Tuesday, May 10, 2011

I have an opinion about this too…

A very good Catholic man, whom I've had the privilege of knowing all my life, recently told me he's disappointed Catholics these days are less militant, considering the only Catholics most of us will ever meet are members of the "Church Militant." Anyway, last week I was watching some of the following videos and thought they could find a place here, so as to fortify the moral fiber I hope I and my reader(s) have.








(Part 1)


(Part 2)




"Pornography is the commercial documentation of assault played out on real women bodies" - Gail Dines





2 comments:

mightygreekwritingmachine said...

This sort of hardcore porn is, IS, sex trafficking. When you go to a woman and trap her with a sort of Stockholm syndrome technique, you gain access to their minds and thus, you traffic them.

djr said...

I think all of this discussion needs to face up to the fact that many of the people who do make it actually want to make it. We are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that a person could want to do something that is utterly degrading and dehumanizing; it is humorous that when Chomsky responds to the objection that people agree to and are compensated for their performance, he cites an analogy in which people are coerced, and he pretends that the only reason why women choose to make porn is that they can't get good jobs elsewhere (whether or not Chomsky's naivete about porn is feigned or sincere, this is certainly a piece of it). Of course, the directly violent, coercive, and dangerous aspects should be addressed. But ultimately, a perfectly safe and non-violent porn industry would still be objectionable, as Chomsky acknowledges. What we all need to appreciate is that we can willingly degrade ourselves.

Perhaps a first start would be to recognize that women aren't the only people being degraded in pornography. Anyone who thinks that the men in pornography aren't despicable hasn't seen enough. If we could be more attentive to the fact that men, in objectifying women, degrade themselves, we might be better able to acknowledge that even those women who have no serious complaints about their work in pornography are still doing themselves a terrible disservice.