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from the internet-will-route-around-it dept.
French porn star piqued over Macron's desire to crackdown on X-rated films
A star of French porn films has challenged President Emmanuel Macron to meet with him and female porn actresses after France's leader aroused his anger by linking the porn industry to violence against women and inequality. Manuel Ferrara was furious over the president's speech at the weekend which outlined his plan to tackle violence against women and ensure equality between the sexes. According to Macron pornography makes women "an object of humiliation" and that action needs to be taken because porn films are now so widely watched among school children.
Ferrara hit back on Twitter and invited the president to discuss the issue. "I am involved in this industry that you are trying to demonize by making this kind of remark. I am ready to sit down with you and discuss a topic that by all accounts you know nothing about. I'm waiting for your call!" In an interview with France Inter radio the porn star continued to criticize the president saying he found his remark "shocking". "He demonizes the porn industry and is jumping to conclusions (faire un amalgame). It's the same with video games. It's like saying 'a teenager who plays Call of Duty is going to pick up a gun and kill everyone in his school'."
[...] On Saturday Macron announced his plan to extend the powers of France's broadcasting regulator CSA to cover X-rated films as well as launch an awareness campaign on pornography in secondary schools. "The CSA plays an indispensable role in regulating audiovisual content everywhere and stopping the most undignified behavior becoming a form of tacit propaganda," said the president. "Today we do not regulate access to video games, internet content and pornographic content that is increasingly available."
Also at BBC and Reason (archive).
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday December 01 2017, @12:29AM (5 children)
I think people can think for themselves, at least to some extent. I doubt seeing certain language is going to make kids sexist or racist.
Also, there is no word that is inherently sexist or racist or even bad. It all depends entirely on the context and the intentions of the speaker. Even a word like "nigger" is often thrown around as a generic insult by people who have no racist intentions. That can happen because words can have any number of meanings.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday December 01 2017, @05:10PM (4 children)
I take it you haven't played multiplayer Call of Duty in recent history? A kid who hangs around peers who are racist / sexist or who at least talk like that. Will likely become sexist / racist or at the least talk like that.(Anecdotal evidence, my wife didn't use a certain "bad" word. Then she started saying it here and there. Come to find out, the client she was working with at the time, used it every day. She doesn't use it anymore, but she also isn't subjected to it every day anymore.) You may not have an issue with a word like nigger, but the word itself is negative and inherently racist in today's society. Straight from wikipedia: "In the present-day English language, the word nigger is a racial slur, usually directed at black people. The word originated as a neutral term referring to people with black skin,[1] as a variation of the Spanish and Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger (meaning the color "black").[2]" Assuming someone has no issue using a racial slur, then they're at least promoting racism, if they aren't straight up racist themselves. I would also categorize much of the vitriol spewed forth in multiplayer CoD as Verbal Abuse.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday December 01 2017, @11:35PM (3 children)
I know how people speak online, even in games. I just don't care. I don't see any evidence that it will somehow turn people racist or sexist, even if they are children.
It is viewed that way, but so what? Again, when determining whether someone is sexist or racist for using these words, you have to take into account intent and context.
No, they aren't. That's not how language works. Language evolves, and especially so in small groups. No string of letters has any inherent meaning that is decided by the universe; meanings are arbitrary. Whether someone using racial slurs is promoting racism or not depends on their intentions and the context.
Do words that can be used as racial slurs magically become exempt from the reality that language evolves? How could that be, especially when you consider that they didn't always have that meaning? The fact is, any word can have multiple meanings, and small groups can even invent more that are not used by society at large. Society may be irrational about certain words, but it happens.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 05 2017, @05:50PM (2 children)
The "universe" in this instance would be society in general. Whether or not you accept it is irrelevant to how others perceive the use of such language. It doesn't matter what one thinks a word is supposed to mean. It matters how others interpret the meaning of the word. Otherwise, we could each have our own list of meanings for any word and no one would be able to communicate. It would be like having a different dialect for every person in the whole world. Which would be totally unmanageable. It's like the word gay; it used to mean happy. Sure, you can use the word gay in that manner, but it's meaning could easily be confused. It is the same with the use of the word nigger. It used to have an innocuous meaning, but it no longer does. Thus, the evolution of language as you have pointed out.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:21PM (1 child)
Yes, and how others perceive the use of certain language has nothing to do with whether their perceptions are actually correct. As long as you're smart enough to realize that a person might be using a word differently from how you understand it, you won't fall into the same fallacious trap that "society in general" often does.
But you're right: If you use a word in a non-standard way when speaking to people who aren't aware of said non-standard usage, you could create misunderstandings. Do so at your own risk. However, this has nothing to do with whether someone is actually racist or promoting racism for using a particular word; that isn't just about society's perception, but objective truth.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 11 2017, @04:49PM
One can still inadvertently promote racism, if most of the audience listening perceives the language that is used as racist. Whether one is or not and one's benign intent doesn't change the fact. Really, the only use case I can see would be purely academic. Most, if not all other uses of the word would likely promote racism.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"