How porn affects women

[Guest]

p.s.

When I ask men who are sex addicts if they would want their wife or daughter to be in porn, 100 percent say, 'No.’ They want it to be somebody else's wife or daughter. They know this material is damaging."
-Dr. Mary Anne Layden

[Guest]

No, they know the women is damaged.

Please tell me how many healthy well adjusted women choose this profession. Anyone?

[DipsyTipsy]

Nope they know how they think about these women and wouldn't want anyone thinking about their nearest and dearest that way.

[Guest]

my gf and i often watch porn...it gets us extra horny before we make love and it has given us some new ideas on positions and on fun, kinky sex like roleplay, etc.

lighten up, feminazis

+1

[Guest]

" Half the women I knew outside porn had been sexually abused as little girls, so it only stood to reason that the statistics might apply in porn as well. One study of the general population claims it is two out of three. The puzzling refrain I'd begun hearing from porn outsiders: "There are plenty of people with histories of sexual abuse who didn't grow up to be porn stars." That's missing the point: The ones who did become sex workers were abused. All of them, that's my guess."

---From Ian Gittler, A Diary of Six Years in the Life of a Porn Star. Rolling Stone October 14, 1999

[elliott20]

But I'm saying that banning pornography all together is the wrong approach to the solution. The problem is the industry, which needs changing in my opinion.

and i'm saying that that abuse is intrinsic in porn as long as it continues. you cannot take an industry which pressurises women to effectively work without condoms (or spoil men's fun) without abuse continuing. they're going to be unprotected no matter what.

psychologically, you cannot have an industry that carves up female sexuality for male consumption, that respects women. thart's what straight porn is. it's not female sexuality. it's female sexuality twisted and bent out of all meaning. when was the last time you saw a male protagonist asking a female if she was enjoying what he was doing?

Then make the porn industry into something that IS a true reflection of what female sexuality is. I'm not advocating that people continue to consume porn that is humiliating towards women (unless you find all depiction of sex that involves a woman demeaning, regardless of how it is portrayed) Porn doesn't have to cater to just men, you know. I honestly do not understand how the depiction of sex, for the purpose of arousing a human being is such a bad thing. It is merely sexuality. I mean, look at most romance novels you read, they're basically the same thing but they're main consumers are women.

If the fantasies themselves are harmful and unhealthy, then i can understand your objection to it. But if it's just a depiction of sexuality, and done in a way that is positive for both men and women, then what is so wrong with it?

In which case, I'm saying that it needs to be moved in that direction.

However, just because child labor might be used to produce clothes, doesn't make clothes automatically evil either. It just means the industry needs to stop using children to produce it.

are you saying porn is ok as long as it doesn't use children? this comment makes no sense to me.

No, you're missing my point. I'm only using child labor as an example of my logical progress because YOU used that as an analogy towards why the porn industry is a problem. You're saying it's a problem because of the means that they are produced, that is, the workers are being abused for it's production.

If exploitation is the problem, then deal with the exploitation as the issue, not the product itself.

here, let me try to do this in another example and see if you get me.

Some buildings are constructed by illegal immagrants, and these immigrants are being exploited because they have no legal protection. The exploitation of the immigrants is wrong. However, this doesn't mean the construction of buildings is in and of itself immoral. It means that the immigrants need better means of protection.

The point I'm trying to get at here, is that, if sex workers are being exploited, then they need better rights, they need better protection, they need better compensation, and they need to be given more choices. I'm all for that. I'm all for porn workers use condoms in all of their work become a law requirement. I'm all for porn workers being allowed to choose whether or not they want to use a condom and not have such a decision negatively impact their career.

And pornography, being as pervasive as it is, an outright banning will simply mean that it become another form and then you're back at hte same problem again.

what problem?

The manifestation of patriarchal sexual values. That is what you have been arguing about this whole time right? The issue with porn that you have is that it supports and strengthens patriarchal sexual values that demean women. Well, let me tell you, porn is not the cause of it. Porn is merely a manifestation of these values. Porn that humiliate women exists because there is a market for it. Why is there a market for it? because sexism is still alive and well in our society.

Banning porn only treats a symptom and not a cause. By banning porn, you merely try to suppress a disdplay of such and force it to manifest in some other way. I can guarantee you that if you ban porn legally, it will simply just go underground, or pop up in some other fashion.

If you want the women in porn to stop being abused and exploited, then you have to give them the ability to do so on their own terms. Banning porn might save some women from the abuse of the industry, but for those without the proper skills to migrate into other labors, you're just taking away their paycheck.

they have the ability to do so on their own terms. they have to get out of there. there's no other way. your argument is like a punter telling me he helps prostitutes, because his money goes toward their drug habit. NO he doesn't. he couldn't care less about them. Can any man truly claim to care about the welfare of porn actresses when they're routinely turfed out within a year of starting once their fresh face as gone?

