I’ve just come back from the US where I attended the Stop Porn Culture conference in Boston. While I can’t say I enjoyed it quite as much as the enchanted evening listening to James Taylor and Carole King perform in Washington (my smooth-taking mate DJM from the north of England scored $15 tickets on the sidewalk an hour before the show), it was good to be with like-minded women – and some men – committed to unmasking the harms of Big Porn Inc.
The conference examined the nature and impact of the global porn industry and the move toward ever more violent and degrading forms of pornography. The papers were disturbing. We learnt of the tactics porn companies use to get men hooked on porn, of the porn profit trails leading to mainstream corporations, of porn’s influence on the music industry, of racist stereotypes of Black, Asian and Latino women perpetuated in pornography, of the filming of sexual torture of women in war situations. We watched Chyng Sun’s film ‘The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships’. I hadn’t seen animated images of children used in pornography before. Now I have. This material, so life-like and realistic – is one of the latest trends in pornography, protected as free-speech under the constitution of the United States of America, thanks to the efforts of the ‘Free Speech Coalition’.
I also picked up Dr. Gail Dines new book Pornland: How porn has hijacked our sexuality (Beacon Press, Boston, 2010), which I read on the plane home (read David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers on the way over. Reckon I’ll choose Anne of Green Gables for the next trip). The book is a confronting no-holds barred look at what porn is and where it is taking us, including the niche markets of teen sex, torture and gonzo porn. Professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, an internationally acclaimed speaker and author, and a feminist activist, Dines argues that the proliferation of sexualised imagery is a major public health concern that we cannot ignore. She argues pornographers have hijacked our sexuality, selling is back to us in forms ever more dark and cruel. Contrary to stereotypes of anti porn feminists as ‘man hating’, it is clear Dines cares for men and boys and porn’s impact on them. Also contrary to the labels, Dines makes it clear she is not anti sex, just anti industrialised, corporatized porn sex which destroys real intimacy.
Gail Dines is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture, an educational and activist group made up of academics, anti-violence experts, community organisers and anyone concerned about the increasing pornification of the culture.
I’m reprinting here, with her permission, Gail’s opening address to the conference:
Welcome to the Stop Porn culture Conference of 2010. We are thrilled to host these two days of keynotes and workshops, and to provide a space where we can discuss the harmful effects of an industry that saturates our society with misogynistic and racist images. In this room we have women and men who are activists, anti-violence experts, academics, anti-racist educators, students and citizens who feel deep in their gut that something is wrong with the culture. Everywhere we look we see what it means to live in a pornified culture where the images, themes and stories of porn seep into our everyday lives. Whether it be teens sexting or Miley Cyrus doing a pole dance, the dominant discourse around sex and sexuality has been hijacked by the pornographers.
We come together this weekend to share ideas and discuss strategy, and we do this because we recognize that we need to build a robust movement that takes on this predatory industry. This weekend you are amongst friends. It is not often that those of us opposed to porn find a place where we can feel welcome. The academy has basically turned us into outliers, the mass media has caricatured us, and we are ridiculed and insulted all over the web.
If the chatter is to be believed, then apparently we are anti-sex prudes who hate men and scream rape every time a woman has sex with a man. To read about us, it would appear that we are against fun, sexual creativity, playfulness, masturbation and of course orgasms. We are depressing, unappetizing and worse yet, out to ruin everyone else’s sex life.
Of course, all this is just a way to belittle us and legitimize the porn industry. I would say that anti-porn feminists are pro-sex in the real sense of the word, pro that wonderful, fun and deliciously creative force that bathes the body in delight and pleasure. And what we are actually against is porn sex. A sex that is debased, dehumanized, formulaic and generic, a sex based not on individual fantasy, play or imagination, but one that is the result of an industrial product created by (mostly) men who get excited, not by bodily contact, but by market penetration and profits. A sex that encodes deep cultural scripts of male entitlement and female subservience.
To appreciate just how bizarre it is to collapse a critique of pornography into a critique of sex, think for a minute if we were critiquing McDonald’s for its exploitive labor practices, its destruction of the environment, and its impact on our diet and health. Would anyone accuse us of being anti-eating or anti-food? I suspect that most readers would separate the industry (McDonald’s) and the industrial product (hamburgers) from the act of eating and would understand that the critique was focused on the large-scale impact of the fast food industry and not the human need, experience, and joy of eating. So, why, when we talk about pornography, is it difficult to understand that one can be a feminist who is unabashedly pro-sex but against the commodification and industrialization of a human desire? The answer, of course, is that pornographers have done an incredible job of selling their product as being all about sex, and not about a particular constructed version of sex that is developed within an industrial setting.
Understanding that porn is an industry means that it needs to be understood as a business, whose product evolves with a specifically capitalist logic. This is a business with considerable political clout, with the capacity to lobby politicians, engage in expensive legal battles, and use public relations to influence public debate. Like the tobacco industry, this is not a simple matter of consumer choice; rather the business is increasingly able to deploy a sophisticated and well-resourced marketing machine, not just to push its wares but also to cast the industry’s image in a positive light. As a major industry, the porn business does not just construct and sell a product; it constructs a world in which the product can be sold: the technologies, the business models, the enthusiastic consumers, the compliant performers, the tolerant laws, even the ideologies that proclaim porn to be the very pinnacle of empowerment and liberation.
As anti-porn feminists we refuse to buy into the “porn equals empowerment” argument and instead look at the industry from a critical and macro perspective. This means looking for patterns and explaining how they came to be, their dynamics and the structural forces that perpetuate them. We acknowledge that some women can make porn work for them. Jenna Jameson is fabulously rich, Sasha Grey is on the fast track to becoming a major crossover star, and Tera Patrick is a one woman industry. But for all the Jennas, Sashas and Teras, there are thousands of women that go to the San Fernando Valley with stars in their eyes and come away with scars on their bodies. Some go back to their low paid jobs while others end up on the streets under the control of pimps, in the brothels of Nevada, or doing the type of porn that is considered to be beyond the mainstream, even by the porn industry.
You won’t be seeing these women on Oprah or Howard Stern. These are the women the pro-porn people never want to talk about because they bring into stark focus just how the industry really treats women. Their lives illustrate the contempt and utter disregard that the industry has for women and the reality of their lives is hidden behind the mantra of “well, they consented”. What does consent mean in a world where women are the poorest, hungriest and most overworked group? What does consent mean in a world where, according to economist Amartya Sen, 100 million women are missing? And we don’t even notice their absence. For these women, gender isn’t some abstract concept to be played with or deconstructed within a post-modern discourse, it is a lived experience and it shapes, determines and controls the conditions of their lives.
See also this blog piece by Susan Hawthorn of Spinifex Press, who also attended the SPC conference.
See also: “The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations” by Mary Eberstadt and Mary Anne Layden, The Witherspoon Institute
64 Responses
Great speech! Really hit the nail on the head. Pornographers have hijacked our sexuality. There is something really dysfunctional about our society when people think that porn = sex. Ex porn stars talk about having to throw up between scenes, use drugs and alcohol to get through a scene, physical pain and having to disassociate from their bodies to endure it. That’s not sex, that’s abuse.
Yet another porn actress has recently died, I believe she was 19 years old. Even Jenna Jameson who has made porn ‘work for her’ sobs on television wondering what she will tell her sons and what they will think of her.
Sex is great! Porn is abuse.
Thank you so much for your work in advocating for the rights of women and girls, as well as sharing your knowledge. As a young woman in my mid-twenties, I am so appalled at the pressure and expectations that society puts on women to conform to this type of “woman” and even at the lack of care or thought in regards to this issue by the majority of my same-age peers. It is really disturbing and frightening.
Also, are you able to provide the name of the papers mentioned in your blog or the journals for further reading? Thanks again!
Thanks Cassie. Some of the papers were: ‘A Power Paradox: The Online Commercial Pornography Network” (Jennifer Johnson), “Making Hate: Porn, Sex and the Destruction of Intimacy” (Gail Dines), “Hip Hop Honeys, Nappy Headed Hoes, and the Hustlaz: The pornification of Hip Hop Music and Videos” (Dr Carolyn West), “The Personal Hazards of Porn” (Wendy Maltz), “From Jekyll to Hyde: The Grooming of Male Pornography Consumers” (Dr Rebecca Whisnant). I’m hoping they might end up on the Stop Porn Culture website or published elsewhere. Thanks again for your interest.
Last year some time, someone sparked my interest in what has apparently been called ‘the Feminist Sex Wars’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_Sex_Wars), and I have read a huge amount of literature in the mean time. While I’d say I largely fall on the ‘sex-positive’ or ‘pro-sex’ feminist side, what has been impressed on me recently is really how much agreement there actually is, and how much the framing of the debate is where the actual controversy lies. (For instance, the label ‘pro-sex’ is needlessly divisive.)
First, I think the horse has well and truly bolted on the pornography issue. It’s here, and it isn’t going away for the foreseeable future. That’s the reality. Additionally, I do not think it is okay to take agency away from the women (or men) who do freely choose to be sex workers (eg Nina Hartley). I do not think any particular sex acts are inherently anti-feminist or anti-women (including fellatio, cunnilingus, exhibitionism or voyeurism). I do not think we should stigmatise anyone who does sex work. I do not think we should legislate based on morality. I do not think pornography is monolithic, nor all inherently bad.
While I do think that sex is pervasive in society, it is the adolescent, snickering kind, rather than a mature discussion of an important part of the human experience. That’s what makes its pervasiveness bad. What I think matters more is how we go about solving our largely common goals.
Certainly pornography should not be seen by children. For one thing, it is a really poor sex educator. On the other hand, I do not see children as asexual. Children and adolescents do have sexuality of a kind. For instance, it is not uncommon for children to discover masturbation before they reach school age. Adolescents, in particular, are hormonal and starting to deal with attraction to others. Questions about sex, sexuality and relationships are going to come up. In the absence of safe environments to discuss such matters with adults (or peers) they can trust, and fear of being condemned or laughed at for their questions, they turn to other, less informative sources (ie pornography).
How do we realistically solve that problem?
First parents should not grant children unrestricted access to the Internet or other media sources (in the same way that parents wouldn’t allow children unrestricted access to wander around a city). As the child ages and trust is developed, less restrictions can apply. Since pornography can’t be eliminated, it is better for adolescents to learn about its existence (and that it doesn’t deal with consent and communication, that it eliminates much of the preparation and clean-up work necessary, and that it doesn’t always portray safe sex practices) from a trusted adult, then for them to stumble upon pornography by themselves.
The second is comprehensive, age appropriate sex education right from the start of school. Young children should be able to give names to all parts of their bodies, and also know that anything that makes them uncomfortable is not okay. Older children should start learning about what makes for healthy relationships and communication, while teenagers should start to get the mechanics and safe sex messages. I think this would go a long way to eliminating sexism as well, particularly communicating within relationships.
Certainly there are women who don’t have too many options who then ‘choose’ sex work. The solution here isn’t to take away what is really their least bad option, but to improve the economic situation of such people to the point they don’t even need to make that choice in the first place.
Certainly there are women who are forced into the sex industry. Legalisation and strong regulation will allow law enforcement to concentrate on the non-consensual parts of the industry. The other advantages of legalisation are health and police support, the ability to refuse clients, the elimination of pimps and support to get out of that work without victim blaming.
Certainly there is some abuse within the pornography industry. Unionisation and better legal protection could help eliminate some of those problems. Information about which companies are reputable and which aren’t could help, in the same way that free range eggs are generally preferred to caged eggs. This could come from paying more attention to what sex workers actually have to say. Albeit, pornography is made rather more complex with the rise of amateur porn. There are cases of people who filmed themselves for their own pleasure, where the film has then become public. That isn’t acceptable unless all parties wanted that to happen. How do we actually go about policing that? How can we know the consent level of participants of amateur pornography?
And so on. I do find it a bit strange to characterise ‘Porn, Inc’ as having the goal of sexualising culture. I think this is more a side effect of society still not being comfortable with sex, rather than a cabal of porn companies plotting world domination. Anything that makes us personally go ‘ick’ is still taboo and snickered about. That residual shock value is what drives a lot of that, and probably a large reason lesbians, gays, transgenders and even asexuals still have difficulty being accepted. That should fade as acceptance increases, and we stop trying to project our personal morals onto others. Consent should be at the core of this discussion (ie as long as all participants are engaging in practises that are safe, sane and consensual, it is no one else’s business).
Lastly, while I haven’t seen ‘The Price Of Pleasure’, I’ve read some really unflattering things about it. There may be some legal issues, as it would technically be classified as pornography for profit, but doesn’t carry the 2257 labels that are required in the US. It claims to be representing the most common types of pornography from 2005, but the highest selling pornographic film of that year (and at the time, of all time), ‘Pirates’, isn’t even mentioned (possibly because it doesn’t fit the narrative). Joanna Angel, one of the few porn stars allowed to speak in the film was apparently very distressed with how the film portrayed her, and condemns the under handed tactics used to get her to interview. (She now runs her own company making alt-porn).
Anyway, I too would be interested in reading some of those papers when they’re available.
Thankyou for posting this fantastic speech! Gail’s address was an especially articulate and accurate rebuttal towards the criticims of those who are against porn culture. Thankyou Gail, for verbalising our protests and frustrations. I can’t wait to look further into all the resources mentioned.
Arved von Brasch @ First, I think the horse has well and truly bolted on the pornography issue. It’s here, and it isn’t going away for the foreseeable future. That’s the reality. Additionally, I do not think it is okay to take agency away from the women (or men) who do freely choose to be sex workers (eg Nina Hartley). I do not think any particular sex acts are inherently anti-feminist or anti-women (including fellatio, cunnilingus, exhibitionism or voyeurism). I do not think we should stigmatise anyone who does sex work. I do not think we should legislate based on morality.
So pornography is here to stay and we should get real about this? That sounds like political quietism disguised as pragmatism to me. Some of us do not suffer apologists gladly.
Who is ‘taking’ away the agency of ‘sex workers’? It is a mistake to confuse ‘agency’ with individual or collective resistance or freedom . Lofty appeals to ‘agency’ often end up in celebrations of neo-liberal free market individualism. It is interesting the way the term ‘sex worker’ is used to collapse the differences between, say, a western middle class university educated backpacker who is stripping in clubs for some cash for a couple of months, an underage prostitute in the third world who works the streets and a woman who is prostituted by the pornography industry into making gonzo incest porn. If you think my examples are extreme, then take a hard look at the industry. ‘Sex worker’ is an imperialist term which covers up the range of abuse of women and children. There is another hidden form of ‘stigmatizing’ going on in this covering up of immense suffering with the term ‘sex worker’.
You don’t think ‘we’ should ‘legislate based on morality’? Sub-text here is that anti-porn movement is a ‘moral panic’? And ‘morality’ is code for reactionary wowser position etc etc. Interesting that you seem to assume that an anti-pornography legislation can only ever be a ‘moral’ opposition and yet you claim to have read up on the debates. Are international laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation of women and children just a ‘moral panic’?
@ ‘Certainly there are women who don’t have too many options who then ‘choose’ sex work. The solution here isn’t to take away what is really their least bad option, but to improve the economic situation of such people to the point they don’t even need to make that choice in the first place.’
‘Such people’? You mean women? There are endlessly well documented arguments which link the sexual subjection of women by men to the economic subjection of women by men.
@ ‘Information about which companies are reputable and which aren’t could help, in the same way that free range eggs are generally preferred to caged eggs.’
I doubt, very much, that the majority of porn consumers care if the porn industry lays ‘free range eggs’ or ‘caged eggs’.
Politely asking the global porn industry to practice some corporate social responsibility is not the most strategic solution given the politics of the industry and the feral nature of the net.
Have you seen what is out there?
Do you know what is really going on?
I have a number of problems with what is being said here. First is apparently how porn “harms”. Having read a countless articles on the subject, I still can’t figure out what is actually “harmful” about it. And in Melinda’s blog post, she also seems unable to explain what is the problem is. Melinda is absolutely right when she says it’s OK to criticise “McDonald’s for its exploitive labor practices, its destruction of the environment, and its impact on our diet and health”. But then she fails to articulate why pornography is so bad for our health.
This is why the public at large label those who are against porn as wowsers and puritans. Melinda and everyone else needs to state the case why pornography is so bad for us. There is peer reviewed scientific evidence regarding the health impacts on eating fast food like McDonalds, as well as evidence showing how the company was damaging the environment. However there is no credible scientific peer reviewed evidence regarding the “harmful effect” of pornography. The only “evidence” seems to come from those of a religious bent or those who have an axe to grind against the porn industry. Evidence that fails on a number of levels, mostly scientific.
Having read comments on news sites and online opinion sites which publish Melinda’s work, people can see that her world view and theirs aren’t same. It doesn’t ring true. We’ve had commercial pornography in the mainstream since Playboy came out in the early 1950’s. We had a big explosion and mainstream acceptance of porn films in the 1970’s. There’s been porn readily available on the internet for more than 15 years. Can you understand my absolute cynicism at those who push the anti porn line when I and others can’t see society falling around us despite nearly half a century of this material being available? I see people in my office and in society in general having normal loving relationships. I also cannot see “pornification” of society that people like Melinda harp on about it. I note that she selectively uses examples, but most of those are pretty hard to find and the only place I have come across those examples are here on her blog. I think it’s pretty disingenuous to make out those examples are commonplace in society when they are clearly not.
Secondly I take issue with Gail Dines’ “the global porn industry is running the planet” conspiracy theory. In particular her claims that “the porn business does not just construct and sell a product; it constructs a world in which the product can be sold: the technologies, the business models, the enthusiastic consumers, the compliant performers, the tolerant laws”. This is verging on nutbag conspiracy theories such as the Ilumanti, the protocols of Zeon etc. This nonsense doesn’t help your cause. But please humour me; name one technology that was created by porn companies. Home video technology? No, that was JVC and Toshiba. The internet? No, that was the US government, Tim Berners-Lee and a bunch of other unrelated companies. Sorry, but the “global porn industry” does not construct the world. Society does that and has been doing so for quite a while now. If indeed the porn industry had politicians and society in the palm of its hand, you’d see a less restrictions on porn products. In fact the reverse is happening. There has been more and more laws governing the sale, distribution and even the content, down to the absurd point where fetishes can be shown in print publications but not in video productions. And with every legislative change, the access to porn and its content has been restricted further, not freed up. Melinda knows this all too well.
Thirdly I take issue with the assertion that somehow the porn industry shapes people’s sexuality. That’s complete rubbish. People are attracted to pornography because they like it. They are generally attracted to one type be it soft stuff like nudes or hardcore stuff. I know what I like. I can remember my youth and when I was first attracted to women. It had nothing to do porn, and generally (and to my surprise) I find that I am generally attracted to the same physical attributes in woman that was in my youth (usually the dark European look). I resent the assertion that people are nothing but sheep and pop culture (including porn) immediately changes their values and ethics. It’s nonsense.
Finally, I have problems with this blog post in that it tries to link the porn industry with prostitution, trafficking of women and even child abuse. Sorry, but those are two separate issues and should be treated as such.
Overall I think that the anti-porn movement attacks the wrong parts of the supposed “problem” and alienates a large percentage of the population. Millions of people use porn everyday yet are unaffected and have healthy relationships with their partners. There’s no mention of teaching young adults about how to be critical consumers and understand how advertising is trying to sell them something. There’s no mention of how poor sex education is in this country and indeed in most western countries. I had no idea what female genitalia looked like until I saw a girlie magazine. Sex education was presented in a cold and sterile fashion at school for me. There was no information on how to communicate with the opposite sex, nothing about relationships, nothing about how the two sexes want something different from the relationship. Nothing except a scientific representation of sex. Is this really how we should present the subject to children? Let them awkwardly go at and then wonder why things turn out so badly?
There was also no mention of helping the women in porn. Most, if not all are from the lower socioeconomic part of society. Gee, I don’t know, how about getting these women better opportunities for education and well paid meaningful work? Oh but no, this stuff would require some actual thought and real effort that might actually cause some positive change. And wouldn’t achieve the goal of getting rid of the icky porn, would it? So much easier to ban something now and pretend you’ve solved the underlying problem.
Malcolm, read http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/05/the-weight-of-smut if you want information on why porn is bad for your health.
@Abigail Bray
So pornography is here to stay and we should get real about this?
It is realistic to think that pornography isn’t going to be shut down within the next 20 years, and probably not after that. Consider the United States. There are enough court cases that have defended pornography as protected free speech, and California cannot afford to shut down its industry at this point in time (it’s bankrupt). Attempts to legislate it out of existence are going to fail for these reasons. Within Australia, attempts to make it illegal aren’t going to work either. Howard couldn’t do it in 1996, and I don’t see there being enough support, in the near term at least, for anyone else to succeed. Additionally, I’d also say that prohibition does not work. Alcohol in the US, and the ongoing drug wars have demonstrated that. Even where prostitution and pornography are illegal, it still occurs. Argue against it all you like, I obviously disagree with you that it is bad in all cases, but we aren’t going to see a change in the near future. That being the case, I prefer to go for harm minimisation approaches. How do we best deal with the consequences? How do we prevent abuse and exploitation where we can?
I choose the term ‘sex worker’, not to conflate what is clearly rape (‘underage prostitute’, ‘incest porn’) with middle class women’s choices, but to include prostitution, stripping and other kinds of sex work along with pornography (ie the definition of ‘sex work’). (Although, ‘incest’ and ‘underage’ pornography are both illegal in the US. Cases where it happens – Traci Lords – are well published and punished.)
I certainly agree there is a huge difference in agency and privilege between a woman like Sasha Grey, or more locally Tess Ryan ( http://the-riotact.com/?p=8539 ), and a poor, uneducated woman in the developing world (or first world, for that matter). My experience is that you’ll get no argument from most ‘sex-positive’ feminists that the former is fine, while the latter is clearly a tragedy. You’ll certainly get none from me. I will point out though, that there are usually two things such countries have in common; poverty and highly religious societies. Islamic societies are some of the worst for women, although the Christian ones of Africa and South America aren’t greatly better. Women like Taslima Nasrin and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are freakin’ heroes for escaping those areas and saying so. Having said that, a lot of the problems experienced in developing countries are almost entirely the fault of actions taken by our governments here in the West.
@ You don’t think ‘we’ should ‘legislate based on morality’? Sub-text here is that anti-porn movement is a ‘moral panic’?
Actually, I was specifically referring to things like anti-sodomy laws, demanding marriage only be between a man and a woman, and – this is a big one for Melinda Tankard Reist – anti-abortion laws. Although, it is interesting that you again conflate what is clearly the free choice of women who certainly do have options (Nina Hartley, Australian Monica Mayhem), with what is clearly rape and exploitation. My position is that every person should have both freedom of and from pornography.
@There are endlessly well documented arguments which link the sexual subjection of women by men to the economic subjection of women by men.
Yes, so I think we agree? The solution is to end the economic impoverishment of such women. A poor women who would choose sex work as the best of few options, in the event all sex work is illegal, is still a poor woman with even harder options. Taking away that option doesn’t make her life easier, or improve the cards life has dealt her. Improving her situation so she doesn’t have to make that choice seems to be a far better solution, at least to me. (In the event of actual coercion, then that becomes clearly rape, and is already illegal.)
@ I doubt, very much, that the majority of porn consumers care if the porn industry lays ‘free range eggs’ or ‘caged eggs’.
The most recent, and as far as I know, only comprehensive survey of the pornography experience in Australia, ‘The Porn Report’, says that despite the dreck that is available, that isn’t what the majority of people are choosing to watch. Feature and amateur pornography are by far the most common. (This is consistent with what is found in other countries.) ‘Ethical porn’ is one of the largest growing segments of the pornography industry, which shows that some people do care.
Actually, what I think is going to provide the biggest harm to the pornographic industry is the same sense of entitlement that has hurt the music and film industries. People are prepared to download free (usually pirated commercial pornography) and not even feel the need to then buy the CD or DVD if they liked it. Such piracy has already seen the pornography industry contract heavily.
Which is why I think the political landscape might change significantly by 2030. At that time, commercial pornography may no longer be a viable industry, but what has already been made would continue to be available. I am concerned that this could actually become a dangerous situation. If no one is prepared to pay for pornography, but there is still high demand for new material, then I’m not sure what that does to the landscape. Would that make things better or worse?
@ Do you know what is really going on?
Depends on what you mean. If you are talking about sexual kinks and fetishes (spanking, BDSM, CFNM, Bukkake, etc), then I think those are niche markets that, at least within commercial US pornography, are generally done safely, sanely and with consent.
If you are talking about coprophila, snuff, rape films, bestiality, or child pornography, then again I would say it is very niche, already illegal (or at best dangerous for health reasons), and far less available. This kind of pornography certainly exists, but you have to go actively searching for it. For this kind of stuff, particularly child pornography, I think the best response is to have our law enforcement agencies able to do what banks already do. Banks work together to bring down fraudulent phishing sites within hours. There is no good reason that law enforcement shouldn’t be able to do the same.
‘Forever Malcom Young’ wrote:
‘However there is no credible scientific peer reviewed evidence regarding the “harmful effect” of pornography. The only “evidence” seems to come from those of a religious bent or those who have an axe to grind against the porn industry.’
It is truly astonishing to assume that repeatedly wanking to footage of young women being tortured, gang raped, spat on, shat on, humiliated etc has zero negative impact on the consciousness of the consumer. (And please, don’t give me the rape porn prevents real rape, or incest porn prevents real incest line by providing a virtual outlet for crime). Given that this porn is part of a culture in which girls and women are still raped, bashed, verbally abused,it is even more incredible that you still see no connection. And it is also very naive of you to assume that the women and children who are prostituted by the pornography industry are not harmed.
@ ‘Having read comments on news sites and online opinion sites which publish Melinda’s work, people can see that her world view and theirs aren’t same. It doesn’t ring true.’
It’s fairly obvious that a group of trolls are chasing her work on the net. They don’t represent ‘the people’. The christian bashing is so mindless, boring and formulaic.
@ ‘Finally, I have problems with this blog post in that it tries to link the porn industry with prostitution, trafficking of women and even child abuse. Sorry, but those are two separate issues and should be treated as such.’
How on earth can you argue that the multi-billion child pornography/child sexual abuse industry has nothing to do with child abuse? And pornography IS prostitution. Think about it.
Dr Bray said; “It is truly astonishing to assume that repeatedly wanking to footage of young women being tortured, gang raped, spat on, shat on, humiliated etc has zero negative impact on the consciousness of the consumer”.
Oh? And it is quite astonishing for you to assume that most men watch this stuff. You do realise that the material you described cannot be legally sold in Australia, don’t you? You do realise that the greater majority of porn doesn’t include these things. The bulk of porn is “vanilla sex”, stuff that most couples would do in the privacy of their own homes. Also Dr Bray, where is the evidence that this material has a negative impact on the consciousness of the consumer who likes that kind of porn? As I’m a big Kubrick fan I have watched “A Clockwork Orange” numerous times. Why haven’t I gone out in my bowler hat and drank amphetamines and milk at the local bar then raped women and beat up homeless men? I certainly have never felt the need to do any of the stuff portrayed in that film, yet when it comes to sex, apparently we can’t control ourselves?
Dr Bray said; “And it is also very naive of you to assume that the women and children who are prostituted by the pornography industry are not harmed.”
Who said anything about children? Remind me, which porn shops in Australia sell child porn? Oh that’s right, it’s illegal, just like in every other country in the world.
Dr Bray said; “It’s fairly obvious that a group of trolls are chasing her work on the net. They don’t represent ‘the people’. The christian bashing is so mindless, boring and formulaic.”
No, no, no. Trolls by definition are those who argue in inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic ways, and most who have criticised Melinda’s work don’t do that. I can’t see by questioning something, especially when it doesn’t ring true, that makes me or anyone else a troll. As for Christianity, you brought that up. Though looking back at Melinda’s career, it does explain a great deal.
Dr Bray said; “How on earth can you argue that the multi-billion child pornography/child sexual abuse industry has nothing to do with child abuse? And pornography IS prostitution. Think about it.”
No Dr Bray, I was clearly talking about the commercial pornography industry. You know the stuff which is legally sold, most which is sourced from the US or Europe. You wilfully chose to misinterpret what I said and took a section of what I wrote completely out of context. You’re trying to link illegal child pornography with commercial pornography with adults who consent and freely choose to work in that industry. Oh, ever so slightly disingenuous there aren’t we? As for porn being prostitution, well there’s a gulf of difference between the two. While some women freely choose prostitution as a job, there is a sizable portion who are forced into the profession, most here illegally (see the Australian film “The Jammed”). So no, I think the two are separate issues are far as I’m concerned.
Mr FMY
@ ‘Remind me, which porn shops in Australia sell child porn?’
@ right back at you: ‘Oh, ever so slightly disingenuous there aren’t we?’
I am not wasting time giving you a comprehensive over-view of the research done by feminists, criminologists and data from law enforcement agencies over the last few decades. Where is your evidence? Why don’t you actually open your mind a bit and READ the research that has been done. Then come back to me and have an informed discussion.
@ Cassie – “As a young woman in my mid-twenties, I am so appalled at the pressure and expectations that society puts on women to conform to this type of “woman” and even at the lack of care or thought in regards to this issue by the majority of my same-age peers. It is really disturbing and frightening”
Very well said Cassie. I am far from my mid-twenties – but as an older woman, I really despair at all this stuff and the effect it is having on young people and their view of normal sexuality and relationships. People are being manipulated, just as surely as they are by large fast food corporations who make billions of dollars by persuading (mainly young) buyers that the processed corn starch and miserably farmed meat they peddle are somehow a ticket to ‘cool’. Younger people have grown up with a tacit acceptance of ever increasing, extreme levels of sexual exploitation in the name of ‘tolerance’ . They are unable in many cases to comprehend this is an industry, driven by greed and profit with the sophisticated marketing of a billion-dollar advertising reserve at its disposal.
Dr Bray, the claims that porn is harmful are being made by yourself and those quoted by Melinda. Therefore the onus is on you and Melinda to provide the evidence. It is not my job to find evidence for YOUR claims. This is not how science works.
