[lbo-talk] Capitalism and porn

[// ravi]

On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:31 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> ravi:
>> 
>> "What is bleak sex and what is not? Not being facetious. Are we counting frequency (as the word “bleak” implies), and/or some other metric? People are having sex in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia (neither socialist), I would think, no? Do you mean that for the women, living in those restrictive environments, the sex must not be fun? (bleak in that sense?)."
> 
> Not referring to frequency. Bad for women? yes. And for that reason not so great for the men either. As they say in Afghanistan: "Women for babies, men for pleasure.”
> 

So, if sex sucks :-) in the capitalist USA today, and the medieval societies of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, when and where has it not sucked? Was it better in the USA 50 or a 100 years ago? I guess the TruthOuter is arguing that yeah it was because men were dominant and had no psychological issues, they didn’t have such easy access to porn, women were pliant or what not, and didn’t have to compete with porn stars. At the same time, in the last 50 years, feminism and other developments have taught many men that hey the woman might just possibly get some pleasure out of this too. So perhaps women’s sexual lives have improved?

The piece doesn’t answer these questions well. So I am wondering what you and the rest think (not of the piece, but of the state of sex). My own view (as mentioned earlier) are rather pessimistic that this whole business was much better than bleak at any point in recent history (by which I mean the last 2000 years).

	—ravi