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.

I can't help being dull and predictable dittany - I've sadly come to terms with it.

I think you'd have to find significant evidence that porn harms women ( ie: does it stop women getting jobs or getting on with their lives in general? - are some men sexist pigs purely because of porn or would they have been sexist pigs anyway? (( yes of course they would ))
you have to produce conclusive evidence that porn severely harms women, if it's a simple case of women finding it distasteful and offensive that's not enough to restrict adult use. If you're going to use the argument that porn harms some women, we could argue for the banning of all car driving on the grounds that there is an undeniable causal link between people driving cars and a large number of people getting injured.

A study was conducted by Gallup and was based on 1020 adults.

In reference to explicit sex magazines, movies, and books;
73% of people believe they lead to some people to commit rape or sexual crime.
76% believe it leads people to lose respect for women
67% believe they lead to a breakdown of public morals.

I personally think porn use does stop women being able to get on with their lives and these stats support that.

Carmina if you want evidence that porn harms women - watch a porn film. The harm is right there on film for all to see.

For 'significant evidence' - go and participate in a porn film. If it doesn't harm women, you'll be just fine right?

Porn is hate speak against women. What is so difficult to get about that?

Prolesworth: You have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that pornography is the reason men act in the way you describe. Do you genuinely believe that if pornography had never existed the sexual abuse of some women would never have happened? Are you saying that men are so easily influenced that if they see something in a film they have to act it out? I don't believe that. I think there are some sexually inadequate men who will use porn as an excuse to validate their immaturity and patheticness. I don't doubt there are women being exploited in the porn industry - that needs to be addressed ( how and by whom I don't know ? ) but you can't restrict adult use of a legal product simply because some people find it distasteful and offensive. I am not pro-porn in any way - what I am is pro-choice. I believe adults have a right to access legal pornography if they wish.

Yes you have to prove it dittany - if you can't you could call for the banning of short skirts and low cut tops because they attract male attention. All sex scenes on TV should be censored incase they give men 'ideas' - burn all erotic Victorian literature too. In fact, why not just ban the entire male species and just be done with it.

I've ordered Gail Dines' book from Amazon, and I've started to read her blog and advocacy pages. It looks really interesting. Thanks

carmina why don't you think about why men want to jack off to images of women being abused, instead of instantly going in to the tired old censorship argument

Society in general - A small group of people being offended by something is not sufficient grounds for banning it. And It's naive of women to think that if pornography was totally eradicated all would be right with the world. Sexism exists because some men have low self esteem and try to exert some sort of pathetic 'power' over females ( and other males ) - they are to be pitied. The nicest, strongest ( in body and mind ) kindest men I know respect and admire women ( and use porn occassionally ) I know you have women's interests at heart dittany - the relentless dedication to your cause is admirable - but most 'controversial' issues are never that simple to explain away in the way you sometimes try to - just because someone says or does ABC - doesn't mean they're XYZ
Try and be a bit more open minded.

Xposts - that was to dittany - sorry

Rape has nothing to do with sex - it's about power and control

A huge part of porn is also about power and control, see a link yet?

Porn harms women because it sends out a clear message that society has no problem with women being treated as a sub human sex class by men.

Society condoning porn sends out the message loud and clear that it is fine to rape women and children and verbally and physically abuse them.

Porn makes a mockery of the concept of consent and sends out the message that it is fine to do so.

Carmina I'm not 'offended' by porn, I'm fucking revolted by it (I mean this in the 'revolution' sense of the word although the 'disgusted' sense works too).

'Prove beyond reasonable doubt' - get a grip woman. Would you ask someone to prove that films of black people being called niggers and being physically abused by white people 'caused harm' or would you think it was pretty fucking obvious?

Yeah, let's prove that dressing women up as under-age school girls and filming them being gang raped and choked on penises is harmful. What a waste of time when one could just engage one's brain and see the harm.

Beachcomber is spot on!

Ok - maybe you're right and I'm wrong.

I don't know as much about the porn industry as some of you do, so I will read the links and look a bit more into it.

However, I still maintain that the vast majority of porn users are normal people and no threat to women.

Thank you for the links.