Porn. How do you honestly feel about it?

[Biggem]

I mean we all know men are going to look whether we like it or not.
But, I want (need) to know how other women feel about it, and I'm to scared to ask my friends incase I turn out to be the only one who has issues with it.

Any porn is fine, or is it when they start going on the live things (internet, not the shows in amsterdam) that it would bother you? Or aslong as ur still getting it u don't care it's only when they'd rather watch it than come and bump uglies with u!)

I found quite a bit to agree with in your post at the top of the page, jennie60.

And I don't consider that I am missing the point.

Incidentally, I've spent more time considering and replying to this thread than I have spent watching filmed porn in the last six months.
The small amount of stuff I watch doesn't have large casts, usually 2 or 3 people who are involved in the sexual aspect.
Given that what I watch is pretty mild, and features known named stars who are adults - and especially if the woman is a female star is also producing - I will make a fair assumption that she wasn't coerced into making the film I'm watching. Just as I make a reasonable assumption that food is what it says on the label.
There are also a small number of porn production houses that always use condoms.

I've only ever once paid for porn (which was by a female producer.)

But then, to follow on with this food analogy, I mostly avoid Asda because I hate Walmart, but do end up there a couple of times a year because something isn't in stock elsewhere. I've bought (standard arthouse or mainstream) DVDs even though I might disagree with some behaviour or utterance of an actor or director in their real lives. So I'm not the type to 100% boycott something and my ethics therefore don't stand up to some people's standards.

Surprised to hear this disdain for animal welfare issues, as so many strong feminists who speak out against porn (and certainly all of them I know IRL) are also vegetarian or vegan and see exploitation of animals as a serious issue too.

And BTW I agree with this: "I am angry about the way porn has become something that dominates our popular culture. I am angry that young people think porn sex is the kind of sex they are meant to be having."
(In my day it was More or Just Seventeen sex we thought... and whilst there could have been more emphasis on female agency and pleasure, at least they did always empahsise it was fine to say no, you should wait till you feel ready, and there was nothing very extreme.)

SirCiff, that's a fair point. I genuinely want to point out though, maybe you should be a bit more gentle when you reply sometimes. It just shuts people down when they feel attacked.
Ok-we can agree to disagree, right? I think humans are more important than animals too (but I keep thinking it's only because I am one!). Porn is just not my biggest issue personally. I do think things in the industry need to change though. I don't know much about it, but I'm sure women are mistreated badly in a lot of cases. I really wish it was better regulated.

I mean SirCliff..

MillyR - well said.
Stevies I didn't think you were a man and I'm sorry if I came across as shouty, but this is rather an emotive issue and when you mentioned animals it may have looked as though you were comparing the mis-treatment of animals with that of humans, which is not comparable. Although Morrissey would beg to differ

Milly, the way you worded your post made it sound as if I wasn't part of 'your group'-women

Well I have to say I do think they are comparable! That's what I mean though. Everyone has their different beliefs. It's all too much for me... :)

Porn doesn't bother me in the slightest as long as it's between two - or more! - adults, and there's nothing with animals or totally weird stuff.

Have a slight worry that men will think that bald perfect symmetrical pussies and bleached anuses are the norm and will reject anyone who doesn't match this ideal but the actual sex part of it and people watching it doesn't bother me. As long as it's not IN PLACE of a healthy sexual relationship with your sig other.

What about people who make porn, as in direct it, sell it..? Is that an ethical problem, or does it depend on what type of porn?

I thought there was pretty strong evidence to suggest that use of certain types of hardcore pornography had a significant effect on domestic abuse and abnormal sexual relationships?

It always does come down to anti-porn people having an extremely narrow and prescriptive view of what they consider 'proper' sexual behaviour either to engage in or to want to see (love, massages, tickling with feathers, heterosexual longterm couples). There's always this insistence that decent women dislike group sex, anal sex, BDSM or performing sex acts in front of an audience, and any woman who says she does like such things is either a wicked dishonest Tool Of The Patriarchy, a drug addict or mentally ill. Some people dislike these things, some are not bothered, some find them sexually exciting. This idea that 'ethical' porn should only include loving couples giving each other a massage ignores the fact that not everyone likes massage.

