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.

It is wrong because it is exploiting other human beings. Would you want your DC to work in the porn industry-if not why is it OK for other people's DCs? Are yours more equal?

Can someone prove to me 'beyond reasonable doubt' then that porn doesn't damage women? Thought not. Because it's blindingly obvious it does

Why is the emphasis to prove the other way? Interesting that.

As someone once said on here, orgasms are not that important. Why run the risk of the damage to women, just so men can have orgasms? I wonder.

And as for this! "to be honest dittany I'm not interested in getting into an argument with you - I think everyone here knows by now what a boring and futile exercise that is." Seriously?! Who is the everyone you are speaking for? Count me the fuck out. I am reminded why I maintain that women only spaces are utterly important and it is essential they are defended.

Count me out too. My first exchange with dittany on MN was a slightly heated one. I look back now and recognise that I was talking wishy washy bollocks and dittany was being uncompromising in pointing out that I was talking wishy washy bollocks.

Women need to express feminist values in no uncertain terms. Why should we be nicey nicey and mince our words when we are being killed and raped in this godawful society? We will get nowhere if we stick to the (controlling and oppressive) patriarchal rules of being feminine and nonconfrontational (why do you think those rules exist?).

On a lighter note, I nominate this for feminist quote of the week;

"If you open your mind too much your brain falls out Carmina. Then you need a feminist to come and help you pick it up again.".

Carmina you said;

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

I think you are probably right if what you mean is that these porn consumers will not suddenly go out and rape, or force their wives to choke on their penises. (They might express disgust at women's pubic hair though or pressure their partner into a sexual practice she is not comfortable with.)

However these 'normal people' are the main reason the porn industry exists. They have already done harm to the women in porn by creating a demand for porn and therefore a need for an endless supply of women who can be coerced into doing porn.

Porn, just like prostitution, preys on the disadvantaged and vulnerable members of society. Or rather the men in porn prey on the vulnerable. There was a study done (I think I read this in a Jensen article) where women who had a history of sexual abuse where X times more likely to be asked to do porn than women with no history of sexual abuse. I'll try to look this up later when I have more time.

Civilised humane people protect the vulnerable members of their society, they do not jack off to images of those people being exploited, raped and reliving abuse. To say porn consumers are not a threat to women is to erase the suffering of the women in porn. It is to treat them as non-existent in terms of being real people, it is to treat them as less than human.

David51

I think dittany & Beachcomber in particular would benefit from reading this:

That is a supremely patronising post David!

It would be on any section really, but here in the femist section, from a man to a woman. Well .

Part of Finn Mackay's closing speech at FiL comes to mind:

And the role of men in our movement is another issue that has seen much debate over the past year.

Of course, all men have a role to play in the struggle for women?s liberation. For example, they can stop rape, by not raping women. They can bring the sex industry to its? knees by not buying women in prostitution or consuming pornography. They can remove their lucrative patriarchal pound from the institutions that are oppressing us and demeaning them.

Our pro-feminist brothers can further this aim by challenging other men. By picketing lap-dancing clubs and other such establishments, by putting themselves on the line, just as women have to do, every day, both in those clubs and without ? on the streets, in our workplaces, in our homes.

But however men are involved in this movement, I suggest one place they should certainly not be is in the leadership, because I believe that women should lead and direct the women?s movement. And this is a political stance, one all too often reduced to so-called ?man-hating? by those who do not appreciate the grand scale of woman-hating that goes uncommented and unchecked in our society on a daily basis.

As the late Andrea Dworkin maintained, we are not feminists because we hate men, we are feminists because we believe in men?s humanity, against all evidence to the contrary.

But protecting our women-only spaces is just another struggle we are forced to confront, as this vital place for organisation, resistance and recovery continues to come under attack and is fast disappearing. All oppressed groups should have the right to political self-organisation and ours should be no exception. We should not be made to justify or apologise for women-only space; one our most dynamic tactics for change that we have built up over the decades and which our movement has been built upon.

I saw you say something else very patronising a while ago.

IMO posting here as a man, proclaiming to be a feminist, you need to be very respectful of this being a predominantly woman-only space.

BC: I understand what you're saying and I agree with you - tbh I haven't seen a lot of heterosexual porn (as I know it would do absolutely nothing for me ) - I have seen lesbian porn and they looked pretty happy to me - no power or control going on.

if its the case you are addicted to porn I would suggest you seek professional help.

Carmina, you just need to google 'porn' and look at the first few results.

I'm not advising you to do so however unless you want to see some really nasty shit. Mainstream porn has become very hardcore nowadays.

Personally I find it extremely concerning that children and young adults are being exposed to this stuff. We are a far far cry from the 'dirty videos' in over 18 sex shops image that porn has somehow managed to retain.

I think most people of our generation who defend porn don't really know what they are defending.

Sue

I wouldn't say I'm addicted to porn, it's just I use it, and although don't like it, I hadn't really seen the need to stop.

To use a parallel with alcoholism, that addiction usually leads to problems with people, i.e. letting your wife, your children, etc. Up to now, this certainly hasn't been a problem with me and my wife (some of argued that I'm lying to her and I would say I haven't, I've just not told her everything I look at on the computer)

As I can see it with pornography, there can be several objections

1. It leads one to view women as objects - I'm not sure this is the case for me
2. It is abuse of women in the movies - this is something I am definitely becoming convinced of today through my reading
3. It is hurting my relationship with my wife - I don't think it has (I'm not a compulsive user by any means)

This second point is the most convincing to me, that it's likely that the participants in the movies may be being abused.

