Thursday, December 25, 2008

An Interesting Discussion on "Barely Legal" Porn

Over at Vicky Vette's MySpace blog, she's put up an entry on her personal feelings about "barely legal" porn and why she thinks that porn users should avoid it like the plague.

Vicky Vette's MySpace Blog: The Adult Industry Should Not Have "Teen" Websites

Out of respect for Vicky, I'll just ask you to link to the essay, and solicit comments.

Note that she's not calling for out and out censorship of "teen" sites; just saying that adult consumers should exercise more caution in supporting them out of concern for possibly enabling those who would target young children.

Vicky's also gone on record as supporting raising the legal age of entry into adult to 21 from 18.

In the comments section, I wrote this as my means of agreeing and disagreeing with Vicky's points:

[Posted by me (Anthony_JKenn) today @ 9:21 AM]

Interesting take on the subject, Vicky...I can agree with everything you said, but only to a point.

I'm not one for "teen porn" myself (I tend to prefer mature MILF's and Cougars who actually KNOW what the hell they are doing sexually), being that I have no intention of wanting sex with someone young enough to be my daughter. (Unless, of course, she is damn hot.) And it does kind of squick me to think that a lot of those who are into the "Barely Legal" subgenre might have at least in part some tiny level of pedophilic fantasies about banging girls that may be underage or just at the legal age. Plus, there is still a bit of the "stretching the boundaries of taboo" going on, and having "barely legal" porn does tend to stretch the boundary a great deal.

On the other hand, though, I'm not so fond of targeting "Barely Legal" porn as a cause of actual pedophilia, for the following reasons.

1) Note the phrasing of "BARELY LEGAL": meaning that she may just be over the edge of legality, the performer is certainly legal, and has the papers and 2257 compliance to prove it. Why should she be denied her legal right to earn her craft merely because some sick (as in mentally ill) 45 year old man sees her as his personal "jailbait"??

2) I'd say that the majority of the consumers of Barely Legal porn aren't older men looking for fantasies to stoke their pedophilic lusts, but young men of the same age just looking for similar type women. I'm not so sure that I'd count that as promoting kiddie porn...at least not in the traditional sense.

3) Even if there is the typical "dirty old man" using BL porn to get his peculiar rocks off, I still say that it is a suitable alternative to him actually going out and targeting REAL girls. At least, BL porn serves as a release for such fantasies....in the same way that other forms of "extreme porn" serve a similar function. Better to have him jerking off to Internet porn than to be going around real people imposing his desires on unsuspecting victims.

4) Last time I heard, it is still a crime to sexually assault and target underage girls...and this dude whom you described at the beginning is a bona fide criminal who deserves to be placed UNDER the jail....but notice that he targeted much, much younger kids than the target audience of BL porn. (The fact that he was a youth minister should raise some real flags of deep sexual repression coming back to explode on him, too.) To say that BF porn encouraged his assault on 4 year olds is a bit like saying that the Hostess company should be held liable because Harvey Milk's assassin got high on Twinkies, or that the Roman Catholic Church should be held liable because some whackjob quoted the Bible in justifying his killing spree or bombing an abortion clinic. In short, kind of a reach.

In my perfect world, porn would only be performed by mature adult women who were into it not just for the money or the fame, but specifically for the sex, and there would be no need for "barely legal" porn to survive. In the real world, however, the desire for deflowering "new meat" remains strong with a sizeable majority of men, and most of them have money to spend to purchase media that attracts that kind of fantasy. Even if tomorrow you criminalized their fantasies, they would not disappear; they would only seek less legal and safe and more perverse means to satisfy their ends...and that would be a hell of a lot more threatening to legal adult porn than any bit of "barely legal" porn out there.

Finally....while I understand exactly where you are going with this, Vicky, and do think that it would be so much better if men stuck to legitimate adult sex subjects (like, for instance, YOU...heheh), I'd be real careful at this time about calling for restrictions on what is still legal adult material. Given the forces that are in power, it is all too easy for good-hearted and well-meaning regulation to blow up and backfire and be used as a bludgeon against even legal adult material far beyond what was originally targeted. What may be used against Hustler's Barely Legal series today could well be used against MILF/Couogar porn tomorrow...and under the same justification of "protecting children" from "sexual aggression". Who's to say that some right-wing fundamentalist might find YOU to be as much a threat because of your sexual aggression?? And remember, the first letter of MILF does refer to "Mom". And even single Cougars might like to target young men.

Oh....and 18- to 21-year old young adults have as much a right to explore their sexuality as 25- or 35- year olds do; to put them down as automatically inmature and unable to make informed decisions merely because they just reached that age is a bit ageist. Perhaps porn isn't the best place for them to begin their experimentation, but that only states the need for support groups of older starlets and health and safety protections built in so that they have a safe place within the industry to avoid exploitation and abuse.

