Is Porn Bad for You?

[Nordic]

Willow, you are right.

I don't know what else to say. I will simply admit that you are right and I am an all-too-typical male.

You are all my daughters.

Absolutely true.

Its a shame any of them are making porn.

When I was 15 I encountered my first prostitute. It was at a certain intersection in the downtown of a city adjacent to a large military base. They would swarm the car, knocking on the windows, all competing for our 20 dollar bills. And all I could see was my sister. These women were all somebody's sister, somebody's daughters. I was horrified, yet admittedly all a-tremble that for a mere 20 bucks I could have sex with any of them. I never did, never wanted to go there. I had friends who did, though. I would drive around while they were occupied and pick them up after they were done. It was a part of town where you wanted to keep moving.

At any rate, I find myself using porn for reasons I've already described. It has value for me, and for reasons I won't go into, my life is really fucking difficult these days. It's my only vice any more. Perversely perhaps, it helps keep me honest, and helps me be the man I want (or need) to be.

Not that that justifies it, but they are reasons.

[compared2what?]

I agree with Barracuda that if one peruses various porn sites that have a wide general appeal, there are very very few that portray any kind of rape fantasy.

I've caused confusion by talking about rape and rape fantasies without making it clear what I was saying about either of the two. What I meant is that I was seeing rape in many videos, not rape fantasy story lines, but it's been made clear to me such a discussion is impossible.

<triggers>
I would have gone into how I've spent 20 years painting and drawing physical and emotional responses to assault, and for that reason I don't think it's necessarily projection when I see those responses in the young women in some videos. I would attempt to describe a portion of videos where the woman is thrown about with as much respect to her person as the NYPD has shown in dragging around protesters. There is little thought given to the woman's comfort, let alone pleasure, she is treated like a tool, men using their penises as cudgels. Those would be some outward signs perhaps to someone who hasn't been assaulted. I concede this may be play-acting. I've been there however, I've been in innumerable scenarios where I was subject to the whim of the men assaulting me, yet I was still required to respond as if this weren't the case. I was required to move my body around and perform appropriately, but in those situations, as much as you may try to fake it, the body will betray you. Even if you can stifle yourself vocally, pain and fear will cause intermittent tightening and stiffness in certain muscles, other times they will cause a limpness and flatness. It takes a great deal of energy and attention to keep these reactions from showing and to keep yourself from getting seriously injured. I would say that I've seen all of these in a significant number of videos, and they look like rape to me, from beginning to end.

But again, we can't have that conversation because my experience renders my voice incredible, because my traumatized eyes are probably lying projectors.

Oh, Willow. I can totally understand why you feel that way, and am in full sympathy with you over it. But in this particular case, I really and truly think it's not that your experience renders your voice incredible to others, but that everyone is very, very strongly inclined to feel that his or her personal experience of such things is definitively credible, given that it's a foundational component of something that's a profoundly sensitive aspect of personal identity for most people.

I may be completely wrong about that. However, fwiw, it's what I see. Because in the event that I'm right, it would be a shame for you to feel any more pain in relation to those issues than you absolutely couldn't avoid feeling. I feel.

And either way, in case it doesn't go without saying: Nothing that I see, feel or think about the above or anything else can or should be received by you or anybody else as more credibly or otherwise influential than what they themselves see, feel and think.

That's kind of my point. Which is not to say: "Oh, bfd, six-of-one/half-a-dozen-of-the-other, we're all on equal footing and the same terrain here!" I hasten to add.

I mean, it's certainly not something I've had any occasion for saying very often, but I do believe there may actually be some middle ground here.

[compared2what?]

Willow, you are right.

I don't know what else to say. I will simply admit that you are right and I am an all-too-typical male.

You are all my daughters.

Absolutely true.

Its a shame any of them are making porn.

When I was 15 I encountered my first prostitute. It was at a certain intersection in the downtown of a city adjacent to a large military base. They would swarm the car, knocking on the windows, all competing for our 20 dollar bills. And all I could see was my sister. These women were all somebody's sister, somebody's daughters. I was horrified, yet admittedly all a-tremble that for a mere 20 bucks I could have sex with any of them. I never did, never wanted to go there. I had friends who did, though. I would drive around while they were occupied and pick them up after they were done. It was a part of town where you wanted to keep moving.

At any rate, I find myself using porn for reasons I've already described. It has value for me, and for reasons I won't go into, my life is really fucking difficult these days. It's my only vice any more. Perversely perhaps, it helps keep me honest, and helps me be the man I want (or need) to be.

Not that that justifies it, but they are reasons.

I can't find the hat-tipping emoticon, dammit!



