Hard News: Launching into raunch
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Puts a whole new spin on "faith-based" initiatives, doesn't it?
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Another goodie, under Global Warming:
It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field .[4]. Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.[5]
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You can't make this stuff up:
The official platform of the Democratic party claims to involve strengthening America.[1] However, the Democrat voting record reveals a true agenda of cowering to terrorism[2], treasonous anti-Americanism[3], and comtempt for America's founding principles such as freedom of religion[4].
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and comtempt for America's founding principles such as freedom of religion[4].
but, but, they said the other ones were faithless, now I'm a little confused.
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you know, taking the piss out of stupid fundy americans would be so much more enjoyable if it wasn't so gosh-darned easy.
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*sigh* And before the Sunday Star-Times gets too sanctimonious about 'raunch' culutre - does anyone really give the proverbial rat's rectum where - or in who - Matthew Ridge is putting any part of his body?
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Julie Christie might...
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sigh* And before the Sunday Star-Times gets too sanctimonious about 'raunch' culutre - does anyone really give the proverbial rat's rectum where - or in who - Matthew Ridge is putting any part of his body?
Actually, you could say that Ridgey's playing the classic male-in-porn role: he really is no more than an appendage.
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In the end Russell everyone Loos'es
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Are people suggesting that soft porn/inappropriate clothing/tarty celebrities should in some way be censored? (more than NZs somewhat draconian laws do already - we are one of the few countries to try and censor simple text, for instance).
It would be very hard to frame such laws - would you have a schedule of minimum skirt lengths, rising with age, for instance?
Or are we just arguing that it's tasteless, cheesy and shouldn't be fashionable?
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"I'm really uncomfortable with what seems like a growth in the "girls gone wild" type porn, when there's a pack mentality and also lots of booze involved. That seems pretty borderline consentual when the girls are often about to pass out."
LOL everyone's got their own special gripe. Mine is that 'straight' porn these days has far too much anal sex and multiple blokes. And guess what? I still haven't converted to anal sex and MMF. It doesn't matter how many times they try to slip it in there, I'm not converting. It does nothing for me. Which is why I don't really think arguments against porn centering around the effect on the watcher hold water.
Can anyone reading honestly say that they've decided to do something they would never have wanted before, just because they saw it in a porn movie? LOL, of course not because no one would dare to admit they watched more than one porn movie and felt anything other than outrage about it. Personally, the only thing I ever got from porn that 'warped' me, was an idea for a few positions that had never occurred to me.
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Right...
Long time reader, first time poster and all that.
This article has finally spurred me into joining the debate.
I'd recommend that anyone who is interested in a more detailed analysis of this start by reading Susan Faludi - 'backlash', and 'stiffed'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Faludi
Most of her research and writing was done before the latest 'raunch explosion', but her main arguments are still pretty relevant.
Crudely speaking, she argues that when you push an established power base, that power base is going to push back.
One of the main examples she uses in her earlier book is the increase in the number of press stories that focussed on a decrease in female fertility at a certain age - a cut-off point mid/late 20's for sucesful pregnancy. These started appearing in large numbers around the time that larger numbers of women were on the first rungs of the career ladder in the '80's - The subtext of all of these was: 'are your eggs on the turn? You'd better go and have kids while you still can. Forget about that career'.
She argues that most of these stories don't actually bear close scrutiny. However, they do help to create a climate of fear for women who 'want it all', and potentially make it easier to remove them from the competition.
Apply that argument to 'raunch culture'. Creating a culture where a woman only has value if she is a sex object makes it harder for women to get ahead in male-dominated industries that require brain power, and therefore change the status quo.
It isn't that there's a smoke-filled back room somewhere where levers are pulled, and these things magically happen. She argues that they are a natural, unspoken, unplanned reaction of the dominant (male-driven) culture to challenge.
So, why? Well, the SST article nearly had it, but didn't spell it out. They managed to put 2 and 2 on the table without actually getting round to adding them up. As they pointed out, girls do better at school. Girls leave school with more qualifications. Girls are therefore better qualified for the top jobs. Also, more women than men are teachers - the school system naturally becomes increasingly feminised and it become easier for girls to do well and harder for boys to do well.
More clever girls and less clever boys jumping for the bottom rungs of the ladder = a challenge to the old boys club.
