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.

Apologies: yes that was meant for the other thread. I get confused by these circular aguments, the same denial and refusal to face up to the truth of this stuff, the same intellectullay vacuous pro-porn arguments, the same shit really. It's depressing, but so, so predictable

"MacKinnon claims both that pornography is used by men ?to train women to sexual submission? (MacKinnon 1987, 188), and that ?pornography conditions male orgasm to female subordination? (MacKinnon 1987, 190). *In other words, pornography shapes both female and male sexual desire into victim/abuser roles that are then treated as natural forms of sexual and gender expression"

Is this why so many women are unable to understand the argument that is being made?

" Furthermore, pornography promotes rights violations not only of the female partners, friends, acquaintances, and relatives of the men who consume pornography, but also of the women who participate in its production, according to MacKinnon. This is because the acts caught on film in much pornography are allegedly coerced through intimidation and money. In MacKinnon?s words, pornography represents ?sex forced on real women so that it can be sold at a profit to be forced on other real women; women?s bodies trussed and maimed and raped and made into things to be hurt and obtained and accessed, and this presented as the nature of women; the coercion that is visible and the coercion that has become invisible ? this and more bothers feminists about pornography ? pornography causes attitudes and behaviors of violence and discrimination that define the treatment and status of half of the population? (MacKinnon 1987, 147). In short, a number of feminists conclude that pornography is not simply a reflection of sexism and male domination, but that it ?nourishes sexism?

My head hurts too, too much thinking and quite honestly I feel disapointed that some women can't see the problem and find it so depressing.

I haven't read Dines book, so I am off to find it.

Beachcomber

Yes, I went to the link and commented on it - it all sounds very horrible

Dittany

No, I don't watch porn, no-one I know watches it, I'm actually pretty anti-porn,

But... what I'm challenging here is this black and white "all women are abused" ideas, "porn watchers hate women", ideas that seem so prevalent here.

www.shelleylubben.com/porn-quotes

"I sit there everyday and I sew up anal tears and anal prolapse and the physical conditions of what people are putting their bodies through is getting very, very far away from sexuality as we know it." - "Doctor" Sharon Mitchell Adult Industry Medical (AIM)

Apologies if I'm missing some people's posts here. Seth, I was typing fast, what I'm saying is I don't know how many in hollywood are being abused, and I don't know how many in porn are (I'm sure some are, and I'm also sure it attracts vulnerable young women), and importantly, neither do you?

Why? Why is it so important to challenge? This is what I never get. Why do women need to defend porn to such an extent? The only reasons I can ever think of make me so sad.

perhaps I missed it, but I haven't seen posts on here saying 'all women in porn are abused'. You seem, however, to be attempting to argue against the idea that abuse is common.

are you one of these people who has this very outdated idea of what porn is like and doesn't realise how much the violent and abusive stuff has taken over?

I really think you need to read Gail Dines.

seriously Prosperina.
name me one non-porn Hollywood film in which there is a chance the actress has been asked to have anal sex with several men at once resulting in anal tears.

this kind of thing happens in porn. It does not happen in normal films. So yes, actually, we do know.

your arguments are really straining credulity here.

I didn't asked you how many women in Hollywood are abused (that would be another entire thread I suspect). I asked you this;

"Prosperina how many Hollywood actresses do you know of who have had to go and have their anuses stitched after a days work? How many come off set having contracted a sexually transmitted disease?"

I then linked to an oft quoted doctor from Adult Industry Medical who says she sits there everyday sewing up anal tears and prolapses.

I Cannot Believe I Am Having This Conversation.

Oh, silly me that link I was looking for was posted on this very thread! Just earlier.

Prosperina - These women were all paid to be raped. It still isn't ok.
This link is far more evidence from the horses mouth than you can produce yourself. Basically, if this doesn't convince you, nothing will. www.shelleylubben.com/pornstars

www.shelleylubben.com/porn-industry

"Out of about 1,500 performers in California, 37 people that we know of died from AIDS, suicide, homicide and drug related deaths between 2007 and 2010. 20 more died from medical causes to include lung disease, heart failure and cancer. These are only the deaths. There are many more living with diseases and cancers which are too numerous to count.

That is a total of 57 premature deaths. No other industry has these kinds of statistics, not even the music industry which is at least 10 times bigger than the porn industry. (Read my book for more statistics.)

When the deaths of 129 porn performers over a period of roughly 20 years were analyzed it was discovered that were an unusually large number of premature deaths from such causes as drugs, suicide, murder, alcohol abuse, accidental death, and disease. It was also discovered that the average life expectancy of a porn performer is only 37.43 years whereas the average life expectancy of an American is 78.1 years."

And, don't forget, that all concerned are choosing to earn their living this way.

You lot have more patience than me. Thank you from a lazy (or maybe just approaching burn out) lurker.

I'm giving up for tonight. The most depressing thing is that exactly the same argument has been going on with different people on the thread in AIBU.

still, something has just occurred to me. At least the title of this thread has been visible in active convos for ages, raising the possibility for people who think it is all find and everyone does it, that 1. some porn users feel guilty and 2. some people think porn is wrong.

The "porn is legal therefore you have to prove it does harm" argument is particularly callous and blinkered isn't it?

Stoning raped women for adultery, is legal in Saudi Arabia - I think most of us can see that such a practice causes harm.

typo - all fine and everyone does it

I know, dittany, and that's why I thank you and all the others with more stamina. My hope, along with seth's much more noble ones, is that we ruin the buzz for a porn user who has previously read one of these threads and actually starts to see the abuse. Because reducing the demand is just as (or more) important as tacking the supply end of things.

I mean that it's the mental (SFW ) image of the moment the buzzkill happens that keeps me reading and learning.

Am neither anti nor pro-porn.

but to bastardise a human behaviour beacuse 'we think it's filthy men stuff' is, quite frankly, self defeating, childish, idiotic nonscence.

Why should men not like to look at naked women??

Doing - stuff...???

Really??

& is it beyond your comprehension that some women may, for better or worse, gain a living from providing such a thing???

Is that all you have to contribure after reading a 600 odd post thread, spinderslegs?

Really??

Yes - humans is as humans does.

& they should not because?

We says it is bad

& wrong

& dirty

& harmful

So yes Aye

I do