Why would you watch porn?

[AmIHumanYet]

How can anybody ENJOY seeing a woman being treated as a sex object? I watched some as research (seriously!) a few months ago, the general themes were men disrespecting women. it was focused on the mans pleasure and orgasm, why do some of you think that that's okay? There's NOTHING equal about this industry

Young men are getting weird and wrong ideas about women and how they should be treated from watching porn. Women are shown as sex OBJECTS, not human beings, they're shown as always being up for it, that basically using her as a wank-tool is enough to make her orgasm, that being selfish and focused on your own pleasure and orgasm is acceptable

I really want to hear some male opinions on this, it has been really upsetting me for a long time now and I feel powerless.

I don't wish to engage with you after your offensive comment regarding me (and the huge groups of women and girls I suppose) misinterpreting the pressure to do certain things and the expectations that men have of us. Silly us, it's our fault

So are you saying that women never have any expectations of men?

Expectations are interesting things. My MIL comes from a village where the men are dominated by women. It might be a minority village in the uk but it is a place where women have clear and definite power over their men. Many out earn them but the interesting aspect that I find rather oppressive are things like the need to dress them. My MIL is the same and FIL is not allowed to choose what clothes he wears as he is incapable of working it out for himself. In the village, these women treat their men like dolls, to be fashioned and styled exactly as they see fit. It's quite extraordinary.

It extends to all parts of life too, from what money can be spent, how the house is decorated and how they spend time with their kids. One of the men wanted to be a sahd but was not allowed.

All this within a patriarchal society. Expectations are fine but it should be understood that there is no obligation.

AmI seeing your post about your awful sexual experiences and being forced to do demeaning things that you just did not want to do, I wonder if you have had any help in dealing with this. What you describe is tantamount to assault, if not rape (I mean this sincerely and not as some point scoring exercise on this thread.)

Not all men are like this. Not all men engage with porn or indeed ever even look at it, and those that do aren't necessarily mysogynist monsters. I have never had a demeaning or nasty sexual experience but maybe I have just been lucky. However, I am feisty and I just don't do anything I don't want to (but I appreciate that there are those out there not so forceful or confident in themselves as me).

I do worry about children and their access to porn because I think it's dark influences can affect those vulnerable children in our society. If they are not being parented with care, mobile access to porn can and will be extremely damaging to children. They need to learn about healthy respectful relationships and sexual education should happen in the classroom and not from some seedy sex site on their mobile. Parents should be doing their very best to ensure their children don't have free access to any sort of porn. Unfortunately, peer pressure to have a smartphone from a young age is prevelant. Somehow or other I think pornography should become 'top shelf' again but god knows how that will happen.

AmI I'm not being dismissive - I've been asking for clarity, to try and understand your position. I've not stated that you or anyone else is misinterpreting their experiences, merely advancing the possibility and asking for you to explain what you have seen so that I can improve my understanding and see things from perspective. Your inability to provide this insight leaves me questioning the veracity of your other statements.

But whatever - you have won the field as I'm bored. I'd need demolition charges to break through that wall of arrogant dogmatism you're trying to use to conceal your obvious misandry. I'm sure that your resentment legitimately, but however much the men who hurt you deserve your hated and contempt I assure you that they are a minority.

I'll leave you with this; you're on the wrong side of history. Bigotry is dying and the rights of prudes to force their oppressive attitudes on the rest of us is dying with it. I'm sorry to be so blunt. I hope you find peace one day, for your daughters sake.

Excuse me, NeoFaust... misandry!? You hope I find peace for my daughters sake? All I have done is raise an important issue that is affecting huge groups of women and girls. I have already explained some of the things that are happening, NeoFaust and you have pretty much ignored them.
I have not expressed hatred to men on this thread. I could also say that I don't think you give a shit about the issues I have raised, I have described how they're affecting children and what I have heard from the girls I volunteer with, it's more than unfortunate, NeoFaust.

How would being passionate about the rights of women/believing that they should be treated equally to men/believing that they shouldn't be viewed as objects affect my daughter negatively? What a ridiculous thing to say. It's strange how you interpret the belief that women should be equal as hatred of men.

ROFLMAO " It's strange how you interpret the belief that women should be equal as hatred of men ". I've been saying that to gender-feminists for years. Bye!

AMI -

I am a sex-positive woman, I have had lots of sexual partners and see nothing wrong with that. What I do see something wrong with is the expectation boys and men had of me and my all of my peers to perform degrading and physically painful acts, to see it as my duty to provide pleasure with no regards to me own, to be a sex object, to be treated selfishly and to be seen as less important than a man These expectations are the norm in my age group and as I mentioned earlier in the thread, with children

RE my point earlier: I have no problem sympathizing with you and agreeing that these things are bad. My problem is with the idea of ascribing them directly to internet porn.