"AliceWorld I disagree - orgasms are important, but if you've reached the point yopu can;t have them without porn, feminist objections to it are the least of your problems, frankly"

Really? On the whole scale of things, that important? More important than the other impacts of porn?

4. Porn users are often shit at sex as well.

1. if you have daughters and they EVER find out, you risk them losing respect for you forever and wrecking your relationship.

(see recent thread about how old people were when they first saw porn - quite a few people there said they found their dad's and it damaged their relationship with him forever)

6. Chances are you are wanking to a victim of sexual abuse being sexually abused.

Let's not mince our words.

Wish I'd not added my No 4 now. Not because it's not true, but because I dropped my guard and started spoonfeeding.

I am sure there are lists on antipornmen and the like.

7. It leads you to compare the consumption of people to the consumption of things.

(Stop with the fucking offensive alcoholism analogy already - women are not bottles of beer.)

I'm not sure how you'd know porn users are often shit at sex, unless you have an impressive lover list.

Carmina, mindbogglingly, I believe the sexual performance/relations of men who consume porn has been studied. I can't be arsed to look it up, I'm afraid, but the upshot was that they were shit in bed.

I can't be arsed because I care much more about the women who are harmed by porn than I do about the porn consuming men who were studied, or men like them.

OP Keep reading and keep browsing this section. Think of it as a journey. Once you've realised (2) you start to notice more insidious translations of porn into mainstream culture. And once you start to notice that, you start to notice other things: recent posts in AIBU have been subjects like a woman asking a dental surgery to turn off a Lady Gaga video because she had a young (I think pre-school) daughter and teenage son with her - at first her son was embarrassed (and the OP was rounded on by people demanding their civil liberties to be allowed to watch Lady Gaga videos in public) but even her teenage son came to the OP later to say he could see why his younger sister shouldn't be exposed to that; or why police officers would stop a lone woman at night and tell her to 'be careful' without any specific advice as to how, so the assumption for some has been that as a lone woman out at night she has to be careful. But really, you only have to read the news. TBH the scale and relentlessness of violence against women because they are women depresses me so much I find it hard to read the news nowadays.

With regards to (1) society is already doing it for you. As per Lady Gaga video example above, or another thread where many people thought the OP was out of order for asking a man in a playground waiting to collect his children not to salivate over Page 3 while he waited (apparently the right to view Page 3, essentially soft porn, wherever, whenever, is a civil liberty, even if in the school playground) - you may think you, personally, are not objectifying women, but I would very much imagine you are passively consuming and subscribing to a lot of the views that do, even if you think you treat women as equals in RL. I've sat opposite blokes on tube trains looking at page 3 and then looking at me. It's not comfortable. Imagine the council have licensed a lapdancing club to open two doors down from you. Do you want it in your back yard? If not, why not? It all comes back to empathy. Can you understand that a child or vulnerable young adult, sexually abused, would equate their experience as their 'worth' and continue to replay attaining that 'worth' or sexual attention through getting involved in porn even if it involves physical, mental and verbal abuse, as well as sexual, in a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom? Or to prove to themselves they are undamaged and empowered by entering a world where they will be abused again and again because well, they took it once, so they can take it again, and it's ok this time because they're being paid right?

With regards to (3) you may take longer to realise this. But as Dittany has pointed out, she doesn't know. What do you think your wife would think of the porn sites you visit? How do you think you would feel laying next to her in bed each night if you knew she viewed vulnerable people being degraded and raped as masturbatory material? I would lay good money on the fact that at some point you have wanked to something billed as 'barely legal' even if the website disclaimer's small print (if you bothered to check pre-wank) stated all models were of the legal age of consent (this is not an accusation of paedophilia towards you AT ALL - it is a comment on the prevalence of this kind of porn, and if you believe in supply and demand, well, for someone to invest money in this kind of genre of porn you can bet there's demand). If you haven't got children, how would you feel about having children with someone who thinks 16 - 18 year olds are fair game for sexual exploitation?

You've got a lot of questions you need to answer for yourself if you are genuine about wanting to be 'decent'. But the more you read and reflect the better chance you have of getting there.

And please let go of the alcohol analogy. It doesn't help you take responsibility.

Mindboggling indeed

I am very uncomfortable about why GuiltyPornUser has chosen this particular space to unburden himself. It seems potentially a little pervy in itself. I can't pretend I do know his motivations - this is only guesswork - but why does he want the women here scolding him and discussing his nasty secret habits when he could read up what he needs to know and think about in private, or discuss it with some of the anti-porn men on some of the sites that have been suggested to him?

I can neither confirm nor deny whether my n is sufficent to achieve statistical significance.

Sorry to hijack the thread, maybe should have posted this on the other thread.

I have just watched that documentary with Felicity. I actually felt sick, repulsed and even tense and nervous sitting in my own home even just watching it, I can't imagine how she must have felt there. I also felt more than anger, so angry at those men I cannot even describe!

Does this actually happen???? I CANNOT actually believe that a person could actually act like these guys. The manipulation that Max Hardcore guy was trying!

I'm actually waiting for someone to come and tell me it's fictional, made-up!

Totally shocked, and I am not by any means naive in fact I am the complete opposite (and I mean that seriously) , but this has shocked me beyond belief.

If this is indeed what happens behind the scenes then I will never watch any porn (only watched it a couple of times nonchalantly in company in the past) and will never be happy with any partner of mine or my son doing that.

{Shocked and horrifed} sorry for thread hi-jack - I went looking through the other thread to see which documentary you were talking about.