#1 15-09-15 04:11:34

Laney

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Registered: 25-03-13

Posts: 1,227

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Should porn be banned on college campuses?

Melbourne University porn ban angers Ormond College students

So, the administration of Ormond college at the University of Melbourne have banned students from downloading porn on college wifi. They argue that allowing "students to access porn on its network would be condoning the objectification of women."

Obviously I'm against this internet censorship on principle, and also because it will be ineffective. Students are pretty good at using the internet these days, so I assume they will  just download porn somewhere else at the university (like in a lecture) to watch later in their dorm. 

While I don't agree with the porn ban, I agree that much mainstream porn shows objectification, degradation and violence towards women, and it can be hard to tell whether the "exploitation" is real or feigned. There is definitely a place for female submission in porn, but as with all porn it should be produced ethically and the website should make it clear that everything in the video is consensual. Most big porn producers do this by filming interviews before shoots to show the actors are informed of what what will happen in the shoot, then afterwards to show that they had a good time. The only website I've actually watched these interviews on is kink.com, where the performers are always beaming and looking so proud of themselves after being fucked by five guys while tied to a chair or something.

When the videos are posted to tube sites, these before and after videos are almost always cut out. So without that context, it can be hard to tell if the performers are pretending to be exploited or are genuinely being exploited. Then it gets mixed in with low budget gonzo crap with questionable production methods, some of which appears exploitative because it probably is. (Or at least I have no way of knowing it's not).

Most students would have already watched free porn on the internet before starting at Ormond college, and will continue to do so with or without the porn filter. Education, such as the kind offered by Melbourne Uni at "Rad Sex and Consent Week" and gender studies courses, will help students to interpret the porn they watch, and maybe make them search out better sources.

Another interesting point raised in the article is "A study last year from the UK showed a normalisation of coercive heterosexual anal sex among 16 to 18-year-olds." The problem here is obviously the coercion, not the anal sex. I'd be interested to know if there has been an increase in coercion in sex in the past 10/20/30 years. Some of the attitudes towards sex shown in films/books/advertising from before the "internet porn era" are pretty damn coercive and sexist. Also since anal sex is becoming more popular, hopefully there is more education about it in schools/universities. Or at least I hope teenagers can google "how to have anal sex" as well as they can google "free anal porn".

So what do you think? Do you think Ormond college students should have the unlimited right to access pornography on college wifi? Or do you think that allowing students to do so would be inappropriate, and that the college has a responsibility to shield students from the potential harmful effects of pornography?

ThatIndividual

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Registered: 16-07-15

Posts: 347

Re: Should porn be banned on college campuses?

I think it should be available in the dorms. If they're worried about their students being negatively affected by porn they ought to address that directly. It's like alcohol in the US vs outside the US. In the US, many people binge on booze before they're "of age" - and because of the taboo. If they outright ban porn on their network then bringing porn in will go from whatever it currently is to a political/social statement.

Laney

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Registered: 25-03-13

Posts: 1,227

Website

Re: Should porn be banned on college campuses?

Yeah, I think most people would agree that students at Ormond should have the same right to access porn as everyone else in Australia.

If they're worried about their students being negatively affected by porn they ought to address that directly.

Yeah, they are a university so they could offer education about porn/ consent/ gender studies/ sexual health instead of implementing a useless ban. Actually, they already do offer this kind of education, which makes this ban even more stupid.

If you think that one college in Melbourne banning their students from downloading porn is unfair, you will be shocked to know that possession of pornography of any kind has been illegal in most Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory for the past eight years. The maximum penalty for possession of "5 or more items" of pornography in prescribed communities is $22,000 and/or 2 years jail time.

I filmed a video diary earlier this year in my home town of Darwin, NT, just a few kilometers away from a prescribed community. I tried to work out how far away I was exactly, but the community isn't marked on Google maps, even though it's in the middle of suburbia and a few hundred people live there.

Not being able to download porn over your expensive college wifi between attending lectures at one of Australia's top universities must be pretty hard, but it doesn't really compare to getting fined thousands of dollars/potentially sent to jail for possessing porn in the tiny concrete house that you share with your extended family.

pole1cat

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Registered: 20-03-15

Posts: 111

Re: Should porn be banned on college campuses?

Hi Laney,

I want to address Ormond College's quote from your original post: "allowing students to access porn on its network would be condoning the objectification of women."

The quote, and my experiences as an IFM investor/subscriber, have made me think. If I watch an IFM video and enjoy it mentally or physically (choosing words carefully here at the risk of being explicit or offensive), does that automatically mean I am objectifying the contributor, or am I able to say instead that I am appreciating the contributor? The latter has more positive connotations (there is a fine line between objectification and exploitation, as you suggested in your introductory post to this thread). The IFM videos I personally enjoy the most are those in which there is a sense of the contributor communicating with the audience, and in which the contributor appears to be enjoying herself. Obviously both of these factors are subjective - different viewers notice different things in the same video. What I am trying to point out is that I enjoy the contributors' enjoyment as much as my own, if that makes sense, and that is how I justify to myself that it is "OK" to enjoy IFM. Obviously I am still wrestling with the "sex is bad" message that I discussed in my introductory posts.

Maybe the difference between "objectification" and "appreciation" could be analogous to the difference between "pornography" and "erotica". I note that the tagline of IFM, at the top of the homepage, is "an historic achievement in erotica", and some (many? most?) people who post on these forums are uncomfortable referring to IFM as a "porn site".

Thoughts?

pole1cat