Moderated What's wrong with porn?

[fuelair]

Define porn.

Any written or imaged material incorporating or produced by a prostitute.

 

[fuelair]

Sex between consenting adults isn't a problem.

But can be porn truly consensual? Leaving out men for a moment, does a woman who acts in a movie really want to do so or does she feel pressured into it? Maybe she wants a mainstream film career and sees this as the first stage; how many actresses started out in porn?

How many do it simply to get by; to pay the bills?

In short, who really feels that getting paid to have sex on camera is what they want to do with their life?

Some people must be lying if that is true for all. Including quite a number of females. It is good to remember that because you have no interest in a given profession does not imply the same for anyone else.

Many people also, no matter what their job, do it just to pay the bills.

 

[fuelair]

More than one. But I'm not saying who.

And likely one or two who distribute/sell it.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, I look at some of them and I'm pretty sure that they could earn a living another way if they wanted to.

E.g., Katja Kassin is actually a college graduate IIRC. So I have no problem imagining that she could get a decently paid job if she wanted to, and if not, hey, it's not like Germany is a third world country. She wouldn't exactly starve anyway. So I have trouble picturing it as being anything else than that that's the job she wants to do (within the limits of what's possible), same as any of us, rather than as some poor oppressed victim of porn.

E.g., Asia Carrera did win an academic scholarship at one point, had a job actually teaching at a college at another, and is a Mensa member. And given her computer skills even without having had to put 8 hours a day into it, I have no trouble imagining that she could have gone into IT instead of porn during the bubble. You know, since at the same time when she went into porn, it was also the apex of the age where dot-coms were offering six-figure salaries to any drooling retard who can at least turn a computer on and off. The IPO ratings actually depended on the number of programmers and IT staff, so they were hiring everyone and everything in sight. Sure, it might have taken a little more effort to go that route instead of porn, but again I'd be hard pressed to see it as the screw-or-starve kind of lot in life.

Wasn't Ron Jermey a special education teacher before he made his break?

 

[fuelair]

This is especially true of the barely legal girls just out of highschool. I enjoy looking at them but I often feel guilty. Do they really want to do "that"?

A rather large number of those are Eastern European and are making a crapload more money there than much else- except prostitution - available to them. In the US, a number of those are a bit over barely, but youthful looking - many own their own sites/production units.

 

[fuelair]

Two shortcomings in video porn:

1. It's a bit of self torture, watching someone do what you'd rather be doing.
2. Its focus on the mechanics rather than the interpersonal dynamic.

Actually, there have been a few - even three or four 8mm loops - where the ipd was clearly there. I agree it is uncommon, but it is definitely not non-existant.

 

[HansMustermann]

A rather large number of those are Eastern Europian and are making a crapload more money there than much else- except prostitution - available to them. In the US, a number of those are a bit over barely, but youthful looking - many own their own sites/production units.

That's true, but I'd like to stress that even there it's not like it's the _only_ choice. They could alway sbe a cashier at some supermarket instead.

Well, that's not for your benefit but for that of the "do they really want to do _that_?" crowd. I'd say, obviously yes. Every single example I can think of, it's not like she was sold into slavery or anything. She had more than one choice at every point. Maybe one option did pay a crapload more than the others combined, but it was a choice anyway.

 

[makaya325]

Unless it takes over your life, I think Porn is great. It allows you to view all different kind's of sexual orientation's, fetish's, etc., all without harming anybody.

 

[pgwenthold]

Were pornstars victims of child abuse when they were younger?

Oh good gravy, not this crap again.

It could be that every single woman in the porn industry was abused as a child, I don't know. But what I do know is that whether there is a porn industry or not, those women would still be victims of child abuse. That they end up with some other career will not change what happened to them.

I'm all for fighting child abuse, but fix it by stopping the cause, not outlawing the effect.

 

[JFrankA]

Oh good gravy, not this crap again.

It could be that every single woman in the porn industry was abused as a child, I don't know. But what I do know is that whether there is a porn industry or not, those women would still be victims of child abuse. That they end up with some other career will not change what happened to them.

I'm all for fighting child abuse, but fix it by stopping the cause, not outlawing the effect.

Hear, hear.

 

[Piscivore]

Too many mammals involved.

 

[fullflavormenthol]

I hate debates about porn because they inherently lead to the "can a woman really consent to porn?" or "are women porn stars all the victims of abuse?"

Honestly, some women might actually enjoy having sex on camera, and that is there choice. The first problem I find with the people who say otherwise is that 9 times out of 10 they think that all porn is violent and features acts of violence. The other feature I see in these people is that fact that they really don't think of women. Either all women are victims or some women are too stupid to make a decision on their own.

 

[king catfish]

Sex between consenting adults isn't a problem.

But can be porn truly consensual? Leaving out men for a moment, does a woman who acts in a movie really want to do so or does she feel pressured into it? Maybe she wants a mainstream film career and sees this as the first stage; how many actresses started out in porn?

