Bbc article about filmed rape on pornhub

[ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51391981

Trigger warning - graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

This article has really disturbed me. Her description of her state after the attack, bloodied and beaten, and the police asking her "was it consensual? Was it a wild night gone too far?" And after it was discovered that the footage was on pornhub, how her classmates not only watched it but bullied her over it, with parents telling their sons to stay away from her in case she "seduced them and accused them of rape". This is footage of an unconscious 14 year old beaten to within an inch of her life being violently raped, and people still blamed her and accused her of lying. And how it took so long for pornhub to take the footage down, only when she pretended to be a lawyer. What chance does the victim of revenge porn, or the rape which didn't leave her almost dead, or where their was initially consent have, when even such an extreme and clear example of rape is treated this way?

The thing that shocked me most though is that pornhub still has videos up titled "unconscious teen gets abused" with the justification that it's a "popular fantasy" and "all forms of sexual expression should be allowed". It's so revolting to me that any man could be aroused by that. Without doubt a lot of men who watch porn are watching rape and they just don't give a shit.

I don't know how we come back from this. I was reading an autobiography the other day where the author was describing visiting a porn shop in the 80s, and how the feminist bookshop opposite would put cameras in their window to catch and shame men who went in their. It made me realise that if we weren't able to get a handle on porn back then, when it was actual shops not the Internet, when feminism was united on the issue, when the images of extreme abuse weren't mainstream, how can we ever hope to now? How can we even begin to put the genie back in the bottle? And if we can't - if porn, even extreme violent porn, can't be stopped - then where do we go from here?

job of the women in their lives then becomes to construct a narrative around the man that still paints him as a good person. If they don't do that then they have to accept that the person they love is despicable.

That's interesting. I had never thought about it like that. I have called my DH out on porn use he says he doesn't want to watch it anymore anyway, but there is no doubt my feelings towards him have changed and I suspect this is probably irreversible.

Wouldn't it be great if a women saying to her friends "I caught him using porn" had the same reaction as one who said "I caught him cheating"? If a shocked silence fell and everyone said "omg are you OK?" and it was just assumed that the relationship would be over or at least that a huge amount of counselling would be needed to repair things.

Do people not have these conversations prior to getting too involved in a relationship?? I mean porn is a pretty contentious issue, and if it’s a red flag for you it’s worth raising before getting too committed.

Equally if you use it (and can justify it) then come out and own it if it’s a deal breaker for your partner give them the choice.

How relationships can get years/decades in and something like this comes out of the blue is beyond me. Either someone lied in which case shame on them or the couple never had THAT conversation and if you haven’t checked to see if you have shared values what are you doing??

you haven’t checked to see if you have shared values what are you doing??

A bit simplistic tbh. Porn is insidious so what starts out as not really a problem can become a problem 20 years down the line and breaking up a family over it is not something most people want to do.

Do you mean when people’s values change overtime? Because that is perfectly fine and normal. It just requires a commitment to communication within the relationship.

Yes a value change maybe or a realisation that social conditioning has made porn acceptable

Which is why solid conversations are a good idea to ensure continued compatibility.

I think you're underestimating how much power a lot of women feel they have in relationships. Women are conditioned to be on the back foot constantly. We aren't supposed to make the first move. We aren't supposed to initiate important conversations about marriage, children, or exclusivity. A lot of women are effectively passengers in their own relationships, afraid to have a voice that isn't compliant and supportive of the man's needs. I really think a lot of women would feel too nervous to ask "so do you use porn?" at an early point in a relationship, or they do what I did and insist they're fine with it because its "normal" and "every man does it" and they don't want to seem controlling or uncool or prudish etc etc. Or they don't think it's any of their business as long as it isn't impacting them (like effecting their sex life). Maybe I'm doing women a disservice, but I know that in all my relationships prior to this one I never felt confident enough to challenge my boyfriends on any bad behaviour, and if they ever did something I didn't like I would rationalise it and convince myself that it was my problem to get over.

