Fuck Sexism

[Uboa]

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/795/reinforcing_the_wall_hegemonic_.php

Unfortunately, it seems that gender norms follow players into virtual worlds, and voice chat may be making it worse.

Something that bugged me in this article is how they focused solely on the physical prowess of the classes to which they attributed "male" or "female" attributes.  They neglected to make note of the possibility that women wanted to play as "more intelligent" characters if they chose to play as a mage or priest.  

I can confirm that the in-game dynamic of MMO's can and does seem like a nightmare to women and homosexuals, and I feel safe in assuming that perception extends to transgendered individuals as well.  I wish that I could think of a decent way to remedy this.  It's a pity that games can be hotbeds of anti-female or anti-gay sentiment.  

Surreal humor at its best -- and its worst.

Surreal humor at its best and worse would be where somebody makes the case for the game Bayonetta being empowering to women because, you know, all women should have the ability to high-kick in stiletto boots which contain clandestine missile launchers.  Haaaaah.

[FaustWolf]

Surreal humor at its best and worse would be where somebody makes the case for the game Bayonetta being empowering to women because, you know, all women should have the ability to high-kick in stiletto boots which contain clandestine missile launchers.  Haaaaah.

Well, I think men should have the ability to high-kick in stiletto boots which contain clandestine missile launchers. Now, that might be an interesting game. I'm surprised nobody's come up with that one yet.

[Uboa]

Surreal humor at its best and worse would be where somebody makes the case for the game Bayonetta being empowering to women because, you know, all women should have the ability to high-kick in stiletto boots which contain clandestine missile launchers.  Haaaaah.

Well, I think men should have the ability to high-kick in stiletto boots which contain clandestine missile launchers. Now, that might be an interesting game. I'm surprised nobody's come up with that one yet.

Speaking of uncommon but nifty male videogame characters, wasn't there a new member here a while back who was making a Chrono-style game where the main protagonist is a homosexual Arab who wears a pink t-sweater?  I believe he (or she?) even posted a link to in-game footage.  I should dig up that thread again, because I want to know how/if the game has progressed.

Also, I thought of an interesting point regarding the MMO class/gender issue.  I wonder what the class/gender ratios look like in a game which allows for multi-classing.  When given the choice in such games, I typically went for a mage-rogue character.  I bet that men and women would utilize classes more evenly in such games, and I bet that avatar gender would be less indicative of class as well.

[FaustWolf]

I think you remember correctly Uboa. The person has since disappeared, though maybe he or she will pop up again. I think the aim was to use the Chrono game engine for a non-Chrono game, but I could be wrong. If the person decided on RPGMaker as the game engine instead, that would probably explain the disappearance.

These MMO studies should be aggregated into an academic paper for someone's women's studies class, or else a pop culture journal. Women's studies teachers love that sort of thing, and we can't leave it up to people who didn't grow up with videogames to study their impact on the feminist cause.

[Lord J Esq]

http://www.seattlepi.com/health/1500ap_un_un_womens_health.html

This is all the worse when you realize that most of these people got AIDS by being raped.

[Sajainta]

This is just sickening.

Make sure you watch the video as well.

[FaustWolf]

It would be interesting to know what kind of porn these "elite" guys consume. It may be a chicken-and-egg question for sure (did porn cause the attitudes or did attitudes demand the porn?) but regardless, there's a problem if one part of society is telling them it's okay to eroticize mysogynistic practices, and another part of society is telling them they're the scum of the earth for it. Which is it going to be?

I've talked about the sexualization of women to a large extent, but have not said anything about the sexualization of men, so I'm going to shift gears a bit here. I think doing this and then returning to my original complaints with mainstream pornography will help sharpen my position and my arguments.

While doing research on Peta's "Furless" campaign I came across a news story according to which Levi Johnson (of Palin Family Saga fame) is going to do a full nude spread for Playgirl.

I don't mind this, just as I don't mind the Peta "Furless" ads (other than that they seem to involve far more women than men, curiously -- do more men wear fur clothing than women, or are they trying to catch the eyes of the apparently numerous lesbians who wear fur clothing?). To examine why I don't mind, we can employ as a reference one of the male models used in a previous Peta Campaign (ha, ironically this is safe for work).

