Pornography: A Violence Against Women

by Ron Jeremy's Step daughter Pet Monkey - Porn Before Profit Wed Sep 20, 2006 19:23

Its sounds like you've already decided that pornography has a negative effect on society but on what basis, surely the sexual repression that caused something as mild as playboy to be banned up to the mid nineties in this country and the crusade against contraception is more damaging to society. If we see sex as dirty, then porn will be negative, if we see it to be the essential, natural thing it is and sometimes quite beautiful expression of humanity it can be, then we wont develope to require an industry which produces something which while desired will be damaging.

What about gay porn or female dominance porn are these also damaging society, also if porn has such a effect on abuse of women, why is spousal abuse of men on the rise.

by ???? Wed Sep 20, 2006 19:46

What about female porn, directed by women for women, such as is on sale in Ann summer's shop on O'Connell street. How about Ann Summer's shop itself is this encouraging male violence against women. This is merely sexual repression dressed up as protection. How about priests who abused kids in institutions, was this because of porn? The whole structure of your post gives the impression that you have come to your conclusions and are now trying to give an aura of academia to back up your studies. I suggest you invite Betty Dodson to your conference and see what she has to say about this.

by Chris Murray - . Wed Sep 20, 2006 20:00

A perusal of the groups involved would however point to a specific slant:
LRCC, the HSE and The Dept of Justice, Equality and Law reform.

Maybe it should begin therefore with the definition of Pornography, assuming it
to be directed toward the mass consumer/exploitation/violent end of the market
Not of course forgetting that the party of commodification is led by the Tanaiste
and Minister for Justice who has not reviewed the pornography Laws (something
we can all be greatful for, no doubt)

Pornography is consumed and produced by women, also. Never mind putting
pretty labels like 'erotica'on it, thus defining it would most definitely be a grey area.
Two of the contributors to the evening are Statutory bodies, thus I would just
listen to the LRCC, who are,working at the coal face in terms of legislations and protections
for victims of rape and sexual abuse. A perusal of DRCC/LRCC figures makes salutory
reading in relation to convictions and custodial sentences for the crime of rape.

by sammy Lee Wed Oct 04, 2006 14:38

Anything that gets important issues up for discussion is a good idea. So I don't think the negative comments are really justified. The important thing is that it is an open frank and un biased debate. The starting point must be a clear and unambiguous definition as to what pornography really is. It has been my experience that there are a whole myriad of opinions on this topic alone. I think once that is established (No easy matter) and it is know what the discussion is really about then some kind of conclusions could be reached.

by Chris Murray Wed Oct 04, 2006 16:18

Thats a whole other thread......

by redjade Wed Oct 04, 2006 16:42

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . "
- US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, 1964
http://library.findlaw.com/2003/May/15/132747.html

——————

Museum Field Trip Deemed Too Revealing
October 2, 2006
by the New York Times
''....Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended.

Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and “bashed.”

She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote: “During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations.” It cited additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged.

The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22.

[....]

Retracing her route this week through the museum’s European and contemporary galleries, Ms. McGee passed the marble torso of a Greek youth from a funerary relief, circa 330 B.C.; its label reads, “his nude body has the radiant purity of an athlete in his prime.” She passed sculptor Auguste Rodin’s tormented “Shade;” Aristide Maillol’s “Flora,” with her clingy sheer garment; and Jean Arp’s “Star in a Dream.”''

More at
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1002-07.htm

Ms. McGee

Aristide Maillol's 'Flora'

by Chris Murray - jesus Wed Oct 04, 2006 17:32

I have two kids both of whom were brought to museums and art galleries in their prams-
the boredom of the mundanity of the nappies etc-ya know.

and yes they saw nudes, rudes, bits and pieces.

one of them is at an awkward age and shields his eyes "in case they get soiled"
when he goes to galleries now- has the world gone completetly mad.