Just my own ranting and raving, Vicky....take it as you will.
The floor is open now for discussion, if you are interested.

43 comments:

  1. I really don't care what people think about. I care what people do.

    Personally I see no connection between some jerk taking pictures of actual kids peeing and someone who has fantasies about adolescent girls.

    Are there some people who have fantasies about 16 year old girls *and* 6 year old boys? I'm sure, but I think buying the idea that they're intimately connected is just silly.

    Are there some people who have fantasies about 16 year old girls and are creepy as fuck? You bet, but what exactly does that prove, again? And how will not making porn of it stop the creep from being creepy? "Our own" IACB has talked about this sort of interest himself. I don't remember much he's said about his porn-viewing, precisely because I *really* don't care to know the details, honestly, but...

    Suppose he's really into young-looking women in porn, as might stand to reason from some of the things he's said about having had partners younger than he is before. So now there's no barely legal porn, and he can't get that. Is he really going to stop being interested? Was he really interested only because some porn producers hire women who look younger than they are?

    Somehow I really don't think so.

    A scary news story about a pedo is not proof.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And amusingly (perhaps) enough, I was just perusing a community on LJ and saw a comment by a woman with an icon reading "I like my men tragic and barely legal."

    Do we really expect such a person to go after boys next?

    If we don't, is it REALLY because there's not that much "barely legal men" porn out there for the straight woman consumer?

    ReplyDelete
  3. (and yeah, the icon was probably a joke, etc. etc. etc. Still, I think it's worth examining exactly where these feelings that anything connected to desire for adolescents is related to desire for kids come from, and who they're aimed at.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Trinity for the win on this 100%. Much as I like Vicky and regard her highly, I think she's way off base on this deal.

    First of all, pedophiles do not become pedophiles from looking at pictures. They're wired that way and if the current running through that wiring is strong enough, they'll behave that way, no matter what they're exposed to or shielded from. Indeed, pedophilia seems to thrive, like most other anti-social sexual behaviors, in atmospheres of sexual repression, such as religious organizations and gender-segregated educational institutions.

    And pedophiles are distinct from those who are attracted to young adults. Pedophiles specificallyl desire sex with children, meaning those not yet pubescent. After puberty, young people cease to be attractive to pedophiles, as anyone associated with the prosecution of sex crimes will attest.

    Barely legal porn is not a gateway drug to child molestation. That is pure nonsense ginned up by porn bashers as one more false and vile accusation with which to tar all pornographers and everything we do. It's a staple of anti-porn propaganda and it ill-behooves anyone in our line of work to embrace such a notion. Today the BL producers, tomorrow, it's our turn.

    As for whether or not porn that caters to viewers who find younger performers more atttractive is inherently icky, nope, I don't think so. I agree that its primary consumers are mostly pretty young themselves, and in any case, their fantasies are their own business. As long as their behavior doesn't endanger anyone else, what they masturbate to in private is nobody's concern but their own.

    Certainly, if a lot of people knew what I found arousing to look at, they might form opinions of me that would be both entirely negative and entirely inaccurate. Like most adults, I understand the difference between fantasy and reality and am never one to try and impose the former on the latter with non-consenting partners.

    As for the performers who make barely legal images, they're old enough to vote, to drive, to join the military and go get their heads blown off. They're old enough to marry, sign contracts, incur debts and be tried as adults if they break the law. What sense does it make to "protect" them from doing porn for three more years - possibly among their most successful - while allowing them the liberty to do all those other things that carry potentially greater consequences for themselves and for society at large?

    I've heard, and had, all the arguments on this subject imaginable and my view remains the same. Barely legal is still legal, and legal is the standard by which I judge when it comes what people do.

    And I see no reason whatsoever to try and limit what they think about even to that standard. When it comes to what goes on between their ears, that is nobody's business but their own.

    Frankly, I'm surprised that this tired debate is still kicking around among people who consider themselves pro-porn. I used to hear, and still sometimes do, the same nonsense about BDSM porn.

    And on both subjects, I say the same thing, nobody ever did anything they wouldn't otherwise do because of a picture they saw.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "As long as their behavior doesn't endanger anyone else, what they masturbate to in private is nobody's concern but their own."

    Ernest FTW.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Betty Dodson just did a podcast thingy about personal sexual fantasies and gave the same advice. Don't feel guilty about fantasies. They're just fantasies and more than likely to stay that way.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ee, didn't make clear that the "What about someone who's creepy?" and "What about IACB?" weren't supposed to be linked, there. Whether or not IACB is creepy is a different question than "Do creeps exist?" :-P

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Betty Dodson just did a podcast thingy about personal sexual fantasies and gave the same advice. Don't feel guilty about fantasies. They're just fantasies and more than likely to stay that way.Betty Dodson just did a podcast thingy about personal sexual fantasies and gave the same advice. Don't feel guilty about fantasies. They're just fantasies and more than likely to stay that way."

