Vren55 Blogging on Random stuff: Pornography and Clopping is Terrible (mature themes) · 5:22am Mar 20th, 2016
Warning! Mature themes. Do not read if you do not want to read any mentions of this issue.
Every author has to have an unpopular opinion. This is mine, I'm going to explain why, and as to why I'm writing about it, you'll see. Disclaimer here: I'm not saying that those who clop and do pornography are terrible people, I'm saying that it's just something that I PERSONALLY don't think is right and people shouldn't do, though I have no right to say that you are an evil person... Unless you're looking at actual child pornography, because that's sick and illegal in most responsible countries.
Now, my opinion that "porn and clopping = bad" is not exactly a popular opinion these days with how easy it is to get porn and I make no reservations to state that this is motivated at least in part, religiously for me. Moreover, some of my readers might think this is a strange opinion considering a lot of things. After all, I have written (not completed) story sliding toward the sexy scale of things (Of Swords and Hearts).
Anyway, I'm not qualified to dictate anything to anybody. This is my reasoning alone.
And if someone is going to say that my opinion is not valid because well, I've seen pornography... well the fact is, exposure is unavoidable in this day and age and especially in this fandom. Just google internet pornography.
Anyway let's sum up the problem with porn and clop as:
PORN KILLS LOVE
(Yes I know there's a meme/image of this, I couldn't get it b/c of my filters).
Let's ignore the religious aspect of it and say that you don't believe you have a loving relationship with god and that by sinning aka watching porn and masturbating, you're breaking that relationship b/c you're misusing the gift of sex, which is supposed to be for reproduction purposes.
Instead let's look at this from the perspective of what I think (mind you, this is from my own personal theories) a person does when they watch porn, fantasize about it, read fantasy stories about it etc.
1. Porn objectifies women as sexual objects, or men, or sex in general.
I'm not going to say sex is supposed to be something beautiful and for man and husband, well I just did, but that's a religious reason I don't expect everybody to believe in it.
But the thing is... men have an alarming tendency in history to objectify women. Let's not skirt around it, we do. Wives for the most part, were seen as property even now in certain countries and according to certain cultures. Why are women raped the most in wartime? One of the most common reasons is because of patriarchal values that permeate most societies dictate women as spoils of war and not actual people of value. If you are from that kind of culture, it's not your fault, but from my perspective as a person educated in the western world according to liberal thought values and as a supporter of equal gender rights...
The idea of women as property is terrible. It treats them as less than human, less than people with free will and thinking feelings. Seriously. It's as bad as Human trafficking, and we all know what Liam Neeson does to those people (a Taken reference if you don't catch my drift).
However, the concept of porn, which is to arouse something tends to get the audience to treat the woman as a sexual object… At least, in my point of view. Not a human with a character, with feelings, with a personality, but as a sexual object. Not that all porn is alike, but when you consider that camera angles and narratives tend to focus or center on the woman in porn flicks... there's a disturbing implication that the woman in the porn shot, or story or media is meant to get the audience off by helping them imagine they are in the media and... well having sex. There's no communication between the partners, there's no romance, it's carnal and the act of sex and orgasm is essentially the be and end all. Hence the woman in the picture, film, media is basically an object for the audience to screw in their fantasies so to speak.
And if clopfics and porn encourages the audience trying to picture themselves as the person having sex with another person/pony…...if that's not the objectification of woman or man as the audience's sexual object... I don't know what that is. Feel free to disagree if you wish.
Now I can't speak for gay porn flicks mind you, I'm also not sure about whether porn appeals to women in the same manner that porn appeals to men, but when it comes to M/F porn and by extension, stories and media whose audience is mainly straight men... a lot of it is aimed at trying to get its target off and not about developing any meaningful relationship between the characters. I mean..... Clopfics are meant to get people off right? That’s why they tend to be short, and the sex comes quickly. Also, look at Japanese hentai doujins... 30 pages of people having sex without much character development or romantic plot and some of the crazier ones (yes i'm talking about the extreme stuff) treat the act of rape very lightly... as in the rape sometimes becomes brushed off...
Now that is SERIOUSLY terrible.
And the implications of this lead to point 2, also the main point of this argument....