But there is no use in provoking a discussion on Art Vs Porn, in the mentality of the
weird prudery of globalised monoculture, because it pre-suppouses that there is
a difference betwixt the two- depending on choice/education and personal pecadiiloes
there is art in some classes of porn- be it imagistic/written/photographic.

its the non-sensical ring-fencing of the issue into a level of debate that that has
something to do with what people would understand as 'pornographic' and that is
a lucky dip situation depending on perception.

the assumption, as stated before is that the organisers of the above talk are
specifically referring to commodified and exploitative pornography, but really
it should say so.

by A Cigar Thu Oct 05, 2006 08:30

Portrait of the artist as a dirty old man
A new study of Norman Rockwell finds sexual innuendo
lurking amid his classic images of innocence

Norman Rockwell's famous 1954 painting, ``Girl at Mirror," portrays a girl in the midst of one of life's great transitions. The near-adolescent sits on a stool in a white nightgown, chin in hands, pondering her appearance. A magazine on her lap is opened to a glamour shot of Jane Russell.

The viewer can fill in her thoughts: When will I be a woman? Am I pretty enough? When can I wear lipstick like Jane Russell? (A tube sits beside her stool.)

Richard Halpern, an English professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of the new book ``Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence," adds another question: What's with that creepy doll on the floor? ``There is something slightly indecent about its posture," he writes, noting the raised rump. The doll, he suggests in language too colorful to repeat here, appears to be engaged in a quasi-sexual act with the mirror frame.

And it's no accident, as Halpern interprets it. Adolescence isn't all sweetness and light, of course, and the doll signals Rockwell's awareness of its more carnal side. The doll, he writes, ``grotesquely amplifies...the delicate point of sexual transition at which the girl finds herself."

....

Consider ``Cave of the Winds (Girl with Skirt Blowing Up)," a Saturday Evening Post cover from 1920. With a grinning boy behind her, a girl at an amusement park is captured in the moment when jets on the floor fire air up into her skirt. The picture's true subject, Halpern says, is not childhood fun but ``the shock of sexual difference." The girl has closed her knees and predictably grabbed her skirt, yet her hand finds itself in a suggestive location, Halpern notes. Her face is ``flustered" with alarm, but also, perhaps, pleasure.

But Freud is really in the details. An empty peanut bag floats at knee level, its opening pointed at the viewer. Halpern says that motif is repeated meaningfully: ``The Cave, the bag, the balloon, the billowing skirts, the girl's pursed but open lips-all are externalized emblems of the empty...cavelike thing we are not allowed to see but see nevertheless."

Don't blame the critic, Halpern says: It's the painting, not his reading, that's ``heavy handedly Freudian."

Article in Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/10...=full

====/
Girl at Mirror
1954
The Saturday Evening Post, March 6, 1954 (cover)
http://artchive.com/artchive/R/rockwell/rockwell_mirror....html
Link to image:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/r/rockwell/rockwell_mi...r.jpg

Norman Rockwell's "Cave of the Winds" on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1920.

by Miriam Cotton Thu Oct 05, 2006 11:01

Violence against women is the ultimate expression of sexism and sexist attitudes. It's not necessarily physical either. Men have cultivated deep-seated strategies for making women feel intimidated: contempt, silence, aggrssive communication, dismissiveness, indifference and irritability. In communication, women are commonly perceived by men to have been speaking for three times longer than they were. They are talked across and silenced with hand and other gestures - often with a smile - but silenced nevertheless. Womens views and observations are not taken as seriously and they are frequently simply ignored. If a woman dares to challenge these attitudes she will find herself objectified as devious and unpleasant. If she dares to show impatience or frustration her anger and assertiveness will be defined as the subject of the discussion while the thing she is actually saying will continue to be ignored - often wilfully. These outcomes have been documented about a million times in a million different ways. It is no use for men who may not have lapsed into outright violence against women to think they are somehow superior to those who have. Most men - certainly in this country - have yet to trouble with understanding deep-seated sexism and how it creates the breeding ground which cultivates violence and psychological and social misery for women. Spare us please the men who are anxious to claim their anti-sexist credentials without respecting the views of women themselves - who think that they can determine what it is like and how it ought to be for women. Violence and prnography are at the extreme end of a long spectrum of deeply sexist attitudes and unless or until that fact is acknowledged by men, rape, physical and other forms of abuse will continue to be a serious problem. The only way that the situation is going to change is when men finally recognise that they cant tell us what its like - its us who must teach them - they must properly respect us. Their perspective must not be the norm from inside which our norm is considered. Most men havent the foggiest idea what they are talking about when it comes to this stuff and it is Irish women who continue to pay a heavy price for that.

