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HappyPlace
writes:I was listening to the recent case of Vincent Tabak who killed his neighbour after he had watched violent porn, particularly of men placing their hands around woman's throats and tying them up in the boot of a car!!! So what did he do, he strangled his poor neighbour after inviting her in for a Christmas drink! I listened to a radio programme here in England yesterday on the subject of the influence of images. A Madame phoned in (anonymously of course), stating that when her workers were with men and they had videos on in the background, she noticed (and her workers), how much more depraved men became, watching the screen and wanting to replicate what they saw. She warned her workers not to go down certain roads with the men, but the girls needed the money, so slapping and "pretend" strangling became the norm. When asked by the presenter whether "images influence men" she categorically stated "YES"! The concern in her voice over this issue was palpable!!Someone also remarked as to "what positive influence these images have in society", and the conclusion was none!! So the men that answer questions here stating that they are just masturbating to images and they are not in anyway influenced is the biggest fallacy going!!
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female
reader, person12345  +, writes (14 November 2011):
 I don't have time to read everything here right now, but I did want to respond to man-hating red herring with a quote that I think summarizes well.
"If you think I hate men then you must be defining 'men' as people who are fundamentally sexist against women and unable to behave otherwise. I object to your sexist definition of men."
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (14 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the question Hey, I am not a man hater per say and not sure where you've got that notion from. I've always loved working with men, in fact in preference to working with women. I worked in construction many years ago and the guys still keep in touch with me. I am in a very loving, relationship with a great guy too - he's handsome, funny, a superb lover, chivalrous, and we've been together nearly six years now - I ADORE HIM and he adores me. What I dislike however is some men's ATTITUDE towards women. That doesn't make me a man basher or hater. And to the anon poster, despite women being in positions of power, I'd say it still is very much a man's world, or that has been my experience.And as for the women in porn "pleasing their man" - well that's a fallacy isn't it? Aren't they play acting? Perhaps they've been coerced into it? What are you lacking in life that causes you to think that two porn actresses, acting, are having fun and pleasing their man? Isn't that blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy somewhat? I know of a guy that watched a porn movie and said you could see the women were not enjoying it, they were clearly there against their will. You all keep saying the women are enjoying themselves, but the chances are they are NOT! They are ACTING..............!!!Anyway, back into the real world. To clarify - if a man thinks he is better than me, simply for being a man, then this is what I dislike!
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reader, Odds +, writes (14 November 2011):
 @ Miamine
I was about to go off on a rant about how feminists don't criticize their more extreme elements... but then fridge logic kicked in and I realized that's exactly what *you* are doing, so I'll just shut up and concede that, yeah, I probably shouldn't paint all feminists with the same brush. So, fair point.
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reader, anonymous, writes (13 November 2011): It's a man's world, HappyPlace? You may be living in the past. There are more women in the workforce now than men, and they earn most of the college degrees. Women have penetrated virtually every traditionally "male" sphere, even golf, Nascar racing, videogaming, porn producing... Every job interview I have ever been to was for a woman. Many hold such high positions of power that they can't find a mate who matches their success level anymore. And although the US is slightly behind the times in that it hasn't yet had a woman president, many, many other countries around the world already have. Ireland, Finland, Germany, India, Brazil, Thailand, Switzerland, and Australia are just some nations that have female presidents RIGHT NOW.
Just being born female means way lower risk of mental illness, genetic disorders, school dropout, suicide, homelessness, social isolation, incarceration, and early death as compared to men. Women may suffer more sexual assault but men are the biggest victims of violence in general. Books and articles are being published about men's disappearance and withdrawal from society. In Western society today, I would rather be a woman than a man. Seriously.
However if you're suggesting that modern women's attitudes ("you can have it all without giving up anything", "kick him to the curb if he doesn't treat you like a princess", "boys are stupid, throw rocks at them", etc.) are now contributing to porn's popularity because modern "empowered" women have become less appealing, then you may be onto something.
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reader, Miamine +, writes (13 November 2011):
 Please Odds, don't class all feminist the same. There are many feminist who like pornography and erotica. There are even feminists in Europe who make their own pornography films. Feminism is a camp that is very large and there are big disagreements, about this and other issues, like whether to support a woman's right to wear the Burqa. (Muslim clothing for women which covers you from head to foot)
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reader, Miamine +, writes (13 November 2011):
I thought this was a discussion about porn. What has DIY got to do with whether men, women, lesbians or transvestites like get aroused looking at naked people having sex.Why does everyone assume that porn is about straight men looking at women. What about the millions of women who look at porn, sometimes preferring to watch two women having sex even though they are hetrosexual. We have lots of that type of woman here on Dear Cupid. What's the explanation for when men get aroused by transsexuals?One man kills his neighbor after watching violent porn. I wonder what the excuse for murder was before we had the internet and playboy. As far as I know, we have had murder from the beginning of time, it's even in the bible. If porn drives men to murder and rape, then what do they do when they watch violent non-sex movies, join the church and start hugging everyone? Ban Debbie does Dallas because it might corrupt, but allow everyone to watch Friday the 13th, and films like Saw or Driller Killer... This makes no sense to me.If someone could explain any of this to me, I might agree that somehow porn and violence are linked, and women who hate porn, hate any one using it, not just men.Why do porn haters say nothing about its affect on women?
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reader, Odds +, writes (13 November 2011):
Man, go out of town for one week and this thread lights up. Nice.
@ HappyPlace
I was not trying to accuse you of being abusive - though, looking back at what I wrote, it was not particularly clear, so my apologies for that and any offense I may have given. The point I was trying to make, apparently ineptly, was that reversing the genders in your statement about "lowering eyes in public" would be be perceived as misogyny. Still, every post you written here except for the response to Gabrielle is full of man-bashing - and again, if you reversed the genders in many of your statements, it would be perceived as misogyny.
I think you would really benefit from reflecting on what you think of men. Like Person12345's nonsense, misandric claim that 20% of men have committed a sexual assault, you are painting an entire gender with a hateful brush. You're far from the only woman who does that - and then wonders why men might like images of an attractive woman actually enjoying pleasing her man.
@ Person12345
Before I get into my point, I'll just throw it out there that you're doing a fine job defending your position here in the face of a lot of opposition. I enjoy arguments for their own sake (probably a sign that deep down, I'm kind of an asshole), but I'm not sure if you're the same way, so consider this encouragement for sticking it out - you have my respect for that much, even if I ultimately disagree with most of your points.
Anyway...
As I stated to the OP above, it's only natural that men would enjoy masturbating to images of women pleasing their man. This makes total sense - after all, vibrators and dildos are made to appeal to their primary consumers (women), so why shouldn't porn do the same? The technique is awful, true, but (without knowing anything about film-making) I suspect that just has to do with practical considerations for a visual medium. Still, it's only natural that a man would want to see images of a woman actually enjoying the act of pleasing her man. Why should a man watch a film about a man pleasing his woman if that's exactly what he's expected to do in real life? He's going to watch porn for the variety, and that includes in the technique. Frankly, if porn is encouraging women to work harder to please their men, I'm all for it.
At the same time, if men are mimicking the poor technique in porn, that suggests to me that those men AND their girlfriends are failing to have open and honest communication about their sexual needs. Frankly, I'd put more onus on women for that one - no reasonable person would ever suggest a woman was in the wrong for asking for what she wanted in bed, but a lot of otherwise-reasonable women get pretty upset when a man asks for something he's not getting. Frankly, once sex gets into the picture, feminists (and a lot of white-knight males, for that matter) are entirely too quick to strip a woman of any moral agency and treat her as a delicate flower who will wilt at the mere suggestion that she try anal even once (but Heaven help the guy who doesn't give precisely the correct amount of foreplay without being told what that is). It's infantalizing.
It's another symptom of the feminist fear of male sexuality - rather than seeking to free sexuality, feminists simply flip the script on the fictitious patriarchy they hate so much. A woman who thoroughly enjoys her vibrator and romance novels is empowered; a man who wants to beat off to the video of a couple of cute, willing girls is encouraging a great societal evil and should learn to beat off without any images at all because if he really needs porn, he must not be *that* horny. If two blacked-out people have sex, then the man is a rapist for not getting explicit verbal permission (not that permission means anything to a feminist if she had even one beer that night, or if there was even slight emotional pressure), but she is not a rapist (for no defined reason). If a man sees images of a hot young woman, it might make him an impotent psychopath; if a woman sees images of men being idiots and women being perfect on TV, it certainly won't make her a misandrist.
Please.
I'll stop again for now, just to avoid going on too long, but one last paragraph first: most of these arguments demonize men and infantalize women. It's nonsense, and the stats are cooked up by agenda-driven liberal feminists and politicians who know that the majority of voters are females. I don't buy the studies' definition of violence - gagging and slapping are nearly always portrayed as consensual (maybe I'm just not kinky enough, but I rarely see porn where the woman isn't clearly acting like she's into it), so it's no more "violent" than tackle football. I don't buy congressional stats because they lie about *everything*, especially when there are numbers involved. Even where the stats are accurate, they are invariably interpreted or portrayed in an anti-male way for no other reason than the agenda. These are the same people who call 60% of college degrees going to women a "victory," but less than 30% of STEM degrees going to women a "problem." These are the same people who passed the Violence Against Women Act (blatantly in violation of the Equal Protection Clause) when their own stats show that women commit 50% of all domestic violence. These are the same people who create a half-dozen agencies and departments devoted to women's health and none for men, even though men die seven years younger and 95% of workplace deaths are male.
So, naturally, when the same feminist "researchers" tell me that porn makes men evil, I'm a bit skeptical.
