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I’m convinced we’re having the wrong conversation around digital porn.
Late last year, the British government banned a bunch of sex acts online, including female ejaculation. Yes, female ejaculation. Talk about the imagined harms of porn. And strangulation, facesitting, fisting, some spanking, full bondage and restraint, plus abusive language during sex and depictions of non-consensual sex – all of which can be consensual representations, including, controversially, “rape scenes” that are enacted, although deeply discomfiting to view. (Think of rape scenes in mainstream movies to get what I mean; they’re enacted to look real.)
In India, both the legislature and the judiciary are considering bans on the consumption of online porn; one petition argues that porn increases violence against women without offering any evidence to that effect, another focuses on the “moral depravity and corruption” caused by porn. Do we seriously imagine that violence against women in India will go down by banning online porn? Talk about imagined harms again. And in Indonesia, LGBTIQ sites from the educational to the explicit are being banned in the name of porn, adversely affecting sexual expression and rights – and access to information vital to sexual health.
Read the full blog post in GenderIT.org .