What really gets me is that you want to lump child porn, which is obviously illegal and harmful to those whom have abused in the creation of it, with legal commercial pornography made by consenting adults. With arguments like that, is it any wonder people point and accuse you of being wowsers? I’ve asked for a couple times for some compelling research which shows that commercial pornography (note: NOT child abuse material of any kind, but commercial material with consenting adults that you can buy legally) is unhealthy, and I’ve got not a cracker. Well except a link to an overtly religious blog which didn’t say where the hell the research came from.
If you cannot state clearly where there is research which proves your claims, then I’m afraid you’re on pretty shaky ground.
This is a general set of replies to Arved Von Brasch and Forever Malcom Young. I have one simple message for you: DON’T BE FOOLED THAT THE PORN INDUSTRY IS SOME HARMLESS PLACE TO WORK. With all due respect, some of your comments reflect a little naivety on your part about this.
1) The horse has bolted on the pornography issue so we should just let it stay?
No. If enough people in society want pornography gone, including politicians and lawmakers, and consumers on which the market depends, it can be got rid of. The real question here is: should we want it gone? Is it bad for the human race? If it really is bad for the human race, (like slavery, world poverty, or murder) then our response to it should be to try and get rid of it. Neither slavery, unjust poverty or murder are completely gone from this world, but that is no reason to give up restraining those things – surely we are preventing harm in not letting those things wreak complete havoc? So if something is bad, it should be fought against. So the real question is: is pornography bad?
2) The ‘freedom’ of people who choose to work in the sex industry?
The truth is, the sex industry seems to attract lost souls – amongst female porn performers a very high fraction of them were emotionally or sexually abused in their past and thus developed (and this is a quote from an ex-porn star’s testimony that I have read) ‘a distorted view of sex’. Many ex-porn stars tell of how they entered the industry as a result of their past pain, to try and gain some sort of approval. If the porn industry is attracting people who themselves admit they were messed up, might it be too simplistic to say that female performers are completely ‘freely’ joining the industry?
Even if someone does join the porn industry out of complete ‘freedom’, there is still a deeper question to be asked: ‘is it GOOD for them?’ I realise that we tend to think that individuals know what is best for them, so if an individual makes a choice about their life, we have no right to criticise them. In most cases, I believe this is true. But for some cases it is not – if someone ‘chooses’ to become an ice addict or gamble all their money away the choice argument doesn’t really fit – we tend to criticise their choice on the basis that it is hurting them. So the real question is: does the porn industry hurt the individuals who work in it to a great enough extent to warrant criticism of their choice to join?
3) Does the porn industry hurt the individuals who work in it?
Yes, and I will list all the various forms of harm below:
i) The most obvious harm is emotional and psychological. Because, week in, week out you are having sex with multiple partners that is quite callous sex, you lose the ability to emotionally bond with a partner during sex. Ex-porn stars often speak of feeling ‘used up’, as if they would have nothing more to give to a sexual partner they actually loved. Many porn stars speak of difficulties of feeling intimate with a partner during sex after leaving the porn industry, or feeling worthless. Thankfully, a lot of ex-porn stars have healed from these hurts, but the healing is very hard.
I don’t think it is society that makes porn stars feel this way by loading them with guilt. I think the feeling of personal loss comes from within. Here are some reasons why.
Human beings are one of the few animals on earth to possess the brain chemical oxytocin, known as ‘the monogamous chemical’, which helps us bond with a person during sex. This suggests that we, like the emperor penguin, are wired for monogamy rather than promiscuity (unlike lots of other animals). I think this is reflected in our common experience – how much does it hurt when we have a sexual breakup? We have bonded, through the powerful chemical oxytocin, with a partner through sex, so of course sexual breakups will hurt. How often do we feel kind of ’empty’ after a one night stand, because we bonded with a person over the night but we know we will never see them again? A few sexual partners and breakups are bad enough. But imagine, as a porn star, feeling that kind of emptiness and brokenness not hundreds, but thousands of times (I estimate, in a year, the average porn star would probably have about 700 sexual partners – and that’s only on the set). Human beings are simply not psychologically or physiologically made for unintimate, callous, short lived sexual experiences. But that is what working in the porn industry requires of you – to a ridiculous extent.
It is no wonder that the porn industry has suicide, drug use, or alcoholism statistics unlike any other industry. To feel so emotionally empty after a day of work it isn’t surprising that you would turn to the bottle and try to block it out. And again, I am quoting ex porn stars here.
ii) So this brings me to the second harm of working in the porn industry – drugs. 90% of porn performers use illicit drugs regularly. Some female performers cannot get through scenes without vomiting or experiencing extreme pain. Because of this, the porn producers will often give the performers meth or get them drunk just so they can get through the scenes. When you’re watching a hardcore porn scene, you are most likely watching people who are wasted – that is the only way they can get through scenes.
iii) STDs. Hello! This is a pretty obvious one. 66% of porn performers have genital herpes – a non-curable disease. Instances of chlamydia and gonorrhea are 10 times as frequent among the population of porn performers than sexually active people between age 15 and 25. Around 13% of performers in the porn industry are HIV positive.
Furthermore, diseases spread because condom use in porn scenes is frowned upon and often forbidden by the producers – because the film won’t make as much money that way! So many porn stars couldn’t use condoms even if they wanted to. This just shows how little the industry cares about their workers, but more on that later.
Porn stars frequently catch these diseases and as a result have massive problems with their reproductive systems. Any plans they might have had of having children are seriously compromised.
It isn’t just the reproductive systems that are damaged from a few years of work in the porn industry, but the anus as well (I hope I don’t have to point out why). Adult diapers are a sad thing to have to wear by age 30.
iv) PORN STARS ARE ABUSED BY THE INDUSTRY. In so many ways it isn’t funny
– Porn stars are often lured into contracts that give them false promises of what they will be paid.
– Porn stars are often kicked out of the set without any pay if they ‘mess up’ or ‘ruin a scene’ halfway through (either by vomiting or losing bowel control).
– If porn stars threaten to expose the industry they are often threatened themselves. Some are paid to go on tv with producers and talk about how wonderful and glamorous the industry is, which they WILL do if they want their ‘contract renewed’.
– Porn stars, especially females are often forced to do sex acts that they DID NOT ACTUALLY CONSENT TO. But they do not make any money any other way.
– The porn industry does not care for the physical health of its workers adequately. According to many health bodies, including California State Health (California being where most of the world’s porn is made) they do not enforce enough STD monitoring.
– Many porn producers are also drug traffickers. Getting porn stars hooked on drugs is almost a necessity given the kind of acts they have to do in scenes.
– When a porn star is past their use-by date (if they have just too many STDs – not that the porn industry helped prevent this) they are simply given tossed out with no help given to where they will go from here.
– Even if a porn star leaves the industry by choice, it is very hard for them to make a clean break. The industry will still sell material of an ex porn star that they no longer consen to being shown.
My point: even if an individual does freely choose to join the industry it is a choice that is undeniably bad for them – similar to gambling all one’s money away. I put it to any defender of the ‘free choices’ of people to join the porn industry that, if a loved one of yours wanted to join the porn industry, you would NOT want them to do it.
4) The acts shown on porn scenes are not degrading?
Arved, you said that acts such as oral sex and voyeurism aren’t degrading to women. I agree that oral sex is not degrading. Voyeurism? Well, if by that you mean allowing someone to see you naked who loves and wants to be intimate with you, that is certainly not degrading in my books. But if by voyeurism you mean having someone look at you who sees you as a peice of meat to get off over and not a human being with a heart and soul – I would say that is degrading.
No that that’s out of the way – BE SERIOUS. ‘Oral sex’ and ‘voyeurism’ hardly summarise the content of porn! What about um… slapping, hitting, spitting, ass-to-mouth, drinking urine, simulating rape and violence, name calling such as ‘slut’ or ‘dirty whore’, and portraying women as nothing more than a THING with multiple holes to be penetrated as much as possible? If all that isn’t degrading, I don’t know what is!
I know that the term ‘sex-positive’ is thrown around a lot to describe porn. But if there is one thing that I would summarise the sex in porn as being, given the actions described above, it is one of ‘making hate’, not love, to a woman’s body – no matter what Sacha Grey says.
5) Porn is ethical and the ‘porn report’ says that most people don’t watch the worst of the worst of what is out there.
Sorry, but ‘The Porn Report’ is not written by academics who have any qualifications in sexology or a vaguely related area, or who know anything about what the nature of addiction is like.
Yes it is true that many people who consume porn will only ever have a mild addiction, one that they are capable of getting out of, which doesn’t lead them to watch the worst stuff there is. But that only shows that those people exercised control, not that the mild stuff does not still have a tendency to lead to harder and harder stuff. Studies show that the viewing of any porn (even little old lads mags) shows that the areas of the brain that respond to people in pornographic images are the same areas that respond to inanimate objects, while the areas responsible for compassion, empathy and other normal responses one normally has when one sees human beings, are shut down. In other words, one quite literally ‘objectifies’ the human beings they see in porn. And this habit of objectification does tend to express itself in the ways porn users relate to their sexual partners. Sexual partners of porn users often talk about the fact that they are not being connected with during sex, and that their partner’s minds are somewhere else. I think this is a bad result for sexual relationships however you cut it.
Even if mild stuff for some people doesn’t lead to harder stuff, it still, by definition (because of what it does to the brain) puts you on that trajectory (which you may be able to put a stop to, but it is a trajectory all the same). Once you begin to compartmentalise intimacy and sex in the way that even soft porn leads you to, you are shaping your brain and the way you get aroused, which will lead you to want harder and harder hits – similarities between porn and drug addiction are quite striking. So my point is that soft porn is not harmless. The fact that soft porn users can avoid getting into harder porn (although I’m not sure how substantiated this claim is) does not show that the harmful trajectory is not there. It simply shows that some people (not many, from what I can see) are lucky enough to be able to control that trajectory.
6) Is this whole thing a moral panic?
I think there area few things spurring on this CONCERN over the proliferation of porn into our mainstream society, none of which is an irrational panic as is often implied.
Firstly, porn cheapens sex into a callous, un-intimate act. To an unprecedented level, porn is shaping the views that children and adolescents have about what sex is and what it should be. Children, I believe no longer have a completely free choice to determine what their views are on sex. Their minds are constantly being made up for them by a pornified culture. And when I say this, I don’t mean to say that all children are watching hardcore porn (even though the average age of first exposure to internet porn is 11, 70% of boys having seen it by age 12). Advertising, music videos, and the display of Ralph, FHM and Picture magazine in all-access areas are feeding kids the view that members of the opposite sex are to be used for instant gratification, rather than people with whom a sexual experience is the expression of a deep love and respect. Sure, I respect the right of someone to decide for themselves that sex is just for self gratification – when they are free to deliberate on the matter themselves. But children are not free to make up their own minds when they are bombarded the way that they are.
Predictably, it is said ‘But it is the parents’ responsibility to develop their kids’ views of sex. Blaming the media is a cop out!’ Well, no. It isn’t that simple. When you buy petrol at a petrol station, or a magazine at a newsagents, you cannot just leave your eight year old kid in the car. You have to take them into the store with you, and unless you physically put your hand over their eyes, they will likely see the covers FHM – which most stores don’t care about displaying obviously. There are other examples, but I’ll stop there. Needless to say, countless parents are complaining about how hard it is to protect their girls and boys from the unhealthy messages given to them – and these are not parents who are slack and are not vigilant. These are good parents who are trying to take responsibility and even they are finding it hard.
If the effects of hardcore porn addiction are bad enough on adults, as I have already suggested, imagine what the effects are on kids. Child psychologists are increasingly witnessing a rise in sexual assualts in highschools. Even primary school kids are grooming other kids for sex because of what they have seen on the internet. Porn exposure blurs a young person’s perception of what is acceptable to do to another person and what is not – because the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed in a child until they are 20-22 years old, experts say they are not able to critically analyze what they see on the internet, and are much more likely than adults to make the assumption that, if a person on a screen is doing something, that behaviour is ‘normal’ and appropriate for normal life.
This worry about porn would be a moral panic if there weren’t so many negative consequences of porn consumption. But there are. Stories of marriages that have ended because of porn, child prostitutes in Asia who are used by child-porn using westerners on ‘bussiness trips’, teenagers who feel sexually confused and inadequate because sex in real life doesn’t match what they’ve been fed by porn (duh) – all this does give us reason to be worried about porn. Moral panic? Don’t think so.
7) What are the harms of porn addiction?
I think I’ve almost already said enough about this, but since ‘Malcom’ asked what are the possible harms I thought I’d talk about just how bad heavy porn addiction can get.
i) Like drug addiction, it can stop you FUNCTIONING. It can stop you sleeping, working, thinking about other things.
ii) It can lead to erectile dysfunction when having sex with a REAL WOMAN. Because, as I have already said, you wire your brain in a particular way when you watch porn, you can come to be more aroused by a screen than a real person – and yes this does happen.
iii) It can also give you false expectations of what women like being done to them, what women ought to act like, and what they ought to look like in bed. This is particularly a problem for boys who have been exposed to porn from a young age.
iv) It does affect the way you see women. If you are constantly consuming material where women are being called ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ and where you are literally training yourself to see them as objects rather than real-life people, it does, and will, have an effect on your attitude, even if in just subconscious ways.
v) Porn does, in many cases, lead addicts to act out in violent ways against others. I need not say why, as I’ve said it already – porn affects the brain, and what affects the brain affects your whole self. Rapists and Paedophiles, when analysed, are found to have a high history of porn use.
8) Arved, you seem concerned about sex trafficking in poor countries?
Well, get this: once child and adult sex workers are groomed and recruited by traffickers, they are shown porn to help train them what to do for clients. Porn feeds the illegal sex industry in more ways than this too.
9) ‘Children and porn should be encouraged to coexist since porn isn’t going away’.
This implies that sexually healthy children and adolescents CAN coexist in a world full of porn.
I think I’ve already made the point that the best way to be a sexually healthy person is to not look at porn (I’m glad, Arved, that you acknowledge that porn is a poor sexual educator). So if one has the freedom not to look at porn, one should be able to live in a pornified world and still be healthy – right?
I have two things to say against this. The first one is that adolescent boys in particular are not what I would say ‘free’ to choose not to look at porn. Adolescent boys have strong desires for sex, and equally, strong insecurities that they’ll never get to experience enough of it. So porn steps in and exploits that insecurity – it offers them (an unhealthy version of) what they desperately want. If porn is there, adolescent boys, out of their insecurity compounded with strong desires, WILL look at it. I am yet to meet a guy in my generation who did not look at porn as a teenager, many of them even against their ‘better judgment’. This suggests that what boys need is not freedom to look at porn, but freedom from it.
Secondly, even if an individual adolescent chooses not to look at porn, this doesn’t mean that they can be free from its effect. Such individuals get into relationships with others who have looked at porn. Such individuals face pressure to conform to expectations of a pornified culture. It sucks to be a girl in my generation and know that it is very unlikely that you will ever have a sexual relationship with a guy that hasn’t seen porn and may in some way still be affected by it. Just because an individual can choose not to look at porn does not mean they can happily coexist with it. We are not just individuals. We are social, relational beings, and our personal choices affect those around us. It follows that if there is a phenomena in society like porn, that affects the choices of some, it will affect the lives of all.
Right now children are the most vulnerable. Parents can only do so much. Culture needs to change too.
10) Sex workers and porn stars should not be condemned, ostracised, or made to feel ashamed about what they do.
Arved, I couldn’t agree more. People working in the sex industry need help, love and healing, not condemnation. With all the suffering that sex-workers endure, I wouldn’t want to add to that by condemning them as people.
But it is possible to believe on the one hand that sex workers are people worthy of love, and on the other hand believe that the world would be a better place if the sex industry didn’t exist.
11) Free speech?
Porn portrays sex that is devoid of intimacy or respect and has a destructive influence on anyone who either consumes it or makes it. It is brainwashing our children and teens, breaking up marriages and other relationships, and changing the way we see ourselves as sexual beings. These consequences we’re suffering are only going to get worse if we don’t put the breaks on what is happening here. And the consequences are not worth a pornographer’s right to free speech.
Free speech is a good thing. But it must be balanced with other things we care about: like dignity, sexual health and good relationships. Free speech should not be used as an excuse to produce whatever we want at the expense of other good things. Free speech, rather than being an unbreakable blanket rule, should be a default position that we take to any peice of media that, (if sufficient reason can be given), can be overriden on a case by case basis.
I am advocating here what I think is a BALANCED way to look at free speech: not a totalitarian regime or the end of democracy. Fear of totalitarianism should not lead us to endorse the kind of freedom that allows hate speech, racism and yes; pornography, to pervade our lives. What we need is balance, not overreaction.
Just a brief note to say I’m encouraged that this issue is being addressed in an intellectually rigorous way by people (as typified by Gail’s address at the SPC).
It seems that if people stay silent on the problem of porn out of fear for being called wowsers or anti-sex or anti-men or anti-freedom then the porn industry will have free reign and inevitably our society will continue on what is a slippery slope of the normalisation of objectification of women and commercialisation of sexuality.
Emma, like I was saying before, where the hell did your statistics come from? Who complied them? I tried putting a few quotes in Google but didn’t come up with any answers. Please tell me who did the research. Some of the facts are rather odd; “90% of porn performers use illicit drugs regularly”, “Many porn producers are also drug traffickers” and my favourite; “Adult diapers are a sad thing to have to wear by age 30”. My scepticism grew with every “fact” I read.
I don’t think anyone said that the porn industry would be a pleasant place to work. However if the industry was as corrupt as you said, surely more people would have come forward to voice their displeasure at how they’ve been treated. And if this was indeed the case, wouldn’t it be better to regulate the porn industry further and protect those who work in it rather than to outlaw it and have worse conditions for the performers? Unlike slavery or murder methinks having sex isn’t illegal, so why should depictions of sex be illegal also?
I’m also amused by your assertion “that many people who consume porn will only ever have a mild addiction”. Sorry, “mild addiction”? Like “a little bit pregnant”? Are you confusing sexual desire with addiction?
Emma said; “Studies show that the viewing of any porn (even little old lads mags) shows that the areas of the brain that respond to people in pornographic images are the same areas that respond to inanimate objects, while the areas responsible for compassion, empathy and other normal responses one normally has when one sees human beings, are shut down”.
Sorry, “Studies show…” Again, what studies? Evidence. Please. I’d take this stuff a lot more seriously if there was so evidence to show porn is the problem here. But then you haven’t articulated where the problem is in the first place.
Emma said; “Child psychologists are increasingly witnessing a rise in sexual assualts in highschools. Even primary school kids are grooming other kids for sex because of what they have seen on the internet”.
Sigh, again some evidence. Did the child come from an abusive family life etc. The lack of news reports about this would indicate it’s rare. Alarming yes, but not exactly what I’d call an epidemic. Doubt that banning porn would help in cases like this anyway.
Emma said; “It is brainwashing our children and teens, breaking up marriages and other relationships, and changing the way we see ourselves as sexual beings. These consequences we’re suffering are only going to get worse if we don’t put the breaks on what is happening here. And the consequences are not worth a pornographer’s right to free speech”.
I’m sure you’ve got plenty of evidence to back this up, so please, show me the studies which prove its all porn’s fault and not other factors at play.
“not anti sex, just anti industrialised, corporatized porn sex which destroys real intimacy.” Well put. Thanks for posting Melinda.
FMY
try googling the stop porn conference, then google (google scholar helps) the names presenting, read their work, read the papers they have written, the work they cite etc etc…That would be a good start
Not very hard to do.
but please share with us all of the porn-positive research you have read on porn (but maybe skip the Porn Report)
@Emma Wood
I wrote a lengthy reply which is still in moderation. I suspect it won’t be published (which is fine, I don’t make any claims here). However, I did want to say, that while I don’t agree with all your points, I do appreciate that you took the time to respond with depth and thought. Thank you.
“try googling the stop porn conference, then google (google scholar helps) the names presenting, read their work, read the papers they have written, the work they cite etc etc…That would be a good start”
Actually, if you look up the backgrounds of most of the people involved indicates most of the people involved come from a very narrow ideological spectrum of academia. Most *are not* highly cited social scientists. One in particular, Wendy Maltz of Healthysexuality.com is clearly a dealer in John Grey-style psychobabble with little if any scientific backing.
“but please share with us all of the porn-positive research you have read on porn (but maybe skip the Porn Report)”
First, please explain why you don’t consider “The Porn Report” to be a valid source.
Second, I’ll point to a recent article at Scienceblogs: “Just How Bad is Porn?”. Its a good summary of the underwhelming research on the harmful effects of porn. And before anybody dismisses that article out of hand, I want to point to an important fact: one of the several pieces of academic literature the article summarizes is the 2000 meta-analysis of earlier porn studies by Neal Malamuth, et al. This is important because it is a key study on this topic, and often quoted by anti-porn activists as proof for their position. In fact, the demonstrated result was a positive correlation between amount of porn consumption and aggressive ideation *in the most highly sexually aggressive* subset of the male population. No statistically significant correlation was found in men at normal levels of the sexual aggression scale.
If one goes back further, there are long-standing critiques of the biases built into the questionnaires used in Dolf Zillman’s early studies of porn and “sexual callousness”. I’ll dig up references if anybody is interested, but one needs academic journal access to get these.
Ah, ‘I am Curious Blue’, do you do anything else with your days other than trawling the interwebs looking for articles on pornography and prostitution on which to pass on your invaluable nuggets of wisdom?
Oh yes, taking time out from your free speech activism from time to time you also like to do a bit of censorship on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-06-25_Melissa_Farle), or even a bit of harassment of editors who disagree with you. One of your favourite pastimes is to try and undermine the work of Melissa Farley, or indeed anyone who might have the audacity to challenge your right to a guilt free wank to any form of the commercial sexual exploitation of women that you might choose.
Could you do us all a favour and crawl back under the rock of the pro pornography blog that you inhabit where everyone can play letspretendwe’reactivistsrathethanaloosely connectecabalofwankersandpornographyprofiteers together.
I have no doubt that I am not alone in finding the taste of bile apparant every time your name pollutes yet another space with the same tired old propaganda.
‘The evidence of harm to adults relating to exposure to extreme pornographic material:
a rapid evidence assessment (REA)’:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/280907a.pdf
Responses to the science blog article iacb references:
http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2010/06/science_fail.php
http://skeptifem.blogspot.com/2010/06/shit-stirring-at-scienceblogs-part-3.html
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2010/06/08/as-is-her-wont-spinster-aunt-continues-writing-about-yesterdays-post/
Thanks for posting Dines’ introductory speech.
I think it is great to distinguish the difference between actual love sex and the sex that the porn industry sells.
Oh, hi Enddemand.
All I can say is that at least you admit at the end you’re simply full of bile. That says more about your character than it says about anybody else.
And as for the Wikipedia thing, just who was being “harassed” and “censored”? Seems like you take a rather creative approach to interpretation of that Wikipedia case. I’ll just note that the person I was in the dispute with was eventually blocked from Wikipedia for outright harassment of myself and several other editors: http://3.ly/axio . Its sad, really, that some radical feminists fell they have to stoop to such tactics, and that others have to distort events in order to defend them.
Anyway, have a better one and don’t let all that bile leave a bad taste in your mouth!
I’m also confused by the idea that if you oppose porn you’re ‘anti-sex’ while if you support it you’re all about ‘sexual freedom’ and ‘sex positivism’. Pornography is a commercial product that desensitises and deadens the senses, that promotes masturbation and isolation as opposed to sex with another human being, that favours sensation over sensuality, that dictates what ‘good sex’ and sex acts supposedly are, that dictates what ‘sexiness’ is and that turns many people, particularly women off of sex a lot of the time. I’m mystified as to what any of that has to do with the positive expression of human sexuality. Pornography is a commercial product, it’s not sex. Pornographers are not interested in our sexuality, they’re interested in our wallets and their bank balances, end of story.
From another perspective, I was exploited in ‘the sex industry’ when I was a teenager. My sexuality and ability to have intimate relationships has been seriously impacted by my experiences during that time. To say that ‘the sex industry’ is all about our ‘right’ to sexual freedom is ludicrous to me. Not from my perspective. It’s about sexual exploitation for profit. That is it’s purpose. Whether that exploitation is consensual is neither here nor there. We’re talking about the ethics of the industry itself and what it means for everybody, especially the women who are most effected by it.
I think it’s very sad and indicative of how pervasive ‘the sex industry’ has become that so many people fail to differentiate between a commercial product designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to maximise profit, and real sex. And even worse that they’re happy to do the pornographer’s dirty work for them and defend porn in the name of ‘sexual freedom’, ultimately to their own detriment (not to mention the detriment of those who are less privileged than they are).
Well, Amelia T, even though you probably don’t want to hear a response from one of us horribly misguided sex-positives, I’ll give one anyway, because I think debate abhors an echo chamber.
In my opinion, the freedom to express sexuality through media, in other words porn (note that I view the porn/erotica distinction as basically meaningless), is part and parcel of sexual freedom. The idea that “you can do it, but broadcast it and its morally wrong” (or even a crime) just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
The statement “whether exploitation is consensual is nether here nor there” is absolutely mind-boggling. It makes me wonder how you even define “exploitation” if the party ostensibly being exploited is not even allowed to define that for themselves. I think the Stop Porn Culture session that referred to homemade porn as “self-exploitation” was very telling. Is personal autonomy as an ethical value even on the radar of the anti-porn movement? Statements like this make me doubtful.
In my opinion, the fact that pornography is “commercial” is kind of a red herring. All mass media in a modern capitalist society is more or less commercial. There is a publishing *industry*, a newspaper *industry*, a movie *industry*, and an art *industry*. To simply hold that these are no longer the subjects of free expression because these are often large for-profit industries would be ludicrous. I don’t think this magically should change just because sex enters the picture. And, yes, the fact that its an industry that is dependent on the labor of its workers means that paying attention to the rights and needs of sex workers in that industry is vital. But I think approaching it from a sex workers rights perspective rather than a paternalistic “abolition” one is far better.
It is also important to point out that to speak of the porn industry as a monolith is ludicrous. The “porn industry” is everything from multi-million dollar companies like Playboy Enterprises to somebody who has a for-pay webcam set up in their bedroom. Do you really think all of these people are either exploiters are victims?
There’s lots to unpack in your ideas about “real sex”. Evidently, you’re very down on masturbation, and against non-relationship sex. You seem to think pornography “imposes” this on the society, rather than being a reflection of how sexuality has been going since the sexual revolution. I think open, democratic societies can are ones that can allow pluralistic values about sexuality to coexist. To have the state or a powerful social movement step in and impose a “return to order” in the name of a narrow relationship-only view of sexuality and “stopping porn culture” is moral authoritarianism of the highest order.
It is likely that you’ll probably see these words as my simply doing the “dirty work” of “the pornographers” and dismiss it out of hand. But perhaps you need to at least understand where we pointy-headed “sex positive” and “sexual freedom” folks are coming from, and why we so vehemently oppose much of what your movement is trying to accomplish.
We’re not trying to step on your sexuality. Please don’t step all over ours.
“are either exploiters are victims?”
are either exploiters or victims?
Pornography is a commercial product that desensitises and deadens the senses…
I haven’t gone blind yet.
that promotes masturbation and isolation as opposed to sex with another human being…
For some people that’s the best they get.
that favours sensation over sensuality…
No it doesn’t.
that dictates what ‘good sex’ and sex acts supposedly are…
Given the huge variety of sex and sex acts in porn, how is that possible?
, that dictates what ’sexiness’ is…
Given the huge variety of porn that exists out there, how is that possible?
and that turns many people, particularly women off of sex a lot of the time.
People who don’t like it shouldn’t look at it.
I’m mystified as to what any of that has to do with the positive expression of human sexuality.
Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it has to die.
Pornography is a commercial product…
Not necessarily.
it’s not sex.
This part is correct.
Pornographers are not interested in our sexuality, they’re interested in our wallets and their bank balances, end of story.
Grocers are only interested in our money, does that mean we shouldn’t buy food?
Thank you Mr. Reed for going through that response from Amelia T. It was bizarre to me to read her posting.
Some other references:
Pornified: How pornography is damaging our lives. – Pamela Paul
Pornography and the end of masculinity. – Robert Jensen.
Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls. – Melinda Tankard Reist.
Dr. Michael Carr-Gregg’s blogs – http://carrgregg.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=6
Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution And Pornography. – Christine Stark & Rebecca Whisnant
Burke, S., Gridley, H. & Pham, H. (2008). Submission to the Inquiry into the sexualisation of children in contemporary media. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Psychological Society.
Rush, E. & La Nauze, A. (2006). Corporate Paedophilia, Sexualisation of children in Australia. Canberra, Australia: The Australia Institute.
Women’s Forum Australia (2008). Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Art: Inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment. Canberra, Australia: Women’s Forum Australia.
Zubriggen, E. L., Collins, R. L., Lamb, S., Roberts, T., Tolman, D. L., Ward, L. M. & Blake, J. (2007). Report of the APA task force on the sexualisation of girls. Washington, DC, U.S.A.: American Psychological Association.
Former porn star Shelley Lubben – http://www.shelleylubben.com
What’s happening to our girls? – Maggie Hamilton
What’s happening to our boys? – Maggie Hamilton
I suffered a porn compulsive disorder since I was fifteen years old,
then in my early twenties it grew to a full blown addiction. I would
watch porn day in, day out, it skewed my view of women and nearly destroyed my life. Like many men the reason I started watching porn was due to curiosity and then an
attempt to fulfil the need for companionship. After every hit the
shame and guilt would engross me and I would feel lonelier than ever.
As the addiction grew to satisfy my narcissistic behaviour I would
require harder and harder porn. Then one day I asked myself why I do
it? Why I put myself and others through this pain? The answer was
simply I wanted a girlfriend then wife. Not to treat as a sex tool but
a human being. What I most feared was rejection when asking a young
lady out. I’m now mostly over that fear. Now in my mid-twenties I am
confident that my future looks a little brighter yet I realize
everyday will be a fight against my addiction.
