Anna Merlan at Jezebel reports on a new porn series featuring rapes of women crossing the US-Mexico border. Rape is a major risk for women in that situation.
That evidently sounds pretty arousing to the porn conglomerate MindGeek, formerly Manwin, who are behind the series. As the Daily Dot was first to report, the series was launched by MindGeek earlier this year, a major European company that also owns YouPorn, RedTube and many other major porn sites. It’s produced by Mofos, a porn studio that focuses on “real amateur girls.” Here’s a nausea-inducing description on the “Border Patrol Sex” homepage:
Watch these guys hunting the illegal female immigrants and giving them a lesson on why the law should be obeyed.
Cruising in their SUV, agents catch these college girls in the field and fuck them really hard. Getting fucked by border patrol agent is one thing, but these girls don’t know that this doesn’t really mean they get to pass the border afterwards.
Cool huh? Let’s have more of that kind of thing. Rape of women who are being stoned for “adultery” – call a time-out for rape, then finish the stoning. Hawt! Rape of women who are being genocided. Rape of women who are victims of earthquakes or hurricanes or droughts. Rape of women who are dying of Ebola. I can think of all sorts of possibilities.
There’s a clear difference between “Border Patrol Sex” and other forms of edgy fantasy porn: rape scenarios, for example, or underage- or incest-themed content, all of which, for legal reasons as well as basic human decency, tend to make it very clear that they are fictionalized and don’t rely on any specific real-world events.
Ok nope. That’s where I part company with Merlan and perhaps with the majority of other feminists, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a clear difference at all, and I think saying there is seems pretty clueless. I also don’t consider “rape scenarios” to be “edgy.” Either both are fucked up or neither is fucked up.
The Border Patrol series feels more like Holocaust or “Stalag” pornography, the exploitation comics that cropped up in Israel after the Holocaust and which sexualized concentration camps and other types of Nazi exploitation. (Or, for a more modern example, “Taliban”-themed rape porn.) Conceptually, too, the “Border Patrol” series takes a lot from Max Hardcore’s style of extreme gonzo pornography that focused on inflicting pain and humiliation on the actresses in a style that’s intentionally meant to blur the lines between fantasy and reality.
I don’t know what “extreme gonzo” is supposed to mean there. I don’t see why porn is supposed to include violence. I don’t see why erotica and violence need to be mashed together. I don’t see why anyone – especially feminists – wants to eroticize violence.
Gonzo has come to mean “from the viewpoint of a participant.” Extreme gonzo would presumably be extra-repulsively-horrible-porn done from the standpoint of the committer of atrocities.
This whole post makes me feel as if my heart stopped. There is no universe in which this overlaps with anything normal. It’s enough to make me agree with the fundies: we’re living in the last days.
I mean, we could go into the whole “consensual non-consent” thing, but I’m not sure I’d be able to debate that because it squicks me out. Of course, there’s BDSM… which… again…
This is none of those things, though. This is fucking… I just…
I…
*ragequit*
Every time I think humans are as horrible as they can possibly get, they come up with a new way of convincing me that I was being optimistic. What’s next? Is Gamergate and Richard Dawkins going to come out in support of the pornographers’ frozen peaches?
This is, however, a perfect case in point to support Susan Brownmiller’s argument that porn is abusive and therefore should not always be protected as free speech. Brownmiller’s argument relied on economic disparity between producers and ‘content’ but this is even more extreme – it’s extorted abuse and nobody can meaningfully consent in such circumstances.
Susan Brownmiller writes: (http://www.susanbrownmiller.com/susanbrownmiller/html/antiporno.html)
The point Brownmiller makes that hits me below the waterline is that the protections for free speech are political; that it is right in a society to allow political speech, protest of the government, organization of dissent, and communication among those who disagree with government policy.
Brownmiller again:
I get angry whenever I remember that Brownmiller, Dworkin, and MacKinnon were successfully demonized as “radical” and worse. And, that decades later, people who never even read or challenged their ideas still respond to the charicatured straw-feminist ‘radical’
I think that Greta Christina could have an interesting point of view on the subject especially the last paragraph. But I also don’t get this desire to eroticize violence.
