The truth about the porn industry
 

Gail Dines, the author of an explosive new book about the sex industry, on why pornography has never been a greater threat to our relationships. by Julie Bindel,guardian

The book documents the recent history of porn, including the technological shifts that have made it accessible on mobile phones, videogames and laptops. According to Dines's research the prevalence of porn means that men are becoming desensitised to it, and are therefore seeking out ever harsher, more violent and degrading images. Even the porn industry is shocked by how much violence the fans want, she says; at the industry conferences that Dines attends, porn makers have increasingly been discussing the trend for more extreme practices. And the audience is getting younger. Market research conducted by internet providers found that the average age a boy first sees porn today is 11; a study from the University of Alberta found that one third of 13-year-old boys admitted viewing porn; and a survey published by Psychologies magazine in the UK last month found that a third of 14- to 16-year-olds had first seen sexual images online when they were 10 or younger ? 81% of those polled looked at porn online at home, while 63% could easily access it on their mobile phones.

"I have found that the earlier men use porn," says Dines, "the more likely they are to have trouble developing close, intimate relationships with real women. Some of these men prefer porn to sex with an actual human being. They are bewildered, even angry, when real women don't want or enjoy porn sex."

Porn culture doesn't only affect men. It also changes "the way women and girls think about their bodies, their sexuality and their relationships," says Dines. "Every group that has fought for liberation understands that media images are part and parcel of the systematic dehumanisation of an oppressed group . . . The more porn images filter into mainstream culture, the more girls and women are stripped of full human status and reduced to sex objects. This has a terrible effect on girls' sexual identity because it robs them of their own sexual desire."

Images have now become so extreme that acts that were almost non-existent a decade ago have become commonplace. From studying thousands of porn films and images Dines found that the most popular acts depicted in internet porn include vaginal, oral and anal penetration by three or more men at the same time; double anal; double vaginal; a female gagging from having a penis thrust into her throat; and ejaculation in a woman's face, eyes and mouth.

"To think that so many men hate women to the degree that they can get aroused by such vile images is quite profound," says Dines. "Pornography is the perfect propaganda piece for patriarchy. In nothing else is their hatred of us quite as clear."

Born in Manchester, Dines moved to Israel in 1980, aged 22, and soon became involved in the women's movement. An event organised by the feminist consciousness-raising group Women against Pornography in Haifa ? in which pornography was shown ? changed her life forever. "I was astounded that men could either make such a thing or want to look at it," she says. From then on, she knew she had to campaign about the issue.
There were two images from Hustler magazine that she found especially shocking: a cartoon of a construction worker drilling a jackhammer into a woman's vagina, and one depicting a woman being fed through a meat grinder. "I was newly married and told my husband that night how appalled I was, which he fully understood," she says. "If he had said I was a prude I don't think I could have stayed with him."

The couple moved to the US in 1986, and Dines has taught at Wheelock College, Boston ever since, where she is professor of sociology and women's studies and chair of the American studies department. She is something of a lone voice in academia. Aside from what she says are "a handful" of colleagues across the US, most contemporary scholars are positive about pornography, and Dines thinks this is due to both a fear of being considered in alliance with the religious right and the view that pornography represents and champions sexual liberation.

"Many on the liberal left adopt a view that says pornographers are not businessmen but are simply there to unleash our sexuality from state-imposed constraints," she says. This view was reflected in the film The People vs Larry Flynt, where the billionaire pornographer of the film's title ? the head of the Hustler empire ? was portrayed as a man simply fighting for freedom of speech. Dines disputes these ideas. "Trust me," she says, "I have interviewed hundreds of pornographers and the only thing that gets them excited is profit."

As a result of her research, Dines believes that pornography is driving men to commit particular acts of violence towards women. "I am not saying that a man reads porn and goes out to rape," she says, "but what I do know is that porn gives permission to its consumers to treat women as they are treated in porn." In a recent study, 80% of men said that the one sex act they would most like to perform is to ejaculate on a woman's face; in 2007, a comment stream on the website Jezebel.com included a number of women who said that, on a first date, they had, to their surprise, experienced their sexual partner ejaculating on their faces without asking.

Sexual assault centres in US colleges have said that more women are reporting anal rape, which Dines attributes directly to the normalisation of such practices in pornography. "The more porn sexualises violence against women, the more it normalises and legitimises sexually abusive behaviour. Men learn about sex from porn, and in porn nothing is too painful or degrading for women." Dines also says that what she calls "childified porn" has significantly increased in popularity in recent years, with almost 14m internet searches for "teen sex" in 2006, an increase of more than 60% since 2004. There are legal sites that feature hardcore images of extremely young-looking women being penetrated by older men, with disclaimers stating all the models are 18 and over. Dines is clear that regular exposure to such material has an effect of breaking down the taboo about having sex with children.

