Discussions about porn

[Wandawomble]

Have noticed a few things and just want to put them up for thought.

Discussion of porn affecting women and girls often gets shouted down. Why do some women in particular get so protective over it?

Discussion of porn affecting women and girls gets hijacked by sex workers saying it’s their right to do it - I don’t disagree that people can do what they want with their bodies but why can we not talk about the effect that porn has on other women and girls? I think they are two separate issues. How do we talk about both in these kinds of discussions and separate the two issues in a coherent and respectful way?

Ideas and thoughts?

Oh I didn’t see the deleted posts so annoying !!

I teach young people (college age), and up until very recently they tended to be quite similar to previous generations, not just in terms of life experience but in terms of general opinions, too. But I have found this has changed very recently.

A lot of it seems to be bound up with a very confused kind of "feminism" that is porn-influenced in some very weird ways. I teach some papers in feminist history and adjacent areas, and have recently had (female) students tell me stuff that literally makes me speechless. Such as matter of factly claiming that women innately desire to be brutalised during sex, because "I went to a conference on ethical lesbian pornography and they said women like to watch violence too, so it must be normal and innate". Other girls telling me that the most privileged women in society are "gold star lesbians" because they don't have to have violent sex with men which is otherwise routine for young women. Total acceptance of choking, anal sex, porn and "rough" harassment as normal and expected.

The first time I started hearing stuff like this within the past two years I felt like weeping at the way these girls seem to not have any conception at all that this hasn't historically been at all normal. It's now way beyond trying to explain that women mostly only started shaving their pubic hair after the millennium -- I tried to explain to one girl that being slapped roughly or choked or performing "breath play" during routine sex, was just not part of the culture when I was growing up and she literally didn't believe me. I didn't know what to say to her.

I have a small daughter and I'm so worried for her, growing up in this environment.

I absolutely detest porn culture and the type of porn now freely available goes well beyond the sexual freedom argument IMO - it's just purely damaging and evil. Last week I searched for something on Google and had inadvertently phrased it in a way that was unintentionally sexual tons of graphic hardcore images immediately popped up, and there right up at the top was a photograph from a "teen" porn site of an adult man being fellated by what looked like a small girl the actual girl might well have been over 16 but she was dressed like a small child, to look like a ten year old, and she did look like an ten year old. I still feel sick thinking about that image and probably I ought to have reported it to someone, but who?

There's this pro-porn mantra that that doesn't happen and you have to go looking for that kind of content, but no. I'm 45 , but my kid could have typed something into google and that could have popped up. No sane or healthy society would allow this situation to happen, and I honestly feel such rage and despair at the way this is convincing young women that they must enjoy this kind of thing too, and so fearful for my child not knowing how I can possibly protect her.

I tried to explain to one girl that being slapped roughly or choked or performing "breath play" during routine sex, was just not part of the culture when I was growing up and she literally didn't believe me.

Part of the toxic culture that has developed is to create a division between women of different generations.
They are going to have to rediscover feminism for themselves, later in life. They'll have to do the work from the ground up and without our support. It will be harder for them, because the opposition is more organised and more determined than before.

TheInebriati yes definitely -- I often have students saying to me that they want to study feminism but only the "modern kind of feminism" - they are told by their own (female) peers not to read those nasty second wave feminists. (It's a feminist history paper, ffs...what are they taking it for if they don't want to read any non-"modern" feminism? )

I end up making them actually read some proper old-school feminism, and it tends to go one of two ways - either a student says "Oh I thought they would be old and crusty but they actually have a point!" -- or, sometimes, they say to me things like "Oh but I just think [1980s feminist writer] would be less angry if she had ever met a non-binary person?" and I can only roll my eyes.

I do think this is the first sight of a really new kind of generational consciousness though, which doesn't see sexual exploitation and hardcore sex acts as political any more, but as innate. It's like talking across a void. They jump up and down about ecological issues and capitalism, but are completely unable to cope with the idea that porn or sex work might be damaging and exploitative.

@stackthecats

You’d post is terrifying :-(

There was a thread on Mumsnet not so long ago about teen girl magazines of the 90s. I forget if it was in the feminist section or not.

The magazines had their flaws, but learning about sex from those magazines was far, far superior than learning about sex from porn.

Exploitation dressed up as empowerment.
I wish I could copy the quote from another poster on another thread I was on a couple of weeks ago. She basically said the above.

Thou must be fuckable and up for anal at all times so... make sure it's bleached is now a normalised message to women in society. Thank you, Pornhub and Fabian Thylmann (he makes Larry Flynt seem as benign as Santa). I feel like young women have just curled up and capitulated to an extreme form of hyper-sexualised subservience... and called it Fourth Wave Feminism.

I posted this on the AIBU thread TheVanguard, not sure if this is the one you mean:

One one of the worst things that's happened, that we've allowed to happen, is the repackaging of women's exploitation as empowerment. The reality is that while some women might thrive in these environments, the majority don't and the impact of the industry has such powerful ramifications for the way women across society are treated it's hard to claim that it's liberating for women.

< momentarily blows own trumpet >

You're the one Rabbit! That's the quote!

It's absolutely stayed with me, what you wrote! And I'm so, so glad I found you again, here in the MN forest of threads!

Snuck out of FWR briefly Vanguard without anyone noticing! Waves 👋😊

For me, violent porn didn't seem bad when I was younger and identified with the women in it because of internalized misogyny/self hatred. Now I'm older, I see them more as a daughter or niece and can have actual empathy and it is so horrifying to watch. I can't imagine how men can get off to this stuff. It's sadistic.

Agree super that the internalised misogyny is strong. I also think that being accepted is really important whether that's in a social group or to potential partners. I don't envy young women the porn infiltrated culture they're growing up in.

I think that girls are no more immune to the messages they get around sex etc.

How women are often presented or present themselves that way on social media etc impacts how girls look at the world as well as boys. Same with seeing porn.

Both sexes learn (blanket statements follow!) that it's very important for girls to have certain types of bodies, presentation of those bodies, hair, makeup etc. From porn they both learn that the male role is to be dominant and the female role is to give him what he wants.

Both sexes learn to view women and girls though the male gaze. It's iniquitous so how can they not?

Also of course there's all the things to navigate- dating, first sexual experiences, both sexes often talk up what they know or have done to appear more worldly. Boys have their sex check list and coerce to tick stuff off as they have always done. Girls and boys are both very very interested and inquisitive about sex, this thing that is new to them.

So both girls and boys consume male gaze and learn to see the women in porn as objects same as boys do. Also it's normal to want to try what you have seen.

As ever the issues are that porn is highly unrealistic in many ways. The messages in modern het porn are very grim. Things that used to be niche are now vanilla. How to do more difficult stuff without pain etc is not shown in porn, or that if you really want to do something it might take a long time (weeks/ months) to build up to it. That for boys the risk is far far lower.. For girls is risk of pain, injury, higher risk of STD, risk of pregnancy and then there's the psychological stuff and the way many boys treat girls (frigid/ slag).

The dynamics of young het sex I doubt have changed much but the pressure, lack of really knowing much past porn, focus on male pleasure and dominance and women as receptacles... That is different.

In short it's a total shitshow. And in the end it all benefits heterosexual men and boys.