Do you ever feel like fighting against porn is a losing battle?

I think the other unsavoury aspect of the new "moral code" of sexualisation is that it's peddled as "choice" so therefore, it must be a good thing. Girls "choose" to false eyelashes, diet until they are sick and wax bikini lines almost before they grow pubic hair. But is it REALLY a valid, informed choice when the pressure to conform is there 360 degrees, 24/7?

Yeah, my jaw hits the floor on a regular basis in this job!

Sorry if this is a bit of a tangent, but I think there is another parallel between the impact of sexualisation on children and the social and sexual "norms" of the Victorian, and really up to the 60's.

Back then, young people were kept in the dark about sex and particularly women who broke the moral "codes" were punished harshly (e.g. disowned, committed to asylums, forced to put children up for adoption, forced to marry their rapists, etc.)

Now, there is serious pressure for young women and girls to conform to a different kind of "moral code" which is about doing everything possible to be attractive and appealing to men, to be sexually available to men, to put your own needs and welfare waaaaaaaay behind what boys and men want. Okay, girls who don't conform aren't locked up any more, but they are often bullied by their peers, boys and even pushed by parents. Those messages about the most important function of females is to be attractive and sexually available are so pervasive that they impact on self-esteem. The church or state don't have to impose rules on girls behaviours they are absorbing and enforcing the rules on themselves.

Both set ups push girls (and boys) to conform to certain behaviours that maintain male privilege. Neither encourage children to learn about sex, sexuality and their own identity in a positive, healthy way, feel happy and confident in themselves or equip them with the ability to make informed choices about relationships, their health and welfare.

Once upon a time, a girl might have tested the boundaries by pulling her skirt up or wearing a tight blouse as a bit of a "rebellion." Now, sexually provocative clothes, make up, etc. aren't seen as rebellious, but as the norm.

Some gems I've come across in two conversations with people I usually consider intelligent... Am seriously rethinking that idea...

NC: "it's a normal and healthy part of sexuality which serves a function. and as long as it's consensual, it's fine" (I did try to redirect her to some former porn star's tales of the industry but nope...)

    "but that's what sells and porn isn't about relationships

I mean, if you have a fucked-up view on women I don't think porn will necessarily exacerbate it" (To which I asked why someone with 'decent'' views on women would want to watch something in which women are so heavily degraded)

And the one which REALLY shocked me... "I would much rather someone got their kicks by watching a video than actually doing those things, which is why I think the ban on CGI child porn is ridiculous" OK, sure I don't want people acting out paedophillia, but surely watching child porn (cgi or otherwise) is one of the earlier steps before acting on it???

JS
Women need to target those who deserve it: "the family, religion, education, child-rearing practices, the media, the state, psychiatry, job discrimination, and unequal pay..." rather than on relatively un-influential sexual minorities.

Me
sorry, define "un-influential sexual minorities"

JS
Pornography.

Followed by this status from him some time later...
"Research on serious sex offenders has demonstrated that rapists and abusers have often been taught repressive messages about sex, masturbation, and pornography, and that anti-pornography activism can exacerbate the problems that lead to sexual assault and abuse."

Does anyone have a brick wall I can bang my head against? PLEASE?

HAHA! same friend has just tried dictating to me that women should be fighting "unequal pay, the media, the patriachy, etc" rather than focussing on "sexual minorities", which he's clarified to mean pornography...

Hang up those boots, ladies... We're fighting the wrong battle here...

What a left bloody bollock he is...

Having the glamour model debate with an old college friend. He has some feminist views, but is likening glamour modelling to "the bra burners", etc...

Doesn't see how I can liken it so easily to pornography

And then there's porn that's not close to being illegal, but affects us all by the way it's so ubiquitouslike page 3 of The Sun. Women on display (and that really means young womenimagine 50-year-old boobs on page 3) every day, year in year out. And if you go beyond that to every "sexy" image that at least keeps nipples concealed--the idea of getting rid of it all seems like emptying an ocean with a teaspoon. As long as it sells stuff, we'll keep seeing it.

In answer to the question, yep - especially when I some of the 11 and 12 year old girls I work with talk about the things from porn their "boyfriends" want them to do, how they believe that sex is only about men's pleasure and you have to do it to get/keep a boyfriend and how they expect to be treated like crap (but how this impacts negatively on their self-image and confidence.)

The free view " play " channel is no way just music and bikinis. They are gesturing wank signs and licking at the screen and it's bloody awful.

When I see iffy stuff on telly before the watershed it makes me squirm.

Even as an adult you don't want it suddenly appearing on the telly while your parents are there.

i definitely have seen "live" stuff a lot earlier than midnight - i think 9.30/10.00?

and my 11yo when on holiday would often get to stay up till 10 or 11 at night...

Erm, despite the name, freeview porn on your digibox is not free. There are very short free trailers at midnight on some of the channels (by which time DC should be in bed), but their 'teasers' ie the bits that run all day, are static shots of a woman in lingerie with music playing. DS was quite keen on these when he was about 4 and I didn't have a big problem with him listening to the music and glancing occasionally at a picture of a woman in a silver lame bikini.

ladybutterfly1/bibbitybobbityhat/skrumble it's bad enough that it's only 2 clicks away on the internet, but what gets me is that it is now it's only a click away on TV.

As for how porn is produced, that seems a red herring to me, whether it's caring sharing ethical porn or sleaze merchants manipulating the impressionable. Not when some reality TV shows make millions expoiting gullible morons with personality defects, leaving them as unemployable objects of ridicule. Or action films that provide 90 short minutes of fun sometimes leave stuntmen as parplegics. Sorry, off topic, I just think the whole ethical discussion applies to many other areas too.

