A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[CoffeeGrunt]

Not to #NotAllPornWatchers myself, but I haven't ever watched heterosexual porn, not that it excuses me.

It's an interesting question though, because I can't deny a sense of entitlement to it, due to a belief that it is somehow a right.

[Kirsten]

heterosexual porn unfortunately isn't the only issue though. I have never seen any male gay porn, oddly enough but lesbian porn is nearly always made for men, and it looks nothing at all the way 'natural' shall we say lesbian sex looks. the activities, the attitudes, they are all male conceptions of the way lesbian sex happens. it is not two women having sex, it is two women having sex the way men think women have sex.

[YorkNecromancer]

For me, the problem with porn is how undeniably damaging it is. There's nothing wrong with it in theory. It just kind of destroys people and destroys lives.

I believe it's entirely possible to make 'ethical' porn, and to only view such, but the problem is that there's so little of it. James Deen and Stoya spring to mind as the faces of what could be an ethical porn movement, but even with them, the issue is still muddy, and deeply, deeply problematic. As with all sex work, there's too much scope for exploitation.

It's definitely an issue that needs serious, rigorous discussion, and I don't feel remotely qualified. I think there needs to be a better understanding of the ways that porn works on the brain, and that it needs to be included in sex education in schools, because given that the average age a child in the UK is exposed to hardcore porn is now 11, if we don't teach our kids that this stuff isn't realistic and is misogynistic, well, who will? The porn industry? I doubt it.

I don't know. Learning about sex from porn always struck me as like learning about mixed martial arts from 'The Matrix'.

[CoffeeGrunt]

heterosexual porn unfortunately isn't the only issue though. I have never seen any male gay porn, oddly enough but lesbian porn is nearly always made for men, and it looks nothing at all the way 'natural' shall we say lesbian sex looks. the activities, the attitudes, they are all male conceptions of the way lesbian sex happens. it is not two women having sex, it is two women having sex the way men think women have sex.

[URL=http://s148.photobucket.com/user/coffeegrunt/media/jszwSUI.gif.html][/URL]

You mean it's not just kissing all the way down!?

[Kirsten]

points for Yoko, but no

[Gotthammer]

Deadlift - I hope your family is coping as best as one can at the moment.



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As pornography is a reflection of desires of society,

It's not "young looking" porn stars, it is deliberately giving the impression of the girls being underage and prepubescent. If society's desires are reflected by titles such as:

I Ass Banged Your Little Sister
Tiny Teenie and Anal 3
The Anal Whore Next Door 3
I'm Not That Innocent

it is clearly sexualising young girls, something feminists fought very hard to stop in Victorian times. I mean if you are comfortable with "young-looking porn stars" also acting as children - being filmed in school situations such as classrooms or in uniforms, acting childlike with lollipops and such - then you really need to look in the mirror.
And porn isn't some magical reflection of society, it is a billion dollar industry that is very aware of the facts of how it warps perceptions, distorts what people expect during sex and creates addiction. Their own industry news discusses ways to make men more addicted to porn. Study after study has shown porn use is harmful and creates desensitisation and a need for more extreme material. Porn producers have said they are aware of this so keep creating more extreme material so they can keep people coming back and keep making money.

The extensive use and misuse as well as the pervasiveness of pornography is literally warping how a generation of boys see women. Multiple studies show boys find women with pubic hair (ie looking prepubescent) disgusting, that women without "perfect" looking vaginas are shamed and pressured to have surgery, that women are coerced into performing acts like are seen in pornography, and that men are becoming so desensitised that their intimate relationships suffer.

If that's what society desires we should burn it to the ground.

[Gotthammer]

On a brighter note:

Eman Abdul-Razzaq Ibrahim and Dastan Othman Hassan, 18-year-old high school students, have taken it upon themselves to invent a new bomb-detection system that could help safeguard people from the threat of terrorism.

The students say a twin bombing at the Interior Ministry in September prompted them to invent a better system.
“We were in the middle of a final exam in school,” Eman recalls. “Everyone was so nervous. Phone lines were down. We couldn’t focus on studies.”
The two were also at school seven years ago when a car bomb detonated outside of the Interior Ministry, killing 19 people. They remember dropping their pens, terrified, as teachers called to check on relatives.