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (13 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the question@Smiliek - if your partner used drugs and lied about it in order to get together with you, then I think it's OK to then ask them to stop! Same with porn. Oh, and hope the pregnancy is going well x Someone wrote further down about not wishing to "subjugate a gender", referring to men and the taking away of their porn. Well, isn't porn a way of subjugating the female gender?? I've really thought about this one and here's my take - I've had to compete in a man's world all my life and I've tried to understand why men think they are "better" simply for being a man. My father still has a Dickensian attitude but he's getting old and I now challenge him every time he does it - he's learning bless him. I remember doing a "roadcraft" course many years ago which involved racing around in an old car on a skid pan. We had two old farts (ex policemen) running the course and you could tell they thought it amusing that the "little ladies" were taking part in a "man's game"!! So when it came to competition time against the men, I'm glad to say I came up trumps and managed to get a few raised eyebrows. I went round the skid-pan in a sub minute and nicely handbrake turned at the end of it into a parking space! Oh, and I beat the men on time. So everytime I have to challenge men on their pre-conceived ideas. And just because of my GENDER!! I do DIY and will paint, tile etc and I do not expect a man to do this. So I am very aware that we live in patriarchal society: I've also read a few posts from some of the guys here and I genuinely believe their porn use is a way of "putting women in their rightful place"! When a man looks at my tits, because he thinks he can, I get reaaallllly annoyed. How dare he!! After all, I'm not staring at "his package" as though that is all there is to him. Porn represents women in a not very good light - they are submissive and they "do anything to please their man"! Women are bigger than that - there is so much more to them. The way some of the old, wizened men in porn speak to the women makes me cringe. If someone spoke to me like that, I would clonk him over the head. My partner's porn loving friend was round the other evening - he works as an electrician and he said that all the guys talk about at work was "football, beer and tits"!!! Talk about neanderthal!!!!
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reader, smiliek  +, writes (10 November 2011):
 cheating, hmmm well i find that a bit different to drug use. Unless its talked about, usually a relationship is assumed to be only two people. You cant exactly get into a relationship if you're sleeping with someone else (well you shouldn't)
If the partner was using drugs before the relationship then yes it is controlling to expect them to stop. A middle ground would need to be reached, or the non drug user would just have to accept it. I think drug use, porn use, anything that someone may not like needs to be put on the table early on so that everyone knows what they're dealing with and can decide if they will accept it or not before too much time and too many feelings are invested in it.
I understand porn can cause issues. I'm simply stating that not every porn user has a problem or is an arse. There are relationships where porn is ok and the couples are happy. I know a fair few and am in one myself. One of my good friends bf uses porn every few days. She laughs about it, is fine with it. They are having sex nearly every day and from what she told me he is an attentive lover. And he's always respectful to her, and other women. I've never even seen him perve. Personally i wouldn't like my hubby to look at stuff that often, and he doesnt, but my friend is happy. Each to their own
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reader, person12345 +, writes (10 November 2011):
There's one thing about cheating that's always bothered me. I don't understand why the cheater is always expected to stop cheating but the partner is never expected to accept an open relationship?I also don't understand why when one partner uses cocaine, that person is expected to stop. Why isn't the other partner expected to be OK with some occasional cocaine use?Porn is a drug. 15% of users become addicted to it, and it is a major factor in over 50% of divorces. Porn use can cause impotence, it can distort your sense of reality, it can cause "plain sex" to be boring and unstimulating, it can raise your expectations on appearances and your sex life, it can make masturbation preferable to sex. In fact, I've heard numerous times on here men describing why porn is harmless, it's just way easier than having to deal with sex. It also at best causes viewers to think of women as "animals," lacking in the ability for complex thought, and at worst as objects.Other than the fact that it's arousing/makes something fun more fun, there are only negatives associated with porn use. Many of the woman I've spoken to say they can tell immediately if their partner has been using porn because it changes the way he has sex. All of the men I've spoken to who've given up porn noticed a change for the better in their sex life. Porn also tends to make men into terrible lovers. In porn women gain all their pleasure from pleasing men. If most of your sexual experience is gained from watching women orgasm just from looking at a penis, what happens when you're with someone who is a bit more complicated?Then you get into the whole thing about how much more difficult it is to change emotions than to change actions. Not to mention the fact that masturbation is STILL fun and "tension-relieving" without porn. So basically removing porn causes no discomfort to anyone it just makes masturbation a tiny bit less fun and removes the addictive/compulsive factor from it. Whereas overcoming a problem with your partner viewing porn often doesn't work even after years of expensive therapy. We're talking finding a way to numb someone's foot versus just removing the splinter.
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reader, smiliek +, writes (10 November 2011):
There's one thing with the porn debate that annoys me. If a guy uses porn, no matter how infrequently, if his partner is hurt or upset by it then he is expected to give it up. And when its mentioned that telling someone to never watch porn again is controlling, its said to be no more controlling then not sleeping with someone else when you're in a relationship. Now that i do not get. If the sex life is good, if he treats her with respect and all that, and then she finds some porn and is upset over it, why should he have to give it up? (Bear in mind i'm referring to occaisonal use of 'vanilla porn') he would of used it years before she was around and it doesnt change his feelings for her at all, its simply that she doesnt like it. Now to me that is controlling. Seems no different to a relationship where one person is a vegan and the other isn't. The vegan gets hurt and upset when the partner eats meat, even tho its really nothing to do with them. Expecting the meat eater to give up meat is controlling isn't it? I think so. I know porn and food cant well be compared but thats what i was reminded of. (i knew of a couple like that, they didnt last long)
I fail to see why its not seen as controlling to expect someone to give something up when its nothing to do with the partner and doesnt change anything in the relationship. Simply put, If they didnt know about it then it wouldn't hurt them. You go snooping chances are you'll find something. So dont go looking. I do not agree with lying in a relationship, but i also dont agree with expecting someone to change. You dont like porn, find someone who also doesnt. Dont lie about whether or not you use it. And accept that if your partner does sometimes look at porn that it doesnt mean they dont love you.
Not everyone who watches porn is a violent arse who treats their partner like crap and has a shit sex life. Not everyone who watches porn looks at violent or degrading stuff. Just because its made doesnt mean thats what the majority look at. Becoming a porn nazi and trying to get rid of all porn is very controlling and is taking away a persons free will. And for what, those who are affected by it and those who do allow it to affect relationships and real sex lives? Ban violent porn, sure, but ppl who are going to kill will do so anyway and blame a video game or movie instead. Porn is not the reason ppl have issues, it may make them worse if they choose to watch the bad stuff but it doesnt cause a good person to turn bad.
For the record, when i first found out my bf (now my hubby) watched porn i was hurt and upset. I didnt know why he would need it when we had a very active sex life. He was receptive to talk about it tho, and through talking i realised i had nothing to worry about and it didnt change anything. He allowed me to see what he watched too. He didnt hide shit and delete everything and lie (he lied once then admitted once i told him i'd rather him watch porn then lie) since then we haven't had any issues with it. Obviously since i married him i accepted that he might look sometimes and so long as our sex life and relationship aren't affected i dont care. He doesnt watch or do anything solo when i'm at home and never has, and he'd barely look every few wks when i'm working fulltime. I've been at home for the last 8wks due to having our first baby and i know he hasn't looked at porn or even done stuff himself without it that whole time. Mind you i'm still happy to pleasure him even tho we cant yet have sex (time and bub permitting) if i wasn't doing anything for him i would expect he'd do stuff himself as up until bub was born we'd have sex every day. We both have high sex drives and if i didnt want to/couldn't do something i'd understand if he needed to himself. I know his occaisonal porn use doesnt affect our sex lives as he doesnt treat me any differently whether he's watched something recently or not.
Dont judge everyone by if they watch porn or not as you cant lump them all as the same problem person
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (9 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the question"Well said Gabrielle, I like to see a reasonable and sensible argument; and you didn't need to refer outside to a reference or statistic once"Mmm, I'm glad Gabrielle posted and it was interesting to get her view on things. However, you said you like to see a "reasonable and sensible argument" - can you clarify which part of her post you are referring to please?And what is wrong with referring outside to a reference or statistic - isn't that how theorising works?? You quote someone else's study to back up your own. I know people who went to University here in England and part of their dissertation was to quote, in the bibliography, people that they had referred to. So again, can Serenity80 please clarify or indeed tell us what take on this argument is? In fact I came to the conclusion that Gabrielle did think that violent porn affected people, so again, what are you referring to?
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reader, Hugh.J +, writes (9 November 2011):
 What a lot of text this issue generated!My thanks go to Gabrielle, for a calm and balanced view of the situation, based on inside knowledge and personal experience - the only view worth having. Cheers, Gaby.Oh, as you are an American, let me explain; "cheers" is an expression of thanks and well done colloquially in England!
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reader, serenity80 +, writes (9 November 2011):
Well said Gabrielle, I like to see a reasonable and sensible argument; and you didn't need to refer outside to a reference or statistic once.
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reader, Gabrielle Stoker +, writes (9 November 2011):
 As arguments go, this one is not likely to ever be settled, since humans are, in any case, hardwired to "win", not to be rational. So people with an anti-porn position will maintain it just as staunchly as the pro-porn brigade.
I don't intend to join the debate; my position on the issue has not changed since the last dozen or so threads on the subject came up, but I thought it might help to provide some sort of insight into the industry.
First of all, I don't really buy the 88.2% figure thrown out by Person12345. It's too high a proportion unless the sample was skewed by a large number of Sasha Grey videos or something. And again, the eternal debate on what constitutes violence is another issue - are gangbangs by defintiion violent/degrading? I'm an enthusiastic participant in them who has never felt degraded. What about the human trafficking angle? A lot of women are supposedly doing it under duress, but - I don't know - are they trafficked into it or are they just women with bad judgement who believed this was the only source of income they could find? In 2005 when I was doing semi-amateur porn very few of the girls I knew were actually destitute, addicted to hard drugs and so on.
Having said that it's still true that a disproportionately large amount of porn DOES depict violence / deviant behavior even for my taste (which isn't prudish by any stretch).
