It seems as though we are going backwards. We were doing so well in realising that all human beings are worthy individuals with emotional and intellectual depth, yet now so many of us don’t seem to see any problem with society encouraging many to reduce themselves to sexual objects. How is this rationalised?
edit: typo
You can be sexual and engage in pornography without objectifying yourself or others.
The better question is why we continue to allow our society to demonize sexuality. Own your sexuality. Fuck the church.
This. It’s sinfully taboo and consequently deliciously titillating and commodified for exploitation. Cut it back to just a normal human action and a lot of that goes away
Own your sexuality. Fuck the church.
Speaking of which:
For instance, in 2000, a jury in Provo, Utah, took only a few minutes to clear Larry Peterman, owner of a Movie Buffs video store, in Utah County, Utah. He had been charged with distributing obscene material for renting pornographic videos that were displayed in a screened-off area of the store clearly marked as adults-only. The Utah County region had often boasted of being one of the most socially conservative areas in the United States. However, researchers had shown that guests at the local Marriott Hotel were disproportionately large consumers of pay-per-view pornographic material, accessing far more material than the store was distributing.
In what way do you see embracing sexuality as contradictory to being a whole human? Can you give examples?
I dunno, in a lot of conversations amongst men it seems like women are simply thought of as sexual objects, with the rest largely forgotten. Does not seem very healthy to me.
I agree that doesn’t seem healthy. Misogyny is nothing new, though, and in your post you said people are reducing themselves to sexual objects but the example is people reducing others to sexual objects, which is not really the fault or necessarily the intention of the person being objectified
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Of course, but the entire purpose of pornography is kind of to reduce people to sexual objects, isn’t it?
Is it? Or is it to allow people to indulge in and express sexuality outside of a relationship? I don’t think it has a singular purpose of objectifying people. If people take it that way I think it’s more indicative of a problem with their attitude that they may need help to reframe.
Do violent shows or horror movies make you feel human life is worth less because it shows people getting hurt or murdered?
The thing is… Both with porn and movies… Is that shit happens. I see what you’re saying for “normal” people… But some people actually do that shit.
Whether its porn or crime.
Porn and media is the way people satiate that natural expression without hurting people, but some people go past the line and actually do it. Usually the people that fight against it publicly…
It feels like people only watch pornography in order to satisfy their sexual desires by viewing someone sexually from an external position, while people watch violent shows to feel the thrills of the person from an internal point of view.
It’s marketing. Emotion, sex, and religion are the best ways to sell and manipulate people.
It’s all so soulless. I don’t think it’s sexuality or porn that’s inherently bad, it’s the people who fake their genuine self for money that are bad. Although, like with anything, limits for the voyeurs are healthy too.
Prostitution is often referred to as the “oldest profession.”
It’s as simple as that, sex sells.
Also, people are more sex obsessed in more sexually restrictive societies. One could argue the “sexual awakening” of the US is because of prior restrictive attitudes towards sex which are still prevalent and treat sex as more dangerous than violence.
To the extent that sex workers are objectified, it is a direct result of misogyny, which teaches that it is acceptable to treat women as objects, and capitalism, which teaches that it is acceptable to treat workers as objects. At the confluence of these two industries we find pornography.
That said, I believe it is possible to do sex work in a way that is liberating and not objectifying, and in my opinion the hyper-fixation on the objectification of women in pornography is itself a result of misogyny in our culture. Every industry objectifies and mistreats workers, so why do we discuss this issue so frequently that the term objectification is practically exclusive to pornography and related contexts? In my view it is because patriarchy requires women to be “pure” and “unsullied” by sex so as to maximize their value to men. The issue gets subconsciously mixed into genuine concerns for the well-being of sex workers. Together these impulses often lead to paternalistic and unhelpful “solutions” like arresting sex workers, or FOSTA and SESTA which claim to be for the protection of sex workers but according to the vast majority I’ve heard speak on this issue are extremely harmful to their livelihood and wellbeing.
Same reason anything else is. It’s big money. Porn is a multi billion dollar industry.
As for why “extreme” porn is so “normalized” I think it’s more because it’s stigmatized ironically. Have you ever had an in person conversation about why there’s so much step family porn? No of course not because then both people would be acknowledging they watch porn for one. So the social factors that would guide things are totally absent.
Well in my conversations this comes up. I am open to talk about that to friends (at least some of them) like other normal topics.
Another question - you said things are going backwards. When do you feel that things were better, and what made that time practically better in terms of not objectifying people?
I am quite young, so most of my knowledge of the social conditions of the past comes from literature, which is of course a pretty bad source. But it really seems like it is much more normalised nowadays for men to view women as sexual objects.
Sexual peccadillos [+ religion] have dethroned kings. Can’t threaten a person w/ revealing their bedroom secrets if no one gives af.
It seems like you are assigning your own beliefs and values on things and then claiming that people who don’t share them are at a deficit. AKA a dumbass.
