[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like the internships! ) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

Having gone to a liberal arts college in NYC, it really wasn’t any big surprise to me that a) there were exactly four straight males in my entire school b) there were a lot of “angry feminist” types hanging around in any class even vaguely related to gender or romance. As such, I got to sit through a lot of empowering vs degrading arguments about everything from Voltaire to Batman, and you wanna know what topic comes up the most often? Porn. Yep, the battle has raged, well basically since cavemen first figured out how to draw boobs on their walls and this week, for no apparent reason, the issue came up in congress. Seems like it’s about time we put our vote in on this one, ladies!

I can get why some people think porn is degrading toward women – the vast majority of it is about girls looking hot and getting screwed six ways to Sunday (does anyone know what that expression actually means??). Many of the women in porn fit certain idealized body types and they tend to be depicted generically as the “hot chick” without any real brain or personality to speak of. The purpose of the girl in the porn is to have sex, lots of sex – because apparently, women are supposed to be up for it all the time – and make it look hot. Do we really need something around that sends the message that women (at least the totally hot chicks you want to have sex with) are objects for sexual gratification first with all of that brain and personality stuff just thrown in on the side?

But on the other hand, porn can be really empowering for women. Much of it depicts women who want sex and choose to have sex when they want it – and what’s not empowering about being in charge of one’s own sexuality? On top of that the porn industry is one of the few on the planet where women make significantly more in salary than their male counterparts and the actresses essentially get to say what goes and what doesn’t, so none of them really end up doing things they don’t want to do. Kudos, porn industry! And as a final note, pretty much every straight guy I’ve ever known has watched porn (the gay ones too, actually, but that’s beside the point) and most of them have still managed to be decent human beings who don’t automatically assume they can hump any woman who walks by, so we may not be giving the guys enough credit on how much they think this stuff reflects reality.

Do you think that porn is really setting us back as a gender? Is this whole thing a ridiculous, puritanical hold-over? Is this even something we should still be arguing about in this day and age? (I mean, can’t we all just watch some porn?)

Duke it out!

At The Erotic View, men can chat about hoohas for pay, and the adorably nicknamed “Net Walkers” (get it? Like night walkers? GET IT??) can make those very same hoohas known.

In other words, this is basically a review system for prostitutes. Men rank women on many aspects of their appearance and services. They can also chat on message boards, detailing how good the prostitute was and what she will and won’t do. To access many of these message boards (supposedly not for the faint of heart), you have to become a VIP, which seems to involve writing a certain number of reviews. Think of these prolific men as film critics…except instead of film, they’re reviewing sex-for-hire. And lady parts.

But don’t think it’s all about the men. Sex workers can also advertise on this site. This way, the men who love prostitutes enough to actually review them on a website can find even more prostitutes to hire and review.

It’s win-win!

Well, kind of. Apparently, prostitutes are benefiting from this service, and I guess the men who use it are happy. But isn’t prostitution, I don’t know, generally illegal? And isn’t it a little degrading to women to be advertised like a beanie baby on an e-Bay auction?

I actually went to the site to see what it’s like. It’s surprisingly non-graphic. There are no nakey pics or anything like that.

What it is, is a prolongued grading system. Apparently, “Susan/Soccer Mom” has boobs that are “super nice,” at least according to one reviewer (of many).

Classy, friends. Is this the future?

There have always been prostitutes and I’d wager there always will be. However, with all the violence against prostitutes (did you know they are quite often the target of serial killers and the like? Well, they are.), you’d think they’d want to move away from the woman-as-objects thing. And, yes, I know, they sell their bodies. But they are still women, and, more importantly, they are still people.

Is this completely degrading or is it just me?

[Image courtesy of http://img.dailymail.co.uk/]