Larry Flynt would have you believe sexual violence is a big joke. Kink.com presents it as ripping good fun. Our opponents maintain that porn is mere “entertainment”, “art” and we should lighten up.
Let’s pull back to examine what sexual violence actually means to those who experience it. Linda Mbabazi writes this month from Kigali in “Rwanda: Women, Girls Victims of Conflicts”:
New Times (Kigali)
OPINION
18 June 2007
Linda Mbabazi…Violence against women and girls occurs on a vast scale, and specifically sexually violent acts figure prominently. Accordingly, at least one out of five of the world’s female population has been physically or sexually abused at one time in their lives. Violence is as significant a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of death than traffic accidents and malaria combined…
In pre-Genocide, HIV infection rates in Rwanda were estimated at 25 per cent, and after the conflict, there emerged large numbers of refugees, thus exposing women and girls to further risk, which has led to fatalism among surviving women…
…it is believed that many surviving females were raped. Some survivors grieve that the rapists told them that they had been made to live but only to die of sadness…
Although the exact number of women raped will never be known, testimonies from survivors confirm that rape was extremely widespread and that thousands of women were individually raped, gang-raped, harassed with objects such as sharpened sticks or gun barrels, held in sexual slavery (either collectively or through forced “marriage”) or sexually mutilated.
According to witnesses, many women were killed immediately after being raped, and others left to be die in misery…Consolata 38, also a Genocide survivor and widow says that re-marrying be impossible for as long as she lives. “I was raped several times during the 1994 Genocide and I contracted HIV/Aids…”
Sexual violence, unlike many other types of human rights violations, carries a very high stigma with it… Claire Umutoni, widow, and HIV positive says, “The militia convinced me that they would protect me, but instead continuously raped me.” Adding that, “I pleaded for them to end my life instead of sexually abusing me during the Genocide. They always mocked me that I would face even worse torture that is Aids virus…”
Sexual violence is routinely directed to females during situations of armed conflict…
Louise Armstrong is the author of Kiss Daddy Goodnight, a landmark book on child sexual abuse published in 1978. Leaving aside the issue of exactly how porn factors into abuse, she writes, it is indisputable that porn celebrates an abusive attitude towards women and the young.
Whether or not pornography is causative of real abuse practices, it is fully and profoundly supportive of them… Pornography “de-sensitizes” men to the real and gross violation of a human being involved…
What is key to the issue is that permission, societal permission, is at the core of real paternal child molestation; and at the core of most marital and stranger rape.
Pornography is a blatant and powerful manifestation of that permission…
The
permission to sexually abuse, exploit, and do violence to, women and
children, is a historical one. Pornography, too, was, historically,
available. Now, however, it has greater prevalence and greater power:
it threatens to irradiate the public, and alter even what moral genetic
structure we may have had.What distance is there between the depiction of children “begging” for sex in pornographic display, and Maggie’s father (in Kiss Daddy Goodnight) saying to then-three-year-old Maggie, “Tell me you like it. No, tell me you really like it. No, tell me like you mean it”?…
The
major effort of therapeutic programs for rapists and child molesters is
“sensitization”: the effort to personify, to de-objectify, in these
men’s minds, their victims.
See also:
Nature: Psychological attacks rank high on torture list (explicit language)
The results, published this week in Archives of General Psychiatry [citation],
showed that many forms of psychological abuse ranked as high as
physical torture. Fondling of genitals or witnessing a sham execution,
for example, scored an average 3.7 out of 4, higher than forced
extraction of teeth (3.6) and stretching of the body (3.5), and nearly
as high as the most distressing assault: rape, which was rated at 3.9.
Conservative
commentator Ann Coulter is shown naked and tied to a bed. Above her is
a large donkey labled “DNC”. The caption reads, “ANN COULTER BEING
ANALLY VIOLATED BY THE DEMOCRAT DONKEY”.
The Latest Film to Glorify Larry Flynt (explicit language)
For decades Hustler, Larry Flynt’s hate magazine, has been on sale in
almost every convenience store in the country. During that time, with
each new issue every month he has declared war on women, feminists,
people of color, Jews, the disabled, children, and animal rights
activists, as well as any other group or individual who disagreed with
him [Condoleezza Rice rape fantasy cartoon, other examples].
