Internet Porn

quote:

---

I'd say that if he has negative attitudes about sex, women, or women's sexuality, they're more likely to come from his peers, or his father figures. It's possible that porn could set the situation for that sort of kibitzing - "hey, check out the Playboys in my dad's attic", "yeah, I heard that women have teeth down there" - but I don't think much of it is going to come from porn.

---

So, the widespread, cultural saturation of sexualized images of younger and younger women with extreme, idealized, often digitally-altered bodies has less of an effect on children (both males and females) than their peers and parents?Tell that to my 9 year old niece who wanted to be just like Christine Aguillera.The images in the media, including porn and the light porn that passes for music videos and fashion photography these days, are influencing all of their peers, and their parents, too.As for studies, although I know this is a little bit of a stretch, it is documented that women show an increase in dpressed feelings and become more critical of themsselves after looking at the pictures in fashion magazines. I can only think that this could, at least partially, be the case when women view porn. I don't think that, at least WRT static images, many fashion magazines and porn are very different.http://www.hon.ch/News/HSN/509939.html"Researchers found that women who looked at advertisements featuring stereotypically thin and beautiful women showed more signs of depression and were more dissatisfied with their bodies after only one to three minutes of viewing the pictures.""In the study, Mintz cited previous research that asked adolescent girls what the ideal woman looked like. The girls said she's 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighs 100 pounds, is a size 5, and is blond and blue-eyed."And also:"Zillman & Bryant (1999)
— 160 male and female students and community members
— watched 6 hours of
nonviolent heterosexual pornography (exposure condition), or
sitcoms without sexual content (no exposure condition),
— and then filled out questionnaires about their personal
happiness, sexual attitudes, and behaviors.
— Results:
— After exposure to porn, participants:
were less satisfied with their intimate partners.
assigned greater importance to sex without emotional involvement.
Effects were confined to the sexual realm.
Effects were the same across genders and sample communities."[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-24-2004]

quote:

---

Schraf, the effects of sexually imagery on children has NOTHING to do with the issue of body dissatisfaction issues from ALL MEDIA. To compare the two is to make a very bad bait and switch to make a point on this topic.
There are NO studies that back up a claim that sexual imagery leads to negative (bigoted or angry) influences on people toward women. In fact, almost all show the EXACT OPPOSITE.

---

You don't think that women feeling dissatisfied with their bodies is a negative influence on women?And I'd love to see some studies which show greater positive feelings towards women (not in a sexual way) as a result of viewing sexualized images of women.However, I wasn't really meaning to conflate kids watching porn with what I ended up talking about. I know they are different topics.However, little children do end up seeing a lot very sexualized images of very young women in what could easily be considered soft porn on music videos, etc.What effet do you think this has, on both the girls and the boys?

quote:

---

If we want to address the impact mainstream media has on self-image, perhaps what we should be doing is making people realize that they are okay no matter what mainstream media presents, rather than slamming the media.

---

That's a bit like telling kids that it's up to them to make healthy food choices when the school has pop and candy vending machines everywhere and the cafeteria serves mostly tater tots and chicken nuggets.Are the schools not responsible at all for the food they serve?

quote:

---

The media are simply using imagery that is going to appeal to the greatest number of people according to their demographic analyses. Back in the past it was chubby women, then it went to stick thin women, then it went back to a more normal size, and now it is going back to kind of thin. So what? These are trends in media which go back and forth.

---

The marketing media is not just responsive. Successful advertizing creates a need where we didn't know we had one before we saw the ad. I'm in marketing and sales; believe me, I know this to be true.It's a two way street, here. The ad companies get demographic information, true, but they also work very hard to tell us what is beautiful and what is desireable so we will buy their mascara or their shampoo or their exercise machine.

quote:

---

Curiously, even if one were to be concerned by this topic, you also appear to have a view that women are the only ones "affected" by the lack of diversity in body imagery in the media. Men are equally shown to be overly attractive in mainstream media... otherwise they are "losers".

---

Men are most certainly allowed to be something other than model-like in mainstream media. All of the "sitcom dads" like Ray Romano and the male lead of "King of Queens" are more or less chubby, average looking, middle-aged guys who all have thin, beautiful actors playing their wives. Look at all of the male leads of "Friends". Only one was really good looking, and several of them were allowed to get chubby as time went on while the women got thinner. Look at "Seinfeld"; ALL of the men are homely, but the one female is drop dead stunning.Not a few male rap artists are incredibly overweight, but their videos show shapely women dripping off of them. Same with skinny male rock stars.

quote:

---

How about the "Average Joe" show that totally punked on any guy that wasn't a model? Damn it the whole "Queer eye for the Straight Guy" show is predicated on this belief!

