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If true, then I agree with copleycat that it is absolutely a public health problem. Empathy plays a major role in ethical behavior, and if extreme porn is desensitizing men to women who are suffering, then that is obviously not a good thing.

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Again I’m noticing that if you compare drug addicts with masochists there aren’t too many people who are going to rally for the addicts’ rights to destroy themselves or deny that as the addict destroys themselves a serious toll is levied against everyone around them and society as well. I’m not just talking about problems that could be fixed with socialized health care or the de-criminalization of drugs, I’m talking about the way the addict’s entire existence becomes focused on the next high, how everything that should mean something is meaningless next to getting high. I can believe the model in that film got off – it’s how she gets high, but that doesn’t make it right. This is a public health problem.

As far masochism goes, there’s no shortage of reasons why people might feel any degree of self loathing and shame but for the most part these reasons can be classified as either valid or invalid. If they’re invalid it would be best to see how and why you shouldn’t be feeling bad about yourself – in most of these instances someones trying to manipulate you and the sooner you see this and stop it the better. If you’ve got real valid reasons to feel ashamed about something you’ve done or are doing then stop doing it and / or do what you can to make amends – most importantly don’t keep doing it.

I know this is much said than done and that the way the world is set up right now lots of us are complicit in things we deeply oppose and therefore we end up baring a constant level of shame so there’s a huge motivation to transform this shame since it seems we can’t get rid of it – but associating shame with orgasm is wrong thing to do with shame. If you do this shame ceases to be a deterrent to bad behavior. There really are impulses for which people should feel bad, as in ashamed of, and through experiencing this shame and how bad it feels they are suppose to decide to not act on those impulses. However, if shame is felt to be a pre-cursor to orgasm how likely is it that people will decide against shameful behavior? I do agree that this is an undoing of civilization. Discussions of ethics are urgently over-due.

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Personally, I don’t believe anyone can be healed from abuse by more abuse. And the promotion of sadomasochism promotes this very ideas.

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I also wanted to comment on the business of men getting totally bent out of shape when they’re told what they’ve done. Lisak & Miller, 2002 (abstract, paywall) did an interesting study in which they questioned men about coercive sex without using the term “rape.” About 5% of the men were not at all ashamed to report repeated serious crimes … so long as they weren’t called that. They weren’t rapists in their own heads. Just manlier men. Or something.

I’m not sure what bothers me more. The criminality or the fact that they don’t even see it.

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@vouchsafer: Your comment is right on. The message presented by this sort of porn will negatively affect future generations of women and girls.

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Though, I really don’t understand why people are so obessed with numbers. This argument (both sides) sounds like an excuse to neglect either men and women, and I freaking hate it all.

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Further, the message is also that we subhuman females enjoy being treated cruelly. The initial “consent” has a devastating ripple effect as the archetypal woman represents all of us whether we have given consent or not.

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Pro-john advocates flip flop their arguments depending on the day. Some days the boogeyman of thousands of nice family guys getting arrested is cited as a reason to scuttle the law, and some days the low number of men actually arrested is held up as proof the Nordic law doesn’t work. The deterrence aspects of the Nordic model are dismissed despite common acknowledgement that men’s demand for prostitution has decreased in Sweden.

The deterrent factors of the Nordic model have also resulted in prostituted women not needing emergency medical care and social services as much because not only are there less johns overall but the ones remaining can’t get away with being as violent as they want anymore.

http://feministcurrent.com/7038/new-research-shows-violence-decreases-under-nordic-model-why-the-radio-silence/

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There are many ways in which things can be unethical. They can be unethical because they involve coercion, but they can also be unethical because they involve violence and destructiveness, because they undermine the notion of equality or threaten the position of certain groups in society, and yes, because they’re ‘ungodly’ or express dark, destructive or base urges rather than harmonious, luminous and Divine aspirations. Even if you disagree with some item in that list, if there is even one way other than direct coercion in which something can be unethical, then the ‘it’s consensual’ defense just doesn’t work.

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It turns out most sex workers don’t see themselves as victims and don’t want to lose their cient base.

If Sweden’s social services is as good as you say then that’s great. But it would be even better if police left consenting adults alone then there would be even more funding.

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Also, what’s the logic behind this “Take money away from social services so the police can go hunting down consenting adults participating in prostitution”? Sweden has excellent social services. Far, far better than in the US and even in Canada? The Nordic model is about putting money INTO social services — not taking away. That’s the whole idea.

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Page 38:

“Sweden’s Alliance of Counties says that resources for social work are scarce, as the money has been siphoned to policing. In spite of over 2,000 arrests, only 59 clients have been reported suspected of buying occasional sex. Only two have been convicted, after pleading guilty. No one has been jailed, and only low fines have been imposed, as per the law. Evidence to prove a crime is nearly unattainable. Workers do not consider themselves to be victims and are almost always unwilling to testify against their clients.”

http://www.hivlawcommission.org/resources/report/FinalReport-Risks,Rights&Health-EN.pdf

Take money away from social services so the police can go hunting down consenting adults participating in prostitution, then spend more money trying (and failing) to convict them? Great idea! (not)

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Also, and I can only speak to the situation in the US, as that is where I live and have worked in this field, your contention about the lack of funding for services for male victims is simply untrue. Despite what MRAs would have you believe, services made available to victims through VAWA (the Violence Against Women Act) are available to men as well as women. I have worked in rape crisis and domestic violence advocacy, and I have very rarely encountered programs (regardless of the source(s) of funding) whose services are not open to men, from shelter to legal advocacy to counseling and support groups, etc. No program I have ever worked with has excluded men from any of its services, and in working to assist in finding services for victims nationally, I have very rarely encountered any program whose services were not available to men. I personally have worked with numerous male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault (the vast majority of whom were victims of male perpetrators, by the way), and although lack of funding and available services is a serious problem in general when it comes to IPV, I have never had any more difficulty in finding services for men than I have women.

As far as mens’ ability to secure assistance from the police and the legal system, the above article has already done a good job of explaining that situation (the article is about the situation in the UK, but its findings mirror the situation in the US as well).

Consider: MRAs love to point out that women receive child custody more often than do men. This is true, but it’s only because they are taking into consideration all child custody cases, including those settled by agreement. When you look only at those cases which involve disputes, men are actually more likely, not less, to receive full custody, even in cases where those men are known perpetrators of domestic violence. See Lundy Bancroft for more information.

Obviously this is a gendered problem with gendered consequences, and until we are willing to openly and honestly address it as such and commit ourselves to ending gendered violence, it will continue.

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I don’t think the “nordic model” helps sex workers with regards to housing.

“Due to the law against procurement, sexworkers are forced to lie in order to rent premises, or alternatively they have to pay exorbitant rent. Either way, they constantly worry about being discovered. They also report often having to move (when discovered) and being treated badly by landlords and “rent pimps”. Some women prefer to make contact with their customers on the street. Other sexworkers find this too humiliating.”

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