He also constantly targets animals, women in general and ethnic
minorities who have not even done anything to provoke his rage. A full
generation of males have now been raised on his contempt and he loves
it.
For all this Flynt is being promoted as a free speech hero instead of
someone who profits from selling hate. On April 13, “Larry Flynt: The
Right To Be Left Alone” had its world premiere as the “center frame”
film at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, sponsored by Duke
University, The New York Times and HBO.
Kink.com: Bondage Porn Gone Chillingly, Cheerfully Corporate (explicit language)
Offerings at Kink include:
Wired Pussy
“This site is shocking, literally. Our girls are put to the test when
they are bound, gagged, and shocked over and over. It’s all in good fun
of course!”
Sex and Submission
“Our powerless girls scream as they are tied up and forced to have sex
over and over. Are they screams for help or do they really just want
more?”
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Example Website:
Gag on My Cock
We fuck them in the face ’till they cry!
Can these fuck toys be any dumber?
THEY THINK THE T-SHIRTS ARE A FUCKING JOKE…
STUPID HOES, THE JOKE IS ON THEM!Example Website:
Anal Suffering
“SWEET TEEN ASSES FUCKED N SUFFERING FROM EXCRUCIATING ANAL PAIN!”
Example Website:
John Strong presents
Altered Ass Holes
“WHOOAAH!! that fucking hurts!”
Now on Sale at Amazing.net (explicit language)
Use Em’ Abuse Em’ and Lose Em’ #9
Ride along as we pick up ordinary young women fuck’em senseless and dump’em! It’s all good clean fun!
Capital Video’s Magazine Rack: Bondage, Racism and More
Magazine: World of Black Bondage
Article: ONCE A Slave…
“Because this babe has a submissive personality and a
heart-shaped behind, she makes the perfect slave. Be that as it may,
she got the notion into her pretty head that she wanted to play dom.“Well, her man quickly disabused her of the idea that she could
dominate him. He got rough, took away her leather paddle, threw her
onto the bed and tied her into a series of strict positions.”
Photo Caption: “The look in her eyes tells us that she would like this bondage session to end pretty soon. Forget it, girl!”
Photo Caption: “Her Master has told her, ‘Don’t you dare move.’ She’s finding that immobility is in itself a form of torture.'”
Photo Caption: “Because her body is beginning to ache, she writhes on the carpet. It makes watching her even more arousing.”
Photo Caption: “Tied to the post, Tracy takes a fearful whipping.
Now on sale at Capital Video: Porn of the Dead
“Porn of the Dead is a full hard core adult zombie movie featuring an all death metal soundtrack.” The website Diabolik adds that the movie “Includes songs by Impaled, Deicide, Exmortem, Decapitated, Gorerotted and Blood Red Thrown.”
Testimony in Indianapolis: Porn Wants You to Believe Women Secretly Love Bondage and Torture, that “No” Means “Yes”
Finally, two more magazines. One is entitled “Tied Up”. And there’s a
story in it called “Bound Bitch”, and there’s a lot of reference to
bitches, tarts, whores, women who deserve this sort of treatment.
Another is titled “Black Bondage”. The two stories featured in the
magazines, in this particular issue, were called “Black Bitches: Bound,
Gagged, and Loving It”. And the second was “Roped and Raped”…
Lizzy Borden: We don’t shoot “all the lovey-dovey stuff that there’s not a big market for” (explicit language)
Interviewer: So what is this scene going to have in it that’s controversial?
Borden:
A girl being kidnapped, being forced to have sex against her will,
being degraded. Being called “a cunt, a whore, a slut, a piece of
shit.” Then being butchered at the end, and spit on. She’s being
degraded…
Gail Dines: “Racy Sex, Sexy Racism”
…The
content of Jeremy’s productions makes Imus look positively quaint in
comparison. Jeremy’s film titles include “Black Babes in Heat,” “Black
Cherry Coeds,” “Girls of the Third Reich,” and “Three Men and a
Geisha”. This type of sexism and racism is mainstream throughout the
$57 billion porn industry yet hardly warrants a peep from those groups
who organized against Imus. And these are not just offensive titles,
but allude to powerful images of sexual degradation and racial
humiliation. Jeremy defended pornography as “fun”, just as Imus claimed
that he was trying to make a joke.
