Sharon Chau | We Should NOT Welcome The New Era Of Porn (6/6) | Oxford Union Debate — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:08speech i now look to sharon chao the
3. 0:10chair of consultative committee the
4. 0:11largest committee here at the oxford
5. 0:12union to close the debate
6. 0:26thank you madam president for the
7. 0:27opportunity to speak on this topic that
8. 0:30i am so incredibly passionate about
9. 0:33before i start this debate i must admit
10. 0:35that it was a struggle explaining to my
11. 0:37parents that i was going to speak to a
12. 0:39chamber of 400 people about porn so
13. 0:43i must make this worthwhile
14. 0:46the main thing i'm going to be focusing
15. 0:48on in my speech today is responding to
16. 0:50the arguments that we have heard from
17. 0:52our esteemed guests and speakers on side
18. 0:54proposition i'm going to tell you about
19. 0:57how there are lots of misconceptions
20. 0:59about only fans and about the autonomy
21. 1:01the power that you actually give to
22. 1:03women and what the reality actually
23. 1:06looks like for the vast majority of
24. 1:07people who use these sites but before
25. 1:10that i'd like to talk about a personal
26. 1:13story
27. 1:14so i grew up well i went to a school
28. 1:17which
29. 1:17only had boys until the age of 16
30. 1:21where it became a co-educational school
31. 1:24so a lot of the contacts that the boys
32. 1:26had before the age of 16 with women with
33. 1:30girls with love and sex was through porn
34. 1:32they grew up in an era where there was
35. 1:35an intersection and mingling of the new
36. 1:37and the old age of porn and i can tell
37. 1:39you that they were absolutely awful to a
38. 1:42lot of the girls that joined the school
39. 1:44in sixth form they were incredibly rude
40. 1:47incredibly misogynistic incredibly
41. 1:49objectifying in my year they had a
42. 1:52ranking of girls based on how they
43. 1:55looked based on their bodies and that is
44. 1:57because of a predominantly objectifying
45. 2:00and sexualizing culture of women allowed
46. 2:03by pop culture by the mainstream um use
47. 2:07of porn and that is why i think having
48. 2:10mainstream porn in society as we see it
49. 2:13even with the new era of porn which
50. 2:15incidentally makes it much more
51. 2:17acceptable for people to use porn to
52. 2:19consume porn is so incredibly harmful to
53. 2:22women and to everyone in the world
54. 2:25so responses to some of the arguments
55. 2:28we've heard from side proposition from
56. 2:30the first speaker we first heard the
57. 2:32argument about autonomy and control the
58. 2:34idea that through only fans content
59. 2:37creators have a lot of choice in their
60. 2:39content they get to control how it's
61. 2:41produced and also the profits that they
62. 2:43gain from this they paint a very rosy
63. 2:46picture of taking photos of oneself
64. 2:48during lockdown in their bedroom and how
65. 2:50empowering that can be
66. 2:53firstly we think mostly a lot of these
67. 2:56content creators go into only fans
68. 2:58thinking they can have absolute control
69. 3:00over this content right they think they
70. 3:02can produce content they like the
71. 3:04content they enjoy and they feel
72. 3:05empowered by the harsh reality is they
73. 3:08get sucked into this and then they have
74. 3:10to tailor to people who ask them for
75. 3:13increasingly
76. 3:15increasingly unreasonable things they
77. 3:17get people who ask them for feed pics
78. 3:20and then increasingly explicit photos
79. 3:22asking them to put foreign objects into
80. 3:24different parts of their body this is
81. 3:26unfortunately a reality we see with a
82. 3:29lot of only fans creators and this is
83. 3:32crucially harmful because only fans is a
84. 3:34paid subscription service right compared
85. 3:37to a lot of mainstream porn sites where
86. 3:39people can access porn for free at the
87. 3:41click of a button why would they pay so
88. 3:44much every single month to see a content
89. 3:47creator it's because they can get
90. 3:49content that's curated to their own
91. 3:51taste and that's why it's so incredibly
92. 3:54harmful for them to have only fans and
93. 3:56to have this platform for them right we