That has a lot to do with the way the porn industry is still structured, viz. a supply-driven market where producers and not the public decide what they want. "You buy what I sell you" rather than what you want. So the proportion of violent scenes can not be said to reflect what people want or people like - it's more a reflection of what the dozen or so people who call the shots in the industry want to produce.
Would violent porn have a negative effect on those who see it - probably, yes. But are that many people seeing violent porn? I don't know; I don't think so. In a connected world where, practically speaking, any sort of porn, no matter how niche, IS available, how far is such porn actually viewed is more difficult to track. A study of what sort of material is consistently commercialy viable may give a better idea of how much damage is being cause to society here.
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (9 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you everyone for responding, I think it's been an interesting debate. Special thanks to Person12345 (as always) and Dark Heart who gave some fabulous answers. Thanks to those also with their alternative views, which of course sparks the debate.It was an interesting point that Dark Heart made on "To Catch a Predator", about how normal guys now are targeting teenage girls because of the influence of porn!
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reader, person12345 +, writes (9 November 2011):
The porn industry generates into the double digit billions of dollars annually. Many of the largest media corporations in the country own numerous pornography companies and if we've learned anything about our government, it's that it's basically run by the corporations. Studies showing positives or neutrals about porn get far more press than the studies that hugely outnumber them showing negatives. The money is with porn, the multi-billion dollar industry many times over. Not with academia, which is rapidly being defunded.Being anti-porn is in no way being anti-sex. I am anti-porn because I am pro-sex. I believe sexuality should not be controlled and warped by a product. Porn presents a narrow view of sexuality where male sexuality is based on domination, cruelty, and coercion. Female sexuality is based on submission to and appearing to enjoy cruelty and pain. It presents women as existing only to serve men and female sexuality as a toy. It makes it hard or impossible for both genders to develop their own individual sexuality. More adolescent girls today know how to be "sexy" than how to have an orgasm. In porn women gain almost all their sexual pleasure from pleasing men.Porn also frequently makes men into terrible lovers. If all you've been watching is women having screaming orgasms just from being in the presence of a penis, what happens when you're with a real woman who's much more complicated? There are numerous studies showing how porn use causes users to be much less satisfied with their sex life, from everything from badly over-estimating how much sex other people are having, to finding their partners less attractive, to being unsatisfied with the frequency of sex, to being unhappy with their partner's sexual curiosity, to raising the likelihood someone will cheat due to "warping their sense of what's normal."I think this blog post covers it well:http://www.antipornmen.org/2011/11/05/internet-porn-makes-men-bad-in-bed/
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reader, HippyChick +, writes (8 November 2011):
 Most rsearchers go where the money is. From Nixon to J.Edgar Hoover. Government money is in puritanical denouncing of anything remotly liberating to the masses. So researchers are more concerned with pandering to the check writers than to solid methodology.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (8 November 2011):
I'm not judging anyone for their fantasies. Porn and fantasy are not the same. That's like saying writing a paper is the same as buying one online and turning it in as your own. Like buying a McDonalds burger and saying you cooked it. Fantasy is something you think of on your own, that requires at least a bit of creativity and thought. Porn is a product manufactured by a large corporation and produced to make money. They are not even remotely related. It's amazing that anyone can think they are.Not to mention anyone who believes porn is fantasy is suffering from a serious sense of entitlement. Like I said multiple times already (obviously you're not reading anything before dismissing it) saying porn is fantasy is the same as saying sweatshops are fantasy. Many trafficked women are used in porn and there's no way of knowing who is and who isn't. Many of the others are there through a lack of other options. There are large amounts of sexual abuse reports and women being coerced into performing sex acts they don't want to do. The industry is so abusive in general to women mentally and physically that the average length of time a woman is there is 3 months. The porn industry chews women up and spits them out. One of the common careers for a woman leaving pornography is prostitution due to being unable to get another job, which also happens to be the most dangerous and abusive "career" a woman can be in. No one who is serious about stopping violence against women can believe porn is fantasy or support the industry. Even on that basis alone, even the content of porn wasn't problematic in the slightest, even if somehow the visuals in porn were magically different from all other media on the planet (it isn't), the treatment of women in the industry alone is reason enough that porn in its current form and equality for women/safety cannot coexist. It's like being against puppy mills and buying a puppy at the pet store.I take an extreme view against pornography because I take an extreme view that the rape and abuse of women is always a bad thing and the porn industry is up there with sweatshops on the levels of abuse it deals out to women.
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reader, The Realist  +, writes (8 November 2011):
 I think you are just beating a dead dog here. The fact is that everyone has the right to there own sexual fantasies and only you are less of person for looking down on those people. It's fine that you have your own opinion here but you seem to only be able to see one side of things while even the people here who agree with you are still acknowledging the fact that fantasy is what most people have and the fact that some people take it too far is simply not enough to say it is the root of all evil.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (7 November 2011):
Her study was published in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal. She was most likely asked to speak because they wanted to hear about her study. Given that she didn't organize the event, she would have had to be invited, again most likely because they wanted to hear her talk about the study. She was also interviewed for an anti-porn film, because again, they wanted to hear about the study, which is the only one of its kind in existence. The only thing that matters is whether her study was well-conducted, which obviously the review board of a well-respected journal thought it was. I have read the methods and I thought it was as well. She is not even a women's studies professor, she has a Ph.D. in psychology. Have you ever actually taken a science class? Because you seem to have no idea how to interpret studies. I have dismissed more studies than I have included because they were badly conducted.If you don't think slapping and gagging are violent, I believe you've watched far too much porn. And the fact that you are picking apart little grammatical issues with my studies and choosing to resort instead to character attacks on the researchers reflects badly on your ability to think critically and rationally. Anyone who can brush off that 88.2% of pornography contains "aggression" against women and that fewer than 10% of pornography show affection (even very small things such as smiling or laughing or complimenting) on the premise that some people like aggressive sex is not very in tune with reality. You think almost 90% of women enjoy gagging on penises and being slapped? That could only be true in the porn world. Also the fact that you know a couple into BDSM does not negate anything. Resorting to individual examples to support your entire argument is poor science.I could also just as easily tell you an example of my friend who was taped to a bed at a high school party and gang raped and slapped after they'd watched a porn movie of the exact same thing. But I am not attempting to support an entire argument on this one example because a sample size of one is just not going to cut it.Anon, I'm very tired of people making the argument that porn is fantasy and that normal people are able to separate porn from reality. The idea that people aren't profoundly influenced by what they see in the media is laughable. Advertising represents a $190 billion industry because people are very heavily influenced by images. If people were able to look at an ad and consciously wipe the image from their brain, advertising wouldn't exist because it wouldn't be effective. People don't realize they're been influenced by ads or by what they see. That's why it's so effective. Because no one consciously knows it's happening. The relationship between advertising and sales is clear and the people looking at those ads don't even have a reinforcement of an orgasm. No one is able to separate what they see in movies or pornography or advertising clearly. No one wants to think they can be controlled or influenced against their will, but they can and they are.Plastic surgeons have attributed the rise in many plastic surgeries to pornography and making women feel as though they have to compete. They have attributed this rise to pornography because that's what their patients tell them. If people were so able to separate pornography and real life, this wouldn't be occurring. The recent rise in anal sex (an act that around 70% of women find uncomfortable and/or painful) has also been attributed to pornography, not only by studies and psychologists but by the porn viewers themselves. Again, if people were able to differentiate what they saw, this wouldn't be an issue. Ditto to the recent steady rise in infidelity.Many on this site and all over talk about how they get new ideas for sex from pornography. How can you reconcile those two things, that pornography does not influence people's sexual preferences and ideas about sex, but also gives them new ideas? It can't be both ways, that it only influences people when you think it's a good thing but has no influence on them when it's negative.Also it's worth noting that no one can call themselves a feminist and believe that porn is fantasy. Saying that porn is fantasy is on par with saying that your clothes magically appeared from Santa Claus. Do you also think sweat shops are fantasy? Many ex-porn actresses describe being subjected to violence and being coerced into performing acts they don't want. The porn industry is notoriously awful to women. Those people you see on screen are real people and what you see happening to them actually happened. They didn't use computers to show her being penetrated in all holes or covered in semen. That actually happened. And porn is also one of the biggest users of trafficked women and there is absolutely no way of knowing if that woman was trafficked there. None whatsoever. You don't know what's happening behind the camera. On amateur sites, does the subject know they're being taped? Porn is not fantasy.
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reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (7 November 2011):
 If you don't know the meaning of "impartial," look it up. Ana Bridges spoke at the National Feminist Antipornography Conference, a fact you neglected to mention each time you quoted her. Maybe your other sources are just as suspect.
"88.2% contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling."
Seriously? Things like spanking, slapping and talking dirty appear in lesbian videos, even those written and directed by women. That's not at all what should be classed as violence. True violent porn is rape porn.
If I happen to glance through my neighbour's basement window and see the couple whipping each other, talking dirty, and chaining each other up, should I call the cops on them? Of course not. If there was a rape going on, that would be different. Apparently some people are incapable of making these distinctions. They'd prefer to sit with their rulebook in front of them and tick off anything they see which qualifies as aggression, according to arbitrary standards, without any thought to context.
"Targets most often showed pleasure or responded neutrally to the aggression."
Good point. If they'd reacted in pain or displeasure, we could say this material was intended for viewers to get off on watching others suffer. Apparently this is not the case. Whether a thing like hair pulling or spanking is hurtful or not really depends on the person's reaction to it.
Bridges never uses the term "violence" as you do, only "aggression". Not many would say they'd ever had, or would ever want, "violent" sex. But what is so wrong with "aggressive" sex by couples who enjoy that?
We can add the 88.2% porn violence rate to your list of distortions of the truth. That's my last word, as I've wasted too much time refuting the claims of just one person here whom no one believes anyway.