    Yeah, this.

    The whole opposition to porn, or to certain Particularly Icky Kinds of Porn, is predicated on the idea that fantasies inevitably lead to realities.

    (And even in the case of barely legal... why are we presuming that *every* time a much older fellow has sex with an 18 year old girl, creepiness must be involved? Like I said, I'm sure it sometimes -- hell, I'll even offer up an "often" here -- is, but why are we making generalizations rather than trying to help actual people actually avoid actual bad power dynamics?)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nina here. I'm with Ernest and Trinity on this one, as well. The operative word in "Barely Legal" is, as has been pointed out, "legal."

    Trinity said, "why are we presuming that *every* time a much older fellow has sex with an 18 year old girl, creepiness must be involved? " Again, I'm with her.

    My first partner, when I was 18, was, himself 39. I picked him because I thought he'd know more about sex than a boy my age, and that he'd have a bit more self-control than a peer. He also had a car and his own house, so there was no "is Mom coming home?" kind of issues, which helped in the relaxation department.

    We weren't a good fit, sex wise, but I'm still not sorry I chose him. It's been 30 years, but we're still friendly.

    Sex with people of your own generation is differnt, and fulfills differnt needs, than having sex with people from a different generation. As long as all are 18+ and consenting, I have to stay out of it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "My first partner, when I was 18, was, himself 39. I picked him because I thought he'd know more about sex than a boy my age, and that he'd have a bit more self-control than a peer. He also had a car and his own house, so there was no "is Mom coming home?" kind of issues, which helped in the relaxation department."

    Yeah. My first partner was 15 years older. I was 21, not 18, and I do think that that probably helped me to be able to better shield myself from the sort of people who would look for someone so young because of shallowness or predation. And I don't think I was ready at 18, really, so I certainly don't believe I would have been ready younger.

    But that relationship was a real relationship.

    And the thing is... I'm kinky. The vast majority of other SMers I met out in the boonies were *not* twentysomethings. Accepting the attentions of older folks wasn't vulnerability to me. That was who was available.

    And yeah, I'm sure I was especially desirable to some of them because I was young. But this idea that their being attracted to me was therefore creepy boggles my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Agreed all around. Also, there are plenty of creeps in one's contemporary age group, whatever that age may be.

    ReplyDelete
  12. WOW....didn't think that this would bring people out so rapidly. And even Nina has to break in??

    I'm generally with the consensus here, as my rebuttal to Vicky at her blog said. I'm not so sure that we should be regulating personal fantasies, not to mention the idea that there is an intimate connection between active pedophilia and men merely lusting after younger women.

    with your consent, Ernest and Trin, may I repost your responses here to Vicky's MySpace page??


    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anthony,

    Given the business partnership between Nina and Vicky, I think it best that Nina's and my comments here remain here.

    Kind of like Vegas.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  14. For the record, since I didn't originally post any excerpts from Vicky's entry, here's a sample of what she says about why she feels how she does:

    I urge all of you that watch adult material.... stay away from any 'teen' orientated sites. Does it not occur to you that while all of the models are purportedly over the age of 18 that they are being dressed up that way for a reason - to get sales from the adult buying public attracted to girls who look under the age of 18? The adult industry knows exactly what it is doing when it dresses up an 18 year old girl to look 10. Most of you know that I am against any girls doing adult until they are the age of 21 (to allow them a chance to do something with their life other than the permanent tattoo of adult when they first get out of high school).

    By dressing up 18 year olds as 10 year olds it not only denigrades [sic] the performers, but it appeals to the lowest common denominator. Picture a 45 year old father at home (with two kids and a wife at home) getting his rocks off watching 'adult' teenage movies and pics and then taking his own kids to school. It is wrong in my book and encourages thoughts of perversion in the heads of a lot of people who otherwise would not have such thoughts.


    I believe what Vicky is talking about is the notion that those older men who may be more likely to watch "teen porn" may also have teenage children themselves...and that, in her eyes, may make them more suspectable to engage in questionable acts that could possibly rise to the level of pedophilia. In her mind, portraying 18 year olds as "barely legal" or even hinting at the notion of "underage" sexual subjects crosses for her a dangerous line that could indeed lead directly to pedophilia.

    Of course, Vicky can defend herself and her views quite adequately...and I'm extending an open invitation to her to post here at BPPA and further explain her opinions.


    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ernest:

    Watch your email....private message incoming.


    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  16. OK....for the record, I may have jumped the gun big time in posting Vicky's remarks here, and in posting some of the comments from here over at Vicky's place.

    For that, I sincerely apologize to all, and I am taking steps to correct the matter.

