Discussions about porn

I had a different view on porn when I was young for sure.

I do think there's a factor there for sure.

I can understand just watching it and well that's that really.

It's the defenders. That I don't get.

I can see why women would watch it.

But the defenders on threads do tell others they are Wrong.

You see this on threads about street harassment and other stuff as well.

Women who don't like it saying why.
Other women not just saying I don't mind it, you you shouldn't mind it either. You're being prudish/ precious etc etc

That is an interesting dynamic.

But that doesn't explain the ones who join porn threads time and time again to defend it. And tell other women they are naive, prudes etc etc

I think that we're now in a situation where porn is so normalised that women have been conditioned not to think critically about it. Indeed, it's socially stigmatising to speak out about porn, as OP references. On top of this porn has found refuge in the queer theory, freedom of expression, the free for all social movement that we find ourselves in. There can be no shame, no kink too far, no degradation too shameful, I fear that the logical conclusion is that the reality behind liberal individualism will reveal itself in time to have come at the cost of many vulnerable people. Women especially. Because let's be clear, even if the percentage of women consuming porn is as high as 25%, this is a product designed to attract and retain male customers.

Yes that's true.

Although I do think in general women care more about stuff that affects women and children than men do, that may be socialisation in part.

Although. If it's a case of not fussed, not really interested, I like it and so that's that. Then the urge to post etc to defend it is a bit odd?

Generally when people just don't care, they avoid talking about it I think? Rather than seeking to read all the stuff saying this is why it's bad etc and then arguing about it.

For the people/ women we're talking about here. It's not just looking the other way. It's deliberately joining discussions and actively defending it. That's a different thing I think.

Yeah, back to the topic. Why are women quick to defend it?

Speaking from personal experience, I think there is often a huge desire not to be seen as a prude, to be cool with it.

Also, we are caught in a neo-liberal choice loop. Our society places individual choice and freedom of expression above everything else and therefore arguing that the overall damage caused to society is greater than the principle of individual freedom puts you at risk of being called a "feminazi" which we all know is a terrible slur considering how many millions of innocent men feminism has murdered for their cause.

I think this argument should be put to one side.

It's a complex sensitive subject and needs nuance.

On the whole I think your view is way too simplistic.

The topic was why do so many people defend it esp women so maybe we should go back to that.

Johanna I'm really uncomfortable with your recent posts.

You seem to be speculating, musing on a very sensitive topic.

If you want to read about what has been done to women in China/ by Isis you can Google them. I'm not going to write it on here.

Spot on lessthan

It's just men who want to achieve sexual release but are happy to do it without consent and have no moral reservations

Just about sexual release? Really? I don't mean to derail from your main comment but this is crazy and is not at all what wartime rape is about. It's about control, degradation and ruining the genetic line of that community, because unsurprisingly, rape often leads to babies.

And as the woman's worth in these communities depends on her ability to continue that genetic line, well it's basically game over for her.

The rapists know that. The invading government knows that. That's why they sanction rape as a weapon of war.

It's really not just about sexual release.

I know it wasn't the main point of your argument but to say that is so monumentally inaccurate I just had to point it out.

It's a means of control. It's a weapon. It's designed to terrorise and degrade women and whole communities.

War rape is as far from 'vanilla sex' as you can get.

Jesus.

Gang rape. Brutality. Violence. You think women aren't spat on, throttled, subjected to multiple penetration? I don't want to go on.

What a crass post.

'dry sex'- very painful for the woman- Removing or preventing vaginal lubrication through practices associated with dry sex increases friction during intercourse, which may be perceived as increased vaginal tightness, and enhanced sexual pleasure for the male partner.[5] Some men who insist on dry sex regard "wet" women to be unchaste.[5] Dry sex can be painful for men[6][7][medical citation needed] and women.[1] Dry sex is common in Sub-Saharan Africa[1][2] and it has also been reported in Suriname among Afro-Surinamese women.[8]

The death grip thing reminded me.

I'm just not sure at all.

I do agree with the above posts about being influenced by what you consume, looking for more extreme etc.

I'm not at all sure about the Western decadence thing.

When men are in situations where it's ok, terrible things are done to women. The Isis slave markets. The rohingya women in China. The comfort women in ww2. The mass rape of german women ww2. DRC rape as a weapon of war. Of course it's girls as well and the list goes on and on. In the ', West' women talk about it more, it's in the media etc. Not that anyone's that interested. But what goes on in places where women aren't heard? Where they are still essentially property? What went on here when women were essentially property? Prostitution has always existed and there's always been a desire for young women/ girls. And so on and so on.

Is what is shown in porn- the debasement of women- the male sexual desires as the whole point- a new thing? Or is it that in societies where women have more freedom and more of a voice, another outlet was sought?

Sexual violence, male sexual domination, sadism have always existed. I don't know whether what modern porn looks like is new, as it were. Or just a reflection of what, in the end, lots of men want.

Historically most humans have had limited leisure, and a lot of physical work, and almost no privacy.

People got up to a lot of sex, but a lot of the time there were other people around. That would limit how much "weird" stuff you might get up to. I wonder too if that isn't related in some way to people's interest in watching others have sex. It would have been a much more usual thing in the past but also more mundane.

I've read some things that suggest it's the ubiquity that's the problem. A lot of what drives arousal in porn (and in some types of in person sex too) is transgression and newness, but that wears off. So once vanilla porn doesn't work any more, the viewer has to up the stakes.

This isn't such an issue with conventional porn because it's self limiting, it's the easy access to thousands of images in seconds that creates the real problem. The brain becomes used to an unsustainable degree of stimulation and arousal can't happen without it.

So porn producers have been driven to come up with more and more transgressive material in an effort to feed the market they've created and keep them watching. Apparently it's recognised as a real problem that it's now so close to the edge that there is really no where else to go that isn't right out illegal. I'm sure this is also a driver of viewing of illegal material.

The viewers apparently in many cases know what they are watching is gross, but are in a type of addiction cycle. Increasingly with younger viewers they may have lttle normal sexual experience to compare with.

I think the other thing with this is, our culture doesn't include a lot of encouragement of sexual continence generally, and it doesn't give people many tools in terms of behaving within boundaries that are appealing to cross. In general we tend to blur the lines between wants and needs, we encourage a need for immediate satisfaction, and we tend to see people who aren't "sexually fulfilled" as the butt of jokes or pathetic. Self-disapline takes practice and we don't get a lot of it in many areas of our lives. It's hard to encourage it in one area when it's so discouraged in all the others.