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reader, maverick494 +, writes (7 November 2011):
I just wanted to give a nod to the anonymous university student who commented below. She said everything I wanted to say and if there was a like button I would press it. (For now she'll have to do with 5 stars). This article insults us as human beings as it implies we're all slaves to stimulants. It is badly researched, the conclusion is based on the author's own opinion, instead of letting the real facts speak for themselves.
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (7 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the questionGosh, I haven't the heart to respond to that last lady. It's her first time on this site, so she hasn't seen the number of issues that porn has caused in relationships.
Oh, and men do confuse fantasy with reality, which is why you get men coming home to their signficiant others and asking them to perform like a porn star! We've already established the blurred boundaries on this one. That's why one poster on this site has stated that her bf likes to pretend strangle her and she likes it rough!! Mmm, I wonder where that idea came from??
I'll make no apology either for laughing at men who like to dress up in nappies, etc. I have a down to earth funny bone and this really is hilarious to me. This is a sign to me that somebody is not quite right so I have empathy enough to pity them, and would run away as fast as I could if I met one of them. They should be getting help for their predelictions, not celebrating their sexuality because I'm fairly sure dressing in a nappy or licking someones shoes has got nothing to do with sex!
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reader, anonymous, writes (7 November 2011): Wow... I actually joined so I could respond to this thread when I have so much uni work to do.
Okay; I am a female and I watch porn (plently really, because I have a high libido). I am in a healthy relationship and I am not some violent nut. I also play violent video games, watch violent movies and listen to violent music (but you know, I watch and play all the normal stuff too lol). Wow, you'd think with all that bombarding my brain I'd go ape dodangs by now.
I am a feminist, I believe in taking care of our gender but not at the expense of subjugating another gender. Although being an amozonian does sound pretty cool....
The point I'm trying to make is that "People are reasonable!" We are not automated robots who cannot differentiate from reality and fantasy (and if you can't I'm pretty sure it's not the doings of evil porn.)
Those who conduct violent behaviour, trust me, have bigger issues than the porn they watched last night.
If you are a rational educated person this thread is silly. You're basically promoting to take away a person's freedom of choice and I'm sure the idea of controlling the masses is a litte...well, come on - we've all seen how that ends.
Lisa Palac writes, "Once I figured out how to use porn and come. How to look at an erotic image and use my sexual imagination to turn desire into a self-generated orgasm-
my life was irrevocably and positively changed .... For the
first time in my life, I felt sexually autonomous"(Palac, 1998: 34-35.)
The majority of men in this survey believed porn did not represent "how men and women really are" (Sexuality and culture 2005 - you'll need to pay to read these articles unless, like me, you're a uni student :P)
That is the point of porn. Not to demonize men and victimize females. And women read ALOT of porn, seriously those bodice rippers - don't kid yourself, they are not just novels, they are porn in books. They rock your socks. Why do we like stuff like that? Because we like things that feel good. Arousal feels good. That is why we have people with problems with porn and video games but in and of itself, it is not harmful and I will fight tooth and nail for this.
Porn, Movies, Music, Books and Video Games are not Evil. They are expressions of our society, they are tools to relate to ideas and concepts. A place to explore without judgement but that doesn't mean ALL porn, movies, music and video games are born equal.
They are not.
In David Loftus' study, men are more critical of pornography, use and respond to it in a wider variety of ways, and describe attempts to show sensitivity in their attempts to negotiate their porn use with female partners. For the men in this study,porn is about "beauty, fun, women's pleasure, female power and assertiveness, and fantasy largely separated from the real world"
(Loftus, 2002: 245).
And don't start that women shouldn't have to compromise about things like this. Do guys have the right to take away your favourite Tv shows? I would not take well to my boyfriend telling me I couldn't watch my porn.
Also:
"The "sexually erudite" women interviewed by Loach felt that anti-feminist views of women as victims of porn were "hopelessly misplaced," missing the significance
of sexual representations as productive of "pleasure, knowledge, and control too" (1992: 270-272).
Yeah, I couldn't state that much clearer. :D
Seriously stop bashing on porn for the evils of psycotic individuals. People need to be aware of other people and if they're showing tendancies of anti-social behaviour. Get them help for godsake or RUN, RUN FAR AWAY!
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reader, tennisstar88 +, writes (7 November 2011):
 I'm sorry HippyChick, but I highly doubt porn has anything to do with you conceiving your twins. It sounded like you had IUI or IVF. Science and probability helped you to conceive, not porn.
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reader, HippyChick +, writes (6 November 2011):
I have read this thread with great interest. I would agree that at first glance porn is a nuisance and has no place in a relationship between a man and a woman. I would however like to tell you about my experience with pornography.My first husband and I were not able to conceive a child. To become pregnant I had to take tablets and injections. My husband has to pleasure himself into containers at the fertility clinic.We had Doctors telling us when to have sex and doctors telling my husband when to masturbate.He was to go into a small room with a hollow core door that was undercut because the clinic used to have shag carpeting. He could hear the nurses right outside clomping around on the tile floor.At the clinic they offered him porn. There were dog eared hustlers and not much more. We started bringing a portable DVD player with some of the finer selections on disc.With this and some determination from him I am blessed with twins today
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (5 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the question@Odds - I didn't say abuse was funny. I said the idea that you think I'm abusing my bf was funny - please get your facts right before responding, or twisting the answer to suit your own aims. I have, many years ago, been in an abusive relationship so I certainly know what one looks like. Have you?? Do you have the experience to comment on such matters? Why are you throwing your toys out of the pram. @CupidBoy - I didn't blab about my relationship so your comment of "that says something about you" when I lauged at what a friend told me is totally out of line. If I told you something and you laughed, does that make you as bad as the teller? I think not. Again, do NOT twist my words to suit your own aims.You go Person 12345, the boys toys are out of the pram so we've hit a nerve. Good. I'll be happy when porn does not exist on any level and is banned. Zero tolerance is the aim. Let's hope we get there.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (5 November 2011):
And by impartial you of course mean doesn't show harm? None of the studies I discussed were funded by a special interest group. The only studies I have found that found a neutral or positive effect from porn viewing were examining a cathartic effect (they make the leap that if rape went down when the internet boom happened, it must be from porn) or rely on self-reporting (i.e. do you personally feel pornography has had a negative effect on you?). I'm unsure why me citing studies is sexist. It's known that most rape victims are female and most rapists are male and most male rape victims were raped by another male. There is no debating this point if you actually look at any statistics.Ana Bridges"This current study analyzes the content of popular pornographic videos, with the objectives of updating depictions of aggression, degradation, and sexual practices and comparing the study’s results to previous content analysis studies. Findings indicate high levels of aggression in pornography in both verbal and physical forms. Of the 304 scenes analyzed, 88.2% contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling. Perpetrators of aggression were usually male, whereas targets of aggression were overwhelmingly female. Targets most often showed pleasure or responded neutrally to the aggression."Jochen and Valkenburg"This study was designed to investigate whether adolescents’ exposure to a sexualized media environment is associated with stronger beliefs that women are sex objects. More specifically, we studied whether the association between notions of women as sex objects and exposure to sexual content of varied explicitness (i.e., sexually non-explicit, semi-explicit, or explicit) and in different formats (i.e., visual and audio-visual) can be better described as cumulative or as hierarchical. Further, we investigated whether this association was contingent on gender. Based on data from an on-line survey of 745 Dutch adolescents aged 13 to 18, we found that the relationship between exposure to a sexualized media environment and notions of women as sex objects followed a hierarchical pattern: Starting with adolescents’ exposure to sexually semi-explicit content, the statistical significance of the relationship with notions of women as sex objects moved from semi-explicit to explicit sexual content and from visual to audio-visual formats. Exposure to sexually explicit material in on-line movies was the only exposure measure significantly related to beliefs that women are sex objects in the final regression model, in which exposure to other forms of sexual content was controlled. The relationship between exposure to a sexualized media environment and notions of women as sex objects did not differ for girls and boys."According to the FBI:Research conducted involving 36 serial murderers revealed that 81% reported pornography as one of their highest sexual interests, making pornography one of the most common profile characteristics of serial murderers.Malamuth and Check:"This experiment assessed the effects of media depictions that portray rape myths on men's beliefs in such myths. The study was conducted in two separate sessions. At the orientation session, measures of personality, motivation, experience, and aggressive tendencies were administered to 307 males. In the experimental session, 145 of these men were first exposed to one of eight audiotaped versions of a passage. One of these portrayed the myth that rape results in the victim's sexual arousal. Later, subjects listened to a second passage depicting either nonconsenting or consenting sex. Their perceptions of the second portrayal and their beliefs in rape myths were then measured. The findings provided support for the hypothesis that media depictions suggesting that rape results in the victim's arousal can contribute to men's beliefs in a similar rape myth. Moreover, analysis of the mediating role of individual differences indicated that men with relatively higher inclinations to aggress against women are particularly likely to be affected by media depictions of rape myths. It is suggested that these data may be explained best on the basis of information retrieval processes. In addition, it was found that power motives were consistently related to greater beliefs in rape myths."Zillman and Bryant:"Male and female students and nonstudents were exposed to videotapes featuring common, nonviolent pornography or innocuous content. Exposure was in hourly sessions in six consecutive weeks. In the seventh week, subjects participated in an ostensibly unrelated study on societal institutions and personal gratifications. On an especially constructed questionnaire, subjects rated their personal happiness regarding various domains of experience; additionally, they indicated the relative importance of gratifying experiences. Exposure to pornography was without influence on the self-assessment of happiness and satisfaction outside the sexual realm (e.g., satisfaction deriving from professional accomplishments). In contrast, it strongly impacted self-assessment of sexual experience. After consumption of pornography, subjects reported less satisfaction with their intimate partners—specifically, with these partners' affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance proper. In addition, subjects assigned increased importance to sex without emotional involvement. These effects were uniform across gender and populations."Zillman and Bryant:"Under controlled experimental conditions, massive exposure to pornography resulted in a loss of compassion towards women as rape victims and toward women in general."Goldstein Kant and Harmon:Convicted rapists are 15 times more likely than non-offenders to have had early (before age 10) exposure to pornography. Donnerstein:“The relationship between particularly sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression…is much stronger statistically than the relationship between smoking and lung cancer.”
