Martindell is out of touch with reality
Regarding "Will Scharf '08 will sue Borough," (Monday, March 24, 2008):
Borough Councilman Martindell seems to misunderstand the relationship between the University, the Street and the Borough. As a separate entity, the Street ...(back to the article)
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I think my comment was more directed at previous posts which claimed that porn was wrong because of the higher incidence of abuse, etc. But if you are the same person as "Porn Hurts People" I think that, alone, was a claim about harm or lack of safety. So I'm glad you realize that whether or not something is dangerous has little to do with whether it's moral/immoral/amoral. The rest of your stuff requires a lot more support than you can provide in this comments thread. You would need data on how porn actors really feel about their work, you would need data about the social perceptions of persons watching porn vs. those that don't watch porn. I mean, these are really empirical questions: Does porn make people have sexist attitudes in the real world? Does objectification of porn stars translate into objectification of significant others? Other more abstract questions include: If both people in a loving relationship enjoy watching porn, how is there any harm being done? Why would it be ok to objectify clothed persons in a non-XXX movie while it's somehow evil to objectify persons in a porno? etc. I don't expect you to successfully and completely deal with these issues here. But these are some unanswered questions for the anti-porn people out there.
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Again, your claims seem to be in the context of whether or not porn should be legal. But since porn *is* legal (with some restrictions) and since immorality does not entail illegality, I'm discussing porn as an ethical matter. You've pointed out that mining, construction, and military service are dangerous jobs. But are you prepared to claim that, as a consequence of their danger, these jobs are immoral? I think not. All those jobs, despite their inherent risks, have something very positive to contribute to society. My claim is not that porn is wrong because it is dangerous; my claim rests on something entirely separate: that porn is ethically unacceptable because of the ways in which it exploits people and spreads harmful, unhealthy, and inadequate ideas about sexuality in ways that hurt our society's struggle for equality, dignity, and respect, especially for traditionally oppressed groups like women.
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@Porn Hurts People: Lots of jobs are dangerous. For example: mining, professional boxing, military service, just to name a few. I'm not saying that all of these things have much in common, but I wonder what justifies an adult's decision to take part in these other dangerous jobs but not in the porn industry? I mean, personally, if the only two jobs available to me were acting in a porno and becoming a combat soldier, I might do the porno. You might not think that's the honorable decision... but based on safety alone it's the better one.
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Porn educates? What a bunch of nonsense. That's just a feeble justification. And no, as the commenter below notes, you need not even be a conservative to disapprove of porn. You can't just dismiss the arguments about exploitation. There's more to the porn industry than you think.
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Porn can actually be a very good educational tool for sexually active couples. Both partners can get ideas for how to spice up their sex life or just improve on the usual stuff, either by watching porn together or separately. The anti-porn arguments being made here really rely on some conservative view about extramarital sex as the first commenter pointed out. For those of us who don't think consensual sex between adults is an ethical problem, those arguments fall flat.
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Hwang says: "I have always been curious as to why feminists have never raised a larger cry against the degrading nature of porn." He should do his homework -- there's a long and vocal history of anti-porn feminists, and the works of Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon are a good place to start. There are also many pro-porn feminists (Gayle Rubin comes to mind), and the debate between the two is commonly referred to as the sex wars debate (see, eg, Sex Wars edited by Duggan and Hunter). Maybe Hwang should question why it is that princeton students are largely unexposed to feminist theorists such as these.
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"Sex is different in this case because (a) sex is so personal/intimate" >>That's a pretty broad generalization--it is not intimate for everyone, esp. for people who watch porn...at least, they don't use it as a tool for intimate "sex"...and many people (esp. men) don't want intimate sex, they want hookups, so who says it is intimate? Should it be intimate? I don't know, that might be a better question to try to answer, but there is no obvious answer. "(b) sex depicted in porn necessarily involves objectification by the viewer (at least)," >>> Then the example of sports or acrobatics still stands...those involve as much objectification as sex, if not more. And who says porn DOES lead to objectification--obviously, humans are turned on by other humans. I don't really understand this objectification argument...is it that people who watch porn don't necessarily account for the actor/actress's personality? Well, is there anything wrong with that (we don't look at models or actors based on their real personality)...and is this always true? I would guess that a big part of porn is the personality of the actors or actresses (well, even if it is faked, the same occurs in cinema, tv shows). "(c) the porn industry, unlike most other sources of "careers," masks a largely ignored culture of sexual abuse, exploitation, and coercion." >>> More valid point that should be addressed. But it is not necessarily true that ALL porn involves abused ppl, so there is still a big chance that the porn industry could survive even without those who have been exploited by abusers, etc. in the past.
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it's not just about watching people having sex, it what doing so does to our perceptions of sex, and what it does to our culture's vision of sex.
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since when is porn denegrating to women in particular? newsflash: hetero porn features both sexes, and there's all male porn out there too of course. this is not about feminism, it's about whether you think it's ok to watch other people have sex.
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Sex is different in this case because (a) sex is so personal/intimate, (b) sex depicted in porn necessarily involves objectification by the viewer (at least), and (c) the porn industry, unlike most other sources of "careers," masks a largely ignored culture of sexual abuse, exploitation, and coercion.
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I'm confused about Alexander's point. I mean, sure, there's more to women than their nude bodies. (There's also more to porn than *female* nude bodies). But, no one seems to complain when a woman (or man) is appreciated or even paid for special talents, whether they be acrobatics, ibanking, or what-have-you. We frequently reward people (pay people) for a single talent without recognizing them as the "total package" that Alexander seems to be talking about. So why is sex different? I would venture to say that Alexander has some hang-up about extramarital sex. And that's fine... but just come out and say so.
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