Also, this idea that everyone who watches some porn will invariably progress from 'Janey and Johnny Fuck on the Beach' to 'Kill them first, fuck them later' or whatever (apart from the anti-porn crusaders who have some special circuitry in their brain which means it won't happen to them) is a crock of shit. Most people have one or two things they particularly like to watch (oral sex, mild bondage, whatever) and go back to again and again. If the viewer's preference is (using this example as it's easy and obvious) women with big breasts, he is not going to be sidetracked into 'Barely legal teen' because they won't have big breasts. ANd the viewer who loves threesomes isn't going to move on from threesome movies to gagging&choking just because it's there.

And the line 'Oh you just think your sexual pleasure is more important than other people not being killed' is more prescriptive, moralistic nonsense. Anti-censorship activism is about people's right to sexual expression and supporting sexual diversity rather than insisting that people shouldn't look, shouldn't discuss, shouldn't have any kind of fantasies that don't involve love'n'candlelight'n'aromatherapy.

SGB I never understand how you can read the anti porn arguments and then characterise them like that. Being anti porn doesn't mean you think everyone should have a massage and be tickled with a feather and I can't see how you characterise it as such.

I actually don't think people do have a right to sexual expression if the people they are expressing it to is my children, which is what is actually happening with pornography.

The language is disingenuous anyway. It tries to make out that things like BDSM are just part of human sexuality in the way that homosexuality is. It is trying to put something which can never ethically develop beyond a sexual act into the same category and language as diversity of human sexual and romantic relationships which society absolutely should support. There is clearly no comparison between the two. There isn't a way of expressing a BDSM relationship to people outside of that relationship that isn't going to be extremely psychologically uncomfortable for many people, particularly for anyone that is a child of that relationship.

Stevie I have come back on this thread to apologise for being rude to you.

Your post came at a bad moment and it felt like you couldn't possibly have read the thread, which at that point was discussing serious issues of exploitation, degradation and abuse of women and girls - and you come on and post about chickens.

I care deeply about this issue, and as it happens yes, I am involved in campaigning and other activities which are supportive of the women wishing to exit porn.

I am angry about this issue and I am often extremely frustrated.

I should not have made a personal comment to you in the way I did - not my style really, I was reacting to your 'is your problem' comment. I still think what you posted was hugely insensitive and for your information, I don't have a problem - I am angry about the way porn treats and presents women.

Please feel free to report my post and get it deleted. I think I will report your post asking me what my problem is - it is up to MN whether they see that as a personal attack or not.

I do however apologise for making a personal attack on you.

I find it strange that the anti-porn posters on this thread feel that it is an absolute logical impossibility for ethical porn to exist. That it would immediately descend into degrading scenes of anal rape because that's what porn, by necessity, is.

SGB: for the record, I don't have any such views about women and sex and think all the things you describe are all perfectly fine between consenting grown ups. To effectively reduce this to describing anti-porn views as narrow minded and a reflection of moralistic ideas about sex of all kinds is disingenuous and lazy. I don't give a fuck about people's sex lives but I care about what my kids see and what they have such easy access to. Do you seriously think that the shit they see on the net will encourage open minded views about equality between the sexes. Do you seriously think that looking at women being choked by men is great in the interests of sexual freedom? I really don't and I don't have any hang ups about their sexual preferences.

Neither do I subscribe to the view that all women involved in porn are unthinking tools of the patriarchy. I have no doubt that some porn makers/performers love what they do, feel powerful and not at all exploited. Good for them and I am sorry that their life choices have to be curtailed but you see, I don't think their views and preferences are more important than the fact of the abuse we all know goes on in the industry. If they/you really care about fairness in the industry then make your own ethical porn and stop defending what is an industry full of very serious issues.

SGB, you know these arguments inside out - I'm guessing that you know what I'm going to say to you next. I'm going to say it anyway.

What people decide to do, of their own free will, free from coercion, and in private situations, is their business.

Pretending that a person who has issues with commercially profitable, publically available, porn, is akin to that person taking issue with how people choose to express and enjoy their sexuality, is dishonest.

People's private sex lives are no business of mine. I do, however, reserve the right to have an opinion on porn that is available to me, indeed being sold to me, and my children, at the click of a mouse.

I also reserve the right to judge and find wanting how my sex, women as a group, are presented in said porn.

The porn machine has got out of hand. It isn't about sexual freedom or being liberated or being adventurous.

Porn is about money. Money and market forces are not liberating - quite the opposite.

MillyR: what utter nonsense you talk about BDSM. Are you really implying that people who engage in it should not have children? People who like BDSM would no more 'do it' in front of their DC than vanilla couples would shag in front of their DC. Loads of people who like BDSM are perfectly capable of behaving normally outside a sex session: we go to the supermarket, hold down jobs, help our DC with their homework just like anyone else. And we don't do it all in rubberwear and nippleclamps.
And there is nothing wrong with sex that's just about sex. Nor is there anything inherently wrong in performing sex acts for money if this is done willingly: if you enjoy doing something and are good at it, there's no reason why you shouldn't take money for it if you want to.