[Guest]

" Half the women I knew outside porn had been sexually abused as little girls, so it only stood to reason that the statistics might apply in porn as well. One study of the general population claims it is two out of three. The puzzling refrain I'd begun hearing from porn outsiders: "There are plenty of people with histories of sexual abuse who didn't grow up to be porn stars." That's missing the point: The ones who did become sex workers were abused. All of them, that's my guess."

---From Ian Gittler, A Diary of Six Years in the Life of a Porn Star. Rolling Stone October 14, 1999

Who cares about a "guess"?

[Guest]

Nope they know how they think about these women and wouldn't want anyone thinking about their nearest and dearest that way.

I doubt it. I manage to ignore what my father and mother do at night, and ignore that aspect of my kids life too. If one of my kids were doing porn, I would be upset about why they chose that profession, the same way I'd be upset if they chose any seedy job that will never support them.

I'd be upset with myself for raising kids that didn't have a future. Maybe I'm abnormal.

[Guest]

So you doubt you'dmind thinking of your daughter doing triple Anal in one sentence, and then say you don't like to think about the idea of your children'ssexuality in the next. you see a contradiction here?

you may not be happy to see your daughter accommodating the penises of hundreds of men who don't care a toss about her.... but are you ok seeing other men's daughters doing this?

[Guest]

Then make the porn industry into something that IS a true reflection of what female sexuality is. I'm not advocating that people continue to consume porn that is humiliating towards women (unless you find all depiction of sex that involves a woman demeaning, regardless of how it is portrayed)

wellelliot, number one thing that has to go is unprotected sex. how many men will buy sex with women using condoms? porn that acknowledges the reality that there is no perfect sex?

Porn doesn't have to cater to just men, you know. I honestly do not understand how the depiction of sex,

it's not just a depiction of sex, otherwise you'd have fifty yr oldwomen up there. you'd have sexual problems honestly portrayed. you'd have people getting it wrong. you wouldn't just have a machismo fuckfest using very young girls and then turfing them out the second they get bored. that alone.... how are you going to ensure they have careerlongevity? would you have them all sign contracts ensuring they be employed for at least five years? and if a tiny voice inside you finds that disconcerting... doesn't that suggest that these girls will always be at the whim of a director who has a constant supply of fresh females?

for the purpose of arousing a human being is such a bad thing.

male human beings only.

It is merely sexuality.

No elliott it is NOT nerely sexuality. the next time you put on a pornflick, at least have the self-honesty to say, you're the beneficiary of women who have been sexually abused, and think sufficiently little of themselvesto makethis material. porn needs abused women to act out these scenarios.

I mean, look at most romance novels you read, they're basically the same thing but they're main consumers are women.

1. I do not read romance novels
2. romance novels do not take abuse survivors and have them act out scenarios whichlay them open to HIV
3. romance novels were not the majority cause of divorce in america in 2002


In which case, I'm saying that it needs to be moved in that direction.

If exploitation is the problem, then deal with the exploitation as the issue, not the product itself.

how many moretimes... unless you find a wayof producing porn that keeps the performers safe, that shows women getting pleasured equally asmuch as men, that doesn'tpretend that women areactually going to enjoy, to use one example, doing the splits of a motorcycle while being double penetrated, unless you are going to ensure porn never eroticises r**** or coercion, unless you are going to stop porn pretending that women enjoy being in pain, the industry will remain inherently abusive. Exploitative.

Some buildings are constructed by illegal immagrants, and these immigrants are being exploited because they have no legal protection. The exploitation of the immigrants is wrong. However, this doesn't mean the construction of buildings is in and of itself immoral. It means that the immigrants need better means of protection.

elliott - i'm not dumb. your exampleisn'tcomparable. see my answer above the uniquely insidious ways in which the hetero porn industry is exploitative.

I'm all for porn workers being allowed to choose whether or not they want to use a condom and not have such a decision negatively impact their career.

and the reality is that if a woman says no to sex without a condom, she'smore or less out of a career. how are you going to change that when it's 'ordinary' men, who wouldn'tdream of seeing their own daughters involvedin this, who fuela billion dollar demand for other men's girls to be unprotected for their thrills?

The manifestation of patriarchal sexual values. That is what you have been arguing about this whole time right? The issue with porn that you have is that it supports and strengthens patriarchal sexual values that demean women. Well, let me tell you, porn is not the cause of it.

someone raised this argument on page1. he said guns are not the problem in society - it'speople's desire to kill that makes them a problem. i countered that both guns and people's desire to kill were the problem. i'dsure dislike if someone wanted to kill me, but i'd far rather he didn't have access to guns in that instance too.