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reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (5 November 2011):
No one here fully buys your statistics because they sound so overblown and sensationalized -- like saying studies are 100-to-1 against porn... when what you meant was that most studies you've chosen to read and to promote as a feminist have said "habitual" porn use was harmful. If habitual means someone who needs porn every night, well, what kind of dependency isn't harmful?
Most will not be converted by statistics alone, even if you actually bothered to cite them correctly. But if there's a recent, large-scale, impartial (ie. not funded or carried out by any special interest group) porn study you can recommend, I'll read it.
Oprah doesn't pander to media interests. She vocally opposed the depiction of women in hip-hop videos, which you must have agreed with. And she didn't put words in the mouth of the expert beside her.
Never wanted to "defend" porn this much. But it's hard to side with a sexist bigot who is so fundamentalist, intolerant, and slavishly devoted to doctrine. Do Bible thumpers who rant and rave about morality ever draw you to them? Or do they drive you away instead? A little respect towards people (even those born without vaginas) and the diversity of opinions they hold would go a long way to convincing them.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (5 November 2011):
I'm still completely dumbfounded by people who believe getting informed about/learning about something is less credible than forming a quick emotional opinion.
Also, porn is part of "the media." Oprah is also part of "the media." Since when were popular culture icons given the same weight as peer-reviewed research? I could just as easily throw it back that Dr. Phil is vehemently against porn in all situations. At least Dr. Phil actually has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, but you'll notice I'm not throwing around pop culture things and citing to Cosmo quiz as actual research or evidence because it's not.
There is a clear consensus on porn. It's not 100%, even cigarettes aren't 100%, but it's about as close as you get to consensus in the scientific community. Just because the general public doesn't agree with that doesn't make it any less powerful. It's not as though when it first was agreed that cigarettes can cause cancer everyone immediately and happily stopped smoking. There was an enormous backlash from people who liked to smoke/were addicted.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (5 November 2011):
Odds, universities are notoriously horrendous at reporting rape and making public any rape statistics on campus. Not because universities are trying to discriminate and get in the way of the law but because they know parents don't want to send their children to a dangerous school. The three colleges that once attempted to encourage their students to report rape to the police saw a significant drop in applicants the following year because even though their sexual assault numbers were around the same as at other schools, the fact that they were reported made them seem more dangerous. Almost all colleges in the U.S. have policies requiring that students attempt to work out their sexual assaults within the campus disciplinary system (which are not reported in those numbers) and within those "mediation" sessions students are pressured to not report the assault. Your numbers show very little just like reported rapes show fairly little about the actual numbers.
Right now the official statistic gathered from a senate hearing where all available evidence was heard and all kinds of groups presented is that fewer than 3% of rapes end in a conviction, that 1 in 3 women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime (1 in 4 college women), 1 in 33 men is, that the perpetrator is male 99% of the time (not an exaggeration, the actual number given) and that between 2-5% of rape allegations are false which is exactly the same as other violent crime. Now let's try to figure out which number is more credible, the official senate hearing on rape, which matches the majority of studies, all anecdotal evidence I have, and the largest rape and domestic violence center numbers, or the numbers pulled from universities that have a financial interest in having the lowest possible numbers?
And do you think an official hearing that had numerous presenters and research findings on false rape allegations or the fact that you think the number is higher is more credible?
About amateur porn, the same numbers about violence apply. Not to mention the majority of amateur porn is actually made by larger corporations. Where there is money to be made, they are there. You don't have to actually pay for your porn to be supporting that. Just the fact that you've clicked on it makes them money.
Oral sex on women does occur in porn. From what I've seen it's more a device to show a close up of her genitals sprawled on display for the camera, but you're right it does exist. Have I ever said it didn't? Oral sex on women though is far outnumbered by women performing oral sex on men and the nature is very different. I've never, with the exception of niche markets, seen a woman force a man to perform oral sex so he gags and/or vomits. I've never seen a man have his head held in position while he cries. Oral sex (like the rest of porn) is always described as man does to woman. When she's giving oral sex, he's face f*ing her. He does to her. When he's giving her oral sex, it's still him doing to her. She is always a passive.
And violent images DO have a profound impact on people. It's been shown so clearly that researchers are not allowed to show pornography to subjects anymore. It was shown so clearly to be harmful that it was put in the same category as cigarettes.
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reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (4 November 2011):
Who's Warren Farrell?
No, I don't cite statistics. You're the expert at that. You'd probably rather deal with stats and studies than have to oppose Oprah.
There is no clear consensus on porn yet. The diversity of views on here reflects that. Porn can indeed be addictive, warp one's perceptions, and ruin lives. So can alcohol and World of Warcraft.
And no one likes to think about this but there are some in society who have been totally deprived of normal relationships due to physical or mental disability, or crippling shyness. These people are rarely studied and have largely been forgotten by society. The sad truth is they will NEVER experience anything sexual except in a virtual form. That is one conceivable "benefit" of porn.
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reader, Odds +, writes (4 November 2011):
"... the idea I'm abusing him is incredibly funny to me."
Abuse is not funny, nor is it dependent on relative size differences, particularly in cases of emotional abuse. CDC stats show that women are just as frequently abusers as men, and emotional abuse counts. Add in your mockery of other people's sexuality, and perhaps you ought to reconsider how you treat other people.
I'm actually a bit disappointed that Person12345 did not condemn these candid statements, even though she saw fit to call me a woman-blamer for an obviously facetious statement about college attendance. Any real feminist would be quick to point out that abuse is never funny, and mocking someone's sexuality is insensitive and wrong. Or is that only when men do it?
In any event, I don't think what you're doing is abuse, I just said that if you were a man talking about your girlfriend, feminists would be quick to cry abuse at it. If you want to talk about odd fetishes, though, how about the fact that anywhere from 15 to 30% of women admit to having rape fantasies, depending on the survey? Yes, I know that doesn't mean they want to be raped for real, but doesn't it strike you that maybe it's normal to be a little weird?
@ Person12345
You throw out the 1/4 statistic again, but did you read my argument about it? Let me throw down a few more Clery Act numbers (all from 2010 unless otherwise noted).
ASU: 12 sex offenses reported, 70,440 students.
USC: 16 reported, 36,896 students.
Columbia University: 9 reported, 27,606 students.
University of Michigan: 15 reported, 41,674 students (2008 data).
You can look up more, but the point is, as in my last post, that even the 90% unreported statistic falls far, far, *far* short of the 1/4 mark. But, as the mental exercise with false rape claims showed, if you declare the the unreported numbers must be 95%, 99%, or 99.99%, the more even a tiny handful of false accusations turn the ratio of false accusations to true reports into an unacceptably high number. Do some math and figure out what the ratio of male rapists to female false accusers is for each level of non-reporting, and you'll get some very screwy results - the kind of results that, by dismissing, one basically dismisses any claim to a belief in gender equality.
It is simply unfeasible for the numbers to be as high as you claim. Moreover, if you claim that 20% of all men have admitted to sexual assaults, what then? Tell women everywhere that 20% of them are either going to have to be single or date an admitted rapist/quasi-rapist? Or are those guys forgivable in your eyes?
The feminist numbers are lies, pushing an anti-male agenda. Porn is just one aspect of that agenda. It is the deliberate demonization of male sexuality, framing it as violent and destructive rather than as a healthy, natural part of life. These are the same people who think a man who doesn't go down on a woman is a terrible lover, but a woman who doesn't go down on a man is setting healthy boundaries (if I recall correctly, Person12345 said as much in another thread - if I misremembered, I apologize).
In a way, I can see how amateur porn would be a threat to the feminist agenda. Professional porn shows cartoonish exaggerations of women, something that a healthy man can easily distinguish as fantasy. Amateur porn displays willing, attractive-but-attainable women willingly having a grand old time pleasing their man. Gosh, a decent-looking girl honestly enjoying pleasing her man? Can't have that raising men's expectations, can we? Of course, feminists will claim these women are trafficked or duped into it, but then, feminists love to claim women have no moral agency whenever a woman makes a decision she might regret later, or one that does not conform to the agenda.
Feminists also always fail to mention how often porn depicts a man going down on a woman as normal (even if their technique is obviously more for the camera than for the woman, but then, that's true of all porn-sex). It's against the narrative.
Last point: violent images alone are not enough to turn anyone criminal. Perhaps they may be the straw that breaks the camel's back, but try to put a face on it before you turn to raw emotion. Picture your father, your brother, your best guy friend. Would a few violent images (particularly by the weaksauce feminist definition of violence) really turn them into killers and rapists? If not, what makes these men so atypical, besides the the fact that you know them?
