Women degrading advertising in search

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Dunnit. I watched the whole series on Hexaflexagons - brilliant! Being a HUGE lover of gravy, I watched that one too. The only problem with it is that she didn't peel the spuds! Yuk!

---

The peel is the best part, it's got poison (same as nightshade) in it.

Here you go, "everyone's favorite". The bacon is for you, I don't eat it.

[Phil Deakins]

Scrubbed new potatoes are fine, although I prefer them to be scraped. But cooking old spuds with the skins on and then mashing them, well, that's just ridiculous.

But I'd forgotten to mention you earlier in this little bit of the thread. I'd intended to because one of the videos I watched was right up your street - giving your hero a starring role. Unfortunately, I've forgotten which one it was, but you like her videos, so you probably already know which it is. Your hero, of course, is Richard Feynman. It might have been the Pythagoras one.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

Gosh I remember this thread. Controlling arguments outside of a fetish environment are so predictable.

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UnicornNightmares wrote:

When you don't want to see women being degraded, "un-check the adult box" should not be the only option.

---

Sure, I agree. If only there was a way to also specify what type of adult content you wanted to see. Some kind of... text... entry... system that could lookup words and respond with results based on those queries. What a world that would be.

Search options are limited, and there

could be

checkboxes for softcore, hardcore, foot fetish, all that jazz. There aren't. All we have, is a checkbox that tells the search system that

"I can be an adult about this"

, and logically separate

"things I want to see more of"

and

"things I want to see less of"

without throwing a tantrum. Seeing something in search - finding out that something personally distasteful exists - doesn't have to lead any further than

"Naaah"

.

(Disclaimer: this statement assumes everything in Search always meets the requirements of the ToS, CS, Maturity Guidelines)

---

UnicornNightmares wrote:

After all, appreciation for sex is a natural thing.  But sexism really is *not * natural or healthy...  And shoving the unhealthy stuff in our face when we don't want that, is like shoving images of things that are disgusting to you, when you were hoping to look for something appealing.

---

I'd disagree that sexism isn't natural,

(I agree with your disagreement. A whole lot of "isms" are natural... and poorly suited for modern society, which is a recent human invention)

this seems like a reframing and possible anthropomorphising to fit a convenient narrative (which is common when folks use words like "natural" and "healthy" - and, oh god, that stupid projective metaphor of "shoving" in faces and down throats). Humans are sexually diamorphic, like many

other

animals - and our 'natural' state is not all that civilised. Overt sexual appetites and animalistic reproductive methods that are light on egalitarianism are expressed in our history on the regular. Living in a gutter but looking up at the stars enables us to push ourselves and do better, to try our best to respect people and to work to create a better world for our children. Reducing societal barriers to individual success (e.g. of which reducing sexism is a part) may not be

natural

, but it's still definitely

good

.

We're the first animal in history to consciously alter its own environment, making that enviroment, and our response to it... unnatural. Meanwhile, natural selection proceeds apace, and we've no idea what it's selecting for. I heartily agree that we do, through careful consideration, some very unnatural things that are definitely good. And careful consideration is hard work that some people may dislike (who want's to challenge their own beliefs?) or haven't the luxury to entertain (who can think deeply when perpetually in peril?). This is why it's so very important to reduce peril around the world, to give people breathing room for careful consideration.

As for the rest... I don't believe anyone has any odds for

only

finding things they like. That's what - in nature - makes humans great; we have a fantastic ability to

judge situations for ourselves, when presented with evidence

. Our brains are super at sorting good from bad

(This was more true during our ancient tribal history, but not so much now. We're fairly dreadful at risk assessment in the modern world. The value of evidence has never seemed less to me that it is right now. Ban Muslims, shall we?)

, friend from enemy. Our senses want to be pushed, to try new things and reach new heights - whether that's space exploration, social studies or sexual taboos.

Without choice and difference of opinion our critical thinking atrophies, we fall into cult-like behaviour, and oppression grows stronger.

The real world isn't only full of things that I like, I hope it's not only full of things that you like. The important thing is that you can

find happiness

in a world that has little of it by default. (I don't believe we find happiness. I think it's the byproduct of gratitude. If you cultivate gratitude, happiness follows. So, we don't find happiness, we make it. I'd not be surprised if you actually believe this and were just imprecise (lazy) in your use of "find" ;-).