---

Of course men are finally starting to feel a little bit of the heat of a unrealistic standard of physical beauty being imposed on them from the culture (they always had the height thing). The difference to me is the fact that you don't see anywhere near as many sexualized images of men's mostly nude bodies on the pages of 4 dozen different fashion magazines in the grocery store. Where is the male equivalent to Christine Aguillera and Brittany Spears in which a scantilly-clad buff young teenage boy is heavily marketed to 8 year old males to emulate?Queer Eye, as with most makeover shows (not the obscenely horrible surgical one) are not at all about making everyone think they need to look like a model. In fact, they seem to me to be the opposite. People go in thinking that because they don't look just like a model that they don't look good at all. The makeovers seem to show them that you don't have to look like a model to look really great.I'd also like to mention that there was a Queer Eye show about a man getting rid of his toupe, which is all about self-acceptance.

quote:

---

And there are plenty of men that do not enjoy the female body imagery found in mass media. It is attractive, but in a bland vaccuous way. This is why porn has become increasingly diversified with time. Men seek out many different "ideals" when it comes time to select imagery for masturbation... and in real life, for sexual partners.

---

Well, great, I'm glad to hear that.Does this mean that there has been a decrease in the number of breast augmentations in female porn workers? Just curious.

quote:

---

have you seen modern porn by the way?

---

What do you consider "modern"?Does Japanese porn count? What about internet porn viewing by mistake?

quote:

---

Modern porn (and its been growing this way for at least 15-20 years) includes all varieties of body types, and orientations.

---

OK, sure, there are niche markets for all sorts of interests (I've been to a video store in Japan where there were photographs, artwork and videos playing all over the place), but do you mean to tell me that if I were to walk into the average video store's adult section I wouldn't see 95% mass market, blonde, thin, tall, fake boobs, mainstream stuff?Just because there is more interesting porn, or more realistic depictions of bodies in some porn, doesn't mean that's what everybody is watching.

quote:

---

While I agree that what you have brought up is an issue that needs to be addressed, I believe:

​

1) empowering women internally to understand mass media is not where one should go to get one's perspective of self is more important than trying to blame the media...

---

but what if the media is partially to blame?[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-25-2004]

I don't have a ton of time, but I can respond to this message...Thanks for the summaries of the studies. I actually already pretty much buy into the idea that porn doesn't increase negative feelings of men towards women unless it's violent, and even then, men who are prone to violence are more affected than those who are not.I also note the interesting study regarding soft-core magazine availability and acceptance of feminist ideas in communities. It is only a correlational study, though.However, how does "no negative attitudes" equal "positive attitudes?"I also wonder if there are many studies of women, and if their self esteem or negative body image is affected by watching porn, or by viewing soft core magazine images, or whatever.I believe you when you say that there is a greater range of body types in porn than in magazine ads, and I think that's good.Oh, and you mentioned Japanese porn to be in a niche by itself, but that's not really accurate, at least according to what I saw when I was there.If you are a Japaneses man, and you have a fetish for gay one-armed dwarf hermaphrodites having sex on a trapeze, I am sure that there are videos fitting just your desire. and so on. It's really quite impressive.Kiddie porn is also more accepted there, and a lot of the artist depictions on the posters were very icky. Some of the highest-paid female porn workers there are those that are tiny and undeveloped enough to pass for little girls.Anyhow, the fetish market in Japan is staggering.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-25-2004]

quote:

---

Now if God did not want me to oogle then he should of gave me my own titties to oogle.

---

Actually, isn't it kind of an childish thing to be obsessed with the "Mommy parts"?Oogling women's hips or backsides seems to make a lot more sense to me.

quote:

---

I can't remember the doc I watched... I think it was on the science channel... but they discussed the nature of male oggling and female development. I guess the going theory is that breasts are generally formed in a way to mimic the same visual stimulation men get from women's asses (or is it vise versa?).

​

Breast cleavage and ass "cleavage" are two clefts bounded by luscious globular objects... all set to drive a man (and some women) to drooling.

---

Oh, yes, you are correct. I learned all about this in my Human Sexuality course in college all those years ago.

quote:

---

But to be honest, what in sexuality is anything greater than childlike behavior in either men or women?

