Welcome to NoPornNorthampton.org
NoPornNorthampton aims to increase awareness about the impact of porn on people and communities. We support the reasonable regulation of sexually oriented businesses in Northampton, Massachusetts and elsewhere. We ask businesspeople to balance profits with compassion. We do not advocate increasing government censorship of porn.
This site contains documentation that some people may find unpleasant. It is reproduced for the sole purpose of supporting NoPornNorthampton's arguments.
Welcome parents: Please see How to Talk about Porn with Your 11-Year-Old Son and the related video series, "Things You Didn't Know About Porn".
Porn is an important subject because the abuse of women and children is common in America, porn is a factor in this abuse, and porn is pervasive in our culture.
There are 500+ articles on this website--over half a million words of content--organized into categories (see our Category Archives below). Our critique of porn includes specific legal strategies that you can employ to reduce the risk of secondary effects (crime, blight, harassment) that can surround adult enterprises. Ultimately we hope to reduce the demand for porn by educating people about the impact it has on themselves and their relationships.
In Northampton, we are particularly concerned about Capital Video Corporation's porn shop at 135 King Street. This location is surrounded by homes, counseling centers and houses of worship. Capital Video calls itself "the largest adult retail chain in the nation." It sells violent, woman-hating pornography. It does business as Amazing.net, Amazing Express, Amazing Superstore, Amazing Video and Video Expo.
Current and prospective Capital Video/Amazing.net employees: Please see this overview of the issues.
Read about the adult-use zoning and signage (PDF) ordinances enacted in late 2006 by Northampton and our proposed viewing booth health regulations.
View 100 top anti-pornography videos and more as compiled by Anti-Pornography Activist Blog.
View Professor Gail Dines' March 2007 lecture on "Pornography and Pop Culture", which describes the increasingly harsh misuse of women in modern pornography, and how the people, money and values of porn have entwined with mainstream media and corporations. This 62-minute Google video (see our overview) is an excellent starting point for any discussion of feminism, media and porn. Our Frequently Asked Questions section (see below) addresses concerns that can arise, such as First Amendment issues.
To understand how narrow, violent, unloving and distorted porn's vision of sex generally is today, we encourage you to review this content analysis of 50 top selling porn films and these cartoons from Hustler, Playboy and Penthouse. Professor Diana Russell has also kindly permitted us to make her book, Against Pornography, available as a free PDF download. Dr. Russell presents the science and the raw material about porn so you can draw your own conclusions.
On this blog, we use the terms "adult business" and "sexually oriented business" interchangeably.
Widgets & Statistics
HiStats counts date from 5/12/07. The NoPornNorthampton website was launched in 2006.Syndicate
Technorati Etc.
NoPornNorthampton: Anti-Porn, Anti-Prostitution News and Strategies
CNN: "Adult services censored on Craigslist"
CNN reports today:
In an August 30 blog post, Criagslist CEO Jim Buckmaster responds to Amber Lyon's request for an interview:
In an August 28 blog post, Craig Newmark apparently believes that it's possible to distinguish between "legitimate versus illegitimate adult service ads".
Legal or illegal, prostitution is just plain bad for women, minors, and society as a whole.
See also:
CNN: "Sold on Craigslist: Critics say sex ad crackdown inadequate" (8/4/10)
The Rebecca Project: "Dear Craig" (6/4/10)
Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called "Daddy Day Care". All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock--and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.
YouTube Video: "The Rebecca Project"
Yahoo! News: "Craigslist faces new prostitution investigation" (5/4/10)
Springfield Republican: "Woman's murder in Boston hotel linked to Craigslist advertising of massage services" (4/16/09)
Attorneys General Press Craigslist about Ads for Prostitution and Other Illegal Activities (5/4/09)
“Craigslist is allowing advertisements for illegal activities like prostitution on its site,” Koster said. “It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal.
New York Times: "As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice"
Press Release: "Nevada Attorney General Masto Announces Ninth Circuit Court Decision Limiting Brothel Advertising" (3/11/10)
New Book - Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections
There is only one place in the US where brothels are legal, and that's Nevada... There are at least 20 legal brothels in business now...
The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave...
The rooms all have panic buttons, but many women told her that they had experienced violent and sexual abuse from the customers and pimps...
...[a] pimp told Farley matter-of-factly that many of the women working for him had histories of sexual abuse and mental ill-health. "Most," he said, "have been sexually abused as kids. Some are bipolar, some are schizophrenic."
...The women are expected to live in the brothels and to work 12- to 14-hour shifts...
Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women's earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel... One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: "After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are ... fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine...
More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution...
Meanwhile, illegal brothels are on the increase in Nevada, as they are in other parts of the world where brothels are legalised. Nevada's illegal prostitution industry is already nine times greater than the state's legal brothels. "Legalising this industry does not result in the closing down of illegal sex establishments," says Farley, "it merely gives them further permission to exist."
The Guardian, "Eradicate the oldest profession"
Those hoping to see the government support decriminalisation of brothels will be disappointed by the Home Office review, as will those advocating tolerance zones. Where such zones have been tried they have failed. One zone in Melbourne resulted in street prostitution increasing fourfold. In Amsterdam drug dealing, trafficking and violence towards the women and customers in the zone led to it being closed in 2003...
Escort Prostitution: A Response to Tom Vannah, Editor of the Valley Advocate (3/10/08)
We have asked the Advocate to drop ads for escort services and other commercial sex enterprises. Unfortunately, Mr. Vannah believes this is a matter of freedom of speech. Any compassion he might feel for people in the sex industry or the community at large is not as important.
Mr. Vannah concedes that "there is some percentage of people who are not willing participants in the sex industry", but believes that if the Advocate refuses to accept Massage/Escort ads, this will unacceptably crimp "artistic freedom". He mentions Mapplethorpe pictures as an example. How dropping ads for commercial sex enterprises will compel the Advocate to turn away Mapplethorpe pictures is not clear to us.
...the First Amendment does not transform an illegal activity into a legal or acceptable one. In Orlando, police investigators report that "We've never called anyone dealing with these ads who was not providing prostitution services." It is almost certainly the case that many, if not most of the Massage/Escort ads in the Advocate are promoting illegal businesses. How else can a person reasonably interpret an ad that promotes "FOREIGN FANTASIES...Everything Goes...InOut...GFE", where GFE means "girl friend experience"? (According to MSNBC, the full "girl friend experience" can entail "sex without condoms".)
Did the publisher of the Orlando Weekly claim that the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, which busted them for aiding prostitution, was motivated by the Weekly's past criticism of the MBI? Sure, and we didn't make that claim hard to find. We linked to a story about it in the "See Also" section of this post. The fact remains that the Orlando Weekly does appear to have aided and profited from prostitution. To complain about the motivation of the police is an attempt at distraction, as are Mr. Vannah's claims that we care more about attracting attention to ourselves than to the issue. There are many, many less stressful ways to attract attention to ourselves, ways that won't invite people to call us "fascists" and hope we leave town. We do this work because someone needs to care...
If we have failed to exercise "due diligence" or the "proper steps", as Mr. Vannah claims, we would be happy to know just what those steps are. We invited Mr. Vannah to dialogue with us privately last year. We received no response. There are over 45 articles in our Prostitution category. How much evidence does Mr. Vannah require before conceding the obvious, that the Advocate almost certainly abets and profits from prostitution, and that prostitution is a miserable and dangerous job for most women?
...While a few women may choose a life of prostitution in a truly voluntary fashion, the reality for most is a history of sexual and/or child abuse, separation from their family and/or country, and poverty. Addictions to drugs or alcohol are common. They are routinely lied to, coerced, abused, threatened, and blackmailed (e.g. 'I'll hurt your family back in the Ukraine if you don't cooperate').
When a "progressive" outlet like the Advocate runs ads for commercial sex enterprises, it not only publicizes them but legitimizes them. It also puts a big dent in the Advocate's moral authority. If the Advocate truly wants to be a friend to underdogs, it needs to side with them over callous profiteers.
Sweden's successful experience with combating prostitution is worth studying. Not only have they improved conditions for a badly oppressed group of women, their campaign has produced benefits in other areas. Quoting Marie De Santis, director of the Women's Justice Center/Centro de Justicia Para Mujeres, "Sweden's law enforcement community has found that the prostitution legislation benefits them in dealing with all sex crimes, particularly in enabling them to virtually wipe out the element of organized crime that plagues other countries where prostitution has been legalized or regulated."
