to be surprised at how many Mumsnetters are fine with pornography?

[Elizabetth]

Particularly as porn has become so much more mainstream in the past few years, I'd have thought that people would be concerned about premature sexualisation of children. Also I'm surprised that so many women are fine with it given that the humiliation and degradation of women is the central theme of pornography. You only have to look at the titles to realise that.

cestlavie already pointed out that the top pay-for porn site in the UK is BangBros which is horribly abusive and misogynistic, ELF, so no I'm not assuming.

rape porn can be consenting if its acted. it nevertheless 'normalises' rape imo

and really madamez, and following pw, a pornless world is not a world where sex is not be discussed. it might be a world where real sex could be better discussed tho.

must go an feed my nevermindbuzzcocks addiction. god i love simon anstell, whatever he thinks of this debate, that's what i think.

damn its just finished. but only 1 hour till noel fielding on BBC3

so BRING IT ON!

Maybe it's better now, monkeytrousers. It's been about five years since I've been there. Used to really piss me off when I went in there though. These days I'd say something.

Snurk at OBM - lost in the MN alternate universe, where you've always been online for at least an hour more than you think.

"rape-porn" is either acted - in which case I don't think it's that different from rape being shown in a soap opera (tho admittedly more graphic) - or it's not acted in which case it is illegal and a crime has been comitted and should be dealt with as per any other rape.

But you inital post is being shocked how many MUMSNETTERS are "okay" with porn.

The average poster on here who is "pro porn" is not comfortable with these types of sites, so have we not gone off at a major tangent?

Is no-one going to be utterly outraged by my post of 21.12? I was all geared up to defend myself.

MT, what is your research about (or can't you say unless we all nick your ideas?)

oh normaah! you don't think there's a diff betw the manner in which those two genres depict rape? one might be sexually arousing, the other is intended to be sexually arousing.

surprised, ELF, surprised. read more carefully.

I don't think the average pro-porn person here is uncomfortable with those sites. Norma thought some of the degrading porn descriptions I posted were fine.

I agree Elf, I think Elizabetth asked about MNers being fine with porn. However she seems to have confused this with being fine with all porn. I say again that I like some porn...I wouldn't want to watch someone do what I wouldn't be willing to do, and that's where I draw the line on what I choose to watch.

Congratulations Elizabeth! You've finally heard what I've been saying! Not all porn is evil. I'm not against non-evil stuff.

'although maybe we're almost in agreement, I'm against 100% of porn and if you object to rape porn, gonzo porn, everything pretty much but this couples porn where supposedly no-one is exploited (and the only stuff that looked like it might possibly match that fantasy was Tony Comstock's stuff) then you must be against about 95% of it.'

Elizabeth, yup.

thank you normabutty, I was starting to think I should sit on the corner with a dunces hat on.

Elizabetth, you are sometimes rather rude IMO!

I can't speak for Elizabetth, but for myself - I was surprised when I first joined MN by how many women on here consume porn of any sort. Until then I really had thought that porn was pretty much exclusively a male activity, and that women only consumed it when encouraged to by their partners. Sheltered life, eh...

OBM - rape is about control and anger not about sexual gratification (one source for that this site) but there are plenty more.

"Norma thought some of the degrading porn descriptions I posted were fine."

They're only degrading in your opinion Elizabetth. One of the ones you suggested was blow jobs - I'm perfectly happy to do that myself and as such I wouldn't feel that watching porn featuring blow jobs was ddegrading. Similarly I'd do anal so I'm happy to watch anal porn. I don't find those things degrading Elizabetth, degradation is somewhat subjective.

pw just scrolling back to your controversial post.. just give me a minute..

Porn and erotica are really important lovely parts of many people's lives as they have been for at least 5000 years amongst humans on this planet. It's how we're made and huge fun.

A lot of men seem to find the idea of women being raped sexually gratifying which is why rape porn is so popular.

norma
of course rape is about control etc not sexual gratification.
likewise the watching of images of rape.
but don't quite get why your saying that following my post to you

Porn has only been part of people's lives in about the past 20-30 years, Xenia. Porn was extremely limited before that. And if we're talking about 5000 years ago do you really think the average peasant living off the land had access to porn? And what kind of porn was in people's lives before the printing press? It's such a specious argument. Probably most of the world's population still don't have access to it.

OBM - I'm sorry, I think I may have mis-interpreted your post. When I posted about not seeing any difference I meant it in terms of "normalising" rape. I thought your post was saying that as porn is intended to be sexually arousing it is more likely to cause people to rape. Sorry.

Please stop from the sweeping generalisations.

"A lot of men" like rape-porn?

Where are you statistics for this?

I have had very honest conversations with male friends of mine, and they all regard rape and violence as wrong, they still do like to watch porn (and I have never seen rape porn, it wouldn't be anything I would even be interested looking for) - it is possible for the two to be seperate.

Out of interest (in case I missed this) are you married / involved with a man?

Can I point you here and here Elizabetth, both links are in contradiction to your claim about the origins or porn.