Noam Chomsky on Pornography

[Keith Maitland]

Chomsky: Pornography is humiliation and degradation of women. It’s a disgraceful activity. I don’t want to be associated with it. Just take a look at the pictures. I mean, women are degraded as vulgar sex objects. That’s not what human beings are. I don’t even see anything to discuss.

Interviewer: But didn’t performers choose to do the job and get paid?

Chomsky: The fact that people agree to it and are paid, is about as convincing as the fact that we should be in favour of sweatshops in China, where women are locked into a factory and work fifteen hours a day, and then the factory burns down and they all die. Yeah, they were paid and they consented, but it doesn’t make me in favour of it, so that argument we can’t even talk about. As for the fact that it’s some people’s erotica, well you know that’s their problem, doesn’t mean I have to contribute to it. If they get enjoyment out of humiliation of women, they have a problem, but it’s nothing I want to contribute to.

[Sriram]

Of course it is degradation of women!   Talking of women 'choosing' to join the porn industry is nonsense. Maybe a small percentage of women actually enjoy doing such stuff but a majority have no bl--dy choice!  If they have to eat and live they have to do porn or prostitution or escort service. Many women even end up pleasing their bosses in their so called 'respectable' jobs.

Someone  sent me a video on WhatsApp recently where they show an airplane (a Chinese airline it looked like) where all the air hostesses are stark naked...walking up and down, going about their duties normally while being fondled by the passengers. These women politely wait for the men to finish their touching and squeezing and then bow respectfully and walk on as though it is an additional service being provided.  Its clearly not a doctored or a digitally manufactured video.  Terrible!

The impression that we are living in a liberal society where women are respected is increasingly being shown up for what it is. Exploitation to the hilt.   

[floo]

Anyone who takes part in pornography, man or woman, is degraded, imo.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

If Noam does not like it he does not have to watch it. I don't care for Lapdancing clubs, so I don't go in them. That is not to say that I think that they should be closed down. Who am I to impose my personal tastes on other people?

[L.A.]

I'm always a bit suspicious of people who 'know' what is best for other people.

The sex 'industry' is a complex issue. Undoubtedly there are those who are exploited, but I'm pretty sure that there are plenty who find the work gives them a good income and freedom. Concepts like " humiliation and degradation" are really in the eye of the beholder.

[Harrowby Hall]

I have nothing - in principle - against porn. If people wish to photograph each other, naked or in coitus, why should I object? And I could argue that by the obsessive covering of the human body - or specific parts of the body - we are unwittingly fetishising  it.

Half the human population have rounded fatty lumps on their chest which are crowned with a nipple. These are kept covered up - or are displayed in such a way that much of them can be seen but not the nipple. The other half of the human population do not (normally) have the fatty lumps but do have a vestigial nipple. These can be freely displayed. A consequence of this is that female breasts have become objectified and, in consequence, command attention.

If people in a loving relationship wish to record their lovemaking, why should I object? (Though why they would put it on the internet for all to see is beyond me.)

What I really do object to is the industrial pornography which is so readily and easily available and which dominates the internet. This consists of stereotyped, choreographed, behaviour which I find very difficult to believe can be present in normal loving behaviour. A really disturbing development is the belief by teenagers that pornography is real and that they therefore apparently use it as instruction for sexual behaviour, expecting their partners to behave in similar ways. Consequently, they remove their pubic hair believing that this is normal (often accompanied by rationalisations involving "comfort" and "hygiene") and believe that ejaculating onto the face of their female partner is acceptable and welcome.

Much porn does objectify - and even brutalise - women. And this must be condemned. But porn adds to male insecurity, too - in terms of performance and size (lack of ...).

The problem really is that the genie is now out of the bottle, and we have to learn to live with that. I think that one thing we must do is to help young people see the reality of porn. As part of their normal education, adolescents must be taught about the "realities" of porn -  the commercial pressures behind its production, that its participants are usually acting in some kind of studio, that it does not reflect real life but is a caricature (of a caricature) of real life.

[L.A.]

I think this book gives us a slightly different perspective on the subject:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Myth-Everything-Wrong-market/dp/1780220898

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/15/sex-myth-wrong-brooke-magnanti-review

[Brownie]

I've read that review before and I find Magnanti interesting.

I well understand why she worked as a call girl for a brief period, to fund her studies, and it was just a job to her.  No-one would say she was exploited at that time.
However I have read more about her and she admitted to experiences she had as a teenager which by most standards would constitute abuse;  she cannot see that, even thinks it is fine.  That says a lot and explains how she was able to disassociate herself from intimate acts when she was a call girl.  It's understandable to me but not a natural state.