I can't stand some of the porn that is two clicks away on the internet, but Mumsnet and Mumsnetters have rounded on the idea of joining the campaign to try to do something about it. Baffles me.

i agree danniclare - hadn't really come across it as an issue till we were on holiday recently with an unfamiliar freeview TV (different menu system) and i nearly ended up on one of the half-naked-woman-on-the-phone channels while my 11yo DD was in the room... i think you should need to request them rather than just have them appear.

i also agree with springchicken that to assert that no woman could possibly want to perform in porn and that it is impossible to produce ethical porn weakens the argument against porn in general. while most porn is distasteful (to me) and the possibility that women are being raped/abused/trafficked to produce porn is horrendous, i don't think wanting to watch people having sex is automatically wrong, lots of people have voyeuristic tendencies and i think watching porn is a part of that.

i dont like how teenagers can come across porn so easily on internet and think thats what is expected of them as a women and men to thinkthis is how women should be treated

Human beings like pictures/stories/fantasies.

Why can't all porn be drawn/written then?

Would that solve the problem? Would you think it was OK if it was?

Bit surprised that there is very little support for simple controls to prevent accidental viewing of porn on TV or kids access.

Does anyone think the so-called "adult" channels on Sky and Freeview boxes should be opt-in instead of automatically installed and free to view?

Sky boxes come with a whole block of adult channels that broadcast 24 hours a day and they are free to view. They can be locked out, but the viewer has to know the channels exist, know they can lock the out and actually do it. I know people who didn't even know the channels existed. It's a small step from there to tapping in the wrong channel number when the kids or teachers are round.

It's worse on Freeview. There is no option to block all adult channels in one go, they have to be deleted one by one. But that's not the end of it. Every single time you rescan they come back. And some boxes rescan automatically so you might not even know it's happened.

What I'd like to see is the "Adult" block on new Sky decoders blocked instead of unblocked by default. It's easy enough to unblock them if the subscriber wants.

And the same sort of arrangement on Freeview boxes. Ofcom is pretty useless about these, saying it's not standard, but they are the Regulator aren't they? Can't they shame manufacturers into a small standards change?

Doesn't matter that some people say they are soft-core, I don't want DS watching women in scanties rolling around and making gestures, I don't want this on screen by accident when MIL is round, and I have rels who would be mortified to know this is on their TVs and "just a click away".

Don't get me wrong? I'm not saying these channels should be banned, that's a different discussion, just that they should be locked out unless someome specifically wants them.

Like I said, I seem to be in a minority to think this is an issue.

Sakura: if you think that then do you think that women who are struggling with TTC and therefore sometimes have to have sex when they are not horny (because it's the most fertile time - and indeed when their partners are not horny right at that moment either) are being antifeminist or wrong?
Molasses: and some people only get off on misery memoirs because what they want is to read about 'real' suffering. Also, being penetrated by a penis, welcoming a penis into your vagina, isn't inherently horrible. Sometimes it's great fun. Sometimes it's perfectly good fun even when you are being paid to do it.
And the argument that sex-performed-for-others'-titillation is only acceptable if it's unpaid is a crock of shit, too. I find it useful to equate sex (that is not TTC sex) with music: if you like playing music for your own pleasure, or with others, it doesn't invalidate your musical ability or your enjoyment of it if you sometimes do it for money. Exploitation and coercion are wrong, but you won't put a stop to them by insisting that people who are willing and enthusiastic participants are deluded and should be made to stop it, shut up and fuck off with their stories about their own experiences that don't fit your agenda.

Human beings like pictures/stories/fantasies.

Why can't all porn be drawn/written then?

I'm sure some men only get off on pornography that actually shows that a real woman is being actually penetrated, because it's that that gives them a sense of power.

A woman having sex for any other reason than sexual pleasure is a bit retrograde though isn't it. A bit Victorian , shall we say.

The only porn I would ever trust is porn where there was absolutely no profit being made by anyone, and even then you're skating on thin ice because of various psychological issues such as Stockholm syndrome, re-enacting rape or sexual abuse trauma in order to create a sense of control, coercion by a boyfriend etc. It really is a minefield.

Better to get people to find a more imaginative way to get their rocks off than risk even one woman slipping through the net.

One woman slipping through the net is, to me, one woman too many.

I think the idea of a Warning Label along the lines suggested above is only acceptable if used in conjunction with an Ethical Porn label ie those people who make ethical porn (non-coerced performers etc) being able to apply for some sort of certification. Because there are producers working to make stuff with willing performers and good values, and it seems to me to be unfair and wrong to make them label their work with 'Oh, I might be a liar, a criminal and a rapist actually'.
Quite a lot of people do like to look at sexually explicit entertainment material. This is not inherently wrong. Human beings like pictures, they like stories, they like fantasies. And it seems to me that fighting against the abuses that occur in the porn industry must include supporting or at least fucking acknowledging the producers and creators and artists who don't abuse other people. Otherwise you might as well just hang out with the anti-sex, anti-feminist nutters (and anti-porn campaigns are always hijacked by people whose agenda is not feminist at all).

I think this is yet another area where we need to address attitudes with education. In this case, I would say it would be helpful to encourage people to think of pornography as a drug (especially with the availability we now have on the internet). At one end of the scale it might be a little bit like caffeine - a light and enjoyable stimulant - but at the other end it can be pure Class A: the production makes unethical people rich, abuses the workers involved, attacks society and reduces the 'users' to hollowed-eyed wrecks.