She recently interviewed a number of men in prison who had committed rape against children. All were habitual users of child pornography. "What they said to me was they got bored with 'regular' porn and wanted something fresh. They were horrified at the idea of sex with a prepubescent child initially but within six months they had all raped a child."

What can we expect next from the industry? "Nobody knows, including pornographers," she says, "but they are all looking for something more extreme, more shocking." She recently interviewed a well-known pornographer, while his latest film played in the background. It contained a scene of a woman being anally penetrated while kneeling in a coffin.

In Dines's view, the best way to address the rise of internet pornography is to raise public awareness about its actual content, and name it as a public health issue by bringing together educators, health professionals, community activists, parents and anti-violence experts to create materials that educate the public. "Just as we had anti-smoking campaigns, we need an anti-porn campaign that alerts people to the individual and cultural harms it creates."

"Myths about those of us who hate pornography also need to be dispelled in order to gain more support from progressives," she says. "The assumption that if you are a woman who hates pornography you are against sex shows how successful the industry is at collapsing porn into sex." Would the critics of the employment practices and products at McDonald's be accused of being anti-eating, she asks pointedly.

The backlash against Dines and her work is well-documented. Various pro-porn activists post accusations about her on websites, suggesting she is motivated by money, hates sex, and victimises women to support her supposed anti-male ideology. Salon.com reported recently that the sex writer, Violet Blue, had launched a pro-porn campaign to counteract an anti-porn conference that Dines and colleagues held last month. Dines is regularly criticised by pornographers in the trade magazines and on porn websites and she tells me that her college receives letters after any public event at which she is speaking, attacking her views.

Does she ever feel depressed by all this? "It gets me down sometimes, of course. But I try to surround myself with good things ? my students, colleagues, and my family." She says the blueprint for her aims is the eradication of slavery in the US, which was achieved despite the fact that every single institution was geared to uphold and perpetuate it. "What is at stake is the nature of the world that we live in," says Dines. "We have to wrestle it back."

Those idiot liberal women are the very reason so many guys resorting to porn to get their fix.

Too much text...

as a gay guy I am continually amazed at what straight guys have to put up with from women just to get laid

Source???

this ideas have been published over and over again...

blah blah blah

cliff notes?

Christian conservatives can kiss my arse

:1orglaugh i like this pics, i hope it's real :1orglaugh

She makes a valid point about the industry becoming more extreme to capture the consumer's interest. But the rest of her "article" is conjecture and bullshit in my opinion. Kids today are just as horny as kids 20 years ago and probably just as kids were 100years ago. Somehow people forget we are animals with a base instinct to fuck. The sooner we come to grip with the fact that we are not much different than monkeys the happier are lives will become.

I don't have a link, but it says in the top paragraph:
"by Julie Bindel,guardian"

So I guess it's a part of Guardian's cultural pages. Tro to take a phrase from the text and Google it and I'm sure you'll find the original article.

i don't really buy this but if it were true it would probably be because all of the rejection and humilation some guys have felt from women during certain years.

It's true, some sexual repression wouldn't hurt...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Hmmmmm? Just wondering what it must mean to enjoy a movie where Rambo
blows off a motherfucker's head.


:1orglaugh

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that sexual serial killers are raised my single moms :thumbsup

she is not talking about censorship, she is talking about it in a free and honest debate.

her right to free speach should be supported just as much as yours, even if her free speach cost you money.

Joy.

http://screencast.com/t/ZWVhYzI2ZW

The loser who doesn't make money has to chime in with his two cents.

Anybody else notice his pattern of anti-porn? ANYTHING that hurts the porn business he supports.

i find it interesting that your actually arguing that you should only support free speach if it benefits you.

let get rid of free speach that would do wonders for porn sales

idiot.

oh and btw i didn't say i agreed or supported what she said, just the right to say.

i don't support the KKK either, but i do support their right to say what they believe.

No you're not. You're just gleeful that it might cost somebody money in the porn biz (which it doesn't)

You are a completely uneducated and ignorant troll when it comes to the porn business. And the fact that you even post on an industry board is disgraceful. You bring nothing to our community but your relentless trolling and attempts at misinformation and championing stealing via internet piracy.

