Pornofied Culture vs Rape Culture

[hologirl2]

What do you all think the difference is between two recent sociological terms in our culture "a pornofied culture" and a "rape culture". How do you think you think the two sociological terms relate in thought and practive? I ask that because I've read both the book Pornofied and the anthology Transforming a Rape Culture (with an awesome article by Gail Dines) Plus I have to put up with both of them all the time!(ugh....... How to cope)

[MaggieH]

The thing is that Porn IS Rape; it is rape of the mind when it's trying to impose its messages on its users' minds and their partners' when they are asked to view it with them; it is rape of the body when porn performers (mostly female) playing the "submissive part" are harmed in the making of it, and it is also rape of the body when a woman is raped by a boyfriend/husband or sex offender who has used a lot of pornography.

So, PORN = RAPE,

Which then equals to PORNIFIED CULTURE = RAPE CULTURE. So to answer your question, it is not surprising when the two sociological terms relate to each other and get used interchangeably by feminist anti-porn activists.

[RGM]

Excellent thoughts from Maggie in response.

It's very difficult to separate the two terms, and I don't think that there is much of a significant departure between either of them because of that intertwining.

A rape culture is, in my view, one in which rape is condoned and accepted by the majority of the population. Yes, people get angry when they hear about it, and yes, some of the men who commit rape do go to jail, but nothing is done on the systemic level to actually prevent it and limit it. Indeed, the blame for rape is placed upon those who are raped (women), because their skirt is too short or they didn't protect their drink or they drank too many drinks.

Similarly, a pornified culture is one in which pornography has seeped into pop culture and is likewise condoned and accepted by the majority of the people. It makes appearances on top-rated sitcoms, gets discussed on talk shows, and its symptoms are ubiquitous. Sure, some types of pornography are still frowned upon (i.e. child pornography), but by and large the prevailing opinion is that it's just sex on TV and doesn't actually hurt anybody.

Where the two intersect is, of course, the dangerous growing acceptance of gonzo porn and other highly violent forms of pornography in which women are brutalized and men get off to it. Now, of course not all men who watch porn are rapists, but a lot of rapists watch porn, and that leads many, including Dr. Diana Russell, to conclude that there is a causal relationship between porn and rape. What makes this so frightening today is that porn is becoming ever more violent and more popular, and the rape rate is on the rise. This is why I agree with Maggie when she says "PORNIFIED CULTURE = RAPE CULTURE." There is no distinction between the two. Porn is accepted despite its violence and brutality towards women just like society accepts that rape is a part of life for many women.

[MaggieH]

Thanks very much for your sound and clever thoughts, RGM!

[hologirl2]

It's so nice to come home to read these posts and remember that there are people who believe porn is a problem and not a laughing matter.

Today I went to a help watch a top feminist organization (begins with an N) booth at the Gay Pride Festival. Most of the people at the event were cool organizations interested in empowering humanity. But than there were the female chauvninst pigs there -- lesbians selling degrading T-shirts about women. But that is not what made me feel so uncomfortable. I've had issues in the past with one of the younger members of this famous feminist organization (begins with N)regarding pornography. When she tried to prevent me from doing a talk at a conference about the ever rising phenomena of violent/gonzo porn claiming we didn't have time for me to speak (maybe we didn't but the organizer invited me to do it anyway). Anyhow, to make a long story short a month ago we got into a heated debate about pornography. She told me she was going to a lesbian pornography and sewing party that weekend. She also said she likes to go to Porn stores and laugh at the titles. Then when I told her to look into researching this pornography that was bothering me so, she said she didn't have time to. I told her if she had time to go to a lesbian porn party, then she had time to take a few hours to research. I told her I thought she was harming society by consuming these products and she laughed. Anyhow.....today at the NOW booth I went to introduce myself to a lady at the booth who I hadn't met. The pro-porn feminist introduced her as the girl who she has porn and sewing parties with. I felt so angry and uncomfortable. Like I was in an office with a man who knew I felt uncomfortable with him talking about and supporting strip clubs and him introducing me to the friend he has stripping outings with. How dare I have to go through that at a feminist event. I feel so violated and silenced. If I would have spoken up I would have looked like the "sensitive one" -- just like amoung men. ;( I don't want this girl to keep me away from the good I can do with this feminist group but I don't want to put up with passive agressive behavior like that. Any advice?