I didnt use to have a problem with porn when it was videos and magazines, the videos were clearly acted and the magazines were photos.
My exH used it a bit and I didnt care.
Then it started being internet porn and he used more, I found it a turn off so stopped really paying any attention.
Fast forward 10 years and he is an ex husband with a porn addiction, deathgrip and a webcam habit which killed our marriage, and I'm horrified what is on mainstream porn sites.

I bet there are a lot of women like me, who got married in the early 2000s when mainstream porn was an entirely different kettle of fish to what it is now. It is not as simple as saying we should have set our boundaries at the start

And yet again it puts responsibility onto women to object and police their partners, when the question is ''why do men get off on watching the abuse of women and girls?''

In the book "we should all be feminists" Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the phrase "i did it for peace in my marriage". She says that when men say this they tend to mean that they've compromised by not doing or doing less something they should never have done at all. "My wife doesn't like me using strip clubs so now I only go once a month. I do it for peace in my marriage". Women on the other hand use it to mean compromising on something that they should be entitled to 100% "I stopped asking my husband to help around the house. I just do it myself for peace in my marriage". I think the same is often true for women in relationships. Men hide, moderate, or stop using porn to stop arguments about it, not because they developed a conscience about it. Women tolerate, minisise, or pretend not to no about porn use because they believe its a battle not worth fighting. Both sides do this because they have an underlying belief that porn is something men are entitled to, regardless of the effect on the women in the films or the women in their relationships. The man's job is to please himself, the women's is to facilitate him even at her own cost. Saying that they just need to communicate better at the start of the relationship ignores the power dynamics and social conditioning in play. Lots of women don't have the confidence to enforce those kind of boundaries, or walk away if they're disrespected.

Yup quentinwinters. Horrible trajectory isn't it.

Sounds like we are all in agreement, those sorts of relationships are best avoided entirely!

I think it's intriguing that porn is still, even in our porn soaked culture, something that men will hide their use of.
I don't think this is a conscience based thing, in the sense of men being consciously aware they are often likely watching rape, and contributing to the denigrating of women. But I do think it's the last vestiges of the useful bits of a dying culture that had very clear boundaries about appropriate sexual behaviour.

The idea that the national broadcaster would have an article discussing pornhub, and that pornhub would put out a brazen statement about free speech, would have been beyond the pale in the not too distant past.

There are a lot of positives to the broader death of shame - but the problem is that the trajectory doesn't have a clear and sensible cut off point, at which we say, 'yes, it's brilliant that we encourage people to talk about their sexuality without feeling that sexuality itself is dirty, but we don't need to remove every single taboo around sexual behaviour'.

In fact, so clear is it that this cut off point doesn't exist, that porn is a frequent tame punchline in Friends and if you object to someone outling their sexual predilections openly, you are kink shaming.

Men still hiding porn is probably the very best chance we have of pushing back, because it means there is still a pretty strong residue of understanding that viewing porn is a grubby, sordid thing for a man to do, and if a man wants you to think he is a decent sort, he would hide any porn use.

Lib fem bollocks and progressivism would have that taboo removed so that men would feel no need to hide their porn habits, because the idea that if a man likes to watch porn he is a social inadequate, stunted in so many ways, is just a regressive stereotype.

And another problem there is that the thrill of a huge amount of porn is the transgressive nature of it - if once it does become run of the mill, men will seek out more and more extreme ways to find that transgressive titillation.

Sounds like we are all in agreement, those sorts of relationships are best avoided entirely!
With hindsight yes, but I still think 20 year old me would have made the same choices. Then a few children down, marriage and all that entails and it does become about "peace in the marriage". Until the point it becomes intolerable.

I'm worried about our children because it has now become so normalised, and all the resulting anal/choking/slapping etc. It is really very sad and I dont know what can be done about it. I talk to my kids, probably in far more detail than I need to, but I think the bigger problem is that porn is so normalised, even promoted, so they probably think I'm being an old fuddy duddy.

Yes I think that's true. If there's one thing I've realised from FWR it's that any steps women take to liberate or protect themselves from men, becomes an object of fetish. Single sex spaces, female empowerment, female sexual liberation in its true sense, lesbianism / any rejection of men sexually, laws about consent/ age of consent etc. I guarantee that if porn became banned/100% socially unacceptable, then being caught in the act of watching gporn would become a fetish catagory in its own right. Or "woman forced to watch husband watching porn" would become a porn catagory. Not only do these men not care if they hurt us, they actively get off on it. I don't know why. But you're also right that if it becomes thoroughly mainstream then these men will look for worse ways to "transgress". Those age of consent laws will be the next ones under fire, I guarantee.