Prostitution is not a "victimless" crime, nor should it be seen in isolation from other criminal activity. A business that cares about women and the community should not seek profits from prostitution. The only effective rebuttal Mr. Vannah could make is to prove to us that every Massage/Escort ad in the Advocate is for a legitimate, non-exploitative business. For all his heated rhetoric, this he does not do, nor do we think he can.
MSNBC Investigates Human Trafficking and Prostitution in the US; Valley Advocate Advertises "Foreign Fantasies" Where "Everything Goes"
Letter to Gazette: "Urges Valley Advocate to stop running escort ads"(11/7/09)
The Gazette writes of past suffering in its Oct. 26 editorial, "Slavery's unfinished story," but you can find present-day exploitation in the Gazette's sister publication - the Valley Advocate - and its massage/escort advertising section. Many of these ads appear to involve prostitution...
As reported by the Chicago Tribune in April 2008, a comprehensive 2004 mortality study, conducted by the American Journal of Epidemiology, shows that workplace homicide rates for women working in prostitution are 51 times that of the next most dangerous occupation for women (which is working in a liquor store) and the average age of death of the women studied was 34.
In one study, 75 percent of women in escort prostitution had attempted suicide and prostituted women comprised 15 percent of all completed suicides reported by hospitals...
Orlando Sentinel: "3 from Orlando Weekly's staff charged with aiding prostitution" (10/20/07)
MBI Director Bill Lutz said the unusual arrests had nothing to do with the newspaper's freedom of speech.
"I don't see a First Amendment issue here," Lutz said. "This is strictly an advertising company making money off of prostitution."
Prostitution: Factsheet on Human Rights Violations
Prostitution Research & Education: How Prostitution Works
Real sexual relationships are not hard to find. There are plenty of adults of both sexes who are willing to have sex if someone treats them well, and asks. But there lies the problem. Some people do not want an equal, sharing relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to ask. They like the power involved in buying a human being who can be made to do almost anything.
Another Victory for NOW-NYC: New York Magazine Drops Sex Ads
One would think that this would be exactly the kind of exploitation the [Village] Voice would revel in exposing. But because the Voice is free, it apparently needs the revenue brought in by, this week, 10 pages of these ads.
And so its press release yammers on about how our freedoms are "under attack by the Bush administration," and makes NOW sound like the Taliban, and finally trots out the same pathetic excuse New York once made: "If there is evidence that any advertiser in our pages engaged in...sex slavery..." Blah blah blah.
It's hard to be part of the solution, when you're part of the problem.
Adult services censored on Craigslist
Online classified service Craigslist's decision to censor its adult services section could be a model for other websites, a leader in the fight against prostitution ads said Saturday.
"This step is very much in the right direction," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who spearheaded a letter from 17 attorneys general who recently banded together to urge Craigslist to discontinue its adult services section...
"These prostitution ads enable human trafficking and assaults on women," said Blumenthal. "They are flagrant and rampant. Craigslist has lacked the wherewithal or will to effectively screen them out."
The section that usually reads "adult services" on Craigslist was replaced by the word "censored."
...In their letter, the attorneys general highlighted an open letter, which appeared as a Washington Post ad, in which two girls said they were sold for sex on Craigslist...
Earlier this month, [CNN's Amber] Lyon interviewed a woman named "Jessica" who sells sex on Craigslist. The woman said a Craigslist ad was "the fastest, quickest way you're for sure going to see somebody that day."
Click for the complete article
In an August 30 blog post, Criagslist CEO Jim Buckmaster responds to Amber Lyon's request for an interview:
I see you’ve now gotten around to requesting an interview with me or a company spokesperson, 90 days after you ambushed our namesake and founder, Craig Newmark, following his May 20th talk on veteran’s affairs and other issues unrelated to craigslist, at a conference in Washington.
You knew Craig was not in management or a company spokesperson, but setting CNN’s ethical code aside, you sidestepped company channels in favor of ambushing our semi-retired founder, complete with a misleading “set up” for your surprise questions. Now that CNN has aired your highly misleading piece dozens of times, mischaracterizing your stunt as a serious interview on this subject, and you’ve updated your “bio” to showcase this rare jewel of investigative journalism, you’re ready to try actually interviewing the company itself on this subject.
There is a class of “journalists” known for gratuitously trashing respected organizations and individuals, ignoring readily available facts in favor of rank sensationalism and self-promotion. They work for tabloid media. Your stunt has veteran news pros we know recoiling in journalistic horror, some of them chalking it up to a decline in CNN’s standards, which is unfortunate...
In an August 28 blog post, Craig Newmark apparently believes that it's possible to distinguish between "legitimate versus illegitimate adult service ads".
Legal or illegal, prostitution is just plain bad for women, minors, and society as a whole.
See also:
CNN: "Sold on Craigslist: Critics say sex ad crackdown inadequate" (8/4/10)
The Rebecca Project: "Dear Craig" (6/4/10)
Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called "Daddy Day Care". All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock--and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.
YouTube Video: "The Rebecca Project"
Yahoo! News: "Craigslist faces new prostitution investigation" (5/4/10)
Springfield Republican: "Woman's murder in Boston hotel linked to Craigslist advertising of massage services" (4/16/09)
Attorneys General Press Craigslist about Ads for Prostitution and Other Illegal Activities (5/4/09)
“Craigslist is allowing advertisements for illegal activities like prostitution on its site,” Koster said. “It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal.
New York Times: "As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice"
Press Release: "Nevada Attorney General Masto Announces Ninth Circuit Court Decision Limiting Brothel Advertising" (3/11/10)
New Book - Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections
There is only one place in the US where brothels are legal, and that's Nevada... There are at least 20 legal brothels in business now...
The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave...
The rooms all have panic buttons, but many women told her that they had experienced violent and sexual abuse from the customers and pimps...
...[a] pimp told Farley matter-of-factly that many of the women working for him had histories of sexual abuse and mental ill-health. "Most," he said, "have been sexually abused as kids. Some are bipolar, some are schizophrenic."
...The women are expected to live in the brothels and to work 12- to 14-hour shifts...
Farley found that the brothel owners typically pocket half of the women's earnings. Additionally, the women must pay tips and other fees to the staff of the brothel... One former Nevada brothel worker wrote on a website: "After your airline tickets, clothing, full-price drinks and other miscellaneous fees you leave with little. To top it off, you are ... fined for just about everything. Fall asleep on your 14-hour shift and get $100 [£50] fine...
More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution...
Meanwhile, illegal brothels are on the increase in Nevada, as they are in other parts of the world where brothels are legalised. Nevada's illegal prostitution industry is already nine times greater than the state's legal brothels. "Legalising this industry does not result in the closing down of illegal sex establishments," says Farley, "it merely gives them further permission to exist."
The Guardian, "Eradicate the oldest profession"
Those hoping to see the government support decriminalisation of brothels will be disappointed by the Home Office review, as will those advocating tolerance zones. Where such zones have been tried they have failed. One zone in Melbourne resulted in street prostitution increasing fourfold. In Amsterdam drug dealing, trafficking and violence towards the women and customers in the zone led to it being closed in 2003...
Escort Prostitution: A Response to Tom Vannah, Editor of the Valley Advocate (3/10/08)
We have asked the Advocate to drop ads for escort services and other commercial sex enterprises. Unfortunately, Mr. Vannah believes this is a matter of freedom of speech. Any compassion he might feel for people in the sex industry or the community at large is not as important.
Mr. Vannah concedes that "there is some percentage of people who are not willing participants in the sex industry", but believes that if the Advocate refuses to accept Massage/Escort ads, this will unacceptably crimp "artistic freedom". He mentions Mapplethorpe pictures as an example. How dropping ads for commercial sex enterprises will compel the Advocate to turn away Mapplethorpe pictures is not clear to us.
...the First Amendment does not transform an illegal activity into a legal or acceptable one. In Orlando, police investigators report that "We've never called anyone dealing with these ads who was not providing prostitution services." It is almost certainly the case that many, if not most of the Massage/Escort ads in the Advocate are promoting illegal businesses. How else can a person reasonably interpret an ad that promotes "FOREIGN FANTASIES...Everything Goes...InOut...GFE", where GFE means "girl friend experience"? (According to MSNBC, the full "girl friend experience" can entail "sex without condoms".)
