Sub eye view

on re-blogging porn

unbrokencircle:

everythingrealneon:

rgr-pop:

ineffableshe:

i find it really upsetting on many levels w hen internet feminists get so burned out calling each other out on western issues (the usage of words such as “crazy,” demisexuals appropriating queerness) that they completely laugh off legit critiques about the of spread of (uncredited) fetish porn images on social networking sites such as tumblr.

you know how people are always getting up in arms about artwork / manifestos etc. being posted without credit? well, here’s the thing: when you post these porn images without credit you are often directly exploiting the bodies of the workers. it’s usually not like they are being paid every time you “like” their image! but then again, you usually never have a way to know on the internet who is doing that work & how consensual it really is. having worked a bit with support services for survivors of sex trafficking, i am always skeptical of pornography that cannot be traced to either a company that is known for treating their workers decently or to a consenting actor. to clarify, if & when “sex positive” porn stars post or make their own images / videos or work for companies that are reputable or are otherwise okay with you re-blogging their stuff, go ahead and post it. but from here on end, if you post random porn fetish porn because you needed a ten second hard on or think it’s funny i’m unfollowing you immediately.

ps, before everybody gets up in arms, no i am not a sex worker. just a concerned feminist.)

pps - if you agree with any of the points made in this post, i ask that you re-blog it or write up something similar. i’ve never before asked for feedback and i don’t really care how many people like me on the internet or follow my tumblr. but i cannot emphasize how important it is to be mindful of the conditions of sex workers. the other side of sex positivity has to be checking to see who creates the images we look at & whether the sex workers are acting as their own agents. for better or worse, a massive number of people are learning how to “do” feminism via the internet & the way to curb sex trafficking & other exploitative forms of sex work is to educate the people on the “demand” side.

this raises so many important questions about the intersections between labor/intellectual labor, who we think warrants getting credited (so important so important), and the ethics of porn which transcends a kind of Dworkian binary.

and mostly, in my archivist’s brain, do you any idea HOW MUCH TIME I have spent thinking/fretting about how hard it is to archive/document/remember/historicize porn? a lot of time.

There is literally one difference I can see between reblogging and not reblogging uncredited porn, and that is that reblogging porn gives it a tiny bit of free advertising it wouldn’t normally have. In the case that it’s produced coercively or whatever, it would be giving that tiny slice of free advertising (that it’s already getting b/c it’s already bouncing around tumblr) to a production that may be continuing to have issues of coercion.

So far as being able to find where something came from, a google image search will find you the source for almost anything with a little digging. Use the “search by image url” function (which is the little camera icon on the images.google.com search bar).

This sounds a lot like a boycott type thing, and frankly, one’s reblogging or not reblogging something has virtually no impact whatsoever on anything as concerns quantifiable material.

The same arguments and data about filesharing music probably apply here: 1) that those who share porn are more likely to buy it 2) sharing music may be the only way that they might find/have found what they did 3) their being prevented from sharing it does not mean that they would have purchased it.

Isn’t this argument used by people in defense of child porn? “It’s already out there, it doesn’t harm anyone for me to look at it/share it/re-upload it.” I’m not saying you support child porn, this parallel might be bullshit.

I do think there is a large difference between pirating music and proliferating porn that depicts rape, was taken nonconsensually, or was uploaded/spread nonconsensually.

As a male person, I think that having an approach to porn that emphasizes the importance of consent helps to make sure that the categories “consensual sex” and “what I find sexy” overlap as much as possible. Quoting from this post:

But I believe that, at least for myself, looking at pornography with ambiguous consent trains my mind to not value consent and the pleasure of others. I believe that if I keep the consent and desires of the people I find attractive in mind as much as possible, then I can help “train” my mind to continue finding consent sexy. Basically, I think objectification is a learned thought pattern, not an inevitable one, and I take these steps in order continuously keep myself from tending towards objectification.

I wrote that about eight months ago. Reading back on it now, I think I would add that I don’t believe that this kind of “cognitive training” is a substitute for other forms of awareness and focus on consent. Consent is necessary whether it’s sexy or not - but I think working to keep issues of consent in my mind when looking at porn helps make sure that I don’t get out of the habit of thinking about consent more generally. It seems weird (and potentially harmful) to me to have an entire domain of my sexuality where I just stop putting consent at the forefront.

In other words, even if thinking about whether the porn I look at depicts consensual acts, was taken consensually, and was uploaded/spread consensually doesn’t ultimately have a direct positive impact towards reducing the number of people who are victimized, I believe that every time I look at and proliferate porn with ambiguous consent I become more accepting of ambiguous consent in my own life. And as a straight person with male privilege, someone whose sexuality is already fundamentally privileged over the rights of women, it is paramount that I avoid compounding my privilege in that way.

(Also, I haven’t tried doing a google image search to find the source for the porn that I look at. I think that might be a good idea, but because of the way that porn proliferates across the internet I’m not convinced that this will help very much.)