For anyone who’s a bit torn about this on the ‘consensual non-consent’ thing, I refer you all to Greta Christina’s excellent essay, Porn, Social Criticism, and the Marginalization of Kink
Granted, what’s going on here isn’t exactly kink, but I think there’s some ideas in that article that can transfer across.
To my way of thinking, the criticism of the porn being described comes down to consent.
Not just in the simple sense of ‘she said yes’… But in the sense that if the subjects in the videos actually were trying to cross a border, that would place them at a massive state of disempowerment relative to the people patrolling the border.
To my way of thinking, that kind of power differential is a very good reason to consider a person as being unable to give consent, regardless of what they say or do.
An analogy for this would be the case where children are considered unable to give consent to sex. There are a range of very good reasons for this, and one of them is that the difference in power between a child and an adult is too large, so the consent of the child is always suspect.
So if the videos in question actually are taken of women crossing the border, then to my mind that’s utterly unacceptable.
On the other hand, if the videos in question are of actual porn actors who aren’t actually at risk of being deported or mistreated in any way, and they are engaging in the videos freely and of their own will, then while that isn’t going to be something I’m personally interested in viewing based on personal aesthetics, I see no ethical objections.
I’ve not viewed the content myself (and have no interest in viewing it, it’s not the kind of porn I’m personally into), but from the description here it sounds like the content is deliberately ambiguous as to whether or not the footage is actually as presented.
Given that ambiguity I think that criticism is both justified and warranted.
Yeah, I don’t agree that rape “porn” or violence “porn” is ok as long as it’s consensual. Erotica is one thing, and rape and violence are another.
A: “I not only don’t ethically object to this as porn, but might enjoy it myself.”
B: “I have no ethical objections to this as porn, but it’s not to my taste.”
C: “I have ethical objections to this as porn, but it shouldn’t be illegal.”
D: “Not only do I have ethical objections to this as porn, but I believe it is or should be illegal.”
Options A-C there could all be included under the word “okay.” I can’t tell which you’re using here.
Filming immigrant women actually having sex with border patrol, neither of them actors, is capturing rape on film and should definitely be illegal.
Filming actors pretending to be immigrant women having sex with me pretending to be border patrol is horrifying and I have ethical objections to it, but it’s not rape and isn’t (to my knowledge) illegal. Nor should it be, in my view, any more than pretending in your bedroom to be an immigrant woman having sex with a border patrol guard who is actually your husband/boyfriend/other male sex partner should be illegal. Super crazy fucked up, yes. Illegal act, no.
My feminism makes me support the right of women to make this, or any other kind of porn, if it’s their real and uncoerced desire to do so. It also makes me grimace and shudder at the thought.
Men, not “me.” FFS.
There are so, so many things that other people do, uncoerced, in the name of getting off, which make me grimace and shudder at the thought. But since I’m not required to take part, or watch, or experience it in any way beyond knowing vaguely that it happens without even knowing the details – what possible business is it of mine?
Assuming all parties in the video are fully consenting adults and further assuming none of the activities in the video are actually illegal, I can see no argument against them that doesn’t boil down to “I don’t like that other people like this”.
Obviously if there are non-consenting parties involved it’s different – but that goes for absolutely all kinds of porn anyway.
Well, actors and actresses being playing out rape or other violent scenes consensually is, as has been mentioned above, legal albeit squeemish and perpetuating misogynistic stereotypes and objectification of women. As far as I know, many people who actually have experienced a specific kind of violence or exploitation use these kinds of porn as a way to process their trauma while for others it gives them a way to live out their otherwise potentially violent power fantasies. I don’t think people have any right to decide what is the “acceptable” kind of porn here, actual concerns should be: 1) are these actresses legal citizens, participating consensually in creating this kind of porn 2) actual changes in border-control to reduce immigrant rape rates. Basically I’m with Gretchen on this. There is a lot of violent/rape-themed porn out there, having people’s sadistic/masochistic fantasies played out by consenting actors is a lot better than the alternative.