Hi Iamcuriousblue. Let me clarify some of my comments about sexuality and porn. My point is not that I think masturbation is wrong or that you can only have sex within a relationship. However, for most people the highest expression of sexuality is usually with another person or people. The commenter above who said that masturbation ‘is all that some people can get’ suggests to me that sex with another person is generally the ideal for most people. Therefore I don’t think that a material that encourages isolation and desensitisation, that is meticulously and cynically edited to get people off as quickly and efficiently as possible and that even pornographer’s admit causes desensitisation can have much to do with full, human sexual expression or ‘sex-positivity’. To me it seems quite the opposite and there is plenty of research and anecdote such as the comment from John to suggest that that it does have a dulling and isolating effect on users, and potentially their intimate partners whether they’re in a relationship or not.
As for personal autonomy, I’m sure you’ve heard the argument that choices aren’t ever made in a vacuum. I personally have a very intimate understanding of how that can play out. You could say I chose to be in prostitution when I was a teenager, but that choice arose out of childhood sexual abuse, disadvantage and addiction, which is not an uncommon trajectory into the sex industry. Of course that’s not the case for everyone. I understand that and fair enough. But to suggest that constraining factors that influence women’s choices don’t come into play when they enter the sex industry is simplistic. That might explain why a large proportion of people in the sex industry are economically disadvantaged females, for example. And when I say that their choices are ‘neither here nor there’ what I mean is that we’re not talking about the choices of individual women here. We’re talking about the ethics of a commercial industry and its product – the ethics of its production, its content and its effects on the wider community, as well as the choices of the people who fuel the demand for it. The fact that ‘some women freely choose it’ is irrelevant in that context.
The fact that it’s a massive commercial enterprise does matter, because the industry is ethically questionable, monolith or not. There is trafficking, violence and force within the industry. Coercion is inherent in the industry, particularly once a woman passes her ‘use-by-date’. Women who have exited the industry and who are still in the industry have testified to that, as have pornographers themselves. Approaching it from a ‘sex workers rights perspective’ is all well and good, but as it stands that has been a largely ineffective strategy, even in the most mainstream sectors of the industry (see the recent HIV outbreak in the Californian porn industry, for example) let alone in countries where trafficking and poverty are much bigger problems. The difference between that situation and labour in an industry like media, film, factory work or selling groceries at a supermarket is that the consequences of ‘labouring’ in the sex industry can be sexual abuse, sexual assault and trauma (not to mention long term physical and mental health problems), which is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being. Consumers of pornography generally have no way of knowing what is and what isn’t coercion, abuse or a criminal offence caught on film, yet the use of porn is pervasive and continues to grow. That is a huge ethical problem worthy of criticism as far as I’m concerned, and has nothing to do with being an authoritarian, ‘anti-sex’ prude.
That’s basically what happened to me, which is why I’m concerned about the sex industry in the first place. Pornography played a significant role in the sexual abuse and assault committed against me when I was a child, when I was raped at age 15 and when I was in prostitution as a teenager. I could not care less about your sexuality and have no desire to ‘stomp on it’. I’m talking about a mass distributed product and industry that has numerous ethical problems, not your sexuality. Who is stomping on who’s sexuality when my sexuality, physical and mental health have been profoundly affected by the influence of pornography on men and my experiences in ‘the sex industry’? And I’m just one person amongst many. If you feel that expressing your sexuality requires pornography then you have nothing to worry about anyway. The reality is that porn is one of the largest ‘entertainment’ industries on earth and is just a mouse click away if you want it, so to say that the ‘authoritarian, anti-porn brigade’ is somehow oppressing your sexual expression is not based in any kind of reality.
I don’t have any illusions that porn is ever going away. I personally think that not all that many people care about women in the sex industry or think much about it at all. I just hope that by raising the ethical issues surrounding the sex industry people might think more critically about what it can mean for other people and hopefully reduce that harm by ending their support, consumption and demand for it. There’s plenty more that can be said but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, other people say it much better than me and the whole thing causes me a great deal of anxiety so I’ll leave it at that. I haven’t got the energy to argue in circles with people and I see the futility. Cheers.
First off, I guess one of the places we disagree hugely is even many of the supposed facts that you anti-porn activists claim about the porn industry. It seems to me that the approach by your movement is to turn out as many atrocity stories as possible and hope that they stick.
So far, you’ve claimed that there is a recent HIV outbreak in the porn industry (a story later retracted by the LA Times), that human trafficking takes place to provide talent to the mainstream porn industry (show me *one* case since Linda Lovelace), and that performers are inevitably coerced in porn and all other parts of the sex industry (I can thing of a number of sex workers who would beg to differ). You also claim that porn has a “slippery slope” effect on viewers, which sounds an awful lot like the “marijuana leads to heroin” argument concerning drugs. (Gail Dines claims that porn viewers must turn to increasingly violent porn, and ultimately child porn, is demonstrable nonsense. Anecdotally, I can tell you that many viewers get more into more softcore material after getting bored with formulaic hardcore.) You also claim a number of other “harmful social effects”, as if these were established fact. I refer you to the Scienceblogs article I linked to above which speaks to the underwhelming nature of the studies in question.
So really, once one eliminates some either immediately disprovable or at least disputable claims, I’m not so convinced that the claims made about the sex industry as being inevitably unethical in ways that other industries are not actually hold up. When one gets past the moral panic-driven claims about the sex industry, I see little evidence that they can be very much dealt with within a sex worker rights and harm reduction framework. In fact, can be dealt with *more effectively* by targeting the actual abuses, rather than an “abolitionist” dragnet approach through the entire sex industry.
And, once again, I still don’t see how you can get off saying “consent is irrelevant”. If the workers willingly consent to be in porn, and I can point to the choice of many (Nina Hartley, Madison Young, Monica Foster – I could go on) who’s participation in the porn industry is not just consensual, but I would go so far as to say rises to an “enthusiastic consent” standard. I think its rather creepy to second-guess these women and men, and smugly claim that there just must be something wrong in their background that made them do this. And if these performers can be shown to participate enthusiastically, how can you call the choice of those who consume what they produce unethical?
Now as for your argument about porn being “a commercial industry”, again, I see that as a mere framing device. Porn, ultimately, is a form of media, and like all media, is produced in the context of a commercial industry. One does not start taking away free speech rights around other forms of expression or stigmatize its viewers just because there are large industries attached to them. But this is what is being done vis a vis porn, and it’s wrong.
You say you have no illusions about porn disappearing. I don’t think it will either, but there is plenty of opportunity for legal abuse in the strategies your movement offers. I only need to point to the fact that Australia is considering joining the company of China, Iran, and Cuba in implementing censorship via a national-level firewall, all in the name of getting rid of porn. In the United States, the leaders of the anti-porn movement, including Gail Dines, are calling for a massive obscenity crackdown which will result in the jailing of many people, merely for shooting porn. I can think of a few porn performers who are pretty far from the “porn barons” you stereotype who are afraid of the consequences of this and who aren’t too thrilled with the anti-porn movements attempt to “save” them by helping them in this way. According to the anti-porn movement, we anti-censorship activists should just shut up and look the other way, because this isn’t valid speech.
You also state that you have no desire to step all over my sexuality. Well, thank you for that. But the problem is that many people do. I read many people who are part of the anti-porn movement who are against consensual practices like BDSM, oral sex, transgender identity, and sex outside of the context of a committed relationship, or even any sex outside of marriage. Follow any of the anti-porn sites around the internet, and one doesn’t have to look far to see these sentiments expressed. Donna M. Hughes, a leader of the anti-porn movement in the US, recently did some very shameful “outings” and baseless claims of pedophilia and human trafficking toward several sex-positive activists on the basis of her stated hatred for “sex radicals”. It seems that anti-porn is merely the thin end of the wedge for many activists, so, yes, that does in fact leave many people gravely concerned about your movement, even if they don’t actually look at a lot of porn.
So, in a nutshell, there are some real problems with the kind of activism your movement is undertaking.
And finally, I’m sorry what happened to you when you were younger. But you have to realize that you’re misplacing blame. Neither pornography nor the porn industry abused you. Your abusers did and are completely responsible for what they did. No matter how much they may make weaselly claims that “porn made me do it”.
Cheers,
IACB
I have to say that after reading all of the information about incest role playing porn I am disgusted in myself. I visited sites, that casually lead you to the incest genre, under the impression that they were fictitious, and there was solid verification of age, due to their claims. To be honest I am interested in young legal couples, with older couples. It just so happened that this combination was under this category. I read these websites disclaimers and went on my way. I truly believe I have never watched minors participating in these acts, I am not into to kiddy porn, or incest for that matter, it was something about older couples and couples in their early twenties. Im a dirt bag and want to make right for my wrong. I never really thought that this shit was be real. After doing researched I think I want to throw up. I feel ashamed of myself and apologize to anyone who has been a victim of these terrible acts. These websites need to be shut down immediately; they give the impression that this is acceptable behavior. I am sorry and ashamed. If anyone has any information as to how I can become active in opposing these sites, and taking a stance, please post some contact information. Allowing Porn to stream under barely legal pretenses IS WRONG. I AM ASHAMED OF MYSELF FOR BEING IGNORANT. THIS CONTENT SHOULD NOT BE PORTRAYED AS LEGAL. I will no longer watch any pornographic material, im disgusted with it all.
Emma Wood: hang on. You just used the exact same bogus, slut-shaming, appeal to oxycodin argument that right-wing Christian marriage activists use to scare kids away from sex outside of marriage. And I mean exactly the same, including the same language about being “wired for monogamy” and the “powerful chemical oxytocin”. Is it any wonder that anti-porn activists are seen as anti-sex?
Studies by Dr.John Court found that in Australia Queensland did not allow easy distribution of pornography but South Australia allowed easy and accessible pornography.He compared the rape rate of 100,000 at risk for more than a 13 year period and found Queensland had no increase in their rape rate,but South Australia’s rape rate increased 6 times! In 1974 Hawai allowed easy distribution of pornography and their rape rate increased,then they restricted it and the rape rate went down,and then they allowed wide distribution again,and the rape rate went up again and then when they restricted again,the rapes decreased!
Sociologists Larry Baron and Murray Straus also did a state-state circulation rate of pornographic magazine sales and the connection to states with the highest sales of these magazines including playboy and the rape rate in those states.And in Alaska and Nevada is where the pornographic magazines sold the highest,and those 2 states also had the highest rape rates compared to any other states.They repeated this study the next year and the findings were exactly the same,even when they controlled for other causes,and it was only sexual assault that increased not other crimes.
And,
Linnea Smith By Patricia Barrera
Linnea Smith is your average woman of the 90s. She has a satisfying family life, rewarding career in mental health and interests that include traveling with her husband, spending time with her daughters, babying her dogs and reading pornography. Yes…reading pornography–and using her professional skills and expanding international network to fight it. Like most of us, she never really thought about pornography as a critical social issue until a 1985 media conference where she learned about past and present research on pornographic materials. And what she learned shocked and angered her.
As a psychiatrist, feminist, and woman, she was well aware of the personal and societal consequences of battery, rape, and child sexual abuse. The results of the studies delivered at that fateful conference were an indictment to the connection of pornographic materials, both directly and indirectly, with these violent sex crimes. For Smith, pornography became an issue of public health and human rights that needed to be addressed.
As every critical thinker should, Smith went straight to the source to see for herself what was going on. She turned to Playboy, the nation’s first pornography magazine to earn mainstream acceptance and support. By 1984 Playboy had 4.2 million subscribers, and was selling 1.9 million magazines at newsstands (Miller, 1984).
The results of her extensive investigation of the magazine (from the 1960s on) are presented in three brochures. “It’s Not Child’s Play” is a disturbing brochure that outlines the specific ways in which Playboy sexualizes small children and presents them as sexual targets for adult males in their magazine. The collection of cartoons and pictorials is damning, and made even more so when juxtaposed against pathetic statements made by Playboy representatives denying they ever used children in their publication. Smith very well could have called the brochure “Playboy Exposed”.
Right alongside their claims that “Playboy never has, never will” publish such offensive imagery (Playboy, December, 1985), Smith placed pictures the magazine did indeed publish- of children in sexual encounters with adults and references to girl children as ‘Playmate’ material. In December of 1978, for example, Playboy published a picture of a five year old girl with the caption “my first topless picture,” and in March of that same year published a cartoon in which Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz is pointing out the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man to a police officer as having just raped her on the yellow brick road.
Smith did not limit her investigation to the use of children in Playboy. She found jokes about sexual harassment, abuse, manipulation, dehumanization and avoidance of intimacy by men toward their partners and callousness toward women in general, and the promotion of sexual conquest over women instead of sexual intimacy with a woman.
In another powerful and well documented brochure, “As Sex Education, Men’s Magazines are Foul PLAY, BOYS!,” Smith once again had Playboydo the talking for her. The brochure featuredPlayboycartoons that dehumanized women like the one in which a man was shown holding a pornography magazine over his girlfriend’s face and body as they are having sex (Playboy, August, 1974), and another featuring a taxidermist calling a man to come and pick up his wife, who had been stuffed (Playboy, April, 1995). Was she hunted down and killed, too?
Smith’s brochures include extensive documentation and commentary by recognized scholars and researchers addressing the impact of pornography on our society. There are chilling statistics, like the finding that 100% of all high school aged males in one survey reported having read or looked at pornography, with the average age of viewing the first issue being 11 years old (Bryant, testimony to the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography Hearings, 1985).
In another study she lists, three per cent of the women in a random sample and 8.5 per cent in a survey of college undergraduate women reported being physically coerced into sex by someone inspired by pornography. Ten per cent of the nonstudent and 24 per cent of the student respondents answered yes to the question of whether they had ever been upset by someone trying to get them to do something out of a pornographic book, movie, or magazine (cited by Anderson in Lederer and Delgado, eds., 1995).
Also included is a study conducted by Mary Koss on 6,000 college students in which she found that men reporting behavior meeting legal definitions of rape were significantly more likely to be frequent readers of pornography magazines than those men who did not report engaging in such behavior (Koss and Dinero, 1989).
Smith is one of few people to expand her analysis of pornographic magazines to include the presence of drugs and alcohol, especially important today considering the almost epidemic level of drug and alcohol use by adults and teenagers in this country, Smith agrees that drugs and alcohol are contributing factors to high risk and coercive sex, and that the relationship between them within pornographic materials is an overlooked, and greatly needed, area of research.
As Smith explains ” . . . No [other] reputable publication brought positive drug information within easy reach of juvenile (or adult) consumers. Since 1970, Playboy has been glamorizing intoxication as a mind-expanding, sexually-enhancing experience. It is difficult to conclude these magazines have not played a major role in popularizing ‘recreational’ drug consumption and the myth of its being fun, risk-free, and even sexy. What greater reinforcement for drug taking behavior than to eroticize it?”
In “Drug Coverage in Playboy Magazine,” a brochure she developed for the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), Smith compiled a plethora of cartoons that favorably paired sex with drugs and alcohol. Cartoons, articles and columns advise readers on how to use drugs for sexual enhancement. References to negative effects were usually humorously presented and so, easily dismissed.
Playboy’s depiction of underage users of drugs and alcohol even included their own version of the Official Boy Scout Handbook in (Playboy, August, 1984). Their suggestions for Scout Merit Badges included “Water Safety” for the scout who ordered his Johnnie Walker whiskey straight up, and “Free-Basing” for the scout who smoked cocaine. A similar feature in 1979 stated that “Today, ‘boyhood fun’ means cruising and scoring; overnight adventures’ involve Ripple and car stripping; and ‘survival skills include cocaine testing, bust evasion and cutting into gas lines” (Playboy, December, 1979).
Once Smith contacted the NCAA about her serious concerns, media attention and public scrutiny increased. Playboy denied any wrongdoing, claiming they were only reflecting a “major cultural phenomena”, but they did scale back the more obvious pro-drug and alcohol features in the magazine. damage control campaign resulted in a politically correct editorial statement on the magazine’s position on drug abuse in the May 1987 issue as well as a few anti-drug articles. To counter Smith’s NCAA attempts, the magazine also courted collegiate sports information offices with a mass mailing of a hastily compiled slick, glossy booklet “The Dangers of Drugs”, explaining their “real” position against substance abuse. However the magazine still includes covert messages glamorizing substance abuse and pairing sexualized alcohol consumption with easier prey. According to Smith, “we succeeded in exposing yet another dimension of the destructive nature of pornography, and, at the very least, cost Playboy some time and money.”
It may also cost Playboy the niche they are trying to carve out for themselves in organized sports. Playboy’s strategy for commercial success has been to include respected and well- known public figures in their magazine, an old tactic for aspiring to legitimacy. That way the magazine may be looked at as more of a credible news journal than just a porno rag. Readers too, can feel better about their consumption of pornographic pictures of women when they are “wrapped” in articles about current social issues. It made business sense to Playboy to seek out an alliance with athletes who, in some countries, are accorded hero status.
So they came up with an annual pre-season award for college level athletes and coaches, the Playboy All-America Award. The nominated players and coaches receive an all-expenses paid trip to a luxury resort for a weekend party, photo session and public relations blitz.
The team selection process is unorthodox at best. It is not a panel of sports officials but rather Photography Director Gary Cole, doubling as sports editor when needed, (Playboy, March, 1996, p.117) who chooses players and coaches for the award. The prerequisite is not athletic ability but rather who agrees to be photographed for the magazine. Again, a common tactic for legitimacy. Playboy rejects players unwilling to have their pictures associated with the magazine- -its content and underlying messages–and keeps making “awards” until the sufficient number of players and coaches agree to the photo sessions. The event hit some legal snafus as well. Complaints were officially lodged with the NCAA which included the presence of professional agents at the photo sessions. This charge, like the others, was also denied by the magazine in a letter to the NCAA.
Go to Part II
Pornography is extremely sexist and woman-hating and it teaches and normalizes sick distortions of women,men and sexuality,and it sexualizes male supremacy,sexist gender inequality,male dominance,women’s subordination and submission to men,,male supremacy objectification and dehumanization of women as only sex objects to be used,ejac*lated all over,and disgarded, for men,often calls women woman-hating names like s***s,b******,and w***** and even male violence!
And because it sexualizes and normalizes all of these sick things and sexist injustices, and has been wrongly mainstreamed and made acceptable in a sexist sick woman-hating male dominated society,that created and normalized it in the first place,more women are sadly disturbingly being influenced to think this is what normal hetrosexuality is,and it teaches men that this is what women want and like, and that they want to be treated by them this way! Attitudes like yours really make any hope for change seem hopless!
Many men who used to use pornography when they were younger who are now anti-pornography anti-sexist anti-male violence educators include, former all star high school football player Jackson Katz who wrote the great important book,The Macho Paradox How Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help and he writes about how pornography sexualizes men’s power,woman hatred,sexual objectification and dehumanization and subordination of women,and this is all connected to male violence,and gender inequality,and how the pornography industry has sold this woman-hatred and men’s power as normal and liberating to the public.
Therapist Russ Funk who is a anti-racist,anti-sexist,anti-male violence educator has written books and articles on this as well and he had a chapter ,What Pornography Says About Me(n) in the book,Not For Sale:Feminists Resisting Prostitution & Pornography in which he said that when he used pornography he saw all women as just f***able even women he saw in classes,business coleagues and women on the street .He said being commited to justice and using pornography is inherently contradictory,because one can not look at others as fully equal,empowered,dynamic human beings if one is also looking at them through the pornographic gaze.
He also did a presentation in 2006 at The Center For Women Children and Families,Pornography What’s The Harm? On his site it describes 3 workshops he presents to people on the harms of pornography.He also wrote a book in 1993,Stopping Rape:A Challenge For Men and he includes pornography as one of the causes of rape culture.
The important organization,Men Can Stop Rape also discusses and educates on how men’s sexuality is socialized by pornography.
And Robert Jensen has written great articles and his important book,Getting Off Pornography And The End Of Masculinity.And Dr.Michael Flood’s recent report is great too.John Stoltenberg’s excellent 1989 book,Refusing To Be A Man Essays On Sex and Justice that consists of brilliant important speaches he made from the late 70’s -the late 80’s also discusses how pornography eroticizes and sexualizes male supremacy, sexism,woman hatred,violence,male dominance and female submission and subordination of women,and makes it feel and seem like sex to people and even makes sexism necessary for some people to have sexual feelings and arousal,keeps it this way, makes it the reality that people believe is true, and keeps people from knowing any other possibility.He co-founded Men Against Pornography In New York.
Paul Kivel who is the founder of The Oakland Men’s Project in California who has been a long time anti-sexist,anti-racist,anti-male violence educator,also wrote about how harmful and sexist pornography is in his great important 1999 book,Boys Will Be Men Raising Our Sons For COURAGE,CARING,and COMMUNITY.
He writes that it is not surprising that an industry worth billions of dollars a year,which may be bigger than the record and movie industries combined,has developed many ways to justify it’s existence and insinuate itself into mainstream male culture.
Paul then says that there are several books that describe in detail the harm pornography does to men as well as to women.He says these books listed in the bibliography,also contain descriptions of the pornography industry’s efforts to suppress and disrupt people organizing against it.The books he lists are,Men Confront Pornography edited by Michael S.Kimmel,Making Violence Sexy:Feminist Views On Pornography by Dianna E.H.Russell,and Pornography:The Production and Consumption Of Inequality by Gail Dines et.al.
Paul also says in this book that talking to another adult can also help you decide if this is a situation in which you want to forbid the presence of porn in your house or if you just want to make it clear to your son how you fell about pornography but will let him decide what to do with the magazines or videos he has.He says in either case,it’s important to find out your son’s thoughts about pornography .He then says he may no little about the industry,it’s exploitation in the production of pornography,or the effects on women,men,and their relationships when men use it.He says it might be useful,if you have the stomach for it,to look through some of the material with him and talk about what you see.
Brooklyn College psychology professor Dr.Robert Brannon was a co-chair with Phylis B.Frank for 20 years from 1990 of The New York NOW’s Task Force on the harms of pornography,trafficking, and prostitution and he is co-founder of NOMAS National Organization For Men Against Sexism and he;s the organization’s group leader of their Task Force on prostitution and pornography.THere islso a n excellent recent report by pro-feminist Australian gender studies and sociology professor Dr.Michael Flood,The Harms Of Pornography Exposure Among Children And Young People and he also includes a lot of great research studies about the effects on adult users.He explains that Adults also show an increase in behavioral agression following exposure to pornography including non-violent or violent depictions of sexual activity (but not nudity) with stronger effects for violent pornography.He has a lot of researchers as references.
Dr.Flood also then explains that in studies of pornography use in everyday life,men who are high frequency users of pornography and men who use ‘hardcore’,violent, or rape pornography are more likely than others to report that they would rape or sexually harass a woman if they knew they could get away with it.And they are more likely to actually perpetrate sexual coercion and agression.His reference for this is studies by psychologist Neil Malamuth et al 2000.Dr.Flood also says that perhaps the most troubling impact of pornography on children and young people is it’s influence on sexual violence. And he then says that a wide range of studies of the effects of pornography have been conducted among young people age 18-25,as well as older polualtions.
He says across these,there is consistent and reliable evidence that exposure to pornography is related to male sexual aggression against women.This association is strongest for violent pornography and still reliable for non-violent pornography particularly for frequent users. His source is psychologist Neil Malamuth et al 2000.He also says that in experiemental studies adults show significant strengthening of attitudes supportive of sexual aggression following exposure to pornography.He then says the association between pornography and rape supportive attitudes is evident as a result of exposure to both non-violent (showing consenting sexual activity) and violent pornography while the latter results in significantly greater increase in violence-supportive attitudes.He also says exposure to sexually violent material increases male viewers acceptance of rape myths and erodes their empathy for victims of violence.
His source for this is Allen et al 1995.He explains adults also show an increase in behavioral aggression following exposure to pornography including non-violent or violent depictions of sexual activity(but not nudity) with stronger effects for violent pornography.Allen et al 1995.
He also explains there are many studies that show that teen boys who are frequent users of pornography more often sexually harass girls and believe it’s perfectly OK to hold a girl down and force her to have sex.
Anti Pornography: STUDY PROVES “PORNOGRAPHY IS HARMFUL”
Anti Pornography’s Notes
STUDY PROVES “PORNOGRAPHY IS HARMFUL” 2002
Monday, July 13, 2009 at 7:40am
A new study has found that viewing pornography is harmful to the viewer and society. In a meta-analysis (a statistical integration of all existing scientific data), researchers have found that using pornographic materials leads to several behavioral, psychological and social problems.
One of the most common psychological problems is a deviant attitude towards intimate relationships such as perceptions of sexual dominance, submissiveness, sex role stereotyping or viewing persons as sexual objects. Behavioral problems include fetishes and excessive or ritualistic masturbation. Sexual aggressiveness, sexually hostile and violent behaviours are social problems as well as individual problems that are linked to pornography.
“Our findings are very alarming”, said Dr. Claudio Violato one of the co-authors of the study. Dr. Violato, Director of Research at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education (NFFRE) and a professor at the University of Calgary, said “This is a very serious social problem since pornography is so widespread nowadays and easily accessible on the internet, television, videos and print materials”.
Studies have shown that almost all men and most women have been exposed to pornography. An increasing number of children are also being exposed to explicitly sexual materials through mass media. The rise in sexual crimes, sexual dysfunction and family breakdown may be linked to the increased availability and use of pornography. The rape myth (belief that women cause and enjoy rape, and that rapists are normal) is very widespread in habitual male users of pornography according to the study.
“There has been some debate among researchers about the degree of negative consequences of habitual use of pornography, but we feel confident in our findings that pornography is harmful”, Violato noted. “Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses. I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever. As a society we need to move towards eradicating it”.
The authors of the study concluded that exposure to pornography puts viewers at increased risk for developing sexually deviant tendencies, committing sexual offences, experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships, and accepting of the rape myth. Dr. Elizabeth Oddone-Paolucci and Dr. Mark Genuis, researchers at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, are co-authors of the study that was published in the scientific journal Mind, Medicine and Adolescence.
Updated about 10 months ago
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English (US)
In 1994 I wrote to psychiatrist Dr.Linnea Smith(who has an excellent informative site on the harms of pornography including Playboy) about my experience and the harms of pornography. She wrote me back a very nice note and thanked me for my important efforts to educate people on the harms of porn. She sent me two huge folders full of important information on the harms including Playboy cartoons of women being sexually harassed in the workplace by their male bosses and child abuse cartoons!
One of the many things she sent me was a transcribed lecture by forensic psychiatrist and law professor Dr.Park Elliott Dietz, and this lecture was given before the National Conference of State Legislators on August 5 1986 and was videotaped by C-Span. Dr. Dietz served as a commissioner on the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. He was professor of law,professor of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry,and Medical Director of The Institute of Law,Psychiatry and Medical Director of The Institute of Law,Psychiatry and Public Policy at The University of Virginia School of Law and School of Medicine.
He gave many examples of women and children’s testimonies who were sexually abused by men who used pornography,and also women who were sexually harassed on the job with pornographic pictures hung up on the walls and shown to them. He said he only used a small sample of the 1000’s of women and children who testified. He says many times that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue and he said one of the reasons is because so much of it teaches false,misleading,and even dangerous information about human sexuality.
This is what he said a person would learn about sexuality from pornography, “A person who learned about human sexuality in the “adults only” pornography outlets of America would be a person,who had never conceived of a man and woman marrying or even falling in love before having intercourse,who had never conceived of two people making love in privacy without guilt or fear of discovery,who had never conceived of tender foreplay,who had never conceived of vaginal intercourse with ejaculation during intromission,and who had never conceived of procreation as a purpose of sexual union.,
Instead,such a person would be one who had learned that sex at home meant sex with one’s children,stepchildren,parents,stepparents,siblings,cousins,nephews,nieces,aunts,uncles,and pets,and with neighbors,milkmen,plumbers,salesmen,burglars,and peepers,who had learned that people take off their clothes and have sex within the first 5 minutes of meeting one another,who had learned to misjudge the percentage of women who prepare for sex by shaving their pubic hair,having their breasts,buttocks or legs tattooed,having their nipples or labia pierced,or donning leather,latex,rubber,or childlike costumes,who had learned to misjudge the proportion of men who prepare for sex by having their genitals or nipples pierced,wearing women’s clothing,or growing breasts.
Who had learned that about 1 out of 5 sexual encounters involves spankning,whipping,fighting,wrestling,tying,chaining,gagging,or torture,who had learned that more than 1 in 10 sexaul acts involves a party of more than 2,who had learned that the purpose of ejaculation is that of soiling the mouths,faces,breasts,abdomens,backs,and food at which it’s always aimed,who had learned that body cavities were designed for the insertion of foreign objects,who had learned that the anus was a genital to be licked and penetrated,who had learned that urine and excrement are erotic materials,who had learned that the instruments of sex chemicals,handcuffs,gags,hoods,restraints,harnesses,police badges,knives,guns,whips,paddles,toilets,diapers,enema bags,inflatable rubber women,and disembodied vaginas,breasts,and penises,who had learned that except with the children,where secrecy was required,photographers and cameras were supposed to be present to capture the action so that it could be spread abroad.
He said if these were the only adverse consequences of pornography,the most straightforward remedy would be to provide factually accurate information on human sexuality to people before they are exposed to pornography,if only we could agree on what that information is,on who should provide it to the many children whose parents are incapable of doing so,and on effective and acceptable means by which to ensure that exposure not precede education. In the absense of such a remedy,the probable consequences in this area alone are sufficient to support recommendations that would reduce the dissemination of that pornography which teaches false,misleading or dangerous information about human sexuality. And these are not the only adverse consequences of pornography.
He then says before he gives more examples and research,that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it increases the probability that members of the exposed population will acquire attitudes that are detrimental to the physical and mental health of both those exposed and those around them,pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it is used as an instrument of sexual abuse and sexual harassment.
And look where we are now!