94. 3:59think this is especially bad when
95. 4:00there's a buyer seller relationship that
96. 4:02also happens on only fans when the buyer
97. 4:05is always right right they are the ones
98. 4:07paying for this content they have the
99. 4:09right to demand anything they want from
100. 4:11the creator and we think this is a far
101. 4:14cry from the very empowering
102. 4:16characterization we hear from side
103. 4:18proposition
104. 4:20yes do you not think it's perhaps
105. 4:22slightly patchfulizing to presume that
106. 4:23these content creators don't enjoy
107. 4:25certain objects upset orifices i mean is
108. 4:28it not perhaps fully condescending to
109. 4:30assume that content creators enjoy the
110. 4:31sexual activity that they're engaging in
111. 4:33and it's actually actually looking too
112. 4:35by engaging in only fans or whatever
113. 4:37kind of content cycle or choosing to
114. 4:39participate in
115. 4:40are actually enjoying it is this not
116. 4:42perhaps you know [ __ ] foolish of you
117. 4:43to assume that
118. 4:45well maybe
119. 4:46but i think that it's perfectly possible
120. 4:49for individuals to enjoy doing a lot of
121. 4:51these actions however there are two
122. 4:53responses to this right firstly there
123. 4:55are people who do not who actively do
124. 4:57not enjoy this and you cannot assume
125. 5:00that everyone enjoys everything they do
126. 5:01on only fans and we have to care about
127. 5:04these group of people who are
128. 5:05essentially being coerced because there
129. 5:07is a stream of revenue they now depend
130. 5:09on your only fans by doing these actions
131. 5:12they don't like and secondly even for
132. 5:15people who do enjoy it i think it's
133. 5:17great that they're able to earn an
134. 5:18income stream from this but there may
135. 5:21come a point at which they are demanded
136. 5:23to do things they don't enjoy and again
137. 5:25this is a problem that can exist for
138. 5:27every single content creator so
139. 5:29therefore i think this argument falls
140. 5:32moving on to the idea that you get very
141. 5:34authentic sex through this so this was
142. 5:37an argument made by both the first and
143. 5:38third speakers on side proposition
144. 5:41i want to really really question this
145. 5:43right because if they think realistic
146. 5:45sex is having a paid for on-demand
147. 5:49photos and videos of girls you find
148. 5:52attractive where you're able to scroll
149. 5:54through millions of profiles of any girl
150. 5:56you want to see and then if you see one
151. 5:58that tickles your fancy you can pay for
152. 6:00them and subscribe for every single
153. 6:02month for personalized photos for you
154. 6:05news flash this is not real this is not
155. 6:07authentic sex and relationships this is
156. 6:09in fact an incredibly fake and very
157. 6:12artificial version of what sex and love
158. 6:15should look like and i think that this
159. 6:17argument completely false you create an
160. 6:20incredibly false perception and warped
161. 6:22perception of what sex should look like
162. 6:25to people who might want to who might
163. 6:27believe that purchasing it is what's
164. 6:29going to get them sex
165. 6:31moving on to what the second speaker
166. 6:32talked about she talked about make love
167. 6:35not porn which i think is incredible
168. 6:37work destigmatizing celebrating sex and
169. 6:40debunking a lot of harmful myths
170. 6:42surrounding sex
171. 6:43in her own words she said
172. 6:45what make love not porn does is it
173. 6:47teaches people the difference between
174. 6:49the two right and i think this is
175. 6:51incredibly important work however surely
176. 6:54it's much better to have a world in
177. 6:56which you don't have to tell people look
178. 6:59this is porn this is bad porn because
179. 7:01the woman here isn't really consenting
180. 7:04to it because there's incredible use of
181. 7:06violence it's incredibly rough and this
182. 7:08is not what real sex and what real
183. 7:10female orgasms look like and instead
184. 7:13it's much better to be able to teach
185. 7:16people what actual sex should look like
186. 7:18without a lot of these harmful
187. 7:20stereotypes that are perpetuated every
