Is the media stealing my sex life?

[DeirdreOfTheSorrows]

I've name-changed, because this is about sex and feelings and personal stuff and I'm probably pretty identifiable in my normal guise. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, either - but it's been on my mind for a while and I wonder whether anyone might be able to shed some light on it for me. I wonder whether I ought to have posted it in Feminism, too! But let's see how we go.

For a good few years now I've been feeling that my increasing awareness of of porn culture, and media stories about violence, sexual violence and cruelty of all sorts, are impinging on my ability to feel comfortable and secure in my own sexuality. I've never experienced violence myself, and porn hasn't been an issue in any of my relationships, so it's not a flashback type of situation - simply that my associations with sex are increasingly becoming mixed up with nasty and upsetting stories and ideas rather than my own (probably rather tame) experience.

Just as background, I wouldn't ever have thought of myself as a competitive sadder - I think I've got a pretty realistic idea about the way in which certain stories gain currency and play out in the media, and I think I can distinguish between empathy for a tragic or terrible situation and getting caught up in an emotional binge.

But for some reason I'm really struggling to maintain a sense of my own sexual self in the face of story after story of sexual violence or exploitation or coercion. It's as if I can't find the kind of easy lustiness I had when I was younger any more, and my brain can't switch off from stories about other people's dreadful experiences, or my political feelings about pornification, or MN threads in which people have shared how sex was used as a weapon against them, even though I'm in a relationship where sex should be perfectly safe and equal and unproblematic.

I really don't know what to do about this. One can't just stop knowing these things, and withdrawing from engaging with them would seem to be a dreadful cop-out. But how do I find a way to regain some innocence and spontaneity about my own sex life, rather than letting it be overshadowed by things which should be a political, rather than an emotional, part of my life?

Agenda? If you have a pov it's an agenda.
SGB, I've seen a few of your posts and I must ask do you think the pornifation of society exists? And if so would you think its a beneficial thing or neutral, or indeed harmful. I ask because you have strong views on other forms of media - Murdoch press for example - and the negative impact that has.
Hope I'm not going too off topic, its a very interesting thread

The thing is, specifically in terms of women's sexuality and sexual behaviour things HAVE got better rather than worse. It doesn't mean things are perfect, or even good enough, yet. But to be absolutely basic about it, it's a lot better to be 'called a prude' for not wanting to engage in certain sexual acts - or indeed any sexual behaviour at all - than it is to be locked up or even killed for choosing to engage in sexual behaviour. It's better to be able to access the morning after pill or the abortion pill quickly and easily, should you need them.

It's better that people talk about sex openly rather than peddling the nonsense that it will all be all right if you're 'in love' a particular piece of bullshit which has led to quite a lot of women putting up with clumsy, tedious, pull-my-nightie-down-when-you've-finished sex because discussing the possibility of doing anything else was 'dirty' and 'slutty'.

Yes, the rate of conviction for rapists is still disgracefully low but women reporting rape are less likely to be told by the police officers that they should lie back and enjoy it. Children reporting sexual assault against them are believed far more than they were in the 1970s, when famous men could attack them and get away with it.

ANd yes, the working conditions for some women in the sex industry are still appalling and they are still stigmatized, and that needs to change.

OnemoreChap are you are being wilfully daft or disingenuous?

Very good point Charbon, isn't there talk of changing sex education in schools and teaching girls to abstain, or have I got that wrong? It seems that women have never been allowed to have sex or indeed not have sex without some judgement.

Although I have to say I think that the Whitehouse censorship crones are apt to jump in at any opportunity and try to impose moral judgements. I don't think this is a moral issue? McCinnon and Dworkin hooked up with the right wing to bring about censorship in a couple of states in America.......sold out on everything they stand for just so they could stop a few men watching porn. Of course that might make them feel better but it won't stop porn being made elsewhere or young women being exploited and other women feeling shame as less than perfect plasticised dolls.

I disagree completely that "specifically in terms of women's sexuality and sexual behaviour things have got better and not worse." Some things have got better. Others have got worse.

I don't see it as progress or 'better' that it's become normalised for men to pay for sex, whether that's titillation at a sexual entertainment venue or on a stag night abroad in what were once beautiful cities. I don't think it's 'better' that so many young people experience sex for the first time via unregulated internet porn. I don't think it's 'better' that women's reproductive rights are under threat from the current UK government.

I haven't heard anything about PSHE provision compelling girls to 'abstain' but see this link from the PSHE website dated this month and see this link about ending violence towards girls in schools

The message that's been going out to my kids in their schools is that girls and boys shouldn't exact or succumb to any pressure to have sex that they or others don't want, which isn't anything like telling girls to abstain.