Did the publisher of the Orlando Weekly claim that the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, which busted them for aiding prostitution, was motivated by the Weekly's past criticism of the MBI? Sure, and we didn't make that claim hard to find. We linked to a story about it in the "See Also" section of this post. The fact remains that the Orlando Weekly does appear to have aided and profited from prostitution. To complain about the motivation of the police is an attempt at distraction, as are Mr. Vannah's claims that we care more about attracting attention to ourselves than to the issue. There are many, many less stressful ways to attract attention to ourselves, ways that won't invite people to call us "fascists" and hope we leave town. We do this work because someone needs to care...
If we have failed to exercise "due diligence" or the "proper steps", as Mr. Vannah claims, we would be happy to know just what those steps are. We invited Mr. Vannah to dialogue with us privately last year. We received no response. There are over 45 articles in our Prostitution category. How much evidence does Mr. Vannah require before conceding the obvious, that the Advocate almost certainly abets and profits from prostitution, and that prostitution is a miserable and dangerous job for most women?
...While a few women may choose a life of prostitution in a truly voluntary fashion, the reality for most is a history of sexual and/or child abuse, separation from their family and/or country, and poverty. Addictions to drugs or alcohol are common. They are routinely lied to, coerced, abused, threatened, and blackmailed (e.g. 'I'll hurt your family back in the Ukraine if you don't cooperate').
When a "progressive" outlet like the Advocate runs ads for commercial sex enterprises, it not only publicizes them but legitimizes them. It also puts a big dent in the Advocate's moral authority. If the Advocate truly wants to be a friend to underdogs, it needs to side with them over callous profiteers.
Sweden's successful experience with combating prostitution is worth studying. Not only have they improved conditions for a badly oppressed group of women, their campaign has produced benefits in other areas. Quoting Marie De Santis, director of the Women's Justice Center/Centro de Justicia Para Mujeres, "Sweden's law enforcement community has found that the prostitution legislation benefits them in dealing with all sex crimes, particularly in enabling them to virtually wipe out the element of organized crime that plagues other countries where prostitution has been legalized or regulated."
Prostitution is not a "victimless" crime, nor should it be seen in isolation from other criminal activity. A business that cares about women and the community should not seek profits from prostitution. The only effective rebuttal Mr. Vannah could make is to prove to us that every Massage/Escort ad in the Advocate is for a legitimate, non-exploitative business. For all his heated rhetoric, this he does not do, nor do we think he can.
MSNBC Investigates Human Trafficking and Prostitution in the US; Valley Advocate Advertises "Foreign Fantasies" Where "Everything Goes"
Letter to Gazette: "Urges Valley Advocate to stop running escort ads"(11/7/09)
The Gazette writes of past suffering in its Oct. 26 editorial, "Slavery's unfinished story," but you can find present-day exploitation in the Gazette's sister publication - the Valley Advocate - and its massage/escort advertising section. Many of these ads appear to involve prostitution...
As reported by the Chicago Tribune in April 2008, a comprehensive 2004 mortality study, conducted by the American Journal of Epidemiology, shows that workplace homicide rates for women working in prostitution are 51 times that of the next most dangerous occupation for women (which is working in a liquor store) and the average age of death of the women studied was 34.
In one study, 75 percent of women in escort prostitution had attempted suicide and prostituted women comprised 15 percent of all completed suicides reported by hospitals...
Orlando Sentinel: "3 from Orlando Weekly's staff charged with aiding prostitution" (10/20/07)
MBI Director Bill Lutz said the unusual arrests had nothing to do with the newspaper's freedom of speech.
"I don't see a First Amendment issue here," Lutz said. "This is strictly an advertising company making money off of prostitution."
Prostitution: Factsheet on Human Rights Violations
Prostitution Research & Education: How Prostitution Works
Real sexual relationships are not hard to find. There are plenty of adults of both sexes who are willing to have sex if someone treats them well, and asks. But there lies the problem. Some people do not want an equal, sharing relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to ask. They like the power involved in buying a human being who can be made to do almost anything.
Another Victory for NOW-NYC: New York Magazine Drops Sex Ads
One would think that this would be exactly the kind of exploitation the [Village] Voice would revel in exposing. But because the Voice is free, it apparently needs the revenue brought in by, this week, 10 pages of these ads.
And so its press release yammers on about how our freedoms are "under attack by the Bush administration," and makes NOW sound like the Taliban, and finally trots out the same pathetic excuse New York once made: "If there is evidence that any advertiser in our pages engaged in...sex slavery..." Blah blah blah.
It's hard to be part of the solution, when you're part of the problem.
October 21-23: Anti-Pornography Conference at University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire Womyn's Club is organizing an anti-pornography conference this October. The conference will take place in Durham, NH and is free to all. See this website for more details.
We have asked ourselves: what does an effective community response to sexual violence look like?
When a community decides to come together to meet in the middle for an open dialogue, answers will begin to present themselves and problems will begin to be solved. This is why members of the Womyn’s Club are working tirelessly with Women’s Studies to ignite a positive, campus-wide conversation about the widespread prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses and in college culture.
The UNH Womyn’s Club is planning a feminist movement-building month for October of 2010.
We invite all community members to participate in the conference as well as other events, which will be free. The month’s events will be rooted in defining and stopping all forms of sexual violence. It is time for to create a forum that will provide UNH students, staff and faculty the opportunity to build a foundation of awareness and activism focused on ending sexual violence in a White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.
Along with the conference, throughout the month of October, there will be films, demonstrations, protests, Womyn’s Club meetings and gatherings for community building, networking and support. As well as various workshops, art projects with recycled/destroyed porn, seminars, movement building groups, and healing circles, all centered around spreading awareness and moving forward, as a community that doesn’t not accept violence.
Finalized speakers thus far:
See also:
Stop Porn Culture!
Website of Lierre Keith
CNN Interviews Gail Dines: "Has porn hijacked sexuality?" (7/28/10)
Dr. Gail Dines: "Pornography Debases Men, Women & Culture" - Video (6/25/10)
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Robert Jensen: Liberate Sex from Porn (explicit language)
The minute one begins to make such a critique, one can expect this response: Feminists who critique pornography are really just prudes at heart. Pornography’s opponents, we are told, are afraid of sex.
In one sense, that’s true. I am afraid of sex, of a certain kind. I’m afraid of much of the sex commonly presented in contemporary mass-marketed pornography. I am afraid of sex that is structured on a dynamic of domination and subordination. I am afraid of the sex in pornography that has become so routinely harsh that men typically cannot see the brutality of it thorough their erections and orgasms...
Hugo Schwyzer Reviews "Getting Off" by Robert Jensen
AlterNet Reviews Robert Jensen's Pornography and the End of Masculinity
What Porn Is: Selections from Mainstream Porn (explicit language)
Robert Jensen: When Examining Complex Social Phenomena, Scientific Method Has Limits; Listen to the Stories of the Victims (explicit language)
Pictures from The Clothesline Project at Smith College (11/8/09)
Childhood Spanking Linked to Coerced Sex and Risky Sex in Adulthood; Amazing.net Milks Pain for Profit (explicit)
Pain 25
Remember when your daddy would come home from work and beat the living shit out of you? Remember how your
flesh bruised and bled at the end of his belt? Some days you thought your worthless life was over. My how you
begged and cried. Good times. Damn good times. Well now you can relive those special moments. Take Pain #25
home today!
Herbert, Brooks and Osayande on Misogyny, Money and Power; Amazing.net's War on Women and Blacks (explicit)
Extreme Audition #6
What happens when you have a tiny little blonde walk into your studio? Well a lot of fun for Michael Kahn. This pretty little thing was in tears by the end of this video. She had no tolerance for pain and so it was great fun to beat her little ass.
Pain #26
Can you maintain ninety minutes of masochistic mayhem?! Watch today's most worthless degenerates line up for abuse and debasement. On the street. In private. Female pigs have been stripped of all dignity. Listen to their wretched screams. Watch their distorted pained faces. Then jerk off to the brutal inhumanity of it all!
Now on Sale at Amazing.net: The Swirlies (explicit)
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Pain In The Ass
The bitch has been naggin at you all fuckin day. Take out the garnage. Do the dirty fuckin dishes. Dont drink so much beer. Blah Blah Blah. Theres only so much a man can fuckin take so when its bed time make it your turn to be the major pain in her ass...
