Exploitation and Objectification

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure that porn needs to be 'exploitational' of sexuality.  Any more than photos of sunset are exploitative of the sun.  People can be exploited, by being "forced" to do things they would never normally do, but I'm not sure that a concept can be exploited.

Now, objectification is a different matter - but not one I believe is inherently evil.  We objectify politicians every time we think of them as objects of politics rather than people.  We objectify salesmen when we forget that they have attributes separate to their selling powers.  We objectify all people when we view them as having only one purpose.  The problem comes when we objectify people who are not wanting to be seen in that way.  To sexually objectify a person who is deliberately displaying themselves for sexual reasons isn't a bad thing, in my view.  To sexually objectify a co-worker who is there to change the toner/do the accounting/design the aircraft is a completely different matter.

(originally posted in a comment thread elsewhere, thought it deserved a wider airing so more people could poke holes in it)

Comments

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Nope, doesn't need to be, it just mostly is, I think. And there's the rub with dealing with it legally.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Yep . WSS. What I said to Nuala already.

However re one comment above which i think particularly misses the point.. what (most or much or even some) porn says about sex, and women's role as sexual beings in particular, is a powerful meme which does infuse itself into society. Hence porn is an important and worrying issue for women (if not some or even all individual women) even if not "necessarily" exploitative.