facts about porn

dittany, I'd watch that, does that make me a bad person?

and I said - "sexualised media" not porn- that is where the difficulty lies- has your DH never seen a Shakira or Rihanna music vid? A calvin Klein advert? I was pondering if that had an effect thats all. But I suppose it depends on quite how SE the SEM is. ;)

I don't see how watching jamie oliver make a salad can be compared to a porn film TBH.

When someone watches JO they are watching someone do something well possibly with a view to learning how to do it better themselves.

When someone watches a porn film they do it in order to have a wank. The people in porn aren't "sex experts" and they're not doing it with a view to educating people on how better to have sex.

I'm not seeing the parallel.

But thandeka, the point I'm making is that you don't have to go to the Amish to find men who've never seen porn.

I know the media likes to tell us that porn is inescapable and 'all' men naturally end up seeing some without being able to help themselves, but this is a myth.

ssh, we better not call 'it' consumation.

Anyway, my job here is done - I was merely trying to lighten Dittany the thread.

Can we not refer to porn as SEM? SEM is a well used acronym in science for something that has nothing to do with porn, and I am finding it really weird to hear porn called SEM!

oops last reply was to little red dragon.

Do you have evidence for claim "they are probably watching rape in quite a bit of the porn they've come across"? All the other issues you mentioned are explored with young people as well as stuff around body image, sexual reality vs. porn etc and helping them form their own opinions.

maybe we should stick to linking and facts.

all valid points on here but its turning into E-beef

Yes, because that would be boring Dittany. The less boring bit of eating gets well and truly 'covered' in the media. Just as the less boring bit of sex does. The more boring bit i.e. dating doesn't get anywhere near as much coverage.

yeah I was more pondering on control group though in terms of exposure to sexualised media eg music vids etc that maybe hard to avoid but could have an effect on the research?

Was then pondering about research on men who never accessed porn eg. hill tribes or Amish communities (maybe taking it bit far as a control group as the cultural differences would be a bigger factor affecting research!?)

Also in terms of violence against women it was pointed out to me somewhere else that countries that don't have similar exposures to porn (eg. Saudi Arabia) their violence against women stats are higher (but have no link to that research plus obviously correlation does not =causation etc etc)

No Dittany, I don't see women as food but I do see sex as a biological function just as eating could be described as a biological function.

And dittany- thanks for the link to Shelley Lubbens website- thats interesting reading

thandeka, it should be possible to find a control group. My DH has never seen any porn. Until he went out with me I don't think he'd ever seen even the kind of 'sex' you get in an 18-rated film. It's against his religion. There must be plenty of men who have religious or cultural reasons for not watching porn.

I'm not saying this to attack btw, just making a point.

dittany, I usually agree with you but you're coming across as really rude on this thread.

Also the last time I looked many of the films available on a popular website appeared to feature women who were unconscious. I'm not sure how much they were getting paid

Already apologised for sounding wanky- in my head what I was trying to say was more "I'm from quite a scientific background (degree and main job til I switched!) so personally for me I like/need to look at facts, evidence, research, correlation not causation re.the whole porn debate before I make a definitive opinion on it- but it came out totally wrong and I sounded like a bit of a plonker and so yes please stop singling me out!

I dislike the ubiquitous spread of porn in the media (music videos have me apoplectic!) and lots of aspects of the industry but can't ascribe to an "all porn is bad" mentality as I just haven't seen enough evidence that it really is although I appreciate aspects of the industry are.

I totally hear what you are saying Dittany about it being the status quo and that being problematic- but in terms of being a practitioner working with young people on the ground, its unfortunate that we have work with what we have- we try to encourage critical awareness of the issues and media literacy and just telling kids "porn is bad" is going to get me about as far as if I tell them "just say no" in terms of sex!

Out of interest, taken as an entire industry, is it definitely true that the women get paid more than the men?

Many of the men also work in gay porn for men and presumably there is a quid or two to be made in that. Conversely many women are trying to "break into" the porn industry as there are a few women who are very highly paid and I understand that they can be exploited.

When people say that the pay is reversed, are they talking about the few very famous female porn stars, or are they talking about an average across the whole industry?

Would be great to see a link if anyone has one.

Surely there is a side to porn that is to sex what TV cooks (Ready Steady Cook, Masterchef, Heston Blumenthal etc) are to eating?