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Porn will destroy you It was inevitable that such depraved material would corrupt us

Sex is never a solo activity (IMDB)


December 22, 2021   10 mins

You watch porn to watch people doing things to other people. See that bitch or Milf or ebony vixen or tight little teen or Asian slut or BBW take it, and take it, and take it. The user is shielded by the screen, impenetrable, experiencing the safest kind of sex because they’re only vicariously involved. You don’t think — or rarely think — that porn could be doing something to you. Getting into you. Changing you into something that you weren’t before.

The acceptance of pornography as part of everyday life, available freely and constantly via our private devices, was based on a compact that should always have been obviously implausible: that the media you consume will not change you in any way. That you can log out after orgasm touched only by yourself. And that anodyne outcome was considered possible even when the material being consumed was the most depraved imaginable.

A 2003 column by David Aaronovitch probably conveys a lot of my own thoughts about the subject at the time. Worries about the number of men accessing images of child sexual abuse were, he wrote, a “panic”. Such material was obviously harmful to the children depicted in it and should be prohibited on that basis, but it would be a mistake to automatically classify those men as paedophiles. They might, he conjectured, “be motivated as much by a strange curiosity as by a desire for arousal or release”.

A line is quietly drawn here: on the one side you have the “genuine paedophiles” whose interest in sexual images of children reflects their authentic interest in sex with children, and on the other you have the “strangely curious” who will never present an in-person risk. Implicit is the idea that there is something essential and stable in the individual’s nature which controls their relationship to pornography. Your sexuality pre-exists and overrides your media exposure. In other words, nobody becomes a nonce because of the internet.

To think this way felt knowing, authoritative. The world was full of seamy horrors, but I was equal to comprehending them — and not liable to be shocked into overreaction. To recall that way of thinking now is to feel naive, unworldly. Exposure to extreme material reformulates desires, and desires can become actions.

Talking to the Guardian this year, Michael Sheath of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (a charity which aims to prevent potential child abusers from becoming actual ones) explained the relationship of cause and effect like this: “Of course most people can watch extreme porn and walk away, but I don’t see those people. What we are seeing on a daily basis is the conflation of easy access to hardcore and deviant pornography, and an interest in child molestation. The link is unambiguous.” There’s a consensus among professional organisations that lockdown has heightened the risks by intensifying immersion in online existence.

Why was this so hard to see coming? By the end of the twentieth century, society had reached a broad accommodation with pornography in its print and video forms. Even if you didn’t use it personally, you probably owed something to it in your everyday life: pornography had driven the adoption of VHS, cable TV and the internet. Its online iteration would be a revolution in convenience but nothing else. To be against it wasn’t just to be a miserable dried-up prude, it was to have turned away from everything modernity had to offer.

When Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, she put anti-porn feminists in the authoritarian camp, happily building bonfires of smut that would light the way for Gilead. The narrator Offred’s mother is one of the book burners, and she takes her daughter with her. In one of Offred’s memories, a friend of her mother’s gives her a magazine to add to the pyre:

“It had a pretty woman on it, with no clothes on, hanging from the ceiling by a chain wound around her hands. I looked at it with interest. It didn’t frighten me. I thought she was swinging, like Tarzan from a vine, on the TV.
“Don’t let her see it, said my mother. Here, she said to me, toss it in, quick.
“I threw the magazine into the flames. It riffled open in the wind of its burning; big flakes of paper came loose, sailed into the air, still on fire, parts of women’s bodies, turning to black ash in the air, before my eyes.”

In this scene, the symbolic violence to women is done not by porn, but by the destruction of porn. And Offred’s exposure to it does her no harm at all: she sees a woman bound for male pleasure, and imagines her as the hero of an adventure story. That resilience is a quiet and total riposte to her mother’s entire politics.

It seems strange to me now that a novelist should argue, effectively, that culture has no influence. And perhaps even stranger for a political writer to have believed it — someone whose life is spent in the work of persuasion, whose business is using words to change the way people think. But I believed it too. Twenty years ago, I thought that whatever the internet might do to porn, the porn would do nothing significant to us.

***

It’s hard to be a liberal. Free speech can be a dangerous thing. So can sex. Andrea Dworkin — one of the anti-porn feminists Offred’s mother would have read — understood that men use sex as a vehicle for domination precisely because they fear the vulnerability it engenders. As she wrote in her 1987 book Intercourse:

“Sexual intercourse is not intrinsically banal, though pop-culture magazines like Esquire and Cosmopolitan would suggest that it is. It is intense, often desperate. The internal landscape is violent upheaval, a wild and ultimately cruel disregard of human individuality, a brazen, high-strung wanting that is absolute and imperishable, not attached to personality, no respecter of boundaries; ending not in sexual climax but in a human tragedy of failed relationships, vengeful bitterness in an aftermath of sexual heat, personality corroded by too much endurance of undesired, habitual intercourse, conflict, a wearing away of vitality in the numbness finally of habit or compulsion or the loneliness of separation. The experience of fucking changes people, so that they are often lost to each other and slowly they are lost to human hope. The pain of having been exposed, so naked, leads to hiding, self-protection, building barricades, emotional and physical alienation or violent retaliation against anyone who gets too close.”

And she knew that exposure to pornography changes people too, because she had undergone it herself. Her analysis of the pornographic classic The Story of O, from her 1974 book Woman Hating, contains a brief but striking aside: “O is particularly compelling for me because I once believed it to be what its defenders claim — the mystical revelation of the true, eternal, and sacral destiny of women.” O’s sexual apotheosis comes when she asks her lover for permission to kill herself, finally becoming the nothing she was born to be.

The fact that Dworkin was speaking from experience when she spoke about porn is inconvenient for pornography’s defenders, whose usual defensive strategy is to say that anyone who criticises it must be speaking from fear and repression. Don’t like what you’ve seen? Then you simply haven’t seen enough. When the singer Billie Eilish described recently about how her consumption of porn from the age of eleven had, among other things, distorted her idea of what “normal” female genitals look like, one female adult performer responded with disappointment that the “vulva diversity” in porn was being overlooked.

But no one actually paying attention to what Eilish said could genuinely think her problems would be resolved by more porn. “I think it really destroyed my brain,” she explained. “I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn… I would just watch abusive BDSM… it led to problems where, you know, the first few times I had sex I was not saying no to things that were not good. And it’s because I thought that that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to.”

It’s something Eilish has talked about before, but one of the things that made it so impressive this time was where she said it: in an interview with Howard Stern. Throughout his career as a shock jock, Stern has proudly stood for the crassest in free speech. (A typical Stern stunt: in 2014, the blogger Perez Hilton fingered one of Stern’s male writers live on air.) Before the internet, he was one of the main forces in creating crossover stars from the adult industry. An invite onto his show was a way to break into the mainstream.

Not that his support necessarily translated into respect for those who worked in the industry. When the performer Sasha Grey (famous for her extreme BDSM scenes, in which she was choked, punched and slapped) accused Stern of being a “closet racist” in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2009, he didn’t just defend his own honour, he attacked hers: “What a genius… Please. Just tell me how much cock you can suck and how far you can swallow a hot dog.” But he liked porn, and helped create a society where porn was the norm.

And yet, confronted with Eilish’s story, his response was absolute agreement. “When I was little, the only thing you had was, like, a New York Times girdle ad… The first time I had sex, I had no clue what the fuck I was doing. There was a certain innocence about it. And I often say, if I had porn when I was a kid, I mean, I would run around spanking people thinking that this was what they would like.”

What he says here is a betrayal of the underlying fantasy of porn. Porn deals, of course, in many different fantasies — fantasies of what women are like and what men are like, different kinks and fetishes — but underlying all of that is a fantasy of inert sex. Sex that, however physically demanding, only reveals and does not change the people involved.

In the same interview in which she insulted Stern (an interview which was, it should be remembered, a shop window for her work and persona as much as a genuine revelation of herself), Grey delivered a perfect articulation of that fantasy. “I am a pervert,” she told the journalist, rejecting the idea that women enter porn because of trauma. “If I am working out any issues through porn, it’s anger at society for not being open about sex.” She claimed her interest in BDSM dated to her childhood — that what she showed in porn was her authentic, inherent self, and that whatever she did was in the service of her own desire to get off.

At least one person who had worked with her expressed scepticism about this. A producer quoted in the article said that he thought her “extreme presence” was a calculated means to raise her profile. Certainly, all the incentives aligned to make extremity work for her: as the “dirtiest girl in the world” (to quote the title of the Rolling Stone interview) she won mainstream attention and breakthrough roles, including the lead part in Steven Soderbergh’s movie The Girlfriend Experience.