---

Well, one thing that springs to mind is delayed gratification. That's fairly important to good sex most of the time and this skill is definitely NOT something common to children.Anoter is the concept of sharing and of thinking of others before oneself, both of which are related to delayed gratification. Those are concepts the little self-centered rugrats have to be taught, and so are not childish.

quote:

---

Isn't it kind of naive to think of your breasts
as 'mommy parts' ?

---

But they are mommy parts. They are the organs that produce milk to nourish offspring.In the West breasts are considered to be sexual, but in certain African cultures they are not considered sexual at all.

quote:

---

Added on a slightly more serious note:

​

I'm sure I read somewhere that some people think that
the reason for a focus on breasts in regards sexual attractiveness
is related to the ability of the lady in question to
nourish her young.

---

Perhaps, but I think that the idea that cleavage between the breasts mimics cleavege between the buttocks makes more sense.Might be mis-remembering that ....

quote:

---

That's a pretty convinient fiction, but it doesn't explain why the single largest group of porn consumers are couples.

---

Really, that's news to me.Do you have some statistics or a source to back up your couples claim?

That sounds reasonable.

That all sounds pretty reasonable to me.I do know that the consumers of internet porn are overwhelmingly male.

quote:

---

Studies have shown men prefer women with large breasts and good size hips.

---

As far as I know, it's actually that men universally prefer women that have a certain percentage difference between the waist measurement and hip measurement, with the waist measurement smaller than the hip no matter what the size of each.It is a western nation that men prefer big breasts, and as far as I know, they actually rate medium breasts as most attractive. In certain African cultures breasts are considered "mommy parts" and not particularly sexual.

quote:

---

Most guys really like girls and it is hard to think of treating them like "things", even in fantasy.

---

Um, actually, as a woman, I rather contest that.I think that a lot of boys like sex with girls, but don't actually like girls all that much.I mean, they have to get along with the girls in order to get the sex, but if they really liked girls so much, then prostitution, strip clubs and porn wouldn't be quite as popular, I don't think.I mean, all of these are fantasies, and many of the more mainstream (and thus most consumed) versions involve sex with and constant approval from a compliant parner who goes away when you want her to; no responsibility other than a financial transaction, no real relationship, no real consequences, no committment.Oh, and I also find it interesting that you use the word "girls" instead of "women", and "guys" instead of "boys".

quote:

---

As for degrading women through porn it is a subjective thing. There is nothing degrading if the woman likes what is happening.

---

Um, they are actors, paid to act like they are enjoying whatever the director tells them to do.Just because someone is acting like they are enjoying having their face ejaculated upon, for example, doesn't mean they do.It's their job to look like they do.What makes you think that all the people depicted in porn actually enjoy every single thing they are paid to do?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-28-2004 09:47 AM

quote:

---

All I can say is I feel very very sorry for you.

---

Don't. I actually generally get along with men very well, and most of my best friends have been men. OK, several of those best friends have been gay men.I've just had lots of experiences and made lots of observations over the years, from a very early age, that tend to lead me to believe that many males are bewildered, frightened, and threatened by females. Or, they feel like they have the right to threaten and tell females what to do. Or they feel like they have a right to sexually grope and touch a girl or woman just because they want to. In general, many men seem to be somewhat emotionally stunted or repressed and have a lot of discomfort and diffuculty with being emotional and emotionally connected.I have personally experienced or observed all of these things in my life, and so have most of my female friends and family members.By no means do I think this is the majority of men and boys, but it has always been present in my life. Very few of the rest of the perrfectly nice men or boys I have known has ever broken away from the crowd to protest any of this misogynistic behavior. They have participated in it less, but almost never spoke up against it.It's just a fact of life for most women I know.

quote:

---

Huh? If they liked girls, they would not find them attractive and want to have sex with them?

---

If they liked girls as people rather than just the object of their lust, maybe commercial, no commitment, no expectation sex wouldn't be quite as popular.

quote:

---

Just because boys like to play with their sexuality (which is what you were just referring to) does not mean that they don't enjoy being around girls for other reasons as well.

---

Of course. Good thing I never said they didn't.I just wonder how this glut of availability of unreal sexual experiences in which the girl does what you want, doesn't expect anything emotional of you, and then goes away when you tell her to does for the not insignificant group of boys who don't really like women as people.

quote:

---

And just because boys might like girls intellectually doesn't mean they are going to stop wanting sex with them.

---

Of course not. Good thing I didn't say that.

quote:

---

You are having a mind/body problem. This stems from a basic prudish stance. You view these issues as somehow superior/inferior to each other rather than just natural.