Porn is merely a manifestation of these values. Porn that humiliate women exists because there is a market for it. Why is there a market for it? because sexism is still alive and well in our society.

so areforcedmarriages, female sweatshops, women being denied education in africa. we'dstill be better off without these nightmares, even if sexism is here to stay.

Banning porn only treats a symptom and not a cause. By banning porn,

be specific here. a syptom or a cause of what. if you mean a symptom and a cause of sexism, it'ssurely both, is it not? unless you deny that viewing pornography might change the way men see women (increasing and intensifying any sexism thay werepartial to when they commenced viewing) then surely it might be a cause to.

If you want the women in porn to stop being abused and exploited, then you have to give them the ability to do so on their own terms. Banning porn might save some women from the abuse of the industry,

now you're just contradicting yourself. First you say that porn actresses are forced into their situation, but now you're saying they DO have the power to get out of it if they want to, ON THEIR OWN.

not in the sense of having a gun forced to their head. in the sense of abuse framing their early expereincesgiving them low self-esteem. with regard to getting out, me saying they have to do it on their won terms was wrong. they just have to do it fullstop. cut their losses. thankyou for pointing that out.

Can a woman get out of the porn industry and mobilize herself into a different industry ALL on her own? If she can, then banning porn is a moot point because then that means these women are there because they choose to be, because they think that's the best money they can make. But according to some of the previous posts have tried to assert, they can't. Which is it? Cuz right now I'm trying to understand your stance on the performer's situation in porn. Yes, yes, I get it, some of them are living in situations of destitute, poverty, and exploitation. I get that.
now help me understand their empowerment.

ok - you found a point where i explainmyself badly. i mean they just have to cut and run, and all the life experiences which forced them (morally) into porn in the first place will be there waiting for them.

Here, answer this for me first. Do you have an issue with the depiction of sex in ANY FORM. Strip away the images that you see in pornography, and just think ANY image of people having sexual intercourse. Because, this is the base of what I'm saying. I don't think the depiction of sex in and of itself is evil. And not once have you ever bothered answering me on that account.

sorry elliott - i answered this above. tome it's obvious that it's not "just" a depiction of sex. it is a depiction of sex, but a very contrivedone. maybe female intuition is needed to understand how far the sex it depicts is anything that most women would want, yet those girls have to moan and yelland pretend they're having the time of their lives. there'shonest depiciton and then there'sthe kind porn gives you, phoney and dishonest, if you think those girlscould actually be enjoying what they're doing.

[Guest]

So you doubt you'dmind thinking of your daughter doing triple <A HREF='http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/catalog/default.php/cPath/23_64_255' target='_blank'>Anal</A> in one sentence, and then say you don't like to think about the idea of your children'ssexuality in the next. you see a contradiction here?

you may not be happy to see your daughter accommodating the penises of hundreds of men who don't care a toss about her.... but are you ok seeing other men's daughters doing this?

I think, you think, far too much about this. It's called overanalysing. Porn shouldn't be confused with either r**** or a bad work environment.

[Guest]

sorry elliott - i answered this above. tome it's obvious that it's not "just" a depiction of sex. it is a depiction of sex, but a very contrivedone. maybe female intuition is needed to understand how far the sex it depicts is anything that most women would want, yet those girls have to moan and yelland pretend they're having the time of their lives. there'shonest depiciton and then there'sthe kind porn gives you, phoney and dishonest, if you think those girlscould actually be enjoying what they're doing.

You mean bad porn. Yes it should be banned, so I can find good porn easier.

[Guest]

if you think those girlscould actually be enjoying what they're doing.

Nonsense, they are much more concerned with the camera angle and whether their makeup is straight. Males and females both. Bad porn just makes it obvious the director should be fired and good porn, like any good acting, brings you into the scene with them.

[Guest]

if you think those girlscould actually be enjoying what they're doing.

Nonsense, they are much more concerned with the camera angle and whether their makeup is straight. Males and females both. Bad porn just makes it obvious the director should be fired and good porn, like any good acting, brings you into the scene with them.

Good porn is a valuable contribution to society.

[Kalith]

Wow, WHO THE F*** CARES. Girls GET OVER YOURSELVES. There are women in the world who not only enjoy porn but partake in it. If you are going to chastise the entire male gender for porn when not all in fact actually look at it. Then you better straighten yourselves out first. FFS, if their were no willing women their would be no porn....i mean comon, befor you breath down the consumers necks, might as well eliminate the product.