Why does porn make me nervous?

[AtomicOrphan]

I'm brand new to this board. I found it by way of a Google search regarding pornography.

I have strong conflicting feelings on the issue.

I enjoy pornography as in sexually explicit images of naked women. I browse the internet for "amateur" pornography. I'm more turned on by real looking images, than commercial and staged-looking images.

 

I find there's too much anger in hardcore pornography. It makes me nervous. Other guys say they don't detect it. They describe it as "funny" or "cool." How one misses the anger, I don't know. It's ubiquitous in action porn.

 

On the 'net it's mostly amateur porn. There's a few guys having sex with one woman while cracking jokes or saying degrading things.

 

I can't help but see the women involved as people. I cannot divorce the participant's individuality from her acts. I wonder why she is participating. I wonder if she's OK. Most of these women are college age, so I wonder about the subsequent repercussions in her future. What motivates her? Money, thrills, drugs, self-loathing? I feel angry at the men who are making the porn. I think they're scummy and exploitative.

 

The upshot is, it makes me nervous. The whole phenomenon, the fact that there is so damned much of this porn everywhere. I know the arguments about "her choice," and "it's all consensual," and "no one's forced," and so forth. Some people would call my concerns sexist and patriarchal.

 

Well...I didn't invite these feelings. They showed up. They were there when I watched my first porn video 20 years ago. As I said in the beginning, I'm not anti-sex, or anti-porn. I don't presume to understand the psychology of porn participants. I just wonder, and feel quite uneasy.

 

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Do you know something about the industry that I don't?

[HokeyReligions]

You enjoy porn, but it makes you angry and nervous. If you don't want to be angry and nervous, don't watch it.

 

Search back over some of the other porn threads on this website. There have been some pretty good discussions and lots of different views. You may find some insight into your own feelings.

 

You sound a bit like a junkie who, right after a good fix, loaths themselves for their weakness in using the drug and wants to quit, vows to quit, but when the high wears off and the withdrawl begins they run for another fix. Perhaps you should just stop looking at any porn for a while and see if you feel any better.

[AtomicOrphan]

I wasn't soliciting advice on my viewing choices. I was inquiring after the nature of the internet porn phenomenon itself. I did state clearly that don't have issues with images depicting explicit nudity. It is the anger and the denigration that gets to me. I also stated unequivocally that I'm not anti-porn. There are just some things about it I would like to better understand.

[SoleMate]

Yes, I have seen that ugly side to porn, and I agree it is quite common in visual porn - like 99%+. (Less so in stories, but still very present.) Sexual excitement is essentially equated with degradation of women with insults, physical abuse, and objectification. Women crawl, beg, get beaten, get smeared with filth, are taunted and humiliated. What a turn-on (NOT!). I see a lot of it as fear-driven. Keep in mind a lot of porn consumers are angry, lonely men who fear the sexual power of women...the power to "give" or "withhold" sex and approval. Their frustrated sexual desires are fulfilled by porn at the same time that their anger at women is assuaged by seeing them punished and rendered powerless.

 

What was the last time you saw a powerful woman in porn? Do post a reply if you can think of ONE time.

 

I find there's too much anger in hardcore pornography...I can't help but see the women involved as people.

WARNING...WARNING...YOU ARE IN DANGER OF EXPERIENCING HU-MON EMOTION. YOUR PERSONALITY APPEARS TO BE INTEGRATED AND HEALTHY. YOU NEED FURTHER CONDITIONING...TO BECOME A HARDCORE PORN CONSUMER.

[AtomicOrphan]

SoleMate,

 

There's a decades-long debate feminists over whether women can be empowered in porn. On the one hand you've got female porn success stories such as Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, and Jenna Jameson who declare porn as their vehicle of personal empowerment. They can do what they want with their bodies, and they always feel in control when participating in pornography. Sprinkle and Hartley give feminist-oriented workshops about sex and pornography.

 

On the other side, you've got Andrea Dworkin, Catharine McKinnon, Susan Griffin, and the like who believe pornography by its very nature exists to objectify, denegrate, and destroy women. Dworkin goes so far as to say that ALL heterosexual sex is rape. Dworkin and McKinnon drafted a lot of anti-pornography legislative proposals in the '80s. Some of their ideas were adopted in Canada, and in some U.S. cities...Cincinnati and Minneapolis, IIRC. These same two activist-scholars also allied themselves with the Meese Commission against pornography. Griffin is among the more minor players in anti-porn feminism, Dworkin and McKinnon are still the most often cited, even the the apex of their success was in the '80s.

 

Before I took my query to this message board, I tried to find literature documenting verified incidences of non-consensual sex and exploitation in the industry. The road always lead back to Dworkin, McKinnon, and their fallen angel porn star, the late Linda Marchiano (AKA Linda Lovelace). She was the star of the most famous porn film of all, "Deep Throat." She later claimed she was beaten, raped, and forced to perform. I won't recount the details. Do a Google search, you'll find it.

 

I found other cases in which women discussed unpleasant experiences, but nothing that made them file charges or even quit the business.

 

So, the only testimonial the anti-porn feminists really have is Linda Marchiano, and what happened to her over 30 years ago.

 

I'm not saying this proves anything about the industry. I am saying it's very strange that we have a porn industry that has grown exponentially over the past three decades, in which untold thousands of women have participated, about which rumors of rape, abuse, and even death abound, and which now is so huge it matches the straight movie industry dollar for dollar, and which has passionate opponents who would like nothing better than to bring it down----and yet the only testimonial they can only summon are claims from a single porn star from a whole generation ago.

 

What gives? Maybe there are no women who feel mistreated enough to talk.

[sweetmind20]

atomic,

 

i agree wholeheartedly with you, and it is both a relief and breath of fresh air to hear someone speak of the other side of the industry. i have always been disturbed by the way these women are objectified. the thing that i find particularly frightening is that, for many, the fear and/or surrender of the woman is what turns on the viewing audience. it fascinates me and sickens me at the same time.

being in a relationship with a porn hungry male, makes me start looking at how i am being viewed as a woman and a person.. to think that my bf is turned on ( just as the millions of others) by these things, makes me feel objectified myself.

i'm glad you brought a voice to this issue. i have been on this topic many times, and my problem has always been about this very matter. no one else has seemed to understand it here. everyone has just told me that these women chose to do it. but does that make it any better? obviously.. them volunteering to engage in such degrading activities is a sign that they have no self respect and are used to being abused.

i would like to hear more on this subject from you.. if you'd like to post.. i will reply.

 

take care,

 

sweet