Virginia Gun Massacre

[Mr. Tea]

And as I have already demonstrated in my previous post, it is those who say "porn isn't rape" who are CLEARLY wrong.

I must have missed that bit. In fact, I just re-read it, and I still can't see it. Would you be so good as to point out exactly where you prove this statement?

In which case, it will be a simple matter for me to demonstrate the falsity of such a contention.

Go on then!

Obviously? Surely you're aware that both of these terms are continuously being disputed and challenged, here as elsewhere, and which is exactly what I'm doing here: questioning peoples easy assumptions about porn and sexual violence.

You're not "questioning" anything, you're making bald statements and then dodging the issue when asked to explain them.

What is it that you will now contend, then, "ALL OTHER porn isn't rape"?? [Unless, of course, you wish to claim that child pornography isn't rape]. In which case, it will be a simple matter for me to demonstrate the falsity of such a contention.

1. Porn is sexually explicit imagery intended to stimulate sexual arousal.
2. Rape is a sex act forced on an unwilling partner.
3. Therefore, all instances of 1. which is made with willing participants are not 2.

The child porn argument is totally irrelevant: a child is legally and morally unable to give consent, therefore anyone sexually exploiting a child, for pornographic purposes or otherwise, is guilty of rape or something very nearly equivalent. Adults, on the other hand, can consent to sex, including sex which is photographed or filmed and then sold as a commodity. Is this really such a difficult concept to grasp?

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Even by your standards this is idiotic.

Don't dismiss, as you invariably do, what you evidently don't understand as "idiotic."

For one thing, it is impossible to make 'real' (as opposed to drawn/CGI) child porn without actually abusing a child

Seeking refuge in a simple, assumed ontology again [and BTW, most people increasingly cannot distinguish between CGI-generated imagery and "normal" imagery, itself ambiguous]. Are you defending animated child pornography [stop-motion cell animation, CGI, etc] as not being abusive, as "harmless" because its not a snuff movie? It is still sexual violence (rape).

- whereas the women (and men) who appear in 'normal' porn do so of their own volition.

But they DON'T, and simple appeals to imaginary "volition" ("free will") are not the issue here. [Someone who "agrees" to be raped does not alter the fact that they are being raped, whether that somebody is an adult or a child].

As Louise pointed out, the reason we do not consider a child capable of giving consent to sex is that they don't understand what they're consenting to, and are much more vulnerable than adults into being tricked/cajoled/bullied into pseudo-consensual sex.

Who is this "we" here, other than some pompous, royal appeal to some imaginary authority? Such "reasoning", the dominant ideology, completely misses the point: adults don't understand what they are "consenting" to either, and just because children are more vulnerable to manipulation than adults does not imply that adults are not vulnerable. Indeed, it could easily be argued that child pornography is so constructed (that children have no volition, are incapable of making informed choices, and therefore can ONLY be abused) to create the illusion that adult pornography is therefore harmless.

Secondly, there is the argument

Can't you take responsibility for your beliefs? Instead of appealing to, seeking refuge in, some Other via "there is the argument".

... that even paedohphilic porn made without directly exploiting children is likely to excite unhealthy desires in latent paedophiles, or make existing paedophiles more likely to act on their urges.

If you actually believe this (unclear, seeing as you don't take any responsibility for it) then ALL porn, however seemingly innocuous, has a similar effect: to "excite unhealthy desires", the complete opposite to the findings of the report cited above, that porn reduces sexual violence. Or are you claiming that child pornography isn't porn? Or are you even claiming anything, instead just spouting out what others supposedly claim without making any attempt to actually understand or integrate such claims into a coherent and consistent framework?

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

1. Porn is sexually explicit imagery intended to stimulate sexual arousal.

Is this your definition? If not, where did you source it? [Even the attempt to define porn in terms of intentionality is inherently dubious: most of porn's effects are other than what is "intended"].

2. Rape is a sex act forced on an unwilling partner.

Again, who told you this? And isn't this equally a definition of porn, its whole raison d'etre?

3. Therefore, all instances of 1. which is made with willing participants are not 2.

Except that your premises are false [including your ridiculous contention in your conclusion that porn is "made with willing participants" ; you don't even believe this: you just said that children aren't willing participants and that many adults aren't either].