This is a great thread, and I agree with the OP.

I read a couple of responses that suggest we should almost be grateful because things are better for us than they were for women a couple of centuries ago, but so what...things might be 'better' (in SOME ways) but they're still not right, or anywhere near right.

I'm afraid this is only going to get worse with the gradual dumbing down of pornography in our society, 50% of which is viewed by under 18 boys.

There are plenty of articles on the net that explain how the viewing of pornography changes how men think of women and sex - how women simply become objects to be used...it is frightening, and according to a councillor friend of mine, is an epidemic waiting to happen. He said the amount of men visiting him for porn addiction alone has increased 300% in 10 years, and is now the most common sexual problem he deals with. It leads them down paths of infidelity within marriage, and to prostitution use, which is now becoming normalised behaviour on stag do's and trips away, and is far more prevalent than any of us would want to believe. As worrying is the fact that it destroys the young men's ability to make love to a woman without seeing her as an object for his own satisfaction, rather than a partner in love making. It basically changes the way they have sex, and it is very very difficult to reverse.

By allowing the red top papers to publish photo's of semi naked young women, we are starting this problem early, as they are on most kitchen tables most days. They teach young boys (who see their fathers sneaking a look whilst mum is out of the room) that it is okay for old(er) men to ogle very young women, and it teaches embarrassed young girls that they are only there as eye candy for men (including brothers / fathers / uncles).

Sadly, society is turning our boys into men who treat women this way because they think it's normal - every red top paper, every advert with semi naked females, every pop video, every accessible free Internet porn site is telling our boys that girls are there for their titillation and pleasure, and the lines of normal sexual behaviour are getting blurred beyond distinction.

I am not a feminist by the way, just a normal worried mother (who reads to much, and has asked questions of her professional friends based on what she has read, and is horrified by the answers), wondering how best to send her dc's into this world

"I don't see it as progress or 'better' that it's become normalised for men to pay for sex, whether that's titillation at a sexual entertainment venue or on a stag night abroad in what were once beautiful cities."

But what do you mean by BECOME normalised? If you're suggesting that the use an acceptance of prostitution or lap dancing is more widespread among men now than it was in days gone by, then you should probably (a) clarify what time scale you're talking about, and (b) show what evidence or information makes you think that.

Until then, I think you're flat out wrong. Long before the advent of the internet or any of the recent developments in the western mass media, there were societies such as Thailand where it was absolutely accepted without a second thought that going to brothels every weekend was just what young men did, like we think of going to the pub. My reading of history tells me that you don't have to go back too far to find similar levels of assumption of the sex industry as a "normal part of life" in plenty of western societies. My personal experience is that such attitudes are considerably less taken for granted now. Even forgetting the long term historical perspective, I'd say such attitudes are much more common among men of my father's generation (who grew up without the internet) than among those of my own.

Neither is there any evidence, AFAIK, that either internet porn or sex in the media generally have led to a rise in other, more "direct" forms of the sex industry (prostitution, lap dancing etc.) I could be wrong, but I've not seen anything suggesting that, and there are compelling reasons why the opposite could be the case.

By all means object in the strongest terms to whatever is wrong about sexualisation in society. But let's not just assume that because we don't like something, it must be getting worse and have been so much better in the Good Old Days.

Fastloris - Then how do you account for my councillor friend saying that he and his colleagues are seeing the start of an epidemic of porn addicted and sex addicted young men who can't function properly sexually within a relationship because of the easily accessible Internet pornography which is changing how their brains work sexually? He says that there is a direct link between the use of porn and the next step - the using of prostitutes, which is the way these young men get to 'live out' their fantasies - which wouldn't have been so burned into their brains if they hadn't viewed so much porn.

Seenenough -

Your counsellor friend may well be right, I don't know. It's not my area of expertise so I'm not in a position to say. However there are a number of variables involved that are often overlooked. For example, how many men before the advent of the internet "couldn't (or wouldn't) function properly sexually within a relationship", for whatever reason? What proportion of youngsters now have these kinds of problems? (Your friend sees many of them - but OTOH people without problems don't tend to go to counsellors ). And of course a counsellor is not a neurologist, so (while I am aware of similar claims) I reserve judgment a bit on the brain issue.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying there could be a problem. I just don't accept the assumption that the net result of that problem plus all the other relevent factors must necessarily mean that more men go to prostitutes now than before, that rape is more "normalised" now than before, or whatever. Those things may be true, but they don't coincide with my experience of the men I know, so I'd want some evidence before accepting that they are.