--

The rest of your post is sadly meandering into territory that feels less useful. I don't feel I'm equipped to talk about racism, and feel it's awkward to conflate these two issues in this way. Systematic and dogmatic oppression of women is its own Bad Thing - believe me, I understand this. I also understand that you want better out of the world, but I promise there is nowhere in the realms of space and time where things have improved by someone demanding that things "should" be a certain way, or someone declaring something to be "universally abhorrant". I absolutely have sympathy for those with strong preferences, and those that worry that people exploring their senses in healthy expressions of kink are part of societal oppression. I personally don't see the correlation,

kink communities are by far more egalitarian and often focus on progressive concepts of consent and communication that many "vanilla" groupings do not. Many are cliquey and have blindspots, sure, but recognising the problem is often better than other groups have managed in millenia.

Energy could be far better spent criticising groups that do perpetuate these oppressions directly and demand obedience while doing so - for example, fundamentalist religion (#truthbomb).

Didn't think I'd be be equating science and kink today, but there we are. All we've got is shades of grey, and that's the way our brains thrive best. There don't have to be exactly fifty, but there should be

at least

fifty shades of grey to choose from.

---

I do so enjoy reading your posts, Freya.

[Madelaine McMasters]

I think my hero is mentioned in several of Vi's videos over the years, for sure in Hexaflexagons 2.

Now that I know you think mashing unpeeled old spuds is ridiculous, that's the only way I'm ever gonna serve 'em to you.

[Phil Deakins]

What about if you throw a few in the fire, and bake them along with with me. I can manage those because only the inside get eaten. I can bring a tin of beans if it helps.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

UnicornNightmares wrote:

By the way, I don't think it's true bdsm, when it's *always * women who are put in humiliating poses.  

 

---

There is no more a "true bdsm" than a "true female". You are elevating your beliefs to the status of truth and that's potentially dangerous.

If you want to look at this statistically, you'll find the evidence contradicts you...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/billion-wicked-thoughts/201104/why-gender-equality-does-not-always-work-in-the-bedroom

A functional MRI of our brains would look quite different inside the bedroom and out. Don't conflate the two environments. Elsewhere in this thread, Phil said he thinks women are better managers. That doesn't mean he'd want to be managed by one bed (just going by the statistics, Phil will think what Phil will think). That's just fine.

But there are plenty of people who do conflate the two environments, not because they're thinking but because they aren't. And that can make it difficult for thinking people to believe the environments are separate.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

What about if you throw a few in the fire, and bake them along with with me. I can manage those because only the inside get eaten. I can bring a tin of beans if it helps.

---

Open the tin before you arrive. I don't want an explosion in the middle of my raging inferno.

[Phil Deakins]

Don't worry. I don't want to be injured (or worse) by an exploding tin of beans either

[Rhonda Huntress]

What, Meatloaf again?

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Rhonda Huntress wrote:

What, Meatloaf again?

---

You can never have too much Meatloaf...

And there's nothing like a good Curry...

[UnicornNightmares]

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

There is no more a "true bdsm" than a "true female".

------------------------------------------------

What I mean is, the bdsm community is meant to be about consent, safety, and is not supposed to promote real oppression.   If it were not that way, then it would not be bdsm.  It would be abuse.  That is what I mean by 'true bdsm,'  as opposed to people who use "bdsm" as an excuse to actually just be abusive, and claim that it's the kind of bdsm that the bdsm community promotes, when it's not.  The reason there has been an uprising of bdsm culture, is to let people know that some people enjoy these things and it doesn't make them bad, is not the same as abuse, etc.

Your claim that that is the same as trying to say "true female" is just invalid.  

Nothing about what I'm saying or believe is "potentially dangerous."   That's rather ridiculous, especially as I'm trying to advocate against a subtly abusive culture.  I doubt anything is "dangerous" about that.   I do not "conflate the two environments" of in the bed and out.    

Whether or not women are mostly submissive and men dominant in bed is debatable.  But it also does not really matter. When commercialized culture tries to pose them as always submissive, that is the problem - not whether or not a woman has submissive fantasies in her personal life.  Though I have seen other studies on this that say something different, that most people - both men and women are submissive, and fewer people are dom.  I don't necessarily trust the scientific studies to not be biased.  There was one study that appeared as though it claimed men could not be bisexual.  Which is simply not true, and it was later proven that they were wrong. 

[UnicornNightmares]

"I'd disagree that sexism isn't natural,"

----------------------

You can disagree if you want to, but your disagreement is not a good excuse to disregard it.  And you are ignoring what I said about how, many people who look for something sexually appealing, are actually looking for something appealing. Not something meant to disgust them.  I know you're ignoring that point on purpose, but that's still not an excuse. 