Pornography’s Effects On Adults And Children
By Victor B. Cline
© by Victor B. Cline. Used by MHRF with permission.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Defining Pornography and Obscenity
Effects on Adults
Data From Clinical Case Studies
Addiction
Escalation
Desensitization
Acting out Sexually
Pornography’s Impact on Psychosexual Development
Conditioning Into Deviancy
All Sex Deviations Appear To Be Learned Behaviors
A Common Pathway To Self Inflicted Sexual Illness
Imprinting The Brain With Sexual Images
The Research on Aggressive Pornography (Porno-Violence)
The Effects of The ‘Rape Myth’ on pornography- Consumers
The Effects on Non-Violent Pornography
Pornography’s Effects on Sexual Satisfaction and Family Values
1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography
1970 Presidential Commission on Obscenity And Pornography
Sex Offenders’ Use of Pornography
Gary Bishop, Serial Killer
Ted Bundy, Serial Killer
Effects on Children
Spillover Effect on Children
Effects of Dial-A-Porn on Children
Acquiring the values which permeate hard-core porn
Influences of Rock Music Porn
Pornography as a training manual
Child Pornography
Other Considerations on pornography’s Effects
People Are Affected By What They see
Use of Sexually Explicit Films To Change Sexual Behavior/Attitudes
Pornography As A Form of Sex Education
Why Some Claim ‘No Effects’
The Feminist Position on Pornography
Research Methodology
In Conclusion
Endnotes
Published by Morality in Media; 475 Riverside Drive; New York, NY 10115
Introduction
Whether pornography has any significant harmful effects on consumers continues to be a controversial issue, not only for average citizens but also for behavioral scientists. This is not surprising in light of the fact that two national commissions–the Majority Report of the 1970 Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography and the 1986 unprotected by the First Amendment, a judge or a jury representing a cross section of the community must determine that the material :
· Taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient (sick, morbid , shameful, or lascivious) interest in sex;
· Depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner ( i.e. goes beyond contemporary community standards with regards to depictions of sexual content or activity) ; and Taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political , and scientific value.
In common parlance, it (pornography) usually means “material that is sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography–came to diametrically opposed conclusions about this matter.
Some social commentators claim that pornography is mainly a form of entertainment, possibly educational, sometimes sexually arousing, but essentially harmless. Or, they claim, at the very least, that there is no good scientific evidence of harm. Other social commentators claim more dire consequences and give as examples recent cases, played up by the media, of sex-murderers who have claimed that pornography “made them do it.”
LDS Perspective
I believe the information shared in this article about pornography are as useful to us as members of the LDS Church as it is for those who are non-LDS.
Defining Pornography and Obscenity
To ascertain something about pornography’s effects, we first need to define it. The word “pornography” comes from the Greek words “porno and “graphia” meaning “depictions of the activities of whores.” In common parlance, it usually means “material that is sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.”
“Obscenity,” however, is a legal term which was defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1973 Miller V. California decision. For something to be found obscene, and therefore the material has to meet all three tests before it can be found obscene in the eyes of the law and its distribution prohibited. This means that something could be regarded as “pornographic” but still not be obscene, such as an explicit sex film produced and used to teach medical students about human sexuality, or a film or book with serious artistic and/or literary value which has some explicit sexual content.
Thus, the Supreme Court has protected a wide variety of sexual matter in movies, books, magazines and in other formats from being prohibited for sale and exhibition to adults (there is a stricter standard with respect to minors). Under the Miller test, however, the distribution of pornographic material which is obscene, such as most of what has been called “hardcore,” can be prohibited and penalties proscribed.The distribution of obscenity is prohibited on the federal level and on the state level in over 40 states. While enforcement of obscenity laws has increased in recent years, particularly at the federal level, enforcement is at best sporadic in many parts of the nation.
This lack of enforcement, especially at the state and local levels, may be attributable, in part, to the view of many people and, in particular, public officials that pornography is essentially harmless or, at the least, that there is little or no real evidence of harm.
Effects On Adults
Data From Clinical Case Studies
In reviewing the literature on the effects of pornography, there is a variety of evidence suggesting risk and the possibility of harm from being immersed in repeated exposure to pornography. These data come primarily from three sources:
· Clinical case history data
· Field studies
· Experimental laboratory type studies.
Clinical case history data come from the offices of professional health care personnel treating individuals with sexual dysfunctions, as well as from clergy – and attorneys who counsel or provide services to sexually troubled individuals. Also, in this category is the evidence provided by sexual addicts affiliated with such national support groups as “Sexaholics Anonymous,” or in treatment at such centers as the Institute for Behavioral Medicine at Golden Valley, Minnesota.As a clinical psychologist, I have treated, over many years, approximately 300 sex addicts, sex offenders, or other individuals (96% male) with sexual illnesses. This includes many types of unwanted compulsive sexual acting-out, plus such things as child molestation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, sadomasochism, fetishism, and rape. With only several exceptions, pornography has been a major or minor contributor or facilitator in the acquisition of their deviation or sexual addiction.
However, where pornography was a contributor or facilitator, regardless of the nature of the sex deviation or addiction, I found a four-factor syndrome common to nearly all of my clients, with almost no exceptions, especially in their early involvement with pornography.
1. Addiction
The first change that happened was an addiction-effect. The porn-consumers got hooked. Once involved in pornographic materials, they kept coming back for more and still more. The material seemed to provide a very powerful sexual stimulant or aphrodisiac effect, followed by sexual release, most often through masturbation. The pornography provided very exciting and powerful imagery which they frequently recalled to mind and elaborated on in their fantasies.Once addicted, they could not throw off their dependence on the material by themselves, despite many negative consequences such as divorce, loss of family, and problems with the law (as with sexual assault, harassment or abuse of fellow employees). I also found, anecdotally, that many of my most intelligent male patients appeared to be the most vulnerable–perhaps because they had a greater capacity to fantasize, which heightened the intensity of the experience and made them more susceptible to being conditioned into an addiction.
While any male is vulnerable, attorneys, accountants and media people seemed, in my experience, most vulnerable to these addictions. This is simply an anecdotal impression.However, Sgt. Bob Navarro, a longtime investigator of the porno industry with the Los Angeles Police Department, has commented, “Believe it or not- the higher their education, the more prone these people are to becoming addicted to this material, and, of course, the more money they have to spend on it…Many people have testified as to their extreme addiction to the material in terms of having their whole lives consumed by it: sitting for hours masturbating to adult material and needing progressively stronger, heavier, harder material to give them a bigger kick. Like an alcoholic or a drug addict they are looking for that big kick and they need more just to keep them at that level of feeling ‘OK.”‘ (1)
One of my patients was so deeply addicted that he could not stay away from pornography for 90 days, even for $1,000. It is difficult for non-addicts to comprehend the totally driven nature of a sex addict. When the “wave” hits them, nothing can stand in the way of getting what they want-whether that be pornography accompanied by masturbation, sex from a prostitute, molesting a child, or raping a woman.
An example might help illustrate this problem. Ralph was a sexual addict, married 12 years with three children. He was active in his church and held sincere, high moral principles. He believed in the Ten Commandments and opposed adultery’. Yet his particular cycle involved pornography -use, followed by paid sex with prostitutes. After each incident, he begged God for forgiveness and swore it that it would never happen again. But did, again and again.
Since the trigger of each adulterous act was pornography-use, we decided to try to free him from his dependence on this material. I asked him to write me a check for $1,000, indicating that I would return it if he went 90 days without using pornography. Ralph loved to hang on to his money and was quite attracted to our strategy. “There’s no way I’d look at dirty videos or magazines if I knew it would cost me a thousand dollars!” he said. He managed to resist temptation remarkably well for a while. But on the 87th day, he drove past an “adult” bookstore in an unfamiliar city while on a business trip. He slammed on the brakes, entered the store, and went virtually berserk for 90 minutes. When I saw him the following week, he tearfully confessed that he had lost his $1,000. Since he had gone 87 days “sober,” I decided to give him another chance.
So we started another 90-day “sobriety” cycle. We both felt that if he could go 87 days, he could certainly make 90 if we tried again, especially if it meant recovering his $1,000.This time he went only 14 days before he relapsed. He lost his money, which was given to a charity. He was extremely committed to quit in order to save his marriage and to live in harmony with his religious principles. But that was not the case. In my opinion, even if he had given me $10,000, he still would have relapsed. When the wave hits them, these men are consumed by their appetite, regardless of the costs or consequences. Their addiction virtually rules their lives.
2. Escalation
The second phase was an escalation-effect. With the passage of time, the addicted required rougher, more explicit- more deviant, and “kinky” kinds of sexual material to get their “highs” and “sexual turn-ons.” It was reminiscent of individuals afflicted with drug addictions. Over time there is nearly always an increasing need for more of the stimulant to get the same initial effect.
If their wives or girlfriends were involved with them, they eventually pushed their partners into doing increasingly bizarre and deviant sexual activities. In many cases, this resulted in a rupture in the relationship when the woman refused to go further-often leading to much conflict, separation or divorce.
Being married or being in a relationship with a willing sexual partner did not solve their problem. Their addiction and escalation were manly due to the powerful sexual imagery in their minds, implanted there by the exposure to pornography. They often preferred this sexual imagery, accompanied by masturbation, to sexual intercourse itself. This nearly always diminished their capacity to love and express affection to their partner in their intimate relations. The fantasy was all-powerful, much to the chagrin and disappointment of their partner. Their sex drive had been diverted to a degree away from their spouse. And the spouse could easily sense this, and often felt very lonely and rejected.I have had a number of couple-clients where the wife tearfully reported that her husband preferred to masturbate to pornography than to make love to her.
3. Desensitization
The third phase that happened was desensitization. Material (in books, magazines or film/videos) which was originally perceived as shocking, taboo-breaking, illegal, repulsive or immoral, though still sexually arousing, in time came to be seen as acceptable and commonplace. The sexual activity depicted in the pornography (no matter how antisocial or deviant) became legitimized. There was increasingly a sense that “everybody does it” and this gave them permission to also do it, even though the activity was possibly illegal and contrary to their previous moral beliefs and personal standards.
4. Acting Out Sexually
The fourth phase that occurred was an increasing tendency to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography that the porn-consumers had been repeatedly exposed to, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting massage parlors, having sex with minor children, rape, and inflicting pain on themselves or a partner during sex. This behavior frequently grew into a sexual addiction which they found themselves locked into and unable to change or reverse–no matter what the negative consequences were in their life.Many examples of negative effects from pornography-use come from the private or clinical practice of psychotherapists, physicians, counselors, attorneys, and ministers. Here we come face to face with real people who are in some kind of significant trouble or pain. A few examples might illustrate this.
Deputy Mayor Arrested: The 46-year~old Deputy Mayor of the City of Los Angeles attended a west L.A. porn theater one afternoon a few years ago. While watching the sex film, he became so aroused that he started to sexually assault a patron sitting next to him. The individual turned out to be an undercover city vice-squad officer. The Deputy Mayor was arrested, booked, and found guilty in a subsequent trial. This distinguished public servant left the office shamed and humiliated, his career in shambles. Marriage Threatened: A 36-year-old married male, college-educated, a professional and very successful financially, had an addiction to pornography, masturbation and frequenting massage parlors where he had paid sex. He had an excellent marriage, four children and was very active in his church, where he assumed important positions of responsibility. While he felt guilty about his engagement in illicit sex, which was contrary to his religious, ethic, and personal values and had the potential of seriously disturbing his marriage if found out, he compulsively continued to do that which, at a rational level, he did not want to do. His problem came to light when he infected his wife with a venereal disease. This created many serious and disturbing consequences in his life and marriage.
Incest: A 30-year-old single male, religiously active and very committed to his faith, had a history of pornography-addiction. He was too shy and backward to ask adult females on dates. So he developed intimate relationships with his four-and seven-year-old nieces and their girlfriends which culminated in his repeatedly sexually molesting them. The modeling of explicit sexual activity in the “adult” pornography which he consumed helped fuel his sexual appetite and interest in these children.Because of his guilt over what he was doing, he eventually sought professional help. However, his state had a “disclosure law” which required that he be reported to state officials for his sexual abuse of these children. Because of his cooperative attitude and the fact that he sought treatment on his own, he was placed on probation, received long term psychotherapy and is now living a more normal life.
Serial Rapist: I was asked to consult on a case where a Phoenix-Tucson area professional person, president of his firm and head of his church’s committee on helping troubled children, was found to be a serial rapist who had violently raped a number of women at gun or knife-point in the Arizona area. In doing the background study on him, I found him to come from an exemplary background and trouble-free childhood. He was an outstanding student in high school and college.His wife, children, business, and church associates had not the slightest inkling of his double life or dark side. The only significant negative factor in his life was an early adolescent addiction to pornography which, for the most part, was kept secret from others. This gradually escalated over a period of years, eventually leading to spending many hours and incurring great expense in “adult” bookstores, looking at violent video-porn movies and masturbating to these.
His first rape was triggered by seeing a close resemblance in the woman he assaulted to the leading character in a porn movie he had seen earlier in the day. Reality and fantasy had become extremely blurred for him as he acted out his pathological sexual fantasies.
Most Frequent Consequences: However, in my clinical experience, the major consequence of being addicted to pornography is not the probability or possibility of committing a serious sex crime (though this can and does occur), but rather it’s disturbance of the fragile bonds of intimate family and marital relationships. This is where the most grievous pain , damage and sorrow occurs. There is repeatedly an interference with or even destruction of healthy love and sexual relationships with long term bonded partners. If one asks if porn is responsible or causes any sex crimes, the answer is unequivocally in the affirmative, but that is only the “tip of the iceberg.”
In some patients, I find that there is an almost instant addiction, while with others, it may take 5-10 years of erratic exposure to get hooked. But like a latent cancer, it almost never disappears on its own or reverses its course unless there is some therapeutic intervention.
Pornography’s Impact On Psychosexual Development
It should be noted that other kinds of data which bear on these issues come from therapists who see symptoms of arrested development in the psychosexual growth of the heavy consumers of pornography they are treating.
An example would be psychiatrist Harold Voth, who is on the faculty of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry in Topeka, Kansas. Dr Voth sees pornography as typically depicting perverse sex, degradation through sex, violent sex, and transient, meaningless sex–all of which are reflections of incomplete and abnormal human development. As he notes, healthy mature people do not behave in these ways. (2)
However, he states, there are millions of people who appear manifestly healthy, but who also harbor substantial latent sicknesses which are residues of developmental arrests or abnormal development which may find expression in sexual perversions. Thus, viewing pornography, most of which depicts perverse behavior, activates the developmental sexual arrests which exist in millions of people.
He sees these people as developing a kind of addiction for pornography, thus receiving many exposures to it over time. These pornographic stimuli promote regressive behavior rather than more mature behavior.
Dr. Voth sees such exposure as especially damaging to the young who are on the threshold of entering into an active sexual life. For them, these vital processes should be guided toward greater maturity, not retrogressively toward perversion or transient, meaningless sex. As he states, “Society and individuals alike can only be harmed when we legitimize abnormal behavior.”
Dr. Voth also notes that some men become dissatisfied with their wives whom they believe to be inadequate (and vice versa) after viewing the exaggerated sexual prowess as depicted by the typical pornographic movie. He suggests that society has the responsibility to protect itself from itself–that is, from the elements within society which harm it. He sees pornography as appealing to sexuality at its worst, and since mature sexuality is so essential to the heterosexual bond and to family life, he believes steps should be taken to clearly identify pornography as unhealthy with many risks associated with its consumption.
Conditioning into Deviancy
Other cause/effect data come from the conditioning laboratories of investigators such as Dr. Stanley Rachman. In his research, he demonstrated that, with the use of highly erotic pictures, sexual deviations could be created in adult male subjects in a laboratory setting. He was actually able to condition, in two separate experiments, 100% of his male subjects into a sexual deviancy (fetishism). (3)
Additionally, the work of R.L. McGuire, author of a study, “Sexual Deviation as Conditioned Behavior: A Hypothesis,” suggests that exposure to special sexual experiences (which could include witnessing pornography), and then masturbating to the fantasy of this exposure, can sometimes later lead to participation in deviant sexual acts. (4)The considerable literature on therapy for sex deviates suggests that their sexual orientation can sometimes be changed (reconditioned) with the use of explicit sex films as a therapeutic tool. (5) If these data are valid, then one must also allow for the possibility that deliberate or accidental exposure to pornography or deviant real life sex experiences can also facilitate the conditioning of individuals into sexual aberrations.
Psychologist Patrick Carnes (currently the leading U.S. researcher on sexual addictions) has published a series of research and data-based books, bringing to national awareness the problem of out-of-control, compulsive sexual behavior. His latest volume documents a host of serious legal, marital, and health consequences of such compulsions. (6)He found that among 932 sex addicts studied, 90% of the men and 77% of the women report pornography as significant to their addictions. He also found that two common elements in the early etiology of sexually addictive behavior are childhood sexual abuse and frequent pornography accompanied by masturbation.
Rather ironically, Dr. Carnes also found that many therapists (psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers) suffer from sexual addictions and inappropriate “acting out” sexual behavior. As he put it, “One of the discoveries that emerged from our survey is that women addicts seeking help are often sexually abused by their therapists.”
Therapists have also found their malpractice insurance rates rising dramatically in recent years, due in part to lawsuits brought against significant numbers of their colleagues who have sexually abused or exploited clients in the course of treatment. This suggests that compulsive sexual behavior is a problem even for practitioners in the therapeutic community. (7)
All Sex Deviations Appear To Be Learned Behaviors
The best evidence to date suggests that most or all sexual deviations are learned behaviors, usually through inadvertent or accidental conditioning. There is no convincing evidence, to date, suggesting the hereditary transmission of any pathological sexual behavior pattern such as rape, incest, pedophilia, exhibitionism, or promiscuity.
As McGuire explains it, as a man repeatedly masturbates to a vivid sexual fantasy as his exclusive outlet (introduced by a real life experience or possibly pornography), the pleasurable experiences endow the deviant fantasy (rape, molesting children, injuring one’s partner while having sex, etc.) with increasing erotic value. The orgasm experienced then provides the critical reinforcing event for the conditioning of the fantasy preceding or accompanying the act. (8)
McGuire indicates that any type of sexual deviation can be acquired in this way, that it may include several unrelated deviations in one individual and that it cannot be eliminated even by massive feelings of guilt. His paper cites many case histories to illustrate this type of conditioning.Other related studies by D.R. Evans and B.T. Jackson support his thesis. They found that deviant masturbatory fantasy very significantly affected the habit strength of the subject’s sexual deviation. (9)
Common Pathway to Self Inflicted Sexual illness
In my treatment of primarily male patients with paraphilias (sexual pathology), I consistently have found that most men are vulnerable to the effects of masturbatory conditioning to pornography with a consequence of sexual ill health, because we are all subject to the laws of learning, with few or no exceptions. In my experience as a sexual therapist, any individual who regularly masturbates to pornography is at risk of becoming, in time, a sexual addict, as well as conditioning himself into having a sexual deviancy and/or disturbing a bonded relationship with a spouse or girlfriend. A frequent side effect is that it also dramatically reduces their capacity to love (e.g., it results in a marked dissociation of sex from friendship, affection, caring, and other normal healthy emotions and traits which help marital relationships). Their sexual side becomes in a sense dehumanized. Many of them develop an “alien ego state” (or dark side), whose core is antisocial lust devoid of most values.
In time, the “high” obtained from masturbating to pornography becomes more important than real life relationships. It has been commonly thought by health educators that masturbation has negligible consequences, other than reducing sexual tension. Moral objections aside, this may be generally true, but one exception would appear to be in the area of repeatedly masturbating to deviant pornographic imagery (either as memories in the mind or as explicit pornographic stimuli), which risks (via conditioning) the acquiring of sexual addictions and/or other sexual pathology.It makes no difference if one is an eminent physician, attorney, minister, athlete, corporate executive college president, unskilled laborer, or an average 15-year-old boy. All can be conditioned into deviancy.
The process of masturbatory conditioning is inexorable and does not spontaneously remiss. The course of this illness may be slow and is nearly always hidden from view. It is usually a secret part of the man’s life, and like a cancer, it keeps growing and spreading. It rarely ever reverses itself, and it is also very difficult to treat and heal. Denial on the part of the male addict and refusal to confront the problem are typical and predictable, and this almost always leads to marital or couple disharmony, sometimes divorce and sometimes the breaking up of other intimate relationships.
Imprinting the Brain with Sexual Images
The work of psychologist James L. McGaugh at the University of California, Irvine, needs mention here. His findings (oversimplifying considerably) suggest that memories of experiences, which occurred at times of emotional arousal (which could include sexual arousal), get “locked into the brain” by an adrenal gland hormone, epinephrine, and are difficult to erase. This may partly explain pornography’s addicting effect. Powerful sexually arousing memories of experiences from the past keep intruding themselves hack on the mind’s memory screen, serving to stimulate and erotically arouse the viewer. If he masturbates to these fantasies, he reinforces the linkage between sexual arousal and orgasm, with the particular scene or image repeatedly rehearsed in his mind. (10)
One might quickly see the risks involved with large numbers of males being exposed to the following film. This 8 mm motion picture film, marketed out of Los Angeles, depicts two Girl Scouts in their green uniforms selling cookies from door to door. At one residence they are invited in by a mature, sexually aggressive adult male, who proceeds to instantly seduce them and subject them to a number of unusual and extremely explicit sexual acts, all shown in greatest detail. The girls are depicted as eagerly enjoying this sexual orgy.
This film is what is usually termed hardcore pornography. This is the kind of pornographic stimulus (here, a film) that the male viewer can play again and again either in the privacy of his home or in his mind for his sexual pleasure.
If the research of Rachman, McGuire, McGaugh and scores of other investigators in the area of human learning has any meaning at all, it would suggest that such a film could be hazardous. It could potentially condition some male viewers into having reoccurring sexual fantasies (vividly imprinted into the brain by the epinephrine) which they might repeatedly masturbate to and then, later, be tempted to act out as sexual advances toward female minors–especially if they were in Girl Scout uniforms.
The Research On Aggressive Pornography (Porno-Violence)
Aggressive sexual crimes against women are a very serious and escalating problem in the United States. Recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings concluded that rape has increased four times as fast as the overall crime rate over the last decade. And, in fact, the United States leads the world in rape statistics with a rape rate four times that of Germany, 13 times as much as England, and 20 times as much as Japan. (11) In recent years, there has been a considerable body of research on aggressive pornography, much of it found in hard “R-rated” films. Many of these films are also broadcast unedited on cable TV and later are available to children in nearly every video store in America. The typical film shows nude females, or females in sexually arousing situations and postures, being raped, tortured, or murdered.
The results of this research suggest the possibility of conditioning viewers into associating sexual arousal with inflicting injury, rape, humiliation, or torture on females. Where these films are available on videotapes (which most are), these can be repeatedly viewed in the privacy of one’s residence and masturbated to, with the associated risks of negative or antisocial conditioning and behavior, previously noted. Drs. Neil Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein noted in their research-based book, Pornography and Sexual Aggression, (12) that “Certain forms of pornography (aggressive) can affect aggressive attitudes toward women and can desensitize an individual’s perception of rape. These attitudes and perceptions are, furthermore, directly related to actual aggressive behavior against women. …These results suggest, again, that aggressive pornography does increase aggression against women.”
Drs. Malamuth and Donnerstein also found that watching films, depicting a woman as saying that she enjoys being raped, increased male acceptance of interpersonal violence against women and tended to increase the male’s acceptance of rape myths (such as believing that women enjoy rape).These authors conclude, “There can be relatively long-term, antisocial effects of movies that portray sexual violence as having positive consequences” (e.g., the woman indicated she enjoyed being raped, or she said “no” when she really meant “yes” while being sexually assaulted).
The literature on aggressive pornography is rather impressive in its consistency in suggesting a variety of harms or possibility of antisocial outcomes from exposure to this material. This should not be surprising alter 40 years of research on film and TV violence arriving essentially at the same conclusion. (13) Dr. Malamuth and associates further found that when college males were exposed to sexually violent pornography, such as rape and other forms of sexual violence, two-thirds of the male subjects, following such exposure, indicated an increased willingness to force a woman into sex acts if they were assured of not being caught or punished.In similar research by Seymour Feshback and associates, 51% of “normal” UCLA males indicated the likelihood of emulating a sadomasochistic rape (seen in porn material they had been exposed to) if they were assured of not getting caught. (14)
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The Effects Of The ‘Rape Myth’ On Pornography-Consumers
In a study by Mills College sociologist, Diana Russell, it was found that the depiction and dissemination of the “rape myth” (e.g., that most women really enjoy having sex forced upon them) were significant elements in reducing inhibitions to the use of violence, habituating both males and females to the idea of rape and also accepting sexual aberrance as “normal” behavior. (15) She also found that once the seeds of deviant behavior were planted in the male fantasy, the men were inclined to act out their fantasies. She found that both the fantasies that were acted out, as well as the mere conceptualization of these deviant fantasies as viable behaviors, led to considerable conflict and suffering on the part of both males and females, particularly in their sexual relationships with intimate partners.
The Effects of Non-Violent Pornography
The issue which has caught the attention of some behavioral scientists doing work in this area is whether it is the violence or the sex that is doing most of the “harm” when it is fused together in so-called aggressive pornography or porno-violence. Some will say, “Just eliminate the violence-the sex is OK.”If we look at non-violent pornography which is totally devoid of violence, we may ask, what about its effects? First, we might indicate several examples of non-violent pornography which most therapists, as well as most ordinary citizens, would not regard as healthy models of sexual behavior:
· Child pornography
· Incest type porn (e.g., mother seducing son, daughter seducing father, older brother seducing younger sister, etc.)
· Sex with animals
· Group sex
· Sex which humiliates and denigrates women and their sex role in man/woman relationships (viewed without overt violence)
· Pornography such as that involving the eager Girl Scout teenagers having two-on-one sex with the adult male, etc.
· Obscene films which present a massive amount of misinformation or gross distortions about human sexuality.
All of the above, while lacking violence, still have the potential of having negative effects on some viewers because they model unhealthy sex role behavior or give false information about human sexuality. Additionally, nonviolent porn can contribute to acquiring a great variety of sexual addictions.
Additionally, there exists empirical research on the effects of “adult” non-violent pornography by researchers Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant. (16) This research suggests that when experimental subjects are exposed to repeated presentations of hardcore non-violent adult pornography over a six-week period, they:
· Develop an increased callousness toward women; Trivialize rape as a criminal offense; to some it was no longer a crime at all;
· Develop distorted perceptions about sexuality;
· Develop an appetite for more deviant, bizarre or violent types of pornography (escalation); normal sex no longer seemed to “do the job;”
· Devalue the importance of monogamy and lack confidence in marriage as either a viable or lasting institution, and
· View non-monogamous relationships as normal and natural behavior.
Pornography’s Effect on Sexual Satisfaction and Family Values
In further research by Drs. Zillmann and Bryant on prolonged consumption of nonviolent pornography, their subjects, after many weeks exposure, reported less satisfaction with their partner’s sexual performance, affection, and physical appearance. The researchers further found an incompatibility of the sexual values in pornography and the sexual values implicit in enduring intimate relationships, and, in particular, in marriage. The chief proclamation of pornography is great sexual joy without any attachment, commitment or responsibility.
Drs. Zillmann and Bryant found that their subjects (both male and female), after intensive exposure to pornography, had a greater acceptance of pre-and extramarital sex and an enhancement of the belief that male and female promiscuity is natural.
Extensive exposure also lowered their evaluation of marriage, making this institution appear less significant and less viable in the future. It also reduced their desire to have children and promoted the acceptance of male dominance and female servitude.
The authors saw the diminished desire for progeny as reflecting the pornographic projection of carefree and consequence-free, promiscuous sexuality. Children have no place in the short-lived relationship in which this maxim is practiced. This would suggest that the consumption of pornography erodes marital values and the institution of marriage itself. (17)
1986 Attorney General’s Commission On Pornography
The 10-member panel of the 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, after reviewing a great volume of clinical and experimental research, concluded unanimously that “Substantial exposure to sexually violent materials (violent pornography)…bears a causal relationship to antisocial acts of sexual violence…,” and, “There is a causal relationship between exposure to sexually violent materials and an increase in aggressive behavior directed toward women.”
The members of the Commission also commented, “The evidence from formal or informal studies of self-reports of offenders themselves supports the conclusions that the causal connection we identify relates to actual sexual offenses…” (18)
The Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, in further reviewing the research on pornographic materials which were not violent but did involve degradation, domination, subordination and humiliation (of women), concluded, “Substantial exposure to materials of this type bears some causal relationship to the level of sexual violence, sexual coercion, or unwanted sexual aggression in the population so exposed…as well as the incidence of various non-violent forms of discrimination against or subordination of women in our society.” (19)
1970 Presidential Commission On Obscenity & Pornography
If we look at field studies of pornography’s effects, we might cite evidence going back to the 1970 Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, the Technical Reports of which I carefully reviewed
Pornography’s Effects On Adults And Children
By Victor B. Cline
© by Victor B. Cline. Used by MHRF with permission.
reviewed and later wrote and edited a book entitled, Where Do You Draw the Line? (20)
In a sophisticated study, financed by the Presidential Commission and published in Volume VII of its Technical Reports, Drs. K.E. Davis and G.N. Braucht assessed the relationship between exposure to pornography and moral character, deviance in the home and neighborhood, and sexual behavior. In their study, impressive in its rigorous methodology and statistical treatment, Drs. Davis and. Braucht, while finding a “positive relationship between sexual deviance and exposure to pornography at all ages of exposure,” also found that “exposure to pornography is the strongest predictor of sexual deviance among the early ages of exposure subjects.”
In this early age of exposure (to pornography) subgroup, “the amount of exposure was significantly correlated with a willingness to engage in group sexual relations… (and other) ‘serious’ sexual deviance; and there were trends for the number of both high school heterosexual partners and total homosexual partners to be positively related to (pornographic) exposure.”
This suggests that pornography may act as a facilitator or accelerator of youthful promiscuity, which could raise health concerns relative to the acquisition and spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as sexual addictions.
Correlation alone, of course1 never demonstrates a causal relationship. However, it does sometimes permit a reasonable hypothesis. Because the researchers had partialed out the contribution of other key variables in this study, the possibility of causation (of harm via pornography exposure) was highly suggested.
