Pornography is turning sex into an extreme sport - Hadley Freeman

Thank you. Both Martin Amis and he have analysed the harm brilliantly.

I could give some links to articles that gender-neutral toilet transactivists wrote that will make people feel differently about gender neutral toilets!! They haven’t come from a place of health and safety.

I think it is worse than that.

I think a lot of porn "treats women as objects to hurt and humiliate" whilst also implying that one can do that AND women will love it.

I think that the single biggest thing that we can do relating to porn is to ram a simple and true message down the throats of all teens and young adults - the vast majority of porn shows rough and violent sex, but the vast majority of women and all good men would rather something which could be described as "love-making" and involves giving and receiving pleasure, not pain.

In theory male teens / men should be very receptive to messages which are likely to increase the chances of a woman who has sex with them wishing to do so a second time.

I am not saying it's easy, but young women (older ones too) need to be taught to be explicit about what they want and what they don't want, and should be taught that if they're not willing to be clear with their (likely clueless) partner then they are not ready for sex.

It's purely theoretical, so she can scaffold and imagine all she wants to buttress her academic slant. And the arrogance is likely ingrained since a young age as being the smartest girl in the class, possibly as a defense mechanism.

Utterly depressing and pathetic to have such little sympathy for women (and even the men). Not surprised she's not in a relationship, she's always in her head which sounds like a small room of narrowly curated ideas.

So shocking and depressing.

A couple of years ago, an undergrad student of mine suddenly told an anecdote in class about his (male) flatmate calling out in the middle of sex because the girl had fallen unconscious after strangling. The student told it as a weird-but-funny story, but he was clearly quite distressed, despite the front. Young women in the class were quiet - it was a sad atmosphere. We had a useful discussion, I felt for all of them.

I knew an academic who used to write in 'pornography studies' from a point of view which validates deviations in sexual behaviour including practices which hurt people. She was delighted by hentai porn because apparently young girls could be empowered by fantasies of being pierced by godzilla's phallus. She used to take an amusedly dismissive tone when anyone questioned pornography, explaining that men's rape-porn fantasies weren't real, they were symbolic only. She was a strange woman with a strange upbringing, who didn't actually have sexual partners herself but did have a furious ideological commitment to the idea that no sexual representations or practices should be suppressed. I found her fury interesting but she and similar deluded female academics constructed some of the scaffolding that legitimised extreme pornography in that liberal academic sphere.

I've been a total baldy since I was 8 or 9, so perhaps fortunately it's not an experience I've ever had to endure 🤣

Looks totally painful being pulled around by the hair the way it's done in porn, almost like whiplash. I can understand winding your fingers into someone's hair/scalp, but grabbing a fistful close to the scalp and yanking someone around by it? No thanks

why is that relevent ? what point are you trying to make by asking it ? even when we make activities illegel humans still do them so how else can society prevent the harm ?

@Swirlythingy2025 You might have missed this question, would you like your daughters to have sexual acts/fetishes (not fantasies) such as anal, choking, spitting, hurting and more done to them?

first its both male and female desires unless females have no fantasies ?

Secondly, the older generations were responsible for a wide range of erotic literature and books, such as the Nancy Friday series, Black Lace books, Nexus books, and more. Not to mention the Playboy Mansion and various magazines, all of which contributed to today’s media landscape of the adult industry and the adult industry awards too that increase the industry etc.

Regarding specific acts, such as anal, I believe it was illegal at one point for certain relationships, yet humans engaged in it regardless, without the influence of the porn industry.

I don’t think anyone is saying that men with fetishes have not been around time immemorial, but it is somewhat forced to compare the Victorian era with the current onslaught of internet-enabled access on demand facilitating our porn drenched society. All of which negatively impacts children in particular and both men and women more widely.

Plus, just because pornography existed in Victorian times doesn’t make it acceptable now. However much you’d like to characterise these responses as pearl clutching, you’re just plain wrong.

There are several potential dangers with anal intercourse including transmission of communicable diseases, mucosal lacerations, faecal incontinenceband injury to the anal sphincters. We expect the incidence of anal injuries to increase parallel to the rising prevalence of anal intercourse in homosexual and heterosexual relationships….Of course the prevalence of this activity varies by demographics and nationalities, ranging from a low of 3.5% of survey respondents in South Korea to a high of 18.5% of survey respondents in France.

Rectal perforations and sphincter injuries, while much less common, demand emergent operative intervention… These lacerations can be graded according to their depth, with fourth degree lacerations being the most severe and representing completely transected anal sphincters and overlying anal mucosa. These injuries are accompanied by serious morbidity in over 50% of cases, even after early detection and repair.

