Why do so many people seem to think porn is OK?

[CurlewKate]

I want to make it clear that I have no problem with masturbation. But there is no way of knowing whether the people involved in making porn are fully consenting and properly paid. Obviously some are. But many are trafficked, exploited and coerced and it’s impossible to tell the difference. So why condone it? I know people will say that there have always been erotic images. Of course there have. But there is a big difference between a cave painting or some 19th century etchings or the erotic writing I enjoy and the online porn which has flooded the internet for the past 50ish years.

Of course. Also cave paintings. Were any of these equivalent to a huge business involving exploited, coerced and trafficked women? And if they were, when did that become a thing we encouraged, rather than we tried to stop? Why aren’t we doing everything we can to protect women in the industry, rather than regarding them as collateral damage?

I disagree - I think pornified images are everywhere now

Only if you look for them. Maybe it's your algorithms.

No, it isn’t my algorithms. They are everywhere in society.

Because it's cool to be liberal, to be sexually "free" to be "open to experiences" to be non-traditional!

The amount of women I see on here that say, "I don't mind porn but....."

Men watching sexualised versions of "adult" play acting as children/teens
Men watching AI versions of their other half or people they know
Men watching real women dehumanised in what is basically the sex trade legal or otherwise
Men doing things with virtual reality/fantasy instead of their actual partners

Women crying and upset over it because it's weird, unnatural, addictive, destructive.

"I don't mind porn, though..."

Exactly this. We’ve normalised it, and it’s wrong, unhealthy and damaging to real relationships.

The men who use porn think it's ok because they simply don't care whether the woman has been trafficked or abused.

The women who think it's ok have internalised that misogyny and/or know they have to placate men in our world.

The women who shout a lot about how it's ok have pick-me/cool girl syndrome.

I'm in my mid 50's now. I was doing OLD through my 40s. I genuinely lost count of the men who would ask me "do you do anal?". Right off the bat, with barely a how are you exchanged! Don't tell me they've not been influenced by porn.

I dated a lot in my youth and no one ever tried to choke me, or asked for anal, or the myriad of other (gross to me) things men ask for now. One of the main factors for me in giving up dating is men's expectations around sex now. I didn't actually lose my sex drive as such, but it's like sex has become something I don't recognise and the sexual aggression of some men actually frightens me.

Yes there were "naughty" videos and magazines around when I was young but I think they were relatively tame by todays standards and I think back then men were far better able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Society is saturated with porn now and I really feel for younger women having to deal with this shit.

You can tell porn and sex work is healthy and empowering for women because without exception, the men who use these things speak with great respect about the women involved, and indeed about women in general.

While there is a place for consensual power play scenarios, women in mainstream porn are overwhelmingly portrayed in realistic ways as equal partners enjoying good sex.

This is helping society move to a place where women are even safer and even more respected, and where women's bodies are not seen first and foremost through the lens of their sexual possibilities.

That's sarcasm, obviously.

Dirty magazines usually!

Mens brains don't work like ours apparently. We women can use our imagination and create fantasies in our minds. Men don't have that ability, so rely on visual stimulation, whether that's video or books. Not an excuse at all, just an explanation from what I've read and been told.

This has been debunked.

Men are just as able to fantasise as women - they just choose not to because they are socialised to enjoy objectifying and commodifying women

'Science' has chosen to back that up because it's been historically dominated by men.

If an OnlyFans girl said she loves her job would that be internalised misogyny in your view? Or if a couple had a an X account and uploaded their own videos? Or a woman with an IG posting racy pics clearly for men (all men in the comments).

Because you’re going to find very few people who agree with violent choking and anal and dressing up in pigtails, nobody can justify that. There isn’t really a discussion to be had there so what more if there to say.

I’d be interested to hear more from the-not sure how to put this - porn supporters? on here about the way women are treated in the industry. Obviously there is a big difference between women who work in ethical porn and the women who work in the “fast food” version.

I agree completely, OP.

It's honestly rather sad and pathetic that some people can't imagine being able to engage in very enjoyable and pleasurable masturbation without watching porn.

Because you’re going to find very few people who agree with violent choking and anal and dressing up i pigtails, then nobody can justify that. There isn’t really a discussion to be had there so what more if there to say.