Sex is not a solo activity, and her partner in this case was not another person but a whole industry. Whatever interests and inclinations she arrived with, only some of them were valuable enough to be encouraged.

***

Sometimes it seems there’s a conspiracy between the people who make porn and the people who don’t actually watch much porn to maintain the fiction of harmlessness. For the former, the idea of porn as a vast and effective subterranean propaganda network is a threat to their bottom line; for the latter, it’s a threat to their sense of security in the world. But the people who use it know otherwise, even if they don’t often admit it publicly.

The horror filmmaker David Cronenberg is not anyone’s idea of an anti-porn feminist, not least because his films are insistently, gruesomely pornographic. My favourite of them is Videodrome from 1982. It’s the story of a cable TV executive called Max Renn, played by James Woods, who is searching for something genuinely hardcore to give his small channel the competitive edge. When he stumbles across a scrambled broadcast called Videodrome which shows highly convincing scenes of women being bound, beaten and killed, he’s transfixed.

As Max tries to learn more about these strange films, he is warned that he’s messing with something dangerous: “It can programme you. It can play you like a video player,” murmurs one of the many shadowy people he meets. It contains coded signals that cause Max to hallucinate and, eventually, to undergo physical changes. In the film’s most disgusting, and brilliant, scene, a vaginal opening develops in Max’s abdomen into which a writhing, pulsating video cassette is inserted by one of the Videodrome operatives.

Whichever way you turn it, the symbolism of this is unambiguous when it comes to the politics of media consumption. You could neutralise it by arguing that it’s a satire on alarmism about the corrupting influence of media, but if the film is satirising anything it seems to be Max’s platitudinous justifications for the sex and violence he traffics in. He talks about “catharsis” and “outlets” and “providing a social good”; he ends up trapped helplessly in fantasies that leach into his real life.

Porn here isn’t just something you watch. It’s something that acts on the viewer, that transforms him in the most literal way. It’s a more sinister vision of what porn does than the one implied by Cronenberg’s contemporary and fellow Canadian Atwood in Handmaid’s; it is nearer by far to the analysis Dworkin puts forward. And, as with Dworkin, it’s born from a frank acquaintance with the complications of his own sexuality and the influences at work on it.

“I’m not Max,” Cronenberg stressed in the book Cronenberg on Cronenberg, but “that isn’t to say I haven’t noticed that I’m attracted to images of sexual violence, and wonder what that means about myself.” Videodrome is, obviously, about the institutional shifts of video and cable TV, not about the then-non-existent internet. But the way Max chances on Videodrome, rather than seeks it out, and the way it’s stripped of all marks of who made it and where it came from, makes it extraordinarily prescient about the way porn sites would reshape consumption.

Now extreme porn is so pervasive that whenever it’s implicated in some terrible crime, the easy way to dismiss the link is to say — well, everyone watches it, so there’s no significance if violent criminals do it too. This is a cop-out. Media does not exert influence absolutely or in the same way on everyone, but we accept that racist media can engender racism and sexist media can engender sexism. Why should an exemption be erected for erections?

“People who say ‘Revolution now’ and aren’t worried by it are foolish,” said Cronenberg (also in Cronenberg on Cronenberg). “The lesson of history — early, middle, late — is that revolution brings with it death, pain, anguish and disease: often nothing positive to replace what was destroyed.” We are two decades now into revolution in media that was also a revolution in sex, and there is no room left for naivety about what that means.

Before Wayne Couzens committed the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard this year, he watched extreme porn. While the double murderer and mortuary employee David Fuller was committing routine necrophilia against the corpses in his care, he was also recording his offences and adding them to a meticulously maintained library of the most horrific pornography, his trial heard this year.

And regular men choke regular women because they’ve seen it in porn, while regular women accept regular violence as sex, because that’s what they’ve learned to masturbate to. The desire, the fantasy and the act create a self-inciting feedback loop. In what Dworkin called the skinlessness of sex, participants are vulnerable, penetrable.

Whatever your sex is, porn can fuck you.


Sarah Ditum is a columnist, critic and feature writer.

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Bill Meadows
Bill Meadows
2 years ago

An excellent article, which resonates with me deeply.
I am a male, elder millennial who became immersed in the various porn “tubes” in my mid-teens; these websites proliferated online in the mid to late-aughts. I was overweight and shy in my adolescence so I was a late bloomer when it came to forming sexual relationships with women. When I was 19, I got in shape, grew more self-confident and began to date attractive women, but I quickly discovered I had a problem.
Whenever I was with an actual, live woman in flagrante, I couldn’t perform (think a saggy plant) . But whenever I was in front of my computer screen, watching a choice video, I was fine (think a turgid plant). This was obviously the source of much embarrassment, poisonous to forming lasting relationships, and which caused me to devolve into avoidant behaviour. I still cringe when I think back to all the quizzical, incredulous looks I got from expectant women when I bullshitted my way out of jumping into bed with them, or — having failed to abscond — I would end up acquitting myself poorly.
In my early twenties, I met a woman who was inclined to take things slowly due to her own experiences. We were already very close before we even tried to have sex. When I once more encountered my problem, she actually wanted to work through it with me. Bless her heart. We talked it out and I did some research and found the “NoFap” movement. I swore off porn and all self-gratification for 8 weeks. It worked. Now, 10 year later, I can happily say I’ve had many successful relationships – some more serious, and some more trifling.
However, even now when I find myself straying a little too often onto my online vice, I come to notice how it affects my sex life with my now wife. It is indeed a battle, and I can definitely say that porn has inflicted a net harm on my life. I cannot imagine what I might have been like had I been born even just 6 years later.

Last edited 2 years ago by Bill Meadows
David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

Whatever works for you. But do you have evidence that this is a common experience for other men? The majority of men?

Bill Meadows
Bill Meadows
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

I have no idea how common it is. I do recall that in the early 2010s, (when I was interested in the subject), there were websites dedicated to the issue, and several psychologists had reported emerging phenomenon of young men who had erectile dysfunction issues, without any underlying physical issue. I would imagine this issue afflicts a small minority of men, with prevalence skewing younger.

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

You could pay a pollster to ‘study’ it. They are extremely willing to produce whatever results you desire.

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

What if visual stimuli are not what floats your boat? Huge numbers of women think if you just look at them you will be immediately aroused. Not true for many, many men….

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Maybe not.. but I doubt very much if it ever helps! Porn, unlike eroticism is always crass, gross and above all booooring!!

Last edited 2 years ago by Liam O'Mahony
Penny Adrian
Penny Adrian
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Even if it “only”makes 20% of porn watchers impotent and “only” 1% more likely to act out violently, isn’t that a pretty serious public health issue???

Melanie Mabey
Melanie Mabey
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Jon Ronson said in a debate at the Oxford Union that erectile disfunction has gone up 1000% in 18 – 40 year olds since mass access to porn.

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
2 years ago
Reply to  Melanie Mabey

Why always say that ‘correlation equals causation’? There are plenty of other things which have changed the past 25 years: unhealthy diets, heavy drinking/drug taking; the feminisation of society abhorring natural healthy masculinity etc etc.
I wonder who would dare examine 14 years of feminised education on the virility of boys??

Leejon 0
Leejon 0
2 years ago
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

A valid point, but one that does not consider that women are people too.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

You might add “more minutes per day interacting with phones and computers than real physical people”.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jeff Cunningham
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

3 or 4 yeas ago I was listening to an interview with a barrister. The final question was what had been the biggest change he had witnesses in his 25 years at the bar.
His response was the growth in number of sexually/pornography related offences. According to the barrister, when he was starting out such offences were relatively few. However, at the time he was speaking the number of offences had grown to become a very substantial proportion of the work undertaken by the bar. Don’t quote me but I think he he said 25%

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

I think it is more common than you think. I have come across married wives who say their husbands cannot have sex with them and bring home piles of porn videos.

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

Too much pearl-clutching, Julie. Personal experience and anecdote expands and backs up intellectual argument.

Wilfred Davis
Wilfred Davis
2 years ago
Reply to  Judy Englander

It is true that personal experience and anecdote can be very useful in providing a concrete example in relation to an intellectual argument, in illustrating a point, and so on.

But I’m not sure that on this occasion there is any intellectual argument in the OP’s comment. It may be interesting, it may be germane to the article, but it remains an account of personal experience. Just that and no argument.