    I would never want my eliciting a discussion on a topic to get between people I respect and admire and consider friends...and for that reason, I'm truly sorry if my actions caused any rifts.

    The relevant emails to all the parties involved have been sent by me. Hopefully, I've acted before any damage has been done.


    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  17. Okay, um... Anthony, probably best not to Xpost, because that "porn will make dads fuck their daughters" thing is horribly creeping me out, and I'm just about to get less than civil.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Trin:

    Before you bring the hammer down on Vicky, perhaps you should read what she actually said.

    I'm not saying that I agree with her, but she did particularly say that she was targeting only a particular form of "teen porn" where legal performers were made to look like prepubescent (that is, pre-teen) children. At least, I did not in any way perceive her as condemning all "barely legal" porn as the end-all cause of pedophilia.

    Also, in the comments section there, someone mentioned Sasha Grey as an example of a teenage starlet who seems to have negotiated the industry quite well. Vicky's response was to the extent of "Well, yeah, she seems to be doing well now..but what will happen down the road? Will she end up many other young performers hating her life and becoming the useful tools of antiporn activists and ex-porn fundies like Shelley Lubben?"

    Personally, I do think that Vicky's heart is in the right place, and she does have a point about how seedy and sick people could get the wrong ideas from watching some brands of porn. And I do think that all of us would agree that eroticizing 10 year olds (and, in the example she used in her post, taking pics of 7 year olds in the restroom) crosses the line from edgy play into outright pedophilia.

    And, it should be noted that in NO case does Vicky EVER advocate censorship or state laws against even those sites she sees as abusicve, she only calls for porn consumers to use their judgment and avoid such sites.

    Feel free to disagree with her if you wish (and I certainly with all respect and love do), but let's save the blowtorch for those who really deserve it.


    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anthony:

    Point taken, but honestly I don't have any issues with ageplay -- which is basically what I consider that kind of porn to be.

    And I reacted strongly to the "raping daughters" style comment because I know people who that's happened to, and it wasn't because Daddy saw porn of it.

    There's a *lot* more than "so and so looked cute in a pinafore on my DVD" going on there.

    ReplyDelete
  20. "Ee, didn't make clear that the "What about someone who's creepy?" and "What about IACB?" weren't supposed to be linked, there. Whether or not IACB is creepy is a different question than "Do creeps exist?" :-P"

    Um, thanks, I guess.

    My attitudes toward this are on record. Once again, I don't think sex between adolescents and post-adolescents constitutes "pedophilia", and the conflation of teenagers with children sexually is part and parcel with a moral panic around this issue that's absolutely spun out of control. Its now to the point where interest in *young adults*, if you're older than that age group, is treated as "pedophilia". I think that's patently ridiculous.

    I think that adolescence represents the "buffer" between childhood and adulthood. At some point in the 13-18 year range, bodies mature and most people will become sexually active. Which, of course, absolutely does not mean that anybody under 18 should be performing in porn for a whole host of social factors. But if somebody 18 years or older could pass for 16, what of it? In my opinion, that's the case of a young adult appealing to a fantasy that's psychologically normal, but just doesn't happen to be politically correct under the arbitrary standards of the time.

    And yes, I do emphasize "arbitrary standards of the times", because attitudes about this were very different not all that long ago, historically speaking. Have a look at "Manhatten", "Blame it on Rio", or "Private Lessons" for examples of attitudes about this kind of thing in the 70s and 80s. "Hard Candy" would exemplify attitudes today. The pendulum could just as well swing back.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "I'm not saying that I agree with her, but she did particularly say that she was targeting only a particular form of "teen porn" where legal performers were made to look like prepubescent (that is, pre-teen) children. At least, I did not in any way perceive her as condemning all "barely legal" porn as the end-all cause of pedophilia."

    Well, that part is well taken - I personally don't like a lot of the "kiddie" trappings found in a lot of "barely legal" porn, even when I happen to like the model in question. Notably the ubiquitous fucking stuffed animals. -gag- Its why, for that age group, models like Ariel Rebel or Liz Vicious, or many of the Abby Winters models have much more appeal to me, since they act and dress their age in the stuff they appear in.

    I'm not entirely sure what the producers of the "18 going on 10" school of porn are thinking. Probably, they're probably conflating attraction to young women with pedophilia just as much as their critics are, and catering to that.

    ReplyDelete
  22. "Once again, I don't think sex between adolescents and post-adolescents constitutes "pedophilia", and the conflation of teenagers with children sexually is part and parcel with a moral panic around this issue that's absolutely spun out of control. Its now to the point where interest in *young adults*, if you're older than that age group, is treated as "pedophilia". I think that's patently ridiculous."

    Hrm. If we're talking about actual ages of people having sex, or wanting to have sex with actual people:

    I do think there's a difference between ephebophilia and pedophilia, and I do think that pedophilia is harmful in ways ephebophilia probably isn't. But I'm not so sure that that means I'm OK with fifteen-year-olds having sex either.