by rob Thu Oct 05, 2006 14:47

Spare us please the women who are anxious to claim their anti-sexist credentials without respecting the views of men themselves - who think that they can determine what it is like and how it ought to be for men.

by HB Thu Oct 05, 2006 15:25

Rape (next to femicide) is the most extreme act that can be perpretrated on women by men. So I hesitate before pushing my (male) nose into this discussion. But I just want to point out that not all women are as supportive of other women as they should be. For example there are a considerable number of women who are so politically conservative that they are opposed to women (including women who have suffered rape) having the right to choose whether they can have a termination of the resulting pregnancy.

Also on the subject of rape, I came across the following BBC report:

Mexico police 'hushed up rapes'

"Mexico's police covered up the rape and abuse of demonstrators at a land rights protest in May, Amnesty International has said.
Prosecutors destroyed witness statements and prison doctors refused to verify claims of abuse, according to testimony taken by the rights group."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5407092.stm
http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/74228/ind...x.php

by Chris Murray Thu Oct 05, 2006 15:38

Don't be hesitant about pushing your male nose in, there is nothing wrong in
advocating women's rights if you are a guy- it's called anti-patriarchy.

The constructs, societal and within the establishment that repress women and
stick us into little boxes also do the same to men.

The point is to keep getting the info out there, so that the issue of
rape/exploitative porn is not just a black hole- that no-one discusses.

The problem with the political structures (example-Ireland) in relation to
the sex laws, pornography or abortion is that they lack women's voices
so we are in a situation wherein the female body is legislated for by a male
dominated legislature and it is used as a moral battle-ground in many
countries, including at the minute Poland, where the right-wing are attempting
to amend the constittion to reduce abortion rights.

The issue is Covered in the Guardian today (editorial section).

Lack of women's voices in established power structures are creating situations
of alienation and the phenomomen is world-wide, there are radical feminist groups
branching out globally in oppostion to the political usage of women's bodies
to advance right-wing control agendas-including reproductive rights.

by redjade Thu Oct 05, 2006 23:08

I recieved an email the other day from a friend asking if I wrote this piece (the post at the top of this thread).

No, I did not. It is an excerpt from the Calendar section of ActiveLink.ie

I should have added this link with the post - apologies for not doing so:
http://www.activelink.ie/ce/active.php?id=3934

I posted the info of the event (on September 10th) to help get the 'Gender and Sexuality' category going and encourage it be used by people.

It is sadly worth noting that since this category was started a few months ago - and only after a bit controversy and much debate! - it is rarely used.

By posting events by The Limerick Rape Crisis Centre and other orgs, I hope that activists will go to these events and report on them on Indymedia.ie.

by Ninjaman Wed Oct 25, 2006 19:02

To call her a fundamentalist would be a compliment. She (an academic) showed herself to be nothing more than mentally ill.

Porn is responsible for everything is seems.

I wonder what caused violence against women before porn?
What about mormon?
Sweden?

by Spin Wed Oct 25, 2006 19:13

Spin 103.8 is owned and driven by Denis O Brien. as is Newstalk 106.

Any slant it gives to anything would necessarily be on the Patriarchial side or
designed to make and eejit of any woman who was stupid enough to go ond
take the O Brien Penny. He works with PJ mara , you Know (ex haughey PR).

There cannot be a reasonable discussion with women on issues like these
as long as they are painted black and white by the media. This 'event'
is co-hosted by the dept of Justice and the HSE- neither known for their
approach to equality-except on paper and producing reports.

They say that rape is a crime- they have the lowest conviction figures in the developed world,
they deport women victims of FGM to Nigeria. Their employment policy is
male-orientated. The HSE is so politicised that it has become non-functional,
it is implicated in land -purchases deals that stink and it is dominated by
the political agenda of the present administration.

A reasoned discussion on sexual violence is out the window as long as these
media/establishment figures dominate the agenda. The only worthwhile
speakers in the above article are LRCC. and the figures are not pretty.