EU proposes to ban all porn in Europe

[Godzilla2000]

Gender Equality starts in the mind of each individual person. I'm no supporter of porn but you just can't legislate people's behavior to treating women fairly on an individual basis instead of basically sexualizing all women. This is never going to work as a law.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I disagree entirely. It's not just a matter of "I don't like it so no one else should have it." It's a matter of "our society has horrible and harmful ideas about women and right now this is perpetuating them." Their hearts are absolutely in the right place, the problem is that their screwed up about the cause and effect going on, they think that getting rid of porn will make people less sexist when in fact making people less sexist will make porn less sexist, and their solution would just make things worse.

I don't think it's wrong to ban something that perpetuates the notion that some people are less human than others, even if the people who are being dehumanized are willing participants. Especially since, in most cases, said dehumanization has limited their options as to what they can do. The problem is that, in this case, this isn't the way to fix it and this solution will cause more problems.

The porn industry has a lot of problems that need to be solved, and these folks are right to address them, they're just doing it wrong.

Banning sexual expression doesn't result in gender equality. If it did women in the Middle East would have just as much power and rights as men there.

Porn doesn't dehumanize women any more than freaky sex behind closed doors dehumanizes women. It's the same exact thing in most cases except one if filmed for others to enjoy and the other isn't.

Can you say without a doubt that these porn stars would never participate in wild sex acts if they weren't on camera? Some women are very sexually experimental and submissive. Don't fool yourself into believing women can only be sexually submissive and freaky when a camera is involved. Porn didn't create these sexual urges, fantasies and activities. It only exposes what happens behind many people's closed doors so others can enjoy it too.

Is it more male oriented? Yes, but that shouldn't be considered a crime.

 

[Marvolo]

Bwahahahaharoflmaoomgwh!

Yeah good luck with banning one of the biggest industries in the modern world.

 

[the_ultimate_evil]

I find that distinction to be pretty vague.

More importantly I don't think politicians know enough to know the difference, whatever it is.

whats that old joke, the only difference between porn and art is a government grant

 

[Godzilla2000]

Banning sexual expression doesn't result in gender equality. If it did women in the Middle East would have just as much power and rights as men there.

Porn doesn't dehumanize women any more than freaky sex behind closed doors dehumanizes women. It's the same exact thing in most cases except one if filmed for others to enjoy and the other isn't.

Can you say without a doubt that these porn stars would never participate in wild sex acts if they weren't on camera? Some women are very sexually experimental and submissive. Don't fool yourself into believing women can only be sexually submissive and freaky when a camera is involved. Porn didn't create these sexual urges, fantasies and activities. It only exposes what happens behind plenty of peoples closed doors every minute of every day.

Is it more male oriented? Yes, but that shouldn't be considered a crime.

I think the big issue is that some men lack a level of discernment between women that are into a more public display of sexuality and those that are not based upon their physical appearance. To be more specific some porn addicted guys will see a girl with a pretty face and curvy body and assume that she's only interested in casual sex without bothering to ask her if she likes the kind of objectifying attention they're giving her.

 

[NickNitro]

Why does it always have to do with the males? I know plenty of women who are addicted to porn. Its a sad stereotype. Women just don't openly admit it as much as men do.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

All banning porn does is deny natural human urges and fantasies that are consensual.

It's society lying to itself about honest sexual feelings and desires and keeping it hidden away like a dark secret. This is not healthy at all. Dare I say it's less healthy than a women being sexually submissive for voyeurs to enjoy. Which is far more natural and victimless than enforced sexual repression.

and it's only a matter of time before they go after violence and all forms of vulgarity in the media. Why stop at sex?

 

[Godzilla2000]

Well, it can extend to those rare women that are addicted to porn too. What my point is is that some people lack the discernment to tell if a person is into a more objectified lifestyle or not based on their physical looks. Trust me, I know all about this from personal experience. The problem is unconsensual sexual voyeurism because some people can't control themselves, most likely because of something that has turned off their morality censors.

But like I said, you can't legislate behaviors into people's brains. It's sad that things of unconsensual nature concerned with sex exist but making blanket laws will make it worse, not better. A user said it succinctly that people need to be properly educated on etiquette when it comes to finding consensual sexual encounters.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I think the big issue is that some men lack a level of discernment between women that are into a more public display of sexuality and those that are not based upon their physical appearance. To be more specific some porn addicted guys will see a girl with a pretty face and curvy body and assume that she's only interested in casual sex without bothering to ask her if she likes the kind of objectifying attention they're giving her.

This is attitude is why burkas were invented. Totally solves the problem of sexual objectification, right?

