re: porn

[redqueen]

“If I don’t watch porn, how do I have sexual imagination?” a young man asked me. If you know what kind of pornography is mainstream and popular, you see how disturbing this statement is.

When I asked male interview subjects what they would like to do in bed, “ejaculation on a woman’s face” was most often at the top of their lists. But when I asked them what the attraction of this act was and whether it meant anything, their initial response was puzzlement. They had never given it much thought. With time for reflection, however, most came up with answers very similar to those of the pornographers I interviewed: it is about controlling women, doing something disgusting to them. It’s like spitting or urinating on them.

Thus something unsettling about gender relationships mediated by pornography is revealed: on-screen male domination is sugar-coated -- portrayed as causing women ecstasy -- which in turn arouses further desire on the part of the male viewers: the desire to experience the pleasure derived from control and aggression. And deep down, these viewers understand it. “The second you have an orgasm and that passion sinks out of your body, and you’re still watching the movie, you start to really see what’s going on,” one male college student said. “This is not sexy. This is not sex. This is not how I want to experience sex.”

- Chyng Sun, co-director of “The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships"

[mopinko]

1. i told my hubby to find some porn that we could both enjoy.

that was about 5 years ago. still waiting. he came up with a couple old swedish films, which were fun and amusing. i think he found an annie sprinkle or 2.
and some that he was confused at my offense. turns out he never turns the sound on, so he didn't know that they were saying things that would piss me off.

the older i get, the more i hate it.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Porn is embarrassingly stupid

It's a powerful visual medium for sexuality and all producers can come up with are gendered dominance displays, unrealistic positions and that idiotic smirk porn actors have on their face.

It's also blatantly racist as hell.

[redqueen]

3. Yep. It is racist as hell.

It amazes me (not really) that pro-porn liberals won't examine the racial dynamics in porn. Other than to simply pretend its just some side issue problem, and not a problem with the majority of porn.

[ismnotwasm]

4. The defenders are silent on that issue

Or mutter something incoherent. It's a MAJOR problem with porn and as porn has gone more mainstream, I can only thing it's reflective of the purchasers of porn, no matter what the political ideology is.

Here have white lesbian porn

Here have Asian schoolgirl porn

Here have "black on white porn"

Porn itself is objectifying and unimaginative; it cripples the sexual spirit while promoting racism at the same time. And people defend that shit.

[redqueen]

5. Yep, it is reflective of the consumers.

The producers make what people want to see.

[duffyduff]

6. It's totally anti-sex

I don't know how anybody can defend the stuff given the terrible working conditions the actors/models go through.

It's just another type of exploitation, a form of human rights abuse.

[One_Life_To_Give]

7. 30% of Internet Bandwidth

30% of all internet bandwidth is used for pornography. (Source: Huffington Post)
70% of men and 30% of women watch porn. The average time spent on a porn site is 12 minutes. (Huffington Post)
Porn sites get 450m unique visitors each month. When combined, Netflix, Amazon and Twitter get 316m visitors. (Huffington Post)

And it can be produced and uploaded from a Smartphone and viewed globally on same. It's not such an easy problem to deal with. I don't think we will make serious headway in altering the current trends unless we identify the fundamental need it fulfills and offer a substitute. In the short term as viewing of "violent porn" and violence against women has been correlated, that might make an effective campaign against the more extreme elements of it.