Iceland considers porn ban

[hongi]

Not to mention, it seems to be a leftist government pushing for this.

[K. A. Pital]

Well the current government head is a feminist lesbian, and her rationale is that capitalists and especially traffickers should not profit from naked women - I read a piece in the Guardian which indicated that strip club workers in Iceland are poor foreigners, female citizens are hardly eager to take such a job.

However, what if women form a strip cooperative? What if women create a porn cooperative? And especially what will happen with male strip and gay porn?

If we ignore these weird possibilities, though, it is true that female stripping is hardly a choice that women make because so desire. Exhibitionist and nymphomaniac tendencies are always in a minority. And it is not as if a ban on commercial supply of nudity in strip clubs and sex in brothels would seriously impede the ability to get sex for such a person - there's swinger clubs et cetera for such instances.

[Scrib]

Well the current government head is a feminist lesbian, and her rationale is that capitalists and especially traffickers should not profit from naked women - I read a piece in the Guardian which indicated that strip club workers in Iceland are poor foreigners, female citizens are hardly eager to take such a job.

However, what if women form a strip cooperative? What if women create a porn cooperative? And especially what will happen with male strip and gay porn?

If we ignore these weird possibilities, though, it is true that female stripping is hardly a choice that women make because so desire. Exhibitionist and nymphomaniac tendencies are always in a minority. And it is not as if a ban on commercial supply of nudity in strip clubs and sex in brothels would seriously impede the ability to get sex for such a person - there's swinger clubs et cetera for such instances.

Yeah, this is a whole other ideological thing besides the supposed link between porn and violence. Hell, I read about the strip clubs and

On the matter of choice though: isn't that the nature of work? People do shit that they don't want to do to make money. Some people do shit that they would rather not do not because they cannot find other work but because it pays better than those other jobs. Is there any evidence that such work inherently leads to greater mental health problems?

The issue with foreigners is far more worrying but there is where a system where creating a collective of porn workers who negotiate together would probably work.

As for porn, the other option (if their overriding concern was working conditions and not objectification and "sale" of women) would be to screen all the porn companies in the country to make sure they have the correct working conditions and they're not promoting violent porn but the latter would lead to an MPAA type situation which I find odious. Let people try to figure out a way to circumvent their ban.

Although,it's funny. When we talk about gun control we snort about how the average American doesn't really give a shit about rational arguments about danger, I'm feeling the same urge here. I just wanna scream out "Free Speech! Freedom!Gimme my porn godamnit!"

[TheFeniX]

If we ignore these weird possibilities, though, it is true that female stripping is hardly a choice that women make because so desire. Exhibitionist and nymphomaniac tendencies are always in a minority.

Why not? There's a pretty good amount of money to be made doing it. I had a friend who was a stripper. Her and her girlfriends were of the mind that "the work is great, the customers suck." Sounds like my job and I'm sure millions of other people. Everyone just assumes strippers are damaged, riddled with "Daddy issues," or being exploited (while making twice what I made back then). Texas (Houston mainly) has been waging it's own war against strippers and Houston politicians continue to push around undesirables who have little recourse (besides skirting the law).

If the actors or performers are being exploited, that's another issue. But lawmakers could try and, you know, talk to strippers and adult performers about how to improve their working conditions before valiantly diving in to protect them by making them unemployed.

Is there any evidence that such work inherently leads to greater mental health problems?

There's just not a lot of reading on it.

strippers do not have any loss of self-esteem or overall sense of self-worth. They are (perhaps understandably) more preoccupied and concerned with their physical appearance. This research is however far from infallible. The strippers interviewed were generally older than the non-strippers, and 40 strippers is hardly a big sample to draw sweeping conclusions. And of course, there is nothing to actually prove that the stripper’s increased level of body shame is caused by their occupation.

Many believe their personal relationships won't last. But is that because their work drives them to that or is it because they figure any guy they meet wouldn't consider something long-term with a stripper? I'm assuming the later.

It's sad that most the information you get is from interviews on HBO specials. In those, most performers love their jobs, but have issues with big brother saying he knows better than they do (because only the desperate would do those types of jobs...) and customers who come in and treat them like sluts or damaged goods. Watching Cathouse, you find that all the women interviewed have pretty high job satisfaction, especially when customers come in who don't treat them like garbage.

[Panzersharkcat]

Porn is bigger than the big porn industry. There's lots of porn around that are spread without the consent of the people involved or were made under duress (some financial difficulty etc).

Fair enough about the first part. That definitely runs smack dab into privacy issues.

