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November 01, 2003
Porn, Feminism and Tech
Earlier this week, the Guardian Weblog reported a leaked memo about Fleshbot and asked what the women at misbehaving thought. This struck me as rather odd, but i decided to take up the challenge.
First, i have yet to find a group of women fighting for gender equality who have the same opinion on porn. The group at misbehaving is no different. We don't purport to represent any one view, or even the breadth of diverse views on this topic. Porn is a long-standing feminist debate, full of nuanced discussions about consumption and production, objectification of women, power/empowerment and control, consent, violence, economics, and desire, etc. There are academic volumes on the topic and it's a highly contested and heated debate. Thus, i can't imagine any of us agreeing on the topic, let alone thinking that we can represent anyone else!
That said, we are quite curious to know how porn is affecting women in tech. With a hefty percentage of the web economy depending on porn, how does this affect women's participation in the tech industry? Does the exorbitant presence of porn discourage women from entering tech? What have you heard?
Also, are there any women out there who work in the tech end of digital porn who would be willing to talk with us? I'd love to interview women in the industry about their experiences (anonymously or publicly, for misbehaving).
Posted by zephoria at 07:56 PM in General | Permalink
Comments
I dunno, the existence of Playboy didn't stop me from writing stories for magazines.
The fact that their are porn sites on the Internet has little or no impact on my
decision to blog -- although for some reason Daypop has me listed as the top site
for "Serena Williams Nude" as I must have mentioned those three words, presumably
in separate posts, on a version of my front page at some time in history. Looking
at my referrer logs I actually benefit from people seeking porn, if traffic is to be
considered a Good Thing. :)
Posted by: Lisa Williams at Nov 2, 2003 4:08:12 PM
This is slightly off-topic. Having an image on my site called tit.jpg has sent more traffic to it then all my letters to the editors combined. My issue with porn and tech comes in one of the porn vs. tech frontiers, the public library. Me, I don't mind most porn. Our library doesn't take money from the feds, so the library is safe for porn. This is not, however, the opinion of some [not all] of my coworkers who take it a bit personally when they see underage kids looking at stuff online that is not age-appropriate. And, since we are stuck at the refdesk, there is the question -- which can sometimes make it to lawsuit stage like in Minneapolis -- of it being a hostile work environment.
I like my porn in privacy generally, but our patrons who probably have no other access to the Internet [the only other place to get access is the laundromat in town] don't mind us watching, or perhaps they like it. It's weird, to be certain since I often wonder if being seen surfing for porn is part of the tittilation effect, and it's sort of just barely outside of my job description to say "hey kid, that site is wack, check out these naked hotties if you want some real smut!" We have an Internet Use policy that allows people to do whatever they want online within legal parameters. And yet, I sort of feel that a sex-positive atmosphere -- as many of my colleagues strive to be gay-friendly or just smile once in a while -- might do wonders to remove the weird fuzzy-cable-tv image of porn, and nudity, and sex, and make it just another thing to learn about [or get off to, maybe somewhere else], another type of information we provide. Instead, there's a small whiff of disapproval, no matter what our policies say and in some ways that's a damned shame.
Posted by: jessamyn at Nov 2, 2003 9:50:44 PM
Jessamyn, great comments. Very interesting. I believe that all of the libraries that I frequent use filtering software. As a parent, I'm not sure how I would handle it if my 14 year old daughter was researching her science project at one machine and a person older than 18 was researching Pamela Anderson's body at the machine next to her. When does their freedom to view such material infringe upon my daughter's freedom to not want to. Like you, I'm not offended by (most) porn either, and certainly wouldn't presume to tell someone that they shouldn't be viewing something in particular. But personally, I would be as discreet as I could be if my inclination was to view porn at my public library and (perhaps mistakenly) would hope, if not expect, other people to act with the same discretion.
Does your library have individual kiosks for it's internet machines, so that one person can't see what their neighbors are surfing? Or any plans to? Or any specific plans *not* to (it was brought up as an option but declined for whatever reasons)? What about a separate room for a "porn-free zone"? Like smoking versus non-smoking sections. What seems to be the feeling of the library patrons? Are they mostly okay with the environment? Or are there many who would like to see the library policies changed?
(As an aside, think of the extra traffic you could get at the library, and maybe reduce the amount of viewing during regular hours (if that is much at all), if you had an "adult night" once a month or so - after normal hours, over-21 only.)
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Posted by: hardcore sex at Nov 8, 2004 10:21:10 AM
Out of the feminist anti-porn/pro-sex debates emerged the call for a new erotic aesthetic: woman authored, woman-centered, non-objectifying. But what would such “pornography” look like? Who would create it? Would we know it when we saw it?
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