YES

Jennifer Brown

The St Anne’s Feminist Discussion Group this week mused putting a motion before their JCR to ban the use of pornography on the college network.

There are, of course, cases for the proposal. The most widely used argument is that porn is degrading to women and therefore, in allowing students to watch it, colleges are inadvertently allowing male (and female) students to be exposed to the objectification of women.

As I’m sure you will agree, using the words ‘slut’, ‘whore’ or ‘bitch’ to describe females is hardly progressive. Nor is the idea that a woman will submit to anything her male partner demands. And whilst some may argue that this is reality, that this is how some people behave during sex, it does not mean that such behaviour is right. For if that is the case, it is not just college rules which need to change but society’s perception of women also.

Furthermore, I am sure few will argue that porn which depicts women being raped, put into cages or performing oral sex on a dog, is really ‘suitable’ late night viewing. 

And, yes, you may think bringing this up is all a little over the top for a matter solely concerned with students who are not generally associated with sexual abuse. . The majority of students at Oxford and indeed across the country will not delve into ‘violent’ porn like this. At least I hope not.

But the fact remains that it is available on the internet should a student wish to find it. Banning porn from its college network may seem a ridiculous idea, yet if acts such are these are socially unacceptable in some places, any desire to prevent association with them does become a little easier to digest.

The negative effects of porn do not end here. Porn engenders unrealistic
physical standards for the majority. One only has to look at statistics for cosmetic surgery within the UK: 9,843 cases for ‘boob jobs’ are recorded for 2013 alone. Clearly presenting ideal archetypes has a detrimental affect on the selfesteem of individuals. 

And as increased expectations not only affect notions of physical appearance, but sexual performance too, it is hardly surprising that individuals take issue with the concept of porn even prior to any discussion of college imposed bans.

Evidently, what people have failed to realise is that banning porn in
colleges would be a good thing. Banning porn would be sending out the message that we wish to disassociate ourselves from porn’s link to sexual discrimination, the promotion of anti-social behaviour and out of proportion expectations.

Considering the collegiate system and heavy workload, many people in
Oxford often find meeting a potential love interest a challenging task. Thus, they regress to the confines of their room, safe in the knowledge that porn will always provide an adequate alternative to social interaction and indeed, sex.

If St Anne’s adopts the potential JCR motion, then it could become the the leading light of Oxford as porn addicts come out of the woodwork and prepare themselves to find someone real rather than sitting behind their desks (where they work and eat) fixating over videos of people they’ll never meet.

NO

Anna Cooban

Banning porn is far too moralistic. If watching porn does provide issues for college internet connectivity then any ban on pornography hits no theoretical or moral brick wall, only a practical one.

Porn, in this context, is watched privately by adults in their rooms. What such a ban hints at is an objection to the personal use of pornographic websites, a prudish revulsion to the masturbatory indulgences of – let’s be frank – a predominantly male demographic.

Perhaps it makes some slightly queasy to know that somewhere in college a student may just be reaching their moment of ecstasy while the rest of us are poring over our textbooks.

However, the issues surrounding porn are clearly much bigger than this – it would be foolish to deny that the birth and subsequent boom of the porn industry has not in some way damaged society. The impossible scenarios depicted in these videos warp expectations of an individual’s own sexual experiences. Watching porn would make anyone feel that they had to climax within seconds and possess E-cup (and yet suspiciously perky) breasts, or a ten-inch penis that is perhaps better suited to a travelling circus than symbolising ‘true’ masculinity.

Porn is a feminist issue and to suggest otherwise is to deny the role it plays in objectifying women. Yet I find it hard to imagine that the proponents of this motion would have the same distaste for pornography if it was a widely accepted fact that men and women enjoyed watching porn to the same extent.

Porn is arguably just as much a male as a feminist issue; from increasingly younger ages, boys are pressured into following this ‘norm’ just as girls are taught to play with Barbie dolls, such that for one boy to buck this trend is an act of defiance rather than an uncontroversial personal choice.

Such a ban would be based on well-founded concerns and a debate that aims to raise awareness of porn-related issues is invaluable. However, forcing through the motion is little more than nannying.

The entire basis of modern capitalism is designed to make us all feel inadequate, encouraging us to yearn for something we do not have. To ban porn on these grounds would be to also ban any women’s fashion magazine that holds airbrushed supermodels as standards of acceptable beauty, music videos that depict pin-thin 20-somethings grinding on their 40-year-old rap overlords.

Men’s fitness magazines promote body builders as the pinnacle of masculinity, yet with hearts so fatty that the irony of the word ‘fitness’ appearing next to these specimens is inescapable.

We are constantly bombarded with reminders of the person we are supposed to be. Any student-led revolt against the porn industry is going to fall on deaf ears when it challenges a problem that is ingrained in our culture.