Preparing for a school science fair, Eman and Dastan set to develop a device that could prevent attacks from happening again.

Knowing that Kurdish security forces can’t check every vehicle on the road, the girls sought to screen many cars in a short period of time. Encouraged by their teacher, they approached Erbil Governor Nawzad Hadi for advice. Hadi informed them that the most common form of explosive in the region was C4, but the two wanted to invent something capable of detecting a range of threats, including chemical weapons.

Initial efforts to design a new bomb sensor were dashed when the students were told Iraqi Kurdistan didn’t have labs capable of developing such sophisticated technology. Instead of giving up, they shifted their focus.

“It takes a long time to check one car at a time, either with a single device or with a sniffing dog, and it can slow down traffic,” Dastan tells Rudaw. “We realized we could use existing technology to develop a new system that could test many cars at a time, without stopping traffic and without drivers even knowing.”

They set up a model whereby two bomb detector devices are hidden in trashcans on the side of a road, and one is affixed to a street sign above. Cars must slow down over a speed bump, where they are scanned by all three devices. Having studied the physics of light, the girls realized night vision CCTV cameras would pick up any ultraviolet light caused by the detector lasers, and immediately report the image of the car to security officials.

Although they didn’t have the budget to buy a bomb detector itself—a single remote scan device costs $240,000 from Israeli company LDS—the company confirmed that their system would work. Eman and Dastan estimate that one system alone could process up to 64,000 cars a day. It would take over a year to check the same number of cars using current techniques.

Eman and Dastan earned the top prize at the science fair, and were awarded medals at the International Environment Sustainability Project Olympiad, an international competition held in June at The Hague.

Eman couldn’t get a visa to Europe but Hassan’s explanation of what it is like to live in fear of terrorism moved the judges to tears and prompted them to expand the scope of the competition, which usually focuses on environmental issues.

The students say 21 companies and the Dutch police approached them about using their system. Competition organizers were shocked that the girls hadn’t already sold the system to the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The two refused all offers from companies, promising that they would bring it to their own government first—free of charge.

“The main point is to save people’s lives,” Eman says.

They also turned down their prize, a trip to Brazil, because the trip might interfere in their studies, and covered all expenses for the project and travel to Europe.

[eldargal]

Deadlift, sorry to hear something has happened, hope everyone is doing ok.

[YorkNecromancer]

It's a sensitive subject I guess for me at the moment. Something very bad happened to a close relative this past Saturday and the wife and I are doing the best we can picking up the pieces. It's changed my views somewhat. The hardest thing is not doing what I feel I should in revenge. Police are involved but somehow it just doesn't feel enough. I feel like I'm letting my relative down by not doing what I feel I should. But with my own wife and children I'm caught between a rock and a hard place really.
I know many men say something along the lines of "if anyone did that to my (insert relative or close friend) I'd kill them". But when it actually happens it's really quite difficult knowing what is the right thing to do.

I know exactly what you mean. Everyone thinks they'd go off like Liam Neeson in 'Taken'... but most don't, because this is the real world, and we have other responsibilities, concerns, and the bottom line: the roaring rampage of revenge isn't how people usually behave. Maybe as few do, but the truth is that you never know how you'll behave until it happens to you, and a power fantasy of restoring things to the way they were is frequently just that. A fantasy; a comfortable story we tell ourselves so we can feel like we have a measure of control over a frequently horrible universe.

Real-life is complicated and ugly and the bag guy wins most of the time.

I hope things are okay with you and your family, Deadlift.

Don't feel bad for not going off to seek violent restitution. Despite what cinema tells us, the support families need is usually compassion, not further violence. I hope things work out.

[Kirsten]

On a brighter note:

Eman Abdul-Razzaq Ibrahim and Dastan Othman Hassan, 18-year-old high school students, have taken it upon themselves to invent a new bomb-detection system that could help safeguard people from the threat of terrorism.

we went looking for bombs, and all we found were these medals!