Is PORN or AIRBRUSHING more degradeing to women?

Question

The question of "does porn degrade women" has been around for years. But I think that airbrushing in photographs is more degradeing. Why you ask? For the most part, you kinda have to search for porn, it's not just THERE, staring you in the face on a billboard or in a Rolling Stone magazine. Airbrushing is. Everywhere you look, some model/actress/whomever in magazines, are airbrushed to perfection. We all know that every female does not has flawless skin or the "perfect" body with no wrinkles. The more 'perfect' women look in magazines and ads, the more men look for the perfect women, and never find it. Sorry, i'm rambling here. But just think about it a second and tell me what your answer is.

Answer 1

Neither. It's the philosophy that's degrading to women. It all started with Plato, with the idea that beauty is judged against an absolute standard. So, then you have the mass-media trying to define what that absolute standard is.

I'm with the Aristotelian camp; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sure, they can airbrush and they can screen out women based on shallow BS, but they can't change the way I perceive women (though they've sure as hell tried). I don't know how many people's perceptions have been affected, though.

Food for thought. But the important thing is, nothing is more degrading to a woman than her own lack of self-esteem. A confident woman is immune to degradation.

Answer 2

Yes it is degrading. so degrading in fact its angering. And yes most men ARE shallow and subconsciously search for a perfect woman like the ones on maxim covers. I asked my ex-boyfriend once when jamie lynn sigler was on the cover, what he would rate me if I were to be put on a Maxim cover in designer clothes, professional hair styling, makeup, and airbrushing. And he flat out told me I would be an 8. Later he apologized and said he didn't mean it that he was drunk, but i know that people are honest when they drink. I was very hurt and had no reason to feel any less beautiful because of that, but i couldnt help but be hurt by it. I have been told by some men that I am a 9 on a regular basis. Being told that i was an 8 with professional help was hurtful...so am i a 5 without it?

Answer 3

I think this is a really interesting question. To be honest with you, I think that airbrushing is more degrading to women.

Porn is voluntary, and even though our society holds a standard as to what we like women to look like (which is degrading), women still volunteer to show off their womanly features. And not all porn is airbrushed, nor is all porn fake. There are some types of porn which show women as they naturally are.

Airbrushing is more degrading because it takes women and alters what they have. If a woman is naturally curvy, she is replaced with an image of a stick-thin woman. This is not something she volunteers for. It is a backhanded criticism to how we can't accept women the way they are, and raising a societal standard of what we think beauty is, in a very unreal and unnatural way.

Both try to create women as an image or a centerfold or a one-dimensional sexual being. So both are degrading in their ways, with no doubt.

Answer 4

I don't know if I'd call either degrading.

Porn doens't just show one type of woman, but rather glorifies the physical beauty of all types.

Airbrushing. You have to thank the advertising industry for our unobtainable image of perfection we have to hold ourselves to. Thats why little girls want to be anorexic. Airbrushing itself isn't responsible but the advertisers are.

I love seeing those magazines like "star" that shows the model or actress in their normal everyday routines with no make up and sweat pants on so you can see how normal they are.

God look at britney spears...she was a total barbie, but is now known as white trailor trash.

Answer 5

I would say airbrushing. Say what you want about porn, but many of those "actresses" are very content with their field of work and get paid fairly well. Also, no one accidental winds up in porn, it's a choice for most. Airbrushing, however, is many times done without consent. These people just decide that what you look like naturally, isn't pretty enough, so they "fix" you. This gives the rest of us "normal" people a feeling of inadequacy when we see these perfect, touched-up people on magazine covers. Then we diet, exercises, and starve ourselves to be skinny enough. We pour our hard-earned money into the cosmetic companies to get the "glow" in our skin ta ht only a graphic designer's brush can capture. And we cut, fry, die and damage our hair to get that "blowing in the wind" effect that never happens in reality. But that's just my opinion and my 2 cents. . .

Answer 6

I am a professional photographer. I have, on occasion, shot photos of young folks for yearbooks. Let me tell you that you can preach all you want about how society shoves the notion of perfection and beauty down our throats, but to the teens it is a brutal reality. The day they are there for a photoshoot, there has to be at least one blemish that looks the size of Mt.Shasta to them. I had a young lady have me Photoshop (none of this is done much with physical makeup these days) have me take her freckles away! Those freckles were and are precious! Nope, too red... was the comment, could I just "tone them down" was how it started. She wound up having them almost totally removed on the pic. Her choice, not mine or her mother's.

Regarding what I see in makeup and commercial mags, the skin tone looks plastic. I find it ridiculous. I do not trust anyone whose pores I cannot see. My daughter, who works in the makeup field, tells me that pores are yucky and need to be hidden. Where did we come up with that?

On nude shoots, and they are NOT porn but what I hope become Art - I am touchy about that, I may well touch up blemishes. I cannot afford high priced models. The local young women who agree to sit for me have skin and teeth problems. And so I do some Photoshop. Am I selling this as reality? No. But I do understand what you are getting at.

We get men who cannot relate to real live women because of some plastic anima they have had constructed in their heads by movies, magazines, TV. Men, more than women perhaps, are visual creatures. Will not debate that too much.

On my website at pbase I offer a small sample of Photoshopping and skin touch up. You judge. I could do some better work on Sunshine's missing teeth, I will own. I did the work in only 40 minutes. She liked it.

Good points to ponder though. I think on this everytime I reach for the clone tool in PS. I truly do. Feel free to look around my site. If you are over 18, write for passwords.

Answer 7

I don't find airbrushing to be degrading. Why? Because beauty is universal. No man can ever even come close to such grace. If airbrushing is so prevalent, LOL I bet they have to use a spray can on the male models, LOL...

Adult entertainment is as degrading as it gets. People sell what they can never buy back. A good principal would be to never sell what you can't buy back.

Answer 8

neither of the two are degrading the naked body is a thing of beauty made by god and he didnt make mistakes,but if a person wants to remove something they dont like about themself from a picture by airbrushing it they take away from the true beauty that nature has provided for them. i say lets all get naked and remove all the lies about it being bad or nasty or what ever your word is for it .you will find out thats its tottaly natural and perverts and child molesters and rapists will become a thing of the past,and porn wont be a word anymore.

Answer 9

I dont think we are that dumb and too schizophrenic to not be able to distinguish between porn, reality and fantasy. No one falls in love with a photograph or the girl of their dreams. There's a reason why she's called "girl of my dreams". The only person who's being degraded here is the demented fantasizer who wants to marry that piece of 2D work.

Answer 10

Me, myself....being female and all...couldn't care less about airbrushing of photographs of models (if you think it's only the women, you're mistaken) for the social 'ideal' of so called beauty. So what?
Nor am i offended by most forms of so called porn, unless children are involved...then I am outraged.
I am more saddened by the ignorant male that thinks that what is presented to him by the media is the norm.