Porn - I use it and feel bad - help convince me porn is wrong

Thank you Carmina, for your apology.

PS with apologies to others for hijack, what porn filter software do you use?

LOL I spot a chink in that armour of denial Carmina.

Sometimes it just takes an honest man to admit something, for the whole edifice to collapse.

Which of course, is why so many of them so vociferously deny what is so bloody obviously staring us all in the face. They know that if they admitted it, the implications would be too uncomfortable for them.

Typos probably appalling - typing while walking

BC; I would happily pay another £100 a year in tax if I thought that money would go towards cleaning up the Internet, because I agree, our children need protecting from some of the truly disgusting stuff that's out there. It's too easily accessable and that's a worry for me as a parent. We, as a family have installed the best child safety device we could buy - nothing gets passed the sex filters on our home computer ( we only have one family laptop and that has always been downstairs so I can see what's going on ) our children have always been heavily protected where Internet porn is concerned. No Porn magazines/videos have every been inside our house and never will be. ( I view porn on my iPhone )
I am just as passionate about protecting the vulnerable as you are!
(Ps; I aplogiese for what I said to you a few days ago - I was out of order and I'm sorry )

Wrt hardcore porn being a backlash for feminism, I asked my dh what he thought about that ( he has used porn in the past but doesn't anymore - bored with it I think ) he agrees with that statement, he feels that a lot of men resent women becoming independent and successful ( career wise ) and porn is now the only place they can have total control over women, because they're losing control everywhere else.

Maybe I am in denial.

Just wanted to add something to this thread, that I have said on a porn thread before. If you don't mind I'll C&P it. It is relevant to a comment made by Carmina saying she thinks the internet should be more heavily policed;

"I used to work for a subcontractor of google. The job was supposed to entail all sorts of things but it really came down to trying to sort out the referencing so that the www is not overwhelmed with porn.

If it weren't for people like me doing that job then just about every common word ('girl' 'clothes' 'urine' 'glass' 'trousers' 'shoes') would come up with the first 10 pages full of porn sites.

So in order for the internet not to be just one big pornfest, but actually a useful and amazing tool for gaining and sharing knowledge, people like me had to spend their working days cleaning up after the porn makers and consumers flagging up their presence so that kids don't get pictures of women having bottles shoved up their anuses when they put 'glass beads' into a search engine."

And from another post.

"Again the problem with the voyeurism/exhibitionsism stuff is that it is in the public domain.

If people want to film themselves having sex and then make those films available to other adult viewers who wish to see them and have actively sought them out, that is none of my business.

However once stuff is on the net anybody can access it or be exposed to it.

There are loads of websites for viewing films by streaming, for example, which have links to webcam sites. Why should a person (particularly a teenager) who wants to watch a film be exposed to adverts and picture links showing people flashing their bodies or women sucking penises?

Nobody would think it was right for a child to be allowed to go into a sex shop and be exposed to porn so why is it alright on the internet?

As I said earlier there is a lot of work done to try to keep the referencing system of google being chock full of porn - this operation costs a lot of money. That money is recouped through advertising gain. Why should it be for the people who use the internet for legitimate purposes such as running small businesses to pay to stop the www becoming the world wide porn web.

Sorry to go on about this but I was quite taken aback by the scale of the whole thing and the costs involved. (and lots of this is cluttered up by Mr and Mrs average having fun with their webcams)"

So there you go Carmina, one of the reasons I am so against porn and happen to know quite a lot about it.

I probably wasn't clear. I was trying to state that Rich men exsert power over poor men and women. If you remove all other inequalities men will still try to dominate women.

I have worked with children and have seen that in groups boys spend all their time jockying for position. More time is spent trying to establish the pecking order. In groups of girls it is less obvious and less overt.

What is interesting to observe though is the fact that the boys spend almost no time trying to establish their dominance over the girls. Why?

I wonder if this is because they somehow feel that it is a natural given, that they have dominance? or is it that they have no wish to control women?

I'm inclined to think that the need for control stems from sex and reproduction. It seems that men have a struggle between what they want and what they morally expect of women. Porn feeds into this compex duality of male sexual desire and moral reasoning.

If pornography is educating young men or shaping the desires of men who view some of this hardcore porn and giving the allussion that some forms of behaviour are normal why are so many men retreating from real relationships?

Men don't want power over women?

Then, erm, why have they got so much of it?

The poor man/rich woman argument gets made here all the time. The point is, all other things (economic, race, class) being equal, who has the power? Everytime it's men. Which would seem to indicate that they do want power over women.

