Porn is violence against women

TeiTeuta, Gail Dines is interested in all pornography from a sociological perspective and she talks about how what used to be considered 'soft porn' has migrated into popular culture and how what used to be considered 'hardcore' has had to become 'harder' in order to distinguish itself from what is now popular culture (think music videos, lads mags, etc). She examines the porn industry from its very birth with the publication of Playboy magazine, and she analyses all kinds of porn. Her area of interest is the porn industry and therefore she is interested in all products that come out of that industry - as the industry has got harder, so, by default, has her area of interest.

She is interested in the capitalist model of pornography and porn as a profit generating industry which works in the same way as any other capitalist venture - by expanding markets, creating new markets, developing logistically and technologically in order to increase profit.

Below is a link to a talk she gives on this - the beginning of the talk is about prostitution, but the meat of the talk is in how porn has changed with technology and the explosion in access to pornography via the internet and how the industry is capitalizing on this and intends to continue expanding (through developments in mobile phone technology).

It is pretty hair raising. I agree with her that we are looking at a macro social experiment and a public health issue. I think what is particularly concerning is that we are looking at a powerful industry which makes a lot of money and intends to keep on making a lot of money by selling a industrialized sexual product which is detrimental to the cultural socialization of existing and future generations. (Right at the end there is some very worrying stuff on mass cultural grooming of underage girls.)

SGB I know you don't have much time for Gail Dines but please watch this talk. The porn industry is not going to be changed by a few well meaning people making their own porn. Things have gone far far beyond that. What we are looking at is much more to do with money than it is with sex. Sex just happens to be the product that is being used cynically to generate profit. I use the word sex loosely as we are really talking about sexualized violence against women. To use a Dines style metaphor, to think that a few independent film makers can change the industry is to think that a small local store selling reasonable quality burgers is going to revolutionize the fast food industry. It 'aint going to happen and is only hijacked in order to legitimatize a massive cynical capitalist venture that doesn't give a shit about individual sexuality.

And thanks Buffy you among others have given me the space to listen and learn a few things of real value on here.

Well here is my problem with liberalism, although I consider myself very liberal indeed. People throw up notions of choice as some sort of talisman to ward off change or perhaps painful examination of the status quo. Yet (I hope at least) we are all in agreement that one should not be at liberty to commit murder, or rape, or in fact violence of any kind.

Now for fear of wading into informal fallacy at that last point let me qualify that by saying you are of course more than welcome to draw the line with pornography firmly outside what you are willing to restrict people's choices in, but there is a compelling case for those who choose to include it.

To reiterate something Buffy said up thread, allowing people to watch pornography would be perfectly fine all other things being equal, but here's the thing: they aren't. Not by a long shot, and unless we are willing to ask the hard questions and get to causation they won't be.

To bask in my own ignorance a moment, I am not confidant I can point to causes and solutions, at least not by myself. However I think discussions like this can serve to shine a light on such things if we don't get too bogged down in blanket banning and using choice as some sort of shield. There is a middle ground here where I think progress can be made.

I don't think we need to go to either extremes of the debate to realise a lot of harm can and does go on. Just because "milder" porn exists doesn't magically cancel out the harm the extreme stuff causes.

I am sure everyone agrees with the notion that compassion is the appropriate response to suffering.

Our children are.
Sorry. Dc have awoken and want breakfast.

The porn industry follows demand, and producers have been saying for years that the demand for violence and hardcore is increasing.

On a different note, that video sickened me. I still cannot get it out of my head. But my tastes are tame and I simply want two people enjoying themselves, not group or anal or violence or bondage.

I do believe in social conditioning, and more so now than ever. If we do not start to challenge women's image in the media, whether porn or pop, our children are not facing increasing pressure to be sexualised early.

Whenever pornography is talked about here, it always comes to the topic of the worst kind of violent material, and of course if you're aware of that, you have to hate it. But I have to wonder if the statement "Most porn nowadays features men being violent to women as part of sex" isn't just an emotional response to knowing that violent porn exists, when in fact the milder types of pornography are almost ubiquitous, "the mainstreaming of porn" as it's been called. Maybe the milder forms of porn actually have more impact on the everyday world. For the example we all know, what about page 3 of the Sun? I would bet that the women shown there aren't being abused during production, and there's nothing sadistic depicted. But if those smiling women flash their boobs to any man who turns the first page on his way to work, could he be led to think that any woman is just as easily available, that you can have a sexual response to a woman without any kind of relationship--and maybe it's like drugs, you can start off with something that gives you small thrills, and perhaps it satisfies some people, but others will always want the next thrill beyond that. All the way up to the real nasties.

I don't know much about Gail Dines' work in detail. Does she just concentrate on the worst pornography, or does she have anything to say about the less extreme but pervasive sort?

Posted too soon.

We should get rid of it.

There is no need. Sex is not a need.
The more we support this idea the more women are fucked.

YES FUCKED

Ugh, i hate the idea of making the porn industry better etc.

SGB are you claiming that your experience of the porn industry is that the vast majority of it is clean?

Have you spent a lot of time in California visiting sets?

Anyone of us who has the stomach for it can spend about 5 minutes on Google (as SinisterSal has done) and access thousands of hard-core violent abusive videos of women having body punishing sex. We can see thousands of teen abusive videos, we can see rape scenarios, we can see women being called sluts and bitches and cum loving whores. We can see women being choked, gagged, slapped, having their hair pulled and being held down, tied up and given electric shocks.

We are not fools. You are kidding yourself that your experience of jolly lovely porn with everybody having a fabby time having protected personally satisfying sex with respectful pleasant partners on clean comfortable sets with zero alcohol and drug use with great pay and contracts which respect employment law, is in anyway representative of the porn that the rest of us are talking about (the porn that is all over the internet getting millions of hits and sold in millions of copies all around the world).

But if the pornography itself shapes desire and has the power to re-enforce and encourage sexist/racist ideologies then it can't be said that pornography is driven only by what men want. No man is immune to social processes, he is also the subject of the social/political processes that dominate our society. And this hatred of women is functionally useful to the reproduction of class relations and exploitation, the only beneficiaries of this system being those with the greatest social power and in a more obvious way those that make money making porn.

My opinion is based on experience too. the experiences of people who've been damaged in the production, and in the consumption of it.

I accept that SGB and you are entitled to your opinion. The point I was making is that your statement that there is nothing wrong with sex as entertainment etc. is only an opinion, not a fact i.e. you had no qualifier such as "I believe".

We must agree to differ.

My opinion is at least based on experience rather than on shitty, misquoted research and scaremongering.

There is nothing wrong with sex as performance, sex as entertainment, watching others engage in sex, exploring different sexual activities.

SGB - I understand you believe that your opinion that there is nothing wrong with it is a fact. It could just be an opinion you know, like most of the posters on here - only just a different opinion.

SGB, what percentage of "easily accessible for free" porn on the internet do you think represents your kind of porn ie everyone involved is happy and willing and well treated?

I don't disbelieve that it exists, I just think it's drowned out by lots of other stuff.

I am a male poster (middle aged) and I appear to quite unusual in that I have never watched a porn film.

I find violence and particularly sexual violence against women abhorrent and although I am sure not all porn films are like that I have no particular inclination to find out.

Porn is becoming more violent, and violent porn is becoming more mainstream.

This.