How does everyone feel about p0rn?

[warmsummersday]

Hi. Im feeling abit insecure at the mo, OH works away in the week and all I can think about for the past couple of weeks is porn and I don't like the idea of him looking at it. I don't know why. Obviuosly I know he looks at it, just like everyother tom dick and harry! I have some but for me to look at it is fine in my head. Can someone reasure me and make me feel better please?

Here's an interview with Jersey Jaxin, an ex porn actress on why she quit porn and what is actually like to be a performer in porn. I don't think there is much point in continuing the discussion here given the levels of denial about what is actually done to women in porn. Perhaps if you listen to one of them directly, it will open your eyes somewhat -

"You have no soul in the industry"

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I don't think society was better with repressed sexuality.

That's why I'm a liberal and against censorship.

I do think there's a world of difference between healthy sex and intimacy and what is currently being peddled to us.

Due to market forces they are only responding to demand and because of the nature of porn (becoming desentisised to it and needing it 'harder') it is only getting more sensational - double anal ffs !

'SOMEONE' is consuming this stuff and that's why the free market seems to be a difficult answer to porn.

I appreciate what you say about there being many types of porn - and there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that gay and lesbian porn is less 'exploitative' - by less exploitative I mean less people on drugs, less young people etc etc

In some ways I am likening this to buying battery eggs - once I knew how they were made and in what conditions the chickens suffered I couldn't in all good conscience buy them.

If I relate that to porn - because you don't KNOW the person isn't being raped and exploited in some way we can't obviously see, it seems like a good enough reason to not buy it.

The current nature of porn means its not regulated and while I hear that everyone hear is calling for regulation - until we have it maybe we could avoid porn.

Off to my shift now - back later this afternoon.

ELizabetth: the point you are either missing or ignoring is that it's possible (and very easy) to find case histories of abuse and exploitation in EVERY INDUSTRY THERE IS. From the racist, sexist and homophobic bullying in City boardrooms to the horrible plight of trafficked immigrants, sleeping 25 to a room and picking vegetables in freezing rain for 50p a day (or dying because their 'employers' considered them entirely expendable, like the Morcambe Bay cockle pickers).
And those of you pontificating about the superiority of 'love' over pornography should perhaps spend a few minutes reading some of the threads detailing violence, cruelty, theft etc in the Relationships topic.

THere have always been some people who think themselves entitled to mistreat others: there was plenty of this (indeed, much more of it and probably much worse) in the days before mass-market pornography. I am not arguing that porn is a Great Force for Good, though the freedom to discuss sexual issues, enjoy sex with consenting adults in all its infinite variations without being imprisoned or stigmatised, etc, is all to the good, but pornogarphy: sexually explicit material designed for recreation not education. is not the root of all evil either.

LFC: this stuff you keep saying about how peole get 'desensitized' to porn and want 'worse' stuff is another myth. Most of the top-selling porn DVDs are the high-budget Private/Vivid films, many of which ae parodies of current manstream movies, have plots, feature mainly one-on-one sex, etc. People who move on from mainstream porn to niche porn (fetishwear, bondage etc) find the level that turns them on an stay there. You cannot turn a person with a healthy adul sexuality (ie one which depends on consentig adult partners) into a sexual predator just by showing thatperson a film.

double anal??

surely that would lead to a spell in A&E??

Why anyone wants anything put up thier bum god only knows.It was not made for that was it!

If dh asked me I would chop his dick off!

Desensitisation is NOT a myth - otherwise there wouldn't be 'worse' porn available now as 5 years ago, 10 years etc. Market forces - noone's producing the harder stuff for fun, they're producing because it has a market.

It's also not a myth because police officers who work in family protection have to 'deprogramme' at the end of every day, have to have compulsory counselling to cope with the images they see.

Desensitisation has been validated in studies. Reported sexual violence against women has risen hugely over the last 40 years and every authority I know (mostly police officers/sociologists link this in some way to the increase in pornography. It's no coincidence that every sexual predator they catch has a stack of hard core porn.

That study with college students hasn't been discredited to my knowledge - the one where they were shown increasingly harder pornography and studied what their view of women was before and after. Funnily enough their view of women did not go up !

