Massachusetts legislators heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn at a hearing on March 16, 1992. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.381-382).
Testimony of L. B.
Once this videotape was on, he would make me submit to various sexual acts on the hardwood floors directly in front of a television set. Since we lived in an apartment building, he was very paranoid about neighbors finding out about what he was doing, so he always threatened to “fuck me up” if I so much as whimpered or made any sound above a whisper. Even though the sound on the pornographic tape was off, he continually sent me to the door of the room to make sure the keyhole was covered, the door locked, and/or barricaded, and to listen for anyone walking down the hall. Meanwhile I was to keep coming back to him to do whatever he wanted sexually. He wanted me to watch how the various women in the video performed oral sex on the men. And then he insisted that I do the same with him while he continued to watch that movie. If I didn’t go down on him far enough or hard enough, he would put his hands on my head and push it up and down, sometimes so hard that I thought I would faint. If I gagged or choked, he would pull me up by my hair, throw me back onto the floor, hit and kick me, and verbally abuse me, calling me “worthless,” “useless,” and “a waste of his time.” Then he would make me watch that video again, perform oral sex, and threaten to “break my jaw if I stopped.”
Then he would make me turn around, get down on my hands and knees, and he would force intercourse, both vaginal and anal. While he did this, he insisted that I watch that video from whatever position I was in, so that I could learn more. He would not let me get up or change positions, even if I was in terrible pain. He’d ask me which men in that video I liked and whether they were as big or as good as he. Well, I quickly learned to say yes, that he was even better, otherwise the sex would become even more forceful and painful. Again, if I did not perform adequately in any position, he would threaten to go out and find a whore who knew what she was doing, like the women in that video. He said continually that he wanted to turn me out, which meant turn me into a prostitute, and then we could make a pornographic movie too. But I had to keep watching that video in order to learn the skills and the techniques.
A number of times after watching the video, he actually took me to some filthy places, often crack houses, telling me that he felt that I was ready, that I was his whore, and that he knew men who would pay big bucks for me. But I had to do it right. I had to please them, or else he and I would be in danger. In hallways, in stairwells, in basements, and bathrooms of crack houses, in seedy hotels, in apartments where sometimes there were small children in cribs, my partner offered me like a prize to numerous men and women. He would force me to strip and seduce them, all the while coaching me, instructing me, talking to me as if from that video, even when he was having sex with other women in the same room. He once traded me for cocaine to a man who forced me to have sex with him at knifepoint. After all this, we went home to the video, that pornographic video, and the abuse continued. My partner pointed out to me what I didn’t do right, what I should have done, what I could have done much better. That video become my nightmare. Every time he made me turn it on, I became sick with fear for I knew that I was in for hours of verbal abuse, physical pain and sexual torture. And I was trapped. If I protested, if tried to leave, if I made but a sound, he would threaten to break every bone in my body and put me in the hospital. And sometimes I wished I had gone to the hospital, just to get away from that video.
See also:
Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)
At Bookends, a large porn shop in Enfield, we found more material that emphasized violence, domination, lack of consent, and manipulation of the victim:
“YEEOWWCH! STOP IT!!” I screamed and shot a hand back to protect my blazing behind. David’s failure to concede to my pleas or to say a word in reply scared me to death!…
“OUCH! Y-YES DAVID! AND I AM SORRY!! REALLY I AM!! OWWWW!”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be!… Maybe you’ll listen to me next time and not act like a spoiled brat… I love and respect you, Allison…but I won’t stand by and let you do something dangerous and stupid. Do you hear me?”…
Testimony in Minneapolis: With Growth of Porn, Rapists Show Less Remorse
[L]iterally hundreds of women have mentioned to me the anger and despair they feel when their husbands, lovers, or other male partners press upon them specific sexual acts which these men learned from pornographic materials–acts of bestiality, sodomy, “swinging”, forced group sex, etc. The men feel such pressure on women is acceptable because porn is acceptable, and pornography was the so-called “educational” source…
[T]he work of Dr. Natalie Shainess (psychiatrist of New York) and Dr. Frank Osanka [sic] (psychologist and child-abuse specialist, Chicago) show that convicted rapists who, even five to seven years ago, expressed remorse about their acts of violence, recently show no such remorse and often cite as a reason for their guiltlessness that “everyone knows women want to be raped; all the porn stuff proves that.”
Pornography Trains and Indoctrinates Prostitutes
In a study of 475 people in prostitution (including women, men, and the transgendered) from five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia)…92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately…
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
In 2004, researchers reported in Social Science Quarterly that “People who have engaged in paid sex (i.e. used prostitution) or had extramarital affairs were three times as likely to have used cyberporn than those who did not.”
Testimony in Minneapolis: Prostitutes and Porn (explicit language)
One of the very first commonalities we discovered as a group: we were all introduced to prostitution through pornography. There were no exceptions in our group, and we were all under eighteen.
Pornography was our textbook. We learned the tricks of the trade by men exposing us to pornography and us trying to mimic what we saw. I could not stress enough what a huge influence we feel this was. Somehow it was okay. These pictures were real men and women who appeared to be happy consenting adults, engaged in human sexuality…
Women were forced constantly to enact specific scenes that men had witnessed in pornography. They would direct women to copy postures and poses of things they had seen in magazines and then they would take their own pictures of the women…
I would also like to say that I’m petrified and scared for young women today. I believe the pornography that is published today is more brutal and dangerous than when I was involved. And because I understand clearly the direct relationship between the material and the abuse of women, I am very terrified of the consequences of what that means…