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

I'm not trying to score cheap points, I'm trying to get to an understanding of why men use porn, and I don't think the answer is "they're bastards who like to watch women being abused" is anywhere near valid for the millions of men in the UK who watch porn. I think it's far, far more subtle than that.

If we want to solve a problem, I think we need to understand it.

Beachcomber, I know you're not saying 1970s porn was fine, I was just trying to clarify your objection

I'm not saying that 1970s porn was ok. The fundamentals were all there - objectification, dehumanizing, rape, racism, etc.

I'm just saying that since the advent of the video/DVD/internet mediums, porn has got much more violent and abusive. It is also a million times easier and more profitable to sell and a million times easier to get hold of.

We also have the increasing problem of amateur, voyeur and 'predatory' porn where women and girls are filmed without their knowledge, or after having been manipulated and coerced by the likes of the disgusting 'Girls Gone Wild' sexual predators.

A lot of the porn that looks so consensual has been secretly filmed or put on the internet without the permission of the woman.

OK, then, Dittany. What do you think?

As a teenager, no I didn't look at the titles. I never watched any of this horrific stuff you speak of, I'd never of got off on that. I've never heard of ATM, and I still don't know what Bukkake is (and I'm not sure I do). Some of the acts mentioned on this thread have made me feel sick, and looking back the titles of these things are quite shocking. Yes somehow I remember titles that are slightly less obviously degrading (from a teenager's perspective):

"Bikini Babe at it"
"Two blondes sharing a guy"
"Lesbian's in oral action"

I know these are still, from an older and a little wiser perspective, dehumanising, all I'm saying is that they weren't as obvious as some of the aweful titles you and Beach have come across, too a young and naive mind.

RitaLynn you said;

"I don't suggest it's all happy smiling girls"

Well what is it then? As far as I can see it is violent, racist, sexist objectification of women with some borderline paedophilia and rape fantasy chucked in for extra added fun.

Actually, I'll take back the 'borderline' and the 'fantasy' bits.

I don't know whT Dittany would say, but I would say that he was in denial because the abuse of women wasn't that big a deal to him at the time. He lives in a society which vociferously and loudly tells him, that the abuse of women is not really abuse and unless you are either unbelievably intelligent, motivated, humane etc. or you have a personal reason for thinking more deeply about it, most people accept what their society tells them and don't really question it too much. Tht's not to say that everyone in society is a complete moron or utterly benighted, just to accept that most people most of the time are gettting on with their lives and unless someone puts a bomb up0 their arse about an issue, they jsut don't think about it.

I don't know if this is a fact, but my impression is that lots of men don't really think about the issues surrounding porn and porn use, until they actually have daughters. It's that whcih motivates them to re-think their attitudes and delve a little more deeply into the things they simply accepted as normal and OK. (Not just attittudes around porn, but around sexism in general.)

And many men of course, simply never think. About anything.

Beachcomber, this is where we agree, but I my point is that 1970s porn wasn't ok, just because it looked nice (as you imply but I know you don't really think it was), but still had the same objectification of women at its core.

Hello Crawling. Thanks for your insightful and powerful post.

I hope things are better for you now. Take care.

Mr IC, what HerBEggs said;

"It's got nothing to do with censoring what women should be allowed to do in bed. It's got everything to do with humanising the women who are abused in porn films."

The point of the observation is that men who consume porn dehumanise and objectify the women in porn. Asking them how they would feel about women they know and care about and treat as human, is to make that point.

The point is not to say 'porn is bad because the women in it are sluts' but porn is bad because they women are dehumanized'.

dittany,

What do you say to the likes of atomicbum who said he thought it looked consensual, but didn't think too much about it?

Beachcomber

I actually sat through a seminar at Oxford University once where a professor from the US conducted an analyisis of the titles on sites, it was a little strange to say the least. I might have to look again at what his conclusions were.

I don't suggest it's all happy smiling girls

Dittany,

I would rather suspect, purely on the basis of anecdotal evidence, and from people like the AtomicBum in this thread that you're wrong when you say "watching the abuse of women gets them off", and its their "degradation that excites the viewers".

Still, we don't know unless we survey loads of men who watch porn, so we'll have to leave it there.

Carminaburana, can you answer the question that is coming up in all these debates: Would you be happy to stare in such a film? Or for you're daughters to? And what would you do if you opened a video and there was one of you're daughters participating?

J60 - I can't believe what you've just said to me - I'm a woman myself and the mother of two beautiful, highly intelligent successful daughters. To imply that because I use pornography occasionally I'm into abusing feminists and women in general is ( apart from being untrue ) totally over the top and unnecessary. you have really upset me. Thanks a lot.

I think Crawling's post illustrates just how "consensual" pornography is.
Thanks for making the point. I'm glad to hear you are happier with yourself now.

Crawling, I just wish that more people were aware of the dynamics of why women go into the sex industry. It is fucking heartbreaking that men are allowed to destroy so many women and then blame those women for their destruction.

Only a very sick, woman-hating society would allow this and denigrate the people who speak out against it.

I'm so glad you have come through it and wrested back some control and self-respect.

crawling: so about what happended to you, but thank you so much for giving us the kind of personal perspective that really gets to the heart of why this industry is so evil.

I hate porn and apart from the reasons on this thread a big part of this is because I was abused as a child. This gave me a distorted view on sex and porn and back when I was still trying to comprehend what had happend I almost became one of thoose women because I saw it as taking back the power over sex. Luckily I recieved counselling and have a much healthier attitude to sex and would never do that now.

I would have freely chosen to sell my body as some probably do but that thinking comes from the sheer damage abuse did to me and how it warped my thinking. Why dont women from good childhoods dont choose this? because IME you need your mind to be warped by a pretty bad past before selling your body seems ok. The people claiming it is fine have no desire to sell thier body I notice, probably because most of your childhood wasnt degrading and abuseive to the point that a porn film seems like you are getting respect because people are paying you for the privalage of abusing you instead of you being given nothing, and because in my warped mind I thought I had choose this when I hadnt my first abuser was the one who forced me to believe I would always be abused and my only option was to sell it so I could lie to myself and survive.

I would have walked in there freely too had I not been stopped but I would have had no more choice than someone who is forced on drugs and eventually becomes a addict.

Carmine: go and watch the chan 4 documentary on porn then come back and tell us the abuse is all fantasy (as though this isn't a weird proposition in itself) and it doesn't really hurt women who choose to do it. Then come back and talk to us about how you just want to enjoy yourself.

I'm with beachcomber on this: if you want to abuse feminists, you should go somewhere else. I suspect, however, given your opinion on porn, that you simply cannot resist an opportunity to abuse women.