Pornography and the marginalization of women

[Sacred Jellybean]

I was bored and re-reading Falcon's post in the Kraken thread, where in he points out that Japan produces a wealth of pornography, and I thought of this topic. I'm posting it here and not in the debate forum because fuck if anyone reads any of the other forums. We could consolidate them into one anyway.

Is there a correlation between production of pornography and how poorly a society treats women? Can pornography exist without abuse of women?

Currently, pornography and sex trafficking work hand-in-hand (much like prostitution). Certainly, in an ideal world, we'd all have the porn we love so much, and the women would be fully consenting and comfortable with it, with no repercussions or judgments from society for her career of choice. The same goes for sex workers. Before that ideal, though, the more important objective is to dismantle these industries to rescue the women for which it isn't consensual.

What are your thoughts?

[A Black Falcon]

Hmm... you ask some good questions, yes. I don't know if it's possible to separate porn from exploitation, really. And on that note, even though Japanese drawn hentai stuff often has horrible themes, at least no real people were involved there, so no real people were hurt... that's a different thing from something real. But when thinking of stuff with real actors, how could you separate exploitation from fully consenting people? Is that even possible? It'd be hard, I'd think.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Could drawings be considered exploitation on some level, even if no women are directly involved? Perhaps the impact they have on Japan's view of women should be considered. Or is that a redefinition of "exploitation"?

[A Black Falcon]

The impact they have on Japan's view of women... yeah, that is a good point isn't it. They're a product of that view on women of course, but I guess that it is true that things that are a product of a culture help to perpetuate it. In the American media we can see that with violence, for example.