ON EDIT: Unless being thought manful by me cheapens it for you? Because I could totally understand that, too. But I meant it well.

[Project Willow]

Oh, Willow. I can totally understand why you feel that way, and am in full sympathy with you over it.

Feel what way? I was being a bit facetous because I thought the idea ridiculous. I thought the bit where I am absurdly asking at what point I should trust my own eyes was a dead give away. I realize people here are probably used to me being more direct and confrontational, sorry for the confusion. I could not have used my usual approach at this point, it would been a swear-laden load of indecipherable misanthropy, and completely unproductive.

I am trying to un-disappear the survivor voice in this discussion, however clumsily, and raise some difficult issues, in case that too was unclear.

[compared2what?]

Oh, Willow. I can totally understand why you feel that way, and am in full sympathy with you over it.

Feel what way? I was being a bit facetous because I thought the idea ridiculous. I thought the bit where I am absurdly asking at what point I should trust my own eyes was a dead give away. I realize people here are probably used to me being more direct and confrontational, sorry for the confusion. I could not have used my usual approach at this point, it would been a swear-laden load of indecipherable misanthropy, and completely unproductive.

I am trying to un-disappear the survivor voice in this discussion, however clumsily, and raise some difficult issues, in case that too was unclear.

My mistake. But if that's the case, while still totally understanding why you feel that way and being in full sympathy with you over it, I have to say that I didn't see the survivor voice as having disappeared from the discussion. I certainly have heard and do hear you and other survivors saying what you see and why you see it. I regard it as worth attending to and considering. As I do your views generally, irrespective of the subject, just on an interpersonal level.

Nevertheless, I can't privilege your views over mine on the content of images that each of us views based on her experience, observation and informed understanding of the kinds of people and acts depicted therein. I can only accept them as equally authentic to mine, when what's at issue is inherently subject to some interpretation. And all photographs that were taken of places, things and people unknown to one at times equally unknown to one necessarily are subject to some interpretation.

What acknowledgment of the survivor voice would constitute its recognition in this discussion in a way that felt like one to you? I ask out of a true wish to provide it, if possible.

[compared2what?]

Shorter version:

We view the world through two different pairs of eyes.

That's not an evil in itself. It just is the case.

[Simulist]

Thanks C2w. You're not wrong on this at all; in fact, I think you're very right.

Really?

Really. Although, I must admit, I've never seen Nightmare on Elm Street — though I do like Johnny Depp.

[blanc]

I'm a bit reluctant to chip in again as what I have said has been misinterpreted and so probably I'm not being the best advocate for the pov of the women used in porn. The thread has been most useful in demonstrating the methods of self delusion and self justification which in other situations (discussing mainstream news presentation of almost any conflict for instance) would be hauled out for dissection. Your eyes don't deceive you PW how could they? How could it be that actions usually by choice carried out in private were willingly and freely filmed for universal free viewing? Not making this point well I know, but if your daughter wouldn't do this, how many other daughters do you really think would? So how does this material come to be there in floods? 3 possible explanations - coercion, payment, choice. Which is most likely? Which fits? I put them in the order that I find most credible, and have to say the last two get a very low ranking in my book.
I don't mean this to be read as judgemental or as wanting repression. But for me it is inescapable that the hugely increased pornography availability has not lead to a reduction in sexual crime ( anecdotes reported by psychiatrists about interviews conducted with the kind of criminals who live by self delusion and trying to impose those delusions on others are not particularly convincing as evidence btw), nor has it resulted in a huge increase in for example marital fidelity, individuals personal experience and their feelings about it aside. I don't happen to think that we need more legislation or different legislation, at least I can't think of anything which would be particularly helpful. I think we need existing legislation to be enforced, and some kind of awareness to develop in response to the hard sell that porn is all good we get from the media. I'm tempted to say Barracuda, facetiously, that it seems that after all , apparently, people can be turned blind, and deaf as well.

[Stephen Morgan]

I'd say its less societal misandry as it is biological. It's like a curse of evolution.

I think she means the lack of acceptance thereof.

It would be nice if we felt that way only in the presence of a fertile female, but no, we feel that way 24/7. And then there are the chronic wet dreams, which at that age, when either your mom still wakes you up for school, or you have roommates sleeping a few feet away in college, are simply embarrassing, AND they haunt you all day, psychologically it's like your mind got fucked but you didn't.

It's seriously overkill on the part of our biology. I mean, if I had the libido at age 20 that I have now at 49, I would still be plenty driven to reproduce and keep the species going, so I can only wonder what the evolutionary benefit to having the young adult males of our species so ridiculously over-sexed.

