To not feel sorry for this man

[Tillow4ever]

So I’ve just read a BBC news article about a man who came across (pardon the pun) a video of himself and his girlfriend having sex in a hotel that they knew nothing about and hadn’t consented to. Initially I felt awful for them both.

However, as I read the article, the man says he’d deliberately been choosing to watch secretly filmed porn since he was a teenager as he found the footage “raw” and then went on to say “What drew me in is the fact that the people don’t know they are being filmed”

Am I being unreasonable for no longer feeling bad for him? I feel awful for his poor girlfriend, but to me this feels like true karma for him! If people like him weren’t prepared to pay for things like this, the industry wouldn’t exist.

YABU: Regardless of whether he was a consumer of this type of porn, he was still a victim and people should feel sorry for him.

YANBU: Anyone that is paying to watch that type of illegally recorded porn deserves to find themselves on the receiving end.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62rexy9y3no

The word karma springs to mind

I think that's was called getting your come uppance.
Serves him right.

I was actually just listening to a news item on Radio 4 about this secret filming of live porn in hotel rooms. And the fact it's yet another sleazy disgusting Telegram thing.

Right at this moment I feel totally depressed and disgusted with the world we live in.

Exactly what I thought BUT his poor girlfriend though, there’s no suggestion that she also watched that type of porn, so she didn’t deserve it at all.

Let’s face it, it’s men that the industry is created for, it’s men exploiting women most of the time and it’s mostly men consuming this stuff (certainly the illegal stuff it seems).

The article does go on to say

But he experienced what it feels like to be at the opposite end of the supply chain when he found the video of himself and his girlfriend "Emily" - and he no longer finds gratification in this content.

So he has learnt his lesson. A bit of karma.

Not sure if im wrong in this, but it seems to be something some men do - they happily engage in something, until they are the victim and suddenly it's not funny anymore.

It reminds me of a thread years ago. A male poster admitted he used to cat call women/girls, when he was young. But now he has daughters he realises how terrible it is and doesn't want any man doing this to his daughters.
I was really pissed off by this - nearly broke MN guidelines.

If you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Him and others like him created a “market” for this material and now it’s bitten him on the arse.

The only person I feel sorry for is the girlfriend.

Exactly this. Like he knew all along it was wrong, but until he became a victim of it he didn’t care about the people HE was hurting by buying into it.

And if I’m honest I don’t know if I believe him when he says he no longer gets gratification from it. I just think he knew it would make him look like an even bigger arsehole if he said he still watches it. It says at the end that he no longer watches it… but checks them occasionally as he’s worried his old video might reappear. I call BS. I suspect he’s still watching and using those channels, but that’s his excuse if he gets caught.

I feel bad for his girlfriend, but not for him.

I’d really like to hear from those that have said I’m unreasonable as to why they think he deserves sympathy. Genuine question - I’m very black and white in my thinking, so I would like to understand that viewpoint and see if it makes me change my mind. In a perfect world I’d be able to separate out the things he does and feel sorry for him when he’s a victim, but I just can’t.

I liken it to if he were a burglar, then had his house broken into & burgled, I think I’d struggle to feel sorry for him then too. I guess it’s why the audience liked “Dexter” in the tv series of the same name - we didn’t see his victims as victims, we saw them as getting what they deserved.

This is very funny as a karma scenario.

But I am actually more surprised the couples were actually genuinely being secretly filmed. I don't watch it but would assume it is fairly easy to fake it with consenting adults.

Totally agree, OP, it is very difficult to feel sympathy for this awful man. It is still, of course, completely wrong what happened to them, but it does make me worry that there are many men out there who will only care about this stuff when it negatively impacts them. Why wasn't he able to consider the victims before? Because he cared more about his own sexual gratification.

I started a thread about it in the feminism and women's rights section but glad to see this here as it deserves to be widely discussed.

I don't know what we can do to turn the tide on this, it feels like male desire for sexual gratification trumps everything else and they just don't care. This week alone, Scotland had the chance to criminalise men who use prostitutes and chose not to, that bloke in Leicester has finally admitted to drugging his wife as well as all those poor children, we've seen absolutely vile emails from so many powerful men to and from Epstein and what will happen? Women will continue to keep the world going, doing most unpaid labour as well as taking on more in the workplace while men spend their time thinking about their dicks, treating women like absolute shit and get promotions and medals for it. Frankly I don't know how anything got done when men made up the majority in the workplace, particularly in positions of power, because it looks to me like none of them are actually doing any work, they're all wanking to tractor porn, arranging for others to rape their wives, trafficking or colliding in the trafficking of children and who knows what else.

The demand for porn (and prostitution) is far bigger than the volume of people willing to provide this “service” for a fee. That’s why there is such a huge amount of sex trafficking and non consensual and coerced porn and prostitution - to meet the demand.

I read this article
And I shocked he was so alarmed
Where did he think his porn came from he knew it was being recorded illegally because it seemed so raw and not like fake porn !! (HIS OWN WORDS ).
Absolute twat he got his karma it's his girlfriend I feel the most sorry for and the unsuspecting victims

And as I said on the other thread, his girlfriend is probably 'lucky' (obviously she's not lucky to have had him in her life at all) that becoming a victim spoiled his enjoyment of the genre (if it did), otherwise she could have found herself increasingly being taken to hotels where he knew they would be filmed.

I'm constantly amazed at these creepy, pathetic men and their total lack of shame. As the wonderful Gisele Pelicot said, 'Shame must change sides'. I just don't know how we achieve that.

I wonder if he has faked this story. It seems too much of a bizarre coincidence.

I wonder how he found out about it? He must've gone onto a site and seen himself. Ha!

I thought so too. Not saying it never happens but I'd have thought most of these videos are knowing actors. I understand that a lot of men like the idea of their porn being "real" and not an artifice, even if that's not actually the case.

It is really amazing what some men are ready to believe if it gratifies them, though.

I’d agree with you. I do suspect that erm “real couple” sex might not be very interesting to watch. Thinking back to the last time I had sex in a hotel it was under the covers ( it wasn’t the warmest) you’d of seen a bit of kissing, heard a bit of moaning, an undulating blanket. Possibly my sex life is lacking but your average shag is not going to set the internet ablaze with lust.

What are the odds it’d even be a couple (who are planning to have sex) in the room? I feel like if I filmed the average UK hotel room, it’d be full of people examining the kettle suspiciously (there have been rumours) cursing the little UHT milks and watching their phones/ tablets whilst lying on the bed possibly clad in the hotel dressing gown.

You dont know what the word means then.

Karma doesnt mean comeuppance. It means action or work - nothing more.

He's a complete tit who was hoist by his own petard.

The bit of the story that blew my mind was that people are now putting up tents in hotel rooms to avoid being filmed. A new low.

Don't display your ignorance.
Google will help you out.

But to what purpose? If he got enjoyment from those sites, it makes no sense for him to raise awareness of the practice.

The article said that’s exactly what happened!

I’d wonder if many of the MEN knew about the cameras, but the women they were taking there didn’t…

What is wrong with men?

This is why I only ever have sex in very public places.