If it makes you feel any better Gretchen, I worked out that typo without need for clarification. 😛
I can see no argument against them that doesn’t boil down to “I don’t like that other people like this”.
Really? No argument at all?
How about the argument that having commercially available porn (let’s say rape porn) mainstreams topics that promote inequality and abuse and, as such, help establish cultural stereotypes that perpetuate (let’s say rape culture)?
We have seen plenty of examples in the 20th century in which propaganda helped acculturate and encourage massive genocides through promotion of stereotypes. I am not making the simple “monkey see monkey do” argument, but it certainly appears that people who grow up in a culture that is heavily imbued with sexism are more sexist. Unless I am mistaken, that’s what “rape culture” is, and it would take an act of extreme willful blindness not to recognize this porn as promoting rape as something acceptable. Indeed, the comments here in the form of “it’s squicky but not illegal” are the squeaks the overton window makes as it shifts.
The evidence regarding whether pornography contributes to violence appears mixed.
“The influence of pornography on rape and sexual assault”
On the other hand:
“Predicting sexual aggression: the role of pornography in the context of general and specific risk factors.”
he evidence regarding whether pornography contributes to violence appears mixed
I am not sure if this was intended as a response to my comment. If so, I was specifically trying to avoid exactly this rejoinder when I wrote “I am not making the simple ‘monkey see monkey do’ argument” and was trying to frame certain types of pornography more broadly in the context of oppression against certain groups, embodied in social myths.
Perhaps rape culture was too close to the bone as an example, so let’s consider another meme: the “asian women are submissive” meme. There is porn that reinforces that idea (lots of it!) and should we be shocked when some people pick up that meme and believe it? If that’s the case, then beliefs affect actions and I think we have a complete argument that porn as a representative of popular cultures and attitudes acts as a reinforcer of popular cultures and attitudes. This isn’t rocket science; if we can justifiably complain (and we do) about how women are represented as weak and helpless in video games, because that also reinforces negative popular attitudes, how is that different from reasonably complaining that some forms of porn reinforce negative popular attitudes?
It’s not reasonable to claim that media representations only work one way; that they are only a representation of popular attitudes and have nothing to do with creating or reinforcing them.
Well, from the studies I’ve read on porn’s link to violence against women (which, ironically, I read a lot of last week since human aggression was the topic in my Social Psych class), it seems like pure porn – meaning clearly consensual sex – tends to have no effect on men and women’s attitudes, but violent pornography does increase both men and women’s acceptance of rape myths. As you might imagine, nonsexual movies with violence against women actually does the same thing. If the studies I read on this are accurate, then pornography itself certainly shouldn’t be condemned, but the type shown here which glorifies rape is definitely clearly damaging. It may not have to be, since it was also shown that men and women who are informed of what the studies found actually reversed their acceptance so they were less accepting of rape myths than originally. Maybe a disclaimer or something of that nature would help, though I imagine most people would just skip right to the “action,” anyway. Even then, there are other things about it that are problematic.
It was. If we’re discussing the consequences of “having commercially available porn,” we should look at the research literature. In terms of behavioral effects, it’s mixed – while there don’t seem to be societal-wide increases in sexual violence (i.e. national rates of reported sexual assault don’t rise as pornography becomes more available), there is good evidence of harmful effects on at least some individual’s attitudes and behaviors. The claim that media representations are influenced by and in turn influence stereotypes is, however, well-established (search google scholar for media + stereotypes, there are dozens of good studies from this year alone).
And as a gringo who’s lived in La Sierra Gorda for the past four years, let me add two more pieces of context:
1) The femicide epidemic in Juarez and other maquiladora border cities has NOT stopped, despite what Hillary Clinton may say — it is still raging, at a rate as high as potentially 2000 per year. That the women are now turning up beheaded so that they may appear to be victims of narcotraficantes is just a ruse — it is still Texas businessmen in a rape/torture cartel using these farmers displaced by NAFTA and forced into slave shops for Wall St. as their sexual chattel. NAFTA has provided the sickest motherfuckers in Texas with fodder for their sex dungeons as well as their sweatshops. So in the real world, this stuff is happening daily, and ends in torture and murder, not just rape.