And sure there are some messed up things that exist in nature, some animals will kill a mother's babies or sexually abuse them.  But comparing those messed up things in nature to sexism, it's still not natural.  As in there is still something wrong with people who engage in that.  

Actually, the beginning of modern society created a lot of the inequality we know of today.  Where women became property, their sexuality was controlled.  Starting with agriculture.  

 https://books.google.com/books?id=Kr7NCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=agriculture+and+sexism&source=bl&ots=oZ04_HtGx2&sig=I3zZfyJgmzwERhotatqZihVtgX4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqjIKG6c7OAhVM_mMKHRDJBy4Q6AEIXTAJ#v=onepage&q=agriculture%20and%20sexism&f=false

I don't know what exactly you were claiming I was reframing, but it seems more like you are reframing things and ignoring my points, merely trying to disregard everything.  Or whatever you think about the term shoving in our faces, doesn't really matter.  

I'm not saying that people have to be able to find ONLY the things they like.  I just think that when we're searching for things that are appealing or erotic (whether we find our precise fantasy or not), we shouldn't be bombarded with REPULSIVE things, which some people might like and is sometimes ok, but shouldn't be used to represent all sex.   

I'm not reading the rest of your post.  All you do is say the same thing over again and try to twist things around with a bunch of words that don't matter.  

[Rhonda Huntress]

I still don't know who these women are that are degrading the advertisments that show up in search.

 

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Rhonda Huntress wrote:

I still don't know who these women are that are degrading the advertisments that show up in search.

---

Ten candidates...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/04/female-street-artists_n_5759430.html

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

UnicornNightmares wrote:

"I'd disagree that sexism isn't natural,"

----------------------

You can disagree if you want to, but your disagreement is not a good excuse to disregard it.  And you are ignoring what I said about how, many people who look for something sexually appealing, are actually looking for something appealing. Not something meant to disgust them.  I know you're ignoring that point on purpose, but that's still not an excuse. 

And sure there are some messed up things that exist in nature, some animals will kill a mother's babies or sexually abuse them.  But comparing those messed up things in nature to sexism, it's still not natural.  As in there is still something wrong with people who engage in that.  

Actually, the beginning of modern society created a lot of the inequality we know of today.  Where women became property, their sexuality was controlled.  Starting with agriculture.  

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kr7NCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=agriculture+and+sexism&source=bl&ots=oZ04_HtGx2&sig=I3zZfyJgmzwERhotatqZihVtgX4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqjIKG6c7OAhVM_mMKHRDJBy4Q6AEIXTAJ#v=onepage&q=agriculture%20and%20sexism&f=false

I don't know what exactly you were claiming I was reframing, but it seems more like you are reframing things and ignoring my points, merely trying to disregard everything.  Or whatever you think about the term shoving in our faces, doesn't really matter.  

I'm not saying that people have to be able to find ONLY the things they like.  I just think that when we're searching for things that are appealing or erotic (whether we find our precise fantasy or not), we shouldn't be bombarded with REPULSIVE things, which some people might like and is sometimes ok, but shouldn't be used to represent all sex.   

I'm not reading the rest of your post.  All you do is say the same thing over again and try to twist things around with a bunch of words that don't matter.  

---

Although a good bit of sexism is taught, claiming sexism is unnatural disregards the evidence of it in nature (ex. chimps vs. bonobos). Denying instinctive behaviors pretty much guarantees we'll not educate ourselves past them:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/httpblogsscientificamericancomprimate-diaries20110720science-of-sexism/

Racism also has evolutionary underpinnings:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/more-mortal/201008/exploring-the-psychological-motives-racism

While there is abberant behavior in nature, your examples of incest and infanticide aren't necessarily examples of it:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140328-sloth-bear-zoo-infanticide-chimps-bonobos-animals/

Nature can't be "messed up", it's natural. Even the aberrations are natural, the result of the chance and chaos of evolution and the myriad interactions between creatures and their environments. That said, natural isn't necessarly good for us, and what's good for us includes things that are unnatural. What is messed up is our understanding of nature and our place in it.

You're also confusing me with Freya, who took issue with the "shoving in our face" metaphor. I'll take the confusion as a complement, Freya may take it as an insult.

I'm no fan of depictions of realistic violence and/or abuse (sexual or otherwise) in SL or RL. I avoid places where I'm likely to see such things and I give no attention to people who participate in such fantasy roleplay.