In theory, if an adult is forced to take part in pornography, and well paid, no-one is exploited.  Unfortunately a lot of porn is not undertaken from choice.   Many vulnerable young people are drawn into that world and used by people who make a fortune and don't care a fig about their 'actors', who are eventually thrown on the scrapheap (or worse).

Porn is unrealistic too, it's a pity that so many schoolkids can access it and think what they see is the real deal.

[Bubbles]

There are different sorts of porn.

There is artistic porn like you see in the sun, which is often a well endowed lady with a flower draped across her or in an attractive artistic pose.

Then there is the other sort that is crass and not artistic at all, which shows women in undignified poses.

How I feel about it, depends on whether the woman's body is shown in an artistic fashion with dignity.

The page 3 model could loosely be described as artistic. ( probably some of playboy, too)

Someone pulling their bits apart to reveal intimate internal bits, isn't.

Both are porn.

One degrades women, the other doesn't.

One I despise, the other I tolerate.

A beautiful body is not something to be ashamed of, if some have it and want to show it, fine.

But I hate the other stuff, that's crude.

It's that that degrades women IMO.

( not that I would have ever wanted to feature in any porn of any sort when I was younger, but women make different personal choices)

Some of the artistic stuff is not much different to wearing a topless bikini and posing for the camera.

Some women love having their picture taken and feeling they look beautiful , I'm not one of them, but it doesn't matter.  ( I like to feel I look beautiful but that's all  )

[Brownie]

I wouldn't consider the page 3 photographs to be pornography.  Actually it has never crossed my mind that it is, am I naive  ?  The girls are models and artfully pose semi-nude.  The idea is that they are provocative but nowadays everyone knows what a girl (or boy come to that) looks like without clothes and I doubt the pictures overly excite anyone - but they can look pretty.  No-one thinks life drawing or painting is porn or that the model is a porn worker.  Not quite the same thing of course, but similar.  Photographic models earn quite a lot of money too.

[L.A.]

I've read that review before and I find Magnanti interesting.

I well understand why she worked as a call girl for a brief period, to fund her studies, and it was just a job to her.  No-one would say she was exploited at that time.
However I have read more about her and she admitted to experiences she had as a teenager which by most standards would constitute abuse;  she cannot see that, even thinks it is fine.  That says a lot and explains how she was able to disassociate herself from intimate acts when she was a call girl.  It's understandable to me but not a natural state.

In theory, if an adult is forced to take part in pornography, and well paid, no-one is exploited.  Unfortunately a lot of porn is not undertaken from choice.   Many vulnerable young people are drawn into that world and used by people who make a fortune and don't care a fig about their 'actors', who are eventually thrown on the scrapheap (or worse).

Porn is unrealistic too, it's a pity that so many schoolkids can access it and think what they see is the real deal.

It's a difficult area to make judgements about. She does quote some interesting statistics in her book which suggest that most of what we think we know about the subject is wrong.

[Bubbles]

I wouldn't consider the page 3 photographs to be pornography.  Actually it has never crossed my mind that it is, am I naive  ?  The girls are models and artfully pose semi-nude.  The idea is that they are provocative but nowadays everyone knows what a girl (or boy come to that) looks like without clothes and I doubt the pictures overly excite anyone - but they can look pretty.  No-one thinks life drawing or painting is porn or that the model is a porn worker.  Not quite the same thing of course, but similar.  Photographic models earn quite a lot of money too.

I think page three girls and some playboy magazines come under what is called soft porn.

Along with a lot of art.

[Bubbles]

According to this pornograhy is subjective

https://www.britannica.com/topic/pornography

I can imagine travellers shock at seeing  cavorting sex on the sides of temples.

😉
Some people in some places would be shocked at the penises on Greek statutes and want to cover them up.

Which would actually look even funnier.

On one of my holidays I visited some Eygptian temples and thought it hilarious that my tour guide couldn't  bring herself to describe the statutes erect peniuses for what they were, and described them as swords. Nah! It was Min.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_(god)
Then you have the one in Hindu temples and other places.

http://www.thaizer.com/culture-shock/bangkoks-penis-shrine-chao-mae-tuptim/

What one person considers improper and " porn " another doesn't.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Harrowby,

Great post, but for me is is the fact that porn is now very easily accessible, Porn before the internet was the top counter of the magazine rack in shops or the dodgy shop on the corner of the high st which we all tittered at.

You are absolutely right that our kids should be educated to know that porn on the net is mostly acting, it is very far removed from what real sex or love making is all about, a joyous union of two bodies, porn on the net is mostly OTT, well so I am told, as a good Christian you would never find me near any porn sites, although any links would be highly useful, purely for scientific study

Gonnagle.