Not every guy who watches porn becomes an uncontrollable sex crazed idiot around women. We shouldn't make restrictive laws because they lack self control or perspective. It's like blaming rape on porn then trying to get banned for everyone.

There was sexual harassment long before there was internet or widely available porn. Why did these men do it? Because they were horn dogs who wanted to live out sexual fantasies. Porn didn't create that. If anything porn would've given them a safe outlet.

 

[Godzilla2000]

This is attitude is why burkas were invented. Totally solves the problem of sexual objectification, right?

Not every guy who watches porn becomes an uncontrollable sex crazed idiot around women. We shouldn't make restrictive laws because they lack self control or perspective. It's like blaming rape on porn then trying to get banned for everyone.

There was sexual harassment long before there was internet or widely available porn. Why did these men do it? Because they were horn dogs who wanted to live out sexual fantasies. Porn didn't create that. If anything porn would've given them a safe outlet.

But the problem is not so much porn but people, men and women, so desensitized to nudity who think they have the power to force any unwilling person to engage in public lewdness. They utilize the same shame tactics date rapists use to get their victims to comply.

 

[SuperFerret]

These issues are frankly kind of offensive to me. It's constantly claiming that men treat women poorly, men will rape women, men don't respect women, yada yada yada. Yeah, I know, many men do, which is ****ed up, but trying to stop it by banning something that's not going to go away (and is driven by supply and demand in regards to it being exploitative towards women) is not the right way to do things. What should be done is two things, teach boys to treat women respectfully from the get go, and then remove the men who don't.

All this stuff that claims that this is what men do is ridiculous because it's making the dregs of society a representative.

 

[The Guard]

This is how it starts.

First they came for their guns, and they were silent...

Then they came for the porn.

Seriously though, this is just ridiculous. I understand banning child pornography, for obvious reasons.

But banning all porn? You might as well ban fantasies while you're at it.

You want to see a country revolt? This is a good start.

Ultimately, I think the path toward gender equality isn't banning porn, it's making porn that isn't sexist. I mean, it is entirely possible to enjoy staged erotica without demeaning an entire sex. The problem is that the porn industry primarily caters to straight men, and perpetuates some false and pretty messed up notions about gender roles and sexuality. I feel like there needs to be more pornography that caters to straight women and lesbians, and all pornography should find a way to respect the personhood of the performers while still fulfilling it's goal of being arousing. It's been done, and I personally think it's a lot more appealing than the stuff that treats the models like dumb eye candy.

Of course, I'm a guy saying that, so maybe I don't have a full perspective on the issue.

I don't think you do have a full perspective on the issue.

How is porn sexist and actually demeaning?

How is porn actually promoting false and messed notions about sexuality

I agree that the majority of porn is made by men, for men, and that it portrays EVERYONE as kind of dumb. The writing tends to be horrible (which is half what I like about it sometimes, it's hilarious). I've never understood why people have a problem with this, any more than, say, they would have an issue with men's magazines or television shows being written by men for men. What's wrong with that, exactly?

There's so much variety out there in terms of porn that it's not funny. There is something for everyone.

 

[Godzilla2000]

My problem with the porn industry is that it's a pretty soul sucking industry that coerces their "talent" in such almost criminal ways it's pretty scary. The ones that make it take advantage of mostly desperate, economically disadvantaged people in the sleaziest, desensitized of ways possible. They also prey upon those with rampant drug addictions further compounding the problem of narcotics in this country.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

But the problem is not so much porn but people, men and women, so desensitized to nudity who think they have the power to force any unwilling person to engage in public lewdness. They utilize the same shame tactics date rapists use to get their victims to comply.

There will always be rapist and inconsiderate pervs.

Banning porn is not going to make them respect women or stop their fantasies. It won't.

The same argument for censorship has been made against violence in the media. They say society is violent because movies desensitized the public to violent images. But what violent movies did Stalin and Hitler watch?

Blaming porn for worst sexual abuses of the society has been done since the 1950's and that argument is always disproven.

 

[Godzilla2000]

I honestly don't want to know about a person's private porn vices because it it creeps me out with how insignificant, unimportant and public it treats an act that should only be between two people away from prying, uninvolved eyes.

My feelings aside, I don't care if others like porn just don't expect me to completely understand the obsession or participate in it no more than I can make others understand my obsession with certain video games.