I'm trying to summarise some fairly complex arguments in a couple of hundred words, so apologies if this come across as a bit crude. Go and read the books if you want to know more.
Having said all of that, sexual politics is far more complicated than I can easily comprehend.
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merc,
Jo, to part explain, I am glib though, the Emo clique were walking round in dead relatives clothes scaring the bejeebers out of the little'uns, and they were mean't to be in uniform, apparently part of being Emo is to proselytise. I was amazed at my daughters vehement reaction to the Emo's, but she's a real trooper when people are being hassled. I was trying to push the, we are all different angle and she plumbed for the rules and sensitivity to another's feelings, especially concerning death.
I had to agree with her, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of being human in the midst of a good freedom of expression rant. -
I thought a bit more about the claims of a runaway raunch culture while I was making dinner and stacking the dishwasher. It occurs to me that this isn't the first time around.
In the late 60s and early 70s, the media was convulsed by mini-skirts and hot pants. A little later on, Thursday, the independent woman's weekly edited by Marcia Russell, ran ads showing more flesh than the ones you'd see in the women's magazines today.
At the same time, certain male counterculture heroes treated women abysmally.And some people were so brainless as to let Bert Potter mess with their kids at Centrepoint. And yet these were the years when the reproductive rights battle was won.
In the US, Hugh Hefner was a hero. 'Deep Throat', an actual porn film, was the height of fashion (later on, of course, we discovered how dreadfully Linda Lovelace was treated by her scumbag husband).
Things are different now, of course. I've just watched Melanie Reid's 60 Minutes story about some local Second Life players. Perhaps it was unrepresentative, but is it all that porny? Everyone's avatar seemed to be considerably enhanced. She talked to a 70 year-old married man who got his in-game business rolling with money from working in-game as a gay escort. Meanwhile, the very pornified Nicky Watson features in one of the highest-rating TV shows of the year, and has the run of certain Sunday newspapers. Celebrity culture sometimes seems like one long lapdance. Explicit porn is more acceptable that it used to be.
And yet women lead us in the political and business spheres, and girls outstrip boys at school. The kind of sexist claptrap you'd get in the 70s is hard to find outside the breakfast show on The Rock. Sexual offending against women is far lower. And while the dresses are the size of handkerchiefs down the Viaduct on a Saturday night, I don't think that many girls really want to be Paris Hilton or a porn star.
I'm not implying causality in any direction. It's just ... interesting.
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merc,
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http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/02/23/second-life-sketches-please-stop-doing-that-to-the-cat/
Good old Boing Boing.Eeeew.
But interesting in a so-not-interested-in-playing-Second-Life way ...
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merc,
I'm live blogging 10 Reasons on C4, Top Ten Love Power Ballads, November Rain playing right now, number 4, I'm scared that this means, outthere, there are 30, 40, 50, somethings loading up themselves and their iPods going into 2nd life porn tristes with cats, (the Slash lead break is cutting in now...), jaysus it cut out, too much, number 3, Aerosmith, we had Nazareth before, Love Hurts, oh God no.
Brazil (the movie) has become real, has anyone else noticed that the American Chopper family is call Tuttle?But interesting in a so-not-interested-in-playing-Second-Life way ...
Careful, that's how they get you, vulcan mind meld.
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"I'm really uncomfortable with what seems like a growth in the "girls gone wild" type porn, when there's a pack mentality and also lots of booze involved. That seems pretty borderline consentual when the girls are often about to pass out."
LOL everyone's got their own special gripe.
I don't know if it's a gripe, so much as the element of consent being so dubious.
OTOH, the folks (men and women) who send in videos of themselves masturbating to orgasm - showing their faces only - to beautifulagony.com seem to be harming no one, and being exploited by no one. It's still porn, and people pay $15 a month for it, but compared to Second Life, it seems rather healthy.
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From a current Slashdot thread:
it's funny, i just checked out 2nd life last night -- first time since a year or two ago -- and i was pretty amazed -- the place is one big car lot or sex club. really. i guess there are two kinds of people in 2nd life now -- the people selling "sex", and the people trying to sell their objects to buy the "sex".
it really was a cool online social experiment -- it only ultimately confirmed what we knew all along -- the internet is good only for porn and consumerism.
now, think about this for a second. first, it's not real sex that is drawing people. it's not even imagery of real people having sex. it's interaction of poorly-rendered avatars in a virtual world. this is a testament to the power of the sexual drive in humans, and what we decide to do with our best technology..... just a friendly reminder that yes, we are doomed.