Obviously we see some skin here (and as a male, I'm quite pleased that the model sports a fairly attainable body shape -- I was expecting Ahnold physique or something -- I do suspect some photoshopping though).

But let's look at what we don't see:

We don't see five women ganging up on this guy and urinating on him.

We don't see a woman shoving a dildo where the sun don't shine at several hundred repetitions per minute. Nor do we see Howard Stern asking him to shove a dildo down his throat to test his gag reflex.

We don't see a woman calling him a "stupid jock"; a "menstrual flow felcher"; a "douche inhaler"; uh, whatever other terms you could call a dude that would have typically negative connotations, all while spanking him until his skin is reddened, indicating observable physical injury.


I suspect Levi Johnson's experience with Playgirl will produce images very much like this Peta ad (albeit with fuller exposure). This is where one problem lies in the porn discussion; when we say "porn", we've typically got this cute vision of what Levi Johnson is doing. However, in the context I've been discussing porn, I'm referring to the "things we don't see" in the Peta ad above. If those things did happen to Levi Johnson, and the images were played ad infinitum for twelve year old girls to see for the next twenty years straight, you bet your arse I'd feel uncomfortable raising a son in such a world.

One might point out that men's sexual needs are different from women's, but, come on, if we're not going to accept derogatory terms being thrown at women in the office place (which still happens too much), why should we let this happen, let alone celebrated, in any industry?

[KebreI]

But let's look at what we don't see:

We don't see five women ganging up on this guy and urinating on him.

We don't see a woman shoving a dildo where the sun don't shine at several hundred repetitions per minute. Nor do we see Howard Stern asking him to shove a dildo down his throat to test his gag reflex.

We don't see a woman calling him a "stupid jock"; a "menstrual flow felcher"; a "douche inhaler"; uh, whatever other terms you could call a dude that would have typically negative connotations, all while spanking him until his skin is reddened, indicating observable physical injury.

Really FaustWolf? I guess I'll chalk it up to your inexperience with the industry but still most people should know this isn't entirely true. You see a lot of this attitude in say dominatrix or SBDM. Also of of the interesting thins that Playgirl mention brought to mind is the fact that, from personal experience, the porn that men watch is the exact same as the porn the women watch. There is very little "porn for men" and "porn for women".

[Lord J Esq]

You see a lot of this attitude in say dominatrix or SBDM. Also of of the interesting thins that Playgirl mention brought to mind is the fact that, from personal experience, the porn that men watch is the exact same as the porn the women watch. There is very little "porn for men" and "porn for women".

This remark adds a certain dimension of hilarity to your userpic:     

[Truthordeal]

I was debating whether to throw this into the Humanity thread or this one, and after some thought I realized that such a violent act of male on female violence was a large degree worse than: "Oh look at stupid humanity! loloolol!"

In any event: Professor Punches Woman in the Face After Heated Exchange.

In particular, what stands out to me is that this guy is an educator, a college professor. I'd expect this from some country hick or drunkard, but what the hell? When it pervades to these heights, its sickening.

[Sajainta]

Oh, well at least it's an associate professor, not a real professor.

(Kidding.)

In particular, what stands out to me is that this guy is an educator, a college professor. I'd expect this from some country hick or drunkard, but what the hell? When it pervades to these heights, its sickening.

Eh, hicks and drunkards are no more prone to stupidity and cruelty and violence than professors.

Ow, my misanthropy..

[FaustWolf]

Really FaustWolf? I guess I'll chalk it up to your inexperience with the industry but still most people should know this isn't entirely true. You see a lot of this attitude in say dominatrix or SBDM. Also of of the interesting thins that Playgirl mention brought to mind is the fact that, from personal experience, the porn that men watch is the exact same as the porn the women watch. There is very little "porn for men" and "porn for women".

The point I was trying to make in my last post here ended up quite muddled in retrospect, though you've provided the final element necessary to drive it home: one of the things I have a major issue with is that to encounter overt misandristic themes in pornography, one has to seek out "fringe" content like femdom and BDSM. Overt misogyny, on the other hand, is all over the place in mainstream porn. There is a severe proportional imbalance in the presentation of men and women appearing "dominated" in pornography. Hell, the proponents of femdom use words like "gender role reversal" to describe it. Role reversal, as if the opposite balance of power were completely normal! When Gail Dines and Robert Jensen talk about this stuff being mainstream, I feel they are absolutely correct based on my own impression of what's available in the most copious quantities.

