The Great Porn Debate

Why is it that people influenced by the attitudes of the 1960s, that supposedly we-can-change-the-world protest mentaltity suddenly become passive and hopeless in the face of porn. It's here to stay and we can do nothing about it. Didn't they say that about slavery?

More RECENT studies have in fact shown that 75 to 90% of women working in the sex industries, including pornography, have been abused in childhood as compared to 30% of women on average. The number of men in North America who have used a prostitute (you know, usually an impoverished, desperate woman suffering from abuse, mental illness and drug problems) is now estimated at 80%. Studies on prostitutes over time have revealed that what men want from them has been changing...they don't just want sex anymore, they want to slap, hit and choke the women. Men are increasingly expecting women in romantic relationships to engage in the same kinds of sex, something almost unheard of 20-30 years ago. Porn decreasing violence against women....don't think so.

Studies done decades ago on stable Northern European countries are now being shown to be wrong. Porn was supposed to end the need for prostitution....and perhaps it does, at first....but prostitution is now growing in all those countries. Legalized porn and prostitution was supposed to be a "safety valve" against white slavery, but guess what, all those countries have an increasing problem with sex slavery, including child prostitution.

Studies done on anger and "safety valve" expressions of it, like hitting pillows, have already proved that those who are encouraged to "let it out" only end up having more of it, and getting too accustomed to letting it out. The pressure cooker theory of human emotions and drives was disproved some time ago, and I'm astonished to find a reputable psychology magazine still printing outdated garbage like this. People are becoming virtually brainwashed into accepting this as just a "lifestyle" issue. If we had magazines where whites sexually aggressed against blacks who were paid to look as if they are enjoying it, do you think that would fly as a "harmless and fun lifestyle choice" that people could simply be free not to look at if they didn't like it?

Where is the discussion on Maclean's Hospital's landmark study showing how sexual abuse and violence damages the brain? Where is a note about how kids exposed to porn exhibit the same kinds of symptoms and behaviours as kids that have been directly sexually abused? Where is a note about how stress and violence cause our frontal lobes, the seat of our judgement, to virtually shut down? This magazine DID just have an excellent article on that recently. No interviews with Patrick Carnes, on sexual addictions? What, the rules that apply to neurology and psychology the rest of the time are miraculously suspended when the topic is pornography?

It's about time for the 1960s and all it's pop psychology rubbish to get chucked out the door onto the midden heap where it belongs. Even the most uneducated people in the street are starting to make the connections and put the facts together and are getting increasingly disgusted and alarmed by our pornified world. Shame our so-called intelligensia can't seem to do that. There is a name in psychology for how smart people can ignore common sense and make plausible sounding excuses for simple bad behaviour, it's called rationalization. One day, there will be articles in here asking how an entire culture ignored the "porn crisis" just as social scientists today still write about how people could overlook Hitler's rise to power, the Nurmeberg laws and allow the Holocaust to happen. Because dumb smart people with letters behind their names made plausible arguments for it and told everyone to ignore the reality staring them in the face.

Oh, and by the way, I used to be a die-hard supporter of pornography. Neurology, not religion, taught me better.

I saw an old episode of Ally McBeal the other day where it was revealed that Billie, the love interest we're all supposed to want to marry, had sex with a "stripper" (they didn't dare call it prostitution) at his bachelor party and that other guys from the office went in after and "took turns." The rationale? That men have "needs." I mentioned to my female boss how this kind of scene wouldn't appear on TV nowadays--and if it did the outcry would be great. She responded with a story about being on the road with her financial services coworkers back in the '90s, and how after an evening of expense account dinners they'd trundle her back to the hotel while they went off to a massage parlor for their "happy endings." "We were so brainwashed," she said. I believe that porn, fed to young men who didn't know any better, starts that brainwashing.

I agree with the previous post that we are all still brainwashed, and I believe the blithe acceptance of porn as free speech with no accountability for its negative effects is part of the problem. If the porn actually were some free expression of a mutually satisfying sexual experience I'd be all for it, with controls on how it might be distributed or viewed in public. But porn isn't ever like that. You never see a woman having a real orgasm in a real way. If you did, it would be the most boring porn in the world because for a woman to get off a guy actually has to do some work and it takes a bit of time.