The biggest form of power has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with money and status. If you're born into a poor family your outcomes aren't particulary brilliant - even today. ( something like 75% of children from poor backgrounds leave school at 16 )
And on the subject of money, Poor Men haven't always had the right to vote in this country, in fact only around 15% of men were eligable due to property laws and god knows what else ) So that particular 'right' wasn't just denied to women. Also, the suffragettes had plenty of male supporters, it wasn't just women who thought they should get the vote. throughout recent political history men have helped women in their bid for equality and freedom ( for example the abortion act ) so I don't know why you insist with this 'men want power over women'
They don't.

Historically, Men with money had power over everyone. That's why unions were formed so the rich could stop screwing the poor. ( the rich man owned the factory, the middle classes managed the factory, and the poor man did all the work ) I don't think much has changed.

Carminaburana wrote - "If men had all the power and were so in control, why do so many of them have mental health issues? alcoholism/drug addiction/ suicide - all far too common amongst men (sadly)"

Men as a group control women as a group on a society-wide basis. I think those health issues you've listed that men experience (along with women of course), are more about self-control and/or control of the individual.

Here, here HerB and WWIFN!

"Moving on" suggests positive progress. I wouldn't view internet porn that can be accessed privately, positive at all. I deeply resent the fact that any child with the ability to search the internet can, with a few clicks of their mouse or phone, access the kind of material we're discussing on this thread. While I don't want to see porn in supermarkets either - and I also despise the fact that children can access offensive "trailers" on satellite TV, there are some controls about the sort of porn consumers can buy in a magazine or on satellite TV. There are no such controls on internet porn. It is the very fact that it is so easy to access privately, that makes it so dangerous.

The "keep it private" argument just doesn't work. I've often wondered whether some of the women supportive of their partners' right to use porn would react differently if their use was accurately depicted by piles of magazines or DVDs taking over the house. This wouldn't be kept "private" then and would force women to look at the bargains they are making. Currently, all the time they are reliant on their co-parent deleting internet history and cookies, so that their children can't stumble on what their partners are really looking at. And especially reliant on not being forced out of the delusion that their partners are "considerately" having the odd wank to happy images of consensual sex.

I agree that whether you use porn yourself, or are benign about a partner's use of it, it means living a life full of dubious bargains and intense denial.

If men had all the power and were so in control, why do so many of them have mental health issues? alcoholism/drug addiction/ suicide - all far too common amongst men (sadly) Sex is one part of our lives - it isn't the be all and end all of everything.

Oh, and some women like fucking other women . Plenty of porn on that subject.

oh and the fact that our primary function is as fucks, impacts us in every other facet of our lives - in education, in the workplace, in our relationships with men and with each other. It is very very difficult for someone to take you seriously as a human being, even if they love you, like you, admire you in some ways, if you are part of a group which is ultimately there to be fucked.

Completely agree Jenny.

If I want to view porn in the privacy of my own bedroom, that's up to me so long as it doesn't have any impact on anyone else.

The reality is, supporting this industry supports the systematic abuse of women and systematic message to women that at any time, we can cease to be human beings and jsut be fucks.

Our choices have an evil effect on others. We should remember that when we make our choices.

The only way many people can continue to watch porn is to live in denial about it: that's what's going on here. Carm: you can kid yourself all you like but every serious study suggests that what you call mainstream is a walk in the park compared with what most punters want to watch. Have you seen a. what Max Hardcore produces and b. how popular it is? Once you accept the truth of that, everything has to change. The only justification in the light of that is that you, as a consumer, have a right to it and choose to watch it despite the price that?s paid by other people. At least that?s honest. The related issue of course is that what you and others define as 'consent', the other powerful justification for porn ('she agreed to it'), is rarely as straight forward as you want to think. If you saw the documentary about Felicity you would have seen her at the beginning saying that she had not been forced to do any of the things she had done. If being tricked/cajoled/'encouraged'/threatened into going to see some of the disgusting pornographers her 'agent' (pimp) took her to is consent then you and I have a very different understanding of the English language. Was her experience typical? I don?t know, but I am terribly afraid that she was in fact ?luckier? than most women in that she had the protection of a film crew through some of her worst hours and she got out in the end.

What all this boils down to is the absolute determination of porn users to put their own wants before the basic human rights of the women in porn. Yes, it's no doubt true that some women do enjoy it, freely agree to it and/or prostitution, but this is a minority by any serious assessment; a small minority if you consider, for instance, how many women are trafficked into prostitution in this country. I'm afraid that the choice of some women to enter into these activities freely, and the choice of consumers to avail of them cannot and should not override the human rights of the majority who are involved through no choice at all, or through a choice that is so compromised that it is hardly a choice at all.