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Privacy and Consent (explicit)
Blame It On Daddy
Look what daddy made them do. These chicks are fucked up and they just can't get enough. Adopt these sluts today make them call you daddy and see what they won't do!
Testimony in Massachusetts: Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
Influence of Porn on Sex Practices: Dispatches from the Field (explicit language)
Testimony in Minneapolis: Role of Porn in Child Sexual Abuse; Pornographers Perpetuate, Profit from Dysfunction
Whether or not pornography is causative of real abuse practices, it is fully and profoundly supportive of them... Pornography "de-sensitizes" men to the real and gross violation of a human being involved...
What is key to the issue is that permission, societal permission, is at the core of real paternal child molestation; and at the core of most marital and stranger rape.
We have asked ourselves: what does an effective community response to sexual violence look like?
When a community decides to come together to meet in the middle for an open dialogue, answers will begin to present themselves and problems will begin to be solved. This is why members of the Womyn’s Club are working tirelessly with Women’s Studies to ignite a positive, campus-wide conversation about the widespread prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses and in college culture.
The UNH Womyn’s Club is planning a feminist movement-building month for October of 2010.
We invite all community members to participate in the conference as well as other events, which will be free. The month’s events will be rooted in defining and stopping all forms of sexual violence. It is time for to create a forum that will provide UNH students, staff and faculty the opportunity to build a foundation of awareness and activism focused on ending sexual violence in a White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.
Along with the conference, throughout the month of October, there will be films, demonstrations, protests, Womyn’s Club meetings and gatherings for community building, networking and support. As well as various workshops, art projects with recycled/destroyed porn, seminars, movement building groups, and healing circles, all centered around spreading awareness and moving forward, as a community that doesn’t not accept violence.
Finalized speakers thus far:
- Bob Jensen, is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. In his research, Jensen draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. Much of his work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men’s violence, and he also has addressed questions of race through a critique of white privilege and institutionalized racism.
- Lierre Keith, lives in California where she writes books, grows her own food, and dreams of revolution. She is also heavily involved with the Stop Porn Culture organization co-founded by Gail Dines.
- Gail Dines, is a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston (www.gaildines.com).
See also:
Stop Porn Culture!
Website of Lierre Keith
CNN Interviews Gail Dines: "Has porn hijacked sexuality?" (7/28/10)
Dr. Gail Dines: "Pornography Debases Men, Women & Culture" - Video (6/25/10)
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Robert Jensen: Liberate Sex from Porn (explicit language)
The minute one begins to make such a critique, one can expect this response: Feminists who critique pornography are really just prudes at heart. Pornography’s opponents, we are told, are afraid of sex.
In one sense, that’s true. I am afraid of sex, of a certain kind. I’m afraid of much of the sex commonly presented in contemporary mass-marketed pornography. I am afraid of sex that is structured on a dynamic of domination and subordination. I am afraid of the sex in pornography that has become so routinely harsh that men typically cannot see the brutality of it thorough their erections and orgasms...
Hugo Schwyzer Reviews "Getting Off" by Robert Jensen
AlterNet Reviews Robert Jensen's Pornography and the End of Masculinity
What Porn Is: Selections from Mainstream Porn (explicit language)
Robert Jensen: When Examining Complex Social Phenomena, Scientific Method Has Limits; Listen to the Stories of the Victims (explicit language)
Pictures from The Clothesline Project at Smith College (11/8/09)
Childhood Spanking Linked to Coerced Sex and Risky Sex in Adulthood; Amazing.net Milks Pain for Profit (explicit)
Pain 25
Remember when your daddy would come home from work and beat the living shit out of you? Remember how your
flesh bruised and bled at the end of his belt? Some days you thought your worthless life was over. My how you
begged and cried. Good times. Damn good times. Well now you can relive those special moments. Take Pain #25
home today!
Herbert, Brooks and Osayande on Misogyny, Money and Power; Amazing.net's War on Women and Blacks (explicit)
Extreme Audition #6
What happens when you have a tiny little blonde walk into your studio? Well a lot of fun for Michael Kahn. This pretty little thing was in tears by the end of this video. She had no tolerance for pain and so it was great fun to beat her little ass.
Pain #26
Can you maintain ninety minutes of masochistic mayhem?! Watch today's most worthless degenerates line up for abuse and debasement. On the street. In private. Female pigs have been stripped of all dignity. Listen to their wretched screams. Watch their distorted pained faces. Then jerk off to the brutal inhumanity of it all!
Now on Sale at Amazing.net: The Swirlies (explicit)
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Pain In The Ass
The bitch has been naggin at you all fuckin day. Take out the garnage. Do the dirty fuckin dishes. Dont drink so much beer. Blah Blah Blah. Theres only so much a man can fuckin take so when its bed time make it your turn to be the major pain in her ass...
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Privacy and Consent (explicit)
Blame It On Daddy
Look what daddy made them do. These chicks are fucked up and they just can't get enough. Adopt these sluts today make them call you daddy and see what they won't do!
Testimony in Massachusetts: Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
Influence of Porn on Sex Practices: Dispatches from the Field (explicit language)
Testimony in Minneapolis: Role of Porn in Child Sexual Abuse; Pornographers Perpetuate, Profit from Dysfunction
Whether or not pornography is causative of real abuse practices, it is fully and profoundly supportive of them... Pornography "de-sensitizes" men to the real and gross violation of a human being involved...
What is key to the issue is that permission, societal permission, is at the core of real paternal child molestation; and at the core of most marital and stranger rape.
Norma Hotaling Awards Announced
Global Centurion, a foundation which fights human trafficking by focusing on demand, announces the Norma Hotaling Awards. Download an award application form (PDF).
See also:
Media Watch: "Censored Truth"
"Other important steps are changing attitudes through education. Norma Hotaling’s school for johns is proving to help with part of that equation. The school allows first time offenders to remove the arrest from their record if they spend a day in school. These men pay approximately $500.00 to learn about the seriousness of second-offenses and sexually transmitted diseases. Most importantly, during the seminar former prostitutes tell them the truth about what it is like to be a prostitute. Out of 900 participants only three have since been arrested on similar charges. This school, which began in San Francisco, is being replicated in Toronto, Portland, Oregon and scores of other cities are considering joining them."
Dorchen Leidholdt, "Demand and the Debate"
...what most people refer to as “prostitution” is usually domestic trafficking. The bulk of the sex industry involves pimps and other sex industry entrepreneurs controlling women and girls, often by moving them from places in which they have family and friends into locations in which they have no systems of support. Movement is also essential because customers demand novelty. In the United States, for example, there are national and regional sex industry circuits in which prostituted women and girls are rotated among cities, ensuring customers variety and sex industry entrepreneurs control...
As Norma Hotaling has demonstrated in her work to educate and deter buyers and as the Swedish government has shown in arresting buyers, while demand is essential to sex industry success it also represents the weak link in the sex industry chain. Unlike prostituted women and girls, prostitution customers do have choices to make. And when they see that choosing to buy women devastates lives and threatens their own freedom and social standing, they make different choices...
Social Work Today: "Child sex trafficking - ravaged innocence" (9/1/06, emphasis added)
According to Norma Hotaling, executive director of San Francisco-based SAGE Project, brothels are routinely staffed with children aged 12 to 16, but customers can procure them as young as the age of 5. Improved air and road travel in developed countries eases the Western sex tourist passage into the most remote “brothel villages” of southeast Asia and Central America. There, aid workers have noted increasing demand for younger and younger girls. Staff reports are replete with instances of Japanese businessmen soliciting oral sex from girls as young as age 5 and engaging in intercourse with 10-year-olds.
“Remember,” Hotaling says, “this is a $52 billion worldwide annual industry run by organized crime. As demand increases for children, so too does the need for supply. It feeds on itself like a wildfire.
Hotaling cites a recent Frontline (National Public Radio) broadcast that identified the world’s four major receiving countries of trafficked women. “All have legalized prostitution,” she says. Noting that child sex workers are especially prized by customers, she contends that prostitution and pornography are quintessentially antichild, antiwoman, and antisociety.
Smith agrees. She says studies demonstrate a clear link between prostitution and pornography, and the demand for younger children. Her organization’s own investigation shows that children are featured in at least one in five online pornographic images.
