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!)

WN I think it was AF that actually told me on another thread ages ago that girl on girl doesn't pay very well so is probably the starting point for a lot of women so would count as the basics probably - it's considered safer and less painful/scary so rates are not so good. That was a complete revelation to me and correlated with something I had experienced. At the time on the thread I was talking about me working out why, if I thought I was straight, was I increasingly watch more and more lesbian porn (this was when I was using porn). I felt that there was something I was missing and if it wasn't about me necessarily then what was it? It clicked one day that there is just less fear in the faces of the women in g/g porn. And once I realised I was able to register there was "less fear" in some porn, I then realised that in other m/f porn I had been happy to watch previously showed "more fear" in their faces - and you know what, until that point, I hadn't even registered there was any fear. If you're using porn you're not sticking around to analyse the photo/movie/whatever you've just got off to. However much you may think ah there's nothing wrong with porn I reckon all porn users are pretty quick to close down the laptop/close the browser etc once the job is done.

Never been able to use porn since.

yes my experience is similar. I would use porn happily but one day we were watching a short clip "advertisement"
it showed a young girl being taken from behind. an employer employee "story"

The camera was wide frame to show the "action" then close up to the genitalia and then to the girls face. She was in obvious pain until she noticed the camera on her where she suddenly started to bite her lip and make moaning sounds. I couldn't watch further. Her discomfort was so obvious it was creepy.

i genuinly felt as if i were witnessing a rape, and more so that i had actually paid to see it. It was sickening. from then on the more I think of it the more upset it makes me.

But most people see the biting of the lip, the furrowed brow and the pained eyes and "mistake" it for pleasure. I think denial really does play a huge part. All too often you will hear men who are looking at porn use quite aggressive language "yes take that" "ooh fuck her hard" etc. Alternativly they speak about how much the girl is enjoying it, as if to convince themselves.

Ok, other things that i find tiresome from porn-haters. The tendency to use the word 'porn' to mean 'stuff that I don't like' so you end up talking at weird cross-purposes. The refusal to accept that anyone involved in the industry might have ethics and a pro-feminism agenda.
And the other really wierd one, that it would olnly be acceptable to view stuff if the performers are not paid. If that isn't smug and exploitative and totally 'othering' I don't know what is.

Isn't the googling for Feminist porn something of a red herring. Even women who want to see good quality enjoyable porn would probably not think of googling 'feminist porn'. Maybe "women enjoying sex porn", or something similar, but never "feminist porn". I am not suprised it's not up there with the big hitters. Yes, it is horrible that there is illegal porn being viewed (the rape and animal stuff), but don't try and twist illegal and legal porn together to support POVs.

whingingninja rather spookily the face I pull when I am having great sex looks exactly like I'm in pain, to the point where several new lovers have stopped and checked I am okay. As another incidental, the best lovers I've had, i.e. the ones who have paid the most attention to my pleasure, have been the heavy porn users.

We bring our own experience to these conversations on Mumsnet. I'm not going to deny that there are some terrible things done in the name of porn, but I think blanket statements such as those seen on this thread help no one. My experience of porn, and viewpoint, differs from a great many posters on here. You see a gangbang and a woman being used as a receptacle, I see a woman being given sexual pleasure by men (yes deep throat, dp and anal can be pleasurable, just because it doesn't float your boat doesn't mean it doesn't float someone elses!).

Unfortunately we live in a society where some feel they have no choice but to become porn 'stars' because of the stigma attached to being a sex worker. It's because of this that the industry will always be running out of control, because it attracts people who are desperate to earn money however they can and who are willing to do whatever it takes to earn that money.

I'm not sure what the answer is - people will always use porn. We can educate and hope that people will choose to watch those films where the people are enjoying themselves as much as possible, and not those where the people (both men and women) are only doing it because they have no other options for earning money.

worldgonecrazy - I had the same though about about 'feminist porn' as Google term, but was too scaredy to say so here.

I agree - sort of, mostly - with the gist of the article, but come on... who, really, if they're looking to have a girly wank, is going to search 'feminist porn'?

Please, please, posters, let me know if you've ever done this, or ever would...

And er, yes, shall we have a definition of 'porn'. That would be really helpful.

worldgonecrazy: exactly.

About facial expressions.. wrote this earlier but didn't get a chance to press post.

I definitely notice these.
There is porn where the actors smile at each other, where there's lots of eye contact - as well as the odd grimacing orgasm-face - and they look a lot more into one another (double entendres aside) than most actors doing bedroom scenes in mainstream films and TV. There probably isn't that much porn like this, but it definitely exists. Those are the ones I most like to watch and go back to. For the simple reason that it vividly reminds me of having good sex with someone I fancy. And I don't have ethical qualms about it. In a few instances I've seen articles saying that the actress particularly likes working with that particular male actor.

The blank-faced stuff just brings back memories of student one night stands, and I find myself thinking that either the performer isn't enjoying it much or may be high; it's not enjoyable to watch and depending on how much backgound I know about the film, it may seem dubious so I generally switch it off after a short time.