Disturbed people will be disturbed, if not by one thing, then by another. Everyone else will be fine.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (4 November 2011):
I'm sorry I suppose I should have clarified, those 10:1 and 100:1 comments were not meant to be taken literally. It is a figure of speech to mean a lot versus very little. Perhaps that's not a common thing to say in Canada? Though if you're talking about meta-analyses, the ones that take tens of thousands of data points and sometimes hundreds of studies to figure out what the "consensus" is, I could literally say 100%:0% because every single meta analysis ever done on pornography found harm. Every last one. I cite this guy a lot, but here is a quote from one such researcher who I agree with named Claudio Violato,"There has been some debate ... about the degree of negative consequences of habitual use of pornography, but we feel confident in our findings that pornography is harmful. ... Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses. I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever." The findings of his study were that repeated exposure puts viewers at risk for developing sexually devient tendencies, experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships, committing sexual offenses and increases the likelihood they will believe rape myths.CupidBoy, in my time here I've probably cited at least 30 different studies, and have cited well over 50 in the articles I've written. Most of what I say is supported by the majority of statistics, the majority of polls and surveys, the majority of research. It's ridiculous for you to claim I'm the one being over-emotional and lying when I have the backing of most of the psychology and social science done on this topic and I've yet to see you cite anything except Warren Farrell (who coincidentally has been heavily criticized for falsifying citations or failing to provide them at all in his books and also wrote a book in support of incest that he tried and failed to publish).Smiliek the reason it sparks arguments is because of cognitive dissonance. When a person is shown something that disagrees with their beliefs and they realize they have no rational way to counter what was just said to them, they become angry and irate. If there was a rational way to defend porn beyond "I like it" I don't think people would become so emotional when presented with statistics. I could flip it around just as easily, why do you (or anyone on this site) bother presenting your opinion on this when you know it doesn't change people's minds? I think I've seen maybe 2 or 3 questions ever where the OP commented that she felt better after being told it was "no big deal" or "harmless."To the poster who said "as long as no-one gets hurt then where's the harm?" If no one was getting hurt I wouldn't care at all. As is though, the industry is notoriously awful to the actresses and the average length of time a woman can remain in porn is only 3 months due to the mental and physical toll. More than half of women say they would hate pornography in their relationships (the number increases substantially if the women are shown clips from porn their partner actually viewed). As is right now over 50% of divorces cite pornography as a major cause of the divorce. That means 25% of all marriages.
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reader, anonymous, writes (4 November 2011): I must admit I watch porn with my boyfriend and sometimes when he's not here. We have copied some of the stuff you see even him puttin a hand on my throat but nothing that would cause bruisin or pain in any way to me. Some porn is brutal and we wouldnt even go down that road. I personally think i like a bit of rough and it turns me on which in turn turns him on.
It's each to their own and as long as no-one gets hurt then where's the harm?
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reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (4 November 2011):
We see here people believing what they want to believe -- accepting supposed facts that support their preconceived viewpoint and disregarding the rest. 7 people answered your question: 6 moderates and 1 extremist. The moderate majority either has refrained from defending any of the feminist statistics or has directly called them out as false.
Studies are 100:1 porn is harmful? Literally 99%? You can't even get 99% of studies to agree that trans-fats are harmful. Apparently psychologists and sex therapists everywhere missed these studies (maybe because they were conducted in Gloria Steinem's basement). Must be something Oprah forgot to mention in her shows about porn. And everyone knows what a pushover she is when it comes to women asserting their rights, right?
There is no religion or school of thought higher than truth. I don't think young teens should be having sex yet, but if someone went around telling them condoms are only 10% effective in an effort to discourage them, that would be wrong. The ends don't justify the means. If someone needs to take an alarmist, angry tone and spread grossly exaggerated numbers as "facts", they must feel their position is weak to begin with. And the only ones they'll convince are those who already believe the same thing. Using lies and emotionalism to attack porn actually undermines the anti-porn movement.
When rape reports were going up, feminists accepted it as truth. Certainly never questioned whether rapes were being OVER-reported. But when they go down, suddenly those same sources are now totally inaccurate, since it no longer supports the agenda. That is "selective belief" at its worst.
The thing to take away from all this is to at least be wary of violent porn, NOT that 20% of men turn into Vincent Tabaks or that all porn represents hatred of women. It's sad some people need to demonize men to make a point, or insist all women share their views which clearly they do not.
http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Dr-Laura-Berman-on-Watching-Porn-Video
"a friend of mine whose partner liked to wear her thong, and get whacked on the arse with a wooden spoon. We nearly wet ourselves laughing when she told me. So out there you might get someone to feed your obsession, but I'm fairly sure they'll be laughing behind your back!!"
That says something about you. Women hate when a man blabs to his friends about what she does in bed because it's insensitive and thoughtless. Imagine how you'd feel if guys were laughing about something extremely personal you had confided to someone you trusted. (By the way, getting whacked on the arse with a spoon would probably qualify as "violence" if done to a woman. Would you laugh about it then?)
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reader, smiliek +, writes (4 November 2011):
angry that someone was murdered, yes. However i do not believe everyone who watches porn is into violent or degrading stuff. Perhaps the majority is, i wouldn't know. I know what my hubby watches as i've seen his history. Friends i can only take what they say/joke about. I know one guy who is a very heavy porn user, yet his gf doesnt seem to mind. He shows stuff on his phone at parties, thats just annoying and crass in my opinion. I choose not to have much to do with him.
I'm not saying that you're wrong Person12345, simply that i dont get why statistics are thrown around when it doesnt seem to change anyones mind anyway. It just turns into an arguement. Perhaps many of the guys here dont watch that kinda thing and hence argue against it. Either way, i only see porn as a problem if it is hurting the partner. Otherwise it really isn't something i worry about
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (4 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThe statistics and succinct arguments that Person12345 puts forward has enabled me to say to my partner "no more porn"! I came to this site originally because I was confused and didn't know what to do. I've seen Person12345 counter argue every lame excuse that men put forward, so for that reason I think she is awesome.
I dislike porn Smiliek and I'm also angered by a woman being murdered by a man who watched violent porn; it could have been any one of us in that situation so for the greater good, I'm prepared to argue the case also. I hope you care enough to be angry about this too.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (4 November 2011):
Because the larger effect of personal choice is more important than instant gratification for one person. Because it's short-sighted and ignorant to form an opinion on something based on gut feeling in direct opposition to statistics and facts.Most guys ARE watching violent degrading stuff because most of the porn, especially the most watched, is violent and degrading. Almost 90% of porn contains violence, almost always against women, and almost all women who date porn-viewers strongly believe their partner stays in the 10% that's not degrading, which is statistically impossible.I try to change people's minds because the argument is always incredibly one-sided, usually 10:1 that a woman either has to accept that her partner will use porn or she will be alone, regardless of how she feels about it, regardless of whether it hurts her so much that it rivals cheating. I'd have to be arguing a heck of a lot more for there to even sort of appear to be a balance. The way it is now, only the want to watch porn is legitimate, the need to not be hurt is "insecure" "irrational" "prude" etc... Not to mention the arguments are almost always 10:1 that porn is harmless when the studies are 100:1 that it IS harmful. I argue because there's a lot of misinformation being spread around that is the opposite of the conclusions of the psychology world and I think that's harmful.I'm bringing statistics and facts into it because with few exceptions, the arguments surrounding porn are in direct opposition to reality and facts. I'd rather be basing my opinion on research than gut feelings. I'd rather say something informed than something I am unsure about.
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reader, smiliek +, writes (4 November 2011):
Why is it you cant simply dislike porn without bringing statistics into it? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, you dont like porn thats fine. Alot of people do, and that should be ok too.. You cant change everyone else's opinion just because you think they're wrong. I dont think violent porn is ok, but as i've said before guys i know dont watch that. They're more interested in the normal things you'd do with your partner. Why they still masturbate to porn, i dunno. Their choice. If its not hurting their partner i dont see why it matters. However if it is hurting them or has become a more frequent or preferred thing to sexual relations then i do think its a problem. I have no issue with vanilla porn so long as it doesnt cross into my relationship and affect it in any way. Statistics aside, my hubby isn't one of those numbers so i'm not going to tell him he can never watch it. He hasn't in months anyway. I just dont get why everyone has to argue so much and try and change everyone elses minds. Cant you just accept the different opinions?
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reader, person12345 +, writes (3 November 2011):
Fetishes are exclusively a male disorder. A true fetish is actually fairly rare. A fetish is classed as a disorder, someone who compulsively HAS to be turned on by doing something "abnormal." Like the guy I once dated claiming to have a foot fetish because he got aroused giving me foot rubs doesn't really have a fetish. Someone with a true foot fetish would be unable to orgasm without seeing, touching, or thinking about feet. We're talking the people who run around stealing underwear, etc... Who are incapable of being turned on by just sex or women (or men).
They claim to not know why fetishes are only male, but they usually say this after explaining that a fetish develops after excessive masturbation to a particular object that they develop a strong sexual connection with. Like say, a pair of panties. It's pretty clear that visuals play a huge role in the development of sexual arousal. It doesn't take a genius to see what a negative impact masturbating to violent porn has.
Also to state that the violence against women is tragic but shouldn't interfere with men's rights to arousal material is absolutely ridiculous. In plainer terms, the rights of men to have better orgasms is more important than the safety of women? Give me a break.
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (3 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for your responses everyone. Person 12345, always a pleasure to have you respond too.
I believe what the criminologist and The Madame were trying to say is that porn did influence the outcome of Tabak's actions. He was totally desensitised by regular viewing and he clearly had a fetish! I believe there are a few well known serial killers who had a thing for porn too. We are in the 21st Century - no one should be selling themselves to make a buck!
And, what is it about men in general having fetishes? Feet obsessions, corporal punishment, dressing up as babies in nappies, licking shoes of a Madame, the list goes on. Where oh where in life did men get fu**ed up? I am sure women have fetishes too - but I would say the majority are fairly tame in comparison. You know the above list is hilarious to me, I really don't understand it. If a guy could explain that one, I'm listening. I firmly believe these guys are not quite right in the head and again us women have to be tolerant. I think I've stated before about a friend of mine whose partner liked to wear her thong, and get whacked on the arse with a wooden spoon. We nearly wet ourselves laughing when she told me. So out there you might get someone to feed your obsession, but I'm fairly sure they'll be laughing behind your back!!
