straight pornography is male gay in sensibility

Well isn't that just lovely hunky dory?

(From I Blame the Patriarchy - Spinster Aunt asks people to cite the site and post this when linking to her stuff. Saying as how I respect her enormously I'm doing as she asks.)

Loads of people watch loads of different types of porn. My husband likes facesitting for instance. I am a more the threesome type. There is so much out there and is something for everyone. The main porn sites now have loads that are amateur as well. Which both my husband and I like the best as the women and men are more natural (men are also better looking for me ;)

I know people that work as cam girls, have done porn, work on the sex lines and strippers. All normal, lovely people. It all depends on the type you do.

Regular consumers of hardcore porn, those who really enjoy it, simply don't want to hear about the vile side of the sex industry.
I was banned from the Lovehoney forums for posting a link pertaining to the abuse in porn.
Not before I was shouted down by those telling me that plenty of women liked violent porn though.
I countered that by saying that plenty of people also like to abuse children but that doesn't make it any the less wrong.
So much for free speech eh?

ITA dittany - I don't understand why women aren't marching in the streets about how porn is everywhere nowadays (and getting more and more violent).

I can only think that there are a lot of women who don't really know what we are dealing with here because they don't watch it. A lot of women are shying away from the reality of the hate, sadism and enjoyment of degradation in porn because they are afraid to believe that that is women's place in our fucked up society.

I never understand for example how in a conversation about porn or prostitution people are able to gloss over the numbers of women who have histories of sexual abuse. People just don't want to hear it.

SGB your acting argument might hold some water if porn was simulated sex. But it is not. Those women really are being brutally penetrated in their anuses. Those women really are being choked whilst being 'face fucked'. Those women are really being penetrated by more than one man at a time. Those women are really being called sluts and bitches and whores. Those women are often really dressed up to look under-age. Those women are really contracting herpes, chlamydia and gonorrhoea. 90% of those women do really have histories of sexual abuse.

The acting element is only that they are pretending not to hate what is really happening to them.

You seem convinced that most porn is quite nice really and that the women involved are quite happy to be there. The testimonies of the women in porn quite clearly show this to be untrue - so do the rates of drug/painkiller addiction, alcohol abuse, depression, suicide, PTSD, self-harm, unwanted pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease.

Most women get into porn under the age of 21, most women in porn have been sexually abused, most women in porn have damaged reproductive organs and anal passages. Most women in porn take painkillers and illegal drugs in order to be able to manage the pain of being penetrated for hours on end by oversized penises and other objects.

Why do you choose to concentrate on the tiny minority of so called 'ethical porn' whilst ignoring that the majority of porn is violent, misogynistic, degrading, painful, and dangerous?

Don't know about you but I have watched some porn where I have wondered how the woman is able to do what she is doing - I mean in terms of physical fit. When I was younger I wondered if there were women who have very large vaginas, mouths or anuses. Now I know that they were in exactly the sort of pain I would be in if I was being penetrated like them - they just dull the pain with drugs, think about the money, dissociate and wait for it to be over. Some say they 'like' the money shot because it means that it is over and they can go now.

SolidGoldBrass wrote - "the way to help those abused is not to condemn or ban the whole industry - this will in fact put those abused at greater risk"

The hard-core porn we have been discussing seems to me to be a mix of abuse, violence, rape and prostitution by another name. If these are stopped, what are the greater risks that these women will be exposed to?

Is that your assumption or based on evidence?

Also, there is a big difference between a woman "not being abused" and a woman "expressing her authentic sexual self". A big difference.

But there are knock on effects on society SGB. Porn does not exist in a vacum. There is a correlation between porn consumption an rape in societies. Russia has a high incidence of both, for example.
And as Milly said, your personal experience does not negate the reams of research on this subject.

Leningrad: but my experience of working in the industry and knowing others who do, is that plenty of people are not abused, and the way to help those abused is not to condemn or ban the whole industry - this will in fact put those abused at greater risk.
People are abused in the fashion and catering industries as well, but no one is suggesting we should all go naked and stop eating as to do otherwise is to 'condone' abuse.

And what about Lenin's earlier point about webcams? Anyone with a touch of the exhibitionist in them has lots of outlets to express that thesedays.

But paying for a product means the industry has to cater for a market. I do not believe that any female porn actress is "enjoying it", because 1) it's acting, so what are they enjoying exactly? and 2) they're catering to a market so personal tastes and preferences go out the window 3) if they enjoy it that much, like people enjoy..eating ice cream, say, ...why do they need to be paid?
The porn market has nothing to do with female sexual pleasure, or anything to do with women at all, really.

Beachcomber:We have already all agreed that the abuse of some performers in porn is wrong. But acting isnt wrong. Watching people acting isn't wrong. Watching people acting (incluing having sex on camera, if they are consenting - and do remember that to a ot of peple having sex with an attractive, clean, non-abusive other person who one is not psychologically intimate with, is really no big deal) and fantasizing that you are part of the action isn't wrong.

Sakura: THis is what I mean by a circular argument. I say that abuse of performers in porn is wrong, but the depiction of consenting sex by consenting performers is not wrong and back comes someone going 'But you;re justifying abuse'. Unless you consider (as some feminists do) that all heterosexual intercourse is abuse under the patriarchy, I don't understand why you keep claiming that I think abuse is OK.

Sorry link didn't work properly - just went to a menu page.

Try again - please read it is powerful stuff.

SGB I understand what you are saying about fantasy here;

"And for a man to fantasize that the gorgeous woman he lusts after is equally enthusiastic about the prospect of having sex with him isn't necessarily abusive or harmful to that woman - lots of men fantasize about having sex with Cheryl Cole/an attractive woman they saw at a bus stop/the happily married woman in the office and don't do anything about it because they accept that these women are not available to them."