In another study of 476 reformatory inmates, published in Volume IX of the Commission’s Technical Reports, Dr. Martin Propper notes again and again a relationship between high exposure to pornography and sexually promiscuous and deviant behavior, as well as affiliation with groups high in criminal activity and sex deviancy.
In yet another study, published in Volume VII of the Technical Reports, C. Eugene Walker found that 39% of the sex offenders interviewed indicated that “pornography had something to do with their committing the sex offense that they were convicted of.”
While one must be cautious in interpreting these results, they again raise the possibility of serious negative outcomes from exposure to pornography.
Sex Offenders’ Use Of Pornography
In research conducted by Dr. W. Marshall, almost half of the rapists that he studied used pornography depicting consenting sex to arouse themselves, preparatory to seeking out a victim to rape. (21)
Another investigator, Dr. M.J. Goldstein, found that far more of the sex offenders than the non-offenders he studied wished to, and often did, emulate the acts they saw depicted in pornography. (22)
In still another study, most of Dr. G.G. Abel’s sex offenders said that pornography increased their appetites for deviant activities (and these were the men who reported the least control over their deviant urges). (23)
Other investigators have reported that rapists and child molesters use pornography incitefully, both immediately prior to their crimes and during the actual assaults. (24) Still another type of evidence comes from a study conducted by Darrell Pope, a former Michigan State Police officer, who found that of 38,000 cases of sexual assault on file in Michigan, 41% involved pornography-exposure just prior to the act or during the act. 25)
Gary Bishop, Serial Killer
Another example of the effects of pornography comes from Gary Bishop, convicted homosexual pedophile who murdered five young boys in Salt Lake City, Utah in order to conceal his sexual abuse of them. He wrote in a letter after his conviction: “Pornography was a determining factor in my downfall. Somehow I became sexually attracted to young boys and I would fantasize about them naked. Certain bookstores offered sex education, photographic or art books which occasionally contained pictures of nude boys. I purchased such books and used them to enhance my masturbatory fantasies.”
“But it wasn’t enough. I desired more sexually arousing pictures so I enticed boys into letting me take pictures of them naked. From adult magazines, I also located addresses of foreign companies specializing in ‘kiddie porn’ and spent hundreds of dollars on these magazines and films.
“Such material would temporarily satisfy my cravings, but soon I would need pictures that were more explicit and revealing. Some of the material I received was shocking and disgusting at first, but it shortly became commonplace and acceptable. As I continued to digress further into my perverted behavior, more stimulation was necessary to maintain the same level of excitement.”
“Finding and procuring sexually arousing materials became an obsession. For me, seeing pornography was like lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite; I became stimulated and had to gratify my urges or explode. All boys became mere sexual objects. My conscience was desensitized and my sexual appetite entirely controlled my actions.”
Gary Bishop then continued to tell how he sexually abused and killed his boy victims.
Ted Bundy, Serial Killer
In the case of Ted Bundy, serial killer of possibly 31 young women, he stated in the videotaped interview hours before his execution, “You are going to kill me, and that will protect society from me. But out there are many, many more people who are addicted to pornography, and you are doing nothing about that.”
And, while some commentators discount his linking aggressive pornography to his sex-murders (when he said it fueled his violent thoughts toward women), there seems little doubt that Bundy consumed a great deal of pornography, much of it violent, from an early age. This was suggested, not only in the interview with Dr. James Dobson, but also documented by psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis in her prior extensive study of Bundy and his history. (26)
A recent study by FBI researchers of 36 serial killers revealed that 29 were attracted to pornography and incorporated it into their sexual activity, which included serial rape-murder. (27)
Denmark Update. Didn’t sex crimes decrease in Denmark with pornography legalized? Apparently not. Some of the more Serious types of sex crimes such as rape actually increased in number and rate following the legalization of pornography in Denmark. (41) The notion that Sex crimes dropped is illusory and was due to the fact that a number of sex: crimes, Including homosexual prostitution, extra marital Incest between close relatives, voyeurism (peeping), and “indecency toward women”, Or frottage, were decriminalized at the time pornography was legalized, giving the appearance of a decrease in the overall rate of sex crimes. Because they were no longer counting any of those sex offenses (which, of course, were still continuing to occur) in their new summaries of sex crime statistics, it appeared that the incidence of Sex crimes was dropping. Also, one investigator, B’. Kutchinsky, found that there were unofficial changes In the handling by police of those sex crimes that remained, which also reduced their “reported” incidence, further distorting the problem or elusion of decreased sex offenses. (42)
Effects On Children
Spillover Effect on Children
I find in my clinical practice a spill-over effect where pornography used by adults very frequently gets into the hands of children living in the home or neighborhood. This can cause extremely negative outcomes.
Example: A mother brought her pregnant 13-year~old daughter to my office. The girl and her 14-year old boyfriend had discovered her father’s secret cache of pornography and had imitated the sexual acts portrayed in those materials over many months. The ensuing consequences, including pregnancy, abortion and depression, were very traumatic for the whole family as well as for both youngsters. The mother divorced her husband because of the complications surrounding what happened.
Example: Parents of a 14-year-old boy brought their son to me when they discovered that he was sexually molesting his sister. We found on investigation that cable TV was in the home, and late at night on one of the channels, there were some very graphic, rough, very violent depictions of sexuality. He got up at two in the morning, went downstairs, and watched these films night after night. They became the training manual or “sex education” that triggered him to assault his sister sexually.
Example: From my private practice–two brothers, ages 9 and 10, stumbled across their parents’ X-rated video tapes and secretly played them for many months while their dad and mom were at work. They later forced two younger siblings and a neighborhood boy to view the video tapes, stripped all three children naked, forced dirt, sticks, and small rocks into their rectums, forced them to engage in oral sex and anal sex, and threatened to shoot them with a BB gun if they told. This abuse continued for nearly a year before finally being discovered when one of the younger abused children could no longer tolerate it and gained the courage to report it.
Effects of Dial-A-Porn on Children
With the sponsorship of the U.S. Dept of Justice, I was commissioned to conduct a pilot field study on the effects of Dial-A-Porn on children in 1985. I interviewed a number of children (mostly preteens or early teens), who had become involved with this type of pornography, and their parents.When one makes a Dial-A-Porn call, it is usually answered by a very sexy, seductive sounding female (this may be a recording or a live female) who talks directly to the caller about how badly she wants to have sex with him. With panting voice, she then tells him in specific detail all of the things she now wants to do to him sexually. There may be a second young woman on the line and they may talk about all three having sex together. They may mention having a sex marathon (dozens of partners) with all of the explicit details.
In some cases, bondage is part of the scenario (having sex while gagged, handcuffed and leashed at the neck), suggesting that sex is better if it “hurts so good–don’t stop.”
Sex with animals is also included as well as group sex; rape; inviting a married male to have sex with the “baby-sitter;” a schoolteacher having sex with her students; inviting the caller to urinate in the woman’s face; degrading the woman as a slut and trash while having sex with her, as well as inviting beatings, torture, and general physical abuse as part of the sexual activity.At the time of the study, any youngster of any age could call these porno lines and get these messages from nearly any place in the country. All they needed was a phone number to call, and the numbers were very easy to come by. If parents put a “block” on their phone to prevent these calls, the children merely found another phone to use.
Hooked on Phone Sex: With every one of the children we studied, we found an “addiction-effect.” In every case, without exception, the children (girls as well as boys) became hooked on this sex by phone and kept going back for more and still more. None of them ceased until found out. In some cases, more than 300 long distance calls were made by particular children.
Disclosure usually occurred when the parents later received an enormous phone bill. This alerted them that something was amiss. Only after investigation (often having to call the number which was printed on the phone bill) did the parents become aware of what their children were calling and listening to. There was always a major confrontation, and the children were usually made to pay the long distance phone costs as well as given a variety of chastisements, lectures, and/or punishments.
When both parents worked or when there was a single parent working, left behind were “latch key children” who were not monitored or supervised for a number of hours during the day. This created a very difficult problem in controlling phone use. I found that nearly all of the children had clear memories of a great deal of the content of the calls they heard, even when there was a time lag of one or two years. I also found that, almost without exception, the children felt guilty, embarrassed, and ashamed about their involvement with Dial-A-Porn. In nearly all cases, there were some problems and tensions generated in the parent-child family relationships because of the Dial-A-Porn calls.
Acting Out Phone Sex: I have also interviewed some children, where as a result of hearing Dial-A-Porn messages, they engaged in sexual assaults on other children. One 12-year old boy in Hayward, California listened to Dial-A-Porn for nearly two hours on the phone in the empty pastor’s study between church meetings one Sunday afternoon. A few days later he sexually assaulted a four-year old girl in his mother’s day care center. He had never been exposed to pornography before. He had never acted out sexually before and was not a behavior problem in the home. He had never heard or knew of oral sex before listening to Dial-A-Porn. And this was how he assaulted the girl, forcing oral sex on her in direct imitation of what he had heard on the phone.
I later interviewed a number of children in Michigan where similar sexual assaults occurred: males in their early teens, forcing sex on younger females as a result of listening to Dial-A-Porn. All of these children might be considered victims–the abusers as well as the abused.The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect reported in 1988 that the incidence of child sexual abuse-reports tripled in the previous six years in the United States. In my clinical judgment, at least part of this was due to the influence of Dial-A-Porn and other porn materials as a “how to manual,” especially where older children were sexually abusing younger ones.
Since I conducted this study, Congress enacted legislation prohibiting obscene Dial-A-Porn messages and restricting access to indecent messages. Many Dial-A-Porn services, however, continue to operate in violation of this law, and neither the Justice Department nor the FCC is doing much about it.
Acquiring the Values Which Permeate Hardcore Porn
In a study reported to the 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography by Dr. Jennings Bryant, 600 American males and females of junior high school age and above were interviewed about their “out in real life involvement with pornography. 28 He found that 91% of the males and 82% of the females admitted having been exposed to X-rated, hardcore pornography. Two-thirds of the males and 40% of the females reported wanting to try out some of the sexual behaviors they had witnessed.
And, among high school students, 31% of the males and 18% of the females admitted actually doing some of the things sexually they had seen in the pornography within a few days after exposure. This clearly suggests the modeling effect or imitative-learning effect, as well as “triggering effect,” that even non violent pornography has on human sexual behavior in some individuals.Additionally, it was found that massive (e.g., six weeks) exposure to non-aggressive pornography was able to change the attitudes and feelings of adult subjects in a laboratory setting in the direction of making sexual improprieties and transgressions seem less bad. The victims of such transgressions were also perceived to suffer less and be less severely wronged. In other words, they had become to some degree desensitized to the breaking of sexual taboos as a result of the pornography exposure.
As Dr. Jennings Bryant comments, “If the values which permeate the content of most hardcore pornography are examined, what is found is an almost total suspension of the sorts of moral judgment that have been espoused in the value systems of most civilized cultures. Forget trust. Forget family. Forget commitment. Forget love. Forget marriage. Here, in this world of ultimate physical hedonism, anything goes.
“If we take seriously the social science research literature in areas such as social learning or cultivation effects, we should expect that the heavy consumer of hardcore pornography should acquire some of these values which are so markedly different from those of our mainstream society, especially if the consumer does not have a well developed value system of his or her own.”And, of course, this is just what Dr. Bryant found in his research reported above.
Influences of Rock Music Porn
Most people would probably agree that music itself–that is, minus the lyrics–is basically neutral. Music and sound patterns can be attention-getting, pleasing and even unappealing. When lyrics are added, however, that is another story. It is the lyrics of songs that impact the brain most dramatically. Consider the Alphabet Song that nearly every pre-schooler learns, or the radio and TV jingles or ditties which nearly every child-and adult–find hard to erase from consciousness. The catchy music helps anchor this information in the conscious mind and memory.
When one rock group “2 Live Crew” exults in their lyrics about the degradation of women, the joys of forcing sex on them, busting vaginal walls, and repeatedly referring to females as bitches, plus many unprintable and dehumanizing indignities, the question is, can these persuasive communications be without consequences?
Social commentator John Leo calls these “venomous messages…disguised as harmless fun…. packaged and beamed to kids as entertainment.” (29 Stanley Crouch, a prominent critic and essayist, refers to this music as “sadistic, misogynist, hateful…” (30)
Columnist George Will raises the question of, “Which words are .lyrics, and which are testimony?” (31) As he compares the explicit obscene and brutal rock music lyrics performed by a popular rock group with the court testimony of the teenagers who violently assaulted and raped the Central Park (New York) jogger several years ago, he notes that the messages, the words, the communications are essentially identical.
George Will suggests that, as a certainty, the coarsening of a community, the desensitizing of a society by these words or persuasive communications, so artfully presented, will have behavior consequences. He further notes that America today is capable of terrific intolerance about smoking, or toxic waste that threatens trout. He suggests that only a deeply confused society is more concerned about protecting lungs than minds, or trout than women.When one of the Central Park rapists was arrested, he said, “It was something to do. It was fun.” George Will asks, “Where can you get the idea that sexual violence against women is fun?” His unsettling response: “From a music store, through Walkman earphones, from boom boxes blaring forth rap lyrics.”John Leo asks the question, “Why should our daughters have to grow up in a culture in which musical advice on the domination and abuse of women is accepted as entertainment?”
Pornography as a Training Manual
We also have a great deal of information gained from studies treating sex offenders, suggesting that pornography is often used by them as a facilitator or “training manual” in not only acquiring their own deviation but also as a device to break down the resistance and inhibitions of their victims or targets of molestation–especially when these are children or juveniles. (32)
Bob Peters and Bob Navarro of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Administrative Vice Division cite an in-house study of every child molestation case referred to them during a 10-year-period which found, in 60% of the instances, adult or child pornography was used to lower the inhibitions of the children molested or to excite or sexually arouse the perpetrator of the abuse.
In another study of 43 pedophiles, they found adult or child pornography (magazines, photos or videos) involved in 100% of the cases investigated. In every interview they conducted, the officers reported the abusers repeatedly saying the same thing: “I used this stuff to stimulate the child, to break down his inhibitions.” (33)
Child Pornography
The majority of producers of pornography avoid getting mixed up with child pornography. They draw a line here, and for a very simple reason. The making of child pornography (using still pictures, video or movies) requires child sexual abuse. In fact, it is a crime in progress, permanently recorded.The most they will do is use females over the age of 17 who look much younger and dress them as “teeny boppers” to suggest that the viewer is seeing a 12-to 15-year-old engaging in sex. Viewing and masturbating to this kind of simulated child pornography can still have major negative consequences for the voyeur in terms of creating a sexual appetite for minors.
It is mainly pedophiles who create true child pornography using children. And they do this for their own use as well as to exchange or sell the materials they produce. When this occurs, the children are doubly abused: at the time the films or videos or pictures are made, and then when others observe their victimization in the years to come and get turned on sexually by observing the children being sexually used.
Child pornography invariably produces great shame and guilt in the children involved, especially as they get older and more fully comprehend the enormity of their abuse and know that there is a permanent record of their degradation out there, circulating around for people to see–maybe future friends or their own children when grown up. Only pedophile organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union defend the distribution of child pornography, which is, of course, illegal everywhere at both national and local levels.
Other Considerations of Pornography’s Effects
People Are Affected by What They See
There is a belief strongly held by some Americans that pornography (or obscenity), while it may be vulgar and tasteless, is still essentially harmless and has no real effect on the viewer.However, for someone to suggest that pornography cannot have an effect on you (including a harmful one) is to deny the whole notion of education, generally, or to suggest that people are not affected by what they read and see. If you believe that a pornographic book or film cannot affect you, then you must also say that Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, the Bible, the Koran or advertising have no effect on their readers or viewers. But, of course, hooks and other media do have an effect on their consumers.
Consider a single book by Ralph Nader, Unsafe at any Speed. It set in motion a whole series of events leading to legislation which
is now undoubtedly saving thousands of lives yearly on the highway and which put General Motor’s Corvair out of business.Additionally, astute businessmen would not spend billions of dollars a year on television advertising if their visual/verbal messages and imagery did not motivate people to buy deodorant, Chevies, or Pampers. Therefore, the key question is, not whether, but what kind of an effect does pornography have?
Use of Sexually Explicit Films To Change Sexual Behavior & Attitudes
Many hundreds of sex counseling clinics in the United States daily make use of explicit sexual pictures, films, books, and videos to change couples’ sexual behavior, beliefs, and attitudes. Other centers use graphic sex films in an attempt to recondition the sexual behavior of sex offenders. However, these are as carefully selected and prescribed as a physician would in writing a prescription for a particular drug to treat a specific illness or infection. No responsible doctor would ever send a patient to a pharmacy and say, “Take anything available on the shelf.” And no responsible sex therapist would ever say to a patient who had a specifically focused sexual problem, “Go down to the adult bookstore and help yourself to anything you find there.”
You cannot logically argue that the kind of change which takes place in a sex counseling clinic can function only one way (just to make people healthy). The possibility certainly exists that some pornography can harm people through accidental conditioning processes or modeling and imitative learning of destructive, unhealthy, or illegal kinds of sexual activity, which some viewers may later act out. This could be especially true for more impressionable, immature, and vulnerable children and adolescents.
Pornography As A Form of Sex Education
Consider also the spread of sex education courses through schools in the United States. The assumption is that you can change attitudes and behavior about sex through some form of teaching and instruction. If you assume that this is so (still a controversial issue among researchers), then you have to admit to the possibility that films, magazines, and books which model rape and the dehumanization of females in sexual scenes are also powerful forms of sex education. This latter type of material educates, but not necessarily in healthy ways.
Anyone who has seen much pornography knows that most of it is made by men for male consumption; is extremely sexist; gives a great deal of misinformation about human sexuality; is devoid of love, relationship, responsibility; mentions nothing about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, and for the most part, dehumanizes both male and female participants. Pornography falsely represents sex, and some of it is very hostile to females who are often denigrated and humiliated.
If you were to regard pornography as a form of sex education, you would have to label most of it as miseducation because it presents and models scientifically inaccurate, false and misleading information about human sexuality, especially female sexual nature and response.
In addition, pornography portrays “unhealthy” or even antisocial kinds of sexual activity such as sadomasochism, abuse and humiliation of the female, involvement of minors, incest, group sex, voyeurism, exhibitionism, bestiality, etc. Thus, if we examine just its educative impact, it presents us with some grounds for concern.
Why Some Claim ‘No Effects’
Some of the educated commentators or even “experts” that I know who publicly suggest that pornography has no effects are just simply unaware of the new research/studies suggesting harm. There are others who really do not believe what they are asserting. And, there are still others who will only reluctantly admit to the possibility of harm from just “violent pornography.”
In some cases, they are pretending “not to know” because of their concern over what they falsely believe is censorship or loss of First
Amendment rights. Some fear the tyranny of a moralist minority who might take away their rights to view and use pornography, then later maybe free speech and expression. And, some are themselves sex addicts with a hidden agenda behind their public posturing. Thus, for some of them, the issue is political. It also has to do with their personal values and much less with what any contrary evidence might suggest.
This is somewhat akin to the repeated and pious denial of “effects” of exposure to extreme media violence by movie and TV executives despite massive evidence to the contrary–especially concerning exposure to children. These denials, as well as the contradicting harm-evidence, have been extensively documented by Michael Medved, author of Hollywood vs. America. (34)
Some of the tobacco institute scientists are still claiming there is no proof of harm from smoking despite 30 years of carefully researched evidence to the contrary and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of victims.
One striking example of experts “speaking out of both sides of their mouths” to different audiences can be found documented in “Misrepresentation of Pornography Research, Psychology’s Role,” by Stewart Page. (35) Dr. Zillmann and Dr. Bryant also touched on this subject in a 1989 book, Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations. (36)
In summary, some of the experts who deny harm are simply unaware of the new studies and research suggesting health hazards. With others, it is a matter of their personal politics and values.
The Feminist Position On Pornography
In reviewing the evidence on the effects of pornography, brief mention should be made of the feminist position. Their general view is that a great deal of scientific studies proving or disproving harm are irrelevant and unnecessary. Pornography, on its face, is abusive and denigrating, especially of women, and you do not have to do research to prove that.Sociologist Diana Russell states in her privately published paper, “Pornography, A Feminist Perspective” (Berkeley 1977), “Pornography is vicious, anti-woman propaganda. It tells lies about us. It degrades women. Pornography is not made to educate but to sell, and for the most part, what sells is a bunch of lies about sex and women. Women are portrayed as enjoying being raped, spanked or beaten, tied up, mutilated, enslaved, or they accept it as their lot as women to be victims of such experiences. In the less sadistic films, women are portrayed as turned on and sexually satisfied by doing anything and everything men order them to do. What this involves is, for the most part, totally contrary to what we know about female sexuality: i.e. it is almost totally penis-oriented, often devoid of foreplay, tenderness, or caring, to say nothing of love and romance.”
Legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon argues that pornography is central to the subordination of women because it eroticizes dominance. As she puts it, “Part of the reason that women–to the extent that women do–get pleasure out of subordination has to do with their experiences of abuse very early on. Look at the rape rate. Look at the rate of child sexual abuse. Women learn to sexualize powerlessness through experiencing their sexuality under conditions of powerlessness.
“About 38% of all young girls are sexually molested before they reach the age of maturity. That means their experience of their body’s being accessed, aroused, as well as the experience of being loved and approved is an experience of violation.”
MacKinnon believes that women are getting obliterated by pornography and feels that since harm occurs, one should be able to get an injunction against it. (37)
Susan Brownmiller sees much “woman hatred” in pornography~ suggesting in her book, Against Our Will, (38) “Pornography, like rape, is a male invention, designed to dehumanize women, to reduce the female to an object of sexual access. The gut distaste that a majority of women feel when we look at pornography comes from the gut knowledge that we and our bodies are being stripped, exposed and contorted for the purpose of ridicule, to bolster that ‘masculine esteem’ which gets its kicks and sense of power from viewing females as anonymous, panting playthings, adult toys, dehumanized objects to be used, abused, broken and discarded.”
The feminists may be right when they insist that proof of harm may be really an irrelevant issue. We do not set up Presidential commissions to decide whether prostitution or crack houses” are harmful to the public interest or whether cigarettes can be advertised on TV. These are all issues which, in one way or another, involve public morality, and prohibitions against them have evolved out of English common law as well as common sense legislation using democratic procedures and processes.
It should also be noted here that in a leading obscenity case, Paris Adult Theatre v. Slaton (1973), the United States Supreme Court expressly rejected the argument that no regulation of obscenity is permitted without “scientific data” conclusively demonstrating that exposure to obscene materials adversely affects individuals or society.
The Court stated, in part: “If we accept the unprovable assumption that a complete education requires the reading of certain books…and the well nigh universal belief that good books, plays and art lift the spirit, improve the mind, enrich the human personality and develop character, can we then say that a state legislature may not act on the corollary assumption that commerce in obscene books, or public exhibitions focused on obscene conduct, have a tendency to exert a corrupting and debasing impact leading to antisocial behavior? Many of these effects may be intangible and indistinct, but they are nonetheless real…”
The decision concluded: “Nothing in the Constitution prohibits a State from reaching such a conclusion and acting on it legislatively simply because there is no conclusive evidence or empirical data.”
Research Methodology
To the average reader uninitiated in the complexities of behavioral science and research methodology, mention should I be made of an important issue which has to do with whether two things you are studying are related (correlated with each other) or whether one causes or makes the other to happen (a cause/effect relationship). You can have the first without the second and many people, even scientists, come to grief over this issue.
Correlation alone never demonstrates or proves a causal relationship, though it can be suggestive or raise that possibility.
Therefore, the sun rising each morning and a person being consistently hungry at that time are correlated events. But one does not cause the other to happen. However, the sun rising in the morning and the outdoor temperature increasing are correlated in a causal way.
Thus, a number of studies suggest a relationship (correlation) between early exposure to pornography and later sexual promiscuity and deviancy.
Pornography could be one cause of promiscuity.
Or, affiliation with delinquent companions could be a factor contributing to an interest in pornography as well as to participation in later promiscuous sexual activities.
Or, promiscuity and pornography could be reciprocally and causally related. We are really not sure what all the causal connections, if any, are in this instance. However, we can make some good guesses hypotheses which might be tested through further research. (39)
Sometimes the methodology of behavior science cannot disentangle all of these influences and precisely measure their individual unique contributions. But, the fact that we cannot adequately measure them does not mean that they do not occur or that they have no effects.
For example, all of the evidence linking drunk driving with high vehicular accident and fatality rates is correlational and anecdotal. However, despite this, nearly all of us would agree that there is probably a cause-effect relationship here. And many laws have been passed as well as public policy decisions made, based on this assumption.
In addition, I have not heard of any behavioral scientists who are critical of this interpretation of the data and evidence, even though it is only “correlational.”
Frequently, good judgment~ correct inference, and sound logic have to be used–along with proper scientific data analysis to arrive at reasonable judgments about risk of harm. In the meantime, all people (including parents) are faced with making daily decisions, without final knowledge (as they have for eons of time) as to whether or not to continue smoking or eating foods that may be carcinogenic (even though the data suggesting their lethality is only correlational or suggestive–not conclusive) and, similarly, whether or not to expose themselves or their offspring to pornographic materials.
Nobody will ever do the definitive cause effect study on pornography’s effects by taking young children or even pre-college adolescents, for example, in experimental and matched control groups, exposing them to various amounts of pornography or porno-violence, and then following them through for 25 years to see what harm might occur.
Ethical considerations would simply rule out such experiments, and few or no parents would permit it. University Human Subjects Review Committees would not approve it. The risks to the participants would be perceived as too great.
So we will continue, as in the past, to make social policy decisions and law on the basis of the best evidence available, good common sense, and the data available to us, including that out of the laboratory of our everyday experience, in handling pornography, carcinogens in our environment, job and sex discrimination, and a number of other matters.
We need not claim that we are paralyzed or immobilized or unable to make these decisions just because there is not final conclusive proof. There never is. While cigarette manufactures are still claiming that there is no conclusive evidence of a causal connection between smoking and lung cancer (and many other illnesses), millions of Americans have still chosen to stop smoking in recent years on the basis of: what evidence that does exist.
In Conclusion
In should be emphasized in this brief essay that it is not possible to review any more than a few representative studies and summarize some of the trends of current as well as past research on pornography’s effects, focusing especially on the harm issue. But the studies and other evidence set forth here should still be sufficient to give the reader a sense of the field and, thus, answer for himself or herself the question of pornography’s potential to change or influence sexual attitudes and behavior in adults as well as children.
There are many people who still argue that immersing oneself in a milieu of pornography is devoid of any negative consequences. But, that perhaps reflects their unfamiliarity with the new literature and research on this issue or maybe a very protected life experience. For there do indeed exist a number of experimental, field and clinical studies, and related data that give contrary evidence.
In my clinical practice, I have daily treated both children and adults who have been unequivocally and repeatedly injured by exposure to pornography, where the cumulated evidence over many years demonstrates a cause/effect relationship between such exposure and a variety of harms.
If anyone who reviews this report still has doubts about pornography’s effects, I would suggest that he or she get invited to some meetings of “Sexaholics Anonymous” or “Sex Addicts Anonymous” and personally witness the pain, trauma, and evidence first hand. Most members of these groups, when they share their pathology and histories, will implicate pornography as a contributing facilitator of their compulsive, out-of-control sexual behavior.
These groups are located in almost every major city in America and usually meet up to seven nights a week. Their times of meeting and location can usually be found by calling AA (Alcoholics Anonymous–a related organization) which is listed in most city phone directories.
However, in fairness, it should be emphasized that, as with using alcohol or even some of the highly addictive drugs, not everyone exposed will become an alcoholic or addicted–at least in the early stages of use.
But there are risks and there seems little doubt that there are at least some people-even those who are initially healthy–who can be eventually harmed through repeated exposure to pornography. In my clinical work, I find pre-teen or adolescent males, who are mostly innocent and uninformed, being particularly vulnerable to these negative and addictive effects.
In treating patients with out-of-control sexual and pornography addictions, I have found that a combination of personal therapy, which always includes the partner’s spouse (when available), and using an addiction model therapeutically, plus involvement with a 12-step Sexaholics Anonymous type group, yields the most successful healing results.
In a society where some types of pornographic material are protected by the Constitution and obscenity laws often go unenforced, some individuals may choose to immerse themselves in a pornographic milieu, just as some people may choose to drink or smoke excessively or use illegal drugs. These individuals should be made cognizant of the health hazards involved. This kind of knowledge is also especially important for parents to have since most sexual and pornographic addictions begin in middle childhood or early adolescence and most of the time without the parents’ awareness or the children themselves having a sufficient understanding of the risks involved.
Obscenity and the First Amendment
Obscenity is not protected speech under the First Amendment. For example, in Miller v. California; 413 U.S. 15(1973), the Court stated: “This much has been categorically settled by the United States Supreme Court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment.” And, in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), the Supreme Court said: “We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press.”
The First Amendment is not absolute and never has been. In fact, in addition to obscenity, there are many other kinds of speech and expression also not protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment–such as slander, libel, perjury, false advertising, conspiracy, yelling “fire” in the crowded theater, contempt of court, copyright violations and child pornography. The relevant statutes, designed to protect the public interest, were enacted using democratic processes and can always be revoked or modified if the elected legislatures choose to do so.There are a few people who would like to make the First Amendment absolute, and they have every right to have that opinion and lobby Congress and their state legislatures toward that end. However, the Supreme Court, as well as Congress and every state legislature, has rejected this absolute point of view.
Some individuals confuse anti-obscenity laws with censorship. Technically, censorship is “prior restraint” on speech by the government, and as the United States Supreme Court stated in its 1993 Alexander v. United States decision, the term “prior restraint” is used to describe government orders forbidding speech “when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur.” Obscenity laws, however, operate subsequent to publication as punishments for past criminal conduct.