You have no business here. None. So every post you make is a waste of time. But then again, you don't care. You have nothing to lose because you have....nothing.

gideon, I agree with you on principle. at the same time, on principle, she's a fucking idiot..

noticed it, but he's right about freedom of speech.

you go to all the conventions - you ever seen this fat, christian nut? (the lady in the article) says she goes to conventions and hears what the industry says.

i somehow don't think she'd last long unless she brought brock lesnar as her security

that women really needs a good hard fucking and a splash is jizz on the kisser... imho :)

:1orglaugh

for GFYers......

I think she makes some valid points. Although I remember seeing porn as a child way back in the 50s...so it was always there.

I think the the point about the arms race for more extreme material is valid. A point made by others on this board about the lack of imagination in most porn.

I was watching Ang Lees LUST CAUTION and I was struck by the fresh new way he filmed very strong sex scenes.

I think if the industry approuched the erotic with more intelignence and imagination it would be good for busines, break out of a porn getto, and also win support in academia.

I think the eyes, hair and face can be as erotic as a pussy being fucked. Creating atmosphere and mood cound be and good way to go. Otherwise we are going to need models with more orofices !

You aren't considering that everybody has different sexual fantasies.
There are billions of people in this world. For millions of them what you described is exactly what they want and they would be repulsed by other types of hardcore porn.

But you have to understand that millions of other folks would be bored by what you described.

What makes one man's dick hard won't translate to another.

For example how would your soft erotic porn translate to a guy who has a bdsm fetish and loves Kink.com?

Or a guy who digs watching tranny gangbangs?

Or a guy who likes watching interracial anal gangbangs?

The list goes on and on and on.

You can't generalize what people's sexual fantasy is and just decide it all needs to be more "erotic" with emphasis on the eyes, etc.

That just doesn't work.

*gasp*

WE HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME

i have never condoned stealing only fair use misrepresented as stealing

ie you should by 10,000 personal backup rather then use the swarm for content you paid for


there are tons of things that are industry agnostic

the mainstream industry argued they could do the same thing as porn did (sell their shit on the video tapes) and they were wrong.

maybe instead of saying product placement won't work in porn, you should actually take a course on it and figuire out how to make it work.

mainstream movies didn't start having hardcore sex in every movie, they adapted the fundamentals (put your shit on the cassette and sell it) for their market.

If she said stop the tubes with full movies, torrents etc. which is the best source for kids to free porn, and leave the rest on paysites restricted to adults... he would probably not support her. :2 cents:

Sounds like she had fun searching for interesting stuff :upsidedow

Many of those anti-porn movements, especially the religious ones, are control freaks and obsessed with how others should think and act. When they touch the gay subject, they are taken less seriously, but trust me, they do not want it. Once they have taken out one freedom they will target more.
In the end, they love and find porn exciting like anyone else. But they can't admit it and they feel bad about it. Blame others, but not yourself...

there much much violence and force on videogames that children and adolescents play

do you not understand the concept of censorship.

that arguement would be cross the censorship line as much as demanding government level ban on all porn, or .xxx mandated domain structure that could be blocked on country or isp level bases.


i support her right to speak, because she is not advocating censorship in
any form

No, you do not understand the concept. You are NOT entitled to a "freedom" you were never given. Removing child abuse and copyright infringements is not censorship. It's things that shouldn't be there in the first place (i.e. the concept of consent).

Removing things that were given consent too, i.e. performers of legal age and producers freedom to market their websites (within their control), is censorship. Shape or form doesn't matter, it is censorship if someone tell anyone of legal age that they can't do and show certain things (anal sex, gangbang, whatever...).

Yes, she is entitled to an opinion, but she IS advocating censorship if she tells us what kind of sex we can perform, show and market to and from adults.

The only positive thing about .xxx, assuming it became mandatory worldwide, is that every domain without consent/license would be shut down. Simple as that. However, if copyright was respected, the producers would have more control and .xxx wouldn't be necessary. A label would be enough.

You guys advocating copyright infringing websites/p2p just don't get it. You think YOU are advocating freedoms and at the same time you blame the producers? The producers (artists, musicians, writers etc.) NEVER gave you the freedom to expose offending material to children, and that's what you do when you put violence and bukakke movies out where there are young audience. YOU destroy freedoms and you are NOT part of this industry.