2. Porn prevents meaningful romantic relationships.
I don't know about masturbation, but how would one's wife or girlfriend feel when their boyfriend or husband is getting aroused to some other woman on TV, in a comic or in a story. Now... some people have a more open relationship. So i'm not going to talk about them, I have no idea how those work. But... let's just say that the majority of people don't like being cheated upon and believe in a monogamous relationship. I argue that looking at porn, married men and boyfriends are kinda cheating on their spouses/girlfriends because they are engaging within their mind, on a sexual fantasy with a woman other than the one they promised to be faithful with. I mean... you're not doing it, but you're certainly imagining doing it with somebody else other than the girl who actually (and I'm assuming here) loves you and cares about you apart from wanting to bang you.... Seriously, how would one's girlfriend or wife feel?
Okay fine, let's say you're single. Aka myself. Porn shouldn't interfere in a relationship when you have none. Right???
Problem is that may not be a good thing, see this video:
As stated in the video, porn is like a drug because it gives artificial stimulation to make your body release certain types of hormones and when you get used to it, it gets harder to get off, which means that you need to look at more porn... That's kind of disturbing because it also means a man or woman is desensitizing themselves to seeing women or men, have sex and hence one might even resort to more extreme pornography, which goes back to my first point, where a human is going to make themselves used to seeing a woman or man being treated in such a manner and thus, used to treating women or men as a sexual object rather than a meaningful romantic pursuit. This could very easily make it less likely for one to get into a relationship because one, the human will literally have their brain reprogrammed to have unrealistic sexual expectations for women or men and two, how one might treat their partner may be affected by that reprogramming.
Even "tame" pornography, depending on the audience means one treats the act of sex less as an act of romance between two people who love each other and more of a way to get satisfaction... I mean sex is a healthy thing in a relationship, but when one treats it as the end all instead of a facet of a relationship, how can that last? Moreover, how long will a person who watches porn be satisfied if they're getting used to the act and how will a person treat sex and romance that way if all they see is people throwing themselves each other without actually getting to know each other's personalities? Will it take time, yes, but can one stop the process when they keep getting used to it?
This all makes me seriously wonder, why does clop and extreme forms of it exists on MLP fanfiction and in MLP media? It's everywhere! The largest group on fimfiction.net is the "Clopfics" group (turn off your filter if you want to confirm it) followed not too far away by the "Rape" group and then the "Foalcon" group. All of them are ons the freaking front page of the "Browse All groups" button, and you don't even have to see the Foalcon group without turning off your mature filter!
Moreover, we all should know the objectification of women or men (happens more to women) as a sexual object and the dehumanization of woman to the point they are a sexual object is a horrifying concept. Aside from the human trafficking of women and men all around the world, the sex slave industry, also around the world, we have a very real life and disturbing incident that tells us how terrifying it is when a society is desensitized to the point they do not treat women as women.
I'm talking about Japanese Comfort Women system established between 1931-1945 during WWII where hundreds of thousands of women were coerced or tricked into brothels meant to service the Japanese army because they were trained by their government in a way to see non-Japanese women as part of their imperial conquest, not human, a vent for their sexual frustrations and the stress they faced in battle. Most of these women died because they were treated in ways that make me want to barf... in ways as terrible some of the "fantasy rapefics" one can find on the internet literally by keying those words into a google search, but worse in that the stuff that happened to them was real! I'm talking about objects shoved into genitalia, women raped to the point they got sexual diseases and died because their bodies gave out, pregnant woman raped until they could no longer be raped. That's not even talking about the physical abuse that accompanied the sexual assault.
And since to this day, the Japanese government for some bloody crazy reason continues to deny that they committed such crimes, I'm just going to cite this:
Qiu, Peipei, Zhiliang Su, and Lifei Chen. Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013.
Schellstede, Sangmie Choi, and Soon Mi Yu, eds. Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military: Includes New United Nations Human Rights Report. New York: Holmes & Meier, 2000.
Yoshimi, Yoshiaki, and Suzanne G. O’Brien. Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II. Asia Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Granted, that's the extreme side of things, but still, if simple training and indoctrination can desensitize one to the point where sex and getting off is the priority and relationships and treating people like human beings is the afterthought, pornography should easily be able to do the same thing.
So why do clop authors find the need to write material that desensitizes people to the point that they can treat women or heck men, as sexual objects and not real people? We like the ponies because they are great character, complicated, with feelings... so why do we like getting off to them having sex and producing material that encourages such behaviour... aka, as I explained earlier, essentially fantasizing ourselves having sex with them without actually building a relationship in real life? Do they not realize the consequences of publishing such media?
I don't know. Maybe i'm wrong here, but i for one think that pornography and clop by extension in general is evil, though I can't say I blame people for liking it. Heck, I did for a long time, but now, I've decided not to do it. Laugh at me if you want, but it’s the right decision for me after a lot of thinking, and personal struggling.
