The effect of porn on teenage boys and young men

Gail Dines is indeed ace Beach. We agree. :)

Gail Dines is very good on the issue of how the modern proliferation of pornography is harming youngsters.

I haven't read her book "Pornland - How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality" yet but I have watched videos of her speak and she explains how this mess has come about. I don't think she particularly gives out practical advice to parents but she let's us know what we're up against. Her analysis is brilliant, clear and easy to follow. Plus she fits in the odd rad fem joke to boost morale. She's ace.

I'll have a look on YouTube and post some links later.

And if there are any women who privilege expressing their own sexuality through porn over the children whose heads are going to be filled with it (selfish arseholes like Pandora Blake spring to mind) then they can off off too.

Meph please don't insult us all by suggesting your primary concern is women's sexual and economic freedom. It is more about your and other men's (and a minority of women's) supposed sovereign right to jack off to whatever you like completely irregardless of who gets harmed. Your convoluted argument can be stripped down to 'Don't take mah phonz!!!!'

Really funny how so many liberals will decry sweatshops and Sports Direct warehouses and then spring to the defence of the most predatory capitalist industry there is. And porn is a hugely damaging industry. It is damaging to the young girls who come off the trailer parks, fooled into thinking a glamorous career awaits them only to find themselves on their first shoot surrounded by men with one camera shoved up their vagina and another up their anus and then hear the director say 'wreck the bitch' (yes, this happened). It is damaging to the young girls who are made to gag on men's penises until they vomit. It is damaging to the girls who suffer prolapses and get faecal throat infections and STD's. All for the entertainment of men.

Lots of the pro-porners here who have been inveighing against 'anachronistic taboos' haven't stopped to ask themselves if we need taboos. Human communities in which taboos break down and anything goes are barbaric. Civilized culture means people not being given licence to do you as they please.

Doing what you please is what self-centred infants do. Though ironically what is more disgusting than anything else about pro-porners is their complete disregard for the welfare of children. We now have a world in which almost any child from the age of ten can access the darkest porn imaginable with a smartphone. That is CRAZY! As soon as anyone suggests restrictions on access however, there are ludicrous howls of 'fascist' and 'prude' from all the libertarians with their imbecilic incapacity to tell the difference between 'sex' and 'the sex industry'. And as much as the MRA types claim to care about boys, there is scant evidence of that when they get on their high horses about porn. For make no mistake, porn damages boys. Good boys. One minute they're out in the sun playing football, forming healthy relationships with girls - and then they stumble into Wanktube and are having their heads messed up with God knows what nastiness. They're on the cusp of adolescence so they're naturally aroused, but they also feel fear and shame and confusion. All that innocence they felt is gone. And then they come back and feel more shame and fear, and the cycle continues until they're hooked. Because this is whatever rapacious, cynical fuck in his LA mansion who owns the site intends: make it all free, get the kids sucked in early and get them hooked. Ker-ching!

I am totally in favour of some restrictions on this shit, and taboos on sexual behaviour in general. If you want a totally sexually uninhibited society in which people can wank in the street and shag members of their own family go off and form your own crazy cult somewhere.

Would restrictions mean the feminazis and the big bad state stopping you from jacking off to 'barely legal teen gets abused by ten cocks'? Yep, and that's just too bad.

It's like we have such an infantilised culture that immediate gratification is held up as a human right. Men are becoming totally infantilised. It's utterly pathetic, and I am on this completely in agreement with the radical feminists and even the moral conservatives. Porn is vile and something needs doing about it.

I don't want to assert moral control over men for the 'pure benefit' of women. I think the free availability of pornography, which is easily accessible to children, is harmful for everyone. I think if as a society we condemned abuse presented for gratification, everyone would benefit- men as well as women.

How so? It's apparently what men want to see.

A lot of people here are implicitly assuming porn makes men like that, whereas in reality it's much more that porn represents what men like to see.

Why is that PinkIsRad?

Because that's not how women in general want to be treated.

I would much prefer we didn't give up on the idea of preventing young boys being exposed not just to adult material, but often extreme adult material in the first place.

Yes, would be better, but how do you want to achieve that with stuff like whatsapp snapchat, etc.?

I don't want to assert moral control over men for the 'pure benefit' of women. I think the free availability of pornography, which is easily accessible to children, is harmful for everyone. I think if as a society we condemned abuse presented for gratification, everyone would benefit- men as well as women.

