Moral panic? No. We are resisting the pornification of women

[redqueen]

Don't mix up feminists fighting the the corporate media with rightwing attempts to police sex

"Sexualisation" has become a much-debated issue in recent years, and a noticeable feature is the assumption that feminists who oppose sexual objectification are generating a "moral panic". Ever since sociologist Stanley Cohen introduced the term in 1972 it has been used as a shorthand way of critiquing conservatives for inventing another "problem" in order to demonise a group that challenges traditional moral standards.

So apparently feminists are now the conservatives fomenting unnecessary panic about the proliferation of "sexualised" images while the corporate-controlled media industry that mass produces these images is the progressive force for change being unfairly demonised. What a strange turn of events.

To suggest feminists who oppose the pornification of society are stirring up a moral panic is to confuse a politically progressive movement with rightwing attempts to police sexual behaviour. We can, of course, identify just such a conservative strand in current debates in Britain: interventions of the coalition government include calls for girls to be given lessons in how to practise abstinence and attacks on abortion rights. But feminists who organise against pornification are not arguing that sexualised images of women cause moral decay; rather that they perpetuate myths of women's unconditional sexual availability and object status, and thus undermine women's rights to sexual autonomy, physical safety and economic and social equality. The harm done to women is not a moral harm but a political one, and any analysis must be grounded in a critique of the corporate control of our visual landscape.

The left has a long history of fighting capitalist ownership of the media. From Karl Marx to Antonio Gramsci to Noam Chomsky, leftist thinkers have understood the corporate media to be the propaganda machine for capitalist ideas and values. By mainstreaming the ideologies of the elite, corporate-controlled media shapes our identities as workers and consumers, selling an image of success and happiness tied to the consumption of products that generate enormous wealth for the elite class. Alternative views are at best marginalised and at worst ridiculed.

More at link.

[niyad]

1. k and r--thank you for posting this.

[redqueen]

3. Oh it is my pleasure!

I only wish I'd seen such information when I was much younger.

[seabeyond]

2. it is fair to say this is an issue that both the right and left men are one. to keep women

in a subjugated manner. in the past, religion was used. today, too many women do not feel inferior, incapable, unable. the independence and freedom is out of the bag, and woman cannot be shoved back in.

the pornification of our women and girls give the men another means to demean, degrade to the point of submissiveness.

the biggest hoot is to hear a girl say, stripping empowers her. she is naked and vulnerable, he is clothed. she performs for him. he holds out a dollar and taunts her with pay to degrade and demean herself more and more.

where is her power? who really has the power holding the $ in order for the gal to eat, pay bills or get her next fix? yet we continually repeat this for our girls.

if a woman or a girl dare speaks out against the pornification, their sexuality is then attacked. what young women, stepping into her sexuality wants to be preceived as a prude, pearl clutcher, anti sex, a sexual, jealous....

another hoot is hearing the men defend the stripper and prostitute in a manner that the woman is well respected. yes, she is providing a sexual service for the man, but really, he has the ultimate respect for her choice. but as soon as the conversation shifts from defending this gal, the men immediately go into conversation in the most vulgar, crude, degrading manner in talking about these very young women.

i was told this weekend the reason older women have problems with this is they are old. when i was younger, it was because i was jealous or a prude or asexual.

but that always ignores the many facts and reasons why this is an issue tht men and "pro sex feminists" refuse to listen to, let alone consider.

i read a thread this weekend talking about the "fundamentalists" that have issues with this continued pornification of women. i am not religious. so, how in the world could that be? common sense is not a factor. just shut up at all cost.

[redqueen]

4. Absolutely.

Whether it's religious men forcing chastity on women, or secular men denying that objectification is harmful, at its core it's the same thing - an effort to control women's sexuality.

Whether it's a church or Wall Street, it's still an organization dominated by men attempting to push their views on everyone else. Religious people claim it's to protect women, capitalists claim it's to empower them. But the lie is obvious. You can't empower people by stripping them of their very humanity.

[CrispyQ]

5. An outstanding response!

You nailed it succinctly here:

the biggest hoot is to hear a girl say, stripping empowers her. she is naked and vulnerable, he is clothed. she performs for him. he holds out a dollar and taunts her with pay to degrade and demean herself more and more.

where is her power? who really has the power holding the $ in order for the gal to eat, pay bills or get her next fix? yet we continually repeat this for our girls.

if a woman or a girl dare speaks out against the pornification, their sexuality is then attacked. what young women, stepping into her sexuality wants to be preceived as a prude, pearl clutcher, anti sex, a sexual, jealous....

[Name removed]

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[lbrtbell]

6. Porn makes women ashamed of their bodies

In modern porn, women all have shaven crotches. Young men of this generation are, for the most part, now turned off by women with a normal amount of pubic hair.

I've seen advice columns where young teen girls are asking when they should shave, because they don't want boys to think their bodies are ugly.

Yet so many men on the left STILL don't get how porn harms women.

It boggles the mind.

[seabeyond]

7. i don't have porn in my life. only times it has come to me in real life

is when it has been used as a weapon against women. i have not had anyone come to me and say how it enhances their sex life, though i am sure there are those people/couples. i just have not seen it. i have heard it from couples, and then later see how it does not. it causes a rift.

every instance i have experienced porn, i saw it used against the woman by her man. hanging a porn calendar on the kitchen wall with woman's legs spread. stating it is art. when reality is to shame the wife and degrade women as a whole

a husband pissed at wife so pulls out a spiral flash card of womans tits to look at, make stupid faces, and noises, letting us women know he is objectifying women. and then throwing to my husband to get him to participate in degrading me. hubby is like.... wtf, leave me out of your game.

a father showing porn to his 8 and 10 yr old daughters to teach them sex and the real world, when in reality to get back at the Xwife.

a husband that has to jack off every morning to porn cause he cant get it up with regular women, his young wife that has a much more active libido than he does, goes without. insists she does gang rape porn, when she was raped at 13. insists she goes to strip joints to watch him get off on other women.

in all these instances, the couples divorced and the issue of the use of porn as a weapon against the women were the deciding factors. also, i listened to all these men cry about the loss of wife and family that they love so much and want back.

even a decade later, to this day, i hear the same from a couple of the men.

in reality, i cannot blissfully say, that porn does not do harm.

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Pornification isn't about Porn

This is about 4yr olds wearing Padded Bra's and Padded Seats on their briefs. The concept that a girls ranking depends upon her perceived desirability to be breed. The constant barrage of Madison Avenue images suggesting that a products desirability is tied to it's ability to get a boy laid or to have the boys all rushing to get into a girls pants.

Our media when depicting a smart, successful woman. Always reverts to a Charlie Rich concept that behind close doors, she lets her hair down and is some sexy vixen, instead of an average, normal woman that is very smart.

[seabeyond]

10. right. but the mainstreaming and normalization of porn into every day life is what is

helping us to create our girls into a caricature of what a female is. and objectfication as a whole.