I'm going to list this under rants.....but ya'll bring up great points about porn/rape culture merging into each other.

[fullhumanity]

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PR-PORN "FEMINIST" PORNOGRAPHY IS SICK HATEFUL DEHUMANIZING OF WOMEN AND DAMAGING!!!! AND WE HAVE A VERY SICK SOCIETY THAT CREATED IT AND SUPPORTS IT!! AND ANYONE WHO USES OR SUPPORTS PORNOGRAPHY IS A SICK SEXIST WOMAN HATER AND AS FAR FROM A FEMINIST AS POSSIBLE! I DON"T CARE WHAT THEY CALL THEMSELVES! HOW ABOUT I CALL MYSELF A BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST BUT I LOVE TO MAKE AND WATCH RACIST PORNOGRAPHY!!!!

AS ERIC STOLLER SAYS IN THE ARTICLE I POSTED ON THIS SITE BUT NOBODY READ, WOMEN CALLING THEMSELVES "FEMINISTS" WHO SUPPORT PORNOGRAPHY ARE *NOT* REALLY FEMINISTS BUT ARE SUPPORTING SEXISM AND MALE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN! THAT WOMAN SAID SHE LAUGHS AT THE TITLES OF PORN VIDEOS MOST HAVE BITCHES SLUTS AND WHORES IN THE TITLES! SHE'S SUPPORTING AND LAUGHING AT SEXISIM AND WOMAN HATRED!

AND WHAT RGM SAID ABOUT PEOPLE MISTAKENLY BELIEVING THAT PORNOGRAPHY IS JUST PEOPLE HAVING SEX ON TV,HOW DO THEY EXPLAIN THE DEPICTIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS SUCH AS THESE, F*CKING THE SLUTS BITCHES AND WHORES HARDAND THEN CUMMING ALL OVER THEIR FACES AND BODIES AND THE HUGE C*CKS SLAMMING POUNDING AND BANGING INTO THE SLUTS WHORES AND BITCHES AND THE SEXIST PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN AS NOTHING BUT THINGS TO FEEL F*CK,EJACULATE ALL OVER CALLED WOMAN HATING NAMES DOMINATED BY MEN,AND PRESENTED AS WE ARE TURNED ON BY THIS AND LOVE IT? IT'S SO SCREWED UP AND UNREAL!

[deedle]

What do you all think the difference is between two recent sociological terms in our culture "a pornofied culture" and a "rape culture".

Porn promotes rape.

We live in a pornified culture - one that promotes rape. No difference.

Least, that's how I see it...

[hologirl2]

I know -- how can you be a feminist and go to porn stores and laugh at the titles -- i meant to put "pro porn feminist" in quotes. This girl makes rape kits and works at the local rape prevention crisis center......can you believe that? What the hell is going on if she can't see the connection between porn, women hating and rape!!!!!!!! She even told me that "I'm just as good of a feminist as you are".

[fullhumanity]

I know -- how can you be a feminist and go to porn stores and laugh at the titles -- i meant to put "pro porn feminist" in quotes. This girl makes rape kits and works at the local rape prevention crisis center......can you believe that? What the hell is going on if she can't see the connection between porn, women hating and rape!!!!!!!! She even told me that "I'm just as good of a feminist as you are".

This is very scary and totally f*cked up and disturbing! This woman who works at a rape crisis center doesn't understand that when men rape women they are treating them as nothing but things to f*ck,dominate,and out of hatred and dehumanization for women? The same exact way pornography treats and portrays women?!