Additional Resources
Helpline for Sexual Addicts: 1-601-844-5036, OutReach Division of American Family Association, P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803
12-Steps to Sexual Addiction Recovery. A Christ-centered Bible Study written by Neal Clement, OutReach Director of the
American Family Association, P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803
Don’t Touch That Dial. by Barbara Hattemer and H. Robert Showers. A highly recommended new book for those interested in
further documentation on pornography’s effects and the impact of media violence on children and families. (Huntingdon House, Lafayette, LA: 1993, $9.95)
TV. The World’s Greatest Mind-Bender. by Morality in Media is an excellent handbook on the negative effects of TV and strategies for
coping with it, including a listing of the top 100 TV advertisers. It is available for $3. 00 from Morality in Media, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115.
Pornography Has Consequences. by Morality in Media. A pamphlet of excerpts from research and studies of the effects of pornography. 10 cents each.
Endnotes
(1) “The Pornography Industry Today.” The World & I, Dec.1992: pp.511,516.
(2) Presentation before conference on “Pornography: Solutions Through Law.” Dallas, Texas: National Forum Foundation, May
1985.
(3) Rachman, S., “Experimentally Induced Sexual Fetishism.” Psychological Record, 1968: vol.18, p.25.
(4) McGuire, R.J., et al. “Sexual Deviations as Conditioned Behavior: A Hypothesis.” Behavior Research Therapy. 1965: vol.2, p.185.
(5) Marquis, J.N., “Orgasmic Reconditioning: Changing Sexual Object Choice Through Controlling Masturbation Fantasies.” J. Behav. Ther. & Exp. Psychiat., 1970: vol.1 pp.263-71.
(6) Carnes, Patrick, Don’t Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addictions. New York: Bantam Books, 1991.
(7) Blanchard, G.T., “The Role of Sexual Addictions in the Sexual Exploitation of Patients by Male Psychiatrists.” Am Journal of
Preventive Psychiatry & Neurology, Spring 1991.
(8) McGuire, R.J. et al, Sexual Deviation as Conditioned Behavior, Behavior Research & Therapy, 1965 vol.2, p.185.
(9) Evans, D. R., “Masturbatory Fantasy & Sexual Deviation.” Behavioral Research & Therapy, 1968: vol.6, p.17; and: Jackson, B.T., “A Case of Voyeurism Treated by Counter Conditioning.” Behavior Research & Therapy, 1969: vol.7, p.133.
(10) “Preserving the Presence of the Past.” American Psychologist (Feb.1983): p.161.
(11) Newsweek, July 23, 1990, pp.51-52.
(12) Malamuth, Neil Dr. & Donnerstein, Edward Dr. (eds.), Pornography and Sexual Aggression. New York: Academic Press, 1984.
(13) Rubinstein, E. “Television & Behavior.” American Psychologist, 1983: vol 38, p.820; and: Eron L., American Psychologist Association Monitor (May 1992): vol.23, no 4, pp.11.
(14) “Sex and Aggression: Proving the Link.” Psychology Today (Nov.1978): pp. 11 1-j 12; and: “Rape Fantasies as a Function of Exposure to Violent-Sexual Stimuli.” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1986: vol.10, pp. 34-37.
(15) Russell, Diana, Rape & Marriage, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage 1982.
(16) “Symposium on Media Violence and Pornography.” Toronto, Canada: Media Action Group, 1984; and: Testimony given to U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Houston, Texas, Sept.1985.
(17) Zillmann, D. & Bryant, J., “Pornography’s Impact on Sexual Satisfaction” Journal of Appl. Social Psychology, 1988: vol.18, no.5, pp. 438-453; and: Zillmann, D. & Bryant, 1, “Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values.” Journal of Family Issues. Dec. 1988): vol.9, no.4, pp.518-544.
(18) Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography: Final Report. Washington D.C., U.S. Printing Office (1986), pp. 324-326.
(19) Attorney General’s Commission: -Washington D.C., U.S. Printing Office (1986), pp. 333-334.
(20) Where Do You Draw the Line?: Explorations in Media Violence, Pornography & Censorship. ed. Victor B. Cline. Provo UT; Brigham
Young University Press, 1974.
(21) Marshall, W.L., “A Report On the Use of Pornography by Sexual Offenders.” Ottawa, Canada: Federal Department of Justice, 1983.
(22) Goldstein, M.J. et al, Pornography and Sexual Deviance. Berkeley, CA: Univer. of Calif Press, 1973.
(23) Abel, G.G., “Use of Pornography and Erotica by Sex Offenders.” Presented to the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. Houston, Texas, 1985.
(24) Silber, M.H. & Pines, A.M., “Pornography & Sexual Abuse of Women.” Sex Roles, 1984: vol.10, pp. 857-868: and: Carter, D.L.
et al (in press), “Use of Pornography in the Criminal & Developmental Histories of Sexual Offenders.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
(25) “New Weapon Against Obscenity,” June 3, 1983, Paducah (Mich. ) Sun-Democrat.
(26) AP dispatch, Jan 27, 1989, Seattle Times (Wash).
(27) Burgess, A., “The Effects of Pornography on Women and Children Including an Analysis of Sexual Homicide Crime Data.” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. Wash. D.C., 1984.
(28) Bryant Jennings, “Frequency of Exposure, Age of Initial Exposure and Reactions to Initial Exposure to Pornography.” Presented to the Attorney General’s Commission Pornography, Houston, Texas, March 1985; and: Bryant, J. & Brown D., Uses of Pornography. In Zillmann, D. & Bryant, J. (eds), Pornography: Research Advances & Policy Considerations. New Jersey: L. Erlbaum & Assoc. 1989.
(29) US. News, July 2,1990.
(30) U.S. News, July 2, 1990.
(31) Newsweek, July 30, 1990.
(32) Burgess, A., “Pornography-Victims & Perpetrators.” Symposium on Media Violence & Pornography Proceedings Resource Book & Research Guide (D. Scott, ed.) Toronto: Media Action Group, 1984: pp. 173-183.
(33) The World & I, December, 1992: p.508.
(34) Medved, Michael. Hollywood vs. America. New York: Harper-Collins, 1992: pp. 239-252.
(35) Page, Steward, “Misrepresentation of Pornography Research.” American Psychologist (March 1989): p.578.
(36) Zillmann, Dr. & Bryant, Dr., Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum & Assoc.: pp. 387-482 (1989).
(37) Michigan Today. Ann Arbor, Mich: Univ of Mich., June 1989: pp. 6-8.
(38) Brownmiller, S., Against Our Will: Men. Women. and Rape. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975.
(39) Brigham, T.A., On the importance of recognizing the difference between experiments and correlational studies. American Psychologist (July 1989): vol.44, pp.1077-i078; and: Dominowski, R.L., “Method Theory and Drawing Inferences.” American Psychologist (July 1989): vol. 44,’p. 1078.
(40) University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences Pritzer School of Medicine Reports, Winter 1970.
(41) Court, J.H., “Pornography & Sex Crimes.” intern. Journal of Criminology & Penology, 1977: vol.5, pp. 129-157.
(42) Kutchinksy, B., “Toward an Explanation of the Decrease in Registered Sex Crimes in Copenhagen.” Tech. Report of Commission of Obscenity and Pornography, Vol. VII., Wash. D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1971.
There was a university of Pennsylvania student who was gang raped in 1990 after college men watched porn videos in their dorms.And I still have a 1985 letter written into Mademoiselle Magazine by a woman who wrote in response to Peter Nelson’s His Column,Why Nice Guys Like Playboy,she wrote from Allendale New Jersey,”I just finished reading Peter Nelson’s His Colum.Peter Nelson is certainly no nice guy,nor is any participant in pornography, a trade which profits from the exploitation of women.Why I must ask does a so-called “woman’ magazine” feature editorials which support misogyny? Mr.Nelson’s callous disregard for women is evident in his neglect to face the fact that pornography promotes rape and violence.I know,because my best friend was raped by four men who used pornography as a reference guide.If a magazine such as Mademoiselle can ignore the truth about pornography and actually trivialize it’s seriousness,I can only question it’s editorial purpose.”
Dr.Gene Abel found that more than 50% of sex offenders used pornography,and that the offenders who used it were less able to control their behavior than those who did not.Psychiatrist William Marshall found that 86% of convicted rapists regularly use pornography and that 57% admit to imitating scenes they enjoyed from pornography in the commiting of their rapes.Dr.Marshall also found in a Canadian 1983 study of child molesters in prison,that 77% of theose who molested boys and 87% who molested girls were also regular users of hard-core pornography.
Rhea from the sadly former Women’s Alliance Against Pornography Education Project in Cambridge,sent me a lot of research on the harms of pornography back in December 1990.
One of the things she sent me included information that North Carolina State Representavie Richard Wright-Democrat,while announcing enactment of anti-pornography legislation he sponsored,cited a N.C. State Police study which found:defendants in 75% of the violent sex crimes in the state”had some kind of hard-core pornographic material” in their homes or vechicles.”I’m talking about S&M (sadistic & masochistic) material,bondage he said,that came from The New York Times 1/26/86 & 10/13/85;The Virginian Pilot 10/20/85 and the articles were contributed by Alexandra Bassil,Ray Lynn Oliver;Barbara Sparrow.
Also included,was information about interviews with 50 Boston women who had been victims of marital rape,nearly 10% of their husbands were obssed with pornography;wanted their wives to help them make it.Many could only get aroused by staging a rape.”There was a sense that many of these men needed violence or strugle in order to have sex.They found the humiliation very stimulating.The women felt as though they were being used as masturbatory objects.There was a definite sadistic component to some.”Approximately 45% of the rapes were categorized as “Battering rapes”- Address to the NY County Lawyer’s Assoc.by David Finkelhor,Ph.D Associate Director-Family Violence Research Program,University of New Hampshire
The information also included a study conducted by the Michigan State Police in which 38,000 sexual assaults from 1956 to 1979 were analyzed found that in at least 41% of those crimes,pornography was used or imitated just prior to or during the act this came from Ladies Home Journal October 1985.The information Rhea sent me also included that a study of 36 convicted sexually oriented murderers/serial killers,found the single most common trait amongst them was 81% listed their primary sexual interest as pornography,71% voyeurism.The study’s objective,conducted by the FBI’s behavioral science unit in Quantico,Virginia,was to develop a psychological profile on sex killers in order to track them faster.The researchers concluded,after interviews with the 36 who collectively provided information on 1,188 murders,that the killers were characteristically immeresed in fantasy,this came from NY Daily News 6/26/85 and This World 7/14/85.
Feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler says in her book,Patriarchy:Notes Of An Expert Witness that serial killers are obessed with pornography and woman hatred and sexually use their victims both before and after killing them,and she said most wife beaters,pedaphiles,rapists and serial killers of women are addicted to pornography.Nobody would need to do studies to prove that racist and anti-semetic pornography is very harmful to Blacks and Jews and it would never have been made so mainstreamed and acceptable!
Excellent REport With A Lot Of Important Research Studies On Harms Of Porn And It’s Connection To Rape And Rape Myths It’s Too Long To POst The Whole REport Here.
http://www.enough.org/objects/justharmlessfun.pdf.
Page 1
— 1 –Just Harmless Fun? Understanding the Impact of Pornography
All healthy men, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, know there is acertain fury in sex that we cannot afford to inflame, and that a certain mystery and awe must ever surround it if we are to remain sane.G.K. Chesterton
More and more we are asked to believe that pornography is merely harmless —adult entertainment.“ Polls show that most people don‘t buy that line, but where do you find the evidence (rather than just rhetoric) to demonstrate its impact? To answer that question, Enough Is Enough has prepared this Special Report to provide an up-to-date overview of the evidence of harm. We survey recent empirical research, media studies, experience of clinical psychologists and other compelling information, and we respond to many of the porn advocates sound-bites. Read the evidence and decide for yourself: is pornography —just harmless fun“? Should we be concerned about the increasing intrusion of pornography into our society? Interestingly, most people say —yes,“ according to surveys giving as much as 75%1 or even 94%2 approval to pornography restrictions on the Internet.3 This report will review the evidence thatthese concerns are eminently justified.The advocates of pornography usually attribute such concerns to mere prudishness. Sex,however, is hardly just another appetite, like hunger for food. Our sexual appetites are a bit more complex than eating too much pizza, and the consequences of poor sexual decisions usually can‘tbe fixed with two Alka-Seltzers.
Most adults can intuitively relate to G.K. Chesterton‘s wise caution above. Such sharedexperience isn‘t a bad place to start, remembering the observation of eminent jurist Mr. JusticeCardoza that —all laws in western civilization are guided by a robust common sense.“ In 1973,Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, after quoting Cardoza, went on to write:—The sum of experience including that of the past two decades affords an ample basisfor legislators to conclude that a sensitive, key relationship of human existence (central to -family life, community welfare and the development of human personality) can be debased and distorted by crass commercialization of sex. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits a State from reaching such a conclusion and acting on it legislatively simply because there is no conclusive evidence or empirical data.“ 4 Law, however, is not the focus of this report. Rather, the focus is the considerable amount of work carried out since Justice Burger‘s day to better understand the impact of pornography. Surveying the EvidenceA favorite tactic of pornography‘s advocates is to argue that it is —harmless fun,“ mere —adultentertainment.“
They would have us believe that any difference between Venus De Milo and Debbie Does Dallas is simply personal taste, not discernment. They like to challenge the publicto prove that pornography causes harm. Well, there is proof of harm. The best-kept secret about pornography is that it causes real harm to real people. Every Boy Scout knows that you can define any point on a map with two compass bearings from different perspectives: just draw the two cross-bearing lines on the map, and look wherethey intersect. In the case of pornography there are cross-bearings from many perspectives œ all intersecting at the point of harm. Each perspective is persuasive in its own right.
Taken together, the evidence of harm is difficult to ignore. The different perspectives are:1.Advertising 2.Impact of sexually-oriented businesses 3.Empirical research studies 4.Correlational studies 5.Media studies 6.Experience of clinical psychologists 7.Anecdotal evidence This report will review each of these areas, then finally discuss factors particularly affectingchildren._
_______________________________________________________1. Advertising
It has been said that the most disingenuous argument in the pornography debate is that porndoesn‘t influence people. If images don‘t influence attitudes and behavior, how do we expl ainthe existence of the advertising industry?
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— 3 –Of course, none of us likes to admit we are influenced by advertising. Few proud car owners would say: —I bought my Volvo because their advertisements create an image of a thinking person‘s car, and that appeals to my ego.“ We value our self-image as rational beings and, as are sult, most of us are in denial about the influence of advertising.Those in the advertising business, however, know that images have impact. In 1997,America‘s top ten advertisers alone spent a total of $5.2 billion helping consumers part with their hard-earned cash.5 It might be nice to think that investments like Nike‘s Michael Jordan campaign are made out of blind hope, but market research predicts and confirms the impact ofadvertising. —The enormous advertising and marketing industries are built on the premise that the media do influence a wide range of behaviors.“ 6
To believe pornography does not impact attitudes and behavior is to believe we are not affected by what we see. Our collective state of denial of the impact of advertising illustratesthat people can believe they are not affected. But the evidence illustrates how improbable that would be! To argue that advertising has no impact (as opposed to merely being blind to it) requires impressive faith that we invariably intercept and rationally defuse the power of suggestion in advertising images. Often times we do. But communications experts note that advertising works precisely because it appeals to human emotion rather than to rational considerations: —TV commercials do not use propositions to persuade; they use visual images…andonly rarely…verifiable assertions. Therefore, commercials are not susceptible to logical analysis [and] are not refutable…It is not facts that are offered to the consumers but idols,to which both adults and children can attach themselves with equal devotion and withoutthe burden of logic or verification.“7 If the effectiveness of advertising is based upon its appeal to emotion, do we really believe that pornography appeals to reason? Pornography, ultimately, is a form of advertising. (Can youspell —sex sells“?) Pornography advertises a particular view of human sexuality, as surely as the Marlboro Man conveys a particular image of a cigarette brand. The only question is: what brand of sexuality is pornography promoting?
The messages of pornography
The Hugh Hefners of the world sometimes describe their product as simply —the joys o fconsensual sexuality.“ The reality is much less elevated and considerably more one-sided.Studies indicate that individuals use pornography to inform and teach themselves about sexual behavior.8 So what does pornography teach?About sexuality:Scholars note that human sexuality in pornography is never more than physical, since—depictions of other basic aspects of human sexuality–such as communication between –sexual partners, expressions of affection or emotion (except fear and lust)…and concernsabout …the consequences of sexual activities–are minimized.“9 Pornography advertises sex without relationships, without commitment, and especially,without consequences. How many porn videos include the resulting teenage pregnancy with the child-mother dropping out of school? Or catching human papilloma virus (HPV), leading to infertility or cervical cancer, or even catching AIDS?About women:In the words of one academic study: —The characteristic portrayal of women in pornography [is] as socially nondiscriminating, as hysterically euphoric in response to just about any sexual or pseudosexual stimulation, and as eager to accommodate seemingly anyand every sexual request.“10 Another study notes that women are depicted as —malleable,obsessed with sex, and willing to engage in any sexual act with any sexual partner.“11
Pornography presents women in stereotype, as insatiable sex machines to accommodate every possible sexual request. Women, it tells us, are here to please men, and if they say —no“ itis just token resistance. In pornography, the typical woman is always ready, available, and eagerto please, unlike a real woman who might have inconvenient expectations of her own.About men:In pornography, men are apparently here to have sex with as many women as possible.Marriage is either a hindrance to their purpose, or irrelevant because fidelity is abnormal and possibly unnatural. In pornography, men certainly don‘t value women for their minds, since theydon‘t appear to have discovered that women have such a thing.
False advertising? In our society, —the learning of sexual techniques and attitudes is too often left to chance,which may include such sources as X-rated video shops. As a result, a great number of people acquire faulty information and expectations that can impair their sexual enjoyment and adequacy.“12 The message of pornography is that sex is the only human activity where there is no such thing as a poor choice, and where there are no consequences to actions.Pornography‘s portrayal of human sexual behavior is so erroneous as to be fraudulent. Most obvious are the unrealistic body types, unrealistic sexual situations, and routinely multi-orgasmicsexual performances. More subtly, the most desirable sexual behaviors are depicted as excluding monogamy, fidelity, responsibility, commitment, or even an established relationship of any sort between partners. This stands in direct contrast to the most rewarding and satisfying sexual relationships in reallife. In the most definitive scientific survey ever done on human sexual behavior, the vast majority of both males and females were found to have few sex partners over a lifetime. Once married, the vast majority have no other sex partner than their spouse. Americans generally show considerably more sexual restraint than the entertainment media (including pornography) would suggest, but it is the couples who are married or cohabiting who have more frequent and more satisfying sex.13
There is a vivid contrast between pornography‘s portrayal of desirable sexual behaviors, andthe behaviors found most satisfying by most individuals. Because people often judge themselves by how they perceive that others behave, individuals using pornography set themselves up for unrealistic expectations leading to damaged relationships.___________________________________________________________
2. Impact of Sexually Oriented BusinessesThe curiously toxic nature of pornography is also illustrated by the consistently negative impact that sex businesses have upon the areas in which they are located. This impact ofsexually oriented businesses (SOBs) has been clearly demonstrated through land use studies.U.S. courts allow restrictive zoning of SOBs because such businesses have significant negative impacts on their surrounding communities. These impacts are called —secondary harmful effects“ (as distinct from the primary harmful effects on the mind of the porn-user,which are not a constitutional basis for zoning ordinances). Such secondary harmful effects in neighborhoods with SOBs include a significant increase inproperty crimes and sexual crimes (including voyeurism, exhibitionism, and assault), and anoverall decrease in property values. In the words of columnist George Will: —One doesn‘t need amoral mi
Rhea from the sadly former Women’s Alliance Against Pornography Education Project in Cambridge,back in January 1993 sent me many cartoons from Playboy and Penthouse of women being sexually harassed,used and sexually servicing their male bosses in the work place and they are horrible!
I asked her what are these cartoons from,she said they are from Playboy and Penthouse. I said what are the men doing to women in the cartoons,are they raping them.She said yeah,they are all different things,you will have to see for yourself and then she said,they’re pretty bad.
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography put their own captions under the cartoons under a Penthouse cartoon of a man saying to his boss,who is holding a photocopy of just a woman’s huge breasts with no head,”This is my Christmas bonus? A xerox photo of your secretary’s t**s?” THe Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote that Porn reduces women to the make-up of her body parts.
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote that Men are threatened by the concept of women’s equality under a Penthouse cartoon of a woman sitting on top of a phallic type nuclear warhead sucking on it with her legs open grasped around the tip of it,and The Penthouse caption has a man in a uniform talking to another man,saying,”Miss Oppenhawn,the newest member of our staff is a nuclear warhead specialist.”
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote that Porn teaches men that the only way for a woman to succeed is by prostituting herself there by removing the threat of equality.They wrote this under a Penthouse cartoon of a woman journalist with her hand in a man’s pants, and the Penthouse caption said,”Here I am again folks,out scooping those male journalists by interviewing an otherwise unapproachable diplomat.I suppose you’re all wondering how I do it.”Another from Playboy has a female employee with an upset humiliated expression on her face standing in front of her male boss’s desk with papers in her hand that she’s leaning on his desk, and the male boss says to her,”I had the most asmusing dream last night.Miss Grant-I dreamed you performed an unnatural sex act upon me.”
Another Penthouse cartoon shows a woman standing outside of her boss’s office with the word President on the door and she’s talking to another woman,her co-worker and she has a huge candy cain stuck in her backside,and she says to her co-worker,”Don’t expect much of a Chrstmas Bonus this year.”The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote under this,Pornography elicits contempt for women.
A cartoon from Playboy had a male boss with an angry expression on his face barricading a woman employee on her desk with both of his arms around her,and she’s leaning away from him with a screaming upset expression on her face.The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography included this cartoon under their heading,Pornography elicits contempt for women.
Another Playboy cartoon has a woman military officer looking upset and humiliated standing with two male military officers while one of them cuts her uniform off into pieces and she’s nude.There are other women military officers standing further in the backround on the side.The Playboy caption says,”Usually we just cut off the buttons.”
Another from Penthouse has a male news caster sitting at a news desk reporting the news with a woman with big breasts in a low cut top sitting next to him.Penthouse’s caption has the male news caster saying, “Chet Carey here bringing you the news along with Miss Clover to provide relief by displaying her t*ts.”Another Penthouse cartoon has male doctors operating on a patient,while only a woman’s lower part of her body and legs are shown under one of the male doctors clothes,and their caption has him saying,”More suction”.
The Women’s Alliance Against Pornography wrote under these that Woman’s only attributes are in her sexuality.Another cartoon from Penthouse has a nude big busted woman in bed with her male boss,and he’s smoking his after sex cigarette and she says,”Incidentally,I’m sorry I turned you in at the office for sexual harassment!”
Another from Playboy has a male boss sitting behind a desk with a sign up behind him that says,Last-Minute Suggestions and his female employee is walking away holding a folder in her hand with an upset expression on her face,and the she says,”*Please* Mr.Fergusen! You can keep those last minute suggestions to yourself!.”
Psychiatrist Linnea Smith sent me two huge folders of important research and information on the harms of pornography(she thanked me for my important efforts educating people on the harms of porn,and she said it’s especially difficult because the public is desensitized,and the media is reluctant to criticize other media,especially sexually explicit media) back when I wrote her and told her about my experience as a big busted beautiful 13 year old girl being molested by teen boys who used Playboy and how they even made references to the women in it and how one of the boys shoved a pornographic magazine into my face and said,here’s a picture of a girl fingering herself.
Included in the research Dr.Smith sent me was other Playboy cartoons of women being sexually harassed on the job by their male bosses.Dr.Smith wrote on top of this photocopied page which has these cartoons on both sides, Job Harassment Sexual Harassment In The Workplace Has Been For Years A Popular Them For Cartoons In *Playboy* Magazine.One of these cartoons is of an overweight male boss with his femalke employee with an upset expression on her face trying to push him away and the caption has him saying,”Ms Beasly why are you resisting I voted for the ERA.”(the Equal Rights Amendment that was never passed).Another has a male boss in his office saying to his female employee,You want equality? Next time we’ll do it on your desk.”
Playboy also promoted child sex abuse, including ,gang rapes of women and children,incest, and sexual murders of women and children as normal and as jokes in thousands of cartoons,articles and even some pictures for over 30 years! Check out psychiatrist Linnea Smith’s excellent site talkintrash she has a section,Another Look At Centerfolds where she has *tons* of strong excellent research studies on harms of pornography!
I know sadly all too well the effects of even “soft-core” pornography’s sexist ojectification of women,because I was repeatedly treated as nothing but a sex object,and grabbed at in my crotch and breasts as a big busted beautiful girl by many teen boys,2 of the many who treated me this way repeatedly, used pornography but this was in 1979 so hardcore wasn’t mainstreamed and accessible like now. One of these 15 year old boys made 2 verbal references to the women in Playboy and another shoved a pornographic magazine into my face and said,Here is a picture of a girl fingering herslf! Not that it ever justifies it in any way,but I just wanted people to know that I wore no make up and never wore any provocative clothes.
When I was 25 in 1990 (before pornography was even on the internet and not nearly as mainstreamed) I spoke to Rhea Becker at the now sadly former feminist Women’s Alliance Against Pornography & Education Project .I spoke to her off and on until January 1993 and I asked her to send me any information on the harms of pornography and she sent me a lot. I told her that when a lot of men come to my house to fix or deliver things,they made sexist and inappropriate sexual comments and stared at me which made me uncomfortable and that I never wore provative clothes and had little and sometimes no make up on.I told her they were treating me like I was just someting to F*ck,and she said yes and that all comes from pornography.I had so many experiences like this even when I was as young as 13 by some men even and it really was sexual harassment.Rhea also told me that my experience of being sexually abused by boys or men who use pornography is very common and that she knew quite a few women who had similar experiences.She also always said we live in a society that hates women. And she once said most men hate women and then they marry them. And women give birth to sexist woman-hating pornography users! A woman having a son is the same exact thing as a Jew giving birth a to a Nazi or a black person giving birth to a Klu Klux Klan member or any other racist! I feel sorry for any kind women or geunine feminists who have sons!
I couldn’t walk down the hall without some sexist degrading comments made by many other boys as well about how big busted I was and they also grabbed at another big busted girl who wasn’t even pretty. But it wasn’t just teen boys,when I was 14 I was sitting on the artroom steps with a boyfriend and the artroom teacher who was at least in his late 20’s early 30’s said to a whole room full of 15 year old boys that the boy I was sitting with said it was his turn after his.I’m sure he was a porn user too and got the attitude I was just a thing for boys and men to use for sex and take turns with! I actually am in some way a little “lucky” that this was in 1979 when images of men ejaculating on women’s faces and bodies wasn’t mainstreamed and all over the place,(back then women were just things to feel,f*ck and forget,now we are nothing but things to feel,f*ck,ejaculate all over on,call woman-hating names and forget! we have really come a long way baby!)because then they wouldn’t just have grabbed at my breasts and crotch,but would have ejaculated or at least tried to on my face and breasts!
When I was 17 a school evaluator said that a lot of guys are going to want to get down my pants! Where do we think the teenage boys learn these kinds of sexist,woman-hating dehumanizing attitudes towards women from,the whole sexist,woman-hating male dominated sick society,the pornography that came from it,and the adult men who use it and are influenced by it all.Dr.Michael Flood said to me in an email back in 2002 after I told him about my experience,that he has no doubt on the connection of young men’s pornography use and their sexual abuse of girls and women.And there is plenty of research and testimonies of girls and women about this.
If you,are your mother,daughter,sister or friend is sexually assualted or sexually harassed in the work place by men who show you or them pornography as part of the sexual abuse,as has happened to many women and children,and the men say to you or them,you are nothing but a thing to stick penises into,nothing but cum eating sl*ts,wh*res and B*tches,to f*ck,feel,ejaculate all over and discgard,and they say just like the women in pornography,then lets see how much you support and defend it!
Pornography and Rape Culture
Question: Pornography helps to create a rape culture.
Results:
Strongly agree 35.4%
Agree 22.7%
Some pornography does 18.8%
Disagree 11.0%
Strongly Disagree 8.4%
I have no idea 3.6%
Responses: 308
The results of this poll do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Men Can Stop Rape. The results are not scientific and solely reflect the opinions of those Internet users who have participated.
Copyright © 2007 Men Can Stop Rape E-mail: info@mencanstoprape.org
P.O. Box 57144 Washington, DC 20037
Also Mark Wukas wrote in the Chicago Tribune March 21 1993 that back in 1989 research by psychologist Dr.James Check at York University’s psychology department Toronto Canada found 29% of boys indicated that pornography was the most useful source of sex information including school.parents teachers and peers.He said that to find out what children were learning from the pornography, Check devised a questionnaire that asked under what circumstances is it OK for a boy to hold a girl down and force her to have sexual intercourse.Check found that 43# of the boys and 16% of the girls said that holding a woman down and forcing sexual intercourse is at least maybe OK if she gets him sexually excited.His findings also found that one third of 14-year old boys and 2% of girls watch video pornography regularly.
Also, Robert Jensen explains in his great important book,Getting Off:Pornography And The End Of Masculinity whatever the genesis of the cum shot in the history of pornography we can ask why it continues.He then asks what does the cum shot mean? He says in one of the first films he watched for his study of pornography was the 1990 porn video Taboo VIII and one of the male characters offers an answer.He says that when this man refuses the request of a woman(whom he feels is a slut) to have intercourse with her he tells her,”I don’t f*ck sluts I jerk off on them.Take it or leave it.” He then ejaculates on her breasts.Robert Jensen says that this suggests that ejaculating onto a woman is a method by which she is turned into a slut,something -not really someone-whose purpose is to be sexual with men.He then says ejaculating onto her body marks her as a “slut” which in pornography is synonymous with “woman”.
He then says that that assessment was echoed by a veteran of the pornography industry (porn star and director Bill Margold),who told an interviewer:I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see:violence against women.I firmly believe that we serve a purpose by showing that.The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face.Men get off behind that,because they get even with the women they can’t have.We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face.
Bill Morgold also said,My whole reason for being in the Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up.I strongly believe this,and the Industry hates me for saying it…So when we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually :we’re getting even for their lost dreams.I believe this.I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen.When I’ve strangled a person,or brutalized a person,the audience is cheering my action,and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire,the audience applauds.