I say that simply because I grew up long before there was any such thing - before even the rise of home VHS players that led to the previous wave of porn video consumption, which seems so tame compared to the present one. And you know what? The boys I knew talked about girls in terms AT LEAST as misogynistic and dehumanizing as I've heard anyone do today. Rape myths were taken for granted. It was taken for granted that if you could get away with raping someone, it was OK. Girls who had multiple partners or appeared to actually like sex were "sluts" and "fair game". It was all there: everything you're talking about, and more.

Maybe there wasn't such a thing about anal, I don't know. That's never been something I'm particularly into anyway so I don't really get the whole thing about it with internet porn. But I don't see how that changes the principle. The idea of being a boy was that you did anything you could to get a girl to do what you wanted, and didn't give a toss about what she wanted. Including getting her practically unconscious with drink if that was the easiest option.

So it has been since time immemorial. Read some history. Nobody learnt this stuff from internet porn. We learnt it from our parents' marriages and the many examples of every sexism embedded in every interaction of everyday life.

Girls need to be taught to be assertive and not feel pressured to do things sexually that they don't want to. No doubt about that. But girls in the 70s needed to be taught that too. As did girls in the 50s - although they weren't taught any such thing; they were just taught to get married and obey whatever their husbands wanted.

There's no evidence that internet porn has led to a rise in sex crime or sexual aggression against women. In fact there's some compelling, if limited and specific, evidence of the contrary. This may seem counterintuitive until you realise that nothing much has really changed, other than that society has become a bit more open about sex - and porn for all its faults is one part of that openness.

Fastloris

I agree absolutely. The recent scandals involving Jimmy Saville and others should remind everyone just how much better things have got. I am too young to remember the 1970s, but I am astonished and appalled at what passed for acceptable behaviour by men to women back then. My mother once said that in the 70s, the decorum ended but the sexism remained. Hence all the groping, fumbling, crude remarks, oppressive behaviour and coercion.

Even in the early 90s, when I turned 18, things were worse than now. I remember a high-profile rape trial where the accused was acquitted on the basis that his victim was drunk. That wouldn't happen now. This is because - in reaction to changing social norms - the law relating to rape has been expanded. Society has become much stricter about the importance of consent. I know someone whose early sexual experience involved his girlfriend slipping him some acid and shagged him while he was off his face. He liked it, but he said he hadn't much idea what was going on at the time. Was it rape? Unquestionably. But back then, not many would have considered it as such, particularly as it was done to a man.

Similarly, while domestic violence and marital rape were becoming unacceptable, there was nothing like the campaigns against them now. As a man growing up in the 90s, I was strongly encouraged to be a 'new man'. But that does not indicate that men treated women back then. Rather, the changes that benefit women now were still taking place back then.

There was also a lot less openness about sex generally, except in certain quarters.

I am not suggesting that women have it great now, but I am suggesting it was worse in the recent past before porn became as ubiquitous as now. And sexual openness historically has gone hand in hand with graphic descriptions of sexual activity, either pictorially and in writing. It's quite natural. I'm not particularly pro or anti the commercial porn industry, and I do believe that the prevalence of porn does have issues. However, trying to put it all back in the box and shouting down those who point out its advantages as the OP has done, does not assist in finding solutions that keep the good and remove the bad.

I'd agree with the need for education and that porn is framed correctly, its different aspects. Some people appear to have done well out of it others not very well at all.

I never realised until recently about how some men are affected by porn addiction and this needs addressing.

The sexualisation of young people also needs to be looked at, e.g mums buying trendy thongs/heels etc for their young girls, early porn exposure in boys etc

Yeah, but how many men in percentage terms actually suffer from "porn addiction"? Likewise, where are all these sexualised young girls and boys? I don't see them. And as I've already pointed out, the increasing availability of porn hasn't stopped men's attitudes to women improving.

It strikes me that there is a lot of hysteria about the subject at present.

This thread is full of such nonsense, flat out lies and dangerous misinformation.

I've worked in the porn industry for 10 years and have never seen a woman coerced into anything.

Many many women enjoy anal sex and love having their heads pushed down during oral sex.

Not all enjoy that, but many do. If you don't like it, that is obviously fine, but suggesting no woman likes it is ridiculous.

There is no peer reviewed, scientific evidence whatsoever that porn influences adult sexual behaviour. There are some flimsy, badly researched and very badly written papers by anti-porn people claiming that. But no actual evidence.

Women are not being destroyed.

