Do you watch porn?

[RadandMad]

I've been reading a convo on Twitter where several people are claiming - including a woman - that women watch porn as well as men. My first reaction is, this isn't true. Sure, I've watched it from time to time, usually in the company of men, but it's so boring, so divorced from real sex/real bodies, that I'd almost rather do anything else.

Am I wrong? I realise I'm asking a group of women who are probably going to have a more cynical view of pornography, but I'm having a hard time believing women have a porn habit even remotely comparable to men's.

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter

No. I have seen it in the past and words cant describe how un-sexy I found it. So contrived, cliched and geared solely towards male pleasure.

Having heard about the porn industry and how they treat women in particular I wont ever watch it.

Yep - exactly - hasn't changed much over the years - I barely watched any when younger!

They 'say' that the women who do it now enjoy it and what they earn from it etc but I find it hard to believe especially if you view some of the videos, they look like they're taking advantage of people - usually young teenage girls etc desperate for money, fame etc.

Porn is not one homogeneous mass of the same style of video. I avoid the professional stuff and prefer amateur couples or individuals. I don't watch it often but do occasionally

I'd be interested to understand the reasons why women, here, do watch porn?

I've obviously see some porn, but not for a long time, and when i did it was almost like an act of knowing self undoing/ like I imagine the drive for some towards hard, illicit drugs. A sort of negative fascination.

I suspect that rather than fulfilling an existing need, all that regular porn consumption does is to create a persistent itch that demands to be scratched. And the site of the itch simply gets inflamed by repeated scratching, even as it offers a quick release, and even pleasure, in the very short term.

Sexual images are very powerful, and those that you are exposed to actively shape your imagination, and are difficult to shift; and even when you know an image is not attractive or appealing it still exerts an influence on your physical and imaginal responses.

As girls we were conditioned to view even ourselves as objects for the gaze of others, and especially men. And that is how many women's sexual responses have been conditioned. Not to imagine ourselves as active participants but as recipients of the actions and gaze of others.

I used to consciously experiment with active subjectivity.....because i would find myself automatically making myself an object - when walking down the road, when coming across others, especially men. I would automatically do this. Entering into subjectivity rather than objectification can be a very powerful and liberating experience.

I think any article that claims there is such a thing as 'feminist porn' can be discounted immediately 😬

Some interesting insights in here as to why women might watch porn

Can you explain why you do; if you do, that is?

To be honest, I used to love sex and be very sexual when younger - but always what some might call very 'straight' or 'vanilla' sex. That was all I wanted, needed or desired.

I'm no longer sexually active , and I'm frankly glad it is all over. Sex seems to have become a devouring monster in our culture; and it probably always was, and always had the potential to become as such.

Beneath the sex drive lie all sorts of vaguely articulated needs and desires, and many of them quite frankly self destructive, masochistic or sadistic: more about recreating past trauma, or seeking to relieve some past trauma, than about love or simple pleasure.

Here's another quite recent study into reasons for female porn consumption. Only 27 women involved in the study so difficult to generalise findings obviously, but might help to give you some insight to the reasons why

What about you?

Can you do a short precis of the above study?

No. Nor does my DH.

It's not "short" but... shorter than reading the full thing! grin

I get the gist.......and I understand the mechanics, but what really interests me is what sorts of urges are driving the desire to watch porn. I get that we all have a natural sex drive that seeks some kind of fulfilment......but for many people this seems gets distorted by personal emotional and psychological/psycho-social issues, and this is what we see being played out in porn, or in people's consumption of porn.

Pornography, thus, is a source of experimentation and education (Albury, 2014) for women. Our informants have learnt a lot about female sexuality, its experiences and its limits through porn, and it enabled them to develop a sexual repertoire and to discover different sexual techniques (Parvez, 2006)

Yes, but for what end? What exactly is being learned? What is being reinforced?

@ErrolTheDragon

surprising to read people say there's no ethical porn. quick Google reveals 5 Million results. a quick google for 'ethical porn made by women' reveals 3 Million.

Yeah, that's a really credible way of assessing whether something is actually ethical or not.

only laugh out loud moment in the thread.

The only time I watched it was when I was writing about it and I hated it but then again that's not so strange when taking into account the rest of my research on that industry.

@ErrolTheDragon I'm just wondering how I'd phrase the question. I'm not sure I want thousands of people telling me I'm unreasonable

Maybe 'Women like porn just as much as men'? Any suggestions?

Ahh it's like saying that some men "only" go to a strip club to watch a girl dance.

No connecting of the dots or thoughts of the supply chain at all.

And all the shades in between. These things will be played out to a greater or lesser extent within all of our relationships, and perhaps more amplified within sexual relationships, with or without consumption of porn

Yes! Sexual interaction with another is itself a relationship - and as such reflects the issues and qualities of that relationship.

I suspect that 'cementing' or reinforcing these issues with sex is especially binding, though. For good or for bad.

Trying to resolve issues via sex, is probably as futile as trying to address them with drugs or alcohol, though

Any legitimate activity that cannot be distinguished from abuse, or that hides abusers and gives them a cover story is a problem. If your argument is 'you can't tell if its abusive', then your argument is not convincing me to get involved. Just the opposite.

Porn and prostitution drive the multi billion dollar trade in human trafficking. Until the industry can work out how to remove the exploitation, I'll continue to not support it with a clear conscience.

//// This.

Anyone of our daughters could end up on PornHub very, very easily and there's little they'll be able to do about it.