Introduction to Porn Part 10: The Rutting Dogs of Capitalism

[FrodosPet]

http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2012/02/12/introduction-to-porn-part-10-the-rutting-dogs-of-capitalism/

The title of this post at The Activists, “Pornography Is One of the Most Powerful Weapons in the Hands of the State and the Ruling Elites,” though it is a little reminiscent of a Rolcats caption, held enough promise that I decided to read it. Read the post if you must (especially if you are a dude who fancies himself a political radical but can’t be convinced by women that you should eschew porn because it’s one of the chief obstacles to the ending of women’s oppression), but it’s really not much other than a fairly ridiculous “what about the men” argument against porn use in which men are urged to give up pornography because it is a tool designed to control men. Reading that post shortly after this one from Valerie M at We Won’t Submit reinforced something I confront quite often: surely, the post was written by a man, and the responses I’ve seen to it thus far indicate that, while denigrating or ignoring decades of toil by anti-porn feminists, everyone is going to fall all over themselves for a chance to fellate any dude who makes an anti-porn argument, no matter how incapable he might be of identifying the real (or at least most harmed) victims of the pornography industry.

Well, everyone is going to have to fellate me instead, because I have a better understanding of the relationship between pornography and capitalism than The Activists do, and because I can express that understanding without resorting to jargon-laden, propagandistic language that would make even Komsomol alumni scoff at its lack of style and subtlety.

The problem with most radical anti-capitalist literature aimed at mass audiences is the inherent assumption that the reader is too dumb to understand the complexities of political and economic power. This leads propagandists to make reference to “capitalists,” “capital,” or “capitalism” as if referring to an individual or an entity made up of a small number of people who coordinate and direct the workings of vast social, political, and economic systems. There is a reason that Marxist/communist/anti-capitalist propaganda has essentially failed as a lasting means to directing the consciousness of large numbers of people: its simplistic formulas are easily undermined by complicated realities, and by the fragmented nature of capitalism as a world system lacking in a single identifiable center of power. When “the masses” try to understand the impact capitalism has on their lives, unless they’re anti-semitic fruitcakes who adore Alex Jones and believe the world is run by shape-shifting lizard descendants of the Knights Templar who present as Jewish bankers, they don’t envision their bosses sitting in a room with the CEOs of Anheuser-Busch and Countrywide hatching a plot to keep them in servitude.

Which is why telling men that “the ruling elite” and “the state” sap their vitality and “milk” them of their “essence” via the “pornographic machine” is unlikely to convince them to stop using porn. I know most men don’t need any convincing that they ought to conceive of jizz as their essence and the supreme indicator of their vitality, but the idea that “the state” seeks to enslave the male population by encouraging them to expend all of their semen is a bit much. Even with a firm grip on the interlocking relationship between capital and governance, no one is likely to believe that a cabal of employers and government officials sit around rubbing their hands together in maniacal glee at the genius of their evil plot to addict the populace to wanking to gang bangs. And everyone knows that most people will write off the entirety of a system of ideas once they detect deception or a perceived logical flaw in a facet of that system of ideas that requires that they do anything other than what they want to do at a given moment. Self-justification is the most formidable foe any activist movement faces.

~ snip ~

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Since everyone else seems to be doing a porn thread, I figured I would join the bunch by drawing attention to a RadFem site which gives some excellent arguments about the damage that porn does.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. So let me get this right;

Guys, don't stop buying porn because it's bad for you; that's selfish and shows that you're a douchebag whom I hate. You should stop buying porn because it's bad for me, because I'm personally not making money from it.

It's a shame that "the activists" post she linked to is private, I'd like to read his take on the issue.

[FrodosPet]

2. How much of her blog have you read?

She also links to a number of other feminist and anti-porn sites that point out the exploitation of that industry.

She's not trying to be a buzz kill - she is just pointing out what many others on the left refuse to do - that porn can have a damaging effect on people.

[seabeyond]

4. +1. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. Just this post.

Is this post an anomaly on her site or is it representative?

It's apparent from the post that she is massively conflicted about the idea that porn might be objected to on the basis that it exploits the people who spend money on it, which suggests that getting rid of porn isn't her primary goal.

[FrodosPet]

6. It is very representative.

I urge you to check out some more of her posts for a true representation of her opinions. The blog is primarily anti-porn, but it has a big dose of anti-capitalism as well.

[4th law of robotics]

3. I've noticed all the arguments on the damage of porn are entirely

subjective.

"I feel . . " it will do X.

"It seems likely . . . " that it causes Y.

And so on.

I'd put more stock in those studies if they posted facts instead. Correlating porn accessibility to violence against women. Or something.