For a short period of my life I was a consumer of some of this industry's product, and waded through large amounts of what I forced myself to turn a blind eye to when trying to access what I was after; I'm sure I'm not unique in this regard. I believe I have a fair claim to an inkling of what this industry puts out and in what proportions, and what the trends in content and the culture surrounding it are. Anecdotally speaking, I've witnessed things in college that I later understood to be overt male-on-female sexual harassment employing pornographic terminology (like the following zinger: "Hey, your breath smells like you just finished a bukkake. How about a stick of gum?" Yeah, real smooth.) Conan O'Brien recently had a segment where he employed "out of work porn actors" to help around his office, and it had horrific undertones: when those guys made a threesome with a vending machine, the joke was that they were interacting with the vending machine in the exact same way they would interact with their female co-workers. The subtexts of domination and insensitivity in mainstream pornography are well understood in "polite" society, at least well enough to make light of it.

That in-depth content analysis research recently conducted by Ana Bridges and Robert Wosnitzer has arrived at the very conclusion I've long suspected is true about mainstream porn suggests to me that I'm on to something, and that this could be one of the more important cultural issues of our time. I make no mistake in thinking that pornography will ever be eliminated, and I have few qualms with the general idea of displaying the human body. But I'm not prepared to concede that the domination of women in any context should be welcomed, especially in something as mainstream and ubiquitous as this type of pornography is swift becoming.

As for women's tastes in pornography, I don't have a clue. But I'll say this: I would be kind of freaked out if I were talking to a woman and knew she enjoyed images of men going through body-punishing sex and slander on top of that, and might have images of me going through that playing in the back of her mind -- especially if she was particularly privileged in the society in which she lived, and exercised power over my GPA, whether or not I get hired, etc.

[Lord J Esq]

As for women's tastes in pornography, I don't have a clue. But I'll say this: I would be kind of freaked out if I were talking to a woman and knew she enjoyed images of men going through body-punishing sex and slander on top of that, and might have images of me going through that playing in the back of her mind -- especially if she was particularly privileged in the society in which she lived, and exercised power over my GPA, whether or not I get hired, etc.

That's a good perspective.

[FaustWolf]

Just found a great journalistic look into the porn industry by a freelance journalist. She's recommended by a critic of Robert Jensen ironically, so this has some promise of balance I suppose. If anyone's found Jensen's and Dines' writings boorish in their vehement anti-porn stance, here's someone who seems able to divorce the gut reaction and describe things matter-of-factly.

I'm reading her article "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?" and it's an unabashed look into how things operate behind the scenes. If you dare, I'm lifting an excerpt from the article linked on Susannah Breslin's blog (I've removed several graphic descriptions from the original article since I've been majorly pushing the line in my recent posts here and feel the need to tone things down a bit):

...When it’s time for the final position, Hunter turns nervous. She squirms in the swing. Her face twists. “I will definitely, like, not be able to do this full-on ...,” she announces, staring at the machine.

...

“We can try a smaller one,” Powers suggests politely.

Judging by the expression on her face, Hunter looks to be doing the math on her predicament. If she doesn’t do what Jim is asking her to do, she may or may not get paid. If she doesn’t do this, it’s entirely possible no one else will hire her after today. So, she concedes.

...

“Just try to look happy,” Powers consoles, reaching up from below to gently pat the inside of her thigh. “Sell it to me, baby.”

...

In the dining room, I sit down with Hunter, who has put on a maroon velour tracksuit. After a two-year stint at the University of Nevada at Reno, where she studied secondary education with the intention of becoming a schoolteacher, and another stint working as a cocktail waitress in a casino, she came to Hollywood.

“I wanted to get out of Vegas, and I wanted to be an actress.” Things didn’t turn out quite the way she’d planned. At the time, she was using, “like, heroin, and Oxycontins, and cocaine—everything.” Instead of taking acting classes and going on auditions, “I jumped right into porn.” She did a few scenes—“I was totally high”—and then met her boyfriend, who helped her kick drugs, and left the business.