The Internet has allowed the porn industry to grow and move on. all things move on eventually; harps --> books -> radio -> TV ---> Internet. As technology progresses our world expands and we are subjected to more and more info and experiences / we have to work with the good and bad where that's concerned. Personally, I'd like to have all porn removed from shops/supermarkets and have the Internet policed more effectively removing the really sickening stuff. Porn will never be banned, so all we can do is protect the vulnerable. I don't want to be subjected to pornography every time I walk into a newsagents, however if I want to view legal porn in the privacy of my own bedroom, that's upto me.
Keep it private.

I think this sort of denial is typical of a lot of Mumsnet posters, who would like to believe that men in general (and the men in their lives, certainly) only ever consume what they are fond of describing as "soft porn". With the advent of private browsing, password protected laptops, i phones and most of all, a head-in-the-sand approach of "what isn't known about, can't harm me" I don't think people have a clue about the type of porn their partners consume. It is absolutely right that what comes up in google searches is now "mainstream" because the vast majority of porn users access it via the internet, because it is free and undetectable.

Going back to my earlier post though, the relationships board holds all the clues to the type of porn men are consuming, because there is thread after thread about abusive and demeaning behaviour, outright sexism, sexual practices that cause pain and discomfort - not pleasure and not enough women who spot the link between all this and what their partners are viewing.

Yes but your definition of mainstream isn't the definition of mainstream. Most porn users have internet access. The circulation of porn mags is going down, precisely because the internet offers much easier, often free or very cheap access to porn. Gonzo porn, is the fastest growing sector.

You can define mainstream all you want, but if the majority of porn users are looking at stuff you wouldn't define as mainstream, the your terminology will be wrong, no?

My definition of mainstream includes the stuff you can access in any high street newsagents or view on Sky. If you take the porn industry as a whole -"eat my shit covered cock' wouldn't feature too often.

The Internet has a lot more on offer that's true - but most sites still contain fairly average sexual practices.

De Sade was one man Carmina.

Who was recognised as a lunatic, not given money to pursue his sexual fantasies and disseminate them among the population as widely as possible.

"but I still maintain that the vast majority of people are occasional porn users and are into the mainstream normal stuff."

You have had it described what mainstream normal stuff is - google works by bringing up the sites with the most number of hits. So the most popular sites, with the most hits, are the ones which have been referred to, which have the disgusting abuse of women as an integral part of the porn. Why do you persist in insisting that most porn users are just into mainstream normal stuff as you describe it, when google has shown us all what mainstream normal stuff is? Do you think there's a search machine mistake going on?

Why do you cling to your denial?

HerBEggs;

In all my years of porn use I have never come across some of the titles mentioned in this thread, I guess I'm just not looking for them. I'm not denying porn can be damaging to some people, any obsession can be damaging, someone who uses porn everyday and seeks out the worst stuff available is probably not of sane mind, but I still maintain that the vast majority of people are occasional porn users and are into the mainstream normal stuff. From what I've seem 'mainstream' consists mainly of heterosexual oral and anal sex. Now I don't know how far you stray from the feminist section, but I can assure you that plenty of M'netters are into both of those sexual practices, (I've lost count of the 'bum sex' threads I've seen on here) -

And We will have to agree to disagree on the revenge for feminism issue, I just don't believe it. Where do you think the word 'sadist' originated?
He had the the most bizarre of sexual fantasies ( most of them violent ) and was writing his filth 300 years ago - the sexual domination of other people is nothing new. And Y'know we all like to be in control and have power don't we - power is an aphrodisiac, Women love men in power and are easily seduced by it - how else do you explain John Prescott's extra marital affair?

I have managed to live my whole adult life without being aware of some of the things on this thread . Aside from accidentally being subjected to porn when a porn film was put on the TV during a lock-in at a pub when I was 16, in 1980 ( we all looked very young, my friend and I were the only women/girls in there and the owner smirked at us when it came on-horrible). I have never seen any. I've read Andrea Dworkin,I've read articles about how porn has become more and more extreme,but I've never seen it, I have no idea what any of the terminology means. It is all so tragic , hearing just what is out there,one click away. And horrible to think that this could be what the boys my dds will date may have been using for their frame of reference. My daughters are six and three.Its a very depressing thought.