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
2 years ago
Reply to  Wilfred Davis

It’s a personal experience that backs up the argument in the article. He didn’t have to say more.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago
Reply to  Judy Englander

But sometimes on here it is used as a substitute for argument and evidence.
There are literally hundreds of unsupported beliefs about causality knocking about in peoples heads, many of them in complete contradiction. They tell you nothing, except perhaps that reason is a constant struggle against superstition.

Penny Adrian
Penny Adrian
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

There’s nothing reasonable about masturbating to images of women being harmed, then defending it as a form of liberation that couldn’t possibly have any impact on violence against women in society. It’s probably the most unreasonable argument anyone could make.

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
2 years ago
Reply to  Judy Englander

Yes, ask any pollster.

Bill Meadows
Bill Meadows
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

I am new here. I was not aware that commenters had to confine themselves to a particular style of writing. I don’t think my comment implicitly or explicitly argued for any position, or made any claims on the prevalence of the phenomenon. It was just a personal story I thought some might find interesting and insightful in light of the subject matter of Ms. Ditum’s essay.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

And I think it was interesting Bill. Some of the commenters here are very damning of anyone who doesn’t fit in their little behavioural boxes. Ignore ‘em!

Claire D
Claire D
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

Please don’t take any notice Bill. The only rules as far as I know are UnHerd’s comments policy, apart from that you say whatever you like. I thought your comment was valuable and interesting and so did at least 60 other people.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 years ago
Reply to  Claire D

I was one of those 60+ ppl.

Peter Dunn
Peter Dunn
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

And I for one, thank you for your comment David as it chimes fully with my own experience(I’m 74)

Pornography has the same chemical/physiological effect on the brain as heroin …changing neuro-pathways to get a shortcut to the dopamine stash.

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Dunn
Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

I appreciated Bill’s comment. I found it refreshingly open and honest. Would you perhaps care to tell us what your thoughts are on this topic? You strike me as a pretty intelligent person with many interesting things to say.

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

There are many reasons for ‘not performing with real women’. Many have zero to do with porn and much to do with serious, hateful sneering and bullying during the adolescent years by other boys. Generally along the lines of ‘your male tackle is so inferior that no woman could possibly ever be interested in you’….
Another is being in unfulfilling jobs/life situations – that leads to depression and the first thing to become ‘depressed’ is usually the male libido. It’s amazing how one’s interest in women is transformed by resigning from a hated work position and going to do something simple, enjoyable, a long way away from the people who were belittling you.
When I grew up, the internet did not exist. Pornography was not accessible to those embarrassed about walking into a newsagent and approaching ‘the top shelf’. X-rated films were only shown in cinemas or shady institutions after hours.
Conflating all sexual problems with watching porn may be true for some, but it is an infinitely more complex set of environmental factors that bring a totality of truth to the situation…..

Peter Dunn
Peter Dunn
2 years ago
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

There ARE different factors at work but instant access to unimaginable amounts of pornography much of it vile,will exacerbate ANY underlying conditions..its constant use can add full blown addiction to the top of the list.

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Dunn
John Allman
John Allman
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Meadows

I can happily say I’ve had many successful relationships”
If the “relationships” were “successful”, why were they “many” of them?

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago
Reply to  John Allman

Curious this comment is so downvoted. I liked the post of Mr Meadows but had this same thought.

Milos Bingles
Milos Bingles
2 years ago

The issue with porn is the same as drugs and alcohol. Whilst some people can consume drugs and alcohol with no real issues there is a minority that fall foul of engaging in their use. Without doubt porn affects the dopamatic system and causes addiction in certain individuals.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Milos Bingles

Agree, and another point I think is that even a generation ago, a reasonably sexually active man might have one partner a year for about 10 years before settling down, perhaps more or less. But he had seen probably 10 to 15 women naked, in person, over as many years. That’s probably about as much female nudity as the male consciousness has needed and been able to cope with these last 100,000 years. Until suddenly in the last 20, if he wants to see 100 women naked a day, he can do so. And so he gets jaded with that pretty quickly and soon needs to see 100 women being penetrated every single day. And he can, and he can do it on his phone while on the bus.
I think human brains are simply not wired for this. For 100,000 years the greatest delicacy in the human diet was probably honey, obtainable only rarely and at great cost in stings. If you had an unending, unlimited, painless supply, and you tried to live on it, I imagine it would harm you in much the same way.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Milos Bingles

I agree. Plenty of people watch or have watched porn without going down a rabbit hole. As long as there are two consenting adult human beings, I am OK with it. Anything criminal is off limits. And parents need to control the internet access of their children – in fact parents need to control their children.

David Simpson
David Simpson
2 years ago

Really cannot understand why someone down voted this !

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  David Simpson

Maybe they have undisciplined children….

David Smith
David Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  David Simpson

Probably because the major proposition promised to develop into an intriguing argument but quickly dissolve into a diatribe of man blaming cobblers – or perhaps your being ironic!?

Robin Lumley-Savile
Robin Lumley-Savile
2 years ago
Reply to  David Simpson

I have two issues with this. Firstly, it’s the statement that ‘anything criminal is off limits’. As if our moral compass is driven purely and unthinkingly by governments and politicians, and we have no agency in deciding what is ok or not ok ourselves.
Secondly, ‘parents need to control their children’. This is very old-school parenting. I would prefer a statement along the lines that ‘parents need to coach children to control themselves’.
Actually, thirdly, ‘plenty of people have watched porn without going down the rabbit hole’ is a vacuous and trite pseudo-truism.

Earl King
Earl King
2 years ago
Reply to  Milos Bingles

The exact point I made. However I wonder if the female participants are mentally unscathed? It would be more interesting if this author would have interviewed the Sasha Gray from 20 years ago….How is she doing, how is her self esteem. I do not think Porn is worth women hating themselves decades later.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
2 years ago
Reply to  Earl King

Well, the question is why do they hate themselves? Is it because they fear that they have done things they regret or because they are so negatively judged?

Probably a bit of both

Penny Adrian
Penny Adrian
2 years ago

Sadly, they tend to hate themselves BEFORE they get into porn. Self-loving and self-respecting young women tend to seek other types of work if it’s available to them. Too many people in porn have histories of abuse and mental illness. That’s why I seriously question whether any of it is truly “consensual” or just taking advantage of the vulnerable.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 years ago

This article’s great achievement is managing to be boring on a subject so inherently stimulating to the human brain.
It is badly written and rambling. It conflates all kinds of issues and in the end tells us nothing about porn.
The idea that online porn is damaging in itself is blended seemlessly into a rant against child pornography – a vital distinction is blurred between normal sexual arousal within the constraints of social norms and the abuse of children. If I meet a woman and we have a one-night-stand, does this lead me down a slippery slope to raping children?
The bankrupt logics continues with an almost surreal reference to Dworkin’s rant against sex itself – Dworkin is obviously a mentally ill woman incapable of normal sexual pleasure, hardly an authority on how we can consume erotica in a healthy fashion.
That brings us nicely to this absurd quote:
Before Wayne Couzens committed the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard this year, he watched extreme porn.”
Mr Couzens likely also played a few video games. He probably also had an unpleasant traffic encounter with some you-know-what who changed lanes too abruptly. Likely he also brushed his teeth.
But listen, perhaps the ready accessibility of online porn tips the socially isolated into further extremes – I’m willing to concede the possibility, indeed I clicked on the article in the hopes of learning something new.
But a real analysis would look at predominant trends in searches – are the main clicked-on headings getting more violent and extreme? I don’t see it from the porn sites I look at. If anything there seems to be less gross stuff like simulated rape and beatings and overly young looking girls, not to mention pee-pee and poo related content, which was big in the 90s when Hustler magazine was doing it in print.
The trends now seem to be more in the direction of older women, the ‘stepmom’ fantasy and the good old fashioned classics from the 80s and 90s – two pretty girls having a private moment. (But hey, maybe I’m wrong. I didn’t do much research ’cause guess what? I didn’t write a long-form article on the subject…)
Then a good analysis would look at incels, and consider that perhaps, just perhaps, ready access to porn provides them some relief in a world that is growing increasingly lonely and atomized – and NOT because of porn.
Then a good article would make some interesting connections to what is happening outside porn. The ‘pandemic’, sure, but what about other trends? Putnam’s ‘Bowling Alone’ was written two decades ago, yet it tells us something powerful about the loss of community in modern life. Maybe if we want men (and women?) to spend less time rubbing one out to the screen, and more time laughing and joking with real friends, we need to address some of those issues.
You wouldn’t know from this garbage article, which tells you a great deal about the ‘journalist’s’ state of mind, and nothing at all about what watching porn does to yours.

jim peden
jim peden
2 years ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

A lot of good points in your response. Research is ongoing and this TEDx talk by Gary Wilson – the Great Porn Experiment – covers some of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU
I’m afraid i was unable to get all the way through the original article as it seemed to be a hotch-potch of various opinions rather than an attempt to examine real evidence.