    So I guess I half-agree and half don't. I mean on the one hand, yes there are fifteen-year-olds who ARE having sex, and yeah, some of those are having sex with people who are older. And yeah, I'm sure that some of them are not harmed psychologically by it. But I don't know that I'm convinced that concern about youth having sex is misplaced.

    Conflating it with pedophilia IS misplaced. As, I think, is policing people who are of age for fantasies. But having the concern, and setting the cutoff point based on the concern, isn't wrong to me. Teenage brains are actually *not* fully developed.

    (Though that raises some interesting questions about the maturity of the 18 year old brain, too.)

    ReplyDelete
  23. I do think there's a difference between ephebophilia and pedophilia, and I do think that pedophilia is harmful in ways ephebophilia probably isn't. But I'm not so sure that that means I'm OK with fifteen-year-olds having sex either.

    So I guess I half-agree and half don't. I mean on the one hand, yes there are fifteen-year-olds who ARE having sex, and yeah, some of those are having sex with people who are older. And yeah, I'm sure that some of them are not harmed psychologically by it. But I don't know that I'm convinced that concern about youth having sex is misplaced."


    Well, as somebody who was actually having sex, very good sex in fact, at exactly the age you're describing, yeah, I do fall out on the "its generally not a problem" side.

    The first time I had sex, it was actually in one of these "inappropriate" scenarios – I was 14, the woman I was with was 25. In retrospect, her interest in me was creepy, but that had more to do with the fact that she was a fucking nutcase than her actual age, something I figured out quickly and why I left the relationship unceremoniously. But I did not feel then, and do not feel now, that I was in any sense a victim. I could have said no and I could have, and did, leave the relationship when I wanted to. Whether its the same judgment call I might have made when I was "older and wiser" seems to me beside the point.

    And as for the idea that she should have been legally punished for that, I really don't see why. I wouldn't have wanted that, and the reality of the situation is if the law had somehow gotten involved, my life would have been absolutely turned upside down. So, sorry, not a big fan of "zero tolerance" age of consent law enforcement.

    When I was 15, I was having my first serious LTR, including lots of sex, this time with a girlfriend my age. (And a big thumbs down to anybody who would condescendingly refer to this as "sexual experimentation" – sexual experimentation is what two 11 year-olds playing "doctor" do. I was having sex when I was a teenager.) I certainly would not have taken very kindly to the suggestion that I shouldn't be having sex at all. Thankfully, we both had very tolerant parents who apparently didn't think that way – we could both stay over at each other's houses and didn't have to be sneaky about our relationship.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Trinity wrote:

    "Teenage brains are actually *not* fully developed.

    (Though that raises some interesting questions about the maturity of the 18 year old brain, too.)"


    That is, to some degree, true from a developmental standpoint, but it can be overstated and used to justify a degree of restriction and paternalism that may not be warranted in a many cases.

    If you look at the concept of "critical periods" and cognitive shifts ala Piaget and that school, there is a cognitive shift that occurs, on average, somewhere in the 18-21 year old age range. This was a fairly recent discovery, and it had been previously thought that one went through one's final cognitive shift just before adolescence, into what Piaget called the "formal operational" stage, where one acquires the capacity for highly abstract thought. More recent brain and cognitive research has established that there's another cognitive shift one goes through in late adolescence/early adulthood, this time having to do with abstractions having to do with judgement and long-term planning.

    But cognitively speaking, a developmentally "normal" teenager is psychologically closer to an adult than a child. There's a good reason to not have teenagers make life-changing decisions, but I'm not convinced that decisions to have sex or not are always necessarily that weighty. (Obviously, the sex = intimacy/sex is such serious fucking business folks might think differently, but obviously, I don't take that POV very seriously.) Also, there's a not small percentage of adults who never develop postformal or even formal operational cognitive ability, yet they have full legal standing as adults when it comes to decision making, including sexual consent.

    Perspectives on how much you should shelter teenager will obviously vary – I'm not a parent, just somebody who did a lot of "inappropriate" stuff as a teenager and feel I'm a better person for it.

    I had an experience about a year ago, though, which shed some light on this for me. Not with sex but with drugs, actually. (And sorry if that squicks people out.) When I was a teenager through my young adult years, I had a number of psychedelic experiences with psilocybin and LSD which were very positive. About a year ago, I did a small does of psilocybin mushrooms for the first time in many years and was plunged into a total existential hell for 6 hours, followed by another 24 hours of what I can only describe as clinical depression. Every adult concern, worry, and body ache I'd been harboring came to the surface and was made acutely manifest.