Why does pornography get a
free pass? Go to any so called “interracial” pornography web site, and
you are assaulted by images and words that suggest that African
American women are sexually debased and deserving of abuse. Images of
Asian women generally portray sexual submission. These movies are
marketed as racy sex, when what they really do is sexualize racism.
Robert
Jensen: When Examining Complex Social Phenomena, Scientific Method Has
Limits; Listen to the Stories of the Victims (explicit language)
Ms. X, a Native American woman, described how she was raped by two
white men who made reference to a pornographic video game called
“Custer’s Revenge” in which a white Army officer scores points by
raping Indian women:
They held me down and as one was running the tip of his knife across my
face and throat he said, “Do you want to play Custer’s Last Stand? It’s
great. You lose but you don’t care, do you? You like a little pain,
don’t you, squaw?… The only good Indian is a dead Indian… A squaw
out alone deserves to be raped.”
The Psychology of Porn for Men
Bill Margold, one of the industry’s longest-serving film performers,
was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century.
Margold made no attempt to gloss over the realities. “My whole reason
for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the
world who basically don’t care much for women and want to see the men
in my industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they
were growing up. So we come on a woman’s face or brutalise her
sexually: we’re getting even for lost dreams…”
What Porn Is: Selections from Mainstream Porn (explicit language)
“Two
in the Seat #3” is a 2003 release from Red Light District… The two
men who…enter the scene begin a steady stream of insults, calling her
“a dirty, nasty girl,” “a little fucking cunt,” “a little slut.” After
the standard progression of oral and vaginal sex, she asks one to
“Please put your cock in my ass.” During the double-penetration on the
floor, her vocalizations sound pained. She’s braced against the couch,
moving very little. The men spank her, and her buttock is visibly red.
One man asks, “Are you crying?” which leads to this exchange:
Claire: “No, I’m enjoying it.”
Man: “Damn, I thought you were crying. It was turning me on when I thought you were crying.”
Claire: “Would you like me to?”
Man: “Yea, give me a fucking tear. Oh, there’s a fucking tear…”
“Gag Factor #10” is a 2002 release from J.M. Productions. The company’s
web site notes the Gag Factor tapes’ awards as “best oral series” and
answers the question, “What makes Gag Factor different than all other
blowjob tapes out there?”…
…Every girl gets throatfucked until she gags and almost pukes!…
One of the 10 scenes in the film begins with a woman and man having a
picnic in a park. He jokes about wanting to use the romantic moment to
make love to her mouth, and then stands and thrusts into her mouth
while she sits on the blanket. Two other men who walk by join in.
Saying things such as “Pump that face, pump that fucking face,” “All
the way down, choke, choke,” and “That’s real face fucking,” they hold
her head and push harder. One man grabs her hair and pulls her head
into his penis in what his friend calls “the jackhammer.” At this point
she is grimacing and seems in pain. She then lies on the ground, and
the men approach her from behind. “Eat that whole fucking dick. … You
little whore, you like getting hurt,” one says, as her face is covered
with saliva. “Do you like getting your face fucked?” one asks. She
can’t answer. “Open your mouth if you like it,” he says, and she opens
her mouth. After they all ejaculate into her mouth, the semen flows out
onto her body. After the final ejaculation, she reaches quickly for the
wine glass, takes a large drink, and looks up at her boyfriend, and
says, “God, I love you baby.” Her smile fades to a pained look of shame
and despair…
…Given
the ease with which video can be edited, why did the producers not edit
out those expressions? There are two possible answers. One, they may
view these kinds of expressions of pain by the women as of no
consequence to the viewers’ interest, and hence of no consequence to
the goal of maximizing sales; women’s pain is neutral. The second
possibility is that the producers have reason to believe that viewers
like the expressions of pain; women’s pain helps sales…
Behind the Scenes of Deep Throat with Linda Lovelace
[Explicit language:] “Marchiano traveled to campuses to speak out about
her two and a half year imprisonment by her husband/manager Chuck
Traynor. Linda’s speech encouraged women on the campus to protest
outside the fraternity-sponsored showing of Deep Throat. She said that
in this movie there are visible bruises all over her body that attest
to part of her torture. The fraternity brothers’ response, was to shout
out during Deep Throat: ‘Fuck her, hurt her, rip her.’ Toward the other
females on the screen they screamed comments such as ‘Ugly bitch and
whore.’ They chanted, ‘Bruises, Bruises, Bruises!’ continually during
the film.”