Hunt Alternatives Fund: Demand Abolition
Demand Abolition supports the modern-day slavery movement by combating the demand for sex trafficking. By conducting and disseminating research, convening key stakeholders to share best practices, and educating policymakers, Demand Abolition catalyzes systemic social change to reflect the dignity of all people.
|
Three Awards in Commemoration of Norma Hotaling Norma Hotaling (1951-2008), founder of the SAGE, transcended homelessness, addiction and prostitution and transformed her suffering into an opportunity of hope for others. Trafficked into prostitution when she was a child, she was trapped in it for eighteen years. After she escaped, she was determined to create exit strategies for others like her. She spent the next eighteen years of her life creating a safe haven for victims of prostitution and sex trafficking. Calling attention to inequalities in the criminal justice system, she developed new policies and programs to focus on the demand side of sex trafficking. In commemoration of her passing we offer three awards which pay tribute to her legacy by recognizing individuals carrying on this important work. Together we can celebrate Norma and honor those who are carrying on her vision. The Norma Hotaling Awards
Eligibility Requirements
About the Awards Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award: The Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award shall be given to a person who has overcome hardship and life struggles similar to those of Norma Hotaling. Successful candidates will have demonstrated leadership in overcoming their own circumstances, while at the same time working to make a positive difference in the lives of others hurt by the commercial sex industry. Just like Norma Hotaling, nominees to this award must stand out for their commitment and dedication to helping victims become survivors. Demand-Reduction Award: The Demand Reduction Award shall be given to a person focused on eradicating demand.The ultimate success or failure of the effort to end sex slavery is contingent upon our ability to effectively reduce the demand for commercial sex. A key criterion for evaluating nominees for this award will be their ability to reach today's youth, especially young men and boys, to educate them about the harm caused by the commercial sex industry. Nominees to this award need to have a proven ability to reach young minds, and to affect cultural and attitudinal change. Nominees who have developed innovative ways to educate the general public as to how demand creates and fuels sex trafficking also will be given consideration. Josephine Butler Award: The Josephine Butler Award shall be given to a person working to change law and policy on sex trafficking. Josephine Butler (1826-1906), a British feminist and evangelical Christian, was ahead of her time in the fight to end commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.Concerned with ensuring the welfare of women and girls trafficked into sexual servitude, she spear-headed a twenty year campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts in England and other countries.The Acts were regressive laws that degraded and further exploited those already trapped in commercial sexual exploitation. Butler also worked to make the harm of sex trafficking visible. She is best known for founding the International Abolitionist Federation, an early international anti-slavery organization. Nominees to this award will have demonstrated an ability to affect change in law and policy that clearly advances the abolition of sex trafficking. Deadline to Apply Please send all nomination applications before October 1, 2010. Anyone can nominate, or self-nominate, by filling out an application.All applications are considered based on the eligibility and requirements of each award. Send applications to awards@globalcenturion.org. Click here to download the application form. Award recipients will be announced and notified on December 17, 2010 on the memorial day of Norma Hotaling's passing. |
See also:
Media Watch: "Censored Truth"
"Other important steps are changing attitudes through education. Norma Hotaling’s school for johns is proving to help with part of that equation. The school allows first time offenders to remove the arrest from their record if they spend a day in school. These men pay approximately $500.00 to learn about the seriousness of second-offenses and sexually transmitted diseases. Most importantly, during the seminar former prostitutes tell them the truth about what it is like to be a prostitute. Out of 900 participants only three have since been arrested on similar charges. This school, which began in San Francisco, is being replicated in Toronto, Portland, Oregon and scores of other cities are considering joining them."
Dorchen Leidholdt, "Demand and the Debate"
...what most people refer to as “prostitution” is usually domestic trafficking. The bulk of the sex industry involves pimps and other sex industry entrepreneurs controlling women and girls, often by moving them from places in which they have family and friends into locations in which they have no systems of support. Movement is also essential because customers demand novelty. In the United States, for example, there are national and regional sex industry circuits in which prostituted women and girls are rotated among cities, ensuring customers variety and sex industry entrepreneurs control...
As Norma Hotaling has demonstrated in her work to educate and deter buyers and as the Swedish government has shown in arresting buyers, while demand is essential to sex industry success it also represents the weak link in the sex industry chain. Unlike prostituted women and girls, prostitution customers do have choices to make. And when they see that choosing to buy women devastates lives and threatens their own freedom and social standing, they make different choices...
Social Work Today: "Child sex trafficking - ravaged innocence" (9/1/06, emphasis added)
According to Norma Hotaling, executive director of San Francisco-based SAGE Project, brothels are routinely staffed with children aged 12 to 16, but customers can procure them as young as the age of 5. Improved air and road travel in developed countries eases the Western sex tourist passage into the most remote “brothel villages” of southeast Asia and Central America. There, aid workers have noted increasing demand for younger and younger girls. Staff reports are replete with instances of Japanese businessmen soliciting oral sex from girls as young as age 5 and engaging in intercourse with 10-year-olds.
“Remember,” Hotaling says, “this is a $52 billion worldwide annual industry run by organized crime. As demand increases for children, so too does the need for supply. It feeds on itself like a wildfire.
Hotaling cites a recent Frontline (National Public Radio) broadcast that identified the world’s four major receiving countries of trafficked women. “All have legalized prostitution,” she says. Noting that child sex workers are especially prized by customers, she contends that prostitution and pornography are quintessentially antichild, antiwoman, and antisociety.
Smith agrees. She says studies demonstrate a clear link between prostitution and pornography, and the demand for younger children. Her organization’s own investigation shows that children are featured in at least one in five online pornographic images.
Hunt Alternatives Fund: Demand Abolition
Demand Abolition supports the modern-day slavery movement by combating the demand for sex trafficking. By conducting and disseminating research, convening key stakeholders to share best practices, and educating policymakers, Demand Abolition catalyzes systemic social change to reflect the dignity of all people.
CNN: "Sold on Craigslist: Critics say sex ad crackdown inadequate"
CNN today presses Craig Newmark on the "adult services" ads that throng Craigslist:
See also:
The Rebecca Project: "Dear Craig" (6/4/10)
Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called "Daddy Day Care". All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock--and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.
YouTube Video: "The Rebecca Project"
Yahoo! News: "Craigslist faces new prostitution investigation" (5/4/10)
Springfield Republican: "Woman's murder in Boston hotel linked to Craigslist advertising of massage services" (4/16/09)
Online Media Daily: "Craigslist Claims Fewer 'Erotic Services' Ads Due To New Listing Requirements, Defends Against Sheriff's Lawsuit"
New York Times: "7 Accused of Using Craigslist for Prostitution" (5/20/09)
Attorneys General Press Craigslist about Ads for Prostitution and Other Illegal Activities (5/4/09)
“Craigslist is allowing advertisements for illegal activities like prostitution on its site,” Koster said. “It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal.
New York Times: "As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice"
Sold on Craigslist: Critics say sex ad crackdown inadequate
"Most of the young women we've worked with who have been exploited online talk about Craigslist," said Andrea Powell of the anti-trafficking group The FAIR Fund. "Craigslist is like the Wal-Mart of online sex trafficking right now in this country."
...A 20-year-old identified only as "Jessica" works out of low-rent hotels on Washington's busy Interstate 95 corridor. She posts ads mid-morning for $10 and says she earns up to $250 from each man who answers and shows up. She told CNN her "man" -- her pimp -- was good to her, but that the vast majority of the females who post ads are run by pimps who force them to have sex with as many as a dozen men a day.
She said many of the prostitutes give everything they earn directly to the pimps. If they don't, they're beaten...
According to internet research firm the AIM Group, Craigslist this year is expected to earn a third of its revenue -- more than $36 million -- from its adult services section alone.
See also:
The Rebecca Project: "Dear Craig" (6/4/10)
Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called "Daddy Day Care". All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock--and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.
YouTube Video: "The Rebecca Project"
Yahoo! News: "Craigslist faces new prostitution investigation" (5/4/10)
Springfield Republican: "Woman's murder in Boston hotel linked to Craigslist advertising of massage services" (4/16/09)
Online Media Daily: "Craigslist Claims Fewer 'Erotic Services' Ads Due To New Listing Requirements, Defends Against Sheriff's Lawsuit"
New York Times: "7 Accused of Using Craigslist for Prostitution" (5/20/09)
Attorneys General Press Craigslist about Ads for Prostitution and Other Illegal Activities (5/4/09)
“Craigslist is allowing advertisements for illegal activities like prostitution on its site,” Koster said. “It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal.
