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