The Science Behind Pornography Addiction
Permission-Giving Beliefs are a set of beliefs that imply that my
behavior is normal, acceptable, common and/or doesn’t hurt anyone so I
have permission to continue to behave in the way that I am. In all
types of violence and addiction, Permission-Giving Beliefs are
involved. Examples would include “All men go to prostitutes”, “Women
like sex mixed with violence” and “Children enjoy sex with adults”.
These particular Permission-Giving Beliefs are also common in
pornography.
Testimony in Minneapolis: Researcher sets out to prove angry fantasies are cathartic, finds the opposite
Nancy Steele’s study of convicted violent offenders found that fantasy
did not reduce anger or the expression of aggression, contrary to the
predictions of the psychoanalytic literature.
Free Book Download: Diana Russell’s Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm (explicit)
As the myth that women enjoy rape is widely held, the argument that
consumers of pornography realize that such portrayals are false, is
totally unconvincing (Brownmiller, 1975; Burt, 1980; Russell, 1975).
Indeed, several studies have shown that portrayals of women enjoying
rape and other kinds of sexual violence can lead to increased
acceptance of rape myths in both males and females. In an experiment
conducted by Neil Malamuth and James Check, for example, one group of
college students saw a pornographic depiction in which a woman was
portrayed as sexually aroused by sexual violence, and a second group
was exposed to control materials. Subsequently, all subjects were shown
a second rape portrayal. The students who had been exposed to the
pornographic depiction of rape were significantly more likely than the
students in the control group (1) to perceive the second rape victim as
suffering less trauma; (2) to believe that she actually enjoyed it; and
(3) to believe that women in general enjoy rape and forced sexual acts
(Check and Malamuth, 1985, p.419).
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
In 1995, the Journal of Communication reported on a meta-analysis of 24
different studies. Researchers found that “A relationship between
pornography consumption and believing rape myths exists.
Rape myths pertain to erroneous and potentially harmful ideas regarding
rape, for example, that victims of rape are partially to blame for the
crime, rapists should not get tough sentences, or rape is not a serious
crime. This study found that violent pornography increased the
acceptance of rape myths, and nonviolent pornography increased the
acceptance of rape myths when compared to a control group.”
Testimony in Minneapolis: With Growth of Porn, Rapists Show Less Remorse
[L]iterally hundreds of women have mentioned to me the anger and
despair they feel when their husbands, lovers, or other male partners
press upon them specific sexual acts which these men learned from
pornographic materials–acts of bestiality, sodomy, “swinging”, forced
group sex, etc. The men feel such pressure on women is acceptable
because porn is acceptable, and pornography was the so-called
“educational” source…
[T]he work of Dr. Natalie Shainess (psychiatrist of New York) and Dr.
Frank Osanka [sic] (psychologist and child-abuse specialist, Chicago)
show that convicted rapists who, even five to seven years ago,
expressed remorse about their acts of violence, recently show no such
remorse and often cite as a reason for their guiltlessness that
“everyone knows women want to be raped; all the porn stuff proves that.”
Testimony
in Minneapolis: “Pornography is probably the most extreme example of
anti-women socialization that men receive in this society”
If you look at a lot of pornography, it shows women being beaten,
humiliated, tied up. It shows women tied and stabbed, poked, prodded
and abused by devices, assaulted by several men or animals, and many
ugly and degrading things. When you see a woman being battered, you see
a lot of the same ugliness and violence at the same time. Not only do
they portray women as liking and deserving this sexual abuse, it shows
them as enjoying it, deserving it. And that is what one of the great
myths of battery is, is that women deserve to be battered and that they
enjoy it. If they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t stay…
Exposure to Pornography as a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization
The incest started at the age of eight. I did not understand any of it
and did not feel that it was right. My dad would try to convince me
that it was ok. He would find magazines, articles or pictures that
would show fathers and daughters or mothers, brothers and sisters
having sexual intercourse. (Mostly fathers and daughters.) He would say
that if it was published in magazines that it had to be all right
because magazines could not publish lies… He would say, “See it’s
okay to do because it’s published in magazines…”