Feminist anti-porn educator Sociologist Dr.Gail Dines said that many of her female students told her that their boyfriends are constantly pressuring them to the things they see in pornography,that they have seen it in the pornograohy and now they want to experience it in real life.She said that many young women are so desperate to have a man in their lives that they will often give in and do these things even though their instincts are telling them don’t do it.
Dr.Chyng Sun also reports that many women have told her that their boyfriends and husbands are constantly asking them to the things they have seen in pornography and they don’t want to.On quite a few message boards over the years I have seen posts by men asking women if they like to have or will let their boyfriends or husbands cum on their faces like they do in the porn videos.One women made a topic about 5 years ago called,Some Men’s Disgusting Obsession and she said her boyfriend constantly wants her to let him ejaculate on her face and she said she feels it’s disgusting and degrading and she said he watches a lot of porn videos and she knows thats where he got the idea. A guy responded and said that a lot of young men are watching a lot of pornography on the internet today and they learn to think it’s sexy to ejaculate on a woman’s face or body.
Another guy posted on an “Adult” Site where they had advice questions and anwers and he posted that he ejaculated on his girfriend’s face and she was very angry and upset and she left him for good.But he couldn’t understand why and what he did wrong because he said his girl friend was always wild in bed and he said he watches a lot of porn videos and all of the porn stars love facials.On LoveShack.org a guy said that he and other men he knew said that it never occurred or appealed to them to ejaculate on a woman’s face or body,only inside her vaginally,until they saw it in pornography.Many women have also said their husbands and boyfriends are pressuring them to have anal sex after seeing women in pornography portrayed as if they love it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1984 The Tech PAGE 3
Volume 104, Number 58 Tuesday, December 11, 1984
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At MIT, it is now well documented
by women students, dormitory
housemasters, dormitory
tutors, and freshman faculty advisors
that sexual harassment and
abuse of women students occurs
immediately before and after the
showing of pornographic films.
Women who were unclear about
what pornography is have been
coerced by peer pressure and by
force into seeing the films. Afterward
women have been forcibly
thrown into showers, subjected
to detailed recounting of scenes
from the film and to an increase
in sexually demeaning comments
and jokes. These and other ac-‘
tions clearly create an atmnosphere
which is specifically
threatening to women. Even
without these actions, pornography
as a traditional event that
portrays the sexual, objectification
kand abuse of women is in itself
harassrenet of women.
My objection to pornography
is not an objection to some bad
ideas floating around in some
people’s heads, but to concrete
violations of women’s civil rights.
Elizabeth,.J. Salkind ’85
_M PAGE 4 The Tech TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1984
I
Article: 5934 of soc.feminism
From: kowan@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Rich Cowan)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Effects of Porn at MIT (Re: Someone Convince Me)
Date: 12 Jan 1993 19:23:20 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
Lines: 182
Sender: muffy@mica.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Approved: muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
Message-ID:
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu
Maybe this article may help. Keep in mind that I am talking about
pornography in the form in which it now exists, in a society where
men have more power than women.
[The following article is reprinted from the September 1992 issue of
the War Research Info Service, a quarterly newsletter for campus
peace activists (Copyright 1992, University Conversion Project). The
theme of this special issue (Volume 2, #1) is Masculinity and War/
Feminism and Non-Violence. For a sample issue, please send $3 to
University Conversion Project, Box 748, Cambridge, MA 02142. To
subscribe, please send $25/yr. Or call (617) 354-9363 for more
information.]
The Challenge to Pornography at MIT
By Rich Cowan
For about 10 years from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, the
student movie committee at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology had a tradition of showing a hard core pornographic
movie every semester at registration day. The “Registration Day
Movie” always attracted over 2000 people — half the student body
and two to three times the regular movie attendance. Like most
other people on my undergraduate dorm floor, I paid a dollar to
attend these films.As MIT’s female population rose above the 20% figure and
women became more organized and vocal, this tradition came under
attack. In a polarized campus debate, feminists who linked
pornography with rape and male violence squared off with men
defending their “First Amendment” freedom to show and view X-
rated films.
A Scientific Debate?
As this was MIT, the two sides invoked science to legitimate
their arguments. Many men argued that there was no quantitative
evidence supporting a link between pornography and violence
against women, citing studies which linked lower rates of rape in
countries such as Denmark to more permissive attitudes toward
pornography. Women quoted other studies, pointing out that much
of the research supporting “adult” films is either funded by the
pornography industry or focuses on a narrow issue while ignoring
the larger problem.
Women also rasied important qualitative arguments against
pornography. First, the depiction of sex in pornographic films is
hardly neutral: most films are designed for heterosexual male
viewers who like watching women serve men. Men in the films have
lifelike characters, while women are shown as dependent and
compliant, often learning to “enjoy” abuse. In the worst of these
films, the abuse takes the form of violence that serves as
“entertainment” for men. Given the level of violence against women
in our society, the violent films may actually be quite realistic.
Violence is a common tool used by rapists, batterers, and adult
filmmakers to enforce women’s compliance. According to Alan
Rosenbaum, a psychologist who counsels batterers at UMass Medical
Center, “violence is a way of saying, ‘You’re going to be who I want
you to be or I’m going to kill you.'”1 Pornography is one way that
society conditions men to want women to be something they are not.
Men often responded, “I watch pornography and I’m not a
rapist.” But existence as proof is bad science. Studies that measure
tiny effects on individual male consumers of pornography may be
blind to the net impact on each female victim.
It may well be true that individual male MIT students were
only 2-4% more likely to commit date-rape after seeing several
pornographic films, an increase that is “scientifically insignificant.”
Multiply that small percentage by 2,000 viewers and you have an
increase of 40-80 date-rapists, each likely to commit more than one
rape while a student. Consider that the violence is likely to be
focused on the women who best fit the physical ideals depicted in
pornographic films. And finally, consider the implicit sanction of
showing these movies as a kickoff ritual each semester, before
incoming students attend their very first class.
Documenting the Effects
MIT’s mass screenings of pornography produced plenty of
home grown data on its effects on women. After each registration
day movie let out, women were accosted by bands of leering men.
Female victims of child sexual abuse had flashbacks. Widely
acknowledged forms of sexism at MIT, in which male professors,
students and research colleagues tend to ignore women, stare at
them, or fail to treat them as serious scientists, seemed to worsen
after the showings.
Feminists documented these incidents, lobbied the ad-
ministration, and considered taking legal action against MIT. The
controversy peaked in 1983 when the student movie committee
planned to show Deep Throat. The MIT administration, facing legal
threats on both sides, cancelled the showing and attempted a
compromise, establishing a screening committee and pornography
policy which prohibited the showing of the most sexist and
unrealistic films.
For several semesters in 1983-4, the administration substi-
tuted films such as “Rated X”, on the negative impacts of
pornography, for the registration day movie. Typically such a film
would attract 30 feminists; in this situation, it drew 400 mainstream
MIT students as well.
These controversies changed the opinions of myself and many
others on pornography. The student movie committee was
persuaded to eliminate the registration day tradition, and showings
of pornography using MIT public space such as dormitory lounges
were prohibited by the MIT administration.
The Power to Decide
Activists at MIT did not lay all their hopes in the school’s
prohibition. Due to the widespread availability of hard-core videos
and the belief on campus and in the courts that pornography is
protected by the First Amendment, campus bans on public showing
of pornography are unlikely to be obeyed or enforced. As attitudes
toward pornography are only beginning to change, continued
pressure is necessary.
In 1988, undergraduate Adam Dershowitz showed the movie
Deep Throat on campus to a group of about 50 students in a
dormitory lounge. The MIT administration did not stop it, fearing
legal action by Harvard law professor and Penthouse columnist Alan
Dershowitz (Adam’s uncle). Activists responded by taking direct
action. A dozen women and a few men leafletted the audience, and
then interrupted the movie, cutting the cord of the movie projector.
The action was successful in substituting a constructive discussion of
the severity of both actions for an endless debate on how (and
whether) the MIT administration should define pornography.
With a Supreme Court influenced by the religious right, one
might think that bans on pornography would be welcomed by the
legal system. The problem is that current law allows only certain
types of “community standards” to determine what is obscene.
According to MIT Women’s Studies lecturer Ann Russo, MIT’s policies
are more likely to be overturned because they “focus on
victimization of women.”2 Standards which focused on the display of
genitals or homosexual acts would fare better in the courts.
The net result is that pornography is shown less frequently,
but the MIT administration leaves it to the victims to object to public
screenings. Says Russo, “people are afraid to bring it up because it
creates havoc in their lives.” MIT women who have criticized the
screening of pornography have been “silenced” by hostility,
intimidation, and harassment. Some have had to move to other
dormitories or even transfer to another school.
Rather than advocate bans, many activists feel it is more
practical given the current climate to work on strengthening policies
on sexual harassment on campus. If pornography is treated as
sexual harassment, suggests Russo, “someone who is harmed by the
showing of pornography and doesn’t want it shown can have a
grievance.”
Even without mass screenings of X-rated films, magazines and
home videos have widespread campus distribution. College
readership of Playboy magazine alone was 850,000 in the spring of
1992, according to Bill Paige, PR Manager for Playboy Enterprises.3
As long as sex education is restricted by right-wing fundamentalists,
student expectations for intimate relationships will continue to be
shaped by pornography.
Campus peace activists can help by educating ourselves about
violence against women and its relationship to pornography. We can
advocate stronger sexual harassment and pornography policies and
help to enforce policies the school administration is unwilling to
support. We can ask men and women who desire healthy
relationships to consider pornography’s role in cultivating inaccurate
assumptions by men about what women want. We can encourage
men to take responsibility for their violent behavior and encourage
women to assert their right to not be harrassed or raped. With our
help, this burden need not fall entirely on the shoulders of sexism’s
victims.
1 Knapp, Caroline, “Open Season on Women,” Boston Phoenix, August
6, 1992.
2 Interview by the Author, July 1992.
3 Interview by the Author, August 17, 1992.
Suggested Action: Provoke a debate about pornography on
your campus to obtain quotes from defenders who trivialize concerns
about sexual harassment and rape. Then blow up a few of these
quotes and juxtapose them on posters with statistics about the
incidence of date rape and harassment on campus and quotes from
men who have admitted that watching pornography affects their
behavior. If you have trouble finding such quotes, you have
discovered part of the problem. Two books that may help are
Pornography and Silence by Susan Griffin and Men and Intimacy (see
Masculinity, p. 13).
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu. This
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Dr.Gail Dines explains in a speech that is on her blog and this information is included in her new important book,Pornland:How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality,that in one of the only studies on the content of contemporary pornography by Robert Wosnitzer and Ana J.Bridges it was found that the majority of scenes from 50 top rented porn films had both physical and verbal abuse of the female performers.In over 88% of the scenes had physical aggression such as gagging,spanking,and open hand- slapping. And verbal aggression such as calling the woman names like b*tch or sl*t were found in 48% of the scenes.The researchers concluded that if they combine both physical and verbal aggression,their findings indicate that nearly 90% of scenes contained at least one aggressive act.
salon.com Health & Body Jan. 18, 2000
URL: http://www.salon.com/health/sex/urge/2000/01/18/hustler
Maxed out
Max Hardcore and other XXX pornographers awakened something dark in me. Or perhaps it was already there.
By Evan Wright
In 1995 I became a pornographer. Hired as the entertainment editor for Hustler magazine, I’d achieved something most considered to be dubious at best. A feminist friend compared my job working for Larry Flynt to being a propaganda minister for Hitler. According to her argument, I was promulgating a misogynistic agenda almost as brutal as anti-Semitism.
In college I had been exposed to similar extremes of feminist thought. Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin advanced critiques of power and gender that suggested buying a Playboy was an act of aggression tantamount to rape. But by the time I worked at Hustler, the public — at least segments of it — was flirting with the notion that porn might be chic. Where I lived in Los Angeles, high-school girls strolled Melrose Avenue in baby T-shirts displaying the “Porn Star” label. Howard Stern brought porn stars into millions of peoples’ lives every morning when they appeared as guests on his show.
Pornography had also become a hot topic in highbrow glossy publications such as the New Yorker and Esquire. The basic question of whether pornography is misogynous was brushed aside by most who brought the subject into mainstream media. Magazine stories about porn stars, Hollywood movies about the industry or Wall Street Journal articles about the immense profits made by Internet porn tycoons seldom mentioned the content of the adult industry’s main product, porn videos. Much of the public discussion about porn is like a wine tasting at which no wine is served.
As Hustler’s main XXX-film critic, I watched hundreds of adult videos. The debate on porn was never abstract for me. Pornography was my life. Not only did I review the videos, but I wrote copy for several of Larry Flynt’s magazines, became friends with performers and directors, visited porn sets and wrote scripts for XXX films.
There was an absurd component to my work. The Hustler rating standard is a graphic of a penis, which ranges from fully erect to totally limp, depending on the quality of the film being reviewed. “Porn critic” is perhaps the most ludicrous job title I will ever have. Aside from the ridiculous nature of my job, I was often profoundly disturbed by the aggressively anti-female tone of the films I reviewed. None was more misogynist than those put out by a director and performer who called himself Max Hardcore.
Max Hardcore, who releases nearly two dozen videos every year, is a somewhat out-of-shape, balding middle-age man, with baby-blue eyes and a twangy, Midwestern accent. His trademark is the cowboy hat he wears in every scene. He wears the hat even after his clothes come off. Max refers to his female co-stars as “victims.” He dresses them in schoolgirl skirts, ankle socks, pink ribbons and pigtails. They skip into their scenes like little girls. Max pursues them, abducts them, tortures them and more or less rapes them.
Rape is an inflammatory word, especially with respect to the adult industry. Actual depiction of rape may result in an obscenity trial and a prison term for the videomaker. Pornographers such as Max get around the rape issue by ensuring that at some point the female starlet verbally consents to whatever is going on. A typical Max Hardcore scene looks like a rape. A girl is pursued and captured. She cringes and cowers; Max yanks her by the pigtails and slaps her around. But it is not rape, because she tells us it isn’t. Images battle with words. Turn the sound down, and it is a rape.
All Max Hardcore lovemaking scenes present images that occur again and again. These are rituals of degradation. Max orally copulates with his co-stars until they gag (performers often vomit during the making of his films, a bit of cin�ma v�rit� that is cut from the final product). He calls his form of oral sex “choke-fucking.” His camera lavishes the viewer with extended close-ups of teary-eyed girls drooling over his penis. In most of Max’s videos, vaginas are probed with a camera mounted on a speculum, the medical instrument used by gynecologists to spread vaginal walls open for examination. Anal intercourse is always the finale of a Max Hardcore scene. This often begins with a ritual in which Max turns the woman over and draws a mouth on her anus with a lipstick. Max is famous for concluding his scenes with a set-piece where he inserts a Sharpie pen in the performer’s rectum and has her write “I am a little fuck hole” on a sheet of paper.
Initially, I reviewed Max’s videos because he was so popular. He has sold hundreds of thousands of videos in the past decade. He is popular in Europe and South America; French film crews often encamp at his L.A. home, which he calls the “Chateaux Max,” and feature him in documentaries on French television. Whenever I was with him in public, Max was continuously accosted by fans. Many of these fans were women.
What troubled me personally about Max’s videos was the fact that they made me laugh. They struck me as sick and cruel slapstick, sort of like X-rated versions of “Three Stooges” movies (which also had seriously disturbed me when I watched them as a child). I couldn’t escape the fact that I enjoyed watching him trash women, that my laughter was somehow cathartic. Why?
Max’s films never seemed to me to be about sex. They dwell on imagery that is so surreal (i.e., lips painted on an anus) and anatomically obsessive (i.e., pulsating vaginal walls), that they veer into a realm that is wholly unerotic. They are psychodramas of rage directed at feminine beauty. The apotheosis of this rage was, in my mind, Max’s use of a woman’s prime tool of beauty enhancement, the lipstick, to degrade her. Lipstick symbolizes the power of feminine beauty. In the pre-women’s lib era, lipstick was often characterized as a weapon in the arsenal of tools used by women to dominate men with their sexual allure. Max takes that weapon and turns it on the woman, rather like stabbing Rambo with his own knife.
No doubt there are myriad personal reasons why some men hate women. So far as I could tell, I hadn’t been drawn to Hustler and the adult industry out of enmity toward the opposite sex. What Hustler appealed to most on a personal level was my anti-authoritarianism. I enjoyed the fact that Hustler and the name Larry Flynt pissed off moralists and religious leaders. I was proud to work for a magazine that had been sued by Jerry Falwell and had helped expose moral hypocrisy in our national leadership. I had never considered that my involvement with the industry was fed by personal misogyny. Yet there I was on some level rooting for Max Hardcore when I reviewed his videos.
Where had my misogyny come from? On the wall across from my computer hangs a lithograph. Someone gave it to me as a joke. The lithograph is a reproduction of a vegetable can that dates from the 1940s. It features a semi-nude blonde on the label, the Plentigrand Vegetables girl. She is posed seductively in bra and panties next to the peas and carrots. The Plentigrand girl is the crudest evidence of the old axiom, sex sells. Not even peas and carrots are safe from it.
We all accept sex sells as true; however, in one critical respect the axiom is inaccurate. It is overly broad. It is not merely sex that sells, but female sexuality. True, the end of the last millennium saw the rise of male imagery, notably in Calvin Klein and Polo ads, but female icons continue to push our buttons in everything from beer commercials to ads for cars.
The use of women to sell products is nothing new. The Virgin Mary has always been one of Christianity’s biggest shills. Check out all those medieval triptych’s of the bare-breasted virgin — put her in a bikini and paste her into an imaginary beer commercial: it would work.
The trick of advertising is that it works on me even when I know I’m being manipulated by it. It’s the same with rape in a Max Hardcore video. Max’s performers tell us they are not being raped; the images tell us they are. My brain tells me I am too sophisticated to be manipulated by a TV ad, but the images nevertheless perform miracles of manipulation.
I know that popping open a can of beer will not result in an explosion of bikini-clad vixens in my living room. But every time I see a commercial, some part of me compares the idealized models to the reality of my life. My reality always comes up short. I don’t have muscles and a hairline like the guy in the ad; my girlfriend doesn’t have a face and body like the women fawning all over the guy in the ad.
In an old ad for Pantene shampoo, model Kelly LeBrock used to say, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” The flaunting of LeBrock’s unattainable beauty was obnoxious — clearly, you didhate Kelly LeBrock. You hated her because she was so beautiful. You knew that a woman as beautiful as LeBrock would seldom look your way. And your girlfriend knew she would never look like LeBrock no matter how many times she shampooed with Pantene. At least, this is how the commercial worked on me.
The ad, like most others, engendered hatred of the model, hatred of my life and, probably, self-hatred in whichever woman I was with. I am a misogynist of fantasy women. I feel exploited by them. I hate commercials. I hate the women in them. I hate supermodels. I hate it when they write books. I hate it when their lives and tragedies are detailed in supermarket tabloids. I hate it when I read these stories.
I hate it when a girl I care about looks at her body and tells me she doesn’t like her breasts because there are tiny stretch marks on the sides. I hate it when she tells me she doesn’t want to go out because she’s feeling ugly. Usually, she feels this way after reading Cosmo or Allure, or a story about Cindy Crawford’s latest romance in the Star.
Before I left Hustler, I wrote a highly favorable review of a Max Hardcore video. I described Max as a genius, who was making some of the most brutally honest cinema in America today. My praise was tongue-in-cheek. Max’s films were disgusting and sick, but they raised uncomfortable questions about myself and the industry I worked in.
Is pornography misogynistic? In my mind there is only one response. How could it not be? Pornography comes from a culture that breeds misogyny. At least it seems to have done so in me.
salon.com Jan. 18, 2000
– – – – – – – – – – – –
About the writer
Evan Wright has written for L.A. Weekly and Rolling Stone.
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Former Heterosexual Guy POrn User Admits It Degrades Women As Nothing But F*ckholes To Stick A D*ck Into!
Forum Name Women’s Rights
Topic subject Since you
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229×6696#6812
6812, Since you
Posted by gaspee on Sat Mar-31-07 08:28 AM
— warning for frank language.
Seem to think only people who have seen a lot of porn are qualified to speak, I might meet your qualifications. I’ve watched a lot of porn. I used to have no problem with porn. I *write* erotica for a few online magazines. A few years ago, I got so disgusted by het porn that I’ve never watched it again. I will watch gay porn, either m/m or made for *women* f/f. I won’t watch made for men f/f.
porn is degrading to women. Period. Mainstream porn, especailly. I’ve watched a lot of it over the years. I’m no spring chicken. I don’t have a problem watching m/m porn. Funny, that. Know why? because I don’t take it personally when men are treated like a fuck hole. Hmmm… I think I’m onto why most men don’t have a problem watching women turned into nothing but a place to stick their dick.*
When watching for what passes as mainstream porn these days, I get sick to my stomach. Anal, face f*cking to the point where the poor girl is next to vomiting, slapping, demeaning talk. it’s al* there in mainstream porn. Why men are so turned on by anal in het porn has always been a mystery to me. Why women do it is another mystery. I can get why men have anal sex. Women do it because men want them to.
What makes me the most sick is the look in the girls’, oh sorry, *actresses*, eyes. It fucking kills me these days, which is why I don’t watch het porn any more.
And I’m speaking as someone who has seen a lot of it.
Now put on some Bel Ami stuff and my girlfriend and I are quite happy. Why? Watch it sometime, then watch the current top five or ten selling het porn titles and I think you’ll see the difference. And if you don’t, that’s a little scary.
And to continually say that het porn “isn’t like that” and looking at the top selling and rented titles makes me think you are being disingenious or in plain old denial.
Because the most popular het porn is like that.
And someone doesn’t have to watch a lot of porn to see just how degrading to women it is. One or two mainstream het movies should do that pretty darn quick.
Forum Name Women’s Rights
Topic subject Hmmm, no response to your post. Wonder why?
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229×6696#6835
6835, Hmmm, no response to your post. Wonder why?
Posted by Morgana LaFey on Wed Apr-04-07 10:14 PM
And someone doesn’t have to watch a lot of porn to see just how degrading to women it is.
Yup.
and:
I don’t have a problem watching m/m porn. Funny, that. Know why? because I don’t take it personally when men are treated like a f*ck hole. Hmmm… I think I’m onto why most men don’t have a problem watching women turned into nothing but a place to stick their d*ck.’
Especially when they’ve been taught and continously reassured that women LIKE that, or if they don’t something’s wrong with them.
The Harms of
Pornography
Exposure Among
Children and
Young People
Exposure to pornography is routine among children and young people,
with a range of notable and often troubling effects. Particularly among
younger children, exposure to pornography may be disturbing or
upsetting. Exposure to pornography helps to sustain young people’s
adherence to sexist and unhealthy notions of sex and relationships.
And, especially among boys and young men who are frequent
consumers of pornography, including of more violent materials,
consumption intensifies attitudes supportive of sexual coercion and
increases their likelihood of perpetrating assault. While children and
young people are sexual beings and deserve age-appropriate materials
on sex and sexuality, pornography is a poor, and indeed dangerous,
sex educator.
Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEY WORDS: pornography; sexuality; violence; boys
Children and young people are routinely exposed to pornography.They encounter sexually explicit images while on the Internet, some watch X-rated videos and, like adults, they live in a culture increasingly saturated in sexualised representations.
What is the impact among children and young people of exposure
to pornography? This article explores the likely effects of children’s
and young people’s exposure to sexually explicit media. It
argues that while there are disagreements over how to judge pornography’s
effects, pornography exposure can lead to emotional
disturbance, sexual knowledge and liberalised attitudes, shifts in
sexual behaviour, and sexist and objectifying understandings.
Particularly for boys and young men, the use of pornography may
exacerbate violence-supportive social norms and encourage their
participation in sexual abuse.
This review focuses on children’s and young people’s
exposure to pornography, rather than children in pornography,
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 11 August 2009
* Correspondence to: Dr Michael Flood, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, PO Box 4026, Ainslie ACT 2602, Australia. E-mail:
mfl ood@vichealth.vic.gov.au
Michael Flood*
Australian Research Centre in Sex,
Health and Society, La Trobe
University, Australia
Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
Published online 2 November 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/car.1092
‘Exposure to
pornography helps
to sustain young
people’s adherence
to sexist and
unhealthy notions
of sex and
relationships’
‘Pornography is a
poor, and indeed
dangerous, sex
educator’
‘May exacerbate
violence-supportive
social norms and
encourage their
participation in
sexual abuse’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 385
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
notwithstanding the fact that child pornography is a deeply troubling
aspect of sexually explicit media. It focuses on children’s
and young people’s own accidental and deliberate encounters
with pornography, and it does not regard such exposure necessarily
as a form of child abuse or child sexual abuse per se. At the
same time, one component of child abuse is adults’ deliberate or
neglectful exposure of children to pornography, including adults’
use of pornography to ‘groom’ children for sexual abuse (Russell
and Purcell, 2005). This review explores the harms among children
and young people associated with pornography exposure,
including the intensifi cation of their risks of both violence perpetration
and victimisation.
Pornography is defined here as ‘sexually explicit media that are
primarily intended to sexually arouse the audience’ (Malamuth,
2001, p. 11817). ‘Sexually explicit’ materials show ‘genitals and
sexual activities in unconcealed ways’ (Peter and Valkenburg,
2007, p. 383). While this definition is broad enough to include
literary as well as visual forms, my area of primary concern is
image-centred media.
Encounters with Pornography
How are children and young people exposed to pornography? On
the one hand, children and young people may deliberately seek
sexually explicit materials, whether online or offline, often with
motivations similar to those among adults. On the other hand, they
are exposed to pornography accidentally or involuntarily. In this
discussion, the term ‘exposure’ refers to both deliberate and accidental,
voluntary and involuntary, viewing of pornography. While
‘exposure’ is a useful catch-all for all forms of viewing, it also
obscures the complexity and diversity of viewers’ relationships
to pornography, discussed below.
The context for children’s and young people’s exposure to
pornography includes a highly sexualised cultural environment
(APA, 2007; Levine, 2002). The frequency and explicitness
of sexual content in mainstream media has increased steadily
(Strasburger and Wilson, 2002). More widely, there has been a
‘pornographication’ of popular culture (Attwood, 2002; Levy,
2005). In tandem with these trends, shifting information and communication
technologies have allowed new forms of pornography
production and exchange (Hearn, 2006).
A growing body of international scholarship documents that
significant proportions of children and young people are exposed
to pornography. While different studies define and assess
‘pornography’ and exposure in varying ways, large numbers of
young people, particularly boys, are growing up in the presence
‘ “Exposure” refers to
both deliberate and
accidental, voluntary
and involuntary,
viewing of
pornography’
‘Large numbers of
young people,
particularly boys, are
growing up in the
presence of sexually
explicit media’
‘Children’s and
young people’s
own accidental and
deliberate encounters
with pornography’
386 Flood
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
of sexually explicit media, according to studies in Australia
(Flood, 2007), Cambodia (Fordham, 2006), Canada (Check,
1995), Denmark and Norway (Sørensen and Kjørholt, 2006),
Iceland (Kolbeins, 2006), Italy (Bonino et al., 2006), Sweden
(Forsberg, 2001; Johansson and Hammarén, 2007; Wallmyr and
Welin, 2006) and Taiwan (Lin and Lin, 1996; Lo et al., 1999; Lo
and Wei, 2005).
Significant proportions of children and young people have been
exposed to pornography online, especially accidentally and also
deliberately, as I have summarised elsewhere (Duimel and de
Haan, 2006; Flood, 2007; Sabina et al., 2008; Soeters and van
Schaik, 2006). There is evidence too that rates of unwanted exposure
to pornography are increasing (Mitchell et al., 2007b). Rates
of deliberate consumption of Internet pornography among minors
in international studies appear to vary from around one tenth to
one third (Flood, 2007; Livingstone and Bober, 2004; Mitchell et
al., 2003).
The deliberate consumption of pornography is highly gendered
among young people, as it is among adults. Males are more likely
than females to use pornography, to do so repeatedly, to use it for
sexual excitement and masturbation, to initiate its use (rather than
be introduced to it by an intimate partner), to view it alone and
in same-sex groups, and to view more types of images (Cameron
et al., 2005; Flood, 2007; Flood and Hamilton, 2003a; Nosko
et al., 2007). Males are more likely than females to be sexually
aroused by pornography and to have supportive attitudes towards
it (Johansson and Hammarén, 2007; Sabina et al., 2008; Wallmyr
and Welin, 2006).
The Effects of Exposure to Pornography
What are the likely effects of such exposure among children and
young people? Three bodies of scholarship help to answer this
question: a wide range of studies (1) on the impact on children of
non-pornographic sexual content in the mass media (APA, 2007;
Escobar-Chaves et al., 2005; Strasburger and Wilson, 2002) and
(2) on pornography’s impact among young adults and adults in
general, and (3) a small body of work on pornography exposure
among minors. While this review explores effects for both pornography
and other sexually oriented media, it focuses on effects
which are distinctive to or heightened for pornography. Pornography
may have stronger effects among children and young people
than other forms of sexual media, and it may have effects on
domains of sexuality which are relatively unaffected by other
forms of sexual media, for two reasons. First, pornography shows
a much higher degree of sexual explicitness (by definition) than
other sexual media. Second, pornography’s content arguably is
‘Pornography may
have stronger effects
among children and
young people than
other forms of sexual
media’
‘The deliberate
consumption of
pornography is
highly gendered
among young people,
as it is among adults’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 387
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
more sexist and hostile towards women than other sexual media
content.There are debates regarding the methodological rigour of
studies of sexual and sexually explicit media’s effects. Some
studies are experimental, often in laboratory conditions, and
involve testing the impact of exposure on participants’ attitudes
or behaviour. Other studies are correlational, investigating possible
relationships between ‘naturalistic’ use of sexual or sexually
explicit media (in everyday life) and attitudes or behaviour (Flood
and Hamilton, 2003a). Laboratory-based studies on pornography
have been criticised as excessively artificial (Boyle, 2000).
