Society feels so porn obsessed these days

[H2OConnoisseur]

Here are some things off the top of my head that I've observed in the past few weeks alone:

1. My previously nice, decent (mostly male) friends from Uni have bought into the mantra that 'women objectify themselves anyway' and now constantly spam the group WhatsApp with Instagram and OnlyFan links of women, complete with ensuing discussions about how 'fuckable' they are

1. I was on a job-seeking forum for students and recent graduates, and so many posts were about cam work or OnlyFans, and so many men were posting about how women are fortunate that they could get rich doing something like that

1. Almost all of my friends have boyfriends that watch/subscribe to porn accounts, with a good amount of them even chatting with the content creator. Half of them hate it but feel like they don't know any men who aren't like that and that if they say anything they're being 'jealous and possessive', and the other half think that there's nothing wrong with it and that the people who do have a problem with it are 'jealous and possessive'.

I know I should just ignore it if I don't like it but it's everywhere and I am frankly a mix of disgusted and frustrated about it all. A year ago, I was even told by one of my (now ex) best friends (completely out of the blue we weren't even having a conversation) that he would subscribe to my OnlyFans if I ever decide to create one!

Not sure what the point of this thread is but I'm having the worst day and am trying to refrain from cursing out a friend after she told another friend that she was insecure for wanting to leave her porn obsessed boyfriend!

@H2OConnoisseur

I think it's seen as a 'feminism' thing these days. If you're not (I see this word everywhere too) 'sex positive' i.e. perfectly ok with your partner watching porn/OF ESPECIALLY if you don't want to indulge in your partner's kinks however extreme (choking is trendy now and face-fucking and anal is sort of 'expected'), there's some 'internalised misogyny' you have to work on as apparently you still subscribe to the notion that a women's sexuality should be repressed.

That's an actual thing I've seen and is something that is widely agreed on, even by women! I don't even know where to begin to find anyone who doesn't subscribe to that viewpoint. It seems so widespread and if you disagree you'll just be disparaged and 'cancelled'. A part of me doesn't mind if I drift apart from my existing friends but another part of me feels like this is just the way it is today.

Well, that is depressing.

I’ve seen this going on, more on online though, it has to be awful to live it in real life.

I’m well aware that people here don’t like asexuals, but i got to say i’m really glad i am one.
Don’t really have to bother with any of this (in a relationship i mean).

It's all said under the banner of feminism and women's empowerment as well which I find really irksome.

God that would make me positively rage!

I think it's possible that there is a generation of women who will be mostly lost to this, hopefully in a few years time there will see how dangerous 'sex positivity' is if it involves being coerced to accept being choked and penetrated anally on a regular basis.

I wonder if that small age difference helps you to see things more objectively. Even a couple of years can be significant...

If I was late 20s now I would like to say I'd be critical as you are but I'm not sure I would be. It's quite possible that I would be a fully signed up woke member of choice feminism, it took me a while (thank you FWR) to find radical feminism. I think I was always there really but didn't know it. I didn't know we weren't making progress until 5 years ago or so.

This is tough OP as these are your friends and you are probably surrounded. There are groups popping up though, I know of the Cambridge Radical Feminists and other around the mid-20 age who are rejecting porn and 'sex work is work'.

All I would say is it's your life, you're able to say who you want in it or not. You can leave the WhatsApp or just mute if you don't want to draw attention to your distaste on the content, you can brazen it out and say at every possible opportunity that porn is gross, prostitution is exploitation and men with sexual fetishes aren't good enough and need to do better.

Personally I think we need more kink shaming, men with a porn addiction and a casual attitude to the exploitation of women should be at the very bottom of the dating pool and women should know their worth. Strong women are sexy as hell and this kind of BS shouldn't be tolerated.

In true MN style, "No is a complete sentence."

I will definitely be on the lookout for those groups! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Between vocal Uni societies, sex work booths on Open House days at Uni (not mine but a friend of mine attended one that had this), and leaflets from Uni that essentially are 'how to' guides on how to get into sex work, there are days where I feel like maybe I'm the one with archaic ideals and that this is something I need to learn to accept/support.

My field is pretty young, male-dominated, and extremely 'woke' in this respect (OF women were casually discussed between my fellow interns the same way you'd talk about, say, YouTubers you'd watch?!) too so that's depressing. If only there was a filter in life where I can automatically block out all conversations about such topics!

OP "Between vocal Uni societies, sex work booths on Open House days at Uni (not mine but a friend of mine attended one that had this), and leaflets from Uni that essentially are 'how to' guides on how to get into sex work, "

Oh. My. God.

Agree with pp saying about WhatsApp as brain dump. I had it and got rid of it very fast. People said "oh you can mute it" - then why should I have it?!

Do connect with with the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network, I think they have joined or connected with the Oxford group and are looking to grow.

From what you've explained it sounds very much needed at Universities especially!

A sex work booth at an open day?

https://www.facebook.com/315209715873425/posts/958400718220985/?d=n

It's funny how the sex work is aimed at women, never at how men can become rent boys.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-be-a-sex-worker-advice-for-freshers-2nhxvlwjf

That's the one from my friend's school that made the news. That incident then sparked a 'debate' at my school and the overwhelming consensus (everyone else was accused of being prejudiced) was that sex work is empowering and that our school should have the same booth too.