Same here captain

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make on this thread, MA.

This is presumably a thread where people are exploring the changing nature of pornography, the ethics of that, and how to discuss it with others.

If your opinion is that pornography is fine as it is, and there is no discussion to be had, what more is there for you to say?

No one is advocating locking men up, are they?

I have a great mistrust for anyone who tries to assert moral control over the other gender for the pure benefit of their own, whether they are a priest, imam or feminist, and I have heard too many sexist men say "I'm only doing this to protect the women I love" as they lock them away, suppress their sexuality or economic freedom.

MephistophelesApprentice wrt your assertion that 'the last thing on the mind of anti-porn folk is the wellbeing of men and boys' - I am reading this thread precisely because of my fears for the influences which my sons will be exposed to. I am extremely worried about the consequences of widespread extreme pornography for boys right now. So is my husband, who shares my concerns that pornography is misogynistic and degrading to women. My boys are very young so I go on and read threads like this exactly to gather ideas about how to protect and prepare them for a world in which kids see brutal abuse of women filmed as entertainment on their way to school on someone's phone. Why would you think no one who is opposed to porn cares about men and boys? Some opponents of porn are men themselves.

Don't lose heart. I have a DS in his late teens and he has, what seems, an amazingly healthy view of sexual relationships; He doesn't seem to have any feelings of jealousy or right to gf's time and has been really proud and supportive of her studies and hobbies. They have both amazed me & made me feel I'm not as grown up as they are.

They have been exposed to so much in their lifetimes; online porn, social media, then there are the terrorist videos, which I'm sure must do the rounds at school, but it seems teenagers could teach us a lot

young boys need to be taught that what they see in porn, is not how they can treat women

why? That seems to me to be incredibly defeatist. I would much prefer we didn't give up on the idea of preventing young boys being exposed not just to adult material, but often extreme adult material in the first place. If that means banning it outright I don't have a problem, though I would expect agreeing the exact definition of porn might be an interesting debate going by this thread.

And what about our young girls? Porn is epidemic and uncontrollable currently. It may have been predominately males that were exposed to it a decade or two ago but not now. For every young boy watching a porno and thinking that's what their girlfriend should let them do there's probably a young girl thinking that's what she's expected to accept as normal sexual practice.

young boys need to be taught that what they see in porn, is not how they can treat women.

Why is that PinkIsRad?

I think I made my argument perfectly clear. If you're that obtuse there isn't much more I can say. No one is saying that you can't enjoy your fetish in a consensual environment in private. Just that it is considered degrading by very many people and so the repeated depiction of women having it done to them in pornography is degrading to women as a class.

I think many people on here are advocating for a change in the law.

But judgements about the law are created by a consensus and by looking at context.

That's the case for any complex issue. It's like the current rights for AI being considered. It is highly complex and decided contextually and collaboratively, and will then be interpreted on a case by case basis.

I as a potential consumer of AI am not expected to have that level of expertise. The same is true with censorship and restriction of distribution. For an example with the current laws, I expect the legal certification to be clearly displayed. I don't expect to be able to make that distinction solely myself based on content.

While respecting the differing perspectives of the people on this thread, the one thing I am certain of is that the last thing the anti-porn folk have on their minds is the well-being of men and boys.

Hasn't that already been explained, PinkisRad? It isn't about personal preference at all, but about what could be deemed degrading in various contexts under the law.

Because the law now is unchangeable and necessarily correct?

Even the people who smoke point the dangers out to their DC. Why can't the Dads and men who use porn do the same?

Because the people themselves don't see those as dangers. "I don't treat women like shit because of porn, so porn isn't bad".

But nobody has made the argument that because they personally dislike something it is therefore degrading, PinkisRad.

Beach ""I like being ejaculated on therefore ejaculating on women's faces is never intended to degrade" is not a robust argument."

How ironic.

"I hate being ejaculated on therefore ejaculating on women's faces is intended to degrade" is not a robust argument. Is exactly what I was saying.

Don't mistake me, I definitely agree that in particular young boys need to be taught that what they see in porn, is not how they can treat women. However, your generalizations is what I oppose.

Hasn't that already been explained, PinkisRad? It isn't about personal preference at all, but about what could be deemed degrading in various contexts under the law.