Van F. White was the first person of color ever elected to the city council of Minneapolis. He writes about his evolving views of porn in “Pornography and Pride”, published in Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.290-292)… I’m 59 years old, and I’ve known something about pornography for many years. When I was young, I worked […]
Anti-Pornographers Bookshelf
Male Attitudes about Rape Can Be Learned…and Unlearned
Male attitudes about rape are not bred in the bone. They can be learned and unlearned. Edward Donnerstein and Daniel Linz report their findings in “Mass Media, Sexual Violence, and Male Viewers: Current Theory and Research”, published in Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.219-232)… Aggressive pornography, as used here, refers to X-rated images of sexual coercion […]
Recommended Book: Local Regulation of Adult Businesses (2007 edition)
Those looking to draft local legislation regarding adult businesses should get a hold of Local Regulation of Adult Businesses (2007 edition), by Jules B. Gerard and Scott D. Bergthold. From the description: Provides detailed, up-to-date case law Focuses on the four main regulatory devices of obscenity, zoning, licensing, and nuisance control Examines recent United States […]
Pornography and Male Sexuality
Harry Brod explores what porn does to the male viewer in “Eros Thanatized: Pornography and Male Sexuality”. This essay appears in Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.190-206). The proper framework for discussion about the manufacture and distribution of pornography is neither sexual ethics nor civil liberties, but business ethics. Anti-pornography campaigns should be conceptualized not as […]
Porn’s “Verbatim” Accounts of the Pleasures of Child Sexual Abuse Don’t Square with Reality
Here is the reality of child sexual abuse as described by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: Child sexual abuse has been reported up to 80,000 times a year, but the number of unreported instances is far greater, because the children are afraid to tell anyone what has happened, and the legal procedure […]
Knowledge: The Antidote to Porn Addiction
Like an abusive relationship, porn is a closed system. A great deal is left out. Knowledge is repressed. Break out of this mental prison, writes David Mura, there are better ways to seek fulfillment. From “A Male Grief: Notes on Pornography and Addiction”, from Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.131-141)… In imposing abuse, the abuser attempts […]
Porn Addiction Not Fun; Porn’s Repressive Vision
Porn likes to present itself as the embodiment of fun and freedom. For many, the reality is the opposite. David Mura writes in “A Male Grief: Notes on Pornography and Addiction”, from Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.125-126)… The addiction to pornography is not fun. Underneath all the assertions of liberty and “healthy fun” lie the […]
Sexual Freedom and Sexual Justice
John Stoltenberg writes about “Pornography and Freedom” in Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.60-71)… The popular concept of sexual freedom in this country has never meant sexual justice. Sexual-freedom advocates have cast the issue only in terms of having sex that is free from suppression and restraint. Practically speaking, that has meant advocacy of sex that […]
Porn: One Rapist’s Story (explicit language)
An account from Men on Rape (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), reprinted in Men Confront Pornography (1990, p.43-49)… Regularly beaten by his stepmother and stepbrothers from the age of five, at thirteen [“Chuck”] ran away from home and began a life of drug addictions and crime. At twenty, after two painful years of marriage, […]
Academic Defenders of Porn Need to Engage with Reality (explicit language)
Gail Dines is a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boston, and a long-time anti-porn activist. She writes in Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (1998, p.163-166): I have met hundreds of women and men who have stories to tell about pornography and the devastating impact it has had on […]