Porn is a destructive force of modern culture and a result of the 1960s sexual revolution that has, ironically, come full circle to produce a new kind of entrapment. Yet to restrict the personal use of pornography outright is to argue for the banning of any medium which produces the same destructive effect.

What do ‘Women in Prison’ do? 

WIP is dedicated to making a difference to women at risk of, in, or leaving custody by working to promote their resettlement, personal development, education and training. WIP also educates the public and policy makers about women in the criminal justice system and promotes alternatives to custody.

Should the justice system treat women differently? 

WIP has always believed that chaotic offending, substance misuse and prison represent the end of a long journey of increasing marginalisation and disadvantage for many women. Often the beginning of the journey is marked by trauma in the form of abuse, neglect or violence. There are many possible points of intervention along the way, before women become entangled in the criminal justice system. There should be a range of easily accessible services in place to meet the needs of abused and disadvantaged women and girls so that they do not end up in the criminal justice system.

What is the alternative to sending the majority of female offenders to prison? 

WIP believes the majority of women should be dealt with in the community in programmes specifically designed to meet their needs. Imprisonment should be used only in cases where women pose a threat to public safety. Prisons, for these women, should be small local units in urban areas offering a range of services including in-reach by community health, housing and social services and enhanced opportunities for keeping in touch with family and other support.

I didn’t quite catch the animal rights protest last Sunday; although I was unaffected, several other fellow students were not quite so lucky.

I’ve heard countless tales of colleges that have been effectively on
lockdown because the protestors were considered to be a security risk.
But whilst the Oxford Life Sciences department is undoubtedly doing
valuable research into how to save millions of human lives, sympathy
for the anti-vivisection movement is lacking.

But what on earth was the demonstration for? Many anti-vivisection
activists would maintain that they are in favour of more humane methods of testing, but that is not the main message of these demonstrations. They never put themselves first and foremost in favour of more
efficient methods of medical experimentation. They always portray a
negative message – what one must not do rather than what one should.

The most controversial actions of the movement are all attempts at stopping scientific enquiry, rather than providing any concrete grounds for improvement. If we consider social movements to be an editing process, the anti-vivisection campaign is something like an indiscreet, chunky rubber.

Not only do they offer no constructive solutions, but their analysis of the problem is also incredibly misleading. For example, PETA claims that the cure for diabetes was delayed because we studied it in other species, with the inference being had we only tested on humans more then we might have found a cure sooner.

Rubbish. Our knowledge of diabetes in humans yielded no results; it was only after a Canadian surgeon named Frederick Banting carried out some perhaps questionable experiments on a diabetic dog that we actually managed to find a working cure. Today, 3 million people live with diabetes, the emphasis being  on “live”. Yet many anti-vivisection groups wilfully blind themselves to this fact.

The World Day for Animals in Laboratories claim that 18,000 people a year are killed by drugs that are tested on animals, whilst failing to mention the millions of people worldwide who are cured from debilitating diseases by medicines –
that also happen to have been tested on animals.

This sort of deception is only necessary because the case against animal testing is impossible to make on pragmatic grounds. If animal testing for medical purposes was really unnecessary, then it would have gone the same way as testing for cosmetic purposes, which is widely unpopular for the simple reason that such procedures are pointless. Nobody is at risk because the secret ingredient in their moisturiser is no longer bunny tears.

However, although there have been consistent reductions in the amount of medical experimentation that does go on, it will never be completely eliminated simply because the alternative methodology does not exist, and the only other option is that people will die. One protestor from Saturday is quoted saying, “We have wonderful techniques – we don’t need old-fashioned cruel experimentation.” Most of the “alternatives” to animal testing that either still require the sacrifice of some animal life, use human volunteers (but only for fairly minor conditions), or required computer models that are  considered amongst the scientific community to be inadequate compared to the amazing complexity of even a mouse brain.

There is a difference between human and animal pain. We do not know if all animals feel a continuity of pain. It is entirely correct to place severe restrictions on testing on primates, because we know that as well as feeling pain, they can suffer – they can remember unpleasant experiences, and can fear future ones.

However, we do not have any evidence whether mice are traumatised by experimentation, or if they merely experience a sequence of individually unpleasant moments. What we do have evidence for is the suffering that diseases cause to humans, both through the unpleasant effects it has physiologically speaking and the emotional pain caused to the families of those afflicted by terminal illness. I don’t wish to be judgemental, but I have never seen a mouse attend a funeral.

I’m not in favour of causing unnecessary suffering to animals. The scientists who perform these experiments almost certainly aren’t. These  experiments are not conducted to be cruel to animals, but to be good to human beings. That is why the public accepts them despite the fact that there is pain involved.

Only when the anti-vivisection movement has a similar positive message and a sense of what it actually wants to achieve will it be credible.