By no means am I asking any person reading this to dislike clop fics just because they are clop fics. I doubt they'd have any effect in changing an author's mind anyway. But I do want you to think, if you are considering writing a clop fic, what does this mean to you and to the people who will be reading what you write. Because words are powerful, they can promote justice and truth, or they can be used to perpetuate a lie.
Yours sincerely,
vren55
Does finding something sexy objectify it a bad? To me that feels like I am being punished for the biological desire to reproduce, but maybe I'm misinterpreting it.
Your section about Japan also feels like an appeal to emotion, as you fail to properly show how the fantasies of clop stories relates to the real world. It seems to me that you fail to acknowledge the substantial difference between fantasy and reality, and base your stance on clop(and porn in general) on the assumption that they are very closely related.
On a more general note, when trying to write persuasively, avoid using holier-than-thou language. It lowers credibility without really adding anything meaningful to the message.
3816921 Finding something sexy doesn't objectify it. I find that when one gets off to it though... constantly... and willingly, then there is a problem.
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3816921 also, of course there is a substantial difference between fantasy and reality, but I'm more talking about conditioning to accept certain things as acceptable, which was what the Japanese did, and which as I argue, clop stories do.
Perhaps if I wanted to rewrite the blog post, i would, buuuut I don't thinkt he difference between fantasy and reality plays such a huge part, because conditioning to accept certain things as acceptable is present in our culture. I mean, its how we accept a certain culture and certain values in that culture.
3816946 If we apply your logic to rape fantasies*, we come to the conclusion that people with rape fantasies are conditioning themselves to like being raped, or raping others, which is clearly false, as several studies** have shows that around of 60% of women have had a rape fantasy, and yet rape is considered one of the most abhorrent crimes, being considered a war crime and highly punishable under modern law.
*The definition I'm using is provided by Wikipedia, "A rape fantasy (sometimes rape play) or a ravishment is a sexual fantasy involving imagining or pretending being coerced or coercing another into sexual activity"
**source, "The nature of women's rape fantasies: an analysis of prevalence, frequency, and contents"
Depending on what statistics you look at, between 55 and 70% of men view porn regularly.
If you look at marriage rates, you can see a decline in adults married (72% in 1960 to 50% in 2014).
If, as you say, pornography leads to an inability to have romantic relationships, we would likely observe a sharp increase in the "Never Married" and the "Divorced or Separated" sections around the advent of the Internet -- and with it, easily accessible and ubiquitous pornography.
However, as you can see in the graph, there's no such dip.
Ignoring the religious argument as that doesn't apply to me, being atheist, I follow the rule of "What happens behind closed doors is that person's business." How a person chooses to get off is their decision and I have no right to criticize it as long as it doesn't result in any harm.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot. There is also the difference between reality and fantasy and all that jazz.
One more thing, and keep in mind this is a complete personal opinion on the "Porn Kills Love" argument. If it takes something as simple as porn to ruin the relationship between a couple, maybe those two shouldn't be together.
3816981
Good lord, this. Bad relationships kill relationships. People who jump into things they aren't ready for because "they are so totally completely 100% without a doubt in love" after they met three months ago.
3816985 Agreed. So many people try to find an excuse as to why something doesn't work out that they don't realize that maybe they're just not right for each other.
I don't agree with a number of your opinions here. It's certainly true that there are any number of serious issues surrounding this that do need to be considered and perhaps changed for the good of everyone involved.
But at the same time I think your stance is too egocentric. What doesn't or couldn't work in a relationship for you is not the be all and end all of relationships. If nobody's getting hurt or exploited and everyone involved is aware and accepting, then it's really not the business of anyone but those in the relationship.
And as for fantasies. Well, they're fantastical. And long as the divide between fantasy and reality is maintained then there shouldn't be an issue, in most cases. In some, such as rape, the lines are much less clear because the subject is something completely unacceptable in real life. Do we put restrictions on these fantasies? What would they be and how are they enforced? I don't know. I do know that porn and smut can be consumed without detriment when used in moderation. Moderation being the key there. It's possible to get addicted or habituated to almost anything and experience negative consequences. Just because porn has lots of genitals on display doesn't make it inherently worse than any other activity that people derive pleasure from.
3817003 A much, much better example of my argument
This is exactly what I was trying to say. I'm not really good at coming up with points like this on the spot.
When it comes down to it, humans are sexual beings. We like sex; it is an inherent part of our make-up, and is, biologically-speaking, the entire point of our existence. It's no wonder we like pornography, and why it's massively popular; it's fundamental to who and what we are. Which, of course, can be good or bad, all depending on the context. Over-focus and addiction are certainly potential problems here.
