Stop Porn Culture!

Pornography is one topic that I feel very strongly about, but because culture and media has made it be more normal it is hard to be the one on the other side and disagree with it.  Pornography is very degrading to everyone, especially the women who are putting themselves in this position.  From the video that we watched "The Price of Pleasure" I have learned so many different aspects which has made me feel even more strong about my opinion.  Porn is one of the largest adult entertainment business and large corporations such as Time warner, CBS, and Newscorp are all connected with the porn industry.  One of the things that really shocked me from this  was the amount of money that these women were getting paid to be in these porn movies.  The more exotic and dirty the act was, the more money the woman was going to get paid.  According to Chyng Sun, in the video it was stated that for a blow job they will get paid $300, girl on girl activity would be $600, anal would be $900 and so forth.  This tells you a lot about the activities that are taking place because if they are getting paid so much money for this, in my eyes it is a way to bribe and make them want to do it.  If they were getting paid a regular salary for all of the things they have to do, i am pretty sure they would not be apart of it.

Many feel that porn is a way for sexual arousal, and stimulation, but in porn the woman is the one who is always being degraded and not the man.  "Pornographic work tells us nothing about how pornography genrally influences male sexual behavior" (Dines & Humez, 420).

I did my paper on the website Stop Porn Culture, (http://stoppornculture.org/).  This website is one that is anti porn and it is a group of feminist who are challenging the porn culture, especially media.  What I found in this site is that it isn't a group who has formed a website but one who actually goes out to make themselves known and are fighting for this cause.  They have done marches, strikes, and annual conferences as well.  There was one section in this website that I touched on in my paper and that was the Q&A section.  What I like about this part of the website is that it was open to anyone to ask questions, and there are some questions that I feel like were challenging the point of this organization, but Dines did a great job with explaining the importance of this movement and how porn is very degrading and should not be taking place.

 Dines, G., & Humez, J.(2003) Gender, Race, and Class In Media. Sage Publications

Sun, C., & Picker, M., The Price of Pleasure ( Pornography, sexuality, & relationships). 2008

Breaking Masculinity Traditions

Terry Crews, an actor is one who I feel disrupts the traditional stereotypes of what a "man" is. He has the physical appearance but when it comes to the personality it is something totally different.  Men are stereotyped as hard, strong, unemotional, and aggressive just to name a few.  Terry crews has the physical appearance of what a "man" is suppose to look like, especially for a black man but he is really a charming and loving father.
In majority of movies that he plays in, he plays the soft goofy role.  I know that it just making fun of the role from the movies but this is really how he is.  In his reality show with his family, he was the same way as the characters in the movies just not taken to the extreme.
I think that he is one man that truly breaks the typical stereotypes of a man with his character and real life, and it's not in a way that is homosexual but he is just soft and mello and does somethings that women usually do.
In the video "Tough Guise" that we viewed Jackson Katz stated that there is a front that men put up to hold their masculinity , and that they have to gain respect so they look tough and when I think of Terry Cruise, He has that image most men want, but he doesn't have to put up a forefront but also does not have a "hard" personality.

Porn in Mainstream

This music video is one that I feel really shows how porn is shown in mainstream.  This video was shown on BET a few years ago on the show "BET uncut."  In this video there are women who are practically naked and dancing very provocative.  I find this video to work well with the theme this week of porn because this is porn that is shown on television.  Not only is the video shocking to watch, what they are saying in the video is just as bad.  The song is called "Tip Drill," and that is what they are calling the women in the video.  "It must be ya ass cause it ain't yo face, I need a tip drill."-Nelly.  Those are the main lyrics to the song and this is what the ladies are dancing and shaking their butts to.  A tip drill is basically a ugly girl with a nice booty.  This is one of the most degrading songs, and for these women to dance to it says a lot about who they are and their integrity.  In the movie we watched, The Price of Pleasure, I like how one of the guys stated that they women don;t care enough to not do it.  I agree with him because no one is making these women put themselves out here, it is a choice.  So, the choice that women choose to make as in being in these videos or porn movies, is the way that they will be treated.

What I don't like about this type of videos going mainstream is that there are all kinds of young children who are watching these videos, and because of this,  alot of young girls wont think it is too bad and this is what they will think women should be like.  I can remember when I was in middle school and I fist seen this video, I was disgusted but a lot of the boys thought is was a great video, and because of this girls my age mocked this video to get guys attention.  So this shows me that what is being thrown at us in media, reflects us in some way, especially when it is negative.

Sexualization, Women, & Ads

Last week we discussed how women are being portrayed as sex objects in advertising.  From what I have been exposed to it very degrading to how women are being used as objects to advertise a product.  Through a lot of the images I have seen one of the patterns that I notices was that they rarely ever use a woman's entire body.  As you see in the image above, they are advertising a ring but they are using this woman's leg to draw attention.  The other ad is one for Marc Jacobs where they take this woman's leg and have them hanging out of the bag.  In a lot of other ads that I have viewed they are either showings legs, boobs, or lips.  This to me shows that women are not even worthy enough where their whole body can be used.

Media has gotten their point across to everyone and that is why a lot of younger girls are confused.  Because of these ads, young girls are becoming more confused about their identity because of what is portrayed as sexy or beautiful.  In the video "Killing us Softly" by Jean Kilbourn, I like when it showed and explained how alot of women want this so called "perfect" body, but there is really no such thing.  The advertisers are using 4-5 different women by taking pieces of their body that they think is sexy and putting it together to make one "sexy" lady.  Or they will crop some of the models body to make it the way they want it to be.  So women are trying to get themselves to a place that is not real.
Me being a woman is bothered by this because it is very degrading to us women and we accept it into this society and don't try to make a difference.

"If we looked at only advertising images, this would be a bleak world for females" (Dines & Humez, (259).  I think this is very true for both males and females.  Females wont have the exposure to be who they really are, and males won't know what real women are really consisted of.  The images that they show in advertisements are not even the woman who we see it is to be.  So if we (the women) were only advertisements we arent who we are as a person and this world would be lost and confused.

 Dines, G., & Humez, J.(2003) Gender, Race, and Class In Media. Sage Publications