There are many different genres of porn. Female Domination is incredibly popular, there the woman controls the entire situation and degrades the man, who enjoys that activity.

You all need to stop believing what you read in the Daily Mail.

I work with one webcam site where the women regularly earn 3 or 4 thousand dollars for one night's work where often times they don't even get naked and the men pay $4 a minute to talk with them. Who is getting exploited there? The woman or the customer?

Sure, there is some porn that is made to look like the woman is suffering, but it is PRETEND! kink.com shoot before and after interviews with the actors and actresses to prove it is all voluntary and enjoyed.

In the UK at least I have met most of the bigger adult actresses and have never even HEARD of coercion or force. This is a very well paid job and most of the women I know doing it love their jobs.

Woman (and men) that act (key word there, ACT) in porn films make a lot of money, enjoy their work and the hours they have to do.

One could argue that people working in McDonalds or some other low wage job are being exploited much more than adult film stars and no one seems to be moaning about that.

I am a woman who enjoys a bit of porn.

If the porn industry only ever produced ethical porn, with consenting adults who were not being abused or pressured in any way, would that be ok?

Or is it more, that you object to some of the sexual acts that some people enjoy? You have described some acts as demeaning, which implies your personal disapproval of them. Their very existence on film, causes you to feel pressured into doing them. Because some people enjoy them, you are pressured by the men you have met. It's a pressure I have never felt from any man. There have been times when I have been asked to do something that I didn't want to do, I simply said no. Most men, when they know how, are more than willing to focus on the woman's pleasure. I personally wouldn't tolerate a selfish lover in a relationship. Maybe we should also be teaching women that it is ok to enjoy sex when it is more than lights out, under the covers, missionary. And you must say no to anything that you don't want to do.

I suspect that it is inconceivable to you, that any woman could truly enjoy anal sex or having their head held during oral sex. I have to say that I love both. I used to avoid watching any anal sex in pornography, because the idea of it never turned me on. It was only after having explored it in real life, that I began watching porn that included it, and the exploration was initiated and controlled by me at every step.
However, I am more than willing to accept that my likes and preferences, may not be the same as the majority of women. Does that mean that my tastes cannot be catered for in porn, because other women then feel pressured to do the same? Boys have ALWAYS pressured girls into doing things, long before internet porn ever existed. Porn is not the cause of the pressure, natural drives, curiosity and hormones are responsible.

I think you have a very limited view of what mainstream porn consists of. I see a lot of lesbian porn and cunnilingus, which wouldn't really fit your description of harmful and focussed on the men's pleasure. I have seen very limited violence, though I suspect that you would include consensual BDSM as violence.

Porn can never be banned, so we have to work with the fact that there is a market for it and there are men and women, more than willing to partake. Parts of the industry do need cleaning up, ethical porn is attempting to offer a meaningful alternative. We also need to protect young children and educate older children. Both boys and girls need to develop healthy attitudes towards sex, which may well include the enjoyment of acts which are not mainstream and which you and others may find distasteful.

Sometimes, (after no sex for 6 years,) I've looked at Youporn. But it makes me gag. Every bloody time. It's so pathetic, sad and boring.

Women being rammed from behind and going oo ahh and then close-ups where blokes squirt their semen in the womens gobs or all over their faces while she gazes at the camera looking like..well. like she's just had a load of semen squirted all over her face or in her gob or around her bum.

It's about as attractive as seeing a hedgehog being killed with a spade.

I feel crap, sad and violated after watching these women being rammed in their bums or having semen squirted all over them.

I have no idea what one does about it.

It makes me feel ill to think/know that my 6 year old son will one day probably watch these women having stinky semen squirted all over their faces and down the backs of their throats til they gag.

He'll grow up like most other men I know - ie thinking it's what women want.

Well it's not what I want. It's defiling.

Oh and to make it even more crap, it's usually ugly blokes with ridiculous sized dicks that they cling on to like their out-of-control palm trees with a will of their own, which they try over and over again like rapists, to ram up the woman's arse.

And then she apparently loves it and then she gets quirts with glue and never even gets a glass of water to help her stop drowning.

yaaaaawn.

UnlikelyAmazonian Wed 23-Apr-14 23:26:11
I feel crap, sad and violated after watching these women being rammed in their bums or having semen squirted all over them.
I have no idea what one does about it.

--

Here's a CRAZY idea. Don't watch it. I know, it's out there, isn't it?

But if I don't like something, I don't look at it. Try that approach and let us know how it works out for you.

HTH

goatypoos,

congratulations on a cool MN username and a cool attitude.

You rock.

I wonder if you would apply the same argument if it was your 16 year old daughter being rammed and squirted.

Oh well yes you would. Right?