If she or her mother,daughter,sister or friend,or women at the rape crisis center, gets raped by men who show her the pornography as has happened to women and children,and the men who sexually assault her say to her as they show her the women in the pornography,"This is all you and all you sluts whores and bitch women are for,just things to stick penises into and feel,f*ck,ejaculate all over,use and disgard,she and other trader women like her will wake up big time!

I once in 1992 spoke to Cecilia Blewer of the unfortunately now former Women Against Pornography in New York and I told her that I had spoken with a woman at an anti-sexual violence organization,and that I had told this woman that Playboy and all pornography is very sexist,and it dehumanizes women as nothing but sex objects to be used for men's pleasure and that it sexualizes male dominance and gender inequality etc,and I said to Cecilia that here I was talking about sexist inequality,and treating women as nothing but sex objects to use for men,and she acted kind of defensive like I was attacking her sexuality!

And Cecilia said to me,Because thats what many women think that sexuality *is*, and she said why do you think so many women go to Victoria's Secret and buy lingerie,to be sex objects to please their man! Just what pornography teaches! When I told her that Playboy Magazine had a over 30 year history of making jokes of rapes and murders of women and children in 1000's of cartoons,articles and some pictures,and how pornography dehumanizes women as nothing but objects to use for sex for men etc,She said that someone had written an article at the time claiming Women Against Pornography are just a bunch of prudish Victorian women who are against any nudity and sexuality,and she said thats not what we are saying at all. She said we are saying what *you're* saying,It's about inequality,degrading,and objectification,hatred of women and violence.

When I told her that I had seen an interview with former porn "star" Candida Royalle and that she claimed to be now making equal erotica for women,Cecilia said to me,She's not making equal erotica,she's a wolf in sheeps clothing,it's still pornography and it's still the same degrading f*ck scenes!

I still have an article I kept from Mademoiselle Magazine from October 1985 when I used to subscribe to it,and it was an article called Why Nice Guys Read Playboy by Peter Nelson,who regularly wrote a column for the magazine. And a woman from New Jersey wrote an angry letter and this is what she wrote"I just finished reading Peter Nelson's His column,Peter Nelson is certainly no nice guy;nor is any participant in pornography,a trade which profits from the exploitation of women.Why,I must ask does a so-called "women's magazine" feature editorials which support misogyny?Mr.Nelson's callous disregard for women is evident in his neglect to face the fact that pornography promotes rape and violence. I know because my best friend was raped by four men who used pornography as a reference guide.If a magazine such as Mademoiselle can ignore the truth about pornography and actually trivialize it's seriousness,I can only question it's editorial purpose."

In 1990 there was also a college woman who was gang raped at The University of Pennsylvania after college men had watched pornographic videos in their dorms.

[sam]

fullhumanity, it's difficult to read all-caps, as they come off like online shouting to most people's minds. Please write using lowercase, even all lowercase if that floats your boat, and it will be easier to read what you write.

[elfeminista]

Pornified culture exists within rape culture.
Really, it is rape culture that we are talking about.

Not to split hairs but i have a little bit of a problem with the word Culture in the phrase "rape Culture" as applied to the male disease.

Dictionary meanings of the word culture:

1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.
2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.
3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.
4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training.
5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.
6. Anthropology. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.

While this term "culture" is applied to negative things such as the drug culture and the rape culture, it seems to me that that the meaning of the word is at odds with the concept id a de-volution of humanity. Where as the meaning of the word in anthropology lends itself to this usge, for the common person culture is connected to the concept of learning and progress:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/culture

To me 'rape culture' seems a bit of an oxymoron, and that may be because in Spanish and German the word culture carries very positive and uplifting connotations a word that points towards a progress in human development. This may be my own little crazy pet peeve.

[gerry]

the word "culture" does seem to imply gender neutrality or be inclusive of women---at least to some degree

rape and porn are expressions of male supremacist culture and/or institutional expressions of male sexuality as are prostitution, incest, battery and so forth.

