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Roderick

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I think anime porn doesn't really have any more issues with objectifying women than normal porn does.  The animated nature of it allows for certain aspects to be highlighted, more so than in any real life porn but the issue is still on the same line.  This leads to the question of whether porn is inherently good or bad which is an entirely different question all together.  

I have a question that's related tangentially to a discussion in the Fan Fiction section. I was involved (well, I refused to give an opinion considering I haven't formed one yet) in a discussion at work on porn, but more specifically anime porn. One of my colleagues problems with it was that it objectifies women.
So after thinking about it, is it possible to objectify an object? A drawing is by definition an object, but it's of something that is representing a person, and if it was a real person in that situation, it would be pure objectification. I'm a little confused about this and I'm finding it hard to make my mind up on whether it's a valid problem with anime porn.
What do others think of this?

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Animated porn does actually raise some questions about what one considers to be the more exploitative components of porn (if one believes there are any). It doesn't involve filming living breathing humans, so if one considers pornography to implicitly exploit or devalue the human body or sexual acts, even aside from the informed consent of its participants, that's a plus. But on the other hand, one could argue that since animated porn is fabricated, it, reinforces idealized and unrealistic notions about sex or the human form. You see this in interviews with guys who have anime "girlfriends," often they'll talk about how animated porn is superior because the women's bodies are perfect, not like real women, and they don't complain.

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Animated porn does actually raise some questions about what one considers to be the more exploitative components of porn (if one believes there are any). It doesn't involve filming living breathing humans, so if one considers pornography to implicitly exploit or devalue the human body or sexual acts, even aside from the informed consent of its participants, that's a plus. But on the other hand, one could argue that since animated porn is fabricated, it, reinforces idealized and unrealistic notions about sex or the human form. You see this in interviews with guys who have anime "girlfriends," often they'll talk about how animated porn is superior because the women's bodies are perfect, not like real women, and they don't complain.

 

Most porn that is made with real people is just as fabricated and unrealistic as the animated version.  They both have equal amounts of devaluing or over idealizing certain aspects of the human body (usually female bodies).

 

What I find most objectionable about porn -- animated or not -- is who it's servicing. Most often it's straight men and it creates this social expectation of straight male sexual desire being superior to what anyone else might feel. There's a mini cottage industry of articles written by young women in relationships with men whose only concept of sex comes from what they've seen in porn and how it leads to unsatisfying, sometimes degrading situations.

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Unfortunately, pornography is not unique in creating social expectations of how sex works in the real world. Frankly, I feel like most pop culture produces unrealistic expectations of not only how sex works, but also how relationships in general work. I was just recently having an argument in reference to an article talking about cheating. The person I was arguing with was adamant that cheating means that the cheater must hate the person being cheated on and/or never had any real feelings of love for the other person. That just seems like a lesson learned from pop culture, where every movie portrays cheating as an ultimate, selfish, hateful act of betrayal with no context. In reality, there are any number of reasons that cheating may occur, like sexual or emotional dissatisfaction that isn't discussed openly.

 

Anyways, back to the point, I have a vague hope that anime pornography serves a role as an outlet for unrealistic expectations rather than a reinforcement of those expectations. In this case, there is no facade - it isn't acting, it's pure cartoonish depiction. I don't think that most reasonable people would walk away from that kind of anime and say "that's how people are in the real world!"

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Animated porn does actually raise some questions about what one considers to be the more exploitative components of porn (if one believes there are any). It doesn't involve filming living breathing humans, so if one considers pornography to implicitly exploit or devalue the human body or sexual acts, even aside from the informed consent of its participants, that's a plus. But on the other hand, one could argue that since animated porn is fabricated, it, reinforces idealized and unrealistic notions about sex or the human form. You see this in interviews with guys who have anime "girlfriends," often they'll talk about how animated porn is superior because the women's bodies are perfect, not like real women, and they don't complain.

 

I think "these are not real people thing" can go either way.

 

I read a semi pornographic webcomic called Oglaf which is A: Utterly ungrounded in reality & B: Illustrated by a woman & C: Extremely funny.

 think those qualities although not exclusive to something that is drawn are all things which would make a 'real' version of it  A: Hard to Produce, B: Less likely to represent a female viewpoint & C: Tougher to laugh at.