Maybe in some anti-porn viewpoints I'm not "supposed" to even start watching it, but I consider that irrelevant as I'm not paying the film- makers money for it. (And the material is legal)

Sometimes I read websites of organisations or companies whose policies I don't agree with, perhaps in order to criticise them in a debate.
To the site owner it's just another user clicking on a page briefly. If I read a hate-filled article in the Daily Mail without commenting, they don't know whether I agree or disagree with it. If I watch a couple of minutes of porn and then decide I don't like it, the site doesn't know whether I'm disgusted, bored, researching a feminist anti-porn article, a bloke who enjoyed it so much he came already, etc.

Plumpdog - no, I haven't searched for feminist porn in that way (though I probably have used the terms when looking for blogs or articles)
But I have searched for "porn for women" and I have searched for porn prompted by articles on feminist sites where particular actors or directors were mentioned positively.

Thank you Freya!
It would be interesting to know how you rated your findings, btw.

Seeing as how there is so much screwed up shit out there, though, I wonder a bit about the conclusion that those who watch it are genuinely 'in denial'. It's likely that a lot of consumers have extremely limited experience of real sex, so clear expressions and a general atmosphere of pain, fear, boredom, aggression in the porn they see are just what sex is to these viewers. Which I guess goes back to the problem of porn's effects.

Thanks also for the definition, BrandyButterfly. I think it's a good one. I also think the world is an infintely better place for the work of Dworkin and MacKinnon, and not just in relation to their arguments about porn. (MacKinnon was an extraordinarily smart, talented, brave and astute lawyer who did a huge amount for women in the workplace, for example. I think we're all much better off for the work she did.)

I think the problem with that definition, though, is that it's potentially so broad that it becomes very subjective. I say this because some of MacKinnon's writing can be understood as an argument that the mere depiction of women's bodies for sexual gratification is in itself degrading to women. It can actually feel as if quite a bit of intellectual contortion/distortion needs to be done in order not to read her arguments in this way. Although it's probably worth remembering that at the time that she was writing, many rights that many of us take for granted had not yet been secured (by MacKinnon herself, it has to be said).

And since there are, of course, lots and lots of women who love erotica that gets pigeonholed as porn - because it's 'adult entertainment' - there's the (not completely unreasonable - but not really accurate either) perception that anti-porn arguments somehow 'silence' or dismiss women (and men) who are into 'ethical' porn/erotica. (Well of course there is, it's evident from this thread.)

Christ, I sound pompous in this post. Oh well.
My point is ... clearer definitions needed.

I'm not convinced clear definitions are needed. I'm talking the type of porn that is freely available and that influences culture. And that is important because its the cultural impacts of porn that I care about, not some abstract theoretical porn.

We could sit here defining ad infinitum, but as with anything its a fluid, ever changing thing. One person gives one definition, another gives another. Something new happens that means that definition needs modifying and so on for ever. Meanwhile women are being harmed.

It reminds me of the comment that whilst people discussing porn and contorting themselves in definition, argument, theory, justification etc. the pornographers are accurately and happily describing what they do. So we could look at the pornographers' own words to define porn. Someone (Beachcomber?) posted a list further down. Or google the best selling list. It's out there, it's not a hidden secret.

And I also reminds me of the musings on whether theoretically, it is possible to have a porn that isn't misogynist or whether if we leave all other considerations aside it is theoretically possible to be OK with cartoon porn. We live in patriarchy and we can't leave all other considerations aside. So those theoretical musings don't really get me anywhere.

I can do theory with the best of them, love theory in many situations, but in this one it is the damage being done to women that is top of my list not theory and definition.

But it's surely relevant to your search for solutions, whether you mean:

a) all porn is harmful by definition

or:

b) porn can be harmless, but some or even most of the porn that exists in our society now is harmful.

The first position would be addressed by campaigning to get people never to look at any kind of porn whatsoever. The second would require a much more complex and nuanced response.

I know a girl who worked in the sec industry - she enjoyed it, did so out of her OWN choice because she enjoyed the job, was bloody well paid in relation to a "regular" job and had a good body and knew it. She was single, without children and had complete control in her eyes over the situation.

My personal opinion is if my DP wants to watch porn then thats up to him. He is an intelligent man who understands perfectly well about the control and objectification of womens bodies. He assures me porn is something he enjoyed as a teen but as a 32 year old he would much rather have the real deal than some shite story line with a fake woman.

MY personal issue with porn is its so bloody far fetched that young lads spend all their time thinking its normal and have so many unrealistic expectations of what sex is "really" like and what women are "really" like.

AlwaysWild, you need definitions unless you're happy for discussion to be extremely general, theoretical and of negligible benefit.

If you want to prevent damage being done, you generally have to look at trying to change laws. If you want to do that, you need proper defninitions.

So for example, Lisa Saunders' article is interesting and has some valid points (although I think it's a real shame that she feels she has go into personal detail about her own background in order to explain how healthy and un-fucked-up she is - i.e. not a prude/damaged woman or whatever. Why the hell should she think it's necessary or relevant to 'explain' this?)

But arguments that everyone should have the 'right' not be be subjected to triggering images, etc., valid as they might be in a theoretical sense don't hold much water if you try and break them down into ideas that could actually be worked with.

Plump you tackle it how you want and I'll do the same. We've been round in this circle already.

Why does Lisa Saunders feel the need to do that?

For the same reasons the OP felt compelled to tell us she wasn't a 'prude'.

Understandable too, when you see the same tired old accusations on this thread, that are designed to silence and repress men and women.