Page 52 - Payout Magazine Online Volume 8.0

away in high-risk venture investing, while at the have their heads and faces off-screen, fairly
same time introducing laws that will legislate objectifying them as much as if not more than
against sex education, masturbating, engaging women.
in legal business practices and surreptitiously
sneaking in laws against women’s freedom However any depiction in any kind of art has
to make decisions about their own bodies, a tendency to reduce, simplify and objectify its
autonomy and how to earn a living. THAT party. subjects, male or female, to a certain extent.
Next.
Public health crisis? Pregnancy, abortion and
In any case “objectification” is not a
STD’s are not in any way prompted, fueled or
criminological or scientific test for passing laws
sustained by porn. In fact, quite the opposite.
in a liberal, democratic and secular society.
Harm children? Attempts to scientifically
But consider what Trump’s Republicans
establish a form of harm as well as a causative
have found acceptable in the depiction and
link between this theoretical harm and
objectification of women: Miss Universe (or
adult entertainment have failed miserably.
America or World or whichever and any of
Repeatedly. (Do we really have to insert the
these evaluating judgement events), in which
usual disclaimer about exposing kids to porn
the current President of the United States has
here? Come on...)
had a stake for years and against which no
conservative, or even religious, member of the
The same can be said about “scientific” claims
party or constituent base raised any objections,
on the social level. Porn does not encourage
moral or legal, at any level.
divorce or discourage males from marrying (as
is claimed).
(And let’s not even get anywhere near those
“child beauty pageants”, whatever the proper
Does porn encourage violence against
term for them is...)
women? According to the mounting bodies
of evidence, the opposite is scientifically
Of course, Miss America and other such GOP-
establishable. Rape, assault and other forms
approved pageantry hold women to standards
of crime-on-women actually goes down when
of “perfection”, aesthetics of beauty, and what
easy access to porn goes up.
may seem “wholesomeness” that are at once
highly unrealistic and potentially very harmful
Feminists once claimed porn encourages
to women.
violence against women as well; however
women, being intelligent, have since dropped
Think anorexia. Think bulimia.
that tack given that it’s effectively not true.
Beer and Sunday afternoon football seem to Witness how Donald Trump went after Alicia
have a more causative relationship to those sad
Machado, a former Miss Universe, during his
statistics.
campaign for the Presidency. His comments
were typical of the kind older-generation men
Also, feminists have said porn “objectifies”
would make of women who do not live up to the
women, and Republicans have on occasion
weight and all-American standards (Machado
tried, quite unconvincingly, to articulate that
is a Latina) of the GOP and other conservative
school of thought, but they seem to have
lawmakers, and their constituents, in those
trouble with the syllables.
states which not only endorse anti-porn laws
but also consume the most porn as well as
However, the same could be said of classical
spend the most time watching videos on
art (witness the Aphrodite of Milos, that nude
average.
sculpture of an armless woman, no doubt an
acrotomophile favorite, or The Birth of Venus/ After much public response to how
on the Half-Shell, or another artisitic favorite inappropriate Trump’s comments were
in sculpture, painting and various depictions, concerning Machado, there was, unsurprisingly,
of the Rape of, or Abduction of, The Sabine not a peep from fellow Republicans.
Women). Also, women are most often seen
on screen in porn, and men are more likely to Even though Trump’s words were spoken

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