However the problem is that pornography is not fantasy - it is real. And that is the problem.

YOu seem to be justifying the worst excesses of male sexuality, at whatever cost, and if anyone disagrees with you they're anti-male-sexuality. It's a rubbish argument.

SGB, as I've said, I'm interested in ethical porn as a concept, although as beachcomber pointed out, are you sure you're not talking about erotica?

And I still don'T understand why you are using a minority example to justify so much abuse.

Oh, and women's choice in ethical porn: have a look at Petra Joy's site here (This IS a site about sexually explicit film making, NOT worksafe though the page linked to is mainly text).

Sakura: 'almost any woman who wants sex can get it, for free'. Well, if her standards are very low, maybe. But women also fantasize (and wank over the fantasies) of men they cannot have sex with, and in those fantasies, the man is enthusiastic and willing to have sex, whether the object of the fantasy is Edward Cullen or the bloke behind the fish counter in Asda. Or the happily married bloke in the office.
And for a man to fantazise that the gorgeous woman he lusts after is equally enthusiastic about the prospect of having sex with him isn't necessarily abusive or harmful to that woman - lots of men fantasize about having sex with Cheryl Cole/an attractive woman they saw at a bus stop/the happily married woman in the office and don't do anything about it because they accept that these women are not available to them. It's not even wrong to ask a person if they would like a date, or if they would like to have sex should you have gone on a date, as long as you take a refusal with good grace. We don't, any of us, fantasize about the object of our desires going 'Eugh, no, don't fancy you' or 'Sorry, I'm happily married' or even 'But I want to get to know you first'.

ITA Sakura. Much of porn is just making it clear to women that we might have all the pussy but that doesn't make us powerful - it makes us vulnerable.

This essay just says it all for me;

My number is zero. What's your number?

" not everyone you are attracted to is either attracted to you in return, "

I think this is particularly true for Max Hardcore. He probably knows he's a runt, that the only way he can get women to have sex with him is by paying them. Because women who excercise their right to own their sexuality, and have the economic means of doing so, would never give him the time of day. And this thought pisses him off.
Almost any woman who wants sex can get it, for free. This is not true for men and they know it. They try to redress this evolutionary balance with prostitution and porn, and sometimes, marriage.

Come to think about it, if feminists want to shut down porn, we should reshift the focus. Let's point out to everyone how racist porn actually is, and we'll have a better job of shutting down the industry.

Trying to give women a human face, OTOH, is just flogging a dead horse.

I agree with you Sakura that porn corrupts healthy men and skews how they see women, sex and relationships (as demonstrated by what SGB says above really).

Also we know that porn has a desensitising effect and that there is a phenomenon where it is getting more and more violent and degrading in order to 'keep the edge'. Max Hardcore who was mentioned earlier by dittany has said numerous times that he himself has to have more and more violent, extreme, pain inflicting sex in order to 'get off'.

I think anyone who defends porn should watch one of his films and then think about just what they are defending. Porn defenders like to concentrate on the softer stuff and the idea that everybody is consenting and making a good living. If you can only defend an industry by ignoring huge swathes of it then you are never going to be very convincing.

SGB, for me the 'big line' between the concepts of erotica and pornography is not so much about the actual acts themselves as about the power framework within which they are happening. Erotica is a depiction of sexual love, porn is a depiction of sexual abuse.

Straightforward vaginal sex can be tender and loving just as it can be violent and full of hate - it is not the act that makes the difference, it is the relationship between the people involved.

I think it is very important to draw these lines as, for me, it is the difference between freedom of expression and protection of the vulnerable from abuse (and the illegality of others making money from selling images of that abuse). Few people would argue that it is important to have child porn be legal in order to protect free speech yet many people will argue that it is vital to protect the legality of images of young looking women dressed up as school girls and cheerleaders and made to look under-age in films called 'teen sluts take it up the ass until they scream'.

With regards to what you say here;

"I've heard it said that one of the things men, in particular, like in porn is a depiction of enthusiasm on the part of the woman because, as far as most men are concerned, most women are not immediately enthusiastic about sex within 5 minutes of being introduced to the man, and in the real world, not everyone you are attracted to is either attracted to you in return, or free of prior commitments which mean that even if they fancied having sex with you, they would decide against it. The idea of a willing and enthusiastic partner is at the core of most people's sexual fantasies."

Sorry but this just sounds to me like outrageously blatant male entitlement and objectification of women. This is just men saying that they would like women to be sexually available all the time and that men like this don't really care if their partner is really enthusiastic (read consenting) as long as they pretend to be. This argument however does not explain why so much porn is insulting, degrading and painful for the women involved.

Why would men want to watch images of a girl dressed up to look under-age pretending to be an enthusiastic partner in brutal anal sex, facial ejaculation or multiple penetration? Why do some men want to watch images of women being told they are sluts/whores/dirty bitches/going to get fucked really hard/etc and pretending to like that?

I think some men want to watch this sort of stuff because they know that it is not acceptable behaviour or treatment of another human being and they don't quite dare do it themselves but they get off on watching some other man doing it to a woman.

SGB, every time you fail to answer a question, you come out with the "circular argument" comment. IT's very transparent.

WHy are you pretending we are saying things we are not saying. Are you arguing (in your head) with a right-wing crazy or something?
I have given lots of details of healthy male sexuality.
I am that you think adults have a healthier sex life than teenagers, or that adult men who watch porn are better at pleasing a woman than a teenage boy who has never seen a porno.

I believe porn corrupts healthy men.

good point about racism beachcomber. Porn is extremely racist, where women of a number of races worship at the altar of the white penis