The child porn argument is totally irrelevant: a child is legally and morally unable to give consent

It is CENTRAL to any discussion of porn and sexual violence. [BTW, what is legal is irrelevant here, (1) as if all porn were illegal, then you would equally be dismissing all porn as irrelevant to a discussion of the legitimacy of porn, and (2) we're not discussing what is or is not legal, but what porn actually is. Similarly with the moral.]

A child is perfectly capable of giving consent; it is that the LAW denies this (for political and cultural reasons) on the dogmatic basis that children are constitutively irrational. Again, so-called consent is NOT the issue here, as it can be equally a false choice for an adult as for a child.

therefore anyone sexually exploiting a child, for pornographic purposes or otherwise, is guilty of rape or something very nearly equivalent. Adults, on the other hand, can consent to sex, including sex which is photographed or filmed and then sold as a commodity. Is this really such a difficult concept to grasp?

Its so simple, even a child can understand it

Except that its not a concept, its legal dogma, which you're simply invoking and accepting uncritically. [If the law was to declare tomorrow that children can consent to sex, then your argument here would collapse, for you would then be defending the new law; because its not an argument, merely yet another empty appeal to authority].

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

And as I have already demonstrated in my previous post, it is those who say "porn isn't rape" who are CLEARLY wrong.

I must have missed that bit. In fact, I just re-read it, and I still can't see it. Would you be so good as to point out exactly where you prove this statement?

You're parading your irrational contempt yet again, now a (classic case of) internet-forum posting pathology. Of course you can't "see" it, because seeing it would serve to undermine your odious agenda here.

You're now here even prepared to defend child pornography if it will serve your clinically insane trolling cause of ridiculing anything I post here.

 

[Mr. Tea]

You're now here even prepared to defend child pornography if it will serve your clinically insane trolling cause of ridiculing anything I post here.

Hahaha, Christ, you are actually mad, aren't you?

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Hahaha, Christ, you are actually mad, aren't you?

Yes, those who question the contention that (child) pornography isn't sexual violence, isn't rape, (even helps reduce such violence) are obviously "actually mad". How could we ever have imagined otherwise?

You should have been Garry Glitter's defence counsel.

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

But surely Dworkin used the word rape precisely to have that polarizing effect on people. I can understand that by stating her - as Dharry noted - extreme position as she did Dworkin generated both publicity and debate which must have been her purpose. As it is actually baldly stated though, I don't believe that anyone really literally believes that "all sex is rape". Dharry certainly doesn't say that, just that she finds some of the arguments compelling, this is what I meant when (not facetiously as HMLT suggested) I said I don't know any "real people" who think along those lines (well, since I went on dissensus one has come to my attention but I think we can disregard him). Just to clarify, Dharry do you honestly, personally believe that all sex is rape?

Again, for the record, where did I say that sex=rape? I made NO SUCH STATEMENT. Would you ever at least make some effort to pay some attention to what people actually say, because you are here coming across as a twisted, Mr Tea clone.

The sheer fucking cynicism and dishonesty on full display in this thread makes it obvious, all-too-obvious, what the real stakes are here.

Idlerich, as with Mr Tea, is here attributing malicious motives to Dworkin's use of the word "rape": in Idlerich's case, Dworkin uses it purely for the vain, ego-maniacal purposes of seeking "publicity", as opposed to Dworkin's genuine attempt at challenging society's lazy assumptions about sex in a patriarchal culture; in Tea's case, misogynistically dismissing Dworkin as a "damaged woman", insinuating that the arguments of all sex-abuse victims can be dismissed because such people are "damaged" goods [whereas such obscene views as expressed by Tea are required to be seen as "normal" and "reasonable" so as to more easily perpetuate the conditions of possibility of future sexual abuse].

Your obsession with the "literal" here is equally disturbing (if you had been reading my posts at the "critiques of science" thread you might have surmised that I don't actually believe in "empirical reality", that I was confronting such fundamentalist assumptions there, as promoted my the likes of aggressively empirical positivists Tea and Borderpolice): as dHarry has already argued, and in the other piece I posted on Dworkin, Dworkin is arguing against literalness and towards a wider, broader analysis of sexual politics.