Also, I am really sick of the guys who think that porn is the standard for good sex and want to do all of these weird non-orgasm-friendly things. Really and truly, we need better sex education in this world, with more emphasis on what pleases a woman and less emphasis on woman as baby-maker. And the "what pleases a man" stuff has been absolutely beaten to death over the centuries. Yeah yeah, we know already. How about some balance here?

PS: That study about countries with porn treating women better--that argument never convinced me because of the correlation/causation problem. Wish they'd either explain that conclusion better or stop touting that study.

made this a GREAT READ! I'm so encouraged by the what the two previous commentators had to say. AND I AGREE! You both have so eloquently and intelligently made your points that I have renewed hope in the possibility of changing society's attitudes and behaviors related to porn. (Perhaps, like me, the author of this article also thought it hopeless, so wrote this article as an exercise in acceptance of the situation.)

I thought the blog was balanced, fair and did a good job opening up the topic for people who want to think seriously about it. The first post, on the other hand, is an overreaction by someone who doesn't want you to weigh all the evidence, just the evidence he or she thinks is important. It reads like an intelligent design argument, or something a member of Congress might say: lots of just barely off point syllogisms wrapped around a "porn is bad and you are stupid if you don't believe me" argument.

Let's closely examine just the first few points. Second paragraph, first sentence, the poster changes the topic instantly from porn to childhood sexual abuse, linking the two with statistics. A neat trick, because you would have to be stupid not to be against childhood sexual abuse, but just because women in porn were once abused doesn't mean that porn is, in itself, an extension of that abuse. I would venture to guess that a large percentage of women who work in rape crisis counseling have been victims of sexual abuse. But change porn to "rape crisis counseling" in that sentence and you'll see that, on its own, it's just an association that may be meaningful, but not necessarily the way that it is used. (And no, I'm not equating sex work with rape counseling, except to expose the flaw in the argument.) The poster wants you to equate childhood sexual abuse, an unmitigated bad, with pornography/sex work, rather than actually focus on the specific topic of the blog.

And the poster needs to separate porn from prostitution as far as sex work is concerned, because the original article was careful not to conflate related issues, and the poster's argument takes no such care.

In the second sentence of the second paragraph, the poster immediately veers off on a tangent. He or she started with childhood sex abuse leads to sex work, and all sex work is the same, whether prostitution or pornography. Now the poster wants you to know that almost all men are implicated in the further abuse of prostitutes (notice how he/she dropped the subject of porn entirely for this argument). But wait, the poster also wants you to believe that a prostitute is "usually an impoverished, desperate woman suffering from abuse, mental illness and drug problems." So, now, 80% of men are further abusing women who obviously have no capability of living a life of free will, and who have their choices thrust upon them by men who force them into servitude. Don't you feel bad now? Especially if you are a man.

The third sentence stays with prostitution, continuing to avoid the real topic of the article for a bit longer: "studies on prostitutes" ('of' would have been the more accurate and less demeaning way of describing those women and men who sell sex) show that those evil men are more violent now than in the good old days when clients never abused their prostitutes, or so we are told. Then those same evil men are slapping and hitting their romantic partners as well! And they never used to treat women like that in the good old days, right? Right? It must be porn that is to blame because the only thing that has changed in the RECENT past that is being studied in these definitive studies of human sexual behavior.

By now the reader should be in a state of high dudgeon. This plague of porn must be stopped so that prostitutes won’t take up such a terrible lifestyle in the first place, and so that men, who throughout history have treated women in only the most chivalrous and virtuous of ways, will stop visiting prostitutes and slapping their wives and choking their girlfriends.

The argument only degrades from there, blaming porn (always indirectly) for increases in “white slavery” (the racist term for human trafficking that assumes people of color can’t be victims of a certain class of crime), saying that sex abuse in childhood damages the brain and then inferring that porn damages the brain without direct citation, equating porn with stress and violence, then talking about the negative effects of stress and violence. It winds up comparing social complacency on porn as being tantamount to turning the other cheek on racism and Nazism. You know your argument is in trouble if you have to use the Hitler comparison to make a point.