188. 7:22single day by the use of mainstream porn
189. 7:24right because
190. 7:26the unfortunate reality is there are far
191. 7:28more people watching mainstream porn
192. 7:30unthinkingly every single day than
193. 7:32people who actively seek out such
194. 7:34resources that tell them what actual
195. 7:36poor what actual sex and love should
196. 7:38look like so the comparative here is not
197. 7:41between they're having porn and teaching
198. 7:43people that this is bad the comparative
199. 7:45is we remove porn and we are able to get
200. 7:48rid of a lot of these unthinking kind of
201. 7:51stereotypes that people have when they
202. 7:53watch a lot of this porn
203. 7:56moving on to an argument that was
204. 7:57brought up in the poi and in the
205. 7:59subsequent speech about the black market
206. 8:02so the idea that the viewership always
207. 8:04exists and once you take it away from
208. 8:06mainstream platforms they're going to go
209. 8:08into the dark web and this is going to
210. 8:10be much worse because it's unregulated
211. 8:13so firstly how many of us actually do go
212. 8:16on the dark web not that i expect a show
213. 8:18of hands here because that would
214. 8:20probably be kind of bad but
215. 8:23compared to a person literally typing
216. 8:25porn in their google browser and getting
217. 8:28pornhub getting
218. 8:30porn videos literally at the click of a
219. 8:32button even when you're not intending to
220. 8:34do so so for example while i was
221. 8:36researching
222. 8:38porn
223. 8:40purely for research purposes i didn't
224. 8:42want to watch it but it literally just
225. 8:44showed up on my browser
226. 8:47so
227. 8:48that's what i'm saying in case my
228. 8:50parents are watching this
229. 8:52but
230. 8:53basically the comparative is even if it
231. 8:56is unregulated and it does go on the
232. 8:57dark web which is incredibly unfortunate
233. 9:00and is a problem that faces
234. 9:02basically every single thing that is
235. 9:04criminalized in the world it exists in
236. 9:06the black market the comparative is we
237. 9:08remove it from mainstream porn you don't
238. 9:10get teenage kids who are like oh i'm
239. 9:13kind of interested about sex let me
240. 9:15google it and the first thing they see
241. 9:17is
242. 9:17stepsister stuck in washing machine or
243. 9:20whatever
244. 9:21mainstream porn tells you sex is about
245. 9:25when you remove that you don't get young
246. 9:27teenage boys actively going into the
247. 9:29dark web looking for um rape porn for
248. 9:32example and so we think the comparative
249. 9:34benefit of this even if there is some
250. 9:37kind of black market that exists is much
251. 9:39much better under our side of the house
252. 9:42lastly on what the third speaker brought
253. 9:44up to this debate she talked about
254. 9:46reformed better porn specifically porn
255. 9:49that was made for women by women i think
256. 9:51this is an incredibly good argument and
257. 9:54i personally
258. 9:55no i'm not going to talk about what i
259. 9:57think personally but
260. 9:59a lot of people who watch this porn are
261. 10:01feminists themselves right you don't get
262. 10:04misogynistic men who objectify and
263. 10:06vilify and sexualize women going on to
264. 10:10these specific porn sites that produce
265. 10:12feminist porn and wash them you don't
266. 10:14get them clicking even on pornhub the
267. 10:16four women categories you still get them
268. 10:19watching a lot of mainstream porn so a
269. 10:21lot of these problems are still not
270. 10:23ameliorated even with this new era of
271. 10:26porn that currently exists so and
272. 10:28secondly even if there is some sort of
273. 10:31reform most porn is still very much
274. 10:33tailored to the male gaze the
275. 10:35unfortunate reality is most of the
276. 10:38consumers of porn are men and even if
277. 10:40women do enjoy producing a lot of that
278. 10:43porn they do have to do it based on what
279. 10:46male viewership likes and this we think
280. 10:48is incredibly harmful to women
281. 10:51because of all these reasons i really
282. 10:53really hope you can walk through the no
283. 10:54door tonight thank you
284. 11:09[Music]
285. 11:13you