 

Honestly, it demystifies sex, laughs it's absurdities, and is generally playful and positive about it (as well as dealing more than happily with pretty much every sexual orientation) I can't help but feel that its the type of representation of sex I feel there should be more of (although you could argue it's not truly pornography since it doesn't primarily aim to arouse).

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I'd say Oglaf doesn't count as pornography, my wife reads it and has shown me some of the stuff you may be referring to. It strikes me as more frank and lighthearted about sexuality than pornographic.

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I'd say Oglaf doesn't count as pornography, my wife reads it and has shown me some of the stuff you may be referring to. It strikes me as more frank and lighthearted about sexuality than pornographic.

 

As i said I'm not sure it's primary purpose fits with what technically constitutes pornography but I'm pretty sure if it was 'real' people acting out the stories it would be classed as such.

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I'm not familiar with anime porn at all, other than the odd clip here and there that I've seen.  Does it tend to be like most live action porn, where it's just sex scene after sex scene, or does it have more to it than that? 

 

It bothers me that our culture devalues work whose main purpose is sexual arousal.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that, to me, although I do recognize the real world ethical issues with both porn production and consumption. 

 

Also, Oglaf is one of the best things ever born out of webcomics. 

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Most porn that is made with real people is just as fabricated and unrealistic as the animated version.  They both have equal amounts of devaluing or over idealizing certain aspects of the human body (usually female bodies).

 

What I find most objectionable about porn -- animated or not -- is who it's servicing. Most often it's straight men and it creates this social expectation of straight male sexual desire being superior to what anyone else might feel. There's a mini cottage industry of articles written by young women in relationships with men whose only concept of sex comes from what they've seen in porn and how it leads to unsatisfying, sometimes degrading situations.

That's definitely true. I do think there is at least something of a distinction between the way a filmed human body is idealized and the way a 100% imaginary one is. I'm not defending anything one way or another, or making a moral ranking, but I would bet it creates differences in how those ideal representations are received, even if subtly.

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A negative aspect of pornography is that dehumanizes women for an assumed male desire, and I think anime porn takes that to its extreme conclusion of situations you couldn't even expect a human to perform or survive. It renders explicit an implicit violent fantasy, and while I'm no expert "she says she doesn't want it, but learns to love it" seems to be a theme. 

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That's rather interesting, I hadn't even considered the exploitative nature of normal porn as a possible point in favour for animated porn. That's a horrible way to put it, but I can't think of anything else. Don't take that to mean I'm trying to say one is better or worse, but if there's got to be porn, at least animated doesn't require desperate women to do degrading things.

Another great point is that both animated and live action (for want of a better term) are equally fantastical, both in how the sex is performed, and the bodies of the people in there. I think one of the best pieces of advice my mother gave me as a teenager was "sex isn't really like porn." The number of naive boys who enter their first sexual relationship expecting that is far too large. This is coming from someone in the UK, which has decent sex ed in comparison to the US.

One thing I've noted is that with a google search (serious research here people), the anime porn that you find focuses almost exclusively on the women. They are drawn with every minute detail, whereas the men are mere decoration (often without the artist even bothering to draw a face) for the ideal cartoon woman, which is different to live action, where the male genitalia is glorified. So it's quite clear from the examples I've seen that this stuff is drawn by men for men. I bet there's stuff out there that's by women for women, but I guess it's not as popular or common.

On the topic of story lines, I can't comment, what I've seen, and the context of the discussion at work was about still images, not videos. Unfortunately it veered into a "aren't Japanese people weird" area, rather than the point I brought up in this thread. It is a shame that anything fiction relating to sex is seen as a bad thing, and the stigma associated with it is awful, especially for women. As sarah argobot pointed out the porn created is for men, it's accepted that men look at this stuff, but the idea that women do (or would want to) is seen as ridiculous. It reenforces that old concept of women not being interested in sex.

I still can't figure out an answer to my original question - can objects be objectified. I suppose it's more complex that I initially hoped.

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but if there's got to be porn, at least animated doesn't require desperate women to do degrading things.

