>
>> As opposed to the men in it, who are ... super-lubed, inflatable
>> fuck-machines with embryonic personalities.
>>
>
The men are depicted as dominant, fully capable and in charge, while the
women generally adopt postures of submission etc.
> Ha, but men are that! Women are just shrinking violets who want flowers and
> men to call back.
According to the same sexist ideology that pornography generally corroborates, that is axiomatically the case. But that is not my argument.
Really, just what is degrading about the iconic porn image of women - hot
> for sex all the time, and really enjoying it?
This is unduly glib. Whatever you take the 'iconic porn image of women' to be, your account just happens to ignore the vast majority of what transpires in pornographic productions. The ass-spanking, slapping, name-calling, face-jizzing and various other techniques of asserting dominance are introduced within the context in which male dominance has already been established.
> Yeah, it ignores their skills at interpreting Hegel, for sure, but as
> Michael points out, that's porn for you. It's a male fantasy of women being
> as up for sex as they are. Of course, many women are just that, but that's
> not the conventional image.
Come come. (Or don't, as you prefer). Are you seriously asserting that the imagery of dominator men pounding away at squealing starlets who just passively allow themselves to be directed by those men is just about being 'up for sex'? The two thousand year war on women, with its traditions of pornography and violence, doesn't have any effect on a huge sector of the economy that just happens to cater overwhelmingly to young men? There's a contrived purblindness here.
Sure, some men "abuse" porn, but some people also abuse alcohol and food,
> but few of us would condemn either.
Curious tone of defensiveness there. Who is condemning whom? Am I inviting you to feel bad about masturbating to Jenna and Rocco or whoever the tag team of your salubrious delight is? The point is to notice the patently frigging obvious rather than gently skipping over it in favour of this ludicrous pretense that it's nothing other than play, fantasy, the pleasure principle etc.
> As for the consent issue, work is non-consensual in this society. The forms
> are work aren't entirely non-consensual. So why is working in porn seen as
> somehow "forced," in a way that working in Wal-Mart isn't?
>
> I suspect that underlying that sort of attitude is a belief that "sex" is
> sacred - that, as Laura Agustin says in my interview with her, it should
> occur to an implied score of lush strings.
>
Actually, I don't think Chomsky said it was forced in any way that Wal-Mart isn't. What he said was that the nature of the industry was uniquely degrading and destructive of dignity, and that this can't be avoided by saying "yeah, but they choose to do it". But I agree with treating it as a form of labour, and I support efforts to organise sex workers rather than banning the whole industry (which just reinforces the puritanical/prurient logic by which the labour is so demeaned).
I'm just alarmed by the energetic disavowals here. I promise I'm not trying to dampen anyone's ardour.