The US Politics |OT|

[tsogud]

vivster said:

Jaicee said:

Okay, one final aside on this topic of the sex industry. We've talked mostly about the consequences of the sex trade (prostitution, pornography, etc.) for heterosexual women, but not so much for lesbians. There was a story I was just now reading that I'd like to highlight: Google tweaks algorithm to show less porn when searching for 'lesbian' content.

The campaigners for this cause observed that "in their research, they found that only the word 'lesbian' was linked to pornographic sites, whereas searching for 'gay' or 'trans' linked to informative pages including Wikipedia, top news articles, and specialized blogs".

This is a real issue. Because lesbians are an all-female group by definition, we are sexualized way more than anyone else. The top search term on both Pornhub and YouPorn is, in fact, 'lesbian'. To judge by the leading search results one encounters (a large percentage of which seem to involve things like penetration with penile-shaped objects), one seriously doubts that it's mainly lesbians who are doing these searches. Even gay men sometimes participate in the sexual objectification of lesbians (example).

The consequences of people viewing lesbians more as entertainment than as people can get very real. To highlight a high-profile example of what I mean that made global headlines earlier this year, there was group of male teenagers who approached a lesbian couple on a bus in London and, on learning of their sexual orientation, demanded that they kiss for the group. When the couple refused, they were beaten and had to be hospitalized. Likewise, just the other weekend, a lesbian couple was physically attacked at Amsterdam Pride after refusing the advances of two men. In these sorts of ways, we can see how pornography fosters a dangerous culture of male entitlement to women, and not just the straight or even bi ones. So yeah, I'm very glad that Google has recently tweaked their algorithm for the term 'lesbian' to produce informative results comparable to what appears when one searches for 'gay' or 'trans'.

Just wanted to posit that as a final thought.

Yet again a wrong conclusion based on shallow research.

"Lesbian" has been for the longest time a category in porn, one of the most popular even. It is natural that the most things you'll find with that search term is porn, because that's the category on most sites and porn, as you might know, is kind of a big deal on the internet.

"Trans" is not a porn category, as such you won't find much if any porn under that search term. Try to search for "shemale" and be amazed because it will all be exclusively about porn because that's what the porn category is called.

"Gay" certainly is also a porn category but in the porn community it is only applied to male homosexuals. Before you call sexism again this is just out of tradition and convenience because there is already a term for female gay porn. Now the reason why you won't find nearly as much porn under that term is that gay porn is about 1000th as popular as lesbian porn is. It is actually quite a niche due to the low demand compared to other categories. It also is a very familiar and frequently discussed topic outside of porn. The term "gay" itself is also about 1000 times bigger in non-porn communities than it is in porn. It's also generally applied to both genders outside of porn.

What you are calling sexism or an attack on females is basically just a mix of linguistics, tradition and simple demand and supply.

One funny thing I would add is this. It is very well known that males are generally regarded as more forceful, brutal and dominant than females. Part of it is genes and hormones but another big part is actually society. Men are very much built by society to be exactly like that. And funnily enough, people like you are exacerbating and pushing the issue by trying to put a wedge between genders. The constant reminder of all the differences in genders and the strict division between them is what very much enables toxic behavior from both men and women. It is in some way legitimizing toxic behavior because people like you who are pretending that it is just like this because of gender.

How about we remove gender altogether and treat people as they behave instead of what their gender is? How about we stop saying "men attacking women" and instead say "violent idiots attacking innocents"? That way we would also avoid all of that silly generalization.

It feels like the men you are criticizing about their opinions about porn and prostitution know a lot more about those subjects than you because they actively engage in them on a regular basis. I can't talk much about prostitution but believe me when I say that your view of porn is about as shallow as it gets.

Hmm... Good points, good points. Bolded being particularly truthful. Men do have a lot of pressure from society to act/be a certain way just like women.

Her research may have been shallow and her views on porn are antiquated but her observation holds some truth. Lesbians, particularly in the western world, really are sexualized and objectified a lot but I do disagree that porn is the sole cause or even a major factor at play here. It's pretty complex.

I hope you don't feel all feminists "try to put a wedge between genders" and exacerbate the issue though.