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reader, person12345 +, writes (3 November 2011):
About the music industry, I assume you're unfamiliar then with the numerous violent sexual assaults that took place that used music videos as choreography? For instance at a New York City festival multiple women walking were through a crowd were mobbed by groups of men who tore off their clothes, poured alcohol on them and groped them. The same thing happened at several crowded venues. It was decided in court that there was no question the assaults were copies of and motivated by music videos.
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reader, The Realist +, writes (2 November 2011):
The thing is that people have the right to produce this form of adult entertainment and for some it is a fetish for them that should be accepted. Yes bad things happen and it is unfortunate but alot of couples have very healthy sex lives with this sort of role playing.
This just reminds me of when the music industry was hit hard for violent music. A lot of normal people listen to it and/or watch this sort of thing which is highly scripted if it is coming from a producing of adult entertainment. The fact is that we can't blame something that so many people live with because of one bad event where it may have been a factor in. The question is did Vincent kill that woman because of violent porn or was there something in his past that brought him to do it?
I just don't think there is any right to censor this sort of thing although I do beleive that the industry needs to be watched closely to protect those who are in it.
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (2 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the question"Hmmm. The OP seems to be reacting to a deliberately-provocative article!!" Is this a case of stating the obvious? Of course I've reacted to a poor girl being murdered by a seemingly normal charming man who happened to be into violent porn and who had, in the previous few weeks, paid for a hooker in America and then ended up strangling her. I'll be very worried on the day that I don't react to news like this and take it as the norm!!!!!!!! It's not provocative (interesting use of this word by the way), it was a factual debate over a recent incident. As I already said, all the men who rang in fiercly defended porn and told the criminologist who was on the show not to be sensational!! That to me is scary! A respected criminologist from Birmingham University explained about inhibitors and disinhibitors. Vincent Tabak watched porn and it escalated to violent porn. The inhibitor to him killing was apparently his girlfriend, but she was away. The disinhibitor was his continual watching of porn which made the strangulation of women and the tying up of women normal viewing to him. He then slept with a hooker in LA so he was slowly progressing towards what it was that excited him - strangling women!!Oh, and I'm not abusing my partner. He can get up and leave any time he wishes plus he's six foot two inches and I'm four foot eleven inches so the idea I'm abusing him is incredibly funny to me. I simply stated that if he wanted to eye up women then he needs to be single as I would not tolerate that behaviour! The guy is drop dead gorgeous and could have any woman he wanted probably, so it's really his choice to stay with me.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (2 November 2011):
20% of men admit to doing something that legally counts as sexual assault during their lives. This was a massive study cited during the senate hearing on rape in the United States. I didn't claim that 20% sexually assault women due to porn, just that it's rising and that porn has been cited as a possible cause. And really, given that 1 in 4 women experience a sexual assault, that number isn't so farfetched seeming.I'm not going to debate whether the number of unreported rapes is made up. There's no point in arguing with someone who believes their own quick math on a university page over the official statistics for the US. There was recently a senate hearing on rape in the United States where it was found that fewer than 3% of rapes committed in the US end in a conviction and that between 2-5% of rape accusations are false (which is exactly the same as every other violent crime).The 88.2% number comes from researcher Ana Bridges who is the leading researcher on pornography content in the United States. She used the Adult Video News most popular porn videos and randomly selected around 300 porn scenes from that list. She recorded what acts occurred with what frequency. The violence is not perceived but fake violence unless you believe slapping, forced gagging, and choking are perceived violence. She also recorded affection and found that fewer than 10% of films showed any sort of affection such as smiling or compliments, compared to around 50% of films expressing verbal "violence" (again overwhelmingly against women) most often in the form of name-calling. "Frankly, if one in four women were assaulted in college, one would have no choice but to consider it willful and wanton neglect to send one's daughter to university."Funny how you immediately jump to it's the woman's fault for failing to avoid crime rather than the perpetrator's fault for failing to not rape someone?Finally, the "psychosis" bracket was not quite a quarter, but it was nearly a quarter of the men they talked to. I'm unclear why they used that word since they didn't seem to mean clinical psychosis but rather an inclination towards violence.As for not believing the studies saying that after viewing porn people had more harmful views of rape, almost every study examining it came to the same conclusion (except the "studies" showing a correlation and speculating a cathartic response based on no evidence) and every meta-analysis ever done came to the same conclusion. Like I said, it was shown so thoroughly that like tobacco and other drugs it has been banned from being administered in clinical studies because it's too harmful. After the mid-late 80's you'd be hard-pressed to find a study where they actually show people porn and then measure a change (or lack thereof). In case you think this is a male only thing, several of the studies were done with women and some of the same effects occurred. That they thought it was possible for women to ask to be raped as well as decreased empathy for rape victims.
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reader, Odds +, writes (2 November 2011):
Hmmm. The OP seems to be reacting to a deliberately-provocative article.
"He used to stare at women too and I believe this was the influence of porn. He now lowers his eyes when we are out..."
Nope, that was the influence of biology and a lack of discretion. If you had said he now only glances, it would be fine, but lowering his eyes? If any man said, "My girlfriend used to look at guys when we went out, but now she lowers her eyes," feminists would declare it emotional abuse.
"I'm visual too and I don't need porn..."
Obviously what works for you sexually ought to work for everyone, even people with lame excuses like having brains and hormones that are built completely differently from yours.
"I still ultimately believe that we do not need porn in society as it serves no positive purpose..."
It's a viable substitute for sex when getting sex isn't feasible. Even in relationships, it's a viable option when the otherwise-considerate man just wants to get his rocks off and his girlfriend isn't in the mood for a quickie where he doesn't have to worry about her pleasure. Why do you seek to control a man's sexuality? Would it be alright for a boyfriend to control how a woman expresses her sexuality in any way that she did not wish?
Just because you don't like certain kinds of consensual sex or masturbation doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them.
@ Person12345
We've had this a time or two, but I'll jump in again. You're fun to debate.
First, I'm not surprised 88% of mainstream porn is violent - by feminist standards, it's pretty tough to have a penis and not commit atrocious violence every day. Plus, "mainstream" is a nice, flexible term. The fact that I've dated girls who liked their asses slapped, or who clawed at my back (until it bled, in one memorable girl's case), or that they actually asked me to be more aggressive (including holding them down) leads me to believe that there is, perhaps, a somewhat animalistic, primal aspect to sex that just doesn't match up with modern squeamishness. I'd further suspect that applies to a lot of people, men and women. Choking and gagging aren't my cup of tea, but I'm not going to consider any man or woman who likes them as abnormal on that preference alone so long as they only express it with consent... or through porn.
Second, why do you insist on painting such a large fraction of men as rapists? So many of those statistics simply do not add up, I don't care how "credible" the feminist thinktanks that came up with them are. For instance, take the canard that 90% of rapes go unreported. Take the commonly-quoted "one in four" statistic. Take Duke University, which doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation for the safety of its womenfolk. The annual police report said there were 13 reported cases of forcible sex in 2009 (no non-forcible sex offenses were reported). Multiply that by ten and you get 130. Duke has 14,200 students (give or take). That's .6% of the student body, which is 50% female, and assume all rapes are against females (for the sake of argument) to get 1.2% of the girls. Multiply that by five for the average number of years on campus to get 6%.
So, even if we take the (rather generous and completely unverifiable) feminist estimate of unreported crime, you don't exactly get one in four. Even if we assume one male per rape to maximize the number of rapists, that's still not 12%, or 20%, or whatever the new number is for the blanket libel of an entire gender. And frankly, that 90% number is flexible for propaganda purposes: if there are twelve reported rapes one year, and six the next, we can either conclude the sexual assault resource center is doing its job... or we can conclude that fewer women are reporting despite resources, and therefore we need more resources.
Frankly, if one in four women were assaulted in college, one would have no choice but to consider it willful and wanton neglect to send one's daughter to university.
But it gets better: if we assume that for every twenty men who is willing to rape someone, there is one woman who is willing to make a false accusation (a somewhat generous assertion, I'd say), and we still assume that 90% of real rapes go unreported, then for every twenty actual rapes, two real ones and one fake one will be reported... meaning under those assumptions, 1/3 reported rapes is false.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT BELIEVE SUCH A HIGH FRACTION OF REPORTS ARE FALSE. I refuse to paint an entire gender in such a negative light. But such a high number helps illustrate the absurdity of many of the statistics we are fed.
I call BS on the studies saying that after viewing porn, men were more likely to say they would rape women (I'll concede they may be more inclined to say women "deserved" something, depending on how they worded it). A lot of those studies don't use words like "rape" or "assault" because (oddly enough) when they use the actual words for the acts they are surveying (and that's what it is, surveying - unreliable in any event) people won't claim to want them. Same as how they stopped asking women "have you been raped?" in those studies and starting asking about risky sex. Of course, surely no woman has ever engaged in risky sex on purpose, or sent mixed signals in borderline cases - but then, that's part of why I don't have sex outside of relationships. A lot of those studies would count it as "rape" even if the guy stopped as soon as he understood his signals. I can't recall if you're one of them, but a lot of feminists I've read have declared that the woman is under no burden to give a clear signal of nonconsent - which I would agree with for a hookup, but for a long term relationship or marriage where the couple has had sex dozens or hundreds of times and the woman can trust him not to get violent if refused, it's ridiculous (which get counted under those looser survey terms). There is such a thing as marital rape, but the more ordinary scenario (which could easily count) is not some cartoonish image of a man ignoring obvious protest, it's a decent guy assuming that she wanted sex five weeks, days, and minutes ago, and that she hasn't shown any external sign of changing, that the previously-given consent is still there.
The surveys all follow an agenda - and, like all law and politics, I have a hard time trusting any group that gets paid to define, identify, and solve the same problem.