 

 I wanted to highlight this part because it's not the actual creation of pornography that I find exploitative, it's the content. Most porn actors are consenting participants. It's not the same as sex trafficking where women or men are forced against their will to perform sexual acts. Sure there are safety and health concerns that come with making porn and some companies are better than others at protecting their employees, but calling porn actors desperate women is a bit unfair and doesn't really map to reality.

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I like it when people objectify objects instead of people.

 

Can it contribute to problematic mindsets? Well, obviously, but that depends a great deal both upon the specific content and the person who is consuming it, and is basically the same as the video games contributing to violence or other social ills debate translated into a different medium. If it does so, that's a good reason to demand better anime porn I guess, the same way as we should be asking more of our video games.

 

One thing I think that's worth mentioning is the ways that manufactured pornography can be transgressive in ways that would be either unethical or impossible with film. This can be problematic if it normalizes transgressive behaviors (rape, underage, etc), or presents them as transgressive. And, again, that's something that changes from piece to piece and from person to person. I think it's a strange question to ask whether 'anime porn', as a whole, is problematic, as with any other broad genre classifications. So much depends on the specifics.

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This is veers into some really potentially gross territory, but I wish there was porn meant for teenagers. Not underage or anything; I mean we already know that kids look at porn because it's incredibly easy for them to access it. We should at least present them with regulated porn that doesn't give them unrealistic, misogynistic ideas about body image or what sex is supposed to be like.

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I like your idea Tegan! I don't know how it could be made, much less how to make it not-gross but outside-the-box thinking can really help solve some societal problems

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One thing I've noted is that with a google search (serious research here people), the anime porn that you find focuses almost exclusively on the women. They are drawn with every minute detail, whereas the men are mere decoration (often without the artist even bothering to draw a face) for the ideal cartoon woman, which is different to live action, where the male genitalia is glorified. So it's quite clear from the examples I've seen that this stuff is drawn by men for men. I bet there's stuff out there that's by women for women, but I guess it's not as popular or common.

 

I want to highlight this because it shows that in a way, hentai (let's just call it what it is) can also objectify men by reducing them to a phallus.  They become a faceless tool, many times an easily replaceable one at that.  Not to say that women aren't also objectified, but I somehow doubt a disembodied set of breasts is nearly as common as a phantom penis.  Basically, everyone's an object.

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I want to highlight this because it shows that in a way, hentai (let's just call it what it is) can also objectify men by reducing them to a phallus.  They become a faceless tool, many times an easily replaceable one at that.  Not to say that women aren't also objectified, but I somehow doubt a disembodied set of breasts is nearly as common as a phantom penis.  Basically, everyone's an object.

It's not really the same thing, though. It's not reducing the man to a phallus, per se; it's letting the viewer embody the man in the cartoon because it is created from a male perspective and intended to be enjoyed by one. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy (or probably in some cases also a power fantasy). In these cases, "objectified" doesn't mean "disembodied," and "reducing" doesn't mean literally physically removing parts of; these things refer to diminishing one's personhood, agency, worth, etc. In many cases how the man is portrayed is irrelevant because the viewer will insert himself; that's easier to do if the man is less explicitly illustrated.

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I somehow doubt a disembodied set of breasts is nearly as common as a phantom penis.

 

That's actually a kinda interesting question, i remember there was some mention on the Anime thread a while back about female penned Yaoi being incredibly popular with girls in Japan and yet having some really weird misogynistic tendencies, is it in a weird way kind of a way for a young woman to have their own 'phantom penis' and to try out what it's like to inhabit the male cultural role.

 

This is veers into some really potentially gross territory, but I wish there was porn meant for teenagers. Not underage or anything; I mean we already know that kids look at porn because it's incredibly easy for them to access it. We should at least present them with regulated porn that doesn't give them unrealistic, misogynistic ideas about body image or what sex is supposed to be like.

 

You know I think there's the essence of kinda a great idea there, sex education has always been hamstrung by how incredibly difficult it is to talk about the subject without seeming  preachy. I think the closes I've seen to someone trying to execute on this sort of concept is actually the game How do you do it? and the subject as a whole is something which Cara Ellison wrote about quite interestingly on RPS.

