i like when people go “why would you harass someone for nudes lol there’s so much free porn 🤪🤪” as if giving every small male child instant access to an infinite library of internet pornography is not the reason they feel entitled to having access to the bodies of all their female peers, too
In my opinion: no, this is a huge fallacy. Every female child has access to all the porn on the internet as well, so that cannot be the difference, logically. The issue is not having access to porn while being male, the issue is socialisation and the way society tells amab people that it is ok for them to insist past the point of pestering while telling afab people that they should be honoured at being pursued. The issue is the idea that the “male” in the relationship should have power over the “female”. Besides this argument is very similar to the one where liking violent video games/books makes you violent. Evangelical in form and content.
No, porn is not the issue, it indeed conforms to the shape of the issue because it is filmed to sell in, and appeal to, a society that doesn’t value the importance of women’s sexuality enough, but male adolescents having access to porn is not what makes many men feel entitled to women’s bodies. Parents, peers and teachers telling a boy it is fine to pester a girl if he likes her, regular mainstream movies conveying the same message, the “social worth” ofa man in pop culture being measured in how many women he can have, those factors have far more impact on a young person’s attitude towards how to approach “courtship” than any porn. Nobody watches porn to learn how to approach a sexual partner. Porn is taboo, private, courtship is a social ritual and having someone send you nudes is very often about bragging to friends, about the social power it gives you. When someone sees a nude from a porn professional they do not assume this gives them power over that person, they just want gratification. On the other hand: when one asks for nudes from an individual that doesn’t want their nude body to be seen publicly, the points are power and trust. We should start caring more about the trust angle and leave the power angle to those who aren’t in denial about their kinks and know how to play with them without hurting others. We should teach young people about safety and how to achieve gratification in a way that leaves all parts involved happy rather than waging a new purity battle against porn that would only stigmatise sexuality more.
I do absolutely agree with your point, however imho the point of the post is that, especially bc of socialization as you said, boys feel pressured into watching pornography, which is yet another facet of people and medias constantly telling them that girls’ bodies are disposable for them, turning it into a Neverending cycle. Meanwhile girls bc of the way they’re raised are told that watching porn is shameful for them but at the same time they, as you said, should be disposable for boys’ pleasure. I do agree that the problem won’t end with merely banning pornography but it’s more complicated than that, the problem is that, meanwhile I’m absolutely ok with the idea that we should talk about sex and depict it in medias so we can destigmatize it, I don’t think that we should ignore the fact that often porn platforms host contents of very dubious provenience and that’s common to find real abuse videos on them, which makes me pretty critical of them.
I did not read the point of the post as "boys are peer pressured into watching pornography"which is an issue, but is hardly the cause of the social view of power dynamics between these two genders. The post was saying that boys feel entitled to girl's bodies because they have so much porn available. Not too different from the posts blaming homophobia on the "damn fujoshi" (after all yaoi IS porn). People do not learn courtship from porn, porn emulates the most common tastes to sell. Yes, indeed you are right: there are dubious contents on porn platforms, sadly, and that is an issue that must be addressed and solved, but I really think that banning porn would not work, it never has in history and it has been tried times and again. Furthermore such action would only succeed in pushing said platforms into an underground that harms sex workers fist and foremost and, instead of ensuring more control, would make sure that videos of actual abuse would be commonplace. Being critical is right, we should always be critical, especially of things that sorely need criticism (and the porn industry definitely DOES), but it is fundamental to be critical about the right things, otherwise we risk mixing sincere criticism with less than honest points, that only end up harming our argument.