The whole post requires you to accept the faulty syllogism: (A) Ted Bundy watched porn; (B) Ted Bundy killed people; therefore (C) People who watch porn kill people. As for evidence to the contrary, it would seem the poster thinks that to be as rare as the dispositive transitional fossil.

For those who want to launch tirades against pornography and prostitution, what would those involved be doing for work otherwise and if those other jobs are so much better why aren't they doing them?

As for changing sexual practices, well sorry, but those have never been static.

And seriously why should it be all about what pleases a woman? You think women know what pleases a man? Think again. Quite often they're inept and clueless, but you're not supposed to say anything bad about their ability. Meanwhile it's fine for women to moan incessantly about men being incompetent at sex and about how unfair it is that they might have to do something purely for their partner's enjoyment. In other words exactly what they're asking of men.

I always laugh when people talk about all women in porn having enhanced bodies. It shows that the person saying that obviously doesn't watch much porn. Yes some genres of porn, Hollywood porn for instance, there aresome actresses have had their boobs done. But that is just one of many kinds of porn on the internet. Another hugely popular porn genre is amateur porn where people who you might find shopping at Walmart turn the camera on themselves and go at it. These are everyday plain looking people, hardly surgically enhanced. People love this kind of porn because the sex is real and so are the orgasms.

The point is that porn's biggest draw is it's unlimited variety. All men do not like the same things or the same type of sexual imagery. Depending on how you feel you can order up (by Googling) anything your imagination can come up with. Even guys who love big enhanced breasts are not going to only watch that kind of porn exclusively day in and day out. It's like eating only ice cream every day. Porn gives men choices and that's a major reason it is so popular. Hollywood porn is just one facet of that and only a small minority of women in porn are as the writer describes.

The bottom line on this whole subject is that easily available porn showing a huge variety of people have a huge variety of sexual activities is here to stay. Being anti porn is like being anti junk food or anti violence in sports....you can complain but there really isn't anything anyone can do about it, it's now just part of the culture of the 12st century.

I have, and have had terrible luck in all my romantic relationships with women. I also in the past felt guilty for imagining sexual encounters with women that I know within my social circle or work, and find attractive. I always felt uncomfortable with this as I felt I was, in way, disrespecting these real people in my life without their knowledge.

I was always against porn during my 20’s and mid 30’s as a feminist. This was up until my mid 30’s. This is when I began to watch porn, I found this helped to remove my guilt for objectiving real people in my life.

Now, I equate pornography much akin to professional wrestling. Meaning; it’s not real, it is just a show and nothing more. I make an effort to ensure that I only watch porn directed and produced by women. I think that whether female or male, these performers, producers and directors should set up some form of ethical standard. Something akin to the fair trade mark, so that consumers understand that consent has been given, and reinforces that complete consent has been given and both actors have been given equal pay.

This may sound like ‘pie in the sky’ nonsense. I don’t know.

I genuinely think that if it was approached with ethics at its core, then consumers such as myself would know what they are watching and understand what they are paying for.

We live in world were body shaming or comparing ones looks to the ‘expected standard’. Is more prevalent, takes form in all walks of life; advertising, films, tv, hen and stag parties, social activities, social media, sports, gyms, diet plans, plastic surgery.

We live in world were we focus on whether someone has good teeth, rather than the words that come out of that mouth. This systematic and we all reinforce it.

It often offends me when I hear women say things like, I want a man who is tall, dark and handsome. I think we all know what that is code for. Same applies to men when they comment on woman entirely based on her looks when they walk past. Both men and women are entirely responsible for their perceptions of what is or isn’t attractive. I think we need to be a little more honest about our needs and wants, and that regardless of sexuality, we all judge each other based on primal sexual needs.

I think the key is, we all need to be a little more honest about how we consume the constant barrage of implied sexual content we see each day.

I was addicted to porn for many years, not realizing the subtle damage it was causing. I felt the moral conviction, but brushed it aside, believing that it was an innate human need. Then I learned that our sexuality is sacred, reserved for the institution of marriage with that "special someone" and not meant for recreational purposes.