Porn - I use it and feel bad - help convince me porn is wrong

[GuiltyPornUser]

Firstly, sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, although I thought it may be the most appropriate. I'm a married man, and I use porn fairly regularly. It's not something I feel has a massive negative effect on my life, but I feel bad about it. I'm not someone who specially goes out of my way to buy porn, (I've never paid for it), but with the internet, it's only ever a few clicks away.

I want to be convinced that it's wrong. I recently read Andrea Dworkin's book on pornography, but it hasn't stopped me. I appreciate that a lot of stuff on the web is very brutal and degrading to women, but a lot of the stuff is less obviously so.

My DW wouldn't be happy with me using porn, and I want to stop. I want to be convinced that it's wrong, and how I go about stopping using porn, when it's so easy to find on the internet.

There may be some here who think porn is acceptable and I'm just suffering from some almost religious guilt.

I'd really welcome some advice here, because my DW could find out one day and I want to stop.

Here, here HerB and WWIFN!

Carminaburana wrote - "If men had all the power and were so in control, why do so many of them have mental health issues? alcoholism/drug addiction/ suicide - all far too common amongst men (sadly)"

Men as a group control women as a group on a society-wide basis. I think those health issues you've listed that men experience (along with women of course), are more about self-control and/or control of the individual.

The biggest form of power has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with money and status. If you're born into a poor family your outcomes aren't particulary brilliant - even today. ( something like 75% of children from poor backgrounds leave school at 16 )
And on the subject of money, Poor Men haven't always had the right to vote in this country, in fact only around 15% of men were eligable due to property laws and god knows what else ) So that particular 'right' wasn't just denied to women. Also, the suffragettes had plenty of male supporters, it wasn't just women who thought they should get the vote. throughout recent political history men have helped women in their bid for equality and freedom ( for example the abortion act ) so I don't know why you insist with this 'men want power over women'
They don't.

Historically, Men with money had power over everyone. That's why unions were formed so the rich could stop screwing the poor. ( the rich man owned the factory, the middle classes managed the factory, and the poor man did all the work ) I don't think much has changed.

Men don't want power over women?

Then, erm, why have they got so much of it?

The poor man/rich woman argument gets made here all the time. The point is, all other things (economic, race, class) being equal, who has the power? Everytime it's men. Which would seem to indicate that they do want power over women.

I have worked with children and have seen that in groups boys spend all their time jockying for position. More time is spent trying to establish the pecking order. In groups of girls it is less obvious and less overt.

What is interesting to observe though is the fact that the boys spend almost no time trying to establish their dominance over the girls. Why?

I wonder if this is because they somehow feel that it is a natural given, that they have dominance? or is it that they have no wish to control women?

I'm inclined to think that the need for control stems from sex and reproduction. It seems that men have a struggle between what they want and what they morally expect of women. Porn feeds into this compex duality of male sexual desire and moral reasoning.

If pornography is educating young men or shaping the desires of men who view some of this hardcore porn and giving the allussion that some forms of behaviour are normal why are so many men retreating from real relationships?

I probably wasn't clear. I was trying to state that Rich men exsert power over poor men and women. If you remove all other inequalities men will still try to dominate women.

Just wanted to add something to this thread, that I have said on a porn thread before. If you don't mind I'll C&P it. It is relevant to a comment made by Carmina saying she thinks the internet should be more heavily policed;

"I used to work for a subcontractor of google. The job was supposed to entail all sorts of things but it really came down to trying to sort out the referencing so that the www is not overwhelmed with porn.

If it weren't for people like me doing that job then just about every common word ('girl' 'clothes' 'urine' 'glass' 'trousers' 'shoes') would come up with the first 10 pages full of porn sites.

So in order for the internet not to be just one big pornfest, but actually a useful and amazing tool for gaining and sharing knowledge, people like me had to spend their working days cleaning up after the porn makers and consumers flagging up their presence so that kids don't get pictures of women having bottles shoved up their anuses when they put 'glass beads' into a search engine."

And from another post.

"Again the problem with the voyeurism/exhibitionsism stuff is that it is in the public domain.

If people want to film themselves having sex and then make those films available to other adult viewers who wish to see them and have actively sought them out, that is none of my business.

However once stuff is on the net anybody can access it or be exposed to it.

There are loads of websites for viewing films by streaming, for example, which have links to webcam sites. Why should a person (particularly a teenager) who wants to watch a film be exposed to adverts and picture links showing people flashing their bodies or women sucking penises?

Nobody would think it was right for a child to be allowed to go into a sex shop and be exposed to porn so why is it alright on the internet?

