I never understood the hard-core porn industry products. The people look fake and plastic and absolutely ridiculous. The plastic surgery industry was fueled by the porn industry once upon a time back in the 1980s at least – with more and more ridiculous abuses of the human body.
Even as a boy when I was “supposed” to enjoy those product, I just laughed. I remember thinking “WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?” it was like something out of bad low budget science fiction but worse.
The pin-up centerfold industry attempted to have some sense of class, ranging from “eww what even IS that?” to images that could be painted on the front of a romance novel (soft-core, or so called “ladies porn”)
My awareness of the abuses of the porn industry was when I went to a special talk on “women in media” and I learned about the rape culture in media. This was back in 1990, so the 1980s music videos were still current and there was a LOT of material to work with from there. 3/4 of the way through they worked their way into a scene from Roadhouse movie which caused a number of people to vomit and leave the talk; it made its point. It was a surreal experience.
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It’s a way to make money. The need to make money is a big part of the issue; in a protected situation, it can be a relatively safe way for some women to make a lot of money in a few short years time; many women have done pole dancing during their peak athletic years to pay for graduate school for example.
The grave abuses are visible: women trapped in the worst kinds of hard core pornography – and the modern mythology that justifies it falls flat.
But as you get closer to survival needs in a society that would be just as happy to see ones face in floating in the river as it would to see one succeed (that is, it does not care), which areas are empowering and which areas are abusive? How well do these narrative hold up in these situations?
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