I’d include the whole paper but the photos are pretty horrendous. And that is just anal sex. Is this what you’d like for your daughters?

and the omg thing is the requests are from women, when usually its aparently the men at fault etc

same with the nancy friday books and the fantasies etc its like holy trinity

the victorians hardly had much sucess limiting porn etc, with the old fashioned victorian values about it etc

A small beacon of hope ladies. I was reading reddit askmen last night (I like to try and understand how men think and issues they face).

Someone had asked a question - what has a sexual partner asked you to do that you have said no to.

A huge amount of the answers (like 70%) was anal with comments like yuk no way am I sticking my penis up there where poo is, don't understand the appeal of it, no interest in this as the vag is so amazing

Other answers were no to requests to hit or hurt the woman with a few pointing out they could be accused of abuse if the woman told the police even if she had requested it initially.

A few said their partners had asked for rape fantasy ones and they weren't happy doing this either in case they were accused of real rape.

Anyway I was actually somewhat relieved/pleased to read that many men seem to think these things are not cool also and refuse to do them.

On a more flippant note, hair pulling is what annoying younger brothers do. I'm happy to confirm that I don't find recreating tedious childhood car journeys remotely erotic.

Never understood the fascination with anal, and can only think to pin the blame on pronography.

Turned out well for that civilisation.

anyway the older generations are the ones responsible for porn eg all those magazines and the playboy bunnies etc

not to mention the books by nancy friday
the nexus book series
the black lace book series and many authors were female etc
and even the fantasys were omg in eg nancy friday so what seems normal today was even considered back then

i thought it was the romans and greeks back in the day with the group orgys ?

Absolutely this. The troubling question is who or what agenda is behind it all and where is it all leading?

Hadley is right that is does warp your mind - at any age! Interesting that. And her experiences with mature daters now wanting all this weird shit sadly proves that.

It's interesting that as an adult I could listen to Radio 1 all year and still struggle to get excited by new music. Yet I could watch some s&m porn and quickly get into it. Must be something it does to your brain and tbh, as a boy mother I hope my kids don't get exposed to this at a young age through their friends.

I remember my 15 / 16 year old brother get videos passed around with his friends in the 90s all vanilla stuff now.

Does anyone else think that men must be laughing their socks off at us (women). They've got some of us brainwashed into thinking that being abused (hair pulled, spat on, choked) is 'fun' and that we enjoy it.

Then they've got us convinced that we should have sex with them fairly quickly without any romance 'cos that's what everyone is doing' and vagina sex like mother nature intended is 'dull' and you're a prude if you don't like something shoved up your bumhole instead.

I feel like if the men of Gen X who grew up still 'courting' and with respect are being pulled into this line of thought then there is no hope for the younger ones (Gen X is my generation and I've seen it in men who are on the dating scene).

Tell you what ladies next time you're with husband/boyfriend/ONS lets all give them a slash with the kitchen knife. Not life threatening just enough to cause some pain and show them how much fun it is. Perhaps we could drag them by their ears and scold them like small children from years ago to show them how much fun it is to be humiliated. Will they all have giant erections and be turned on or does it only work when it's the female being hurt and humiliated.

Then how about pushing them out naked into the street and locking the door and hanging a sign out of the window - 'Man free to any takers, small penis, can't get it up sometimes, thinks oral sex is gagging the woman and coming on her face, not so keen on returning the favour'. I mean degradation is fun right so this will be so sexy for them. If he tries to shove his erect penis through the letter box to show you how much he is loving it, you should slam the letterbox on it just to heighten the experience for him.

To make sure he knows his place he should start sleeping outside in a kennel with a chain round his neck because being treated less than human is so 'hot'

Now imagine all the men thought this was a great idea and any that tried to say 'no wait, woman used to treat us with respect, listen to us and not abuse us' would be met with 'you're such a prude', 'everyone is doing it', 'what is wrong with you'

Can you imagine any scenario when men would think that being hurt, humiliated, degraded is enjoyable and something they should want.

No? Me neither.

So imagine how hilarious they think it is that women do?

I bet they are laughing their socks off and patting each other on the backs

It’s a great article.

I’m reading dopamine nation at the moment. Quite a lot about porn addiction.

a quick flick through flagged up “pro social shame” in one section; I’m interested to read about that. Though of course for some, esp of the Malaga airport type, shame is the thrill.