Is porn hurting us?
I'm going to take advantage of a moment when the people of Austin are discussing sexual morality in regards to the Tamara Hoover case, and I'm going to use it to talk about a book I've been reading called Pornified, which may as well have been called "How Internet Porn is Hurting Men, Women, Children and Couples". It's a loose segway..but I'll take it.
Focusing on strictly the consumer end of porn, Pornified tells how internet pornography has transformed America: Men are becoming desensitized to sex and consequently, only increasing violence and hard core activity impacts them. Pornography brings lying into marriges and confusion for women about who to be, and how to be a good partner.
Unlike most anti-pornography literature it's doesn't preach, author Pamela Paul backs her data with facts and interviews. It's made me hate internet porn both for the producers and the consumers.
Um..plus it uses quotes from controversial UT journalism professor Bob Jensen who was dismissed from his church this week!
Technorati Tag: porn austin women
posted by Bigredbarbie at 10:31 PM
4 Comments:
My first reaction: Ugghh. Yet another idiot jumping on the "Porn is Evil" bandwagon.
That being said, I WOULD like to read it, if just to be aware of the lame arguments against "porn" and the *supposed* "facts".
Love that word- "porn". Makes ultra-right-wing Christian conservatives get on their knees and pray in fear.
Maybe they should get on their knees for other reasons and they'll be happier people (haha-Damn I'm funny).
As "part of the problem" (White, young male), I'm tired of hearing that what I read/view/do is BAD for the poor, downtrodden, abused-by-my-ilk women/children. Because us white males are the root of society's ills.
What is bad for EVERYONE is: lack of character, lack of respect, keeping our noses out of each other's business inasmuch as it doesn't belong there.
The word "porn" conjures up different ideas for everyone. Simply defining the word would remove it from the aresenal.
How sad that a significant portion of our society/world can't distinguish between fantasy and reality and so feel compelled to impose their fears upon the rest of us.
The idea that eroticism/sexuality/sensuality can be "bad" is ludicrous. These things simply ARE. What "turns your crank" is no concern of mine, so long as it doesn't harm a non-consensual person.
I don't believe the arguments are lame, I think the ones Pamela Paul gives are quite valid and put a lot of perspective on porn.
Because it is so prevalent in society today we are just programmed to not question it, if a girl finds it distasteful or damaging she is written off as a prude who dislikes sex. I love sex, and I'm far from being a prude but I do not approve of porn and this book helped me sort out some of the feelings I'd been having for a long time.
I don't see this as an issue of freedom, and the argument that sex is natural and we should be able to see sex because it's healthy won't work either. I really think it is unhealthy for people to be exposed to the degrading and violent pornography I see out there. It normalizes those behaviors, teaches men that they are common and that women expect or even enjoy them...this is particularly true for children who are viewing porn online. Children aren't given any context for what they see and can't process it.
I encourage, even beg, all people to question the state of internet porography. We do not have to accept that consuming images of violence and degradation to women are acceptable. Do you think that pornography isn't one of the reasons kids are selling themselves online with webcams? that internet predators are arranging sex meetings with 13 year olds? That teens are walking around in girls gone wild and playboy shirts? that the divorce rate is at 50% and a majority of cases brought into marriage counselors involve porn?
We do not have to accept it. I will not accept it.
Given that most people in the world, and certainly a high percentage of English speakers, have been raised in a culture that is EXTREMELY sick with ideas of sexual repression, I doubt that any of us can see the "porn" issue perfectly clearly.
As yet another white-male with an opinion on the subject, and limited by the above-mentioned constraints, let me speculate that if we lived in a society where people generally had something approaching the sex-lives they wanted, there would be little reason for porn to exist. Lacking that environment, porn can be seen to exist to help fill the gap. Rather than contribute to the violence against women, quite possibly, it greatly reduces that problem.
I see many of the related conventions of our society as institutionalized prostitution, and in that context, it would make sense that even women who think of themselves as "liberated" would be imbued with the ideas needed to keep their value-in-trade as high as possible, without realizing that their value system is indistinguishable from prostitution.
How can we tell that somebody's objection to ALL porn is neither middle-age Taliban repression nor an extension of its more modern equivalent: monogamous relationships?
Mike The Cat
I found Pornified to be largely uncompelling, in much the same was as Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs was uncompelling: there isn't enough emphasis on personal responsibility, and there's too much attack-by-innuendo. I think that the data Paul amassed about the negative impact of porn is valuable. But if the poor schlub who'd rather wank alone than with a friend seems happy that way, who am I to say "Underneath that wanking exterior, you're actually lonely for a lover."?
I could go on, but...
http://www.thetruthasiseeit.com/2006/06/pamela-and-jenna.html
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