Apples and... Round Red Fruits That Grow On Trees?

[botias]

Remember I was talking about how Joss Whedon is no stranger to eroticizing torture, for all that he gets his panties in a bunch if the torturee is a woman. Because he's a feminist and thinks women should be equal to men in all things. :|

Here's someone who looked at Whedon's record more closely: Torture in the 'Verse (from the su_herald)

And the FLDS thing got me thinking too. Within the last couple of years I've read at least two National Geographic Articles describing the marriage practices of African tribespeople that pretty much are equivalent to the practices of the FLDS. Pre-pubescent girls are available sexually to the young warriors-in-training until the girls start to menstruate. Then they are married off by their fathers to older men they don't know. The articles were presented without condemnation of any kind. It's just a different culture, right? Imagine the outcry if they had done an article on a FLDS "tribe". So, why the difference in perception? Is it a race thang?

Comments

[botias.livejournal.com]

But pornographic violence is treated differently and has different results for men and women. I don't think, though if you disagree I have no stats to prove it, that *sexualised* male violence begets sexualised male violence or a shift in attitude towards men in general.

The thing is, I'm not sure we have stats on any of this stuff. Are men more likely to act on violent fantasies than women? Nobody really knows. I suspect yes, but then I think men are more likely to be violent than women because their biology is more likely to incline them that way. Even if they are more likely to be violent, are men more susceptible to suggestion? Does the prevalence of eroticised violence against women in media mean wide-spread misgyny, or does it just mean that there are mostly heterosexual men making the entertainment choices and men find sexualized violence just as exciting as women do?

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Well in the first place as a pro-porn person I really couldn't argue that.

And basically what I'm saying is, there is an inequality in the *direction* of this sexualised violence.

Which *happens* to match an illogical imbalance in real life.

The question is, what to do about that. To me it is unreasonable to ban pornographic violence. Because as with porn itself, there's no provable correlation.

It is also unreasonable to increase male erotic violence to give us an equal playing field.

BUT. It is also unreasonable to sit back, relax and say 'well men rule the tv world so obviously that's just the way it is and so what'

So for me, the answer is to not support tv shows/media/fiction that reinforce all this.

Just like I don't watch racist tv shows. Racists own the media so we get racist stuff. It's logical, but it ain't *right*

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Mapping art onto real life is okay. Art reflecting real life and real sexual kinks is okay.

When all you get is the same old crap reinforcing the same old social structure (which is negative) it's not a good thing.

[botias.livejournal.com]

But what if real life, real human nature is not a pretty thing? Is art reflecting real life and real sexual kinks still OK then? Women may have to give up their torture porn if they would have men do the same. It might not be enough to say: Well, when you men behave better you can be trusted with this sort of thing. Or to say to men, your sexual kinks disturb me because I've been a victim of RL violence and this reminds me of it.

Further, it's possible that the uproar of women over men's taste in media may have less scientific basis than the uproar non-smokers make in this country about being forced to endure the habits of smokers.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

But what if real life, real human nature is not a pretty thing?

It is not a pretty thing, and that's cool.

But society is not nature, it is a forced and very false structure that we can (and often do) change.

Our society and economy is a construct. So is our media, which supports that construct.

It sounds to me like Clinton's (Bill, not Hills) giving over political power to the ecomomy. It *sounds* like natural justice but it *results* in a poorer nation with greater stratification overall.