New York Times: "As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice"
Video Series: How to Talk to Your Son About Porn
The good folks at Reuniting have kindly made a short video series available free to the public, "Things You Didn't Know About Porn". These videos are related to an earlier article reprinted at NoPornNorthampton, "How to Talk about Porn with Your 11-Year-Old Son".
See also:
Traffic Control: The People's War on Internet Porn
Average age of first exposure: 11
New Research Indicates That Significant Numbers Of Children As Young As 11 Are Engaging In Sexual Activity And That Dating Violence And Abuse Are Part Of Their Relationships
62% of tweens who have been in a relationship say they know friends who have been verbally abused (called stupid, worthless, ugly, etc) by a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)
Canada: Rural Teens Even More Likely to View Porn than Urban; Parents, Sex Ed Somewhat Oblivious to Childrens' Porn Viewing Habits
Young New Yorkers Talk about Porn's Effect on their Relationships (explicit language)
Over beers recently, a 26-year-old businessman friend shocked me by casually remarking, “Dude, all of my friends are so obsessed with Internet porn that they can’t sleep with their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars."
People on the Left and the Right Share Blame for the Sexual Miseducation of Americans
Testimony in Massachusetts: Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
"I say this to men over and over again. You might not go to pornography hating women, but you're sure as hell going to come away with that feeling. You get much more than you bargained for with pornography, and that's the problem with it. The other problem with pornography is it sexualizes the violence and degradation against women. And when you sexualize violence you render that violence invisible, because when men see that they can't step back and critique it... You are basically trying to have a rational conversation with an erection and it doesn't work."
A Review of Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
According to recent polls, 70% of men aged 18-24 visit a porn site in a typical month.
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Amazing.net is jealous of your human relationships.
It wants your attention and money for itself. With messages subtle or not, its movies encourage you to neglect and abuse your intimate partners, especially your female ones. If you must relate to another human, Amazing.net wants the experience to be exploitative, short and unstable, to better ensure your swift return to a porn-hungry state. These strategies appear to be working. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said Internet porn contributed to more than half of the divorce cases they handled.
The Creation of a Pornography Addiction
"In a majority of my cases, the earlier the exposure to pornography, the deeper the client's level of addiction. In most cases I see involvement with pornography starting between ages ten to fourteen... [C]hildren and teenagers are faced with sexual decisions before they fully understand the consequences of their own sexual behaviors."
Time to Explore the Links Between Porn, Testosterone, Sexual Behavior and Violence
From the introduction at Reuniting:
This is a three-part YouTube series we helped create, based on the audiobook, Things You Didn't Know About Porn.
It's an unsettling fact that by age 11 most boys have been subjected to pornographic images. Yet few materials on the subject address such a youthful audience. If you're a parent, it can be surprisingly difficult to find a good way to discuss pornography. You don't want your child to see sex as "forbidden" or "dirty", but no matter how sex-positive you are, you sense that porn isn't the best way to gain a sex education.
Scientifically based and non-religious, Things You Didn't Know About Porn describes some potential pitfalls of porn use in simple, easy to understand terms. It draws a parallel between junk food and porn, and explains why these activities have the potential to "train" the brain, and become unhealthy habits. This lets youngsters make more informed choices about all potentially addictive substances and activities.
See also:
Traffic Control: The People's War on Internet Porn
Average age of first exposure: 11
New Research Indicates That Significant Numbers Of Children As Young As 11 Are Engaging In Sexual Activity And That Dating Violence And Abuse Are Part Of Their Relationships
62% of tweens who have been in a relationship say they know friends who have been verbally abused (called stupid, worthless, ugly, etc) by a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)
Canada: Rural Teens Even More Likely to View Porn than Urban; Parents, Sex Ed Somewhat Oblivious to Childrens' Porn Viewing Habits
Young New Yorkers Talk about Porn's Effect on their Relationships (explicit language)
Over beers recently, a 26-year-old businessman friend shocked me by casually remarking, “Dude, all of my friends are so obsessed with Internet porn that they can’t sleep with their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars."
People on the Left and the Right Share Blame for the Sexual Miseducation of Americans
Testimony in Massachusetts: Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
"I say this to men over and over again. You might not go to pornography hating women, but you're sure as hell going to come away with that feeling. You get much more than you bargained for with pornography, and that's the problem with it. The other problem with pornography is it sexualizes the violence and degradation against women. And when you sexualize violence you render that violence invisible, because when men see that they can't step back and critique it... You are basically trying to have a rational conversation with an erection and it doesn't work."
A Review of Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
According to recent polls, 70% of men aged 18-24 visit a porn site in a typical month.
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Amazing.net is jealous of your human relationships.
It wants your attention and money for itself. With messages subtle or not, its movies encourage you to neglect and abuse your intimate partners, especially your female ones. If you must relate to another human, Amazing.net wants the experience to be exploitative, short and unstable, to better ensure your swift return to a porn-hungry state. These strategies appear to be working. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said Internet porn contributed to more than half of the divorce cases they handled.
The Creation of a Pornography Addiction
"In a majority of my cases, the earlier the exposure to pornography, the deeper the client's level of addiction. In most cases I see involvement with pornography starting between ages ten to fourteen... [C]hildren and teenagers are faced with sexual decisions before they fully understand the consequences of their own sexual behaviors."
Time to Explore the Links Between Porn, Testosterone, Sexual Behavior and Violence
CNN Interviews Gail Dines: "Has porn hijacked sexuality?"
CNN today interviews Professor Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Professor Dines is a founder of Stop Porn Culture!
See also:
Dr. Gail Dines: "Pornography Debases Men, Women & Culture" - Video (6/25/10)
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Gail Dines: "Penn, Porn and Me" (7/1/08)
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Amazing.net is jealous of your human relationships.
It wants your attention and money for itself. With messages subtle or not, its movies encourage you to neglect and abuse your intimate partners, especially your female ones. If you must relate to another human, Amazing.net wants the experience to be exploitative, short and unstable, to better ensure your swift return to a porn-hungry state. These strategies appear to be working. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said Internet porn contributed to more than half of the divorce cases they handled.
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
...according to data from the General Social Survey in 2000 (N = 531), people who report being happily married are 61 percent less likely to report using Internet pornography compared to those who also used the Internet and who had completed the General Social Survey in 2000...
Whitty (2003) also found that both men and women perceive online sexual activity as an act of betrayal that is as authentic and real as offline acts and that Internet pornography use correlated significantly with emotional infidelity (N = 1,117; 468 males and 649 females)...
Now on Sale at Amazing.net (explicit language)
Deviant Housewives
In this world nothing lasts forever and it looks like Kelly Erikson's husband Van needs some space. Kelly decides to invite all her friends going thru the same problems to stay and support each other. But all of Kelly's friends have an empty void in their lives they need filled and it's from a younger man!...
Darkside
David and Jennifer have a marriage on the rocks. In desperation they seek out a marriage counselor who proposes a revolutionary new method of therapy. David and Jennifer have free reign to cheat on each other for the next 24 hours. Their sexual inhibitions are set free and their fantasies fulfilled as they visit The Dark Side.
Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values; Women's Desire to Have Daughters Plummets
Pornography consumption had a most powerful effect on evaluations of the desirability and viability of marriage. Endorsement of marriage as an essential institution dropped from 60.0% in the control groups to 38.8% in the treatment groups...
A Review of Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
National Feminist Antipornography Movement
"As Jerome Tanner put it during a pornography directors’ roundtable discussion featured in Adult Video News, 'People just want it harder, harder, and harder, because like Ron said, what are you gonna do next?' Another director, Jules Jordan, was blunt about his task: '[O]ne of the things about today’s porn and the extreme market, the gonzo market, so many fans want to see so much more extreme stuff that I’m always trying to figure out ways to do something different. But it seems everybody wants to see a girl doing a d.p. [double penetration] now or a gangbang. For certain girls, that’s great, and I like to see that for certain people, but a lot of fans are becoming a lot more demanding about wanting to see the more extreme stuff. It’s definitely brought porn somewhere, but I don’t know where it’s headed from there.'