    Now when I was much younger, and at an age where by "adult" standards I "wasn't ready" for such things, my experiences were much more positive. There's a lot to be said for youthful resilience and even foolhardiness, and making use of it while you have it.

    ReplyDelete
  25. IACB: I don't think you know from one case that this is not harmful in the majority of cases.

    Also, I would agree with many feminists that it may be less risky for someone who's a guy to be involved in more intense sexual situations at a younger age. Girls and young women are often kept innocent and vulnerable in some really odd ways, and sold a bill of goods about true love in a strong way that boys aren't.

    ReplyDelete
  26. "2) I'd say that the majority of the consumers of Barely Legal porn aren't older men looking for fantasies to stoke their pedophilic lusts, but young men of the same age just looking for similar type women."

    Honestly, I'm not so sure. I'm sure a lot of fans of this stuff are men in the same age group, but I'm pretty sure many fans are older men (and perhaps some women) who like to look at young flesh and for all sorts of reasons having to do with age and relative attractiveness, can only see young women like this in porn. And that, in itself, I don't think is something deserving of condemnation.

    I don't think you have to be a big time EvPsych proponent to see that youth and a hard body will always have an appeal to many people of all ages. Although a lot of feminists (especially the ones who think they can change everything just by changing the "social construct") might disagree with me (to put it mildly) on this, I don't think that is something that will ever change, really.

    "3) Even if there is the typical "dirty old man" using BL porn to get his peculiar rocks off, I still say that it is a suitable alternative to him actually going out and targeting REAL girls. At least, BL porn serves as a release for such fantasies....in the same way that other forms of "extreme porn" serve a similar function. Better to have him jerking off to Internet porn than to be going around real people imposing his desires on unsuspecting victims."

    I don't buy the "catharsis" theory either. What little evidence I've seen given for it relies on highly suspect correlative studies that rely on exactly the same dodgy correlation/causality error and lack of multivariate control that many of the "porn increases rape" studies do. I don't think that there's really any evidence that a particular kind of porn makes it more or less likely for someone to act out a fantasy that would be socially inappropriate if actually made real. It just means that they have that fantasy.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "IACB: I don't think you know from one case that this is not harmful in the majority of cases."

    Try that counter with arguments against BDSM and sex work and see how that sounds.

    And anyway, where's the large-scale study showing my experience is atypical? And even if that's the case, do exceptions have no meaning?

    ReplyDelete
  28. "Try that counter with arguments against BDSM and sex work and see how that sounds."

    I meant to say, see how that sounds as a counter to arguments for consensual BDSM and sex work. And I'm sure you've heard such counter-arguments many times.

    ReplyDelete
  29. "Also, I would agree with many feminists that it may be less risky for someone who's a guy to be involved in more intense sexual situations at a younger age. Girls and young women are often kept innocent and vulnerable in some really odd ways, and sold a bill of goods about true love in a strong way that boys aren't."

    Perhaps true, but then you're making an argument for a sexual double-standard. Which I think really paints feminists into a corner.

    ReplyDelete
  30. "I'm pretty sure many fans are older men (and perhaps some women) who like to look at young flesh and for all sorts of reasons having to do with age and relative attractiveness, can only see young women like this in porn. And that, in itself, I don't think is something deserving of condemnation."

    Yeah, I agree.

    Or... well, I could be ignorant of what "barely legal" is. I was under the impression it generally depicted people as if they were fresh-faced teens, not prepubescents.

    And that... I think there is an Old Lech market for that, some of whom are creepy and others of whom are probably reliving adolescent lusts or wanting to fantasize about the rolls in the hay they didn't get in high school and early college because they were an ugly nerd.

    Which may be kind of gross in some cases, but *wrong*? No.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Try that counter with arguments against BDSM and sex work and see how that sounds."

    *shrug* Well:

    1. If my partner and I are the only healthy SMers on the planet, and you and your older paramour were the only healthy teen-and-adult couple, that's still allowable under what I said, because I said "one case is not a trend," not "that must have harmed you."

    2. If someone said it about BDSM, I could easily cite *lots* of other people in committed relationships, communities, etc. and explain how and why I think these people's relationships are healthy and no one is being coerced.

    I have never seen you cite anything but your own experience as an argument for the general healthiness of these sorts of relationships.

    So I remain skeptical. You don't have to like it, but there it is.

    ReplyDelete
  32. "Perhaps true, but then you're making an argument for a sexual double-standard. Which I think really paints feminists into a corner."

    I'm not sure it does, because all I am saying is that an older partner has to be very careful given hir younger partner's possible vulnerabilities. Which is the case for anybody anywhere anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Well, as a matter of fact, when you're talking about teenage sex in general, there was a study published last year that concluded most teenagers do not suffer negative mental health consequences. Albeit there was a couple subsets where there tended to be negative outcomes 1) girls who were essentially "loved and left", which is in keeping with what you were saying, and 2) kids who were active prior to their general peer group, generally pre-14/15 years old. Descriptions of the study here:

    link
    link

    What I see from that study is pretty in keeping with not only my own experiences, but a lot of other people I know who were sexually active at that age. (Albeit, I don't know a lot of those people now, so I don't know what they would have said about their early sexual experiences later on.)

