Mixture of sex and violence separates porn from erotica
I too read Colleen Carroll Campbell’s column on pornography. It surprised me because it was her only column I agreed with. I was surprised to disagree with Christian Saller, a good friend of mine.
I am the old school feminist Colleen was talking about in her column. Let me help Christian, we have a definition of pornography. We don’t confuse it with erotica. Pornography is the mixture of sex and violence. Film a rape and you have pornography. Whip, slap, beat and sexually abuse someone, film it or photograph it and you have pornography.
It’s the mixture of sex and violence that dehumanizes people and creates long term harm in our community. It creates an environment that causes people to disconnect intimacy from sex. Sex can be used as a type of drug for people who don’t understand its purpose in human relations. Victims of sexual abuse suffer from a lack of trust and the inability to be intimate with loved ones. Healthy sexual behavior is the expression of trust and intimate love. Pornography destroys humanity at our core: our most loving gift, intimate love.
Pamela Ross
St. Louis
If I get this right then most of what we see on television and the movies is porn and my stash of dirty movies erotica. Glad that is cleared up.
PS, now I can’t get the Roxy Music song “Love is the Drug” out of my head.
Soo…from what you’re saying…if there is a movie that shows “everything” but isn’t violent in nature, then it is erotica. Many of my…um….err….friends (yeah, that’s the ticket)….have DVDs, from what they tell me, of Jenna Jameson and other well known adult stars….as long as the scened isn’t violent, then it is erotica, is that your point?
Or are you saying, any sex act on a woman is violent….even if she is a willing and fulfilled participant. If that’s the case then I’ll have to….tell my friends….that they don’t own porn, the own erotica, which is what “they” always thought playboy was. See playboy doesn’t show any “actions”, just nudes, so that’s why that’ erotica.
All my friends that own porn…err, I mean erotica…will be happy to know the distinction.
Porn….I mean Erotica….or Adult Movies is a multi billion dollar industry. That means there must be at least 15 or 20 guys who buy it….or maybe its more.
Why is only depicting sex acts with violence “destroy our humanity”? Why you don’t apply it to all violence in the movies?
Oh I know why: because in non-porn films, the vast majority of violence is depicted by men against men.
Somehow, given the opportunity to read Ms. Campbell’s stance on matters of sexuality, the very fact of erotic impulse is something to be controlled, regulated—in a word, repressed.
Of course, it is the tendency towards repression that so often results in the unhealthy—and sometimes violent—expression of sexuality.
I’m right with you German
To quote the bard; “I know it when I see it.”
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Al Gore for inventing the internet so that I may occasionally peruse sites containing erotica.
Ok, Ok. It’s more often than occasionally. And it probably is porn.
Hmmm. Well I read it twice and can only say………….
Oh the humanity!
???
Al never said he invented the internet….Jimmy Carter never used the word “malaise.” You right wing neocon revisionist Brown Shirt weblog echochammbering yobbo yappers need to stop drinking Karl Rove’s Kool Aid!