See also:
Dr. Gail Dines: "Pornography Debases Men, Women & Culture" - Video (6/25/10)
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Gail Dines: "Penn, Porn and Me" (7/1/08)
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Amazing.net is jealous of your human relationships.
It wants your attention and money for itself. With messages subtle or not, its movies encourage you to neglect and abuse your intimate partners, especially your female ones. If you must relate to another human, Amazing.net wants the experience to be exploitative, short and unstable, to better ensure your swift return to a porn-hungry state. These strategies appear to be working. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said Internet porn contributed to more than half of the divorce cases they handled.
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
...according to data from the General Social Survey in 2000 (N = 531), people who report being happily married are 61 percent less likely to report using Internet pornography compared to those who also used the Internet and who had completed the General Social Survey in 2000...
Whitty (2003) also found that both men and women perceive online sexual activity as an act of betrayal that is as authentic and real as offline acts and that Internet pornography use correlated significantly with emotional infidelity (N = 1,117; 468 males and 649 females)...
Now on Sale at Amazing.net (explicit language)
Deviant Housewives
In this world nothing lasts forever and it looks like Kelly Erikson's husband Van needs some space. Kelly decides to invite all her friends going thru the same problems to stay and support each other. But all of Kelly's friends have an empty void in their lives they need filled and it's from a younger man!...
Darkside
David and Jennifer have a marriage on the rocks. In desperation they seek out a marriage counselor who proposes a revolutionary new method of therapy. David and Jennifer have free reign to cheat on each other for the next 24 hours. Their sexual inhibitions are set free and their fantasies fulfilled as they visit The Dark Side.
Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values; Women's Desire to Have Daughters Plummets
Pornography consumption had a most powerful effect on evaluations of the desirability and viability of marriage. Endorsement of marriage as an essential institution dropped from 60.0% in the control groups to 38.8% in the treatment groups...
A Review of Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
National Feminist Antipornography Movement
"As Jerome Tanner put it during a pornography directors’ roundtable discussion featured in Adult Video News, 'People just want it harder, harder, and harder, because like Ron said, what are you gonna do next?' Another director, Jules Jordan, was blunt about his task: '[O]ne of the things about today’s porn and the extreme market, the gonzo market, so many fans want to see so much more extreme stuff that I’m always trying to figure out ways to do something different. But it seems everybody wants to see a girl doing a d.p. [double penetration] now or a gangbang. For certain girls, that’s great, and I like to see that for certain people, but a lot of fans are becoming a lot more demanding about wanting to see the more extreme stuff. It’s definitely brought porn somewhere, but I don’t know where it’s headed from there.'
Lambda Literary: "Discarded Teens: 'Kicked Out'"
It might claim otherwise, but the sex industry is no friend to the LGBT community. Lambda Literary writes in June:
See also:
New York Times: "For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival" (10/31/09)
Nearly a third of the children who flee or are kicked out of their homes each year engage in sex for food, drugs or a place to stay, according to a variety of studies published in academic and public health journals. But this kind of dangerous barter system can quickly escalate into more formalized prostitution, when money changes hands. And then, child welfare workers and police officials say, it becomes extremely difficult to help runaways escape the streets. Many become more entangled in abusive relationships, and the law begins to view them more as teenage criminals than under-age victims...
Escort Prostitution: A Response to Tom Vannah, Editor of the Valley Advocate
Mr. Vannah concedes that "there is some percentage of people who are not willing participants in the sex industry", but believes that if the Advocate refuses to accept Massage/Escort ads, this will unacceptably crimp "artistic freedom". He mentions Mapplethorpe pictures as an example. How dropping ads for commercial sex enterprises will compel the Advocate to turn away Mapplethorpe pictures is not clear to us...
News Roundup: Age of Entry into Prostitution Declining
Realities of Teen Prostitution Mock Notions of 'Sex Work', 'Sex-Positive', 'Freedom' and 'Empowerment'; Media Glamorizes Pimps
There’s a dirty secret in the LGBT community. One we rarely discuss, but one that affects thousands of queer teens every year: homelessness. According to a report by The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 26% of LGBTQ youth were kicked out of their homes when they came out. A disconcerting 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ...
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force says, “LGBTQ youth are three times more likely to participate in survival sex.” “Survival sex,” Lowrey explains, “is one strategy for survival involving the sex industry — either exchanging sexual acts for money or for food and shelter.” These teens’ barriers to health care access make HIV and STDs a particular challenge.
In “Framing Federal Policy to Benefit LGBTQ Homeless Youth,” Kicked Out contributor Richard Hooks Wayman addresses the simple steps adults can take to help curtail the epidemic of youth homelessness within the queer community:
There is a role for the LGBTQ community to play in ending youth homelessness—a role for advocacy, a role for sustained giving to youth services, and a role in reaching out and building relationships with vulnerable queer youth. LGBTQ adults can ensure that vulnerable, homeless youth are not assaulted in street environments and not recruited into the commercial sex industry through strip clubs and prostitution. LGBTQ adults have the opportunity to reflect on their own behaviors and consumption patterns by not supporting businesses or venues that encourage the sexual exploitation of youth through erotic dancing, escort services or prostitution.Click for the full article
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New York Times: "For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival" (10/31/09)
Nearly a third of the children who flee or are kicked out of their homes each year engage in sex for food, drugs or a place to stay, according to a variety of studies published in academic and public health journals. But this kind of dangerous barter system can quickly escalate into more formalized prostitution, when money changes hands. And then, child welfare workers and police officials say, it becomes extremely difficult to help runaways escape the streets. Many become more entangled in abusive relationships, and the law begins to view them more as teenage criminals than under-age victims...
Escort Prostitution: A Response to Tom Vannah, Editor of the Valley Advocate
Mr. Vannah concedes that "there is some percentage of people who are not willing participants in the sex industry", but believes that if the Advocate refuses to accept Massage/Escort ads, this will unacceptably crimp "artistic freedom". He mentions Mapplethorpe pictures as an example. How dropping ads for commercial sex enterprises will compel the Advocate to turn away Mapplethorpe pictures is not clear to us...
News Roundup: Age of Entry into Prostitution Declining
Realities of Teen Prostitution Mock Notions of 'Sex Work', 'Sex-Positive', 'Freedom' and 'Empowerment'; Media Glamorizes Pimps
Dr. Gail Dines: "Pornography Debases Men, Women & Culture" - Video
Dr. Gail Dines gives a 9-minute PornHarms.com briefing on "Pornography Debases Men, Women & Culture". Dr. Dines just published PORNLAND: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.
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Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Gail Dines is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at Wheelock College in Boston. For 20 years she has lectured across the country against pornography and sexist portrayals of women. A Google video (1 hr 2 min) is now available of the lecture she gave to a rapt audience at the Pornography and Pop Culture conference at Wheelock on March 24. This video describes the increasingly harsh misuse of women in modern pornography--such as in the emerging "ass-to-mouth" genre--and how the people, money and values of porn reach deep into mainstream media and corporations.
Gail Dines: "Penn, Porn and Me" (7/1/08)
Video Presentation: A Content Analysis of 50 of Today's Top Selling Porn Films (explicit language)
See also:
Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit)
Gail Dines is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at Wheelock College in Boston. For 20 years she has lectured across the country against pornography and sexist portrayals of women. A Google video (1 hr 2 min) is now available of the lecture she gave to a rapt audience at the Pornography and Pop Culture conference at Wheelock on March 24. This video describes the increasingly harsh misuse of women in modern pornography--such as in the emerging "ass-to-mouth" genre--and how the people, money and values of porn reach deep into mainstream media and corporations.
Gail Dines: "Penn, Porn and Me" (7/1/08)
Video Presentation: A Content Analysis of 50 of Today's Top Selling Porn Films (explicit language)
First Things: "The Weight of Smut"
In the June/July issue of First Things, Mary Eberstadt discusses the latest scientific and psychological research on porn addiction and its social costs. While we don't endorse this magazine's conservative stance on gender roles and gay issues, we found this article valuable.
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Porn Addiction Grows in the Face of Public Apathy
'Sexual addicts develop tolerance and will need more and harder kinds of pornographic material,' said Layden. 'They have escalating compulsive sexual behavior becoming more out of control and also experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop the use of the sexual material. This material is potent, addictive and permanently implanted in the brain.'
