Math Magazine and 'good' porn.

The question still remains. What action do you want taken?

Also if I'm being really conservative a growing % of the female orgasm is porn generated. Anywhere from 10%-33%.

Joe what do you mean by self righteous? Is holding an opinion self righteous?

Italian No I don't think holding an opinion makes you self-righteous and nor do you. Your comment is really just a slur suggesting that I dismiss opinions that I disagree with isn't it?

I don't do that. I'm perfectly comfortable with people having different opinions to me. There have been a lot of opinions on this thread that I disagree with but if you go back over my posts I have not at any time dismissed these by reference to a character flaw, or moral or intellectual failing on the part of the poster.

To take a random post from above. I'm quite happy that MatildaofTuscany believes that porn was the driving force behind the death of Tiziana Catone. It's a valid opinion even if I might not agree with it. That's doesn't mean that I don't find his/her expressing of it, 'how fucking dim do you have to be to think otherwise?' rude and offensive.

I actually can't believe buffy can post that story, sillage can post that list and greyhound can post about the crime stats and yet we can have porn users on here still arguing porn isn't proven to cause harm so it's fine. Ugh.

Seriously, in most other circumstances if there's a risk of harm we take action (for example pregnant women being advised to drink no alcohol). Yet in the case of harm to women (especially if we are talking about preventing men getting their rocks off) then we have to have absolute proof. And not even specific cases (such as buffys article and the murder of Jane Longhurst) but actual solid statistical evidence with causation clearly identified, not just association. Which is never going to happen due to the saturation of porn in our society.
So in the meantime, mens orgasms through whatever kink they like to watch trump protecting females from harm.
Ugh.

There is a confidence in reporting. Historic reports of abuse are up 200%. Many from the 70's and 80's where porn wasn't anywhere near as available. At time when the most popular men on TV, radio etc were abusing women and children pretty much openly.

Porn is an easy scapegoat. However, to move the thread on. What are the answers? Actual solutions? Education, bans (what would be banned), barriers etc.

Dadwashere what sort of results did you expect to see in offenses against women?

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/2015-07-16#sexual-offences

If you look at the section that says...

"Sexual offences"

There are some statistics.... (these are not just offenses against women).

Figure 5 which says "Trends in police recorded sexual offences in England and Wales, year ending March 2003 to year ending March 2015 [1,2,3]" shows an increase in all three categories it records. The text says (amongst other things)...

"It is difficult to obtain reliable information on the volume of sexual offences as it is known that reporting rates for these type of offences are relatively low compared with other types of offence1. ... "

etc and include items like...

"Police recorded crime figures showed an increase of 37% in all sexual offences for the year ending March 2015 compared with the previous year (up from 64,229 to 88,219; Table 8a). This is the highest level recorded, and the largest annual percentage increase, since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) in April 2002. Increases in offences against both adults and children have contributed to this rise. Increases were seen in all police forces; Table P2 (296.5 Kb Excel sheet) ."

and

"Police recorded rape increased by 41% (to 29,265 offences) compared with the previous year, following previous increases every year since 2007/08. Other sexual offences increased by 36% (to 58,954 offences). Both rape and other sexual offences are at the highest level since the NCRS was introduced in 2002/03. The latest rises in total sexual offences, and the component categories of rape and other sexual offences, are the largest year-on-year increases since the introduction of the NCRS in 2002/03."

However, rather than expecting to see a massive rise in the statistics on rape or other sexual assaults what I think we can see and read in various reports is that women, and especially young women, are more likely to be pushed into sexual acts they do not want, such as anal sex, and are more likely to receive (and not report) violence like being slapped or 'chocked' during sex with a 'partner'. These women may not even (at the time) understand the coercion or abuse as such.

I have read on Mumsnet of one woman who described abusive and violent relationships but did not seem to recognize them as such.

I've had a friend tell me in person that her first sexual encounter was not consensual, she did not follow this up with how she reported it to the police etc.

I've posted this link before but I think it very clearly makes the case for one of the ways porn is harmful to women and girls in that it normalises sexual violence to girls and women. Ad when things are normalised we do not expect to see them ending up in crime statistics as they will not be recorded as crime.

fightthenewdrug.org/sex-before-kissing-15-year-old-girls-dealing-with-boys/

What does while people made comforting nods of support for each other and their views mean? Don't you know that acknowledging comments from other posters is how Mumsnet works?

I'm astonished that anyone can look at that list (or at the front page of something like Porn Hub) and think to themselves 'Well I certainly won't believe that there's any harm here until I see irrefutable proof that these specific videos cause deaths'.

I would be profoundly disappointed if you were actually astonished. You have clearly superior critical thinking skills Buffy, there is no need to pander to a crowd by standing on a soapbox made of affected astonishment.

Clearly the videos cause violence and deaths, there are countless things in the world that set people on a path of violence and murder. But if people contend that porn increases violence in society we do not live in an information vacuum to answer that particular question. Given the rapid rise of the net and what it provided, the sheer scale of it, it should undeniably manifest in crime statistics 10-15 years out from the internet boom. Just as crime fell in particular US states two decades after they legalised abortion, because wanted babies had better adult outcomes, porn via the net should have given rise to increased violent crime statistics after 10-15 years, particularly against women.

