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Comments
@ Bradamante: That's not the only possible target of visual attraction, though.
She may not be saying it outright, but she may be inadvertently stifling male visual attraction.
But.....that's the entire reason porn exists.
^ Yes, but if you consider porn to be a bad thing, that doesn't excuse it.
Allow me to rephrase: I dont think she thinks men should watch pornography for any purpose, not even satisfying their visual attraction to women.
Because the former sounds quite oppressive (or coercive or imposing or whatever adjective is appropriate), and the latter sounds worse than ordinary porn.
Maybe I'm showing off my sex-naivety here, but I'd have thought getting your jollies explicitly as one of the purposes of a relationship would be more objectifying.
I am partly in the "porn is objectifying" crowd, and I would defend that viewpoint (although not as extreme and non gay inclusive as her) but I'm also a hypocrite, so fuuuuuck me
First of all, if I were to say the phrase "male privilege", what would you understand by that?
What about the term "rape culture"?
^^^ Not all porn is of people who choose to be objectified.
First, what would a "rape culture" be like, if you understand something by the term, but the USA does not have one?
The term "rape culture" is used so loosely, though, that simply arguing that women should exercise caution and dress modestly (in addition to the usual safeguards, like more police on the streets) gets labelled as "victim blaming" and used as an example of how America has a rape culture.
Christ, I hate feminazis.
There are, however, countries (mainly fundamentalist Muslim ones, although others do exist) where getting raped can be a death sentence, and it's practically impossible for a victim of rape to get justice.
So in the modern Western world, men are typically regarded as the default, while women are regarded as a deviation from that (an "other"), a weaker, disadvantaged, implicitly underachieving one - this is male privilege.
The term "rape culture", in the sense that I was using it and am about to use it, refers to a culture which does not do all it can to prevent rape from occurring, and may inadvertantly encourage or enable it without realising. For example, the tendency to regard rape as a purely violent crime perpetrated by strangers, or the tendency to regard being raped as something shameful and humiliating, or the frequent argument that women encourage rapists by dressing in a certain way (blaming the victim).
How does this relate to pornography? Well, it's fairly widely acknowledged, within feminism, that pornography typically does not objectify both sexes equally. That is, in the majority of porn, women tend to be more objectified than men; there is a greater focus on the female body, the female reactions, and so on, (and sometimes a conscious catering more towards gynephilic kinks, as well). This is the male gaze.
Now, this perhaps wouldn't be a problem if women weren't already typically regarded as a deviation from the male norm, but as it happens they generally are, or so the theory goes. The argument then goes that by objectifying women to this extent, certain stereotypes and attitudes towards women are reinforced.
This is where, potentially, rape culture enters the equation. The argument typically goes that by reinforcing these objectifying attitudes towards women, pornography encourages men to regard women as something that can be used to satisfy male urges and pleasures. This does not mean that watching porn makes men more likely to go out and commit a rape - rather, it means that men may form certain preconceptions of women and of sexual relationships between men and women, which causes them to be more tolerant of certain forms of rape or of behaviour which leads to rape, and which causes them to behave in a way which is hostile towards female victims of rape and women in general, and may cause some women to feel threatened or uncomfortable in the company of such men.
Holy fucking shit, ninjas.
Hatter... face palm.
Nice Godwin, by the way.
If you're a woman (or, alternatively, a small-boned schoolboy with silky skin) and you're walking around in a bad part of town, it's better for you to be dressed modestly, to make yourself less of a target. The same thing goes for muggings; if you're walking around a bad part of town wearing a tuxedo and twirling a cane while humming "We're in the money," then you're making yourself more of a target for a mugging. It isn't your fault when you do get mugged, but you still should have been more careful.