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
[In a meta-analysis of 46 studies published in various academic journals,] Oddone-Paolucci, Genuis, and Violato found that exposure to pornographic material puts one at increased risk for developing sexually deviant tendencies [e.g., excessive or ritualistic masturbation], committing sexual offenses, experiencing difficulties in one’s intimate relationships, and accepting rape myths. In terms of the degree of risk, the analysis revealed a 31 percent increase in the risk of sexual deviancy, a 22 percent increase in the risk of sexual perpetration, a 20 percent increase in the risk of experiencing negative intimate relationships, and a 31 percent increase in the risk of believing rape myths...
...By eroticizing behaviors and values that are destabilizing to marriage, family, and the social good (e.g., rape, incest, child abuse, and bestiality), pornography becomes a powerful means through which maladaptive sexual behavior is normalized and learned...
A Review of Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
One way porn affects people is to change their definition of normal sexuality. In a landmark 1980 study by University of Alabama communications professor Jennings Bryant and psychology professor Dolf Zillmann, 80 students at a large northeastern college were divided into four test groups with different levels of exposure to sexually explicit films over a six-week period. The porn films were far tamer than today's average material, only depicting consensual heterosexual acts with no violence; the other films the students watched had no sexual content. The more pornography the subjects had viewed over the six-week period, the more likely they were to greatly overestimate the number of Americans who practiced group sex, sadomasochism and bestiality. (pp.77-78)
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
I travel around the country and speak to college audiences, both male and female, and mixed audiences, and one thing I find over and over again, in frank discussions, is that pornography is extremely influential in the lives of young boys growing up today, and girls, but specifically I speak to guys. This blizzard of images of women in degrading and humiliating positions, guys just come to think of that as normal.
The Science Behind Pornography Addiction
Dr. Mary Anne Layden gave this testimony at a US Senate Science, Technology, and Space Hearing in 2004. Dr. Layden is Co-Director, Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania...
Pornography, by its very nature, is an equal opportunity toxin. It damages the viewer, the performer, and the spouses and the children of the viewers and the performers. It is toxic mis-education about sex and relationships. It is more toxic the more you consume, the “harder” the variety you consume and the younger and more vulnerable the consumer...
The Weight of Smut
As the impressively depressing cover story “America the Obese” in the May issue of The Atlantic serves to remind us all, the weight-gain epidemic in the United States and the rest of the West is indeed widespread, deleterious, and unhealthy--which is why it is so frequently remarked on, and an object of such universal public concern. But while we’re on the subject of bad habits that can turn unwitting kids into unhappy adults, how about that other epidemic out there that is far more likely to make their future lives miserable than carrying those extra pounds ever will? That would be the emerging social phenomenon of what can appropriately be called “sexual obesity”: the widespread gorging on pornographic imagery that is also deleterious and unhealthy, though far less remarked on than that other epidemic--and nowhere near an object of universal public concern. That complacency may now be changing. The term sexual obesity comes from Mary Ann Layden, a psychiatrist who runs the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She sees the victims of Internet-pornography consumption in her practice, day in and day out. She also knows what most do not: Quietly, patiently, and irrefutably, an empirical record of the harms of sexual obesity is being assembled piecemeal via the combined efforts of psychologists, sociologists, addiction specialists, psychiatrists, and other authorities.
Young people who have been exposed to pornography are more likely to have multiple lifetime sexual partners, more likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the last three months, more likely to have used alcohol or other substances at their last sexual encounter, and--no surprise here--more likely to have scored higher on a “sexual permissiveness” test. They are also more likely to have tried risky forms of sex. They are also more likely to engage in forced sex and more likely to be sexual offenders...
Click for the full article
See also:
Porn Addiction Grows in the Face of Public Apathy
'Sexual addicts develop tolerance and will need more and harder kinds of pornographic material,' said Layden. 'They have escalating compulsive sexual behavior becoming more out of control and also experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop the use of the sexual material. This material is potent, addictive and permanently implanted in the brain.'
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
[In a meta-analysis of 46 studies published in various academic journals,] Oddone-Paolucci, Genuis, and Violato found that exposure to pornographic material puts one at increased risk for developing sexually deviant tendencies [e.g., excessive or ritualistic masturbation], committing sexual offenses, experiencing difficulties in one’s intimate relationships, and accepting rape myths. In terms of the degree of risk, the analysis revealed a 31 percent increase in the risk of sexual deviancy, a 22 percent increase in the risk of sexual perpetration, a 20 percent increase in the risk of experiencing negative intimate relationships, and a 31 percent increase in the risk of believing rape myths...
...By eroticizing behaviors and values that are destabilizing to marriage, family, and the social good (e.g., rape, incest, child abuse, and bestiality), pornography becomes a powerful means through which maladaptive sexual behavior is normalized and learned...
A Review of Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
One way porn affects people is to change their definition of normal sexuality. In a landmark 1980 study by University of Alabama communications professor Jennings Bryant and psychology professor Dolf Zillmann, 80 students at a large northeastern college were divided into four test groups with different levels of exposure to sexually explicit films over a six-week period. The porn films were far tamer than today's average material, only depicting consensual heterosexual acts with no violence; the other films the students watched had no sexual content. The more pornography the subjects had viewed over the six-week period, the more likely they were to greatly overestimate the number of Americans who practiced group sex, sadomasochism and bestiality. (pp.77-78)
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
I travel around the country and speak to college audiences, both male and female, and mixed audiences, and one thing I find over and over again, in frank discussions, is that pornography is extremely influential in the lives of young boys growing up today, and girls, but specifically I speak to guys. This blizzard of images of women in degrading and humiliating positions, guys just come to think of that as normal.
The Science Behind Pornography Addiction
Dr. Mary Anne Layden gave this testimony at a US Senate Science, Technology, and Space Hearing in 2004. Dr. Layden is Co-Director, Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania...
Pornography, by its very nature, is an equal opportunity toxin. It damages the viewer, the performer, and the spouses and the children of the viewers and the performers. It is toxic mis-education about sex and relationships. It is more toxic the more you consume, the “harder” the variety you consume and the younger and more vulnerable the consumer...
The Rebecca Project: "Dear Craig"
The Rebecca Project For Human Rights appeals to Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster to close the Adult Services section of Craigslist. Download a high-resolution PDF of this letter. Learn more.
See also:
YouTube Video: "The Rebecca Project"
Yahoo! News: "Craigslist faces new prostitution investigation" (5/4/10)
The unfathomably popular online classifieds (and everything else) site Craigslist is back in the news, coming under fire in yet another state over its thinly veiled sex worker ads.
The state of Connecticut has subpoenaed the site to determine whether the site is profiting from prostitution advertisements, after the Advanced Interactive Media Group found that the company is on track to earn $36 million this year from advertising in its adult services section.
Springfield Republican: "Woman's murder in Boston hotel linked to Craigslist advertising of massage services" (4/16/09)
Online Media Daily: "Craigslist Claims Fewer 'Erotic Services' Ads Due To New Listing Requirements, Defends Against Sheriff's Lawsuit"
New York Times: "7 Accused of Using Craigslist for Prostitution" (5/20/09)
Attorneys General Press Craigslist about Ads for Prostitution and Other Illegal Activities (5/4/09)
“Craigslist is allowing advertisements for illegal activities like prostitution on its site,” Koster said. “It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal.
New York Times: "As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice"
See also:
YouTube Video: "The Rebecca Project"
Yahoo! News: "Craigslist faces new prostitution investigation" (5/4/10)
The unfathomably popular online classifieds (and everything else) site Craigslist is back in the news, coming under fire in yet another state over its thinly veiled sex worker ads.
The state of Connecticut has subpoenaed the site to determine whether the site is profiting from prostitution advertisements, after the Advanced Interactive Media Group found that the company is on track to earn $36 million this year from advertising in its adult services section.
Springfield Republican: "Woman's murder in Boston hotel linked to Craigslist advertising of massage services" (4/16/09)
Online Media Daily: "Craigslist Claims Fewer 'Erotic Services' Ads Due To New Listing Requirements, Defends Against Sheriff's Lawsuit"
New York Times: "7 Accused of Using Craigslist for Prostitution" (5/20/09)
Attorneys General Press Craigslist about Ads for Prostitution and Other Illegal Activities (5/4/09)
“Craigslist is allowing advertisements for illegal activities like prostitution on its site,” Koster said. “It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal.
New York Times: "As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice"