Sunday 16 June 2013

Internet Porn – Women, Children & Pets


“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” (Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian philosopher)

About 15 to 30 % of the World Wide Web’s traffic is porn and that is quite substantial when you think in terms of sales revenue from a global product, for example Coca Cola. In this case, the profit margin is far greater, because unlike a perishable item, a porno film is like a piece of software that can be consumed multiple times as new, and does not need to be reproduced after consumption. This lucrative income makes Internet moguls like Google reluctant to curtail the easy access to porn that the Google Search Engine is renowned for. As the old adage says, money makes the world go round; accordingly it makes the World Wide Web spin faster. And it becomes a tornado when combined with the catalyst of sex.

The internet filter could be applied easily, with the option to bypass it by filling in a consent form for example. However, this would only partially address the problem of very young children gaining access to porn unwittingly; the source of the problem would remain as people would easily get acquainted to bypass the filter, and the older children would pass this knowledge to the younger ones. In any case, increasing censorship and legislation is not enough, this problem has to be tackled from the root, and we literally need to go into the heart of the problem.

Why is porn flourishing in the first place? The simple answer is – there is a demand for it, laws of the free market mean demand will create supply, and vice versa. Since the 1970s, the growth of conventional porn from seedy magazines & movies to the internet has accelerated at a rapid pace. The demand for porn is obvious - men are easily excited by sight, and being the hunters they will happily pay for it. In terms of supply, the argument of women in poverty being exploited by men is there, but given that porn primarily emanates from wealthy western-liberal nations, it is more about making easy money, and increasingly women have started to take an active lead in this arena. This means, the value of having shame has diminished, sexual behaviour in society has ‘progressed’ to become more like the species in the jungle under the ethos of ‘freedom’ and thus sexual freedom.  This explains the mindset of hostility towards the veil in favour of the bikini, using the fig leaf of women’s rights, and no surprise that most vocal to save Muslim women happen to be non-Muslim men.   

Apart from money, there is the notion of value. The much talked about ideology of ‘freedom’ post 9/11, and by inference sexual freedom; this encourages one to pursue sexual pleasures without any form of moral self-restraint. Inevitably, certain sections of the population will get bored and lust will induce them to look for other ways to experiment with new things, reaching for a higher climax, and that unfortunately includes the abhorrent ‘porn’ involving children, violence and even domestic pets.
I know the category of domestic pets may confuse some readers, especially those brought up in traditional conservative societies. Sometime back, a doctor friend said women in this society have intercourse with dogs and other animals, but as dogs are domestic pets, it is more common.  The grin on my face concealed the fact that I was astonished, as well as perplexed, I scratched my head and could not fathom how this would be possible, and why would anyone want to do this, given that there is no shortage of men. Of course, it has nothing to do with the supply of able men with testosterone, it relates to finding new ways to get a bigger climax, maximise carnal (material) satisfaction, something that is rooted in secular European philosophy.   

In addition to moral revulsion, the legal objection comes from the notion of consent, children and pets cannot give consent and subjecting women to violence or at least projecting that with pornography and the consequence that follows is problematic legally and morally. In fact child porn should be termed child abuse, the issue came to surface in recent times after the conviction of Mark Bridges, the killer of little April Jones. The police found pictures of child abuse on his laptop.  Surely there is a connection there.

How does production and consumption of porn tally with women’s rights? Given that the West is the torch bearers of women’s rights, and a major supplier of porn, one could argue the two are compatible, and I wonder how many parents would feel that way seeing their children involved in such activities. How do the Femen fit in all this as they go about promoting welfare of women ‘dressed’ (undressed) as primitive cavewomen? Do they endorse pornography too as long as women are not compelled into it? What about its impact on the wider society and gender relationships?
  
Others would see porn and women’s rights as a paradox, two opposing notions. If you want women’s rights upheld by law and that is easy, just make more legislation, but the notion of women’s rights also demands respect and that can only emanate from the heart. You cannot expect young men to respect women from the heart, when they are also subjected to materials that portray women as meat for gratification, and they are encouraged to seek sexual gratification without legal responsibility under the value of sexual freedom; hence they view women as isolated objects for consumption rather than someone who is part of his family, like his mother or sister. This is depicted in the Hollywood film industry.  

The production of porn is another piece of evidence that confirms that women’s right is merely a convenient political tool used to bash ideological opponents. It’s cheap propaganda; these porn consumers talk about their crusade to liberate women in Afghanistan from forced marriages, yet rape is rife in their backyard, not only in the armed forces but widespread in society. The US marines want to liberate the Afghan women from the veil to the bikini, so they can enjoy the regular striptease at home. Then, they have the audacity to talk of paedophilia, when really young prepubescent children including babies are raped and filmed, and the content is disseminated through the net, and I wonder what the ethnicity of these people are! Now the media and politicians like Jack Straw have lost their venomous snake like tongues!

Indeed, the media has conveniently kept silent about the ethnicity of the porn producers, only if they were Pakistanis or Arabs we would have seen this in the headlines! And thankfully, the Muslims are lagging behind, because they are unable to find available Muslim women due to cultural, religious and family constraints. Whist the supply side is low in Muslim societies; the demand continues to rise as the secular notion of freedom creeps in, and it is easy to view porn online.  Its only matter of time, we will see Muslims graduating from consuming conventional porn to abhorrent porn, see how the media changes its colours in reporting the same crime.

Yamin Zakaria (yamin@radicalviews.org)
Published on 17/06/2013
London, UK



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