I don't agree with what you say about a healthy adult sex drive not being able to be 'corrupted' with porn - it doesn't work with anything else - repeated exposure to drugs, drink, religion , sugary foods - all produce cravings. Why would sex be different?

"ELizabetth: the point you are either missing or ignoring is that it's possible (and very easy) to find case histories of abuse and exploitation in EVERY INDUSTRY THERE IS. From the racist, sexist and homophobic bullying in City boardrooms to the horrible plight of trafficked immigrants, sleeping 25 to a room and picking vegetables in freezing rain for 50p a day (or dying because their 'employers' considered them entirely expendable, like the Morcambe Bay cockle pickers).
And those of you pontificating about the superiority of 'love' over pornography should perhaps spend a few minutes reading some of the threads detailing violence, cruelty, theft etc in the Relationships topic."

I'm not making any arguments for those industries though. I'm not a supporter of rapacious capitalism that ends up enslaving people. The difference however between pornography and cockle-picking is that it is possible to pick cockles without exploitation whereas what is done in pornography is inherently exploitative. It's why the porn actress I quoted (did you listen to the interview BTW?) says "in the porn industry you have no soul". I don't suppose many non-enslaved cockle-pickers say that.

BTW don't you think that love (how bizarre that you should put it in inverted commas) is superior to pornography (not that it's an argument I've made here but now you mention it...). I'd say kindness, compassion and empathy win out over "Hot Anal Teen Slts" or "Blonde whre forced to suck c then fed!!" (standard porn titles) any day of the week.

"THere have always been some people who think themselves entitled to mistreat others: there was plenty of this (indeed, much more of it and probably much worse) in the days before mass-market pornography. I am not arguing that porn is a Great Force for Good, though the freedom to discuss sexual issues, enjoy sex with consenting adults in all its infinite variations without being imprisoned or stigmatised, etc, is all to the good, but pornogarphy: sexually explicit material designed for recreation not education. is not the root of all evil either."

Nobody ever said it was the root of all evil. No-one. Once again you are using dishonest argumentation to try and score points. Porn is a destructive industry - it chews women up and spits them out, it destroys people's humanity (did you listen to Jersey Jaxin saying how about 75% of porn performers are drug addicts?). You are in complete denial about the realities of pornography.

Also it's a joke to talk about porn helping create non-stigmatised sex. Women are routinely verbally and physcially abused for being sexual in pornography. One of the aims of porn is to stigmatise sexual women as wh*res.

ELizabetth, you continue to confuse the subjective and the objective. There is no factual or objective definition of a 'soul', it's merely something that some people believe exists, and when they refer to it, many of them mean different things. And it is perfectly possible to make porn that is not exploitative: freely-consenting adults making still or moving images for an agreed fee is not exploitation. Also, please bear in mind that while verbal abuse occurs in some porn (not all) it comes under the heading of 'acting'.
Before there was mass-market porn, any woman who displayed any signs of sexual autonomy was severely stigmatised, quite often subjected to drugs and abusive 'therapy' to 'cure' her, if not imprisoned. THis is not to say that porn saved women from sexual repression, merely that the mass-marketing of sexually explicit material happened with the sexual/feminist revolution and there are still people making explicit material with a political agenda to this day. All your posts seem to focus on one particular area of pornography which you find unappealing and you seem entirely unable to accept that people can make material that conveys a variety of different messages.

As to my disdain for 'love' I do not object to human beings loving one another, I find that the intensive propaganda about 'love&romance' leads people (particularly women) to value themselves only in terms of how much they can keep a man's attention, and 'love' is often used to justify both putting up with an unsatisfactory partner and all manner of physical and emotional violence.

LFC: which study of college students are you referring to? It probably has been discredited (or indeed disowned by the people who did it, or at least the people who did it will have complained about the very selective quoting done by the average dimwit anti-porn campaigner). Also, the trouble with any study done on college students and college students only is that college students are generally all hormones and no sense, full of bravado and lacking the empathy that comes with experience.

go madamez! i completely and uttery agree with you.

i now wish to lower the tone completely, who here thinks double anal is actually physcially possible? surely this must be some kind of camera trick>?? please, say it is.

go Elizabetth! I'm so glad that you can be bothered to conduct this debate - threads like these make me want to cry with frustration.