Similarly, it isn't that porn literally is rape [any more than "rape" is being used in any literal sense here, but as a generic term for sexual violence and its promotion], but that the libidinal economy and value systems underlying industrialised, mass pornography serve to naturalise and normalise sexual violence ...

 

[IdleRich]

“Firstly, let me just say, Idlerich, that I just so happen to take this issue very seriously indeed, being all too familiar with the impact of pornography on society.”

Well, if that is indeed the case why not try and answer my questions instead of arguing about my grammar?

“I didn't misunderstand you at all. You want me to pretend to believe something (that porn ain't rape) that I do not actually believe.”

No, I thought that what you said was wrong and wanted to know why you said it, I don’t want you to pretend to believe something that you don’t.

“It is you and other posters here you are avoiding the point. Are you going to argue that, for instance, CHILD pornography isn't rape? Or has the issue now (all of a sudden) become more problematic, much more disturbing than an idiotic "porn isn't rape" dismissal?”

Well, if pornography involves rape, which “real” child pornography does then it is obviously rape but that really is a tautology - pornography involving rape is rape. I would say a book written for the purposes of arousing a paedophile is, however unsavoury, not rape.

“What is it that you will now contend, then, "ALL OTHER porn isn't rape"??”

No, I’ll just stay where I am thank you and say that porn not involving rape isn’t rape.

“I wasn't challenging anything else that you wrote, just that one contention above. But it's an extremely important one”

I agree, that’s why I had to pick you up on it.

“Obviously? Surely you're aware that both of these terms are continuously being disputed and challenged, here as elsewhere, and which is exactly what I'm doing here: questioning peoples easy assumptions about porn and sexual violence.”

I would say that there is a rough definition of rape, in a different box there is a rough definition of porn. The definitions may change to a certain extent but the two cannot overlap unless there is a radical redefinition of at least one of them. You haven’t provided any reason for this.

“I stated, axiomatically, that porn is rape, and nobody here has yet provided any evidence or argument (much less convincing ones) to weaken or undermine such a definition.”

I stated equally axiomatically that it is not, all that was forthcoming was insults.

“It isn't "unusual" at all; what is unusual - and irresponsibly so - is to claim that porn reduces sexual violence, as I stated above (a problem being its own solution).”

Well, I never said that did I?

“the post above, for example, giving direct evidence of porn as rape”

Where? I've just read back through everything and I cannot find this anywhere.

““Rape is a sex act forced on an unwilling partner”

isn't this equally a definition of porn, its whole raison d'etre?”

No it’s not, not even slightly. I begin to see where you’re going wrong. Basically you're totally re-defining what pornography is for the purposes of your empty intellectual argument. Try telling a woman who has been raped that her ordeal cannot compare to that of someone being paid (possibly large sums of money) to have sex on camera ("rape at its purest") you misogynist prick. You've got it so twisted here that you are actually belittling the crime of rape for your own ends.

“Again, for the record, where did I say that sex=rape? I made NO SUCH STATEMENT. Would you ever at least make some effort to pay some attention to what people actually say,”

I never said that you did. I say that you are heading in that direction (thinking along those lines) when you say that porn is rape.

“Idlerich, as with Mr Tea, is here attributing malicious motives to Dworkin's use of the word "rape": in Idlerich's case, Dworkin uses it purely for the vain, ego-maniacal purposes of seeking "publicity", as opposed to Dworkin's genuine attempt at challenging society's lazy assumptions about sex in a patriarchal culture;”

I’m not attributing malicious motives to Dworkin, I’m saying that sometimes it can be a good idea to shout loudly about something to draw attention to the subject even if what you shout is wrong (this should hardly be a surprise to you).

“Similarly, it isn't that porn literally is rape”

You could make that sentence even better (and retreat from your sexist position) if you took out the word “literally”.

The sheer fucking cynicism and dishonesty on full display in this thread makes it obvious, all-too-obvious, what the real stakes are here.

Somehow I've missed them, please enlighten me?

 

[vimothy]

Oh my god...