One aspect that we haven't even touched on here yet is that the internet has led to an explosion in availability of ALL media and knowledge. So while it's much easier to see a dominant man fucking a submissive woman up the arse now, it's also much easier to access a wide range of material of the opposite tendency. It's easier to access information that challenges traditional stereotypes about rape and domestic violence. It's easier for victims of sexual abuse to find out that it's not their fault. It's easier for people brought up in repressive religious households to find out about other worldviews, and work out that the priests who have been lecturing them are actually paedophile-harbouring hypocrites.

All of these things have an effect upon the young too. It ain't all bad, y'know. . As for how all the factors balance out - fuck, I don't know.

"t is officially recognised that pornography and prostitution are linked to one another: "Since 1983, United Nations (clause 1983/30 of the Economic and Social Council recalled by several clauses at the General Assembly), UNESCO (International Conference of Experts on the Socio-cultural Causes of Prostitution. Madrid, 18th-21st March 1986), and Canada (The Fraser Commission on Pornography and Prostitution) have identified pornography as one of the factors which facilitate the exploitation of prostitution and have acknowledged that any policy of prevention of prostitution absolutely must include resolute action against the spread of pornography."

Pornography can lead women to prostitution insofar as it portrays women being treated as sexual objects by men. They will then be accosted in this way by clients, who for the most part have watched pornographic films and have thought that the woman was consenting. Prostitution can be encouraged by pornography insofar as it may show what the pimp has to offer to meet the customer's expectations of a prostitute : "The triangular relationship between pornographer text (pimp) or image reader (prostitute) or spectator (customer) is an exact replica of the well-known triangular relationship of pimp, prostitute and customer."

www.fondationscelles.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16%3Ales-liens-entre-pornographie-et-prostitution-&catid=10%3Afiches-thematiques&Itemid=12&lang=en

Very happy to clarify FastLoris.

I completely agree that men paying for sex has been normalised in other societies for much longer than it has in (for example) the UK. I don't agree however that the normalisation of the sex industry in your example of Thailand is less taken for granted now that hitherto. With cheaper and more frequent air travel, in fact it is an industry that has grown because of sex tourism.

Cheaper and more frequent air travel, combined with the ill-fated legalisation of prostitution in some countries has led to an increase in UK nationals engaging in 'sex tourism' typically associated with men-only weekends. On Mumsnet threads about this, there is always a core of posters who think it is normal for stag weekends to be staged in Amsterdam or Prague, with a visit to a sex club during the weekend.

Focusing on the UK and the past 20 years, the organisation OBJECT believes that by 2004, 300 licensed and unlicensed sexual entertainment venues had opened in the UK in the preceding 12 years. See this report for an explanation of how the culture in the UK changed in this period, from a minority entertainment format to lapdancing clubs being used for corporate entertainment.

1992 coincides with the birth of the internet and its increasing accessibility over the next 20 years. During this period, porn that is not subject to the censorship applied to magazines, books and filmed material, became available on every PC and mobile device with internet compatibility. This became a growth area for the sex industry; an increase in paid porn sites and easier accessibility to the services of prostituted women under the nomenclature of 'escorts'. During the same period, police and human rights organisations saw an increase in human trafficking of women sold into the sex industry worldwide.

FHM magazine was launched in the UK in 1994 and was accompanied in the marketplace by Loaded, Nuts and others of the same genre.

OBJECT is a very interesting site about this, with links to lots of peer-reviewed academic research.

So my timescale is the past 20 years in the UK and this is a mere snapshot of the evidence that exists about the boom period in the sex industry within those 20 years and the internet's role in that.

Mini - great research...reaffirms what my councillor friend said - he obviously knows his stuff, and is extremely worried about the future based on what he is dealing with at the moment, which he claims is 'the tip of the iceberge'.

Sorry,is.your.friend.a.councillor.or.a.counsellor?He.is.wrong.either.way.but.it.makes.a.small.difference.
It'srubbishto.say.that.internet.porn.isSCIENTIFICALLY.PROVED.to.warp.brains.It.simply.isn;t.possible.to.prove.this.

Charbon:whenFHM.was.launched.it'was.all.about.cars.and.gadgets.and.menswear.Loaded.was.as.much.about.drinking.and.lifestyle.as.about.sex(lots.of.early.Loaded.covers.featured.men,not.women-in-lingerie).Nuts&Zoo.came.along.later.

Sorry.everyone.have.to.temporariluy.leave.debate.as.fucked.space.bar.making.ittoo.maddening.to.post...