    As for relationships between teenagers and older people, Judith Levene's book Harmful to Minors cites several studies that find that such relationships are not as inherently harmful as generally assumed, though there's really not a whole lot of study on that question because the whole area is a political minefield.

    And let me say what I'm skeptical of is the kind of "silent majority" arguments I see constantly in arguments about sexuality – the argument that most people are harmed by such and such sexual behavior, and if you're experiences don't conform to that, you're obviously a rare minority who's experiences don't count. Well, I say, let the other side prove it. I have my life experience, they have their experiences and beliefs, and if I'm going to change my mind, I damn well want to see some solid data that says my experiences are wholly atypical.

    ReplyDelete
  34. "Albeit there was a couple subsets where there tended to be negative outcomes 1) girls who were essentially "loved and left", which is in keeping with what you were saying, and 2) kids who were active prior to their general peer group, generally pre-14/15 years old."

    And I knew people in both of these groups who seemed quite distraught about their experiences, including one teen who had serious problems with the shame she felt for being (or at least, thinking she was) the only non-virgin in her peer group.

    I also know people who seemed fine.

    But those are teens who had sex, usually with slightly older teens. I'd need a lot more data to know how things generally work with older adults, though as I've said several times now, I do think it's entirely possible for such experiences and relationships to not be problematic (or at least not be any worse than any other relationship.)

    I haven't read Levene's book, though I've been thinking for a long time that I should.

    I do strongly feel, though, that any relationship where there are clear power dynamics (and I do think age differences of the kind we're discussing create them) should be carefully set up and lived out -- and I am skeptical that, say, fourteen year olds can do that kind of self-protecting, reflective negotiation. Most of the younger of-age kinksters I've met can't.

    ReplyDelete
  35. What this means for age of consent and consent laws, I honestly don't know. I'm not convinced there's any way to get the consent laws right. "18" doesn't strike me as a particularly thought out number, but I personally have no suggestions.

    ReplyDelete
  36. But I guess the thing for me is: I really do not think teens are little adults, and I think that the arguments I usually hear for "ephebophilia is harmless" tends to bank on that supposition.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Also, what the fuck is wrong with being atypical, anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Just to update y'all....

    Vicky has went ahead and posted another entry at her MySpace page where she attaches a photo portraying an participant in the kind of film that she was ranting against.

    link

    While I still do agree with the consensus here that it shouldn't be banned or that such videos are so intimately linked to child abuse...but it is nevertheless more than a bit skeezy and a little bit triggering. Look at your own risk.

    Like she said, it may be legal, and I wouldn't punish either the movie's producers nor its consumers one bit....but that doesn't mean that it isn't more than a little gross.

    Ugh.


    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  39. I don't like the infantilizing shit either, but on the other hand, I don't see how the model in question could be realistically mistaken for actually pre-pubescent, as some of the commentators on Vicky's blog were saying. It looks clearly (to me, anyway) like somebody who's 18-19 or early 20s who's simply dressed quite young. Which, I suppose, is young enough to skeeve people out when they're deliberately dressed to look younger. Dress an older model in the same outfit, and it would be obvious age-play. (Obvious, except perhaps, to the more clueless anti-porn types, who I've seriously seen say stuff to the effect that a woman of any age who shaves her pubic hair looks passably pre-pubescent and is obviously doing it for pedo appeal.)

    On another note, there's been some mention in this thread of Hustler Barely Legal. Which for at least the last decade has been more on the barely barely legal side of things – at this point, they're well with in the pornspeak norm of calling any model who looks under 25 a "teen". Here's a post that Fleshbot did last year with a clip from one of Hustler's Barely Legal videos. Other than the title and some lines about being "18", there's really very little there that separates it from more mainstream non-"barely legal" porn.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Anthony:

    Yeah, that isn't appealing to me at all, and it doesn't strike me as the sort of thing most ageplayers I've met are doing, either.

    I'm still not quite convinced pedophiles would be interested, though, and remain truly unconvinced that such stuff gets otherwise uninterested men gung-ho about sex with prepubescent children.

    As far as the "barely legal" I've heard about, it's stuff like IACB is linking there.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Anthony:

    Yeah, that isn't appealing to me at all, and it doesn't strike me as the sort of thing most ageplayers I've met are doing, either.

    I'm still not quite convinced pedophiles would be interested, though, and remain truly unconvinced that such stuff gets otherwise uninterested men gung-ho about sex with prepubescent children.