A month ago, though, they broke up. That’s when she realized he was her primary means of financial support. Now, she’s back.

In the Valley, porn is her reality. “People say, ‘You don’t really have to do that.’ Well, you really kind of do,” she explains, her voice plaintive, “if you don’t have an education, if you don’t have parents backing you, if you don’t have all those things.” She looks at her hands folded in her lap. “There isn’t another choice. There really isn’t a lot of other choices.”

Today is her second shoot since she returned to porn a week ago. “...that was really crappy for me. I was acting the whole time.” Jim, she offers, is “nice,” but she really needed the $500. She has student loans, credit card debt, and no car. This is what she’s doing to get by.

“It’s not the most respectable to do, but it’s a phone call, and I have $500,” she asserts. “It lets me know, ‘You’re going to be OK, even if you don’t make enough money at your job, you have this to fall back on.’ I can make my bills. I can get a car. I can do the things I need to do to move forward.”

There's some nudity in the article (but not the linked blog that serves as intermediary), so once again beware that I'm putting the "FW" into NSFW if anyone wants to read the full thing.

But I thought this quote very ably highlights the issue of choice in the production of pornography and how muddled it can become for the participants. I don't think most mainstream porn consumers take joy in degradation and humiliation of the films' subjects -- they're just looking for naked people, and any item featuring that will probably suffice as well as the next for most. (As an aside, I wonder if the supply-demand market for pornography even operates "correctly" based on product differentiation, or if people are really consuming it based on some bizarre and not well-understood, exotic, and possibly viral economic model).

Using the quote as a base to work from, let us first cut out the consumers who are really looking for pain and degradation and cast them by the wayside. Then, let us ask the remainder -- how do you know that actress or actor is a.) enjoying what's being displayed or at least b.) selected the choice to sign the contract for that scene without interference from outside forces such as economic desperation? Of course there are men and women out there who enjoy bizarre parlor tricks, and there are porn actors and actresses who have chosen this career over being doctors and lawyers even though they were equally qualified for those things. But there are absolutely no safeguards in this industry that ensure that, and that's what I'm most concerned with, if I had to rank my problems with the industry from greatest to least. These actors and actresses can apparently be blacklisted for backing out on scenes after they find out just what they're in for. Is that any kind of meaningful model of choice? Let's allow that most actors and actresses are actually in it for the fun and the thrill of what's going on, and only a few feel forced into it. How are these people going to get any kind of help unless this industry is ruthlessly questioned, its flaws examined, and its structure purged of the chaff? And more importantly, how does the viewer know whether there's any kind of suffering involved? Given the fetishization of 18 and 19 year olds as a wide-ranging theme in porn, it's difficult enough for the mainstream consumer to tell whether child pornography is actually on his or her screen.

Moreover, let's look at the nature of what the mainstream material is, exactly. It really is all acting for the most part, and therefore relies on "the suspension of disbelief." One of the things I worry about is that, in a schizophrenic culture where pornography is the most accepted discourse on human sexuality, all of us -- the actresses and actors, the viewers, the directors -- are allowing our sexuality to be constructed by what are essentially...inane market forces with no intelligence of their own. Nobody involved in the production of a great portion of this stuff is actually experiencing real human sexual interaction (after doing some more reading I think I've overlooked how the men, too, may not be enjoying what they're doing); and yet, it is packaged as "real sex" to the audience. It's easy to defend this industry by saying one supports free speech, but when I look at the totality of the circumstances surrounding it, I can't help but feel there's something extremely spooky and surreal about all this, and the fact that there's long been an "it's all nor nothing" attitude surrounding the industry.

There are no Socratic questioners in the porn debate as shaped by the industry and popular media -- there are only prudes and valiant free speech defenders. This attitude needs to change.

[Radical_Dreamer]

So this may seem a minor quibble next to the other issues with the porn industry, but I find it quite alarming that, based on your excerpt, the performers don't actually know what doing the scene will entail until the shoot is underway. It's impossible to make an informed decision when you don't have pertinent information.