So eloquently argued on both sides I have to say. I'm still with Elizabetth though.

"i now wish to lower the tone completely, who here thinks double anal is actually physcially possible? surely this must be some kind of camera trick>?? please, say it is."

You agree with madamez but you are completely unaware of what actually goes on in porn these days? I suppose being in the dark makes it easier to deny what porn is about.

The reality is that porn consumers want to see two penises in a woman's anus so that's what they get to see. The damage it causes to the woman used in this way does not factor into anybody's consideration -

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1222354,00.html

"Lara Roxx is 18, and arrived in California's San Fernando Valley, the capital of the US porn industry, only days before she contracted HIV. She had moved down from Canada with the aim of making quick money. She was infected while being penetrated anally by two men, simultaneously, neither of whom was wearing a condom. This act is the vogue in pornography today: condoms are rarely used, and the double penetration of a single orifice, whatever the physical consequences or limitations, is seen as hot.

Porn directors are devastated by the news of Roxx's infection. David Brett, CEO of Passion Pictures, told the industry's website, AVN: "I would be mortified if anyone got sick in connection with one of my projects. I have to sleep at night... I would never earn my living at the expense of some other human being's health and safety." So now there is some discussion of compulsory condoms. But there is no discussion of how "healthy" and "safe" it is to brutalise teenagers in the name of entertainment.

Roxx's interview with AVN itself shows the fluidity of "consent" in these matters. "I told [my manager] I wasn't interested in anal at all, and I was a little freaky about the no-condom thing too," she said. On arriving at the film shoot, she was pressured into performing the "double anal" scene by the director, Marc Anthony. She says: "So I get there and Marc Anthony tells me it's a DA, which stands for double anal. And I'm like, 'What? I've never done a double anal'. And he was like, 'Well, that's what we need. It's either that or nothing'. And that's how they do it... I think that sucks, because he knew double anal was dangerous." Later, she says, she was in pain and could not sit down."

Eighteen year olds getting a disease that will kill them in order that people can have orgasms at their expense. I wonder how many people masturbated to the scene that showed Lara Roxx being infected? But hey, who cares, porn apparently is "healthy sexuality".

Dh (a user of porn) and I have been discussing this thread - he works in a very male environment where porn is discussed openly amongst the guys and magazines are often passed round between some of them. He is adamant that loads of them admit to looking at porn but say if their wives/partners found out they would be in big trouble - so, just in 1 work place are at least 10 men dh reckons who look at porn but do not tell their wives or partners.

"ELizabetth, you continue to confuse the subjective and the objective. There is no factual or objective definition of a 'soul', it's merely something that some people believe exists, and when they refer to it, many of them mean different things. And it is perfectly possible to make porn that is not exploitative: freely-consenting adults making still or moving images for an agreed fee is not exploitation. Also, please bear in mind that while verbal abuse occurs in some porn (not all) it comes under the heading of 'acting'."

I haven't confused anything madamez. Just because you make pronouncements doesn't mean that they are true. A porn performer speaks with authority on what happens in the industry. She's a witness to the abuse in the industry and she is brave enough to speak up about it and more and more are doing so. As for this hypothetical non-exploitative porn that it's possible to make, don't you think they'd make it if they could? There are still self-employed cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay after all. I prefer to deal in reality rather than fantasies however.

"Before there was mass-market porn, any woman who displayed any signs of sexual autonomy was severely stigmatised, quite often subjected to drugs and abusive 'therapy' to 'cure' her, if not imprisoned. THis is not to say that porn saved women from sexual repression, merely that the mass-marketing of sexually explicit material happened with the sexual/feminist revolution and there are still people making explicit material with a political agenda to this day. All your posts seem to focus on one particular area of pornography which you find unappealing and you seem entirely unable to accept that people can make material that conveys a variety of different messages."