2) As for Free Speech, Obama’s and Bush’s pet government here is about to pass a Constitutional amendment called Right Of Free Access, which Orwell and the GOP couldn’t have topped for irony, which will prohibit public protests, because every Mexican should have the right to free access of streets and plazas free from protesters.
American sexual violence against Mexican women at the border is one of the great unreported human rights abominations of the past quarter century. So, well…..there’s that.
it seems like pure porn – meaning clearly consensual sex
I think we’re in agreement but I’m going to bounce off what you said by reading between the lines a bit. No attack intended.
As a thought-experiment: If some company was producing “consent porn” which represented enthusiastic consensual sex following brief dialogue in which consent was secured and then a great time was (apparently) had by all, we might expect that porn to reinforce “consent culture” in the same way that many of us lauded Paul Thomas’ and Nina Hartley’s attempts to produce mainstream porn that showed sex as a healthy and egalitarian way of having fun together, in groups, or alone. If we’re going to assume that porn which mainstreams a good attitude is good, we should probably also assume the same mechanism works the other way and that porn which mainstreams abuse, degradation, violence, rape, and dominance is going to reinforce those attitudes as well.
By extension, I do not agree with the earlier comments that “It’s OK if it’s consensual” because when the porn is published it then becomes available as an attitude-reinforcer to those who don’t care about consent; it is now fuel for their inner erotic fires and in their fantasy world the scenarios are non-consensual. In that sense, it doesn’t matter if the actors consented because they didn’t, in the mind of the viewer. So, it’s not OK to produce “concentration camp porn” with consenting actors because the consumer is in denial about that fact and is reinforcing their cultural attitude that concentration camps are not merely acceptable, but erotic.
As a society we (grudgingly) accept this social engineering in the form of “NC-17” film ratings and such; I am not sure how much of this is an acceptance of the idea that young people are more impressionable, or that popular culture disproportionately targets young markets and thereby reinforces certain attitudes. Personally, I have always been deeply concerned at popular American media’s preference for offering eroticized violence instead of sexuality and I’ve always wondered to what degree America’s problems with spree killings are a result of endless reinforcement of the idea that spree killing is something that people do, in movies. In that vein, whether the actress in a “splatter flick” (because it’s almost always a young, attractive woman or a socially othered male) consented to be represented as the hack-toy of a serial killer – the popular attitude that such films reinforce and represent is problematic.
When I was re-reading a few of MacKinnon’s writings last night, triggered by this thread, one of the pieces she wrote stuck in my mind, namely that women in America are treated to a media that endlessly represents them as playthings, targets, and prey and that it shouldn’t take a lot of effort to understand that pornography is just a piece on that continuum of institutionalized repression and that we have a male-dominated culture as a result.
This really raises the “chicken:egg” question in spades. I was listening to an NPR podcast “when women stopped coding” ( http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding ) which pointed out that computers were marketed initially toward males, and now we have this vicious cycle in which computing is male-dominated and now that it’s male-dominated males are resentful of females moving into “their” space. When looking at a vicious circle, does it really matter how it started? One must break the cycle, and can do it anyplace.
Producers of porn are required by law to keep records of who they use as actors in their films. Primarily to ensure that the participants are above the age of 18. But, I would suspect that as a highly regulated industry, this requirement would also be a means to discover whether or not the participants in the filming were legally able to work in the US. There’s also the industry’s voluntary STD screening program.
The likelihood that the person portraying a “border patrol” agent is, in fact, a government employee is practically nil. It’s also highly unlikely that the person portraying the immigrant is either under-age or an undocumented worker. There’s no shortage of actors willing to work in porn for the producers to risk being shut down/prison.
So, in fact, what’s being filmed is just another “scenario” using willing participants who are paid for their time. I don’t see how this is different from any other porn “scenario”. Romantic/nonromantic/furry/violent/clown/cosplay/shemale/BBW/gay/MILF…whatever you’re “into”… there’s porn for it.