Third (and last, this is running quite long and I don't want to overwhelm anyone with points to rebut all at once), am I honestly supposed to be shocked that men ranked in the highest bracket for psychosis and violence would react violently to violent images? That percentage of men with violent psychoses is tiny (and they are as much victims of their own mental illness as anyone else). Creating scares about such a small group in order to paint all men in the same bad light is irresponsible and hateful. Most guys just like to look at naked women, and I find it repugnant that anyone would seek to tell any man that's wrong. Feminists may not say it in so many words, but since we obviously have to rule out unwilling women (no arguments from me on that), and concede that not every man has a willing woman handy, the de facto choice they offer is either porn or puritanism.
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reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (2 November 2011):
Some people just love their statistics. I suppose if you're a hardcore feminist who believes "all sex is rape," then you can come up with a number like 88.2% of all porn being "violent". (Sounds like the group against media violence which chose to count every single punch in a televised boxing match as a separate instance of violence.)
These numbers sound dubious so let's run them: If there are 151.4 million men in America, and around 70% (your oft-quoted figure) are porn viewers, then we assume 88.2% of those viewers are watching the violent stuff, then say 20% of those become rapists as a result, you end up with 18.7 million. In other words, 1/8 of all US men, or 12.5%, are would-be rapists (not even counting those rapists who aren't inspired by porn). Apparently it is far more likely that a man will become a rapist than that he will abuse alcohol, marijuana, become a porn addict, or even be unemployed. That is an obscene lie which, if it were said about women instead of men, would never be tolerated.
Think you better recheck your "facts". All they prove is that feminist theory warps minds even more than porn does. Criticize violent porn all you want, as I agree everyone should avoid it - but try and use truth, not distortions, to do it.
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reader, person12345 +, writes (1 November 2011):
Actually k_c100 the vast majority of porn is violent, 88.2% of mainstream pornography contains violence. While I think the TV show here was a bit sensationalist, the link between watching sexual violence and becoming aggressive/violent is very clear and has been identified in numerous studies about pornography and about the media in general. Namely that watching violence alone does not trigger a huge amount of violence, watching sex alone doesn't, but the combination of the two creates a large increase in aggression and the likelihood someone would commit a violent act.The most respected study in the field on this showed that there are four different categories of men in terms of violence. Those in the category showing the most "psychosis" about violence had an ENORMOUS increase in the likelihood they would commit violence and in aggression when showed violent pornography while the other three categories experiences relatively little change, though it was still there in almost all categories.I think you are misunderstanding what it is most men are watching. It's not sexy women looking coyly at the camera while they touch themselves. 88.2% of mainstream pornography contains violence, overwhelmingly against women. People aren't sneaking a Victoria's Secret catalogue, they're watching women be coerced into sex they don't want, be gagged on penises, and eat their own fecal matter.Rape rates are going up, reporting rape is going down (because people are either feeling it's normal to happen or because they feel the woman can somehow ask for it), and anal rape is dramatically increasing on college campuses. While I don't think that porn turns most men into violent rapists, 20% of the male population is a massive number and cannot be justified simply because porn feels good. Maybe this problem wouldn't exist if pornography was less violent, but that's where the money is and nothing is happening to change it for the better. It's getting more violent if anything.Also re: the cathartic effect, there is zero evidence that this is the case. Some countries reported a decine in reported rape cases when the internet appeared and they assumed that the only thing the internet was used for was porn. They didn't actually look at whether there were changes in rape laws around then (there were), whether the internet could have played any other factors, whether maybe fewer people reporting, whether their could be any other factors contributing. It was simply, decline in reported rape cases, internet exists, internet is only for porn therefore porn decreased rape rates. That's not science.There are, however, many studies that show that after watching pornography significantly more men say they would rape someone, that rape is acceptable under certain conditions, that women sometimes deserve to be raped, that women can ask to be raped, etc... In fact there were so many of these that most studies that involve purposefully showing people pornography have been banned because it was shown so clearly to have a negative influence.
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reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (1 November 2011):
Anyone who would murder after watching a violent video must be pretty far gone to begin with. They may have lacked moral guidance or had violent parents, so all it takes is some imagery to inspire them to action.
I believe what this "Madame" says about the men being depraved. But since they are all the type who go to prostitutes, what else would they be? Someone who pays for sex, breaks the law, possibly cheats on their partner, and would sleep with a total stranger they know nothing about, is not likely to be the most upstanding citizen around. I think a customer who puts on a violent video during sex with a hooker already knows what he is going to do next even before the video starts.
It's easy to look at two things that go together and say one causes the other (ie. a killer who played violent videogames obviously killed because of the games). It could just as well be that some people are already violent, and this influences the kinds of things they like to play and watch.
Images definitely have some influence. If they didn't, corporations would not be paying millions of dollars for a 15- or 30-second TV ad. And there would be no outcry over people smoking in movies and on TV, or about the airbrushing in fashion magazines. And producers would not take care to show characters putting on their seatbelts or practising safe sex, as they tend to do.
So if even these things have influence, then so must watching hours of violent porn. No, it won't turn most viewers into killers and rapists. But that doesn't mean they won't be influenced or desensitized in some way, if only internally. The influence may be severe for some and subtle for others, but it's there.
Ads work the same way. A brief ad for a car won't make most people buy that car. But seen enough times, it may start to make you see that car differently, as something desirable, alluring or sexy. Eventually you look at the car differently when it drives down the street. You may never drive it yourself but your opinion of it has changed. Changing views about a vehicle certainly seems trivial compared to changing views about violence or sexual acts, which is what porn is doing.
But as someone said, there is a great variety of "porn" out there, not just the violent kind. And the facts are that as porn levels have gone up in society, the rates of rape and teen pregnancy have gone down. This year, Canada reported its lowest murder rate since the 1960s when there was way less violent porn out there. If we have to say one thing necessarily causes another, are we supposed to thank porn for all this?
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reader, HappyPlace +, writes (1 November 2011):
HappyPlace is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks KC100 for your comments.
I dislike porn on many levels and this is just one of them. My partner and I had disagreements over this as he watched it and wanted me to join in too, which I did, for a while. I didn't like it and I asked him to stop. He too used to be more involved with what was going on on the screen than he was with me. When I gained confidence, I gave him the ultimatum of no porn. Before that I didn't demand anything because I thought he would leave me. Actually, he loves it more when I am bossy and demanding than when I turn into a clingy insecure person. He used to stare at women too and I believe this was the influence of porn. He now lowers his eyes when we are out because he knows I will leave him if he behaves like a prat!
1. There have been many posts on this site that claim men DO single out the porn actresses and quite often will imagine them when they are making love to you, in order to ejaculate. So, it's not just a release and they are probably NOT thinking of their partners!
2. I'm visual too and I don't need porn. That's why I love making real love because it involves all my senses! What did men do many years ago without porn?? It's an excuse to use porn when men say they are visual!
3. Fantasy - I think I answered that in response 1.
4. I'm not sure if you remember ZCars but I watched this as a child (maybe 6) and I remember someone being shot. By today's standards it would be classed as incredibly tame but what I saw and felt has stayed with me for over 40 years! So, oh yes, I was influenced by what I saw.
Again, I'm tired of men looking at my tits or staring when they are with their partner. I'm fairly convinced that these type of men are the ones that watch porn. Voyeurism is not my bag - I'd rather be a doer than a watcher.
I still ultimately believe that we do not need porn in society as it serves no positive purpose and degrades women.
Also, whenever you have radio debates on porn, either the influence on children or the case of Vincent Tabak, it's always interesting that the men phone in and vehemently defend porn, without looking at both sides of the argument! This is one area where it seems it is non negotiable for men - now that's scary!!!
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reader, k_c100 +, writes (1 November 2011):
 First of all - I am a female so not your typical male sticking up for porn here! But I wanted to comment on your article as I do agree with you to an extent, but you are over-generalising A LOT here.
Not all pornography is violent, therefore you cannot say that ALL porn is bad and has no place in society. There are plenty of men out there who watch 'normal' non-violent porn where no harm is caused to anyone in the scenes, so masturbating to these images is not going to turn them all into murderers.
I have mostly male friends and I have spoken to them on many occasions about porn, as I am fascinated by the way women seem to react to porn so I wanted to get the inside story. ALL of them (keep in mind I have spoken to a lot of men about this) say they watch porn for the following reasons:
1. It is a release. Pure and simple. Some women may argue well why dont they have sex with their partners instead, that is a release. WRONG - for men sex is hard work and there are a lot of pressures on men to perform, last long enough, make the woman orgasm first.....etc. So sex is not a pure and simple release like masturbating is.
2. This leads to my next point, why masturbate to porn, why not masturbate without anything? Men are visual creatures and enjoy having something visual to stimulate them. Seeing an attractive woman having sex is always going to be a turn on, so it helps them along the way.
3. Fantasy. All the men I have spoken to who have partners always said they watch porn and fantasise about doing those acts to their partners, they are not fantasising about the woman in the film/images, they fantasise about doing those particular acts to their girlfriends.
I do agree with you that violent porn, like in the case of Tabak, is wrong and does influence men. In fact any case of violent images being shown to men, women and children can all influence them. Take the case of the famous Bobo doll experiment done by the psychologist Bandura in the early 1960's - children who viewed violent scenes became violent towards the doll (here is the link for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment).
What needs to happen is not to ban porn, or say that all men who watch porn are going to turn evil - but look more closely at what is shown in the media and in pornography and regulate it better. It doesnt just apply to men, all women and children are at risk too. Again, the Jamie Bulger case - while there was no evidence that they had seen any violent horrors, there was a lot of speculation in the media with a few films being named, and one of the boy's fathers was known to have a large horror collection, so chances are the boys will have seen some of the violent scenes.
Violent images have the capacity to turn ANYONE into a criminal, but standard non-violent porn is not at all to blame and we cannot criticise men who simply are masturbating to images, they are not being affected aside from being helped along the way with their masturbation!
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