BDSM is mildly abusive is it not SOLIDGOLD

not to drag up old posts (from today) BUT>

stevie: pornified culture... If you are old enough, you will know that what is acceptable and what is not has changed. as time has marched on, what was unacceptable has become more acceptable, to the point of some of us who are old and formerly heavily into porn are now going "omg, where will it end?" as taboos get obliterated like a thousand schpinctors on the screen. there is no happy or logical conclusion, the porn industry is desperately looking for the new "anal of 20 years ago!" and its getting nastier and nastier and more and more coersive and abusive, and this is NO SECRET...
that does not make old people prudes: those of us who were considered pervs 20 years ago are tame compared to what is being thrust at our kids. we have not really changed, society has, and its become much much more pornified.

there is no doubt that the culture is more and more pornified. no-one is really disputing that, or should not be because the evidence is real and easily presented. its just a sad sad fact. I know some younger folk will be saying things like "its a bit lame for you old people who had your fun to now clamp down on the young people." but tahts not whats going on here. we are simply saying that nothing good can cum of it (pun intended) and that its hurting women and ultimately, if its hurting women, then its going to be hurting men and boys.

I for one dont want my boys to grow up the way I did in an overly sheltered way, but also in a sicko vacuum kind of way. hiding porn from the parents was a major source of stress, but also, the stuff we were hiding was tame compared to whats easily attainable on the net these days. looking back, i thought some of the stuff i saw back then was nasty, rough, and wrong. but now, its weak compared to the stuff that people are doing and pretending to be happy about. Sasha grey comes to mind, and then I despirately flush flush flush it out, because there is someone who is going to need some MAJOR therapy in about 15 to 20 years.

for users, soft porn is a gateway to hardcore. for participants, soft porn is a gateway to hardcore. its just a fact.

If folks want to spend their time watching porn instead of having a real life that's up to them.

But I am puzzled why it is referred to as "adult", as it seems to be aimed mostly at people stuck emotionally in their mid teens. Most of us grow out of it by the time we are 16.

Topknob: Not if it's consensual. Kissing is abusive if it's not consensual.

I don't like porn. I have no problem with sex or what consenting adults of any gender or number choose to do with each other or alone. I don't like BDSM myself, for example, but it wouldn't occur to me to think twice about another adult enjoying it.

But I don't like porn. Frankly, I think it can be dangerous. I think there are a lot of young women growing up thinking that they need to "be into" all sorts of sexual activities before they're ready for them, and young men who are growing up with the attitude that women should look like porn stars and be up for it all the time. I was raped by one of them.

No SGB, I'm not suggesting any of the things you claim, but then you do enjoy arguing with imaginary right wing puritanical people.

I'll state my point again. BDSM cannot be supported as part of sexual diversity because it isn't like other kinds of sexual diversity. It is purely a sexual act. So there is nothing wider society can do to support it because it can never ethically go beyond a sex act and become part of wider society. That isn't to say there is something wrong with something that is just a sex act, but it what way can anybody do anything to support it?

Other forms of sexual diversity are more than just a sex act; they are part of wider society and as such we owe them our support as they are of value to everyone and how we relate and care for each other.

^BDSM cannot be supported as part of sexual diversity because it isn't like other kinds of sexual diversity. It is purely a sexual act. So there is nothing wider society can do to support it because it can never ethically go beyond a sex act and become part of wider society. That isn't to say there is something wrong with something that is just a sex act, but it what way can anybody do anything to support it?

Other forms of sexual diversity are more than just a sex act; they are part of wider society and as such we owe them our support as they are of value to everyone and how we relate and care for each other.^

I don't understand this.
And I can also imagine people 100 years ago using the second and third sentences about gay men and the then-crime of buggery.

People who are into BDSM are often in a couple with one another, just as gay men and lesbians, and straight people, have partnerships with people with a compatible sexuality. The couple is part of society. There are clubs, dating sites and other social gatherings for BDSM people just as there are for gay and straight people. And they won't always be whipping one another if they're just meeting in a pub.

I understand that it's something you're not personally comfortable with. That's fine!

But people aren't suddenly cut off from society just because they and their partner enjoy some bondage or spanking or something more esoteric.