David McDowell
David McDowell
2 years ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Couzens was also married to an immigrant female but I notice that Ditum avoids correlating marriage to immigrant females with murderous inclinations.

Last edited 2 years ago by David McDowell
Dr Stephen Nightingale
Dr Stephen Nightingale
2 years ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Jolly good response.
Sex (absent violence) is not an intrinsic bad, but its portrayal by e.g. Hollywood is still treated with absolute prudery. This in contrast to their treatment of gun violence, which seems to be essential in practically every non-Disneyfied movie.
The sight of two people loving has got to be far more edifying than the sight of one person violently extinguishing another’s life. But Hollywood gives you endless explicit variations of the latter, and not, explicitly, any of the former.

Penny Adrian
Penny Adrian
2 years ago

We need to distinguish between erotica, which displays mutually pleasurable sex between equals, and porn, which is dehumanizing and violent.
I would love to see more erotic produced by an industry that protects its performers; but any amount of sexualized violence is too much. That truly can’t be helpful to anyone.

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
2 years ago
Reply to  Penny Adrian

Thing is, Penny, what is ‘dehumanizing and violent’ to you, might be titillating and erotic to women who are into BDSM.
I’ve talked with several female survivors of child abuse who are actually primarily sexually aroused as adults via BDSM (I’m not saying all are, I’m just saying I’ve come across half a dozen who are). In fact, for one, I wrote an April Fools’ joke giving her a ‘sexual contract’ concerning BDSM duties. I thought it was just a bit of a laugh, hoping to give her some amusing thoughts, but you know what she said to me: ‘No-one ever gave me a contract before’. I was astonished, because it wasn’t a way of courting her, it was just a joke between friends. But it taught me not to judge people by ‘my values’….she still reads it three years later.
It’s totally impossible for ‘normal prudes’ to conceive of what gives pleasure to those with more ‘exotic tastes’. Totally impossible.
There’s not a ‘if you become a monk, you will become a perfect human being’ scenario there. Making BDSM afficionados become ascetics is inhuman, cruel and unrealistic.
If you hate women engaging in rough sex, fine. But there are plenty for whom it is the only way they actually DO get aroused.
Just so you know, I am never aroused by the thought of hitting women….and I have never hit a woman in my life.

Peter Dunn
Peter Dunn
2 years ago

You’re kidding..not seen Caligula? Or any Cronenberg?

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago

Man, where have you been since the early 2000’s? That’s roughly when Hollywood entered the hydraulic era of sex wherein it was next to impossible to find a movie that didn’t have at least one pretty graphic sex scene usually within the first few minutes and often while the credits were still rolling. It came after the vomit era — remember that? Thankfully, they’ve moved on and now they are well into the urination, defecation and masterbation era of cinema.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
5 months ago

We only seem to like ‘bad news,’ maybe because it is out of the ordinary?

Peter Dunn
Peter Dunn
2 years ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Wow impressed with your indepth field studies..
Can you envisage your sister, wife ,aunty nay grandmother! taking part in your source material?

Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
2 years ago

The author has failed to address the other side of the porn coin. That is the “good” porn, the “virtuous porn”, the “liberating and empowering porn”. The porn consumed by women.  For example:

  • a book, I forget the name, that became a trilogy and is the fastest selling book in the history of books. Salman Rushdie said of it “I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published. It made Twilight look like War and Peace.”  The “story” tells of a young woman who voluntarily agrees to be tortured by a billionaire who is a jerk of the highest order and who uses his money and power to debauch inexperienced women. Apparently, this is very romantic and women can’t get enough of this reprehensible individual.  Unlike Harvey Weinstein our billionaire hero is very physically attractive.  This is a key plot point.  Movies have been made
  • a Netflix movie “365 Days” which has been wildly popular with the ladies. An Italian gangster kidnaps a Polish woman, tells her he will not release her for a year and that he is very certain that well before her release date she will fall in love with him. In this context “fall in love with him” means “have sex with him” which isn’t quite the same thing but never mind. He puts this proposition to the young lady while holding a firearm and looking very much like a fellow who is accustomed to using a firearm. I said, “this is an unusual courtship ritual.” My female viewing companion told me to be quiet as she was very engaged with ogling the protagonist. We learned earlier that our hero is an ethical gangster who does not allow his employees to engage in sex trafficking of children. He appears to maintain a strict sex trafficking policy of “minimum age of 18”. As with our billionaire above, he is very physically attractive and suffers from a condition which forces him to never wear a shirt. The viewing figures for this romance were off the charts. It wasn’t men who were watching. Except under duress, as I was.
  • the literary genre known as “Romance” has undergone a profound change in the last two decades. Take the time to peruse the eBooks available on Amazon and be prepared to encounter much extremely distasteful material. One novelette describes the plight of a young women whose father owns a plantation in the South during the era of slavery. She is shipwrecked on an island with a small group of male slaves owned by her father. What follows had me musing, “if a porn director set one of his films against this historical backdrop it would be considered very inappropriate.” But, as this is romantic literature for women, anything goes. Another example is “Tamed by the Sheik”, a very popular “romantic” series. What I have read of it had me angered at the ridiculous stereotyping of Arab society and Arab people. But I am the one with the problem as this material is not for me but for women. 

I am, as always, confused. 

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Scott

I got into a discussion about 50 Shades of Grey with some women on holiday at the height of the craze.

My contention was that it was dreadful – a “writing by numbers” exercise working it’s way through the common female fantasies.

Male protagonist; tall dark and handsome – check

Also stupendously wealthy and master of all he surveys- check

Nevertheless damaged and in need of saving (by female protagonist) – check

And so it goes on. The female protagonist was even the only 21 year old virgin in North America, to leave no fantasy stone unturned.

I was, of course, shouted down.

If men, as a class, can be criticised for an obsession with porn, women, as a class, came out very badly from 50 shades.

Last edited 2 years ago by Martin Bollis
Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Martin,
assuming you are a grown man you should have know better than to have attempted that discussion. What were you hoping to achieve?
If you want to see just how far beyond saving our womenfolk are there is a kindle series called “Love under two (female fantasy character).” Titles include “Love under two Cowboys…Doctors…Detectives”. It was one title that filled me with despair and told me just how detached from reality the readership is. “Love under two Accountants.” What? Accountants? If that is your thing Madam you have departed the realm of fantasy and arrived in the realm of insanity.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Scott

Marcus

Thank you for a wonderful response. I enjoyed the dryness and the brilliant invention of Love under Two Accountants

A google check has revealed the awful truth … it is a real book.

I now feel obliged to purchase this revelation, if only to see how the double entry ledger system is handled.

Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Martin,
I’m almost certain that no accounting terminology will appear in the book so you may be disappointed.
There is an acronym attached to a lot of this literature, “Guaranteed HEA”. HEA = Happy Ever After.
Romeo and Juliette would be profoundly improved if the author had been told by his promotor to give it an HEA and not go so dark.

Ron Bo
Ron Bo
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Saw a woman reading 50 shades of grey in dalaman airport Turkey. I told it was illegal to read such books in an Islamic country. Her face was a picture! How about fifty sheds of grey for men only? There is nothing like a good potting session.

Penny Adrian
Penny Adrian
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I agree. Please don’t judge all women by the 50 shades atrocity, and I won’t judge all men by the crappy porn they watch.

Fredrick Urbanelli
Fredrick Urbanelli
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Scott

There is also, at least in the US, a form of female empowerment known as the Lifetime Channel, a womens’ TV station. In the evenings, the programming consists almost entirely of slickly and cheaply produced stories about rapists, stalkers, brave mothers protecting their daughters from the relentless predations of males, the injustice and cruelty that females endure daily, and their courageous responses. Night after night, this is the rubbish that so many American women choose to feed themselves. Call it suffer-porn, maybe. It’s hilarious and grotesque at the same time.

Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
2 years ago

Fredrick, that is information of general interest and relevant to this discussion but from a personal standpoint I wish you had not made this known to me. I have a duty to investigate and corroborate your claims and I fear I will spend most of 2022 down this rabbit hole of degeneracy.