/either that or they trot out the Born-Agains, who suddenly for the sake of their usefulness, have become enlightened and progressive so we should listen to them.

[Confusious]

7. How about this relationship?

All the countries that ban porn have horrible records on womens rights.

Those that don't have good records.

[4th law of robotics]

10. There was a thread on that

Was that yours?

Either way in the sake of fairness I would say that is at best a correlation (I am very much in agreement that porn is not a problem, I'm just trying to be objective) not necessarily a causative effect.

However, what it does prove is that the link anti-porn activists claim exists between porn and violence is very much fictional.

So that doesn't prove porn improves treatment of women, but it does *disprove* the notion that porn makes things worse for women.

[Confusious]

11. Wasn't my thread,

I read that, thought about it, a found it was a true statement.

[FrodosPet]

13. Porn Part 8: Rights vs. Privileges

http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2008/04/25/porn-part-8-rights-vs-privileges/

~ snip ~

I’ve said this before, but let me make myself perfectly clear: using pornography in a relationship amounts to emotional abuse. It is not a woman’s responsibility to “get over” the damage that her partner’s porn use causes. It is his responsibility to stop causing the damage. Despite what our ever more porn-addled culture wants to tell us, men do not have a right to use pornography. Pornography exists because men run shit in a patriarchy, and because the use of women’s bodies is one of the chief privileges mean reap from a patriarchy. Sure, almost everyone may do it, but what the fuck does that mean? Just because a privilege is a norm does not make it a right.

Men might not come out and say they conceive of using porn as a right, but their arguments in the face of their partners’ objections make it fairly clear that they see it that way. The men who take issue with my analysis of the porn industry consider using porn to be a right, or else they wouldn’t bother arguing that they ought to be able to continue doing something that has been proved to be detrimental to women’s lives. Dudes in general feel entitled to unfettered access to women’s bodies, and to unfettered access to footage of any pervy thing they can dream up being done to women’s bodies. They’ve gotten so used to privileged access to women’s bodies that they’ve come to see it as their right as men. That, my dear readers, is complete fucking bullshit.

~ snip ~

---------------------------------------------

Allowing porn does not make a country good or bad regarding its treatment of women. Treating everyone with respect makes a country good or bad regarding its treatment of women.

[4th law of robotics]

14. "men do not have a right to use pornography"

actually yeah men do. So do women. That pesky first amendment and all.

[4th law of robotics]

15. And your article here is about

one half of a relationship exerting control over what the other have of a relationship is doing because they don't care for it. There is no direct harm caused, only the thought that my partner is doing something I don't like.

Change that to say a boyfriend being pissed that his girlfriend has other male friends that she hangs out with and demanding her to stop talking to them because he doesn't like it. Sure there is no direct harm to him but whatever, she may think she has a right to do this, but in fact no such right exists.

That guy would be seen as an abusive and controlling asshole.

This is no different.

And the demonstrated harm caused by porn that it references is entirely made up.

[FrodosPet]

19. I may be wrong, I don't want to speak for her

(which is something us guys do WAYYYYY too often to women)

But I don't think she is talking about legally banning porn. My take from reading her site is that her focus is on violent and/or degrading porn. Simulated rape, etc.

So, even if you HAVE a right to view porn, doesn't mean it IS right to view porn.

[4th law of robotics]

20. If so she makes little indication

she references "porn" 421 times, but never says "violent".

Also this is clearly insane:
I have a suggestion for women who are dealing with a porn-using partner: start making out with other men until he stops. Tell him it isn’t cheating because there’s no penetration — and because you don’t feel anything for the other men — and that he’s lucky because you’re coming home to him. Tell him that, since it isn’t technically cheating, he has no right to try to tell you what to do. And then tell him he’s being a hysterical, whiny little bitch if he doesn’t just get over it, that he’s just jealous. I know, yeah right.

And all the sources she uses are just links back to other articles she has written which also fall under the "I fell this must be true therefore it is" category.

Also this: Dudes in general feel entitled to unfettered access to women’s bodies, and to unfettered access to footage of any pervy thing they can dream up being done to women’s bodies.

Is likewise insane. Unfettered access to any pictures or videos posted on the internet for that purpose sure. But access to women's bodies? I suppose rapists think that. But all "dudes"? If so we wouldn't even have a word for rape since it would be ubiquitous.

She routinely confuses watching people have sex to having the right to force sex on that person in the video. Way different things.

[4th law of robotics]

21. It's really not any different than saying

women don't have a right to romantic comedies. They may think they do but in fact it is abusive (none of those people are real! They're being forced to act out those scenes against their will!).

If your woman doesn't respect men enough to forgo rom-coms (even when you aren't around) then she clearly hate men and should be treated as an abuser.

