to make a person into an object.  This debases sex and it
debases the person, and by association ALL people.  The problem of degree
is that this kind of representation is so bloody pervasive now, that
it has found its way into NEARLY every message in our social environment.

Oh, as a footnote.  The kind of omnipresent awareness and concentration
on sex is very much like the old Puritan concentration on sin.  By being
continually reminded that nearly everything was wrong, the Puritans were
eventually unable to concentrate on doing what they thought was right.
However, we know that negative reinforcement is not nearly as effective
a tool for teaching as positive reinforcement, and we are constantly given
POSITIVE images, pleasure-images, of sex with pornographic connotations.
Therefore, sex becomes associated with something which we KNOW deep down
is wrong, and yet it is constantly before us.

This has gotten too long, for a brief reply.

Hutch