Ron Bo
Ron Bo
2 years ago

I find any program by David Attenborough to be animal porn.
I like to watch fluffy animals enjoying themselves in beautiful scenery but instead we have a running commentary on how the next animal is going to be disemboweled or worse. I also find his exhortations to lead a more green lifestyle
Irritating given the number of air miles he has used.

Last edited 2 years ago by Ron Bo
Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago

Didn’t England used to have the “penny dreadfuls”? Tabloids entirely devoted to rapists and murderers and entirely consumed by women?

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Scott

At least men are honest enough to see porn for what it is – and watch it for just about as long as it takes. Women read thousands of pages of this formulaic drivel.

Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Indeed. Not that I’ve ever watched porn but remember during the Golden Age when movies were made with plots and two hour running times? The industry responded to consumer demand and “casting” is about as much plot as you get today.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Scott

How fun! Thanks for bringing up the topic of erotic novellas. Watching spanish language TV exposes a obvious excess of female and male soft porn.

Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
2 years ago
Reply to  Hardee Hodges

Thanks you Hardee. I have a question. What is “male soft porn”? Isn’t all soft porn by definition “female soft porn”?

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Scott

That Scottish time travel series of books and films is pornographic in both the “good” and the “bad” senses and seems to be a female favorite. Can’t remember the female author. The protagonist was “Jamie” and the period she kept traveling back to was 18th century Scotland. Highlander series? Definitely some female rape fantasy stuff going on in those.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jeff Cunningham
Peter Kriens
Peter Kriens
2 years ago

It is kind of an unfair discussion is it? One of the major differences between men and women is how they get excited. Women by imagining a story and men making an image of the story.
All through the ages that wasn’t much of a problem. Men mostly behaved themselves in the private sphere where women mostly ruled. Now with the massive influx of women in the public sphere over the past 60 years, the natural inclination of women is to enforce their model/morals on the rest of us in the public sphere.
What women found in the public space is an area that has no natural immunity to their quite impressive powers. Men know that if disagreements run too high there is a physical fight, something that is impossible between a men and a woman; the environment will jump on the man regardless if he is right or wrong. Women can go full out against a male, a male must always be careful since the sympathy is rarely ever with him.
All through history women have been precious and men expandable. Surprisingly even more precious than children; all languages I know it is ‘first the women and children’. This has caused a metastasizing feminism to run wild because men did not know how to oppose when it went off the rails. The media employs thousands of feminist journalists that are tasked to find female victims, talk up women’s interests, and bad mouth men’s. There is not a single male journalists doing this for men. (And I The #metoo discussion was an example where women talked and men shut up. We’ve come so far that universities have worse sex ratio than ever but since boys are on the down side, our media yawns. And that is something that will harm the society a lot more then them watching porn.
Defending porn publicly is very hard since it is ‘not nice’, a bit like defending T. So instead we get journalists like this who can’t understand for the world why men enjoy watching naked women and use the worst trash & exploits they can find to make her point, unopposed. Which is quite sad since she clearly has not even the foggiest clue why millions of people watch it every day. It is the blind that is trying to lead us into the abyss.
Although it is funny how she tries to reason around the fact that she is the puritan matron here.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter Kriens

Some excellent points. We men are unable to enter the fray adequately equipped. The loss of higher education for males portens a poorer future.

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago

“And regular men choke regular women because they’ve seen it in p*rn, while regular women accept regular violence as s*x, because that’s what they’ve learned to mast*rb*te to.”

That last paragraph sums up a vision of a modern world that I, thankfully, know little of, but can see why it is true for a younger generation.

That same younger generation probably also think the whole sex act lasts seven hours, involves multiple org**ms for both parties, involves gymnastics rarely seen outside of the olympics, and finishes on a clim*x that could make the world spin backwards for muliple minutes.

How lucky for those of us born in the 60s when the naughtiest thing we had to build our fantasies on was page 3.

Last edited 2 years ago by Paul Smithson
Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

The analogy I have heard is that learning about sex through watching porn is like learning to drive by watching the movie franchise the Fast and the Furious. You do need to keep in mind that many young people watching porn haven’t had sex before and so they genuinely don’t realize how unrealistic it is.

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago
Reply to  Gunner Myrtle

Judging by dome of the driving round here I think your excellent analogy actually has a ring of truth to it.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

As a product of the past, I have no real idea what middle school kids watch. Apparently, they are much less interested in sex than in the past. Perhaps they follow what elders say and avoid such sites, but I doubt it. The decline in teen pregnancies suggest less interest which has many interpretations. I’d rather hear from professionals regarding viewing habits of the young, but they are likely only seeing disturbed youths.
This essay didn’t really address much. I am aware of considerable differences in the cultural content of erotic content particularly in odd Japanese censorship along with creative BD content related to knot tying as an art form stemming from ancient practices. Oddly, Japanese comics with near erotic content are openly consumed on transit. Remarkable that I still find all this curious to consider.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago

What we are seeing on a daily basis is the conflation of easy access to hardcore and deviant pornography, and an interest in child molestation. The link is unambiguous.

This is like the old “most heroin addicts have smoked cannabis: so cannabis causes heroin addiction argument”.
Child molesters have watched porn, before going on to molest children. Is this meant to be in any way surprising?
And what on Earth does “conflation” mean in this context. Does it mean “I’d like to say “cause” but the evidence doesn’t support it”?

michael stanwick
michael stanwick
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Nice analysis.

Hugh Marcus
Hugh Marcus
2 years ago

I’ve been wondering for a while now (as a 60yr old) how porn is still acceptable in a lot of circles. Contrast this with the rows about transgender issues. The vast bulk of porn is about a dominant male giving a female a good ‘seeing to’. Where are the protests about female subjugation?

On a serious note, I think we should be concerned about the easy access to porn by teenage boys. If we ignore this we’re storing up serious issues as these boys become men with distorted views of women & sex.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago
Reply to  Hugh Marcus

Hugh – if you look carefully, you’ll find that your tastes are also catered for.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Hugh Marcus

One of the problems the internet has created for the feminist view of porn is that it has blown apart the notion that it’s all created by exploitative men at the expense of female victims. Women are instead such willing, such numerous and such prolific creators of and performers in porn that it has become impossible to sell it – there’s so much excess supply that it’s free.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

There is a chapter in Susan Faludi’ book “Stiffed” about male porn stars which surprisingly finds them now reversed with respect to their female counterparts: both in terms of how much they are paid and the respect they get within the industry. It was both fascinating and sad.

AC Harper
AC Harper
2 years ago

Porn. Yes there is plenty of porn available. Yes some people are harmed during the production or consumption of porn. And yet there is an argument that (in Sweden for instance) an increase in the availability of porn is matched by a decrease in rape.
But like all things associated with porn there is little chance of rational debate. Typically it is women who will denigrate porn (for some good but not comprehensive reasons) and men who keep quiet for fear of being monstered.
No-one knows if porn is generally good or bad – but everybody has a firm opinion.

Josie Bowen
Josie Bowen
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

True. And I’m no different. I’ve always felt horror at the idea of porn. Sex to me is something not to be shared with anyone other than the performers. It’s disgusting in my view and the viewers can have unrealistic ideas about the actual sex act, which is beautiful if not used for profit.
The other thing is that I would not like to see my son or daughter or grandchildren or sisters or brothers performing the sex act on screen.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Josie Bowen

Something that disgusts you is a good guide to whether or not you personally should be involved with it. It is however not useful as a guide for anyone else.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Perhaps then the solution to the Swedish problem with Islamic immigrant sex crimes is to give them all accounts with pornhub.com?

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago

I thought the quote from Angela Dworkin was illuminating. If that really is how she sees sexual intercourse between two consenting adults then one understands better why extreme feminists hate men, themselves and everything that makes life worth living.

Interesting that the article makes no mention of the extensive research that’s been undertaken into the effects of violent video games.

Perhaps also apposite to mention one of the core aims of the woke left, as beautifully summed up by Carl Truman in his book The Triumph and Fall of the Modern Self.

”The oppressive nature of bourgeois society is built on repressive sexual codes that maintain the patriarchal nuclear family as the norm. As long as this state of affairs holds, there can be no true liberation, political or economic. Shattering sexual codes is therefore one of the principal emancipatory tasks of the political revolutionary.”

michael stanwick
michael stanwick
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Yes, Dworkin labels all men with that motivation. Quite incredible. Also incredible is that Ditum has let Dworkin’s gross prejudice stand, or is not aware of it, in her argument in the article.

Eddie Johnson
Eddie Johnson
2 years ago

Based on her previous articles, I suspect Ditum subscribes to Dworkin’s misandrist view of all men.