No booth but they did start a (mostly informal) OnlyFans support and advice group.

Yes, this is getting worse and worse.

Society as a whole struggles to talk about the sexualisation of women though. We don't have uniforms here in schools - god help you tough if you suggest that schools shouldn't accept young women wearing pretty much whatever they want no matter how porn star inspired, otherwise you are a pervert who is sexualising young women

It's like language has been turned upside down and ideas don't need to make sense.

I mean if the support group was how you don't need to do it then I would be support that idea but I imagine it's all about how to do it safely (why are women and girls told to bind safely, how to have anal sex safely, how to offer yourself up for the pleasure of men safely...as a PP says, do they have an OF support group for men, are men told how to be choked or tied up safely?)

Universities could consider lowering their fees so women didn't feel the need to earn money this way, if retail or bar work wasn't an option. That's what students did in my time at Uni. Bar work is work.

I would also hazard a guess that no one in that support group would have the first clue how to safeguard a woman with learning difficulties or help a woman on OF who had a traumatic and/or abusive past or how to protect them from stalkers etc and no specialist advice from anyone who knows a thing or two about how porn affects you mentally.

I bet it's a peer group where they all encourage each other to ignore or break down their own boundaries.

Just reading this OP

www.instagram.com/p/COw2sYkL6xf/?igshid=5jx8839p54t8

Maybe Mary Whitehouse was right? Never thought I would be saying that!

She did have a point but unfortunately she was also fairly unpleasant and a bit of a bigot. Her objections to pornography were also unfortunately based on her own narrow interpretation of Christian morality

She was easy to laugh at and very difficult to admire and likely hindered far more than she helped.

@H2OConnoisseur

[[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-be-a-sex-worker-advice-for-freshers-2nhxvlwjf]]

That's the one from my friend's school that made the news. That incident then sparked a 'debate' at my school and the overwhelming consensus (everyone else was accused of being prejudiced) was that sex work is empowering and that our school should have the same booth too.

However, senior academics at Sussex University, including Alison Phipps, a professor of gender studies, oppose what Phipps called “contemporary feminist opposition to the sex industry”, which involves an “emotionally loaded” attack on sex workers’ rights

Well ,wouldn't you know- if it wasn't Phipps peddling this claptrap it would be Sally Hines.

I read the following somewhere (could have been Cambridge Rad Fems)...

Porn is the marketing department for sex trafficking.

It's all said under the banner of feminism and women's empowerment as well which I find really irksome.

A feminist who centres men is like a vegan who lives on meat. It’s nonsense. ‘Third-wave feminism’, as they call it, is simply not feminism. I don’t know why they use the word.

Did you post in the relationship forum a while back with this? If it's you, you've come to the right place.

You're so called decent friends sound incredibly gross, immature and a bit misogynistic really.Can you honestly imagining them having respect for women if they're like this? I wonder what their mothers would think of their sons behaving this way in a Whatsapp group with women in it. Disgusting.

Your*

Imagine*

It used to be about helping people look their best and making women feel confident. Now it’s all about who’s the hottest and sexiest.

Even something as stupid and mumlike as knitting is getting in on this. I've been picking up a bunch of knitting books at used bookstores to expand my skills. A couple of them, (one even called 'Hot Knits') had the the whole 'Cosmo' thing going on with the models- wearing unbuttoned sweaters with nothing on under and such. Who did they think they were appealing to with that? All I can think is "God, that must itch like crazy" and "Who would wear that like that?" One of the books has a inset about encouraging men to knit. Maybe the half-naked models in frumpy knit coats is one way of achieving this?

Female Dating Strategy on reddit is a place where young women gather to critique porn culture, the mainstreaming of kink and other lib-fem notions of empowerment. There's a lot of humour too, and you don't need to be single or looking to date to join in.

Well ,wouldn't you know- if it wasn't Phipps peddling this claptrap it would be Sally Hines.

Was she the one who called modern UK feminism disgraceful? I remember it was a professor who said it but never really paid attention to the name nor do I remember the platform she said it on.

Re: Female Dating Strategy on Reddit, I didn't know that! That sub has a reputation for being full of 'femcels' (posts saying that elsewhere tend to come with massive numbers of upvotes) so I never really checked it out. Will do so now!

Ah OP, no advice but we are pretty much the same age, we can be friends if you're in the north west? I have found as I've gotten older I dont have many friends and also the proportion/number of male friends in particular has markedly declined! I only have two single male friends - one who has known me since I was born and the other a friend from sixth form who went on to the same uni as me - and the other few male friends I have I'm friends with both people in the couple and we will often do things in couples with DH too. I don't think that's a coincidence, I feel as I get older I generally dislike men more...(I know, I know, NAMALT and all that...).

@Rocaille FDS is incredibly toxic.

I'm highly critical of porn culture but that isn't the way to go imo. I'm amazed that sub hasn't been shut down tbh.

At risk of derailing op's thread, I'm curious to know why you think that coronaway...?

Temp023

Justa47
@H2OConnoisseur

I agree is not very nice or classy.
But it’s also freedom.

I would keep my distance.

“What part of any of this is making women free?“

Neither men nor women.

The men are being completely lead by their noses. Their brains hijacked and addicted.
They have no control of their lives or reactions. They are anything but free.