The ethics of porn

[Twin-Skies]

I found an interesting article on a secular outlook on the morality of pr0n:
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/02/25/.../#comments

One commenter in particular, Arven, grabbed my attention:

I’ve done a lot of research on this recently, because the Australian government is proposing to censor the Internet here. Originally, it was planned to block everything from stuff unsuitable to 15 year olds up, but has since been scaled back dramatically. At any rate, in the early stages, there was a lot of talk about pornography and its assumed harmful effects, which had me doing my own research.

This is the best definition of pornography I’ve found:
http://libertyaddiction.blogspot.com/200...raphy.html
“Pornography is communicative material produced with the key intention of causing sexual arousal in the targeted audience, and it is reasonable to expect the material to succeed in causing such arousal”

I have not been able to find any serious studies that link pornography with socially harmful behaviour. The only studies I’ve found that do claim such a link are obviously poorly set up. For example, finding someone who doesn’t regularly view pornography, putting them in a room with a couple of researches and then seeing if they are uncomfortable with their first exposure.

The biggest number study I have found is this one:
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articl...raphy.html
It’s a little old now, but it shows a correlation between liberal attitudes towards sex and pornography and a decline in rape, while rape reporting increases.

This is the feminist position I agree with:
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/e107_plugins...content.31
I think sex is a very important part of the human experience. I think all other parts of the human experience are actively observed and talked about. I think it is natural to want to observe how other humans approach sex and arousal. It is not a gender specific desire, but some of the themes may be different among genders.

Good pornography is where all participants are actively enjoying themselves. This can mean group sex acts, homosexual acts, bondage or other fetish acts, or indeed even some violence (spanking is what I’m particularly referring to with the last point). There is nothing inherently demeaning in any of it.

Where I think it does get into trouble is when it reinforces bad societal stereotypes. ‘All women are sluts’, ‘no really means yes’, ‘all black men are stupid and have big dicks’, etc. This can be a very hard line to define. Generally I think it is possible to judge when one of the participants is in over their head, and really has no desire to be there.

Ultimately, I think this kind of pornography is a symptom of problems that exist in society rather than the cause. Blocking such pornography is not going to stop their being misogynists or racists. That kind of material should decrease naturally if we deal with the underlying problem.

Greta Christina had an excellent lecture on building secular sexual ethics. She proposes some interesting questions that do deserve careful thought and exploration. For example, what happens in a monogamous relationship if one partner no longer wishes to engage in any sex, but the other does. The decision of one person affects both; is that fair?
http://vimeo.com/9259141

With regards to rape (I think child abuse is a subset of rape), there is a clear lack of consent. Both in the act, and in the release of the material into the public domain. This is what clearly makes it wrong. Bestiality traditionally falls into this category too, but I’m not sure how that can be sustained. It is certainly true that animals can’t consent, but then we don’t seek their consent when we eat them either. I lean towards thinking that it should only be a problem if there is harm being caused to the animal. Similarly, I also think that fictional stories, or images, even computer generated images, should be exempt from illegality. The point of the law is to protect people’s right to choose. That is why rape is rightly considered a terrible crime. Someone drawing a picture doesn’t harm anybody. Making the resultant image illegal is treading too close to thought crime for my liking.

Then our fear of paedophiles causes us to act irrationally. Almost all child abuse is likely to be done by someone known and trusted by the child. Our image of a child abuser is always the dirty man in a trench coat. This allows many female child abusers to escape without reprimand. We spend so much money and legal effort on the tiny fragment of cases that are done by strangers. The same is true for rape. Almost all unwanted sexual assault is done by someone known and trusted by the victim. I wish our priorities were better aligned with the facts.

Additionally, we do have an absurd definition of children. It is ridiculous to suggest that a seventeen year old is complete asexual the day before their birthday, and a fully mature sexual being the day after. Adolescents are clearly sexual beings, with developing bodies that they have questions about and are learning how to interact with others. Such a simplistic definition means that a sixteen year old who takes an erotic picture of themselves to give to an older partner would be considered a producer of child pornography, and the receiver as being in possession of same. That is clearly absurd, and potentially harmful to the future lives of both people.

I think where pornography gets dangerous is when it is the sole source of sex education for adolescents. Pornography is clearly fantasy, and if we restrict ourselves to commercially produced pornography, we also mean highly experienced athletes. Such pornography is not made to demonstrate love and intimacy between two people. In the first place it is filmed to give the audience a good view. This means uncomfortable positions, and doing things that come across as easy on camera, but take lots of preparation or subsequent clean up.

Consensual sex between two people should be based on a mutual agreement of what pleases each other. We have to communicate. Pornography cannot teach that. Only solid sex education, and parental discussions on intimacy and what it means to be a partner can deliver that. If parents feel uncomfortable discussing these things, there are plenty of high quality books that do so, and can be left with adolescents to read themselves.

Ubiquitous pornography is the state we’re living in now. Previously we had a state where no one had seen sex acts before they engaged in them. In both cases, no one knew what they were doing when they started having sex for themselves. Now people think they know what they’re doing, which is perhaps worse. Pornography is a fact of life now. Adolescents are going to see it. This makes it all the more reason for adults to grow the fuck up and stop being so juvenile about sex. If we want our children to have happy relationships, we have to make sure they understand what that means.

[Nargrakhan]

Pornography is entertainment. Nothing more. Nothing less. Pornography has never orchestrated the destruction of nations, forced the exodus of people, slaughtered entire cities, or called for the extermination of an ethnic group. I readily agree that pornography without regulation is archaic and detrimental to civilization: freedom and entertainment only goes so far. The reality of it must be consensual and between adults: but the fantasy is just that - fantasy.

I find it amusing how certain groups of people must enforce their beliefs and ways upon another, while refusing to accept change in their own beliefs and ways. Preservation of society is always important: but forcing others to think exactly the same, is as horrible to me as absolute chaos.