[bluecoat28]

What the hell is going on if she can't see the connection between porn, women hating and rape!!!!!!!! She even told me that "I'm just as good of a feminist as you are".

Yeah, I don't understand it either.

[hologirl2]

I think El Feminsta may love linguistics. Thanks for the reply.

[Andrew]

I'm with El Feminista. Culture is not appropriate here except maybe as a loose political slogan. Rape crisis is more to the point, or rape epidemic.

[RGM]

I'm with El Feminista. Culture is not appropriate here except maybe as a loose political slogan. Rape crisis is more to the point, or rape epidemic.

Definitions 5 and 6 most definitely apply to the discussion of our rape culture. There's no way you can plausibly say that "the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group"--that is, the actions and perspectives of men in a patriarchal system with regards to women's agency, bodies, and the purposes that women's bodies serve for male entertainment and stimulation--doesn't constitute a rape culture. The anthropological definition also holds up under the microscope. Nobody knows when patriarchy started, or when it became accepted that women's bodies can be used for male sexual gratification--with or without their consent--but it is painfully clear that this view has been passed down from generation to generation.

You may not like the word "culture" as it applies to the situation. I can't blame you for that. Generally when one thinks of culture on doesn't think of men choosing to behave like base animals running amok and raping women with very few consequences; no, one thinks of theatre or the arts or other, more positive aspects that have grown out of society. But be under no illusion: this is a rape culture.

[hologirl2]

Rape Culture is a term though that is being used by activists (The book Transforming a Rape Culture with essays by Gail Dines and Andrea Dworkin) so I tend to use the term. Good book btw! There is also a book called Pornofied too which is where I first heard that term.

[Andrew]

RGm, you make a good argument. I note, however, that gender is not included in the definition you cite. I have not decided if that is significant.
Perhaps you are right. Or perhaps subculture is the more approriate term, except that the in this case the subculture arguably holds the upper hand, which doesn't fit the concept of subculture.
I am not going to try to argue a point, just say that rape epidemic with its connotation of disease suits me

[RGM]

RGm, you make a good argument. I note, however, that gender is not included in the definition you cite. I have not decided if that is significant.
Perhaps you are right. Or perhaps subculture is the more approriate term, except that the in this case the subculture arguably holds the upper hand, which doesn't fit the concept of subculture.
I am not going to try to argue a point, just say that rape epidemic with its connotation of disease suits me

I simply copy and pasted what Elfiminista had posted. It wouldn't take much of a stretch to find a place for it in there, I'm sure. Subculture is definitely not an appropriate label for it, for that usually refers to something that is underground, not readily visible to most people in "the mainstream." Over 100,000 women have been sexually assaulted in Canada in the last five years, and many of them make the news. It's something that is definitely visible and known to just about everybody, yet it is accepted--to the extent that there isn't a massive campaign to drastically reduce the rate at which women are sexually assaulted--and thus, because it is part of the culture, it is fair to refer to ours as a rape culture. It is also perfectly acceptable, because of the high rate, to refer to all forms of violence against women as an epidemic; if one in three/two in five people were dying of West Nile Virus, we'd be calling that an epidemic for sure.

[Andrew]

Even before reading that last post, sober second thought had already dictated withdrawing my previous comment. I accept RGM's argument.Rape culture is indeed an appropriate term and I feel free both tot use it and justify others' use of it.
El feminista did raise an important point. A school of thought or philosophy has every right to generate its own necessary terminology. It is proper to insist that those who wish to learn or criticize first learn the terminology enough to be able to discuss it intelligently. However, when said school of thought wishes to evangelize ( and I know we do) it has to give some thought to how its message expressed in its terminology will be understood by others. The word culture can certainly be misunderstood, which isn't to say it can't be used, but we must be aware and prepared to insure it isn't misunderstood. THere are other terms and phrases perhaps that are more important of which this is also true.
THank you for giving my comment your attention and clarifying this.