I asked what happened in the UK but nobody answered. I did not know myself and was genuinely curious when I asked. I would have thought that, had the statistics made the case, a dozen people would bring them up. Instead there evolved a path of personal targeting, accusations of insensitivity and ignorance of the grim ends of individual women, while people made comforting nods of support for each other and their views.

So I looked up UK statistics myself. They made it perfectly clear why the thread evolved the way it did, and I think you are smart enough to realise on which side the lax critical thinking lies.

People are pedantic.

You have no idea

Joe what do you mean by self righteous? Is holding an opinion self righteous?

"The female not sending it" - what a fascinating choice of wording there. Talk about dehumanising her. Try using the word "woman". It might even enable you to make the cognitive leap to seeing women as human beings.

Instead of female or woman maybe try Tiziana Catone because, you know, that was her name.

I use female and male a lot in work life. Especially when writing. Sometimes you slip into it. People are pedantic.

vestal I meant men who watch porn seen't good guys.

"The female not sending it" - what a fascinating choice of wording there. Talk about dehumanising her. Try using the word "woman". It might even enable you to make the cognitive leap to seeing women as human beings.

That seems somewhat inconsistent Joe. Sour grapes?

Sour grapes? About what?
I don't think it's inconsistent. In a binary choice for or against you can end up on one side via a different route to someone else can't you? Or are you one of these people who think that all people who voted for Brexit did so out of racism?

I should clarify, perhaps that I'm anti-porn on a personal level on moral grounds. That's not the same thing as saying I want all porn banned of course, just that it's not something I'm comfortable with.

Porn is a much to blame for that tragedy as smart phones.The issue is the reaction of Italian society. The bullying and the meme making etc.

The article indicates she sent it herself to taunt her ex? He should have called the police. Is there an expectation of privacy when sending unsolicited explicit videos of yourself.

There are two ways this tragedy could have been avoided. The female not sending it, and whoever shared it not doing so. Blaming porn doesn't really make sense.

For what little it's worth I remain anti-porn (that's all porn, not just filmed) but that doesn't mean I find the arguments against porn mentioned on this thread particularly compelling.

If you don't find any of the arguments in this thread compelling, then why are you against porn in the first place?

Surely, the fact that porn harms people is like the number 1 reason to be against it?

Sure, there's some wankers who noticed that wanking to porn makes their orgasms less satisfying, but that's like, a rather small group.

*Hmm. In a world without the means to distribute widely and access easily films of people having sex, could the film of this woman having sex been distributed widely and accessed easily?

Tune in next week when we discuss the thorny question of whether, in a world without motorised vehicles, people could still be injured in motor vehicle accidents.*

Yes, well top facetious answer there. Of course, in my hypothetical world without porn I hadn't also rid the world of all mobile phones, all mobile recording equipment, the Internet, all social media and the global economy. Still, as you astutely point out, if we could return the world to the dark ages we could really start make a dent in the circulation of mediated images of sex.

For what little it's worth I remain anti-porn (that's all porn, not just filmed) but that doesn't mean I find the arguments against porn mentioned on this thread particularly compelling. As the thread seems to be moving more towards sneering self-righteousness and away from interesting discussion I think I'll go back to reading and not contributing.

I think real men don't need to watch prostituted women to get their jollies.

Sadly, those men are very real. You are using the No True Scotsman fallacy here.
Good men don't watch porn. However, the other kind of man is also real. That's the whole problem!

Plus the million plus people who watched it and the company that would not remove it.

Exactly.

A male acquaintance of mine admitted to watching the Gina Lisa Lohfink rape video for, uh, "research", and felt like a really good guy for agreeing with me that it was rape.

Yeah. Three guesses as to why I don't see him very often anymore.

buffy or in a world where men did not expect to be able to see women being fucked left right and centre, there would even be men searching on line for 'revenge porn'!

TheGhostOfTroubledJoe
Re -It would be difficult to argue that this poor women hasn't been harmed by porn.

"Harmed by the malicious action of an ex-boyfriend and/or the three other people she sent it to who then posted it online surely?"

Plus the million plus people who watched it and the company that would not remove it.

What a shitty society we live in. How very evil men get to watch this stuff and so many women suffer. I think real men don't need to watch prostituted women to get their jollies.

Yes, that incident would not have happened. How fucking dim do you have to be to think otherwise?

Yes, the patriarchy would continue to harm women in various ways, but this specific incident would not have happened.

Well I think it gets confusing because on the one hand you're talking about filmed pornography causing harm and on the other hand you're talking about the people who were complicit, who made t-shirts, who posted unpleasant things online. You're talking about things at a patriarchal societal level.

So when you say that this woman was harmed by porn are you saying that porn is responsible for all these attitudes and beliefs? Porn is responsible for her deciding to film the sex act? Porn is responsible for creating the kind of people that posted it online? Porn is responsible for creating the values of the people that printed the t-shirts and made the comments?

In short, do you believe that in a world without porn (not a world without patriarchy, but a world without porn) that incident would not have happened?