I don't understand what you're trying to say

To your first paragraph - it's a bit more complicated than that but yes, broadly speaking, I believe that those behaviours would stem either from internalised misogyny or in response to economic inequality.

I would stake my life on the fact that throughout human history, men and boys have been perfectly capable of masturbating without any external stimulation (aside from their own hand) at all, and have done so on a regular and vigorous basis.

I don’t know. But yes, I would say there’s probably at least an element of internalised misogyny there. I also think that the happy OnlyFans woman is this generation’s Belle du Jour- a good distraction from the industrialized churning out of free porn that chews up and spits out so many women.
And it’s interesting you say that nobody supports the violence, choking and pigtails. There’s plenty of it, so somebody must…

I think most of us understand that neither men nor women need porn or anything visual to masturbate. Literally the sensations can absolutely do the trick. In society it's obviously become normalised so much so that there is pornography provided in ivf clinics 😬 so it's reinforced at every pillar.

I find the threatened by it arguement interesting and I wonder if its less threatened but hurt by it. Not necessarily the porn itself but the choice.
If in a monogamous relationship where you've both agreed you didn't want to have sex with anyone else why would you not be hurt by your partner secretly and it usually is to some degree having sexual experiences involving other people. Just because it's a screen they are still people or the idea of others what is wrong with that hurting? When it is a choice to do that.

Neither me or my partner watch porn. We both did when younger and decided to stop. Ethics aside (although clearly important)It just did not provide our relationship with any benefit quite the opposite. My husband chooses to not masturbate and share all our sexual focus together. His preference. His choice.

Having now had this relationship and seen the difference. In the same way I wouldn't be with a smoker because its unattractive to me. Should I divorce I wouldn't be with a porn user either.

The "jealousy/he shouldn't want to look at other women" angle literally doesn't occur to me. I don't care who my husband fantasises about as long as it stays in his head. I don't certainly expect him to waste good fantasy time on a woman (me) he has in real life anyway! 🤣

My only issue with porn is that it happens within a society that socially and economically disempowers women relative to men, and this affects why women enter the industry, the power they have within it, the degree to which porn portrays women's bodies as something msinly for men to enjoy/consume/abuse rather than something for the woman herself to enjoy, and how their male customers (consumers really) see them and what value they place on them.

In a world where men and women were truly equal and truly equally respected, where sexual activity in women was seen no differently to sexual activity in men, where the words "slut", "tart", "whore" and far nastier versions of the same devaluing of sexually active women that I won't use here didn't exist, where a woman being available for sex with a man was seen by men as something she has chosen to do as a shared pleasure not a prize/goal for him to achieve whatever her initial reaction is, where degrading and often also painful actions like spitting, strangling, gagging, slapping and rough penetration weren't normalised as pretty much vanilla sex...

In that world I see no issues whatsoever if men and women want to be paid to make porn or even to have sex.

The theory is fine.

It's the world we actually live in that makes almost all even mainstream commercial porn so problematic.

Many performers use social media nowadays to interact with their fans and promote their work. People like Danny D, for example, could be a trafficked Somalian refugee or some such, but really doesn't appear so on their Twitter/TikTok etc. unless they are forced to be very good actors.

You think this is OF's primary function?

Nein. We all know what we're talking about.

This is such an insane reach. I watch porn - paid for, by performers who are doing it because they want to, to be clear, not random tube site stuff - and it has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about men.

I don't think you'd find anyone on here who thinks women being coerced or feeling forced into porn for financial or whatever other reason is good, but there absolutely is ethically produced porn, and I think it's sensible to be able to distinguish between the two. People watching (or listening to) erotic material is not in and of itself a tool of oppression and I think by taking an 'all porn bad' stance you lose the point of it - which is that the porn that is 'bad' is bad because of the circumstances it was made, the messages it perpetuates, the unsafe practices it promotes, etc etc. And stuff like Make Love Not Porn or A Four Chambered Heart or Quinn are a very different ball game that we should be able to discuss separately.

What about cam or OF girls or who are not trafficked or coerced into it and do it out of their own choosing?
I don’t like how the porn debate tends to focus on the trafficked and coerced risk - as if this is the only side of the argument against it.