YKINMK, and all that.
Marcus said:
Well, part of the objection to the depiction of women as weak and/or primarily sex objects in video games is that video games are not porn. What do people mean when they say that? Well…..
1. The audience is different. Porn is for adults, whereas video games are generally at least in part intended for younger audiences. Adults are presumably less impressionable, or at least being overly concerned about creating the wrong impression in the minds of adults tends to be viewed as paternalistic.
Porn is also extremely variable– if you’re a porn consumer but you don’t want to see rape scenes of any kind, you don’t have to. There is really nothing like the coercion factor that exists for video games where you’re hard-pressed to find games where women aren’t sexualized and must give up many popular mainstream titles if you do.
2. Porn isn’t intended to be normative. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t function that way, of course, but it generally isn’t intended as such by either producer or consumer. That’s the fantasy element– people consume porn which depicts people doing things which they (the consumers) would never do in a million years and may even consider horribly wrong, but for whatever reason it turns their crank and they get off to it. I’m not going to say that enjoying really fucked up porn isn’t an indicator that you’re a really fucked up person, but it certainly doesn’t have to be.
Kink exists. Kink is, in large part, about pretend scenarios of people abusing each other and getting off on it. I’m not saying anyone who enjoys kink must therefore enjoy or even approve of the existence of immigrant border control porn, but the reasons you’re supplying for disapproving of the latter seem to apply just as well to the former.
There are plenty of women who get off on porn that depicts women as weak and helpless. That’s not wrong. The porn itself could still be wrong, but if you forcibly ended it (by outlawing it, rather than it dying out due to lack of interest), you would also end their ability to get off on it.
There are lots of other important differences I can think of between porn and video games that matter here, but I don’t have time to go into them.
Wham, there go feminism and anti-racism and LGBT rights and secularism and all other attempts to change the thinking of adults.
Nope. Trying to change the minds of adults is what advocates of myriad kinds do.
Yes they do, and I’m one of them.
But not because I’m afraid that they’ll “get the wrong impression.” Adults already have impressions. Sometimes those impressions need to be changed, and that’s a lot more work than making the impressions in the first place. And also, I think, quite a different kind of enterprise. Kids you teach. Adults you persuade.
TRIGGER WARNING: serial killer, murder
1. The audience is different. Porn is for adults, whereas video games are generally at least in part intended for younger audiences.
Apparently you haven’t heard of the internet. Which is amazing, since you’re using it to post your comments.
2. Porn isn’t intended to be normative. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t function that way, of course, but it generally isn’t intended as such by either producer or consumer.
Intent is totally magical. Because if I don’t intend to hurt anyone when I drive drunk, it doesn’t count if I actually run over a dozen nuns, right? Of course porn is normative. Indeed, we have been effectively mainstreaming it and removing age controls for the last decade.
I don’t know if there have been any interesting advances in our understanding of fetishization and what used to be called paraphilias since I was an undergrad in the early 1980s but even at that time my impression was that “early impressions matter” (pace Freud) and a young person’s sexualization is critical to their adult sexuality (i.e.: sex is largely a learned behavior in humans) if that’s the case, then society may be reinforcing rape culture, dominance, and other fetishes in people at a younger age. If anyone reading this has any references on that subject, I’m interested; I’ll do some research of my own tonight during my evening reading time.
Kink exists. Kink is, in large part, about pretend scenarios of people abusing each other and getting off on it.
I am tempted to observe that you clearly know nothing about kink, or are so kinked that you see everything through the lens of your kink only.
Kink certainly exists. But, why? I am not saying there is anything wrong with kink – if you go back and re-read what I wrote earlier, the issue I am raising is whether there is something wrong with mainstreaming something that may not be understood by the viewer, deliberately or accidentally. I haven’t watched any gestapo/concentration camp porn but I’m rather willing to bet that the person in the SS uniform doesn’t grab the person in rags with the shaved head by the (oops, no hair) front of their rag smock and ask them politely if they consent. Maybe you can correct me, if I am wrong about this. I am very happy to be wrong about this.