---

It's natural for boys to not like women?

quote:

---

I should add this also does not seem to make sense given the amount of gay/lesbian porn, strippers, and prostitution.

---

There is no gender issue in gay commercial sex work, is there?There is a long, long history of misogyny in this country which is still reflected in many aspects of our culture and daily lives. I'm not saying that all commercial sex is to blame for perpetuating it, but I just wonder how much the availability of commitment-free, relationship-free sex contributes to the idea that the main purpose of girls is for sex in the minds of that not-insignificant group of boys I mentioned above.While it may be true that boys use prostitutes, porn, and strippers to be playful, I wonder if it is also true that boys use these things because they are, as a result of our culture, emotionally repressed WRT interpersonal relationships, and therefore are uncomfortable with real intimacy and real relationships. They are raised to be less equipped to deal with all of the expectations of emotional participation their wives and girlfriends put upon them within these relationships, so they consume commercial sex simply because it is less scary and easier.In short, the reasons men use prostitutes, porn, and strippers are not always as simple, I don't think, as you make them out to be.

quote:

---

There are times and situations which make it impossible or undesirable for a person to have a partner in a deeply commited relationship magically appear for sex. This is what porn, stripclubs, and prostitution is about.

---

Um, what?What is a bachelor party if it isn't someone who is in a committed relationship; so committed that he is about to get married, going to use strippers, porn, or possibly a prostitute too, right before the ceremony?Are you saying that the people who use porn, stripclubs, and prostitutes are people who aren't in committed relationships?How many married men or men with long-term girlfriends visit prostitutes or the strip club on their way home from work, or are you saying that only single men without wives or girlfriends use these things?There are more than a few lonely, sex-starved wives because their husbands would rather look at porn on the internet than have sex with them. It's a growing problem.

quote:

---

Generally on sexual topics I always refer to males as boys or guys and females as girls, ladies, gals, and sometimes chicks. That's cause it's more playful sounding. In the context of this thread I have also used WOMEN.

---

You're absolutely right, my bad. I was taking the one post out of context.

quote:

---

That is faulty logic. Men go to strip clubs and prostitutes because they offer something that men can't obtain through traditional relationships, not because men don't want to have traditional relationships.

---

What, exactly, can't men get through traditional relationships that they can get in a strip club?

quote:

---

How does your conclusion support the fact that in many strip clubs you can find couples enjoying the entertainment?

---

Many? Really?

quote:

---

How does it support the fact that many patrons are married or involved in relationships with women?

---

Well, right. Real relationship stuff, real intimacy stuff is too difficult or scary for some men, so the stripper and prostitute is there.

quote:

---

Why would men bother with relationships at all if they were only interested in doing so for the purpose of having sex?

---

I didn't say "only". It's not that I am saying that some men really hate women but get married for the sex.I am saying that many men just don't "get" women and intimacy and aren't that interested in ever "getting" women and becoming more comfortable with intimacy in relationships, regardless of how many relationships they have or how long a relationship lasts.I am also making a connection between the many, many men who are uncomfortable with emotional intimacy and the popularity of emotional intimacy-free prostitutes, strippers, and porn.

quote:

---

They probably don't but who does like their job? I'm sure people working in a chocolate factory soon lose interest in chocolate.

---

Let me just remind you of what you said: I challenged your claim that the woman always actually likes what is happening in the scene, so it couldn't be degrading.Since these people are actors, you have no idea if they are liking any of it.The problem seems to be when people think, as you seemed to, that they wouldn't do it in a film if they didn't like it. Not true.

quote:

---

The point is the movie is portraying something that other people like. Some people enjoy having their face ejaculated upon.

---

How do you know?They are ACTING as if they do, but you have no idea if they really do.We know that men enjoy watching a woman's face being ejaculated upon, but that doesn't mean that the actress who is paid to look like she enjoys it does.

quote:

---

You and I may find it repulsive but others do not and that is the very point.

---

No, the point is that you cannot tell if an ACTOR in a porn film is actually enjoying what they are doing because they are paid to look like they are enjoying it.

quote:

---

Who are we to dictate to others what they are supposed to like?

---

I'm not. Your claim was that porn actors wouldn't do something in a porn movie unless they liked it, but that's not true.Porn actors are paid to LOOK like they are enjoying something, and unless you know the actors personally, you have no way of knowing if they actually like it or not.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-29-2004 08:49 AM