 

[vimothy]

I was not being pedantic [try the Language thread on Miscellaneous for that]; I simply have some respect for the use of language, and in attempting to think carefully about what such use entails. It was you, after all, who confused "watching porn is rape" with "porn is rape". Are you suggesting that distinguishing between these two statements is just being pedantic? Or take Vimothy's "I love shagging, making love, fucking, whatever, it's beautiful." Would it also be "pedantic" to point out his indifferent use of language here? Does his deployment of "whatever" include rape, given how rapists find such activity "beautiful"?

"Your honour, is the accused innocent or guilty?"
"Innocent, guilty, whatever, who gives a damn!!?"

Have a word with yourself mate - of course "whatever" doesn't include rape.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Look, let's get to the bottom of this. The phrase "porn is rape" is a political slogan, not (to anyone using any reasonably normal definitions of the words) factually correct. It belongs in the same canon as "meat is murder" or "property is theft". The animal-rights loony saying "meat is murder" isn't saying "'murder' is defined, in the OED, as killing an animal to eat it", because this is demonstrably untrue; he is saying "I consider the act of killing and eating an animal to be morally equivalent to murder". This is not a view shared by the majority of people, just like the supposed equality between porn and rape.

Women in HMLT's world appear to be helpless, pathetic, weak-willed creatures lacking the intelligence and self-determination to avoid allowing themselves to be exploited ("raped") by the first wicked man that comes along with a video camera in one hand and a big wad of cash in the other. Because only men have free will, libidos and sexual autonomy, right? The sheer stupidity of "allowing oneself to be raped" - consenting to a non-consensual act - apparently passes him by. Talk about taking the 'oxy-' out of 'oxymoronic'...

I, on the other had, credit women - as mentally-competent adults - with the initiative to make their own decisions about how best to make a living. Don't like sucking cock on camera for cash? Then don't do it. Get a job in, you know, an office or a school or a shop or a bar or something, like most people do. Or claim the dole. Your arguments might hold a drop of water if the options open to women were "be a porn model or be homeless and hungry", but I don't think this is the case, is it? Just another instance of a far-leftist ideologue denying people's free will and (as turtles alluded to) treating them like 'helpless zombies' wandering around under the full control of the government/big business/societal norms/'the system', unable to stop themselves the moment someone offers them a quick buck to do something they find repellant. If you do something you don't have to do in return for money, it's obviously not *that* repellant to you, is it? This is without even going into the fact that, at the professional end of the porn industry, it's the women who earn the big bucks and call the shots. Of course, they all hate themselves and their (highly lucrative) jobs really, don't they? I mean, it's not like any modern right-thinking man could ever countenance the idea that women are capable of taking their lives and their sexuality into their own hands!

Exactly where you get the idea that I'm supporting child porn is equally mystifying to me. Not to mention the fact that I'm apparently a 'mysogynist' for daring to disagree with Andrea 'All Sex Is Rape' Dworkin, the most rabidly misandristic person to ever live (edit: or at least, the rabid Dworkin who has been presented so far in this thread...) Then again, given that you've already called me a 'fascist', why not call me a closet paedophile as well? Perhaps you'd like me to sell some crack, mug a few grannies and take personal responsibility for the Bhopal disaster while I'm at it...?

 

[dHarry]

It seems I've been the propogator of misinformation about Dworkin. Apparently she never said "sex is rape"; in fact she has denied it explicitly:

No, I wasn't saying that [all heterosexual sex is rape] and I didn't say that, then or ever. [...] Most men and a good number of women experience sexual pleasure in inequality. Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I don't think they need it. I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercourse_(book)

I honestly can't remember where I encountered the falsely-attributed "sex is rape" concept, although it is widely mis-attributed and has attained the status of urban myth, to which a quick google will attest. Anyhow, apologies to all for the inaccuracy.