Brian Perry
Brian Perry
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Shattering sexual codes can also be a revelatory path for the gnostic mystic.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago

And she knew that exposure to pornography changes people too, because she had undergone it herself. 

No, no, no. Even the most healthy minded person’s individual experience does not provide evidence of this kind. But Dworkin was clearly a very troubled individual.
Like the author of this piece, Dworkin is claiming some sort of Damascene conversion. But whether this actually took place is very doubtful. It’s a trope to make her argument seem more convincing.
There should be a verb, “to Dworkin” – that is, instead of facing up to your own personal demons, you project them onto the world at large.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

That’s an excellent idea, and something for which we really do need a verb. Dworkin was lucky she didn’t live in 1930s Russia or Germany where the likeliest outlet for her hate would have been signing up to be a concentration camp guard. In the piece quoted she is clearly as mad as a bottle of crisps.

Bernard Davis
Bernard Davis
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Amazing how Dworkin and her views on sexuality are still being trotted out as if she had any authority. Even back in the 1980s she was recognised for her lunacy and extremism. Basically a neurotic Jewess of a familiar American type, and hideously ugly to boot.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Bernard Davis

I suspect your down votes here are purely for the gratuitous comment about her looks, which are irrelevant and not something she can do anything about.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  David Morley

The best criticism of Dworken I’ve seen was some of the published essays of Camille Paglia in the nineties.

michael stanwick
michael stanwick
2 years ago

I was taken by this statement; Andrea Dworkin … understood that men use sex as a vehicle for domination precisely because they fear the vulnerability it engenders. 
And in particular, this unqualified claim; Men use sex as a vehicle for domination. This implicates all men in having a negative, stigmatising, motivation for sex, when not all men do have that motivation. As such, Dworkin is making a negative generalisation about an entire group (men) based on its immutable characteristics (being adult and male). Calling out this blatant act of prejudice is therefore both valid and ethical.
I am surprised Ditum was not aware of Dworkin’s prejudice.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago

The Church has been warning about the dangers of pornography for decades. It’s nice to see the world finally catching up. Once people start to admit this, maybe we can then begin to move past the utter bilge that sex training in schools is necessary because it is absolutely inevitable that teenagers will be at it as soon as they’re physically able. Instead, maybe we can start to admit that most teenage pregnancies are the result of the training regimes.

Last edited 2 years ago by Francis MacGabhann
Milos Bingles
Milos Bingles
2 years ago

I’m not sure sex education in schools equates to porn. Sex education is a much-needed part of the education system. I learned about contraception at school and how to have safe sex during the AIDS epidemic.
I would suggest that sex education is vital in counteracting and addressing the unrealistic depiction of sex in porn.

Last edited 2 years ago by Milos Bingles
Claire D
Claire D
2 years ago

I have known several teenage girls who became pregnant, three back in the 1970s and two in the early 2000s. I can assure you the ‘sex education’ we received in the 1970s was more about our periods and childbirth than sexual intercourse, and yet some girls were pregnant and even went on to have their babies before they were 16 yrs old. In fact their ‘falling’ like that was part of the argument for becoming much more specific about the sex act in ‘sex education’, in the hope it would prevent it from happening so much.
From my experience and observation underage girls get pregnant because parents are incautious or absent, because society approves of sex as a playful and exciting pastime, but disapproves of unexpected babies which result from the fun. I would say that is both mad and decadent.
Access to porn may well encourage sexual activity but I don’t think teenage pregnancies can be blamed on it.

Last edited 2 years ago by Claire D
Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Reply to  Claire D

I agree with most of what you’ve said. I’m saying that porn and teenage pregnancy are symptoms of the same disorder, not that one grows from the other.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago

‘Teenagers will be at it’ anyway but at the same time you appear to disapprove of sex education!

If teenagers are going to have sex, and they will, it is rather better that they have a good understanding of avoiding STIs and pregnancy. I’m perfectly happy that this be extended to put sex into the context of relationships.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

On re-reading my post, I can see how you’ve misunderstood me. I’m saying that the idea that teenagers will be at it as soon as they’re physically able — which has been the justification for detailed sex education in schools — is bilge. They’re doing it because they’re being trained to do it. It’s almost like they’re actually EXPECTED to do it.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago

The song WAP comes to mind. Many teen girls seem to think they must perform, if I understand it. But education has taught them to avoid certain acts in favor of others that may be normalized. My teen children are now having grandkids so I’m not in a position to really know.

Bernard Davis
Bernard Davis
2 years ago

Being “at it” as soon as one is physically equipped to do “it” is in fact Nature’s way of normal heterosexual reproduction across all species. You can fight or deny Nature if you want to, for whatever reason, but there is generally a price to pay.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

The Church has been warning about the dangers of pornography for decades. 

The trouble is, it’s also been warning against failing to bury your poo (Deuteronomy 23:12-14), swearing oaths (Matthew 5:34-37), having long hair (1 Corinthians 11:14), being healthy, wealthy or well-fed (Luke 6:20-26), resisting evil and standing up to criminals (Matthew 5:39), saving for a rainy day (Matthew 6:19), and washing your hands before a meal (Luke 11:37-38).
So all this works against paying much attention to anything the Church comes out with. A stopped clock, etc.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Do we really need to go through the difference between moral and ceremonial commands again?

Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Citing esoteric sections of the Bible is not the same thing as looking at the teachings of the Church. Francis M is right

David Simpson
David Simpson
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew D

How about the teachings of Jesus? He said two things, that I can immediately recall – one, on the woman about to be stoned for adultery, ie let him/her/they who is without sin caste the first stone . . . And two, when man and woman become one flesh, let no one divide them. And that was pretty much it.

philip.phare
philip.phare
2 years ago
Reply to  David Simpson

Jesus also said “Whoever looks at a woman (not his wife) with lust is guilty of adultery.” That alone is sufficient to damn the entire porn industry including movies magazines and internet sites.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Porn is a dangerous form of addiction. Canadian blogger Henry Makow says the porn is actually a form of masturbation because it neutralizes a person’s desire to physically engage in healthy sexual relations. It perversely emasculates and sterilizes a society. In this sense it is similar to any drug that destroys a person’s ability to live a meaningful life as part of a healthy society.

It’s also well known that the Israeli and American militaries utilize porn when they invade another country in order to demoralize the population. The US did this heavily in Iraq following the 2003 invasion in order to destroy the sexual modesty of traditional Muslim culture. This is a technique the Israelis apparently utilize on the West Bank and other areas in which they meddle seeking to undermine authentic Muslim culture and to destroy those societies’ dignity self-respect and Imagio Dei. http://www.mevashir.home.blog

Last edited 2 years ago by philip.phare
Bernard Davis
Bernard Davis
2 years ago
Reply to  philip.phare

I don’t know much about the Israelis (apart from the fact that their soldiers enjoy defecating in the bedrooms of those they invade) but I do know that the vast amount of porn that accompanies American invasions is intended for the use of their own troops, not the locals. You should have seen the flea markets of Saigon back in 1968.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew D

“esoteric sections of the Bible”? Seriously? The gospels of Luke and Matthew?

Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Perhaps I expressed myself badly. The point is that the sections you cited concerned matters which are – in the main, not all of them – relatively trivial. The corroding effects of p o r n receive no mention in scripture, and the Church has had to formulate a view. This is that p o r n ‘consists in removing real or simulated s e x u a l acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties… It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants, since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2454).
Now you may choose to disagree with any or all of this, but it hardly comes into the same category as burying your poo or having long hair!

Brian Perry
Brian Perry
2 years ago

It’s unfortunate that the Church didn’t put out some warnings about paederastic priests, whose victims haven’t had a very compassionate reception by the same Church.

Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago
Reply to  Brian Perry

Sadly true. The Church has suffered a catastrophic collapse of moral authority on account of abuse (and its response to same)

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew D
Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Reply to  Brian Perry

Yes, nearly as unfortunate as the fact that the overwhelming majority of clerical abuse victims are boys, not girls. It’s almost as though something other than the mere wearing of a clerical collar was causing it…

Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago

Yes, they’re ephebophiles in the main, not paederasts

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago

I do consider that porn has a societal influence. If you’ve ever seen that rather yucky programme ‘Naked Attraction’ you will notice that the majority of contestants have shaved off all their pubic hair. That is ultimately because of the aesthetic influence of porn, although in that case perhaps it is not particularly harmful.