According to your original post, "most of the advertisements in the adult search" are degrading to women. I just went to the adult section of marketplace and looked at the "Featured Items" row. I saw nothing in it that was any worse than the porn businessmen were reading on bullet train when I visited Tokyo in 1986 (I was 16 and my opinion of Japanese culture still hasn't recovered). A search for "bra" returned page after page of lingerie ads that reminded me of Alberto Vargas, though not as well done. I'm sure there are things in the marketplace that would absolutely offend me, but I didn't see them during my brief foray there.

If you truly think "most" of the advertisements are degrading to women, then either you're searching for things that bring you very close to that line, or your definition of "degrading" encompasses a good bit of modern fashion and culture. I might not argue with that definition. It was about time that Miss Teen USA dropped the swimsuit competition. Now they need to add math, group management, and welding competitions. 

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

UnicornNightmares wrote:

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

There is no more a "true bdsm" than a "true female".

------------------------------------------------

What I mean is, the bdsm community is meant to be about consent, safety, and is not supposed to promote real oppression.   If it were not that way, then it would not be bdsm.  It would be abuse.  That is what I mean by 'true bdsm,'  as opposed to people who use "bdsm" as an excuse to actually just be abusive, and claim that it's the kind of bdsm that the bdsm community promotes, when it's not.  The reason there has been an uprising of bdsm culture, is to let people know that some people enjoy these things and it doesn't make them bad, is not the same as abuse, etc.

Your claim that that is the same as trying to say "true female" is just invalid.  

Nothing about what I'm saying or believe is "potentially dangerous."   That's rather ridiculous, especially as I'm trying to advocate against a subtly abusive culture.  I doubt anything is "dangerous" about that.   I do not "conflate the two environments" of in the bed and out.    

Whether or not women are mostly submissive and men dominant in bed is debatable.  But it also does not really matter. When commercialized culture tries to pose them as always submissive, that is the problem - not whether or not a woman has submissive fantasies in her personal life.  Though I have seen other studies on this that say something different, that most people - both men and women are submissive, and fewer people are dom.  I don't necessarily trust the scientific studies to not be biased.  

There was one study

that appeared as though it claimed men could not be bisexual.

 Which is simply not true, and it was later proven that they were wrong. 

---

Safe, sane and consensual should apply to any relationship, not just bdsm. The community adopted the credo to both assuage concerns from the rest of society and to dissuade abusive people from cloaking themselves in the kink. BDSM is not about real oppression, but it is about simulated oppression.

I think it'd be a pretty exceptional case to find someone who was forced to participate in SL roleplay without their consent. And, if that were to happen, I think we're dealing with issues beyond bdsm. I've known people here who suffered emotional abuse at the hands of partners they'd invested in, but I've not seen a higher correlation of that with kink. I think it's more a function of the psychology of participation in SL and the anonymity and disposition of residents. We're atypical.

The (50 Shades) uprising is not, I think, because of anyone's desire to let people know that good people enjoy BDSM. If that were the case, they'd have painted a less abusive picture of it. 50 Shades is Twilight with different characters and (as I've read in reviews) worse writing. Hopefully, nobody buys into the vision. It's a fantasy. The movie studio gave the audience what they wanted and the critics savaged it.

I trust that scientific studies are biased, usually unintentionally. That's why I'm slow to form opinions about things. I could list many studies that were later proven to be poorly done, drawing conclusions that were flat out wrong. That doesn't negate the value of science. This study may someday go down in flames, but I'm hopeful their conclusions will survive further scrutiny...

http://www.livescience.com/34832-bdsm-healthy-psychology.html

That surely contradicts the message 50 Shades conveys about the mental health and interpersonal communicatinos skills of kinky folk.

And being debatable doesn't mean the evidence doesn't support certain conclusions over others. Physical abuse isn't possible in SL, and though I find such depictions offensive, they are necessarily fantasy, as are the realistic depictions of gun violence and any number of other things I find offensive anywhere I see them. Until there's sufficient evidence to show causation between fantasy depictions and actual behavior, offensive imagery will persist. And if the evidence never arrives, the offense wiill be the result of misperception.

We'll see.

 

[Freya Mokusei]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

 I'd disagree that sexism isn't natural,

(I agree with your disagreement. A whole lot of "isms" are natural... and poorly suited for modern society, which is a recent human invention)

---

Fear and a desire for control are some of the most natural, instinctive urges humanity has. As an interesting (to me, anyway) aside, this is probably why kink is just as inseparable from humanity as the desire to denigrate the strange and unfamiliar as "bad", "unhealthy" or whatever judgement term of choice suits (and why trying to censor it is pointless).

