In BDSM porn there is no personal relationship between the performers and the viewer. The viewer experiences pleasure but does not provide it. This is the essence of misogyny, and the central criticism that can be levelled at porn of all kinds. There is a fundamental inequality between the participants, the viewer is deriving pleasure from the performers without giving them any pleasure in return. It is the conditioning of the viewer to an acceptance of this inequality that is the harmful aspect of porn, the expectation that someone will give pleasure without receiving it.

So take careful note that the criticism of BDSM porn does not imply the criticism of BDSM play itself.

I think you’re totally wrong about Kink.com when you say that “they absolutely do not promote hatred of women”. Why are the viewers turned on by the suffering of women? I’m sure there are all sorts of positive emotions (trust, intimacy, etc) asociated with the BDSM portrayed on the site, but all those emotions can be a part of sex that does not involve pain. If the viewers are watching the porn because they want to see people experiencing these emotions, why are they only interested in watching painful sex?

- James L

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — An Arizona man who received a 200-year prison
sentence for possessing 20 pornographic images of children failed Monday to
persuade the Supreme Court to consider whether the sentence was
unconstitutionally excessive.

Arizona law imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for “sexual
exploitation of a minor,” and it requires that sentences for multiple
convictions be served consecutively.

The sentence that the man, Morton R. Berger, received was consequently
longer than the sentence any other state would have imposed for a similar
offense, a justice of the Arizona Supreme Court wrote in an opinion last
year dissenting from that court’s decision upholding the 200-year sentence.

A majority of the Arizona Supreme Court declined to examine the aggregate
sentence as a whole, instead focusing on the sentence of 10 years for
possessing a single pornographic image, which it found was not excessive or
disproportionate. It was this aspect of the analysis that Mr. Berger, a
57-year-old former high school teacher, challenged in his appeal to the
United States Supreme Court.

“If this court reviews Berger’s entire punishment instead of examining the
sentence for a single count,” the brief said, “it would find Berger’s
punishment cruel, unusual and unconstitutional.”

His appeal said that in most states, sentences for similar crimes would run
concurrently, and an offender would serve no more than five years, with the
additional possibility of probation or early release. Both are barred under
Arizona law. Had the offense been prosecuted under federal law, Mr.
Berger’s brief said, the federal guidelines would have provided a five-year
sentence.

The case, Berger v. Arizona, No. 06-349, has drawn considerable attention
in criminal law circles as providing a possible occasion for the justices
to take a fresh look at a subject they have treated only sparingly. While
fully engaged in reconsidering the respective roles of judges and juries in
criminal sentencing, the court has been extremely reluctant to strike down
particular sentences as excessive.

Douglas A. Berman, a professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State
University and an authority on sentencing, also noted the difference in the
court’s treatment of punitive damages and criminal sentencing.

In an interview on Monday, recalling that the court last week vacated an
award of punitive damages against Philip Morris, Professor Berman said,
“For a host of good reasons, the justices think they have a role in
regulating extreme corporate punishment, but I fear the court doesn’t
embrace a role in regulating extreme individual punishment.” Professor
Berman has been writing about the Berger case for months on his blog,
Sentencing Law and Policy.

Arizona vigorously opposed Supreme Court review of the sentence, telling
the justices that it had been properly based on “overwhelming evidence” of
Mr. Berger’s “large-scale, deliberate and long-term acquisition of child
pornography.”

The state’s brief said that after Mr. Berger turned down a plea bargain,
the prosecutor whittled the case to 20 counts out of fear of “deluging the
jury” with highly graphic and disturbing images. The police had found the
images in Mr. Berger’s possession after learning that his credit card
number had been used to buy contraband images from a child pornography Web
site based in Dallas.

(clip)

STAN: I wonder when it will be legal to prosecute for “sexual exploitation of an adult.”

Are the creators of fashion ads like this one so clever/inegnious/avant-garde? or are they just promoting the same essentially rightwing agenda of domination and control via cruelty?

every now and then even Libruls will admit that the fetishisation and commodification (which they tellingly call “sexualisation,” as though women and girls had no sexuality except inasmuch as they are objectified and reified for the male gaze) of women and girls in the m3dia has negative social effects.

Have they buried Anna Nicole Smith yet?
Excerpt from http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/opinion/22herbert.html

Are you kidding? Ms. Smith may be dead and rapidly decomposing, but there’s too much fun still to be reaped from her story to let it die just yet. This is world-class entertainment: Larry King, “Today,” CNN, The New York Times.

Even the judge in the televised hearing over what to do with Ms. Smith’s remains is milking his 15 minutes, like Judge Ito of O. J. Simpson fame. In a burst of wisdom from the bench, the judge, Larry Seidlin, said, “Like a Muhammad Ali fight, sometimes you have to wait the whole 10 rounds.”

When we were kids we were taught not to laugh at people who were obviously mentally or emotionally disturbed. With Ms. Smith, who was deeply and unmistakably disturbed, we put her on television and laughed and laughed. Would she say something stupid, or spill out of her dress, or pass out in public from booze or drugs? How hysterically funny!

Then her son died. Then she died, leaving an orphaned infant daughter. Instead of turning away chastened, shamed, we homed in like happy vultures. Whatever entertainment value Ms. Smith had when she was alive increased exponentially when she was kind enough to die for us. Now she’s on the tube around the clock.

…..
Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were on the cover of Newsweek last week with the headline “The Girls Gone Wild Effect.” When you turned to the story, there was a full-page picture of the former best friends, with a glassy-eyed Britney looking for all the world like a younger version of Anna Nicole Smith.

Another supermodel, can’t think of her name right now, she’s Black, just did gain about 30 or 40 pounds and then got into arguments with people who talked about her.

Eight Women Who Look Better…

which just goes to show, I suppose, that the objectifying male gaze can be just as rapaciously reifying as capitalism. anything is grist for its mill.

tell ya what, when Britney gains 50 pounds — or lets her hair turn naturally gray — then I will believe she is rebelling against the culture. anything else is just niche marketing and fashion statement.

Britney Spears was/is on her way to being the 21st Century American , Blonde Bombshell, one wit da “Looks”. And she’s specifically seems to be messing up her looks ! Could she be conscious of some the issues so frequentiy discussed here ? Conscious or not, her current trend of activities are a phenomenon , a factoid pertinent to a discussion of of sexualized images, and their impact on the person imaged and the masses who view the image.

What are all those young girls who are Britney fans thinking ? Some are probably getting a message that Spears is rebelling against abuse of her sexual image.