As I said earlier there is a lot of work done to try to keep the referencing system of google being chock full of porn - this operation costs a lot of money. That money is recouped through advertising gain. Why should it be for the people who use the internet for legitimate purposes such as running small businesses to pay to stop the www becoming the world wide porn web.

Sorry to go on about this but I was quite taken aback by the scale of the whole thing and the costs involved. (and lots of this is cluttered up by Mr and Mrs average having fun with their webcams)"

So there you go Carmina, one of the reasons I am so against porn and happen to know quite a lot about it.

BC; I would happily pay another £100 a year in tax if I thought that money would go towards cleaning up the Internet, because I agree, our children need protecting from some of the truly disgusting stuff that's out there. It's too easily accessable and that's a worry for me as a parent. We, as a family have installed the best child safety device we could buy - nothing gets passed the sex filters on our home computer ( we only have one family laptop and that has always been downstairs so I can see what's going on ) our children have always been heavily protected where Internet porn is concerned. No Porn magazines/videos have every been inside our house and never will be. ( I view porn on my iPhone )
I am just as passionate about protecting the vulnerable as you are!
(Ps; I aplogiese for what I said to you a few days ago - I was out of order and I'm sorry )

Wrt hardcore porn being a backlash for feminism, I asked my dh what he thought about that ( he has used porn in the past but doesn't anymore - bored with it I think ) he agrees with that statement, he feels that a lot of men resent women becoming independent and successful ( career wise ) and porn is now the only place they can have total control over women, because they're losing control everywhere else.

Maybe I am in denial.

Typos probably appalling - typing while walking

LOL I spot a chink in that armour of denial Carmina.

Sometimes it just takes an honest man to admit something, for the whole edifice to collapse.

Which of course, is why so many of them so vociferously deny what is so bloody obviously staring us all in the face. They know that if they admitted it, the implications would be too uncomfortable for them.

PS with apologies to others for hijack, what porn filter software do you use?

Thank you Carmina, for your apology.

Yes, I would like to know about that filter too, though it makes me to think I have to pay to police the internet for my dc who just want to go on Club Penguin so that others can access porn.

p.s. Carm: you said 'I am just as passionate about protecting the vulnerable as you are!'.

If you really are, you should read a little more about the kind of women who feature in porn before you watch it again.

Yes it pisses me off that I have to pay extra so that some people can have a wank.

They should be paying for their masturbatory aids, not me.

The worst 12 minutes of their day.

Sounds consensual, healthy and reasonable doesn't it.

Why do men want to jack off to seeing women going through the worst 12 minutes of their day? And why are the rest of us so reluctant to answer or even ask that question?

there was a line in the Max Hardcore doc where he says to her 'We're not happy till you're not happy.'

My issue with your posts dittany is that you always seem to talk about men as if we are all the same and all nasty corrupt creatures. I have no interest in seeing women abused. I have always believed that sexual violence should be censored in films. I used to work in a workshop and factory full of men and most of them were as outspoken about violence against women as women would be. Just this morning I have been consoling an acquaintance who is devastated after losing his wife who he has nursed through a long illness. I don't recognise in him or nearly all the other men I know your tainted view of us.
Having (mostly) lurked here for a while I have a greater respect for feminists but I think you do your cause no good saying things about men like "(a man just using a woman's body as a fuckhole to get off in)". You seem to judge us by the worst of our gender but would soon get on your high horse if others did the same talking about women.
Google searches do nothing to say what is going on in the minds of the average man and as I am a man and having interacted with thousands of men over the years I think I have more of an idea what makes us tick than you do.

The filter we use was sold to us at the same time as the laptop, (we were told it was very effective ) all we had to do was install a disc and that was it - it blocks all pop ups and censors sex sites ( and certain words ) we renew it every year and so far we've never had a problem with it ( I'm not saying it's completely foolproof but it works for us )
I don't have anything more to add really - the porn I've used has women who look a lot older than 18 ( 30+ maybe ) I don't look at any other porn sites apart from the ones I'm interested in - I use Internet porn in the same way I use any other service/shop - I go in, get what I want, then get the hell out, I don't stop to look around.
And I don't know why Men use porn in the way they do because I'm not a man.

Would just like to add, I would support any government action/legislation to rid the Internet of porn completely, because my needs are nothing compared to the protection of vulnerable women and children ( and men ) - but if it's legally available people will continue to use it.

Dittany you come over as a really unpleasant individual. You actually rarely do anything to distinguish between different types of men. You are always jumping into threads to say only men do this when talking about something one individual has done. My post was just to say we are not all like that. I don't watch or want to watch violence against women. I said in my post that long before this disgusting stuff became available to all on the internet I thought that sexual violence against women should be banned in films. Any way carry on hating all men and tarring us all with the same brush. it's obviously what keeps you going.