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It's not really the same thing, though. It's not reducing the man to a phallus, per se; it's letting the viewer embody the man in the cartoon because it is created from a male perspective and intended to be enjoyed by one. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy (or probably in some cases also a power fantasy). In these cases, "objectified" doesn't mean "disembodied," and "reducing" doesn't mean literally physically removing parts of; these things refer to diminishing one's personhood, agency, worth, etc. In many cases how the man is portrayed is irrelevant because the viewer will insert himself; that's easier to do if the man is less explicitly illustrated.

 

Cases like that are certainly wish fulfillment, I'll grant you that.  But there are also cases where there's not a man at all (such as the oft repeated tentacle porn).  I suppose this is also wish fulfillment for some but I don't think the intent is to be a proxy for the viewer so much as to create a spectacle.  If we're defining it to mean diminishing one's personhood, agency, worth, etc. then I would argue that a substitutable phallus driven by nothing but lust is also reductive, if not objectifying per se.

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Cases like that are certainly wish fulfillment, I'll grant you that.  But there are also cases where there's not a man at all (such as the oft repeated tentacle porn).  I suppose this is also wish fulfillment for some but I don't think the intent is to be a proxy for the viewer so much as to create a spectacle.  If we're defining it to mean diminishing one's personhood, agency, worth, etc. then I would argue that a substitutable phallus driven by nothing but lust is also reductive, if not objectifying per se.

 

It's not reductive because nothing is being lost. A disembodied penis or phallus stand-in is still active, whereas the woman's body is the object that just receives the action. One has agency the other doesn't.

 

But it's good to point out that a lot of porn paints men as being aggressively sexual and women as being passive gatekeepers, which is obviously not the case and reinforces a weak idea of what sexuality is. 

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It's not reductive because nothing is being lost. A disembodied penis or phallus stand-in is still active, whereas the woman's body is the object that just receives the action. One has agency the other doesn't.

 

But it's good to point out that a lot of porn paints men as being aggressively sexual and women as being passive gatekeepers, which is obviously not the case and reinforces a weak idea of what sexuality is. 

 

I imagine there's stuff out there that has the opposite case where the woman is dominant and the substitute men are submissive but still depicts the woman fully and the man minimally.  But that's speculation and not something I care to actually research.

 

Your second point I totally agree with though.

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It also ties in with the notion that a dominant force can't be the victim, like there really is no "misandry" or "reverse racism." The dominant structure retains its power, though it can choose to surrender it. Submissive men who seek doms choose that. They aren't objectified because its their desire that's being served. 

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It also ties in with the notion that a dominant force can't be the victim, like there really is no "misandry" or "reverse racism." The dominant structure retains its power, though it can choose to surrender it. Submissive men who seek doms choose that. They aren't objectified because its their desire that's being served. 

 

Yeah, I guess you're right.  Even if the men are the ones acting submissive, the porn is likely still being made to service men.  So I basically don't know what the hell I'm talking about.  I'll just shut up now.

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Yeah, I guess you're right.  Even if the men are the ones acting submissive, the porn is likely still being made to service men.  So I basically don't know what the hell I'm talking about.  I'll just shut up now.

 

I think we all know each other well enough to know that you're asking these questions in good faith. Since they've already provoked interesting answers that have gotten a lot out of me, there's no reason to silence yourself. I just wish I had more to add to this conversation, but everyone's doing so well.

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I'm no hentai expert by any means, but I do want to break a lance for its sheer variety (in what I've seen in any case). More so than in live action porn, hentai usually has a story going on, and way more diversity in both content and tone. Sure, google up anything and you'll likely come across dozens of weird fetish manga with grossly exaggerated genitalia and breasts and proportions. But there's also more 'realistic' hentai. There are dramatic hentai with actual proper love stories. There's a thriller hentai that deals specifically with a couple in a strange 'peep show' relationship (which sounds hilariously ridiculous, but it's actually dramatic and sexy).

 

The point being that when it comes to diversity and depth of content, hentai offers a huge range. Is some of it gross and exploitative? Absolutely. (Though especially those tales are so ludicrous, no sane person would expect it from real life.) Is the majority of it aimed at men? Yes. But in the margins there is something for everybody.

 

As for the idealization of sex through pornography in general, I think that's a statement you can make about all art ever. Any film is unlike life. Any painting is not at all the way we see things ourselves. The question is, should we bestow on sex a special status, for whatever (maybe good, maybe not) reason, and decide "let's not idealize this specifically."?

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