Interesting Charbon thanks I'll have a look at that. Just to clarify: I didn't say that the sex industry in Thailand is less active, or taken for granted, now than it was before the internet. I only said that societies where it was so taken for granted existed then, with Thailand being an example - and that we can't just assume that it's more taken for granted now.

Ha - he is a counsellor, apologies for my predictive text - it's worse that I didn't notice!

I never said it had been scientifically proven - if you read back properly.

Why do you say my friend is wrong? He has said he has seen an increase in sexual addiction related to porn (and very often MOVING ON to prostitution for the need to 'live' the fantasy) by 300% in 10 years. It is his CLIENTS, the sex addicted and porn addicted men who are telling him that they moved on to prostitution, because there came a day where the porn was not enough anymore. He has been a counsellor for 32 years, and is sure, as are his colleagues, that the problems have grown with the widespread use of Internet porn, which is obviously very easily accessed and is considerably more graphic in the fact that it is a moving picture, not a still, as in the 'old' type of readily available top shelf magazine pornography.

Are you going to clarify why you think he is wrong? Or do I just have to take your word for it over a professional in his field whom I know would not suggest this without thought and discussion and debate with others in his profession.

Meanwhile here's something interesting. I don't mean to play tit for tat with the references here but I came across this when looking at Mini's links and honestly had no idea it was the case.

Domestic violence in the UK seems to have fallen by about half since the early 1990s (ie before widespread home internet):

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/19/falling-murder-rate-domestic-violence

www.economist.com/node/3868655

This from confidential self-reports to the British Crime Survey so probably pretty accurate. Sorry the economist article is a bit old but it seemed the most clear, and more recent references say the same thing.

I didn't look up stats for rape yet (which I would imagine one would have to look pretty deep into, due to reporting difficulties) but I know violent crime in general fell massively from the mid 1990s to a few years ago, and has been pretty steady since. I don't remember seeing anything about sexual violence bucking that trend.

So it may be that for all the convincing theoretical formulations in the world why we should be living through a porn-induced explosive increase in woman-hating, it's not actually happening.

Sympathise about the keyboard problems. I once lost the 'f' key on mine and it was debilitating!!

front cover FHM 1995

cover FHM 1996 why it's okay to watch porn

front cover of Loaded in 1994 when it was launched

2005 front cover

Reports of sexual violence towards women has bucked that trend.

See this from July 2012

FastLoris - I don't think it's ALL about women-hating, it's very much about the objectification of women. Most men will not think they are mysogonists - they will have a significant other in their life that they never meant to hurt. A husband can love his wife dearly, but after watching too much porn, he will struggle to stay sexually and mentally close to her, and will eventually have to objectify her to reach any kind of sexual climax, because his brain becomes hard-wired to only be turned on by the kind of sex he has been watching and fantasising about.

Young boys in school who watch pornography re-enact the degrading acts they've seen (which they truly believe to be 'normal' sex) with their girlfriends, and they simply assume their girlfriends are enjoying it. A girl my daughter is in chool with was persuaded by the boy she was 'in love' with at 15 to perform and have performed on her all kinds of acts her bf had seen in hardcore porn movies, and she is now suffering with mental health issues, as she was traumatised by the experience. She isn't the only local girl I know to have been dragged through these sick acts. The boys committing the acts are only 15 themselves! I have lost count of the very young girls I know of (through conversation with my dd and her friends) who have been persuaded to send naked photographs of themselves to various boys in the school, and young girls who've been filmed performing oral sex on their boyfriends only to have the video go 'viral' round the school. The boys are treated like heroes when this happeneds whilst the girls are called the usual degrading names. The school is doing what it can to put a stop to all this, but apparently it's going on everywhere. We are living in disturbing times.

So FastLoris, you have your opinion - but I will definitely be sticking to mine.

Self reporting of domestic violence is not reliable loris. You should know from these boards how few people even recognise what they are experiencing is dv, how few people recognise sexual abuse and violence as dv. How many women after childbirth are being pressured into or shouted at about "giving" their selfish entitled and lazy partners sex before they feel ready? If anything one negative effect of this porn culture is to normalise sexual abuse. What has happened in my mind is simply a switch from this men are entitled to sex whether women want it or not institutionalised culture which was coupled with a very prudish culture where sex was considered shameful, to an education of young women and men about sex through porn and some of the left over attitudes towards women that girls exist for boys' sexual pleasure and that women don't enjoy sex, men have needs and will cheat if you don't provide for them within a hyper sexualised culture.