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/25/1459234
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God, it's all a bit wretched though isn't it. Skanky toddlers, PCD, MMF movies and Matthew Ridge.
What ever happened to a good book and a nice cup of tea?
I did enjoy the female video clerk's porn renter memoirs though, very good. Thanks to the poster who supplied that.
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"I don't know if it's a gripe, so much as the element of consent being so dubious."
Yeah, it's a softer form of rape fetish. Not really my bag, but again, we come to this: Would anyone who didn't already think there was something hot about taking advantage of drunk girls think Girls Gone Wild was hot? And furthermore, is there not a huge difference between thinking something is hot and doing it?
I don't really see any difference between this and movies depicting any other kind of illegal activity. How is it OK to depict graphic murder, or reckless driving, or acts of terrorism or, well, basically any fictional scenario involving lawbreaking? Doesn't that 'give people ideas'? Or glorify the lawbreaking?
No. Fiction and other fantasy is just that. Porn is simply a version that people find it hard to discuss honestly, because it suggests they jerk off, and that's considered shameful. Which is ironic since it's something most men do, and a lot of women, and there's nothing wrong with it.
The only arguments against porn that I consider of any worth are those around the harm done to people in the production, as someone so pointedly said above. If people genuinely suffered non-consensually, then I think that's wrong and that should be stopped.
But I don't think most porn is like that. It's actors with no talent or training getting paid well to do a job that's probably a bit painful at times, but not in the same league as being a stuntman on a Jackie Chan film. They formally consent, do their shoot, and then go about their lives much like the rest of us. To suggest that they can't really formally consent to something like porn is to take away a fairly fundamental right with all the arrogance of an interfering clergy getting bitter on pre-marital sex.
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You can do just about anything on Second Life these days - including virtual riots.
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I don't know if it's a gripe, so much as the element of consent being so dubious.
Apparently that's the point - it's no fun when they set out to participate willingly, according to GGW's founder.
It's only half a sexual revolution when women mainly have the power to be as sexy as men want them to be. The other half comes when you can say that women have the power to be as sexy as they want to be. Case in point - two women recently kicked out of a bar for kissing. The kiwiblog lads were up in arms about their civil rights being breached, but only until they saw photos of them and decided they weren't sufficiently hot for their viewing pleasure.
Hotness is power, and anyone starting their journey to adulthood is likely to experiment with whatever kinds of power come their way, whether it's a V8 engine and an alcohol-fuelled sense of indestructability, or the power to wear tight jeans (god, they're back again) and make the boys' heads turn. Of course it makes sense to limit the harms that either can do to the participants (or the bystanders, for that matter), but it would be nice to hear some proposed solutions to this age-old issue that don't involve restricting girls' freedom even further - that road leads towards the Magdalen Asylums and the hijab. Tight jeans and saucy tshirts don't tend to kill people, after all, whereas the things teenage boys get up to in the name of youthful experimentation often do. If porn does any moral harm, it's more through (primarily male) consumers getting used to the idea that the (primarily female) subjects are a tradable commodity, than to those who get a decent wage performing in the industry.
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Russell:
Perhaps I was being a little facetious, but I still have to laugh (bitterly) at media outlets like the SST and 60 Minutes- tut-tutting about 'raunch culture' when (to pick on the latter) the rest of the show was made up with a puff-y profile of Helen Mirren, and some trolly dolly who can't quite understand why she got sacked for boffing Ralph Finnes in the loo. Nor does the SST get to huff and puff about the 'pornification' of the world when the news section is all to often tabloid in all but format, and we get pages of 'gossip' from Ratshit Glaucoma (or whatever her name is) and pap smear paparazzi pics while substantial features, arts and culture coverage etc. goes MIA.
Perhaps I'm utterly naive, but there is still such a concept as editorial judgement isn't there?
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I don't know if it's a gripe, so much as the element of consent being so dubious.
Yeah, if I was going to complain about trends in porn not being to my taste I would start by focusing on the fake nails that the actresses wear - surely they're dangerous as well as just being ugly! But no, my problem was about drunk college girls getting filmed, not actresses getting paid to follow a script. I hope you can see the difference.
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