 

[Sloth7d]

This is simply censorship. Gender equality already exists in the EU in this regard. There's no laws saying that only men or only women must become porn stars or that only men or only women can't become porn stars. If the point of this legislation is to mitigate gender stereotypes in the media, it is a misapplied effort that targets a symptom rather than a cause and punishes consenting adults by restricting their freedoms as result. If there are negative gender stereotypes in the majority of porn, this is because there is a high demand for it from people who already hold those perceptions. What's more, those perceptions are likely wholly private fantasies, which is in the whole point of watching porn, that more often than not they do not expect to happen in real life; I know I never received or expected any action from a customer I ever delivered pizza to. It's no more harmful for me to fantasize about Naomi finding erotic ways to get out of paying for her food than to fantasize about chanting a lv.4 psychic spell to stun a room full of darkspawn.

The article mentions more specifically that the goal is to stop the sexualization of women. What could this nonsense even mean? Are men and women not allowed to be attracted to each other's arousing features? What I suppose it means is that it wants to stop the sexualization of women in the form of being mere objects. But this is already done. If anyone treats a woman like they would a mere object, making her their slave against her will or disposing of her as he pleases, there are already laws in place that make sure he will serve time for his actions. The ridiculous notion that pornographic actresses are treated as such when, in the first place, they didn't have to be pornographic actresses since they could have chosen other careers, and in the second, their consent is needed before anything takes place, and in the third, most of the fantasies depicted in porn are of a consenting woman rather than fictionalized rape, shows just how inflamed at the imagery some people must be, for sure, but it does not show the reality of their concerns.

If such reasoning for this legislation holds as valid, I cannot imagine the precedent it would set for future legislation. It logically follows that if it's right to legally censor porn for it's fictional depiction of some stereotype, it is then right to legally censor any fictional work for it's depiction of a stereotype. If womeninrefrigerators.com is right, the entire comicbook industry requires a legal ban. And I remember another website that deemed movies sexist just for not having a scene where two women have a conversation that's not about men.

 

[Sloth7d]

Bwahahahaharoflmaoomgwh!

Yeah good luck with banning one of the biggest industries in the modern world.

In fact. I should have just said this and left it at that. I can't help but get passionate when the government feels the need to determine what people can express in their fiction. Society is good enough at determining this. We didn't need anti-blackface and anti-yellowface laws for businesses to understand most people don't want that in their fiction.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I honestly don't want to know about a person's private porn vices because it it creeps me out with how insignificant, unimportant and public it treats an act that should only be between two people away from prying, uninvolved eyes.

My feelings aside, I don't care if others like porn just don't expect me to completely understand the obsession or participate in it no more than I can make others understand my obsession with certain video games.

You don't have to understand or participate in any form of free speech.

As a black person, I don't agree with or appreciate racist literature or music but I don't want it banned because it gives others the right to ban literature or music I do like.

As a gamer you should understand. Cause if you take someone's porn they have the right to take some of your non-kid friendly video games.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

My problem with the porn industry is that it's a pretty soul sucking industry that coerces their "talent" in such almost criminal ways it's pretty scary. The ones that make it take advantage of mostly desperate, economically disadvantaged people in the sleaziest, desensitized of ways possible. They also prey upon those with rampant drug addictions further compounding the problem of narcotics in this country.

Welcome to capitalism.

and banning porn won't put any dent on the drug addicion rate.

suprisingly only legalizing and regulation drugs can do that. Portugal did this to some extent and hard drug use dropped in half. But that's another thread.

 

[cryptic name]

The problem is it will just turn the porn industry into an unregulated black market and put the performers in greater danger from abuse and disease. Their hearts are in the right place, but I think this will cause more problems than it solves.

Exactly.

 

[The Guard]

My problem with the porn industry is that it's a pretty soul sucking industry that coerces their "talent" in such almost criminal ways it's pretty scary. The ones that make it take advantage of mostly desperate, economically disadvantaged people in the sleaziest, desensitized of ways possible. They also prey upon those with rampant drug addictions further compounding the problem of narcotics in this country.

I feel like you're confusing porn with actual prostitution. I don't see how that's only happening in the porn industry.

 

[NickNitro]

I have to agree with The Question. This is only going to make the porn industry some sleezey underground community, more susceptible to disease, drugs, and crime. Also think of all the jobs lost not only online but magazines as well. Tens of thousands of people will be put out of work because of this. Not only the actors/actresses but film crew/editors/magazine companies/etc.

 

[Piper Maru]

Scheiser!

 

[Silvermoth]

As if this is a real story! Europe is one of the most sexually liberal places on Earth.

Not to mention European porn is the best porn!

Think I might go watch some now...

 

[NickNitro]

^ Lets all log into some good ole fashion Euro porn at once. Once they see how much internet traffic they get, they'd be morons to stop it!

Good idea moth