Saying “kink exists” with the implication that kink will always exist does not get you automatically to “… therefore its OK.” Perhaps where we should be going is asking whether some kinds of kink reinforce and establish harmful societal norms. Perhaps some forms of kink should be put in the closet.
There are plenty of women who get off on porn that depicts women as weak and helpless. That’s not wrong.
I know a guy who gets off on porn that depicts women as murdered then used for sex. One of my kinkster model friends has been in a lot of those videos, covered in stage blood with a silicone throat-cut moulage. Sure, and it’s a safe and healthy way for a single mom to make a living but … sometimes she knows what’s going on in the videographer’s mind while he’s shooting it. Maybe what you see is a healthy escape-valve for a kinked guy and a safe living for a single mom who enjoys working the flexible hours. Me? It creeps me the fuck out, and I’m a kinkster and I’ve been a pornographer. I know another guy in the kink community (hey, maybe you know Moraxian?) whose idea of sexuality is pictures of girls (it’s always girls) “in distress” – by which I mean tied to a table about to be cut with a power-saw, or duct taped to a chair with a fake bomb in their lap. The images are consistently low quality and, when I asked him about it, he explained that high quality photography ruins his customers’ fantasies. Presumably because his customers’ fantasies consist of having a serial killer-style image stash. Who is unhealthy in that situation:
a) the photographer
b) the photographer’s customer
c) me, for thinking the photographer and his customers are disturbing
d) all of the above
The issue I am trying to expose here is the line between when two consenting adults do something for their own enjoyment, and when consenting adults mainstream something that may contribute to a dangerous cultural trend. Yes, we find it appropriate to critique mainstream movies (consider “Django Unchained” and its representation of racism and violence) if they appear to be promoting racism or sexism or fascism or … fuck, whatever’s dangerous. We find it appropriate when the Myth Busters say “don’t try this at home, kids!” when they are making explosions. We find it appropriate (most of us, anyhow, barring a few misogynist cranks) when someone makes a feminist critique of video games. It is appropriate to make a feminist critique of porn, too..
Marcus @ 24:
It is very appropriate to make a feminist critique of porn. Unfortunately, when people hear “feminist critique of porn, they hear “feminist wants to ban porn”. Then you get into arguing whether or not porn is dangerous, as if things have to be dangerous before they can be critiqued. My opinion is that we have misogynist porn for the same reason we have misogynist movies, TV shows, etc. It’s just that the presence of sex seems to amplify the level of perceived misogyny. I don’t like “Border Patrol Sex” because it’s both misogynist and racist on top of the whole coerced sex aspect of it. I’m not a big fan of kink in general, but this looks like a poor attempt at it that just comes off as mean.
Looking at the big picture, it’s difficult to make statements about the entire pornography industry based on one series on one website. Mofos itself has several different series and “Border Patrol Sex” is the only one in which there is not enthusiastic consent, even if that consent comes from fairly ludicrous scenarios such as women having sex with their “peeping toms”. It’s also a new series, so it still remains to be seen if the porn consuming public will accept it. As mindgeek’s last attempt at kink (on a different website) was cancelled due to lack of interest outside of complaints I suspect “Border Patrol Sex” will suffer the same fate. Like other forms of entertainment, mainstream porn companies generally don’t do niche markets well. Especially since there are niche companies that do kink much better.
@MarcusRanum, 13:
That’s a pretty broad definition of “mainstream” (as well as verbing it, grr). There’s commercially available porn in which the actors defecate in each others’ mouths. I’ve never seen it, but I know it exists. Nothing, but nothing, will ever make that “mainstream”, or acceptable. This is just one example – there are doubtless many, many others. It disturbs me that it exists, but it’s none of my business (apologies for pun).
If the activities portrayed in some porn are “mainstreamed” (and I don’t agree they are) then it is something else that is doing that.
What a revolutionary idea. Can someone please go and tell kink.com that finally someone respectable came up with what they’ve been doing all along? Pre- and post scene interviews, with clear consent, talking about expectations and how they played out, are an integral part of their productions.