However, given that they usually exclude masturbation to
orgasm—a powerful physical and psychic experience central to
pornographic experience—they may in fact underestimate
pornography’s effects (Jensen, 1998). They are criticised too
for using low durations of exposure and short time scales
(Thornburgh and Lin, 2002). Correlational studies do not allow
determinations of causality: associations between exposure to
sexual media and particular attitudes or practices may go either
way, be reciprocal, or shaped by other factors such as sexual
interest (Hald, 2006; Janghorbani et al., 2003). Very few studies
are longitudinal, tracing the use of sexual media and the formation
of sexual and gender identities over time. More broadly, study
participants’ self-reports of attitudes and behaviours are shaped
by gendered social locations and other factors (Mitchell et al.,
2007a). In any case, pornography by itself is unlikely to influence
an individual’s entire sexual expression, and consumption may be
part of a broader sexual repertoire, ‘a larger sexual space and
sexual experimentation’ (Johansson and Hammarén, 2007, p. 66).
At least three types of factor mediate the impact of exposure
of pornography: the characteristics of the viewer, their own
engagement with the material, and the character and context of
exposure. First, research on children’s consumption of sexual
content in mainstream media documents that its effects are moderated
by such variables as age, gender, sexual experience, physical
maturation and parental involvement. Age infl uences children’s
levels of understanding of, comfort with and interest in content
such as sexual humour and innuendo. Correlations between adolescent
viewing of sexual media and sexual behaviour are moderated
by parental involvement, including such factors as discussions
of television content, communication patterns and home environments
(Huston et al., 1998; Malamuth and Impett, 2001). Further
variables moderating the impact of pornography include the individual’s
cultural background (emphasis on gender equality or
inequality), their home background (sexually permissive or
restricted), their personality characteristics and their current emotional
state (Malamuth et al., 2000).
‘Consumption may
be part of a broader
sexual repertoire,
“a larger sexual
space and sexual
experimentation” ’
388 Flood
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
Second, the effect of viewing pornography is influenced by
the viewers’ sexual, emotional and cognitive responses to the
material (Fisher and Barak, 2001; Jensen, 1998). Not a great deal
is known about adolescent or adult observers of pornography,
their preferences for different types of sexual content or the
forms of consumption they practise (Boyle, 2000), but the effects
of exposure are likely to be mediated by viewers’ interpretations
and evaluations of the material (Malamuth and Impett, 2001).
Children and young people are active and agentic consumers
of media, using critical skills and perspectives in interpreting
sexual content (Buckingham and Bragg, 2003). For example,
there is evidence among Swedish youth of a convergence in
critical responses to pornography over the life course, as boys
become more critical and girls less so (Löfgren-Mårtenson and
Månsson, 2006).
Third, the character and circumstances of exposure are important:
the type of material involved, the duration and intensity of
viewing, and the context (whether voluntary or involuntary, and
whether solitary or collective) (Thornburgh and Lin, 2002). Little
is known about how particular forms of pornography shape the
significance of their use, other than in terms of homogenising
categorisations of ‘violent’ and ‘non-violent’ content. In relation
to the contexts for use, there is some suggestion that masturbating
alone while watching pornography may lend greater intensity to
the sexual images viewed (Jensen, 1998), while watching pornography
in groups may enhance collective acceptance of its value
systems. Thus, there are complex interactions between the viewer
or reader, pornographic texts and the context of consumption
(Attwood, 2002; Brown, 2000). More widely, the shifting cultural
and collective dynamics of children’s and young people’s social,
sexual and gender relations are likely to have a profound infl uence
on the use, meaning and impact of pornography.
With these caveats in mind, what then are the likely effects of
exposure to pornography?
Emotional and Psychological Harms Associated with
Premature or Inadvertent Exposure
Children and adolescents may be shocked or disturbed by premature
or inadvertent encounters with sexually explicit material per
se. They may be at an age or developmental level where they are
unaware of, inexperienced in, or uninterested in sexual activities.
In a US survey, ten per cent of young people aged ten to 17
described themselves as very or extremely upset by unwanted
exposure to pornography (Mitchell et al., 2007b).
In an Australian
survey, 53 per cent of young people aged 11 to 17 had experienced
something on the Internet they thought was offensive or
‘Not a great deal is
known about
adolescent or adult
observers of
pornography’
‘The character and
circumstances of
exposure are
important’
‘53 per cent of young
people aged 11 to 17
had experienced
something on the
Internet they thought
was offensive or
disgusting’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 389
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
disgusting (Aisbett, 2001). Pornography dominated the list of
content reported. The young people said that they felt ‘sick’,
‘shocked’, ‘embarrassed’, ‘repulsed’ and ‘upset’ (Aisbett, 2001,
p. 41).
While children and adolescents are not necessarily disturbed
by unwanted exposure to sexually explicit depictions, a consistent
minority do experience distress, as two American studies demonstrate.
In a survey of 1500 youths, six per cent of ten to 17-year
olds reported that accidentally viewing a sexually explicit image
had been distressing to them (Thornburgh and Lin, 2002). In
another survey, 45 per cent of the 15 to 17-year olds who had
stumbled across pornography were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ upset by
it (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2001). Some children inadvertently
exposed to Internet pornography are upset not by its content
but by the potential reactions of their parents (Aisbett, 2001;
Thornburgh and Lin, 2002).
Children’s Reactions to Sexually Explicit Content are
mediated both by Age and Sex
Younger children may not find such images remarkable or
memorable; older children may be more upset or disturbed;
while teenagers may only be annoyed (Thornburgh and Lin,
2002). Girls are more likely than boys to be troubled by sexually
explicit images. In one study, 35 per cent of girls but only six
percent of boys reported that they were very upset by the
experience (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2001). In another, retrospective
study, males who had seen online pornography were
much more likely than girls to report feeling sexual excitement,
while females were much more likely to report embarrassment
and disgust (Sabina et al., 2008). In a study among 14–17-year
olds, boys were more positive about sexually explicit websites,
while most girls saw them as ‘dumb’, ‘gross’ or demeaning to
females (Cameron et al., 2005).
Children also may be troubled or disgusted by images or
accounts of non-mainstream sexual behaviours and relations in
particular, just as adults may be, given the wide range of sexual
activity found on the Internet for example (Thornburgh and Lin,
2002). Videos and Internet pornography often depict sexual practices
which are outside common cultural norms or even criminal,
including anal intercourse, multiple partners, bondage and sadomasochism,
transsexual sex, urination or defecation, bestiality
and rape. Minors do encounter such material (Sabina et al., 2008).
Children may also be alienated, as many adult women are
(Chancer, 1998), by the subordinating representations of women
common in pornography.
‘Children may also
be alienated, as
many adult women
are, by the
subordinating
representations of
women common in
pornography’
‘A consistent
minority do
experience distress’
‘Older children may
be more upset or
disturbed’
390 Flood
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
The Inappropriate Acceptance and Adoption of
Non-mainstream Sexual Practices
A second effect of exposure to pornography concerns children’s
acceptance and adoption of particular sexual practices, relations,
or identities. It is possible that portrayals of the non-mainstream
sexual practices identified above may incite, eroticise and give
legitimacy to them. There is one version of this argument that I
reject, the notion of the ‘recruitment’ of children into homosexuality.
There is no evidence that being exposed to sexually explicit
materials, or indeed any kind of representation, can change a
person’s overall sexual orientation, their attraction to one sex or
the other (Allgeier and Allgeier, 1995), although some argue for
example that exposure to child pornography can inspire a sexual
interest in children (Russell and Purcell, 2005).
However, it is clear that pornography can influence users’
attitudes towards and adoption of particular sexual behaviours
(Thornburgh and Lin, 2002; Zillmann, 1989). Among young
people, there is evidence at least of associations between pornography
consumption and participation in sexual practices such as
anal intercourse. Male-female anal intercourse became an almost
mandatory inclusion in X-rated heterosexual videos in the 1990s
(Jensen and Dines, 1998). Five studies among Swedish young
people find that young men who are regular consumers of pornography
are more likely to have had anal intercourse with a girl,
and to have tried to perform acts they have seen in pornography,
and that girls who have seen pornography also are more likely to
have anal intercourse (Haggstrom-Nordin et al., 2005; Johansson
and Hammarén, 2007; Rogala and Tyden, 2003; Tyden et al.,
2001; Tyden and Rogala, 2004). Pornography consumption may
have shaped these young men’s (and women’s) sexual interests
and behaviours, or perhaps both their pornography consumption
and participation in anal sex represent a sexually adventurist or
experimental orientation.
Sexual Knowledge, Liberalised Sexual Attitudes and
Earlier Sexual Involvement
Regular and frequent exposure to sexual content in mainstream
media produces greater sexual knowledge and more liberal sexual
attitudes among children and young people, as a series of reviews
document (APA, 2007; Huston et al., 1998; Strasburger and
Wilson, 2002; Thornburgh and Lin, 2002; Ward, 2003). Experimental
studies document that children and young people exposed
to sexual media content have greater sexual knowledge (about
such topics as pregnancy, menstruation, homosexuality and prostitution)
than control groups, and they are more accepting of
‘Pornography can
influence users’
attitudes towards and
adoption of particular
sexual behaviours’
‘Experimental
studies document
that children and
young people
exposed to sexual
media content have
greater sexual
knowledge’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 391
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
pre-, extra- or non-marital sexual relations (Huston et al., 1998).
Correlational studies find associations between greater exposure
to sexual content on television and the belief that one’s peers are
sexually active and a more favourable attitude towards recreational
sex (Strasburger and Wilson, 2002). Similar if not greater
effects are likely for pornography, given its explicit and decontextualised
depictions of diverse sexual relations. For example,
15–18-year olds in a Swedish study who had ever watched
a pornographic film were more likely than others to be less
ashamed about masturbation and to see prostitution, pornography
and sex without love as ‘okay’ (Johansson and Hammarén,
2007). In experimental studies, young men (and to some extent
women) exposed to large amounts of explicit sexual content often
become more supportive of and less offended by such material
(Thornburgh and Lin, 2002).
There is also evidence of associations between young people’s
actual sexual behaviour, including early sexual involvement, and
the consumption of sexual media content, including pornography
(Huston et al., 1998; Strasburger and Wilson, 2002; Ward, 2003;
Wingwood et al., 2001). Johansson and Hammarén (2007) report
that young pornography users are more likely than non-users also
to have had sexual intercourse, masturbated, had same-sex sex
and a one-night stand. A survey of 522 African-American females
aged 14 to 18 found correlations between viewing X-rated movies
and having multiple sex partners, having sex more frequently and
testing positive for chlamydia (Wingwood et al., 2001).
Sexist, Sexually Objectifying and Inappropriately
Sexualised Attitudes and Behaviours
It is well documented that sexual media, particularly sexualised
representations of girls and women, can encourage girls and
young women to see themselves primarily in sexual terms, to
equate their worth and appeal with narrow standards of physical
attractiveness, and to see themselves as sexual objects—to focus
on others’ sexual interest in and judgment of them rather than
their own desires and interests (APA, 2007). Both correlational
and experimental studies find that adolescents’ and young adults’
exposure to media which sexualises girls and women is associated
with greater acceptance of stereotyped and sexist notions about
gender and sexual roles, including notions of women as sexual
objects (Frable et al., 1997; Ward, 2002; Ward et al., 2005; Ward
and Friedman, 2006). Exposure also influences how men treat and
respond to real women in subsequent interactions (APA, 2007).
Pornography is sexually explicit by definition, and much contemporary
pornography offers a decontextualised portrayal of
sexual behaviour, a relentless focus on female bodies, and sexist
‘Exposure to media
which sexualises
girls and women is
associated with
greater acceptance
of stereotyped and
sexist notions
about gender and
sexual roles’
‘Young men exposed
to large amounts of
explicit sexual
content often become
more supportive of
and less offended by
such material’
392 Flood
and callous depictions of women (Flood and Hamilton, 2003a).
Given this, pornography is likely to contribute to sexually objectifying
understandings of and behaviours towards girls and
women. Experimental studies among adults confirm such effects
(APA, 2007).
Attitudes and Behaviours related to Sexual Violence
Perpetration and Victimisation
Perhaps the most troubling impact of pornography on children
and young people is its influence on sexual violence. A wide range
of studies on the effects of pornography have been conducted
among young people aged 18 to 25, as well as older populations.
Across these, there is consistent and reliable evidence that
exposure to pornography is related to male sexual aggression
against women (Flood and Hamilton, 2003a). This association
is strongest for violent pornography and still reliable for nonviolent
pornography, particularly by frequent users (Malamuth
et al., 2000).
In experimental studies, adults show significant strengthening
of attitudes supportive of sexual aggression following exposure
to pornography. The association between pornography and
rape-supportive attitudes is evident as a result of exposure to
both non-violent pornography (showing consenting sexual
activity) and violent pornography, while the latter results in signifi
cantly greater increases in violence-supportive attitudes.
Exposure to sexually violent material increases male viewers’
acceptance of rape myths and erodes their empathy for victims of
violence (Allen et al., 1995a). Adults also show an increase in
behavioural aggression following exposure to pornography,
including non-violent or violent depictions of sexual activity (but
not nudity), with stronger effects for violent pornography (Allen
et al., 1995b).
In studies of pornography use in everyday life, men who
are high-frequency users of pornography and men who use
‘hardcore’, violent or rape pornography are more likely than
others to report that they would rape or sexually harass a woman
if they knew they could get away with it. And they are more likely
to actually perpetrate sexual coercion and aggression (Malamuth
et al., 2000). There is a circular relationship among some men
between sexual violence and pornography: ‘Men who are relatively
high in risk for sexual aggression are more likely to be
attracted to and aroused by sexually violent media . . . and may
be more likely to be influenced by them’ (Malamuth et al., 2000,
p. 55).
While such fi ndings cannot simply be extrapolated to children
and young people, there is some evidence that high-frequency
‘Perhaps the most
troubling impact of
pornography on
children and young
people is its
infl uence on sexual
violence’
‘There is a circular
relationship among
some men between
sexual violence and
pornography’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 393
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
pornography use or consumption of violent pornography is associated
with sexually aggressive attitudes and behaviours among
adolescent and older boys. In a study of Canadian teenagers with
an average age of 14, there was a correlation between boys’ frequent
consumption of pornography and their agreement with the
idea that it is acceptable to hold a girl down and force her to have
sex (Check, 1995). Among US boys and girls aged 11 to 16,
greater exposure to R- and X-rated fi lms was related to stronger
acceptance of sexual harassment (Strouse et al., 1994). Among
Italian adolescents aged 14 to 19, there were associations between
pornography use and sexually harassing a peer or forcing someone
into sex (Bonino et al., 2006).
Turning to mainstream media, experimental studies among
young adults fi nd that males and females exposed to sexualised
or objectifying content are more accepting of rape myths, violence-
supportive and adversarial beliefs (Kalof, 1999; Lanis and
Covell, 1995; Milburn et al., 2000; Ward, 2002), while correlational
studies among adolescents also show such associations
(Cowan and Campbell, 1995; Kaestle et al., 2007).
Perhaps even more troubling is the finding that growing
numbers of adolescents are being convicted of possession of child
pornography (Moultrie, 2006), with a New Zealand study among
offenders fi nding that the largest group of Internet traders of child
pornography are aged 15 to 19 (Carr, 2004).
Exposure to pornography may increase children’s and young
people’s own vulnerability to sexual abuse and exploitation. Some
adult perpetrators use pornography as a deliberate strategy to
undermine children’s abilities to avoid, resist, or escape sexual
abuse (Russell and Purcell, 2005). More generally, given that
pornography encourages sexist and sexually objectifying attitudes
among girls and women, it may increase their vulnerability to
violence. For example, an Italian study found associations among
adolescent girls between viewing pornographic films and being a
victim of sexual violence (Bonino et al., 2006), although the
causal mechanisms are unclear.
Further Negative Impacts on Young People’s Relationships
Young people’s use of pornography may have further negative
impacts on their sexual and intimate relationships, given that
research among adults highlights such impacts as decreased
sexual intimacy, perceived (and actual) infi delity and sexual
‘addiction’. For example, US studies find that a consistent minority
of female partners of male regular pornography users fi nd it
damaging both for their relationships and themselves. They see
their male partners’ pornography use as a kind of infi delity, feel
betrayal and loss, feel less desirable, and describe other negative
‘Growing numbers
of adolescents are
being convicted of
possession of child
pornography’
‘Young people’s use
of pornography may
have further negative
impacts on their
sexual and intimate
relationships’
394 Flood
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
effects on their relationships, sex lives and themselves (Bridges
et al., 2003). Other studies fi nd that partners of adult pornography
users report decreased sexual intimacy, lowered esteem and
demands that they participate in activities they find objectionable
(Manning, 2006). While there has been very little research on
pornography use in young people’s sexual relationships, studies
among Swedish young women (with a mean age of 23) fi nd, for
example, that there is an association between having viewed pornography
(typically with a partner) and anal sex, with most women
fi nding anal sex a negative experience (Tyden et al., 2001).
Finally, there is an emerging scholarship on sexual, internet and
cybersex ‘addiction’ which suggests that some pornography consumers
come to use pornography in ways which are obsessive,
compulsive, and have damaging consequences for themselves or
others (Cooper et al., 2004; Young, 2008). Similar patterns may
emerge among younger users (Sussman, 2007).
The discussion so far has focused on the negative effects of
sexual and sexually explicit media, but it also has been argued
that such media can have positive effects, including among children
and young people. First, sexual material, including pornography,
has been seen as educational in teaching sexual knowledge
(Helsper, 2005; McKee, 2007). Second, pornography has been
seen to offer a valuable and ‘sex-positive’ challenge to sexual
repression and restrictive sexual norms (Duggan et al., 1988;
McNair, 1996). Third, gay and lesbian pornography is seen to
challenge heterosexism. For example, among same-sex-attracted
young people, online gay and lesbian pornography has functioned
as a counter to the invisibility of same-sex sexualities in offl ine
life (Hillier et al., 2001). However, pornography’s contribution to
sexual liberation is highly contested, with others arguing that it
‘sexualises and normalises inequalities’ (Russo, 1998) and that
gay male pornography is complicit in pornography’s perpetuation
of inequalities (Kendall, 2004).
Conclusion
The notion that sexual materials are ‘harmful to minors’ has been
frequently invoked as a justification for the regulation and censorship
of such materials when available to children or to both
children and adults (Heins, 2001; Levine, 2002). However,
children and youth are sexual beings and should be provided with
age-appropriate and compelling materials on sex and sexuality.
Protecting children from sexual harm does not mean protecting
children from sexuality. In fact, maintaining children’s sexual
ignorance fosters sexual abuse and poor sexual and emotional
health. However, pornography is a poor sex educator.Most
‘An emerging
scholarship on
sexual, internet and
cybersex “addiction” ’
‘Sexual material,
including
pornography, has
been seen as
educational in
teaching sexual
knowledge’
‘Children and youth
are sexual beings
and should be
provided with ageappropriate
and
compelling materials
on sex and sexuality’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 395
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/car
pornography is too explicit for younger children; most shows sex
in unrealistic ways and neglects intimacy and romance; most
pornography is sexist; and some is based on and eroticises
violence.
The body of research with which to document the impact of
pornography consumption among children and young people is
small, reflecting the obvious legal, ethical and practical restrictions
on such research (Thornburgh and Lin, 2002). More intensive and
sophisticated investigations of pornography’s use, meaning and
signifi cance among young people are required. Future research
should complement quantitative assessments of the extent of exposure
among children and young people with close-focus, qualitative
investigations of their experiences and negotiations of sexual
media and the ‘social practices of pornography’ (Thomson, 1999).
It should include examinations of emerging economies of sexual
and pornographic exchange among children and young people,
including the voluntary or coerced production and/or exchange of
mobile phone images. It should include action research implementing
and assessing strategies to mobilise young people’s resistance
to sexist and violence-supportive narratives in sexual media
such as critical media literacy.
This review has noted a range of identifiable harms associated
with exposure to pornography among children and young people.
We must minimise exposure to sexist and violent sexual media
and improve the kinds of sexual materials available to young
people, without sacrificing sexual speech in general (Flood and
Hamilton, 2003b).
‘We must minimise
exposure to sexist
and violent sexual
media and improve
the kinds of sexual
materials available
to young people’
‘Most pornography
is sexist; and some
is based on and
eroticises violence’
The Harms of Pornography Exposure 397
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
The Harms of
Pornography
Exposure Among
Children and
Young People
Michael Flood*
Australian Research Centre in Sex,
Health and Society, La Trobe
University, Australia
Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 384–400 (2009)
Published online 2 November 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/car.1092
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Psychiatrist Linnea Smith’s Excellent Site With Tons Of Great Research Studies On Porn’s Harms!
PLAYBOY
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PLAYBOY
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“Education Not Exploitation . . .
Don’t Play With Playboy” Protest Timeline
by Rebecca Whisnant & Vicki Behrens
Monday, March 16: Beginning of Women’s Week, marking 100 years of women at UNC.
Tuesday, March 17: Playboy runs its first ad in the campus paper, recruiting women students for its “Women of the ACC” (Atlantic Coast Conference) pictorial. Serendipitously, on the same day, Wheelock College sociologist Gail Dines visits campus as the keynote speaker for Women’s Week. Dines’ slideshow and lecture on pornography and sexism in the media inspires several students to begin planning a protest against the Playboy visit. An email listserv is set up for those interested in participating. The protest plans are informally christened “Bunny Hunt.”
UNC students protest Playboy’s presence on campus soliciting coeds for “Girls of the ACC” photo shoot.
Wednesday, March 18: Cameras and reporters from a local news station arrive at the office of the Women’s Issues Network, demanding to know what they are planning to do about the Playboy visit. No one from WIN is in the office at the time, so the reporters harass members of the other two organizations who share the office space. It is unclear how Channel 11 knows that anyone is even thinking of planning anything at this point, since only one impromptu informal meeting has been held. Moreover, those students who are in fact considering a protest are not doing so as part of WIN, but as a new and independent organization formed to respond to the Playboy visit. . . . Later this evening, students develop a petition to present to the staff of the Daily Tar Heel, demanding that they stop publishing Playboy’s advertising. They also compose a Statement of Purpose explaining the reasons for their opposition to Playboy.
Thursday, March 19: Word travels fast. The Daily Tar Heel publishes a snide article about some students’ plans to present a petition. Meanwhile, the petitions are circulated at a Breaking the Silence T-shirt-making event during the afternoon, and at the Take Back the Night rally in the evening. 103 signatures are gathered. Following the Take Back the Night march and rally, about 10 students go to the Daily Tar Heel office to present the petition. Although they have no signs and are neither loud nor disruptive, the manager rudely asks them to leave since the editorial staff is not there. They politely persist, and proceed to read the petition and statement of purpose. They then hand both documents to the manager and leave.
Friday, March 20: Misogynist, anti-feminist graffiti is discovered in the very early morning. The previous night, at the end of the Take Back the Night event, women and men had written chalk messages in the Pit (a central campus gathering place) concerning their experiences and fears of sexual violence and their hopes for safety and equality. The vandals have marked out these messages and replaced them with such slogans as “Feminists swallow,” “Get off your high horse and into the missionary position,” and “Give me nudity or give me death”– and, of course, numerous renditions of the Playboy bunny icon. Fortunately, rain washes away these hateful and threatening messages before most students see them.
Sunday, March 22: A feminist student involved in the protest writes a letter to the editor about this incident of campus hate speech, drawing connections between Playboy, pornography in general, and violence against women. The Daily Tar Heel never publishes this letter. Indeed, they never cover the incident at all, except in a board editorial several days later in which they blandly denounce its occurrence.
The next couple of weeks: Plans continue, via email and meetings, for the protest. Some of the protestors call Playboy under false pretenses to find out where they are planning to do their “interviewing” and to sign up for some of the time slots. They also call Playboy to ask if permission has been granted to use the “ACC” name and logo. Playboy responds that they do not need such permission, since they are using “ACC” merely as a “geographical distinction.” One student writes a superb guest editorial explaining the reasons for protesting Playboy, but the Tar Heel refuses to run it, claiming they don’t publish guest editorials (a patent lie). They finally publish it several days later as a letter to the editor, significantly shortened, and with text actually altered (e.g. “Feminists have been much maligned in the media” is changed to “feminists have been much ignored in the media”– hardly a content-neutral, space-saving change). When challenged, the editors respond that “the scanner must have picked it up wrong.”
Tuesday, April 7: A female Playboy representative — formerly a Playmate, now an employee — visits campus to drum up enthusiasm for the next week’s recruiting. She plants herself in central campus locations, handing out free issues and keychains. When asked the reason for her presence, she says that it’s because of all the bad publicity.
The next few days: Organizing efforts intensify. Informational flyers are designed and put up all over campus. Since much of the campus discussion of the issue has assumed that Playboy is just pictures of naked ladies, many of the flyers reproduce text and cartoons from Playboy which trivialize or celebrate violence, molestation, and the use of women as objects. Few of the flyers are left more than a day before being ripped down . . . . Meanwhile, students are meeting to make posters and banners for the protest, calling local media outlets to announce it, and getting the word out. The theme of the protest: “Education, Not Exploitation: Don’t Play With Playboy!”
WE DON’T THINK SO
The ad insulted its readers’ intelligence by noting that many past pictorial participants “have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, scientists, professors, business and government professionals, wives and moms.” What the blurb sidesteps is that many more women have gone on to reach those same achievements–and greater–without getting ogled in the all-together by complete strangers.
A much bigger insult came from Playboy spokeswoman Elizabeth Norris when reporter Jeanne Fugate asked how many UNC coeds the magazine expected to attend the April tryouts.
“We find that there are more in the Southern area, because they’re used to running around in fewer clothes,” Norris answered. “The ACC is very good. We expect to get quite a few there.”
Excerpted from Forum edtorial, The Chapel Hill Herald, Thursday, March 19, 1998
Tuesday, April 14: The day of Playboy’s recruiting visit — and of the protest. Flyers have been plastered over central campus by people who choose to remain anonymous: “Freedom of Speech” is emblazoned across the body of a Playmate, and the flyers proclaim that “Playboy is welcome at UNC.” We gather at 12:30 in the Pit and march over to the Carolina Inn, where Playboy is holding their “interviews.” After some speeches, the gathering is silent for 21 minutes, symbolizing the 21 years during which Playboy has been targeting college women for exploitation. We are standing on a street corner in a light rain, and people passing by in cars look at us curiously while waiting at the red light. They read our posters: “Women of the ACC . . . Anger Causes Change!” “This Bunny Brings Rotten Eggs” “What’s Wrong With Playboy? sexualizes children, ridicules feminism, programs male sexuality, trivializes sexual violence, eroticizes inequality . . . PLENTY!” “Carolina Men Don’t Want Playboy’s Fantasy Objects” “Anti-Sexist College Campus — No Place for Playboy” “Women of the ACC Cry Foul: Don’t Play With Playboy!” We can see some of the parents explaining to their children who we are and what we’re doing. Other students pass by on the sidewalk. Some laugh nervously and refuse to meet the eyes of protestors who say “hello.” Some men make rude comments; most just stare. Occasionally a woman in a car honks her horn in support, or a woman crossing the street whoops and gives us a thumbs-up. We march up to Franklin Street, the main drag, chanting “Education, not exploitation!”; some protestors are stopped and asked for interviews by local TV stations. Back in the Pit, we reread our Statement of Purpose, and a few male students begin to shout us down. The speakers continue talking, and invite everyone who is watching to discuss the issues surrounding the protest with us. Some protestors stay a while and argue with the angry men, while others head home, having had our say, if only for an hour or so, about Playboy.
Psychiatrist Linnea Smith’s Excellent Site With Tons Of Excellent Important Research Studies On Porn’s Harms!
PLAYBOY
Feb 18, 1998 … ANOTHER LOOK AT CENTERFOLDS … We All Need to Take A Closer Look … on getting this brochure with Acrobat go to Linnea Smith’s Homepage. …
http://www.talkintrash.com/playboy/ –
Letter to advertiser and response to Playboy publisher
Complete version of a letter Linnea Smith wrote to advertisers in … One method is their centerfold layout, which juxtaposes explicit nude … or even that sexuality is linked with power over another, …. I look forward to being able to understand and share your view with Seagram’s and other corporate sponsors. …
http://www.talkintrash.com/playboy/Seagrams.html –
Show more results from http://www.talkintrash.comThe Anti-Pornography Activist- We MUST
FIGHT AGAINST PORN …
Linnea Smith’s Web Page against Pornography and Exploitation of Women and Children This very articulate and knowledgeable doctor has one of the best … Bunnies Revisited – Another Look at centerfolds (This is against playboy and the …
http://www.cybersexban.com/domains/net/antiporno/
genderberg.com – Content
Feb 24, 2005 … Another cartoon from 1972 features a young girl about age seven emerging from the bedroom of a … of child images used and child photos in the centerfold biography were suddenly older. … Dr. Linnea Smith’s website …
http://www.genderberg.com/phpNuke/modules.php?name=Content...
Dr.Linnea Smith’s Excellent Site With Tons Of Great Research Studies On Porn’s Harms!
PLAYBOY
Feb 18, 1998 … ANOTHER LOOK AT CENTERFOLDS … We All Need to Take A Closer Look … on getting this brochure with Acrobat go to Linnea Smith’s Homepage. …
http://www.talkintrash.com/playboy/ –
Letter to advertiser and response to Playboy publisher
Complete version of a letter Linnea Smith wrote to advertisers in … One method is their centerfold layout, which juxtaposes explicit nude … or even that sexuality is linked with power over another, …. I look forward to being able to understand and share your view with Seagram’s and other corporate sponsors. …
http://www.talkintrash.com/playboy/Seagrams.html –
Show more results from http://www.talkintrash.comThe Anti-Pornography Activist- We MUST
You rock sister! Speak truth to power!
This post is so revealing and an eye-opener. Indeed one way to battler porn addiction. Porn addicts are really increasing in numbers each day, this crisis should be halted immediately. Such matter is bringing no good to the world.