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 […]
Impact of Porn
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, […]
FACT Member Ellen Willis Agrees: Porn Represents a Backlash Against Women
Ellen Willis was a member of the Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force, a group critical of anti-porn feminists and associated with “sex-positive feminism”. Even so, Willis had this to say about porn: The aggressive proliferation of pornography is…a particularly obnoxious form of sexual backlash. The ubiquitous public display of dehumanized images of the female body is […]
Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)
The National Domestic Violence Hotline website describes the characteristics of domestic violence and abuse: WHAT IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE? Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or […]
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 […]
Feminists Confront Feminists Over Pornography
For a generation, there has been deep division within the feminist community about how to judge porn. Does it liberate women, or oppress them? Writing in Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (1998, p.9-35), Ann Russo strives to reconcile dreams of individual liberty with the realities of social and economic inequality. For anti-pornography feminist […]
Struggle Over “Love Shack” in Georgia; New City Adopts State-of-the-Art Adult-Use Ordinance
We are pleased to see another anti-porn blog initiated by citizens, this time the residents of Johns Creek, Georgia. Johns Creek is a newly incorporated city near Atlanta. At issue is a retail store called the “Love Shack”. Johns Creek has enacted ordinances regulating Sexually Oriented Businesses (SOBs), but Love Shack owner John Cornetta says […]
Some Porn Hard to Distinguish from Training for Pedophiles (explicit language)
Robert Jensen and Gail Dines discuss the weak boundaries between some legal pornography and depictions of pedophilia in “The Content of Mass-Marketed Pornography”, from Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (1998, p.87-89). A subgenre of pornography sexualizes differences in age. Because of strict laws banning child pornography, actual children are almost never used in […]