Porn, ultimately, is a form of fiction, focused on what arouses and titillates us. It entertains; it can provide gratification; it can educate and express; it can be a safe medium in which anything can be explored, strange things, unreal things, even harmful things. It can also deceive and confuse, it can mislead and mis-educate. It can be mistaken for a guide for reality when it isn't meant to be.
Objectification is a difficult issue. People portrayed in porn (yay alliteration!) aren't necessarily intended to be realistic, since much of the 'reality' of situations is pared away due to the focus of the genre. Also, objectification might be the entire subject of the porn in question. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; it's fiction. But it's never that simple, I suppose. Our culture and worldview help shape our media, and in turn our media helps shape our culture and worldview. I daresay I'd not be one to object to more positive portrayals in erotic fiction, if doing so helps nudge our culture in a positive way; and as our culture moves in a positive way, I imagine porn will naturally follow it.
I was going to put something here about sex vs. love, but I can't express it clearly and it's late and I give up.
Anyway, this is all just how I feel about it, obviously. Basically, porn is fiction, and sometimes it's really weird, and that's mostly okay. Taken too seriously, or too much, it isn't. And humans never make anything simple.
I guess for someone who has a liking to the idea of raping, it is better to "write it out" and vent his steam on fictional pony characters than to do something stupid in real life. At least this way, nobody gets hurt. And if someone does not like the topic, they can always avoid it, it's not like it's mandatory to read fics like those. I avoid gay fics like hell for example, but I do not judge those who like them.
Nevertheless this was an interesting read, especially the historical relevances, so thank you for taking the time to writing it.
Popular Opposing Opinion: Human's are sexual creatures, meaning a lot of us like sexual/or related content and everything in between.
...well, you did say it was an unpopular opinion. If I may ask, what is your stance on the 'harlequin' style romance novel?
Interesting to see the response to the blog here as people also bring up some good counterpoints. Granted everything I say is my opinion and frankly I didnt expect unainimous agreement so i'll just answer the comments to my own reasoning...
3816960 Like this one. Now that one I don't know how to explain because I do think there is conditioning involved and yet I also realize this part... *shrug*
3816970 Actually I think that b/c marriage has been shown to decrease, my argument is therefore still valid... society still values marriage to a high extent so
3816975 I indicated in the blog that this is my opinion on the matter and that what each person does is their own business. Unless it's child porn... cause that's illegal. As for rape vs fantasy... yeah I'm quite sure their is a divide but my own reading nd personal experience indicates that at the same time there is a conditioning so... *shrug* i dunno?
3816981 3816985 3816989 Fair enough, but if porn is technically cheating/adultery as I didnt define explicitly but implied in my blog, then is it a wonder porn can break relationships? Granted, if the couple refuses to talk about the issue rationally, that is their fault, but b/c pornography does exist and in such vast quantities, my point was that its actually very easy and it can do that. though of course, a couple who can discuss the issue and get over it would be a stronger one.
3817003 I though i managed to cover all my bases, but if it does sound egocentric well... fair enough, i only briefly indicated I have no idea how those "open" relationships work. As for the fantasy vs reality... I was expressing the concern that that boundary can be maintained but its also easy to erode that boundary, granted there are no studies to prove this for porn. so *shrug* this is a case of personal opinion more than anything. If you can maintain the fantasy.. well I suppose you should be fine... its just that when I looked at porn... i found myself getting addicted to it and while I still saw a barrier between fantasy and reality... I just didn't like how I kept looking at it sometimes in a way I felt my own control was being eroded.
3817010 Good points... though yeah, this isssue is really complicated. XD That's why I said it was an unpoopular opinion.
3817020 Your welcome. And yeah I kinda did go into that fantasy for a while.. and I actually found the opposite... when you write things down I actually tended to find it assisted in fleshing out the fantasy. As a vent it helps, but it also weirdly enough, helps construct it, at least for me *shrug*
3817110 LOL Well that is true XD
3817156 Now that is a funny one because they do develop a relationship... at times... its incredibly unrealistic, but they do that... soo I dunno. If you read it for the romance I supposse it should be fine, but if you read it to get off... then perhaps you might want to see a counsellor?
Te problem with this issue is that pornography appears to affect everybody a littel differenty... some get adddicted to it, others somehow can control it.. and at the same time there are common trneds. *throws hands up... I dunno*
3817245 I actually am in FULL support of very detailed sex and contraception education... mainly because I don't see the reason why you need porn to educate yourself if you have good sex education. Regarding your blog posts... i kinda see their reasoning, but t the same time I disagree with them and could indicate other studies, but yeah the issue is a bit complicated in that area so I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Granted though I do agree. Parents need to tke a more active step in their child's sex education and lives for the matter of part. Censorship doesnt work. You need information so children can make the decisions they need ot.