However the fact that Ditum cites approvingly the ideological fanatic Andrea Dworkin detracts enormously from her arguments. Dworkin clearly argues that all heterosexual sex – not just porn – is tantamount to rape and assault, which is a ludicrous and grotesque proposition.

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago

A beautifully-written article, which makes various points that try to slowly nudge the reader towards thinking of porn as a dangerous entity.
And indeed, this can be true. However, the article misses some of the most important points and thus grandly conflates cause and effect.
First of all, it’s not that violent porn necessarily makes people violent – but it’s absolutely certain that violent people are drawn to violent porn. What’s true is that it opens doors that should have stayed closed, and that it gives young people a wrong idea of what sex actually is or should be. But then again, how else would they learn about it? Our society doesn’t like to openly talk about sex, but at the same time it is shown in ads, “social” media, movies, series, gossip, everywhere. Wherever you look, somebody seems to be having intercourse, and they’re enjoying it a lot, and it makes them very happy and fulfilled. Except that they don’t, and it doesn’t. My point being, our society is highly sexualized even without porn; the moving pictures are often only the tip of the iceberg. Sex sells, and a consumerist society is all about selling stuff.

Then there is a second matter, about which unfortunately I can speak from experience. And this matter is that it has become incredibly hard for an average, young man to find a mate. This has been caused in part by “social” media and a contemporary culture that is hyperfocused on looks and material success. Now with COVID, almost all of dating has moved into the digital space. While it was traditionally women who would be judged by their looks, this now vastly pertains to men. This is simply due to the purely visual nature of online dating, and the choosing position that women inhabit in this environment. At the same time, young women can fulfill their desires for attention and appreciation via Instagram, and they are helped by filters that can turn an average girl into a model. Other apps like Tinder serve to get them meaningless one night stands with only the most attractive of men. You would not believe the stories I have heard from women themselves. Either way, the average-looking man is not romantically needed any longer.
In the end, I am certain that porn consumption can have deleterious effects on one’s psyche. At the same time, even as an unfrequent porn user myself, I believe that, in a shallow and hypersexualized society, it would be wrong to take porn away from young men. For many, it’s literally the last little bit of sexual enjoyment they have left, besides paying for a professional.

Red Reynard
Red Reynard
2 years ago

Oh, dear Lord, not this old hack again!
I’m just going to c&p a previous comment I made;
Whilst, I have no problem with erotica/porn per se, I do understand the very real damage that violently abusive acts between non-consensual individuals can have. However, this trope of violent sexual imagery, constantly trotted out by those who see desires as squalid is far from the norm – yes you can find it, if you search for it; as you can bomb-making guides. However, the vast majority of erotica/porn normally accessible is of consensual people engaging in a wide variety of acts. How do I know this – I hear you ask; because I have three grandsons to whom I provide a ‘safe-space’ for discussion – some of which make my toes curl, to be honest.
“Watching porn has been linked to a multitude of problems for individuals and wider society – but for every study maligning it, another clears its name. Often, evidence is mixed, and the research methods and sample sizes of studies have their limitations. It’s a tricky area to research – but until the answers are more definitive, the evidence so far suggests that the likelihood that porn has a negative effect very much depends on the individual consuming it.” (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170926-is-porn-harmful-the-evidence-the-myths-and-the-unknowns)
Next time you are tempted to reach for a nice glass of wine, Sarah, remember that many a mad-axe-murderer has liked a tipple – you never know what your glass of Chablis will lead too, eh. *rolls eyes* ffs

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Red Reynard

I have also noticed this constant conflation of violent with nonviolent porn. It’s a bad, i.e. weak argument. I’ve been looking for the more interesting arguments against the effects of nonviolent porn (which modern movies are frequently on the edge of).

David McDowell
David McDowell
2 years ago

So what? Porn is no more deserving of banning than alcohol or motor cars.
At the heart of this and other outbursts from the feminisers is desire to control males. That’s all. Their tools are deliberate confusion of cause and effect, correlation and causation, fake and selective concern for women and children. They are shameless.

Last edited 2 years ago by David McDowell
Alan B
Alan B
2 years ago
Reply to  David McDowell

Here’s an idea: let’s create a button on the internet that allows twelve year-old kids to get booze and cars for free!

Dugan E
Dugan E
2 years ago

I started reading this, going back a paragraph to confirm, then skimming because I was looking forward to the comments! Often far more rewarding and you didn’t disappoint. I don’t care what the Dworkins think, I couldn’t give a toss that Germaine Greer is ‘amazed by how much men hate women’ and I don’t care how many boxes of tissues Ditum used writing this. Fortunately the general populace are far better grounded and adjusted. And since our sexual responses are for the most part a result of hard wiring it’s not going to change until we’re all artificials. I have been moderately entertained.

Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
2 years ago

Dear Sarah, if you don’t like it, don’t watch it. I only buy Fairtrade porn.

David Simpson
David Simpson
2 years ago
Reply to  Gareth Rees

How do you tell ?

GA Woolley
GA Woolley
2 years ago
Reply to  David Simpson

The women are all blonde?

David McDowell
David McDowell
2 years ago

I was hopeful that ‘depraved material’ was a reference to radical feminist theory but apparently not.

Steven H
Steven H
2 years ago

Writers like Sarah can make many sensible points but can’t resist descending into hyperbole: “men use sex as a vehicle for domination”. If you actually want to change anything positively, avoid malicious generalisations that alienate half the voting bloc.

Last edited 2 years ago by Steven H
William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago

Porn will certainly destroy you in any number of ways, as the priest of the parish next door to mine discovered in 2001 after a dawn raid by the local constabulary.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/5613399.priest-arrested-during-porn-investigation/

Once he came up before the local magistrates, they asked to see the evidence. Plainly “hard core child pornography” was just a phrase at that time. Once they saw the reality, they were so horrified that they referred his case to a higher court with greater sentencing powers.

Such a scandal ripples out to any number of people. Like the young mother weeping because Father O’Kelly had held her child in his hands for baptism.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago

Oh no – not another “conversion on the road to Damascus” story. I used to think like you, but then I saw the light (aka read a Guardian article). This trope is getting really tired and predictable.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago

I believe most searches these days are for “mature” or “milf” categories.
This may be genuine desire, or just to avoid being exposed to younger images or having them in your search history.
Who knows?

Julie Blinde
Julie Blinde
2 years ago

Like many things, good sex is a skill you learn over time

Jorge Espinha
Jorge Espinha
2 years ago

“men use sex as a vehicle for domination”. It never crossed mind. I spoke about many other men, friends and others. And I never heard anything similar to it. Power? Pleasure, yes! Viewing sex as a pursuit of guilt free pleasure at the expense of females? Yes, unfortunately. But power? I don’t get it. On what way having sex with any of my ex girlfriends or wife gave or gives me power over them?

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Jorge Espinha

Exactly – that part is claptrap. In the words of Frasier Crane “Men can’t use sex to get what we want. Sex IS what we want!”

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
William Shaw
William Shaw
2 years ago
Reply to  Jorge Espinha

It’s a case of reversing the truth to hide reality… women use sex to gain power (control) over men.
Of course it’s not the other way round.

Last edited 2 years ago by William Shaw
qcnm7e5ttk
qcnm7e5ttk
2 years ago

What amuses me about the comments is the fairly obvious age of the participants. Having discussed these matters openly with my daughter now 21, there is a real problem manifesting itself among young people. The combination of porn and ketamine or similar, seems to have rendered a teenage cohort of young men to be worried about or unable get it up within the usual context of ‘making love’. Girls won’t engage either if they think they will be abused as part of sex. This may have a lot to do with the drop in teenage pregnancy.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago

Michael Sheath of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation

Err – is this for real?

William Murphy
William Murphy
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

The LFF is certainly for real. It has been involved in attempts to treat paedophiles and prevent child molestation for decades. Mr Sheath’s name is an unfortunate coincidence.

David Morley
David Morley
2 years ago
Reply to  William Murphy

Personally, I think it’s a rather glorious coincidence

jim peden
jim peden
2 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

The New Scientist terms this phenomenon ‘nominative determinism’. The previous owner of my house was a Dr Raven. He was a psychiatrist.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Reply to  jim peden

There are also a couple of urologists called Splatt and Weedon.