Perhaps you were brainwashed in your long-gone youth with victorian attitudes towards male sexuality, or maybe your aged memory is faulty, because I don't share any of those experiences. I did have a wet dream once. Didn't feel cheated by it, though. Even women have nocturnal climaxes.

Perhaps I'm just an undersexual individual.

[compared2what?]

I'm a bit reluctant to chip in again as what I have said has been misinterpreted and so probably I'm not being the best advocate for the pov of the women used in porn. The thread has been most useful in demonstrating the methods of self delusion and self justification which in other situations (discussing mainstream news presentation of almost any conflict for instance) would be hauled out for dissection. Your eyes don't deceive you PW how could they? How could it be that actions usually by choice carried out in private were willingly and freely filmed for universal free viewing? Not making this point well I know, but if your daughter wouldn't do this, how many other daughters do you really think would? So how does this material come to be there in floods? 3 possible explanations - coercion, payment, choice. Which is most likely? Which fits? I put them in the order that I find most credible, and have to say the last two get a very low ranking in my book.
I don't mean this to be read as judgemental or as wanting repression. But for me it is inescapable that the hugely increased pornography availability has not lead to a reduction in sexual crime ( anecdotes reported by psychiatrists about interviews conducted with the kind of criminals who live by self delusion and trying to impose those delusions on others are not particularly convincing as evidence btw), nor has it resulted in a huge increase in for example marital fidelity, individuals personal experience and their feelings about it aside. I don't happen to think that we need more legislation or different legislation, at least I can't think of anything which would be particularly helpful. I think we need existing legislation to be enforced, and some kind of awareness to develop in response to the hard sell that porn is all good we get from the media. I'm tempted to say Barracuda, facetiously, that it seems that after all , apparently, people can be turned blind, and deaf as well.

I'm glad you're back. It doesn't read as judgmental. And if it did, that would be fine, as long as the judgments didn't casually toss whole classes of people many of whom are very vulnerable individuals -- eg, addicts, men who consume porn -- whose sufferings and sensitivities you cannot know into an undifferentiated less-than-human trash heap.

I'm not blind. Nor am I deaf. Nor am I dumb. And nor am I entitled to suggest that other people are simply because they don't see and hear what I do. Nobody can see all human truths remotely.

I mean, I could say that I was a survivor of addiction, since I am. And I could also say that I know at a glance that someone I see in a pornographic photograph is an addict, since I'm certain that I do. I've known a lot of addicts who didn't survive their addictions, some of whom were kids of both genders who prostituted, were raped, beated, burned, you name it. Drug addiction (and drug trafficking) are both highly germane to this topic, objectively speaking. People are enslaved and tortured in the service of both.

Am I entitled to suggest that you or anyone else here is blind and deaf to the suffering of those people, or complicit in the crimes committed against them? Not by my standards. Would it be in-bounds for me to take the position that you had no excuse for not acknowledging them as central? Or, ftm, me, in my capacity as a regular, old non-experiencer of RA who has nevertheless known pain and a bunch of other feelings too on a lifelong basis, validly? Again, not by my standards.

I really, really like you. And I learn from you. And I appreciate you. I don't see what you do. But I do not say your eyes deceive you. I say, as you do, that mine do not deceive me.

That seems to me to be fair. Am I wrong?

[compared2what?]

I also meant to say that I agree with the content of your post, blanc. Porn is not all good.

I just got a little carried away, for which I apologize.

[Nordic]

Well, even if we all agreed that pornography was universally evil, what could be done about it? It's everywhere. Hell, the Victorian Secret fashion show is about to become a Superbowl-like event on television. What is that, if not a type of porn, but where the women are paid more than normal?

The shit is just all over the place.

And teenage girls as young as 11 and 12 are going online and doing video chats with boys where they're doing all kinds of nasty stuff. Of their own volition, and for free. They seem to have no idea that the boys are probably recording it (but he said he wouldn't record it!) and saving screenshots.

It's really weird.

It's also from all over the planet. Most of the women I find the most beautiful are from Russia and the Ukraine. What's up with that?

Seriously what can anyone do about it?

When I was a kid, it was actually kind of difficult to get your hands on anything. Nowadays it's a few clicks away on any computer. My son is 9, pretty soon he'll be able to just look at any hardcore porn, anywhere and anytime. That's gotta fuck a kid up a bit. Seeing some of that stuff is pretty disturbing now! I can't imagine being 12 years old and seeing some of the truly profane crap that's out there.

And how will that affect his attitudes towards women and sex?

Times are so very different than when I was growing up, and a huge score was to find a couple of Playboys and maybe a Penthouse in my Dad's office.

[wintler2]

Well, even if we all agreed that pornography was universally evil..

Strawman.

