Testimony in Indianapolis: Porn Teaches, Arouses Violent Behavior in Abuse Cases

Indianapolis city officials heard testimony about peoples’ encounters
with porn at a hearing of the Indianapolis City-County Council
Adminstration Committee on April 14, 1984. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.281-282).

Testimony of T. V. , a counselor in Indianapolis

In ten years of counseling with men and women, I have had several incidents with clients where pornography played a great part in the violence that ensued in their lives… I am reminded of a case in particular in which a woman had been married for fourteen years, during the last ten years of which, pornographic literature had been a large part of her husband’s sexual arousement. He would look at the pornographic literature, then come to her, wake her up, beat her, then demand she perform acts depicted in the literature. There were times when this behavior was as violent as cutting her with a razor, slapping, hitting and kicking her, tying her to the end of the bed and requiring her to do demeaning sexual acts involving other people, as well as her mate. It may seem unusual that this woman stayed with this man, but those of us who have worked with women who have been involved [in] violent sexual encounters understand that fear becomes the main element in such a woman’s life that demeaning responses that she has had to give make her very fear filled and very much afraid to leave a relationship. There are always threats along with this, such as the “if you don’t do this, I will…” kind of thing… Another incident that recently came to my attention was a woman who came to me because she was to marry a man who had been a Viet Nam war veteran. She was quite terrified because this man had performed violent acts of sex with her. He told her that the only [way] he could be sexually active with her was to read pornographic material and get his anger up again. When his anger was up, through violence and pornographic material (books and other written material, not movies), then he could perform. Otherwise, he couldn’t. He would bring home pornographic literature, make her read it with him, then perform acts of violence…

The third incident that recently happened was a women who became a rape victim. Before the rapist involved himself, he put her through demeaning, sexual, violent actions, twisted her body in unbelievable shapes and tied her legs and hands together. He forced her to have sex with an animal. He marked X’s on her back, shaved her, then showed her pictures from pornographic magazines, all the time performing sex acts upon himself, then raped her… He laughed a great deal and pointed to the pictures, say[ing], “this is how it ought to be with women.” In another incident, a man said to me when I confronted him with his sexual behavior, that the only way to take care of a woman (which he learned through reading books in shopping centers and then throwing them away) is to beat her up one side and down the other, to make her get dressed up in black stockings and high heels… It is erroneous to think that pornographic literature is simply erotic. More than the sexual acts, it raises the level of violence in an individual.

See also:

Punishment Porn: “Whether-She-Wants-It-Or-Not” (explicit)
[T]o the delight of the frenzied mob of young & old fans who’d just love to see her so shamed, The Shadow…blows Angie’s plan by ambushing her from behind & dragging her right to the manly man who is ready, eager & more than able to turn her over his muscular thigh & give her saucy seat six good whacks that tame the fiery female & have her singing a totally different tune when she’s finally released & forced to apologize to all.”

Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)
“Because this babe has a submissive personality and a heart-shaped behind, she makes the perfect slave. Be that as it may, she got the notion into her pretty head that she wanted to play dom.

“Well, her man quickly disabused her of the idea that she could dominate him. He got rough, took away her leather paddle, threw her onto the bed and tied her into a series of strict positions.”

The Psychology of Porn for Men
Bill Margold, one of the industry’s longest-serving film performers, was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century. Margold made no attempt to gloss over the realities. “My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. So we come on a woman’s face or brutalise her sexually: we’re getting even for lost dreams…”

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