Marilyn Manson (someone who understands taboos pretty well) once said "repression breeds perversion". It entirely wouldn't surprise me to see that this type of objection to taboos is some combination of projection and thrill on its own, and the correlary.. .that letting idiots determine what "should be" allowed is the perfect breeding ground for kink.

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

(This was more true during our ancient tribal history, but not so much now. We're fairly dreadful at risk assessment in the modern world. The value of evidence has never seemed less to me that it is right now. Ban Muslims, shall we?)

---

This is a super valid point. Yeah, you're right - the biology of our brains makes us good decision-makers. Modern society often does not. Information routes are frequently polluted with high levels of noise, confused with civilisation-based hypercomplexity, not to mention the deliberate subversion and dulling from "traditional" sources, causing people to end up thinking all-sorts of nonsense. It also drives niche, high-up topics that feel personal to the top of the needs list, as evidenced in this thread a good dozen times by now. This also prevents people from seeing injustices beneath them (and therefore, is the point).

It can be a mess, absolutely, but we still have the toolkit in the back of the shed. My personal strengths are pattern-matching and large dataset filtering and categorisation - stuff I try to leave to neural network applications where possible. For every new problem, our cognition has a new solution.

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

I don't believe we find happiness. I think it's the byproduct of gratitude. If you cultivate gratitude, happiness follows.

---

 I admit I was using a platitude - happiness is not a state I naturally understand. I'm not rock-solid on gratitude either today... I'll take your word for it though. You're not the sort to lead me wrong!

Glad you liked my post.

[Snugs McMasters]

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote some nonsense:

---

I'll take your word for it though. You're not the sort to lead me wrong!

---

... shakes her head.

[Freya Mokusei]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Safe, sane and consensual should apply to any relationship, not just bdsm.

...

http://www.livescience.com/34832-bdsm-healthy-psychology.html

---

Interesting study popped up today: Participating in a Culture of Consent May Be Associated With Lower Rape-Supportive Beliefs

Sometimes things aren't always what they look like, and especially aren't what social conservatives would have us believe.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Safe, sane and consensual should apply to any relationship, not just bdsm.

...

http://www.livescience.com/34832-bdsm-healthy-psychology.html

---

Interesting study popped up today: 

Participating in a Culture of Consent May Be Associated With Lower Rape-Supportive Beliefs

Sometimes things aren't always what they look like, and especially aren't what social conservatives would have us believe.

---

You only cited that study because it supports your world view, Freya. And you know you can't trust science because it keeps changing its mind.

;-).

[Freya Mokusei]

I did! It does!

Once I find something more trustworthy, more able to make predictions about reality then I will trust that. Until then though, I quite like that science keeps changing its mind.

It leads to good discussion.

(And I probably wouldn't trust something 'infallable' anyway)

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

I did! It does!

Once I find something more trustworthy, more able to make predictions about reality then I will trust that. Until then though, I quite like that science keeps changing its mind.

It leads to good discussion.

(And I probably wouldn't trust something 'infallable' anyway)

---

Yep, though I'm also always on the lookout for anything that contradicts what I believe. I don't want someone else to get there first and shoot me down in an argument. I love finding out I'm wrong when nobody's watching.

How many times have you heard someone say "I don't care what the evidence says, this is what I believe"? I'm hearing that more now than ever, across a wide spectrum of beliefs. Global warming as a hoax and rising violence around the world are two favorite evidence free zones. "The world is far more dangerous now than when I was a child", said my neighbor who belonged to the Hitler Youth during the extermination of six million Jews.

;-).

[UnicornNightmares]

I was not talking about somebody being forced to participate in SL roleplay without their consent. I didn’t say that either.  I was talking about media images that are generally abusive toward women, and how people wrongly try to excuse them as bdsm instead of abuse.  And such false claims that anyone who is against said things are being oppressive of people who enjoy adult entertainment, or being oppressive of people who enjoy bdsm.  

50 Shades of Gray is a movie.  The movie did not start a movement of bdsm culture.  Bdsm culture was there long before.  It was long before when people started saying that  ‘good people can enjoy bdsm.’  I have not seen 50 shades of Gray and don’t want to.  I have heard that it represents abuse rather than bdsm, though I don’t have much opinion on it since I haven’t seen it.  In short, when I was talking about bdsm community, I did not mean 50 Shades of Gray.

