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.

I see what you mean- but the fact remains that most porn is NOT the well paid ethical sort. And it is mostly impossible to tell the difference. What should we do to protect vulnerable women in the industry? We can’t ignore them because there are some women who aren’t.

No 'choice' is made in a vacuum.

Their 'choices' are made within a patriarchal society already has misogynist norms and inequalities, some of which are so normalised that people barely see them. For example, women are socialised to believe that their worth is related to the extent to which they can attract men. And more recently, a huge amount of ideologically neo-liberal bullshit discourse has pushed the idea that commodifying one's own body is 'empowering'. Well yes, I guess so, if the alternative is a pimp profiting from you. Otherwise, not really.

And women's economic vulnerabilities within a patriarchal system often mean that they will make a 'choice' which they would not have made if they weren't economically disadvantaged by being women (and layered over that, usually working class and under-educated.)

People watching (or listening to) erotic material is not in and of itself a tool of oppression

This is true, if we lived in a completely equal society. Lab conditions, in other words. But we don't.

Everything in our society reflects and is experienced within the values/inequalities/ideologies of the society in which it is produced.

'Ethically produced porn' just isn't possible - unless it's only going to be performed by Ethically Produced Women and consumed by Ethically Produced Men (or People, if you insist) in an Ethical Economy.

There don’t seem to be many people on here actively supporting the “main stream” porn industry-and there are obviously plenty of you. I’d love to understand your reasoning. I THINK I’ve explained my POV-but I’m happy to say more if I haven’t.

I agree. Good response.

I think that when the realities are laid out, there aren't many people who can disagree authentically and still think of themselves as decent people.

Everyone knows what they're doing, but they can't face what that says about themselves in terms of their human decency or even just critical thinking skills, so they look away.

I don't have a problem with the idea of people using erotica or sex toys or even porn if were somehow ethical, I'm not a prude. However porn is just such a shit show and so damaging to the actors and to society at large be that due to porn addiction or acquiring questionable or even dangerous sexual practices. The Coolidge effect potentially causing users to seek out more and more extreme content. There is even increasing evidence that people are developing paraphilias from consuming large amounts of pornography. Then there is the risk of exposure to children and very young people who are in no way equipped to deal with it and may contribute to child on child sexualised abuse.

Porn is not OK and we need to do more to tackle it. The current ban is very easy to get around with free proxy sites.

To add and go a bit easier on people - I do think that the shift to thinking about society as a kind of multi-dimensional political structure is quite hard if you're used to thinking in a more 'things are what they are, it's just common sense, no point looking into things too deeply' way.

So for example, I think the idea that 'choice' isn't really choice in many important instances can be a bit mindblowing/hard to take on board when you first hear it.

And people find the idea that they internalise the values of the society that they're in even if that goes against their own interests or even if that makes them act like a bad person really hard to handle. They feel that it's a criticism of their inner selves, their moral strength - when actually it's just human nature.

the risk of exposure to children

I don't think this is a risk @brightonbabe86 - it's an absolute given.

Children are the accepted collateral damage in how society is dealing with the porn industry (which is the perfect exemplar of capitalism - it's only objective is to survive, and to survive it must and will expand, co-opting and absorbing whatever it needs to do so, and especially in porn's case, what might be termed 'extremifying'.)

There were new stats out this week on children's exposure to porn - you can guarantee that they are massive underestimates, because so many children in a survey will deny having seen porn when they have.

this is one of those aspects of society that when you actually bring yourselves to open your eyes and look at it square, beggars belief.

We ALL knew that universally available porn means that almost all children will see it. We ALL knew that the vast majority of porn degrades women.

Not only the huge, huge amount of actively violent and abusive content that is on the first page of Pornhub - but just by showing boys and girls that in the adult world, girls function is to be cumtoys for boys.

Yes I agree with all of that.

Because they use it.

No, there is no difference. It's all wrong. This is the type of comment from women, not men, that excuse porn and lead men towards it because "porn is ok when" "porn is ok if"... when and if changes when it starts to affect you, personally, but you told men it was fine. It's never fine.

There is a difference. One is, in my opinion,
unequivocally and practically wrong, although I am interested in how people square that circle. The other? There is a libertarian argument for it and the argument against is political and philosophical. I don’t happen to agree with it, but I’m interested in hearing people’s views on both.

Religous or backwards?

I don’t think the porn industry is worthy of great support but I don’t think the premise that, “because some of it is exploitative (and I don’t like any of it) we should have an outright ban because it’s just easier,” Is reasonable.

I think it’d be better to ban animal products because I don’t like the practice of eating animals or exploiting them for their products. It would certainly be easier to avoid the worst practices of animal treatment / exploitation if we banned the lot; similar to the porn industry, it can be hard to identify the more ethically produced animal products. Most people would object to a ban on animal products; lots of people might support higher standards and regulation though.

So no, I don’t think it’s reasonable to say we should ban an industry because there is some bad practice. It’s reasonable to call for better regulation though.

I dont really think people offended needs to be overly concerned.
First poster claims some of the positons are probably uncomfortable...did you try them
Each to there own.
So many men i work with or know are usually emtionally and sexually starved cos the partner has no interest.
I think that is worse!

Magazines

Ok. No difference, IMO.

Thank you, you’ve articulated this better than I was going to attempt to.
This is my opinion too - I understand the position of women in the sex industry who e.g strip or are OF ‘models’ and consider that they are the ones exploiting the men, however it does not change the fact that society says ‘ But men want this - so give it to them.’
It does not magically reverse the power structure that demands they take their clothes off for money or perform sex acts on camera. It just normalises in some men’s minds that women are a commodity.

This is too broad a subject to be addressed in a single thread as there are so many facets which could be discussed, such as: Can pornography ever be truly ethical? If ethical, what should the limits be on who can be involved in content production? What should the limits be on the kind of content can be produced? What should the limits be on who consumes the content, and for how long? Should consumption of pornography be viewed as infidelity when married? Is excessive consumption of pornography a key reason for sexless marriages? Is the longevity of sexless yet otherwise functional marriages supported by pornography? The list is endless.

Way to broad - hence people talking at cross purposes.

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 are those things, out of interest?

I understand the position of women in the sex industry who e.g strip or are OF ‘models’ and consider that they are the ones exploiting the men

I always find it so amusing that women think they're 'exploiting' men by giving the men exactly what they want - the ability to sexualise, objectify, and dehumanise women for money.

A woman turns herself into a masturbatory thing for money that the man happily chooses to pay, and somehow thinks she's exploiting him.

No, honey, you're doing exactly what he wants you to - you're proving that women are willing to be 'things' if you just fling some petty cash at them, and that's exactly how the man likes it.

There were videos and magazines. Porn existed long before the internet

So if a man was stuck on a deserted island all by himself, he'd be incapable of masturbation?

If a 14-year-old Amish boy had never seen pornographic material in his life, he'd be unable to masturbate?

I'm a little bewildered that people think men (or women) need to see other people depicted in sexual poses/doing sexual things before they're capable of feeling pleasure at the self-stimulation of their erogenous zones 🤔

Is it too broad? Obviously there are lots of areas to explore, but I do suspect that many of them are put up to deflect from the point that much of the porn that’s consumed is potentially exploitative and coercive, and to be happy with porn use means being happy with that. The existence of ethical porn, for example, does not change that. Comparisons to food production do not hold water. Ethical food-or at least, more ethical food- is clearly labelled and easily available. And food is an essential for life.