It's everywhere. Hell, the Victorian Secret fashion show is about to become a Superbowl-like event on television. What is that, if not a type of porn, but where the women are paid more than normal? The shit is just all over the place.

So its okay? Your country has military bases in nearly 200 other countries - does that make it okay? Large numbers of clergy have been abusing their power for centuries - is that okay?

And teenage girls as young as 11 and 12 are going online and doing video chats with boys where they're doing all kinds of nasty stuff. Of their own volition, and for free. They seem to have no idea that the boys are probably recording it (but he said he wouldn't record it!) and saving screenshots. It's really weird.

Not really: children ape their elders, god help them.

Seriously what can anyone do about it?

How about sort own shit out first?

[wintler2]

Till now, i've been criticising porn that debases/is violent towards low rank participants, for reasons that are clear. Now i'd like to make a different, subtler criticism of porn as a whole (i haven't been holding out, this angle is new to me, from a mate over dinner).

All porn, even porn that is nonexploitative nonsexist etc (assuming such exists), shares a sad foundation: it can only provide symbolic relief for real needs. What is symbolic relief? Its wearing an expensive branded tracksuit and living in a trailer, its playing shoot'em'up video games after kissing ass all day. Just as movies make us vicariously powerful or impassioned, providing symbolic relief for our lack of power and passion in real life, porn provides a symbolic tableux for us to scrape up a little synthetic power and/or imagined intimacy. With our ego's thus reinflated, we can show up for another days humiliations IRL (so we can afford our smokes/grog/shoes/car/porn so we can show up for another days humiliations...).

Getting that symbolic relief may be better than doing nothing with or suppressing the itch .. but really i think the itch is a symptom we should be listening to rather than 'take a pill'/quick wank/symbolic relief.

[barracuda]

symbolic relief

At least you're being straightforward with what you're really criticising: "self abuse".

And maybe that would make sense, wintler, except that many, many species of animals have been observed to masturbate in the wild for any number of apparent reasons, mostly, thiough, because it apparently feels good. There is nothing uniquely or sadly human about it. Your argument is merely "don't touch yourself" redux, an attempt to further equate the act with unnaturalness when nothing could be further from the truth. I don't think you can really consider masturbation a "substitute" for anything - it is a thing and an end of it's own with purposes beyond mere vicarious and symbolic relief - it can be highly creative, healthy and valuable, and is the natural activity of the species, as opposed to repressing the urge and stigmatizing desire.

How could it be that actions usually by choice carried out in private were willingly and freely filmed for universal free viewing? Not making this point well I know, but if your daughter wouldn't do this, how many other daughters do you really think would? So how does this material come to be there in floods? 3 possible explanations - coercion, payment, choice. Which is most likely? Which fits? I put them in the order that I find most credible, and have to say the last two get a very low ranking in my book.

I have participated myself in the filming of sexual acts with women on at least a dozen occasions. These situaions weren't pornography for pay, or by coercion, or by reluctant assent - they were enjoyable outlets for impulses of exhibitionism by the women. These films and photographs were made for private enjoyment, but it was usually made clear that under the right circumstances it would be sexually stimulating for the women involved to know that these films had been seen by strangers as well. At least that's what they told me, and I both undestood them and believed them without question.

Now it may be that in your experience, such exhibitionism or joy in showing yourself to others does not really exist. In my experience it does, and is a fairly common interest of any number of women. They find it immensely exciting. I never considered them to be in some way perverse or unusual in this regard, rather they were interested in realising a widely held fantasy. People think it all the time, and people actually do it all the time, too.

I'm not trying to say this is the universal case among women you might see in porn films. It is obviously not. But the films and pictures we made were rather definitely pornography. I'm not sure what else you could call it. "Home movies", perhaps. And part of my point here is to say that there are a lot more types of porn than just industry porn, which is so easy to denigrate on many levels for any number of reasons which we all can agree on. But much porn is home-made and intended for private use, and that entire subset of pornographic material is neither coerced nor made for pay. It is made for joy, excitment, and the pleasure of being seen and enjoyed on that basis as a sexual creature.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Which, if you accept that as the case, means there's nothing wrong with porn, with the making of it and the enjoyment of it, in and of itself as the act of enjoying images of sexual fantasy. Is there? Because I think we all agree that "the porn industry" is a problem.

But is the act of watching strangers having sex bad for you?

Most people have no interest in watching porn that involves actual rape. Most people probably would rather not choose to wear clothing produced by slave labor, or eat food whose growing destroyed and displaced whole indigenous communities, or communicate on devices made possible by conflict minerals fought over by child armies, or drive a vehicle which depends upon fuel controlled by the drone bombing of millions of civilians, or use any product which was produced as a result of the intense, injurious exploitation of people, either.