I read her "Pornography: Men Possessing Women" over 13 years ago and found it to be an unflinching trawl through the ugly depths of misogyny in "our" culture. Porn, like any other cultural object, can have many meanings and interpretations, but Dworkin's analysis, fear, and loathing of the stories and images depicting, valourising, and often performing sexualised violence on women (even on the actual actresses involved) was a salutary and bracing challenge to liberalism and post-60s libertarianism which tended to view porn as simply free expression of a natural eroticism repressed by neo-Victorian conservatism and/or Christanity. This quotation does actually express a similar position:

"In a money society, money is power, and the buying of another male, especially a boy, is forcible sex. Consent, properly understood in a society where men have turned both desire and freedom into dirty jokes, is a reality only between or among peers, and the poor and the rich are never peers. And boys, in particular poor boys, are not and cannot be the peers of adult men."

- http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/PornMen&Boys2.html

I will say that I introduced the idea in the form of a logical syllogistic argument, so simply calling it "bollox" or "disgusting" doesn't deal with the argument involved - again, without the "r" word: if women really are devalued as second-class by a male-supremacist society, then their (legal/ethical/political/personal) capacity for free consent among equals really is compromised. I also stand by my quoted statistics of sexual abuse as a counter to claims here of beautiful sexual experiences, and not as a trivial rhetorical strategy. To use another example, it was only very recently (1991 in the UK) that the concept of rape within marriage was accepted and made legal. My point was that "our" society systematically produces sexual abuse of women (and has legally endorsed it) due to (among other things, including patriarchal history, poverty, and lack of education) ingrained gender divisions and constructions, which can't be explained away as individual deviations from the beautiful natural norm.

I began this by delineating what I thought was Dworkin's position, not mine. So no, I don't believe that all sex is rape; neither did Dworkin. And to prevent the further spreading of the falsely-attributed concept I will edit my original post (without airbrushing it out of history!).

 

[Mr. Tea]

It seems I've been the propogator of misinformation about Dworkin. Apparently she never said "sex is rape"; in fact she has denied it explicitly:

.................................

OK, cool, thanks for that.

 

[dHarry]

Of course Hundred Million Lifetimes never said "sex is rape" either; but he is insisting that "porn is rape". I still can't find a clear explication of this - does it rest on paedophilia/child porn? Care to clarify HMLT?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Care to clarify HMLT?

Don't hold your breath...

 

[IdleRich]

"It seems I've been the propogator of misinformation about Dworkin. Apparently she never said "sex is rape"; in fact she has denied it explicitly:"

Well, I never knew that. Funny how these things take on a life of their own.

"I began this by delineating what I thought was Dworkin's position, not mine. So no, I don't believe that all sex is rape; neither did Dworkin."

That's what I thought and why I asked if you personally thought that.

"Dworkin's analysis...was a salutary and bracing challenge to liberalism and post-60s libertarianism which..."

That's what I meant really when I said that Dworkin was trying to start a debate - she was kicking back hard against something that had veered too far in the wrong direction.

 

[crackerjack]

Apparently she never said "sex is rape"; in fact she has denied it explicitly:

.................................

Wow, what was she doing at the time?


(I'll get me coat)

 

[Mr. Tea]

Just to put things in context a bit: how much porn do you suppose is consumed by the average Bangladeshi?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6635191.stm

 

[dHarry]

That's what I meant really when I said that Dworkin was trying to start a debate - she was kicking back hard against something that had veered too far in the wrong direction.

Yes, though she wasn't only starting a debate or correcting an extreme tendency of liberalism; she was taking on what she saw as the systematic domination of women by patriarchal society/men in extreme, uncompromising terms:

Intercourse occurs in a context of a power relation that is pervasive and incontrovertible. The context in which the act takes place, whatever the meaning of the act in and of itself, is one in which men have social, economic, political, and physical power over women. Some men do not have all those kinds of power over all women; but all men have some kinds of power over all women; and most men have controlling power over what they call their women--the women they fuck. The power is predetermined by gender, by being male.

Intercourse as an act often expresses the power men have over women. Without being what the society recognizes as rape, it is what the society-- when pushed to admit it--recognizes as dominance.

- http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/IntercourseI.html

 

[Mr. Tea]

Is it not the case, though, that - leaving aside instances of actual rape or sexual coercion - women can have power over men by choosing not to have sex? Or rather, by choosing which men they have sex with?

Perhaps this is something that's changed a lot over the past 30 or 40 years since Dworkin originally formulated her ideas.