[Confusious]

22. Allowing porn does not make a country good or bad regarding its treatment of women.

That wasn't said by anyone but you.

What was said is "there is a relationship between those countries that allow porn and womens rights."

Those countries that ban porn have horrible womens rights issues.

Those countries that allow porn have good womens rights issues.

There's a relationship between banning porn and the subjugation of women.

[hifiguy]

8. ^THIS^ nt

[Confusious]

9. Uses buzzwords

Sorry, I think anyone who uses buzzwords is full of shit.

[msongs]

12. this baloney needs a lot of mustard lol nt

[HiPointDem]

16. you say you are drawing attention to a "rad fem" site but you're linking to a right-wing site

attacking the left. attacking "rad fems" and "marxists".

ok. whatever you say.

[FrodosPet]

18. Are we looking at the same site?

Rage Against The Man-chine is a RW site?

Have you READ any of it? Nine Deuce is a self-described RadFem. And she is definitely NOT singing the praises of capitalism.

Please, folks, check out what she has to say. You don't have to agree with it, but try to understand where she is coming from.

[HiPointDem]

23. i couldn't read past this:

The problem with most radical anti-capitalist literature aimed at mass audiences is the inherent assumption that the reader is too dumb to understand the complexities of political and economic power. This leads propagandists to make reference to “capitalists,” “capital,” or “capitalism” as if referring to an individual or an entity made up of a small number of people who coordinate and direct the workings of vast social, political, and economic systems. There is a reason that Marxist/communist/anti-capitalist propaganda has essentially failed as a lasting means to directing the consciousness of large numbers of people: its simplistic formulas are easily undermined by complicated realities, and by the fragmented nature of capitalism as a world system lacking in a single identifiable center of power. When “the masses” try to understand the impact capitalism has on their lives, unless they’re anti-semitic fruitcakes who adore Alex Jones and believe the world is run by shape-shifting lizard descendants of the Knights Templar who present as Jewish bankers, they don’t envision their bosses sitting in a room with the CEOs of Anheuser-Busch and Countrywide hatching a plot to keep them in servitude.

Those who oppose capitalism need to develop new strategies that take account of the proclivities of the contemporary audience and are not proven failures (as is the case with propaganda tactics derived from the mid-twentieth century) to direct people’s attention to the underlying factor that allows the capitalist world system to operate as it does: capitalist ideology. The historical moment at which the long-term endurance of capitalism was cemented was the moment at which people came to believe that every facet of human reality could be quantified and reduced to a mathematical expression. And I do mean “believe,” in the sense that those responsible for capitalism’s development trusted that, despite the fact that abstract concepts such as labor resisted being reduced to numerical tallies, all it would take to tame the world and bring everything under their mental, and hence material, control was for someone to devise the appropriate means to quantify the as yet unquantifiable. Figuring out how to “count” and assign monetary value to labor opened the door to the commodification of nearly every aspect of human existence.


I found the writing dull & stupid & the author likewise. Long-winded & saying nothing of interest.

[4th law of robotics]

17. I found it! I finally found concrete evidence that porn causes harm

http://menomoneefalls.patch.com/articles/woman-attacks-husband-for-having-the-shepherd-express-the-onion-in-his-car?ncid=txtlnkuspatc00000003

Wife Attacks Husband After Finding Copies of The Onion in Car
Victim tells police his wife considers the papers "pornography" and it has caused issues in their marriage.

The Shepherd Express and The Onion are iconic Wisconsin publications well known for their alternative views and humor.

However, when one man's wife found issues of those two papers in his trunk, it incited an incident that could very well be mistaken for a headline in The Onion.

A 56-year-old Menomonee Falls woman is facing charges after she allegedly attacked her husband for having copies of the Shepherd Express and The Onion in the trunk of his car.

---------------------------

Apparently it causes clearly insane people to become violent.

Take that misogynists!

/although this assault may have been spurred by all the talk lately of how porn is rape. Who could blame a wife for beating her husband because he raped a bunch of other women . . . via an onion article.

This is getting it's own post.

[cemaphonic]

24. Here's a gem from another essay on that site:

For those of you new to the site, I call the porn industry the “commercial rape industry” because the women in porn are paid for consent they would not otherwise furnish. If someone has to be paid to consent to something, they have not actually consented to it but have rather agreed not to make their non-consent an issue in exchange for money.

Anyone who can make this argument with a straight face just isn't someone that I'm going to find much common ground with. Especially with that godawful turgid prose.

[4th law of robotics]

25. Wouldn't that make any job slavery?

I wouldn't consent to wake up early so I can sit in traffic to I can sit in a cubical for 8+ hours per day and talk about TPS reports if it weren't for the money.

Ergo all bosses are slave owners.