I've also noticed a disturbing trend of linking things which are anti women's rights to other forms of "culture", so that you cant fight for women's rights without being seen to be against another protected characteristic. You can't criticise the niquab because it's islamophobic. You can't criticise surrogacy because it's homophobic. You cant criticise drag or fetish gear because it's part of "gay culture". And increasingly I'm seeing porn and "sex work" linked to "queer culture". What "queer" means in this context I can only guess, but I'm reminded of the porn festival that "object" and "nordic model now" protested last year, where the organisers went to great lengths to emphasise that it was not just a celebration of porn, but queer porn. I think if we let this linking happen it'll make a push back much harder.

I saw this and it is bloody disgusting.

How on earth can this website claim they are acting legally if they have videos of women and girls being fucking knocked about on their site. How can anyone justify porn when it includes violence.

And just what does it take to get a bloody rape conviction and get support for women?? It was videoed. A bloody video in existence, and the poor kid had to answer questions about whether it's consensual? All her family and anyone who helped spread that are complicit in the way that poor girl was treated and women's abuse in general, all of them. Including police men whose first question is variations on the old favourites of 'you're lying' or 'it didn't happen'.

Awful topic but some powerful observations and truths on this thread. Everything grabthars says.

poor use of swear words there, apologies. But it deserves swearing.

ByGrabthars, I personally think that the 'Queer' umbrella is a genius way of creating that sacred caste Lang talked about without needing to have any actual vulnerabilities at all. It's the perfect vehicle for privilege, which is precisely what that Dentons report suggested as strategy, and what that conference a FWR poster reported from - hook yourself to a cause that has a positive reputation, like period poverty or equal marriage.

Only in these cases, they don't even need to hitch their wagon to a righteous cause- Queer is so malleable it has the perfect veneer of righteousness without having to go to the bother of finding a tangible good. Call porn Queer, and it has a magic force field.

This is so well understood as a method in certain circles that JJ thought she could deploy it, and I don't think she will actually fail in the endeavour long term. Although she came a cropper initially because she doesn't have a penis, and the one thing that really gives the game away that Queer is just 'Patriarchy 2 - The Glitter Years' is that it's never geared to liberating women, materially or otherwise...

all of these sites contain large amounts of underage, revenge and rape material.

they do nothing to verify if the.content uploaded is legal

Do people not have these conversations prior to getting too involved in a relationship??

Shock horror most some men lie to women about their porn use, including about specific content and the sheer volume of consumption. They gaslight us about porn use being healthy and acceptable but they know deep down it's highly morally problematic so they lie.

My ex certainly did.

Actually it would be great if men would have these conversations with us at the start of a relationship. "Hey, by the way, I shall be consuming large quantities of pornography on pornhub daily, involving wanking over the sight of multiple other real women's naked bodies, watching sexual violence and disrespect towards said women, which actually turns me on rather a lot, and some of the content might involve actual rape, underage girls and almost certainly vulnerable women with no other career opportunities available but I'm not going to think much about that, just have the wank anyway. Quite soon on I won't be able to get it up for you without Viagra becasue you're just one boring female compared to the sweet shop of diverse exotica on the internet and I'm probably going to subtly pressure you even if unintentially by leaving you feel pretty dull if you don't do what the women in porn are made to do because I'm so desensitised to vanilla now. I might one day even struggle to feel horrified about BBC news articles about raped teenagers on pornhub becuase I've actually fantasised and/or watched similar and I'm desensitised about that sort of thing too. So how about that coffee then?"

I know in the past rape videos have been posted to YouTube and they get taken down pretty damn quickly. Social media sites usually manage to take down streams of mass shootings etc. It’s not like it’s not possible.

I posted about this this morning, and I was amazed at the numbers that looked for this site - are these all men? Are women among them? I can't imagine they could be. But what a horrific story