Jeff Butcher
Jeff Butcher
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

There’s also the splendidly named Dr David Nutt, the government’s ex drug advisor

Earl King
Earl King
2 years ago

Porn like drugs can be overdosed on. Not all Porn involves abuse of women. Sometimes it is just sex between two people. I cannot defend nor condemn porn per se. An unhealthy attitude shaped by watching some warped version of what sex between two people can no doubt harm you. I’ll ask this question however, how much kink do couples need to keep sex interesting and, well sexy? Doing the missionary position only for 35 years would no doubt lead to a little boredom. So a healthy sex life that remains interesting is great for a relationship. What this article is lacking is what role does porn have in education in to a healthy sex life vs. an unhealthy sex life?
Like I said too much of anything can lead to bad outcomes.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago
Reply to  Earl King

Inventive couples invent things that have been happening for 1000’s of years. Sadly, some find nature disgusting, pity.

Alex Stonor
Alex Stonor
2 years ago

I have seen porn but I am not especially interested in spectator sports. I remember my dads magazines under his side of the bed; not very well hidden and we’d giggle and hastily replace the pictures of women going about their business while simultaneously displaying their breasts & vaginas. I can’t see these images as damaging but I have seen more recent porn where women are greased up, hairless, augmented breasts and all and I have hoped to god that my sons don’t think that’s what a young woman looks like. Out of respect for them, I never raise the issue but I do hope.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
2 years ago

Porn seems an easy target for journalists these days.
It seems to me that the ridiculous sex scenes in mainstream films have the least realistic portrayal of sex (and I’m not pretend porn offers anything better, I’m just not convinced it’s much worse).
Neither do I understand why pornography is considered so outrageous when we consume vast quantities of violence; indeed Tarantino is considered a genius for making scenes of the most horrific, senseless cruelty.
It is true that porn is easily accessible today when it was not so easy even twenty years ago. Thirty years ago we only had access to erotic novels such as those by Anais Nin

Brian Perry
Brian Perry
2 years ago

I have read this article and the comments below and several things come to mind. First; sex education. The mechanics of sex can be explained to anyone even approaching normal IQ in moments. What isn’t explained is relationship. Young men aren’t taught how to attract a woman and young women aren’t taught how to attract a man. Neither sex is taught about controlling (with a soft pedal) and deepening a relationship.
For some of us it is necessary to do away with the taboo about nudity. I gather that in Germany people go nude in parks and on beaches with no problems. As a single man I was a member of a naturist swimming club, totally naked women are far less arousing than those wearing bikinis etc. This brings the physical realities home.
Also both sexes need to be taught compassion and before compassion, empathy. So when you see someone in horrific porn then ask yourself “how does that feel?”.
The very nature of porn has changed over the last half century. Simple, erotic nude photographs, many less detailed than Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde seem to have been usurped by horror.
At the beginning of the 70’s someone mentioned to me that the erotic nudity of 60’s films was going to be replaced by violence. Violence has had its run. Let’s see it replaced by something more wholesome.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago
Reply to  Brian Perry

Ah yes, 1760, the Marquis De…. And Ben Franklin was making his way in European society. We humans remain animals. Modern media improves availability.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Hardee Hodges

I’ve read that de Sade was one of the very few inmates in the Bastille when they stormed it. It wasn’t being used for much. And he was an aristocrat locked up for killing a prostitute.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Brian Perry

Good points all. It really is rather silly that we have created a taboo over nudity in films and TV while at the same time giving free rein to every form of violence imaginable. It would have been far healthier if we were capable of ignoring naked people but were shocked and outraged at depictions of violence.

That said, the sort of porn described here is both sex and violence. It might have been useful for the author to provide this distinction.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
D Hockley
D Hockley
2 years ago

Childish and reactionary drivel from the pen of a person who is clearly short on intelligence and long on neurotic disorder.

Pornography is a highly nuanced subject and is as old as humanity itself. To read an article that treats of the human condition and yet is so insensitive to the human condition is, frankly, alarming.

This is far below the standard required by Unherd.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago

I read the Story of O with nothing but complete incomprehension that the main character could ever be a realistic description of an actual human being. This means, I suppose, that I just didn’t get the book at all.

But honestly, even as an extreme, is the attitude displayed by O towards herself even partly true of real people?

I regard myself as pretty unshockable generally, but I have to say that the character of O was a good deal more disquieting than anything I’ve seen in visual pornography. That said I tend not to seek out the extreme stuff anyway, so there might be a world of horror out there if I looked hard enough.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
Hersch Schneider
Hersch Schneider
2 years ago

Porn taught me some of my best moves!

Frederick Hastings
Frederick Hastings
2 years ago

Contrast the imagery of Pierre Auguste Cot’s “The Storm” with the image accompanying this essay. Chastity v. Debauchery, Graciousness v. Vulgarity, Romanticism v. Naturalism—two wings of a single entity.

The Gries
The Gries
2 years ago

anything will destroy you…if you let it….you are master of your domain. any blaming of other people or issues is a copout….this life is 100% your responsibility….go get your life..

Philip Stott
Philip Stott
2 years ago

What an absolute pile of turgid bilge.

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
2 years ago

Yes, porn harms the consumer. But so does gratuitous, promiscuous sex. The modern purveyors of ‘healthy’ sex ignore its history of degeneracy. Even the word, degenerate, has lost its meaning, the opposite of evolving.
Today, marriage and family have been turned ugly, even sociopathic. And reproduction has been rendered a social danger. One of the wealthiest and most respected men in the world dreams publicly of reducing the human population by 90 or 95% in order to ‘save’ the planet. Indeed, population reduction has been made into a mantra by progressives. Is that not suicidal ideation? How is that different from ‘risk’ free sex?

Colin Ingham
Colin Ingham
2 years ago

Not easy to simply come down on one side or another here. More generally than just porn, the internet has opened up information both good and bad on sexuality. I grew up pre-internet and it was astonishing how hard it was to get information on sexual matters. Word of mouth was not accurate, support groups and the like rare but pornographic magazines *were* out there. So whilst there is a lot of vile material out there, at least these days you can see nearly everything. I find a situation where good and bad information/erotic and distorting porn better than earlier days when you pretty much were reliant on institutions with their own ideas of censorship.

Last edited 2 years ago by Colin Ingham
Graff von Frankenheim
Graff von Frankenheim
2 years ago

Because of its subversive effect I have always thought it probable that the Soviets and/or the Chinese secretly funded the porn industry (at least initially, in the start-up phase). It’s a pity that was never investigated…where’s Joe McCarthy (or Jim Angleton) when you need him?

D Hockley
D Hockley
2 years ago

please tell us what you consider the ‘subversive effect’ of pornography to be.

Mark Cole
Mark Cole
2 years ago

The human brain has a wonderful imagination and the best way to nourish the soul is through positive sharing relationships
Porn has evolved from top shelf playboys in the 70s to something much more sinister – the gradual normalisation of increasingly twisted and demeaning porn is akin to the ” slow creep of evil” – along with sex education at too young an age in schools we are creating. generations with deep mental/attitude problems toward sex
An analysis by Sarah Knapton on Monkey Pox talked of 98% of cases were gay men who had had chem sex? or group orgies with at last 10 partners in the month before infection…..
We are in a critical time where we will not be defined by creed or colour but our souls and selfishness

Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill
2 years ago

…ditto Ditum, need a cupa and a lie down after getting through that.

Dustshoe Richinrut
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago

In the internet age, pop music shrieks hysterically, or gloomily, in order to maintain some kind of laughably imperious relevance to people’s lives what with the multichannel-, social media-saturated, gadgety reality of people. Lots of pop channels too for the youth. Big business. But a business that has to make a great effort for its output to be embraced by youth. Hence the overblown and extravagant pop video market. The visual age on ridiculously tiny screens means nobody is looking over a young consumer’s shoulder at what he or she dares to watch or listen to. And so the insidious creep of pornographic imagery into pop music, via pop video chiefly, has gained traction. That experience might act as a gateway to pornography. The intrusion of pornography into pop music signifies that the pornography business has also been looking for a place to go – not so much to be mightily relevant but to branch out, to take its beef to another level as it were — to coil its malignant tentacles as weeds kill good plants. The net effect is to make pop cool, sexy, sophisticated, grown-up. Not like the silly songs of yesterday. The appearance of tough trumps sympathy today. It’s as if the pleasure of listening to good and cheerful music no longer matters. It’s all effort. Effort to make music and the effort involved in listening to the unintelligible shrieking or the effort in watching the effort that is the music, shows one is a committed rebel. An activist. The sad but unsurprising thing is that the infusion of pornographic imagery all over the place, including its gratuitous use in the latest fantasy swords-and-sorcery ‘shows’ on TV, will definitely not endear Western civilisation to the more moderate elements of the deeply conservative religious world: the slow denigration of culture and of young minds will lead ultim