This has been an entirely civil, rational discussion, with nobody resorting to petty insults because they disagree. Thank you to all the users who have contributed to this discussion, and for showing that not all people on the internet are complete assholes.
Dunno, the entire premise of the theory breaks apart for me at the conditioning part. I've read studies, I'm also supported by personal experience, and I'm of the opinion that fantasies don't condition people to anything. If they do, said person probably was unhinged to begin with.
I have a wide range of things I fantasise about, but any of them that would involve harm to others are just that - strictly fantasies. When I run around as Ezio in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and assassinate people left and right, I might get really into it, cheer and feel good about sticking a blade thorough someone's neck, but it stays firmly in the fantasy realm. The very thought of possibly causing harm to a real person mortifies me.
Same with sexual fantasies - I may read fics containing rape or similar stuff, I might fantasise about it, either as the rapist are the victim, but, again, it all stays firmly in the realm of fantasy.
And if someone can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality... Well, then the problem runs much deeper than porn, now does it. Said person might as well read a crime story and decide to act it out as the killer. Are crime novels evil, then?
3817689
Agreed.
3817337 3817408 Same. I mean I may not completely agree, but the counterpoints you all raised also make me think. I'm also glad to see people not grabbing their pitchforks XD
And yeah, I might make this a regular thing...
3817689 3817693 Yeah... its that part i'm not too sure about either b/c I do think there is a conditioning effect... yet there's the whole fantasy/reality prt of it so. *shrug
3817311 Basically, what I meant by all my tired and probably borderline-inane rambling
is that pornography is an expression of a natural human desire. And like the expression of any human desire, this can have both positive and negative effects, depending on how both the creator and the recipient (consumer? audience? Audience!) approach it. It makes me wonder if there should be a 'pornography' segment to sex-ed classes so people don't grow up taking it for what it isn't. 
I guess I feel that 'evil' is far too strong a position; at least to me, evil implies malice. One can make evil porn (eg. revenge porn), but one can also make fluffy feel-good porn, or wacky science-fiction porn (there should be more of that), or really boring bisexual porn that everyone at the party gives the MST3K treatment (been there).
Also, props to you for expressing an unpopular opinion.
3817745
That last one, please! Would be too hilarious.
3817745 Fair enough XD. The less extreme porn does confuse me greatly. I know personally i probably might have an issue with (i'm not exactly good at controlling my fantasies) but others are soo *shrug*
3817768 Well... the nice thing about fantasies is that they're fantasies. A safe space where one can explore things without harm and go a bit wild (or a lot wild
). Sometimes the directions they take can surprise and shock us, but that's not bad or particularly uncommon.
Basically, as long as one's fantasies aren't negatively impacting one's reality, they're a-ok.
3817311
My point is that while marriage is decreasing, it is doing so slowly, perhaps indicative of a gradual change in societal values.
One would, if your position about the inability to form relationships were correct, expect to see, along with the drastic increase in the availability of pornographic content, a corresponding sharp drop in marriage rates.
More formally --
Your claim: Pornography viewing (P) --> Inability to form romantic relationships (~R)
Surely we can agree that porn became much more available around 2000 (advent of highly available Internet):
Internet (I) --> More porn viewing (P)
Further, it can be assumed that an inability to form romantic relationships would lead to both a decrease in marriage, and an increase in divorces:
~R --> ~M (marriage), D (divorce)
Therefore, by the law of syllogism, we should expect that in the year 2000 (or thereabouts) to see a drastic decrease in marriage rates, and an increase in divorces (between 50% and 70% of the male population).
This, obviously, has not occurred, and therefore, by contradiction, the original premise (P --> ~R) must be false.
I too like the idea of making this kind of discussion a regular thing.
It's nice to talk to people who disagree with you without having a flame war.
I am curious why pornography is singled out while other things such as violence and hate are not mentioned expect as they pertain to pornography? What is it about pornography that pushes it to the front?
3820114 Are you asking why i chose it or why do certain people choose to dramatize it? Because I chose it b/c I think that violence and hate are obviously a problem. Pornography isn't always seen as one. And also, I was in the mood for it :P
As to why certain people choose it? Well control over kids... preservation of the idea of innocence... which isn't terrible in and of itself, but can have certain implications.