Pro Porn Rant Part 2: Addressing 2 of three main radfem arguements.

Right now I'll adress two of the main anti porn arguements put forth by radfems. The major arguement however, I'll tackle in another post.

So I find that radfem arguments against all erotic material can be broken down into three arguments. Two out of three they repeat ad nauseum, whilst the third one is more of the “core” reason they oppose porn, despite the fact that they rarely bring it up, and they seem to avoid any serious debate with regards to its validity. I shall now bring up the other two arguments first.

Main argument 1. The means of its production are exploitative.

We know the deal. Human trafficking. Economically desperate women. Hot Girls Wanted doc etc.

Now before I address the main refutation to this I would like to raise another question

“But then, how much of that is really the fault of the particular social underworld that modern pornography was born into in our culture, and how much is truly intrinsic to sticking human bodies, or human sexuality, behind a camera lens?” (quote from an internet article)

“Criminal” type men run the porno industry because porn was relegated to the “criminal”. People have often said that the stigma towards sex work contributes to the problems sex workers experience. Surely that can apply to pornographERS. Should society become anti porn on the basis that women are harmed in the industry, then it would become self-fulfilling: because if being a “pornographer” is a profession no “respectable” man would partake in, then the industry’s gonna be overrun with assholes.

Also, we don’t apply this sort of logic to anything else. Plenty are saying there’s corruption and exploitation in the REGULAR film industry! Look up what Judy Garland went through in the filming of The Wizard of Oz. Also look at how New Zealand got screwed over by the making of The Hobbit. 

But nobody’s condemning filmmaking itself. Nobody is casting blame on the very medium of telling stories through moving pictures. What is it about erotic imagery that makes it inherently inextricably linked to exploitation and trafficing?

And I haven’t even come to my major refutation. This argument can be dismissed by three words: not all porn.

I’m sure there is plenty of erotic material, (As I mentioned in the last part I’m not limiting to generic mainstream hardcore porn) that doesn’t exploit anyone in any way. Heck now we got onlyfans, making it easier than ever for women to sell erotic material on their terms.

Still not convinced that No Women Were Harmed in the Making of This Porn? You’d have to ignore all the DRAWN porn and all the erotic stories. With the advances in computer animation, there may come a time where people are no longer needed to act in porn. If you argue as Robert Jensen does, that cruelty-free porn still creates a demand for porn which results in some women being hurt, then by that logic not only can we watch no movies, but eat no chocolate and wear no clothes. Any production of a product or service will create the possibility that some people will be hurt or exploited in its production. If someone, somewhere is hurt in the production, it shouldn’t automatically render the ENTIRE product or service irredeemably unethical, regardless of how a particular product or service was produced. Far more feasible to focus on making industries safer and ethical than legally or morally banning entire products, services or entertainment genres.

While a lot of antiporn feminists or SWERFs will talk a good game about the abuses women suffer in the porn industry, ultimately its not a good argument, in itself, against all porn, and I know that SWERFS will consider their position far from dismantled, I’m confident that any further points they have will draw on the second and third main arguments.

Arguement 2: Porn shows abusive, degrading sex: The second argument is pretty much related to the content. The blatent violence, the “body punishing sex” the degrading words…this sort of thing.

Now let me just say, there have been things about porn, things of this nature, that make me uncomfortable, or that I outright hate. That being said, while I, generally speaking, personally do not like seeing women humiliated, or in pain, I’m hesistant to condemn all forms of kink or any form of sadism in people’s sexual fantasies, even if sadism’s not my thing. Many stuff I would pretty much defend on a “free speech” point of view…y’know, my right to watch Awefilms videos is gonna depend on my neighbors right to watch something hideous like “facialabuse”. But not going to defend sadism in depth. I’m sure there are people who can do a better job explaining why it’s not inherently wrong to have a bit of kink or power play in their fantasies.

My issue is when people bring this stuff up as an indictment against all porn. It’s like showing the most violent scenes in Mortal Combat and Grand Theft Auto and then saying “and that’s why you shouldn’t play Tetris!”. Because once again, three words: “Not All Porn”. Of course many radfems might even disagree with me on that statement, that indeed all porn portrays humiliation abuse and inequality, but they clearly have an extremely different view from me as to what constitutes abuse and humiliation.

Gail Dines loves to rave about the body-punishing sex that is supposedly in mainstream porn, and makes clear that porn today is not merely “a naked woman smiling in the cornfield” anymore. But I saw one video where she brings this up and then, quickly, almost under her breath, says “of course that’s wrong too cause she’s sexualized”. Then she goes right back to talking about the horrors that is “real porn” today. I’m like: Hold up! Reverse! Exactly WHY is that woman in the cornfield a problem?! This is sneaky tactic extremist of many stripes use. Dines is clearly wants to ban, condemn, and/or shame even the mosts tamest of erotic material, but she doesn’t seem to want to fully discuss why the tame stuff should go, instead focusing on parts of her ideology that most people would have a hard time arguing against. So yeah I wanna talk about that woman in the cornfield, I want an actual discussion as to exactly why that is a problem at all, cause no, it is not obvious.

The two arguments, on their own, don’t seem to hold much water. They don’t explain what the hell wrong with something like softcore drawings.

Now I’ve read enough from radfems to KNOW that such images get the bullet too. Even if it isn’t even a real woman and it doesn’t look like she’s being hurt or debased, plenty of radfems would shame men for deriving enjoyment from such images as well. And so we come to third reason. The REAL reason why radfems hate all porn.

Argument number 3. All sexualized imagrey, and the enjoyment thereof, is inherently anti feminist because it reduces women to objects.

This argument is hardly ever addressed head on or in good faith, but this is the real meat of sex negative feminism. I will argue against this…but that will be another time, cause it deserves it’s own post.