Oh, I just realized this is a 1 and a half year old post.

Oh well, my comment stands.

I agree with Andrew that this group has bias against “fantasies” they would personally not like to take part in. Porn is supposed to be an outlet for fantasy.

SO:

Fantasies happen in the mind, so, by definition have no victim.

Q#1 Are violent fantasies wrong?

Q#2 Is consuming violent imagery wrong?

Q#3 Is the act of filming mock violence wrong?

Q#4 Is paying or otherwise coercing (without malice) a woman to commit these acts wrong? Does it matter if Males or Females are involved?

I don’t think we can take a solid stand that any of the above should be legislated against; maybe at most they should be discouraged.

The only inherent problem I can find with the porn industry is that it REQUIRES OBJECTIFICATION. And since this blog author clearly does not believe there can be justified objectification, all types of Pornography must be bad.

I think that there are situations where objectification can be justified.

But my definition of objectification is like this one on dictionary.com: to present as an object, esp. of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize.

In other words – it is a tool to help an audience grasp a concept quickly by removing added dimensions that they would have to mentally sort through in order to receive the message.

Like a gun, (an object that hurls a projectile forward) it can do lots and lots (and lots) of harm, but is not evil in itself.

BELIEVE? Like, as in God, or Santa Claus? You do know that Sociology is a science, rather than a support group for dogmatic assumptions, right?

The questions I asked above were not just rhetorical, although I’m less convinced by your point in light of your need to brush them aside. My opinion is that if we are going to term something as “harmful,” we need to be build a case on a foundation much sturdier than our biases alone and be very clear about who is being harmed, how much, and why. We also need to qualify whether it is universally harmful (as in, no matter what the context) or circumstantially harmful, and therefore necessitating regulation.

My answer is similar to someone arguing to me that, for example, legalizing same-sex marriage would be “harmful.” Funny enough, when I have that discussion with such people, you know what response I always get?

They start talking about “belief.” See the problem?

With cigarettes, we can quantify their harmfulness with the number of human deaths and illnesses that are directly attributed to them. We know that their health risks extend beyond the people who choose to smoke them. It takes only objective, unadulterated facts to refute the lies of that industry.

When it comes to porn, you only have untested and reactionary assertions to back up such claims. We simply don’t have significant evidence that actual rape or torture results from exposure to this material, or that the fetish audience is any likelier to force their inclinations on the unwilling than anyone else. We don’t know that these images will stimulate feelings of misogyny or tolerance of real abuse any more than PG-rated materials. And if you were to ask a company to publicly assert that their material was harmful, when they seemingly take the necessary steps to create it ethically, I think the burden would fall on you to supply that unequivocal proof.

Funny slip.

LOL–didn’t think about that.

Note that I didn’t mention regulation of any kind.

I’m also in favor of keeping cigarettes legal, even though they are clearly and obviously dangerous to health.

I’m simply wanting honesty and straightforwardness. If cigarette companies lie and say that smoking isn’t harmful, I think we should speak up. Similarly, I think it is a lie to say that hard-core bondage porn that involves torture and rape is harmful. Implying that this is just like any other job is bullshit.

If the enormous number of people (including women) who have a genuine and deep-seated psychosexual desire for bondage/humiliation don’t deserve the freedom to create and enjoy images produced with the full consent of participants, then what would you propose for them instead? Shutting up and getting back in the closet?

The producers you’re attempting to shame employ self-styled fetish performers with the financial and legal recourse to protect their rights. I don’t see how it would be preferable to not have companies along these lines, as in their absence it wouldn’t be difficult to produce such material in virtual slave-labor conditions. Everything is more dangerous when it’s driven underground.

Also, kink.com markets is product directly to the fetish audience, making its gimmicks quite obvious. Its typical consumer knows exactly what fantasy is being acted out, and is fully capable of maintaining a thick boundary between fantasy and reality. So you’re disturbed? Fine. Clearly it’s not your fantasy. I’m disturbed by romantic comedies and Disney cartoons. What do you think I should do about that?

Maybe…hmm…not watch them?

Kink.com is the hip San Francisco porn company featured, where employees have 401k’s and think nothing of producing hard-core bondage pornography that simulates–and perhaps is–rape and torture of women. Note that there is no simulated (actual?) rape and torture of men, not that this would be an acceptable thing either.

I think this website copy speaks quite a different message than the irresponsible porn industry infomercial produced by Current TV:

–QUOTE from http://www.publicdisgrace.com/site/?c=1–

What is Public Disgrace?

Public Disgrace is the best public sex and BDSM site on the web. Women are bound, stripped, and punished in public. PublicDisgrace.com features porn with public nudity, public spanking, and public fucking at a new level. This site has hot girls on busy streets displayed tied up, gagged, sucking cock, fucking in public, and ass fucked for everyone to see. Voyeurs, exhibitionists, and anyone else will love seeing European girls being stripped in public, flashing in public, flashing their breasts, bound, gagged, and ass fucked. Girls also get taken to bars and parties and made to suck stranger’s cocks and give them handjobs while bound. The site features lots of European first timers who have never tried bondage before as well as kink veterans like Bobbi Starr and Lorelei Lee. Crowds of people fondle bound naked girls. Hot sluts wear nipple clamps, tight ball gags, and have their shaved pussies exposed. Amateur beauties get vibrated to orgasm while everyone watches. See girls walk around the streets with cum drenched faces. This is no ordinary public sex site, girls are not only exposed to strangers they are fucked in bondage, bound and ass fucked, and tied in inescapable bondage, so once they are exposed they can do nothing to cover themselves up.

No one has dared to do this public bondage before. Our amazing director takes hot girls into public and humiliates them. They give public blowjob after blowjob and have sex with strangers. The girls are made a public disgrace, public female humiliation at its best. You’ll see tons of high quality pictures, videos, downloads, and streaming media. Publicdisgrace.com is in high definition for your viewing pleasure.

Other fantastic features on PublicDisgrace.com include nude girls bound, fucked, examined, and put into slave submission. The public humiliation of girls on Public Disgrace is kinky sex at a whole new level!

–END QUOTE–

Let’s not lie to ourselves. This is clearly abusive and explicitly degrading sexualized violence for entertainment purposes. People who work for Kink.com are not working at any old job, they are directly contributing to the creation of very disturbing violent imagery that hurts both women and men.

funny you didn’t choose to point out the lowercase r in my name…that one I saw coming, actually…