Women's sexual freedom came from the women's liberation movement, not from pornography. Pornography is still trying to shove women back in the wh*re box or did that completely pass you by. My analysis of porn addresses mainstream heterosexual porn which is the porn that is most widely consumed. It is not a minority interest.

"As to my disdain for 'love' I do not object to human beings loving one another, I find that the intensive propaganda about 'love&romance' leads people (particularly women) to value themselves only in terms of how much they can keep a man's attention, and 'love' is often used to justify both putting up with an unsatisfactory partner and all manner of physical and emotional violence."

I'm not keen on the romance propaganda either so don't bother trying to pretend that's where I'm coming from.

Hello I'm back but not for long. Just wanted to say GO! Elizabeth and STOP KIDDING YOURSELF Madamez.
Bye!

Elizabetth: here's a list of names for you to Google.

Nina Hartley
Annie Sprinkle
Anna Span
Petra Joy
Candida Royalle
Tuppy Owens
Marisa Carr

All these women are or have been involved in making porn or striptease performance that is made by and for consenting adults, that aims to arouse women as well as men, that has some political points to make.

I'd be interested to see if your answer to this is

They don't exist

They are all lying

That's not really porn.

Thank you Mrs Marvel and policywonk.

Madamez what makes you think I haven't googled those women? You tell me what the difference is between the content and performers in those women's porn compared to any other mainstream porn, because I've looked and it's exactly the same.

Those women are just shills and fronts for the porn industry - to give it some kind of pathetic female stamp of approval.

Hey, speaking of Nina Hartley though, here's her take on the current state of porn (from that article I linked to earlier) -

"Modern porn has become increasingly savage. "You're seeing more of these videos of women getting dragged on their faces, and spit on, and having their heads dunked in the toilet," says even pro-porn campaigner Nina Hartley."

If even a paid shill of the porn industry is saying things are bad it doesn't say much for the strength of your arguments madamez.

Madamez - do you work in the sex industry? I've always wondered...

Mrs Marvel, why, do you?

Elizabetth: why is a woman who doesn't condem the very existence of pornography a 'paid shill' no matter what she says and a woman who criticizes it to be believed without question?
Do you object to all sexually explicit imagery, or do you use the term 'pornography' to refer only to the stuff which you deem unacceptable (yes we probably should have established this distinction earlier on).

You refer, a lot, to the porn industry humiliating women for being 'whores' yet you seem to think it's Ok to condemn women for consensual sexual activity - if they say that they enjoy anal penetration, according to you, they are either lying or too stupid to know that their husbands/parnters hate them.

No I don't Madamez.

"You refer, a lot, to the porn industry humiliating women for being 'whores' yet you seem to think it's Ok to condemn women for consensual sexual activity - if they say that they enjoy anal penetration, according to you, they are either lying or too stupid to know that their husbands/parnters hate them."

You never address a single one of my points do you? You can't argue that the porn industry calls women slts, whres and c**ts even though you pretend it's sexual liberation for women, so instead of addressing that appalling woman-hatred that is promoted almost across the board by the porn industry, you come up with some bull about how I think women are lying or stupid or that I condemn them for their sex lives.

I don't think women are lying or stupid, I just hate the men who abuse women and who hide behind women to justify their abuse. It's very easy to understand.

You couldn't even answer MrsMarvel's question directly madamez - do you work in the sex industry? Instead you answered her question with a question.

All you've done here is show the tactics that pro-porn people will use in order to justify their habit.

It would be a shame if this fascinating thread
(started working my way through it last night)
ended in a bitter personal stand-off.
Thanks to both of you for giving us a good debate.

Inspired me to do some digging on the Swedish initiative -
I had no idea the Swedes had outlawed buying sex 8 years ago.

Googling 'Sweden prostitution' yields some headspinning results:
depending on which link you click you will either get euphoria
or outrage about the Swedish laws.

A fairly sober Norwegian report - at the bottom of this page -
comparing Sweden to the Netherlands is worth a read and, yet again, reinforces the same old wisdom:
Legalise it, regulate it and use scarce police resource to clamp
down on the real crimes e.g. underage sex, trafficking and forced prostitution.

Didn't ITV shelve it because it was too much like the MM story. I missed it and really wanted to watch it.