Porn: Good For America!

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A_Wanderer said:
For a mark of reference 1976 was hardly the beginning of the sexual revolution.

No but the 70s did mark the beginning of significant pressure from the feminist movement against the violent and degrading depiction of women in porn.

A_Wanderer said:
If the rates of reporting decreased then actual rapes may even have increased.

I guess I would like to know how reporting rates are measured and how they may be related to how women view date rape.

I think I can generally accept that rape has declined more or less due to the empowerment of women's sexuality over time. On the surface that's good news.

But on the other hand, I'd like to know how those decreases compare to domestic violence rates...which I think (but haven't researched) have gone UP dramatically over the same period.

The violence towards women as a power struggle has just shifted in nature perhaps?
 
Angela Harlem said:


Your coldness toward the topic is typical of how you approach every issue, it seems. I'm not trying to attack you personally, but you appear chronically void of much emotion on emotional issues, preferring to be a clinical thinker - which is fine. You aspire to be a scientist. However, rape is not a science you can push your glasses up the bridge of your nose on. Perhaps there is 2 sides to your perceived inhibiting of avenues.
The issue is frequency of rape and not the nature of rape, it does not detract from the seriousness or the crime or the severe psychological damage that is inflicted upon the victim.

if we make the points emotional and personal it clouds any possible rational judgement, which is the only way to verify or disprove claims, don't mistake that as a lack of empathy. Evidence is being presented that points to one thing and evidence is pointed showing another - if they are completely contradictory then at least one of them is off.

A plea to emotion must never define the moral high ground. Less harm is better also than more harm, bad news is better than worse news.

I think that the issues of porn and rape are seperate, I think that they are both issues of (to a degree) of sex.
 
So then the question becomes is rape, domestic violence and misogyny innate biological features for the Y chromosome bearers - hard wired to one degree or another?

It seems to cover all mankind and a lot of the other higher animal kingdom, not a feature imbued by an outside force - of course if we were "intelligently designed" then why would this hypothetical designer create beings with innate malice - concequence of dragging the theological into it.

You may not be able to control human nature but individuals should be able control themselves (and how restrained they may be is where social aspects come in).
 
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A_Wanderer said:
So then the question becomes is rape, domestic violence and misogyny innate biological features for the Y chromosome bearers - hard wired to one degree or another?

Um, no, not in my opinion at least. I think to some degree there is an innate human inclination to heirarchy and that naturally leads to a "who's on top" struggle but I don't think that inclination is unique to the Y chromosone nor is that struggle innately violent.
 
AliEnvy said:


Um, no, not in my opinion at least. I think to some degree there is an innate human inclination to heirarchy and that naturally leads to a "who's on top" struggle but I don't think that inclination is unique to the Y chromosone nor is that struggle innately violent.



agreed.

i think women become objects of convenience upon which many men take out frustrations that often have little to do with the woman on the receiveing end of violence, though i don't think we can deny that there's a strong undercurrent of misogyny that runs through all of it -- the misogyny predicated upon perceived feminine "weakness," and the need of a man to prove his "strength" through comparing his masculinity through the subjugation of the feminine.

while rape might feel good, on a purely physical level, to the rapist, it's primary impetus isn't to feel good but to dominate and subjugate.
 
And on the flipside of domination and control, how many men do we describe as "whipped" by their girlfriends and wives? The mental and emotional abuse inflicted on men by women rarely gets talked about seriously since the wounds aren't visible.
 
You know this isn't the first time this article on the decrease in rape was posted. Irvine posted it on the "C" word thread. If I'm correct, it was the last post on the thread and no one responded to it.

I guess it took tying it to pornography to get people questioning whether this news is really "good news for women" as was earlier suggested.
 
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