[Guardsman Bass]

Well the current government head is a feminist lesbian, and her rationale is that capitalists and especially traffickers should not profit from naked women - I read a piece in the Guardian which indicated that strip club workers in Iceland are poor foreigners, female citizens are hardly eager to take such a job.

I've heard there's a kind of loophole in it. You can't operate strip clubs employing naked women to dance, but woman can still go to people's houses as strippers working for themselves. Or at least that's what they're doing, law or otherwise.

[Dominarch's Hope]

No, its not "Hypocritical". I hate how people abuse that term now. Hypocritical would be lessening punishments for actual sexual assaults and covering up and suppressing prosecution at the same time.

They are going after a very specific type of porn apparently and for a very specific reason. Whether or not the reason is logical has nothing to do with it.

Gay for pay cant be argued to implicitly advocate forcible rape, and murders and thievery are entirely different crimes. Whether or not the gay for pay guys earnestly enjoy it or not is irrelevant to the on screen depiction of consent. And they (usually) consent to doing the movie anyways.

Hell, this isnt about the enjoyment of sex at all, its about the consent and possible coercion of it and it being depicted on screen period, whether in a positive or negative manner.

Except they're not. They're opposed to the very idea of pornography. They banned strip clubs and porn before, this is just the logical conclusion. They have a problem with the "sale" of women so to speak and they've been clear on
that.

Oh. It seemed different. Well, it does have the possible benefit of pulling the rug out of human trafficking profits in terms of sex trade. What is the possibility of this being iverturned in later years?


And its only really doable thanks to tiny size and tiny population. Benefits and problems of scale and all.

[K. A. Pital]

I've heard there's a kind of loophole in it. You can't operate strip clubs employing naked women to dance, but woman can still go to people's houses as strippers working for themselves. Or at least that's what they're doing, law or otherwise.

Well, going from the anticapitalist angle, self-employment is not exploitation. So I guess this loophole fits within the spirit of their declarations.

Why not? There's a pretty good amount of money to be made doing it. I had a friend who was a stripper. Her and her girlfriends were of the mind that "the work is great, the customers suck." Sounds like my job and I'm sure millions of other people. Everyone just assumes strippers are damaged, riddled with "Daddy issues," or being exploited (while making twice what I made back then). Texas (Houston mainly) has been waging it's own war against strippers and Houston politicians continue to push around undesirables who have little recourse (besides skirting the law).

Well that's the difference, if citizens take up these jobs, then the jobs are desireable. If citizens en masse avoid them and poor immigrants fill them, something isn't right with these jobs. It's like working in one of those hellish fast food restaurants, being a human piece of machine. I would not wish such a job on anybody and without employment surveys you can see that people there would gladly do something else (which is also manifested in a high personnel turnover rate). So perhaps stripping is more popular in the US since it brings more money than other jobs, but if that were the case, you'd expect more citizens in Iceland take these jobs.

If the actors or performers are being exploited, that's another issue. But lawmakers could try and, you know, talk to strippers and adult performers about how to improve their working conditions before valiantly diving in to protect them by making them unemployed.

Or self-employed, which might bring even more money and be better than being told by some manager jerk. Of course, like I said above, the ideal situation is a, heh, Lusty Lady, where employees are the bosses. But sadly enough that's only a dream.

Like I said, it is wrong to extrapolate one nation's habits onto the other. And I'm hardly in favor of blanket bans, but unionized, cooperative or better yet worker owned prostitution, pornmaking and stripping is the exception, not the rule. Legalization and careful help might be useful, but if those are mostly poor migrant-staffed industries, there's a problem apparent even with regulations.

The porn ban hardly makes sense though, Iceland's share of customers is incredibly small and would not impact the porn market either way. Porn is not made in Iceland.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Look, porn may seem all well and good when it's of a certain type, but a lot of the actresses in some of the scummier shit out there are being beaten and coerced into filming in developing nations, and a lot of websites don't care where they get material from. Then, throw in the fact that you have porn dealerships right next to auto dealerships in the worst parts of cities, which appear devoted to the total objectification of women, viz:"Conquest Video" in Fitchburg that I drove past yesterday. The combination of pictures of a woman's upper body with the word "conquest" painted on the side of an otherwise unmarked white box truck leaving a store with similar advertising in a scummy industrial neighbourhood next to used car dealerships certainly made me feel sympathetic to the Icelandic Althing. Are there other, less extreme alternatives? Yes, certainly. But it still makes you feel kind of sympathetic...

[Dominarch's Hope]

Max Hardcore comes to mind. IIRC, he got sued or otherwise taken to court because one or two of his actresses claimed the abuse went beyond what was discussed etc etc.

And TDOZ, thats what I meant about the sex trade. You never know whats behind that smile.