When I said that study seemed debatable, that was only one point I noted.  The most important point is that, even if what the study claims is true, it’s still not an excuse for the media to *always * portray women as submissive, even IF in a bdsm scene.  And then claim that’s how women want to be portrayed  (hint, I’m pretty sure it is not.)   Even if some women have submissive fantasies sexually, that doesn’t mean that’s how they want the media to *always * represent them.  The prior is something that’s just for fun in one’s personal life.  The latter is using the prior’s personal life as an excuse to claim that personal fantasy in a constantly sexist way, when it was never intended to be that way.  

I’m personally more into femdom, with just a slight sub streak - and I can say that the repulsive images in the media and porn toward women: they don’t do anything to excite my sub streak.  So anyone who claims that “most women are sexually submissive” (and that that’s why the media portrays that so much.)   In my experience, I would beg to differ.  The sex industry is not doing that to excite my submissive streak, and probably is not doing it to be pleasing to any “submissive”  women either.    But either way, I would repeat again the above paragraph.  

Your link about bdsm did not say anything different than what I said, btw.

[UnicornNightmares]

When I said sexism is not natural, I was not talking about how to educate ourselves past it.  That’s a different subject that I was not touching on.  I was talking about why we should not accept it.  And why, images of it should not be used to represent all of culture, as though people are supposed to see that as normal.  But even if degrading or violent fetishes exist, they should not be used to represent all sex, ever - or always against women.  People who are looking for something appealing in adult entertainment ought to be able to find that.  

The link you posted about incest and infanticide in nature actually circled that discussion back around the the same point as said before.

Also, you said that “Nature can’t be ‘Messed Up’ “  just after infanticide and sexual abuse in nature was being discussed (and I called those things “messed up” as you quoted.)  Sorry, but YES those things ARE MESSED UP.  You can’t just take away words I said,  especially for a subject like that.  Whether that’s part of nature or not does not change that.

Also, even if the worst behaviors in nature are argued to be natural.  Nature is always trying to evolve into something better.  If it weren’t, then we would all still be bacteria…  though most bacteria aren’t nearly as awful as a commercialized world that is sexually hostile toward women.     

I am not the Original Poster.  There may be some mix up here, but I just came to comment on the subject.   

But personally, yes I have seen that a lot of media and sex industry ads are degrading toward women.  And NO, I was not searching for things that brought me close to that.  For instance sometimes I have just searched for some hentai to watch.  Several times, I would stream a video, and soon find out that it was actually a rape scene being eroticized.  It was not labeled as a “rape fantasy,” it was just considered regular porn.  As if to expect that people just regularly enjoy that, as a general populus.  Or as if that represented all sex entertainment.

It was actually hard for me to find any video in hentai that was not a depiction of a rape scene.  Some others unexpectedly turned out to be a story of incest between family members (also unlabeled.)  One time, I looked up regular adult videos (not hentai),  and one of the advertisements on the sidelines at the site -  it was depicting a 3D animation of two adult men holding a child hostage in a sexual way.  (I don’t know if that’s legal even as cartoon, and yet it *was * on a regular porn site of otherwise adult only videos)    

I’ve gone on X-tube before, and seen advertisements on the sidelines for “18 and abused” and the video portrayed looked like it was traumatic for the women in it.  Does not look appealing at all, nor like something one wants to see when searching for appealing things.  Another video on the sidelines looked like a depiction of a man raping a woman.    

So no, my “definition of degrading” does not “encompass a good bit of modern fashion or culture.”

[UnicornNightmares]

You wrote: “Fear and a desire for control are some of the most natural, instinctive urges humanity has.”   

I disagree.  Desire for control are actually the worst instincts and urges humanity has, and I am not talking about consensual bdsm.   Desire for control is everything that is wrong with the human race, from oppression of people, violence, some situations of extreme situation of women, child abuse, workplace abuse.  And everything else that desire for control causes.   

Desire for fantasy control is different though.  However, when the media poses actually abusive images (such as the examples in my post above) and uses bdsm as an excuse for them, that’s more like abuse, not fantasy.

You quoted Marilyn Manson.  And I am not one of those people who is against Marilyn Manson.  But I doubt Marilyn Manson was talking about imposing disturbing porn on people who just wanted to see something erotic, when he said “Repression leads to perversion.”    And not wanting disturbing porn imposed on me, even when looking for adult entertainment, does not mean being an “idiot trying to determine what is allowed.”  or creating repression