How many do it simply to get by; to pay the bills?

In short, who really feels that getting paid to have sex on camera is what they want to do with their life?

With that reasoning, I write toxicology reports against my consent. I'd rather play guitar all day or go fishing, but I have to write toxicology reports to pay the bills. Who really feels writing toxicology reports is what he or she wants to do with his or her life?

 

[Sunray Breaker]

There hasn't been any conclusive scientific evidence that Porn is bad in any sort of way.

In fact, I believe (I'll have to double check my facts, but i'm pretty sure) sexual violence has decreased slightly since the internet porn boom.

Now there are some producers out there that I could say are questionable and are a really bad influence.

People like Rob Black of Extreme Associates. He specializes in rape porn. There was a banned PBS documentary called American Porn that covered his highly controversial films.

There's also a new concern with child porn, which is that little girls age 14 and up, have been found to post nude pictures of themselves on certain social networking sites. Myspace had an issue with this recently in their Hot Zone section. They had to remove the entire section and enforce stricter policies to discourage teens from posting naked photos of themselves with their cell phones.

And don't even get me started on 4chan, who needs some seriously better mods. You can quite literally post anything on there.

As far as the negative effects of porn I think Doug Stanhope said it best:

"It diminishes your taste for the type of woman that would actually have sex with you."

or as the very sexy feminist Naomi Wolf states:

"The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.' Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention."

Now this might be a bit of an extreme quote, but I think it does point out a couple of interesting suggestions that warrant further examination.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'd also ask how one defines "child abuse" for the scope of that particular question. It's an awfully broad topic, ranging from sexual abuse to getting a spanking to some people considering themselves emotionally neglected because their mom loved their sister more. (I actually had a schoolmate who tried to kill herself for that exact reason.)

Now I'm not defending spanking either, in fact I'm against it. But the practice has been so wide spread at some point, and still is in three quarters of the world, that you can link almost anything to it. You could equally say that all successful CEO's got beat up by their parents (don't laugh, I've seen at least one article making that exact claim), or that most senators got abused that way, or, well, you get the idea.

Saying that most pornstars got spanked as children is no more meaningful than saying they had birthdays or breathe air.

Again, I'm not defending child abuse. But it seems to me like using it to paint a negative connotation on a job that the abused person then got, is, well, then there is no job out there which is free of that taint. Any job you might look at, from ballerina to astronaut and from janitor to CEO has a bunch of people who were abused as children, one way or another.

 

[Sunray Breaker]

Oh good gravy, not this crap again.

It could be that every single woman in the porn industry was abused as a child, I don't know. But what I do know is that whether there is a porn industry or not, those women would still be victims of child abuse. That they end up with some other career will not change what happened to them.

I'm all for fighting child abuse, but fix it by stopping the cause, not outlawing the effect.

My mother was sexually abused constantly as a little girl...She's a circut design engineer for Qwest now.

 

[Sunray Breaker]

I hate debates about porn because they inherently lead to the "can a woman really consent to porn?" or "are women porn stars all the victims of abuse?"

Honestly, some women might actually enjoy having sex on camera, and that is there choice. The first problem I find with the people who say otherwise is that 9 times out of 10 they think that all porn is violent and features acts of violence. The other feature I see in these people is that fact that they really don't think of women. Either all women are victims or some women are too stupid to make a decision on their own.

There are some pornos that are a bit dehumanizing. But not really much more dehumanizing than performing an elephant enema, cleaning toilets, scraping gum off the floor, working at McDonalds, etc. It's really a cost/benefit analysis...

And a smart one at that.

Mcdonalds, 8-10 bucks and hr
Porn shoot 500-1000 dollars an hour, depending on what your willing to do.

Hmm...which option seems more worth it at this point?

Lordy knows if I were a woman I'd jump on the porn wagon in a heart beat, I've nearly considered it twice myself, but chickened out and missed both interviews.

One of these days, I think I'll give it a shot. I sure could use a new keyboard!!!

 

[HansMustermann]

The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.' Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

Well, if I combine that with the idea from the other thread that hideously huge numbers of women are or were raped, I think the course of action is clear. We must get porn to more people. Forget prayer in school, we must get jacking off and jilling off in school. Think of the millions of women who could be saved from rape if only we could get their assailants so saturated with porn that they're not even going to bother with someone who's not airbrushed. We must act decissively, and act fast

 

[Sunray Breaker]

Well, if I combine that with the idea from the other thread that hideously huge numbers of women are or were raped, I think the course of action is clear. We must get porn to more people. Forget prayer in school, we must get jacking off and jilling off in school. Think of the millions of women who could be saved from rape if only we could get their assailants so saturated with porn that they're not even going to bother with someone who's not airbrushed. We must act decissively, and act fast

HA!!! Damn good point. And for the record...I totally advocate teaching children about masturbation and sex. Abstinence only programs and the like are (IMHO) a borderline form of child abuse.

 

[geni]

Porn per se probably not but the standards of the porn industry should be a matter of concern.