We can reduce exposure to children significally by removing all websites and servers from internet that do not have the license to show explicite material. The legal sites can then label their sites, so parents and administrators can choose to filter. That is not censorship, but it become censorship if we are told what we can or can't perform. :2 cents:

Where I stopped reading.

you keep going to kiddie porn as a hot button as a smear campaign trying to argue fighting copyright infringement is some how the same thing
it not
fact every person you put on fighting copyright infringement is a person you prevent from finding and convicting kiddie porn distribution

if you really cared about kiddie porn you would give up the is copyright debate.
tell them to drop the government involvement and put those people on catching the kiddie porn producers.

btw pirate bay reports kiddie porn directly to the police.


bullshit she is advocating education so that people can make an "informed" decision when purchasing porn

she is not advocating a ban in any way shape or form. Ecomonic hardship is not censorship. People advocating a boycott is not censorship that an economic protest.

your tours show nudity too so that a strawman arguement and you know it.

like your attempts to tie kiddie porn to copyright infringement.

Fact fair uses like commentary and parody can and in many cases do use copyright material without the copyright holders permission (it would be pretty hard for micheal moore to make fun of george bush if he need his permssion to use his speaches)

the act was specifically designed to support that free speech.

the copyright holder authorizes all fair use when they claim their exclusive rights, they agree to honor those fair use exceptions which are not a violation of the exclusive rights granted under the act.

i hope you noticed that everything i have said also fits into the less government control (exclusive rights of the copyright holder is a govenment granted monopoly), more freedom (new fair uses etc) catagory too.


it interesting that both you and robbie only "noticed" the money aspect. you should think about that when you read the quote

"I have interviewed hundreds of pornographers and the only thing that gets them excited is profit."

That is the best line I've heard in a while!!

As a straight guy, even *I am also continually amazed at what we guys have to put up with from women just to get laid!

agreed:2 cents:

Yes, I do, because it's the truth.
It's not the same things, but it's part of those websites who do not moderate their content. What's the point of reporting something, if they don't remove it? Obviously they give a shit about the toddlers abused and "pirated" on internet, just like they give a shit about the consent that were never given for copyrighted work. That's the kind of moral we face, that's the kind of moral Gain Dines think this industry represent, even if they are not part of this industry. And those who put their ads on those sites, should not be part of this industry. It gives all of us bad reputation.



Let me quote her again:

Images have now become so extreme that acts that were almost non-existent a decade ago have become commonplace. From studying thousands of porn films and images Dines found that the most popular acts depicted in internet porn include vaginal, oral and anal penetration by three or more men at the same time; double anal; double vaginal; a female gagging from having a penis thrust into her throat; and ejaculation in a woman's face, eyes and mouth.

"To think that so many men hate women to the degree that they can get aroused by such vile images is quite profound," says Dines. "Pornography is the perfect propaganda piece for patriarchy. In nothing else is their hatred of us quite as clear."

To me that sounds like she hate some shapes and form and wants to get rid of it. Is it really her business what other adults want to see?


If I label my site and the copyright holder decides what to be shown, there are less children exposed to it and there are less content, versus an unlabeled and illegal site with full movies and site rips distributed to children. Your bullshit talk about Michael Moore, Bush, parodies etc. again show you do not know what you are talking about. That "free speech" was never given to you in the first place.

porn is rape.

Number one: That person has NOT interviewed "hundreds of pornographers"

Number two: EVERY business's main concern is PROFIT

But you wouldn't know anything about that gideongallery because you are a broke loser who can't make a dime. You are a disgrace as a human being and it is scandalous that you are not banned forever from this porn INDUSTRY board of which you are not a part of.

You try to mask your ignorance with your ridiculous faux "lawyer-eze" talk. But the only thing you do is make yourself look like a total joke to people who really are in this biz.
To quote that ridiculous "interviewed hundreds of pornographers" sentence just shows how completely ignorant you really are.

Loser.

My point is that porn as it is now is a cultural language that is constructed by its history and who makes it....

Example, Hollywood films portray a picture of America as violent gun toting racists who solve problems by shooting the problem.

When I visited the US I found the people friendly tolerant and non violent. Now could Hollywood make different films. As we have other national cinemas we can say that this is true French or Chinese cinema makes different films.

The realtionship between the porn maker and the consumer is linked. The consumer can only see what is made, if the choice is restricted he must get off on what is there.

It is not a matter of hard or soft. it is a matter of whether it arouses or not. Some Porn just thinks of making things more extreme is the answer, and my point is that is a mistake which will leave a big section of the audience behind.

I am not against peoples fantasies, if they want to drive nails into each other, feel free. As long as no one is forced into it.

But there is a whole field of the erotic not yet exploited, and this can be as hard as you like, but it creates a mood an intimicy, and arouses, in a way which an girl being pumped for 15 minutes, making fake groans, and fake orgasm.