    As far as the "barely legal" I've heard about, it's stuff like IACB is linking there.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Okay, much as I'd love to leave this alone, all the faux outrage over it squicks me worse than the picture itself.

    No offense to Vicky, who is a friend and colleague to both Nina and me, but I think her crusade is misguided and enables those who would just as soon put her out of business as they would the creators of the image that has everyone's knickers in such a twist.

    I'm particularly unhappy with the suggestion that those who find such material objectionable should bring pressure to bear on credit card companies and acquiring banks to refuse processing to sites posting said material. That is simply privatizing censorship and she really should know better than to propose these measures without considering the possible blowback to herself and others engaged in completely unrelated production activities.

    Censorship-by-bank has put a number of otherwise completely legally compliant BDSM Web sites out of business over the past half dozen years. Friends of mine who depicted nothing more than consensual kink between responsible adults have been stripped of their ability to earn livings with a single email from a credit card processor. Once one such processor bans a content provider, that provider finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain processing from any other source.

    And because these are private sector transactions that don't involve law enforcement intervention, there is no First Amendment remedy applicable to situations of this type. The bank has a right, just like a diner, to refuse service to anyone other than for discriminatory reasons covered under laws involving public accommodations that would clearly be inapplicable here.

    The price of supporting true freedom of expression is the toleration of expression we find repugnant, whether neo-Nazi propaganda or pseudo-kiddie porn in which no actual minors are depicted. There is no gray area here. It's a hard, bright line that once crossed allows no retreat.

    A lot of Vicky's fans felt a need, it would seem, to go to extravagant lengths to denounce the image she posted and anyone who would find it arousing in a fashion that struck me as, perhaps, protesting just a bit too much. Could it be that some things they like to look at have the same affect on other viewers? My guess: quite likely.

    Would these same individuals care to see the porn industry attempt to self-censor every kind of porn that somebody finds offensive, including everything from kink.com to Max Hardcore? When they rant about boycotts and putting the arm on acquiring banks and heckling the larger players in the industry into taking some kind of collective action against material that is entirely legal just because it bothers some folks somewhere that is exactly the danger they entertain.

    Nope, it's not my kind of thing, but many things out there aren't someone else's kind of thing and that is not and should not be the test of a particular genre of pornography's right to exist, or for those making it to be able to turn a buck from it.

    The law is quite clear, and has been challenged and upheld in numerous court proceedings. Depictions of adults as if they were minors are legal, period. It they're over 18, they've a right to get paid for performing or posing for this kind of material, producers and directors have a right to distribute it and consumers have a right to acquire and possess it.

    I don't think there is any demonstrable social harm that justifies attempts to circumvent that body of law by other means in order to suppress images that a majority of porn consumers feel obligated to express their outrage over. I think the issues involved are their own and not really relevant to the larger question concerning whether or not such material poses a threat to society of such a magnitude as to invalidate legal protections for free speech among consenting adults.

    I do not believe that pictures inspire anti-social behavior, or that those not given to sexually abusing children will be moved to do so by looking at such images. I don't even believe that such images would provoke that behavior in those who get off to fantasies of this type. Nor, for the record, do I think this stuff offers a let-off valve for pedophiles who might become actual predators if denied it. That argument displays the same kind of misunderstanding of sexual predation as the arguments raised against the pictures.

    Pedophile predators have been around since long before pornography became widely available and will be around no matter what is or is not done to limit the availability of ersatz pedo-porn. In fact, such predators tend to thrive in environments where porn is largely unavailable, such as in repressive religious communities, though again, I reject any spurious causality assumed by the association of these coincidental facts. I merely point them out by way of emphasizing how little one thing has to do with the other.

    It still comes down to the same thing as any other kind of lawfully made pornography with me. If you don't like it, don't look. Campaigning against this or that type of porn just provides talking points for those who want to ban all porn. They take a few quotes out of context to say "see, even pornographers, scum though they all are, admit that much of what their industry produces is vile, disgusting, dangerous, evil and should be annihilated along with all who consume it."

    Somebody out there has some theory about why MILF porn is particularly perverse, dangerous and unwholesome. I can think of some labored rationalizations for such a view without even laboring very hard. How happy would Vicky, or Nina or any of us be to see that banner raised high?

    As someone who constantly has to defend BDSM porn against specious accusations of violence and rape enabling, I really have exactly zero use for this kind of "my porn is cool but yours is fucked up" reasoning.

    The law sets a reasonable standard where the age of consent is concerned that applies to the making of porn or to joining the army or to getting married.

    Here's a radical idea. Why don't we just accept the sanity of that standard, feel free to express our opinions of what is done within the confines of that standard, and leave the organized propagandizing and crusading to porn's innumerable deadly enemies, rather than giving them aid and comfort so we can then become their next targets?

    ReplyDelete