I completely relate to the post about the problems in schools which is something which absolutely did not exist in my mum's school experience. It is what I experienced, being shown porn and taught what was expected of me and sexual bullying for failing to be how I was expected to be and do the things expected of me that went much further than any intimate relationship and was cultural. I didn't experience the pics stuff but that is technology led as well, we didn't have picture messages or Facebook or twitter.

I think that hasn't been talked about on here actually about how showing girls porn had played a role in this and how there is this new and worrying thing of getting girls to make porn and using those images to sexually humiliate them if they do not comply.

This is a brilliant thread, thank you so much for starting it Deirdre.
I had a really unsettling dream years ago that my then partner raped me. He was a nice guy but a bit of a piss-taker financially and practically and eventually we broke up. Somehow my sense that he was disrespecting me got translated by my subconscious into that he was fucking me against my will, hence that one dream. I think this has a lot to do with attitudes to sex. I think to be "fucked" is popularly to be taken advantage of. This is not new but the prevalence of sexual imagery and increasing normality means it is a connection that is harder and harder to get away from. I find sex really difficult now. I have a different partner but things aren't perfect. I feel sad that sex is not something that I enjoy really (I mean do, not that I do it and don't enjoy it) and also sad that I feel so fucking guilty about yet another fucking thing that I don't do properly. I am haunted by thoughts that our family will break up and devastate our kids because I am too selfish to have sex. I am haunted by thoughts that I might go crazy myself and find myself on the verge of an affair but then I also often think that part of me has died. I used to be passionate and sexual and I can't recognise that side of me. I think that some of this is to do with my deep resentment at losing my body and my self in just sacrificing myself to my family in a way my partner never had to do (pretty much had a nervous breakdown after being continously pregnant and breastfeeding for 4 years, and still not right). But I think a lot of it is to do with the ugliness and hatiness of the media towards women and my sense that I am exposed and shameful if I am sexual. I feel frightened, humiliated and I want to hide. I need desperately to be alone and safe at night. This is sad. I know it is sad for him as well as me. but I am angry with him about everything I do and have to do and everything I can't do more than I can remotely dare to admit.

and on the subject offred raised I am terrified of what will happen to my girls as they grow up. There are things I don't know about now, god forbid how it will be when they are teenagers. I try to talk about things like their body parts freely and confidently to help them feel ok and secure but I am not ok and secure, how can I imbue them with confidence when I have none?

That's fascinating lost and I am sorry to hear of your feelings though I think that you are more sensitive than many to their context. I went through the same sexual shutdown for 7 years after I'd had kids. I lost my marriage over it. Later I went hypersexual for a short while due to bipolar disorder and that opened my eyes to what i think a lot of men must feel. Using repetitive compulsive and emotionless sex to actually avoid feeling anything. The film Shame said a lot to me and made me realise that some men are getting this message too.

I've had partners who felt that they found it hard to tune out all the sexual messages and the quick-response thrill of porn, yet they still found it ultimately sickening and degrading like a stimulant drug with a nasty empty comedown. .

One thing I have really noticed since I approached 40 is a sense that none of it applies to me any more. I am no longer an object- since sex is now all about youth and brash self-exposure. As an older woman I am not seen as sexual any more although my level of desire is just the same. Sometimes I feel angry and sad that I have been 'written off' in this way and sometimes it is liberating. Nonetheless the sense of myself as objectively undesirable does affect my sexual feeling in ways that are hard to explain. After all the desire of 'old' women is considered gross and disgusting. And I am in some way affected by that.

Another thing and partly a result of my hypersexual manic episode is that I now feel rather 'prudish'. If I ever have another partner I will probably back off vigorously from sex and resist being anything more than a friend for a long time. This will probably mean that I don't have a partner again but rather that than feel used and dehumanised.

It's a shame that we have to police ourselves this way isn't it...

Charbon,

I think we're referring to different things. The articles I linked to derived their information from the British Crime Survey, which is based purely on self-reporting from victims. They basically contact a sample of people designed to be typical of the country as a whole, and ask them "have you been stabbed / robbed / raped / assaulted by your spouse etc. this year? And if the person says "yes" it goes down as a "yes". No burden of proof or prosecution whatsoever. So it's figures for things like rape and DV are considered more reliable (and are obviously way higher) than actual prosecutions.

The article you linked to said that there have been more prosecutions for violence against women recently. But even that article doesn't suggest that the reason for this is that violence against women has increased; it seems to make it quite clear that factors within the police and legal systems have improved to secure more prosecutions of the crime that always happened anyway.

This could easily be the case while the actual amount of such crime is falling - particularly given the fact that if you go back a few decades, it would only have been a minisule percentage that ever got prosecuted. The percentage could hardly get any smaller, could it?