Quick Blog # 5

I chose to watch Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines. In this video Dines discusses the effects that porn has had on men and women in our society, specifically how it affects women and how it affects the way men view women because of porn.

I do agree with what Gail Dines says in her video. There is nothing like seeing the images of hardcore porn that shows how real misogyny and women hating is, which Dines found out when she went to a show, and which I certainly agree with. I understand the excitement and arousal that porn can bring, and I’m not saying all porn shows women in a bad light. But, there is a definite line that exists between what images are going to corrupt men and what images are not, and hardcore porn, to me, seems like it goes past that line. For example, she talks about ATM- ass to mouth and asks what sexual arousal is there outside of the debasement of the women.  I believe that that is a valid point and clearly shows how pornography furthers the problems of sexism and misogyny. It seems that the “sizzle” that porn brings now is the debasement of women and that is why porn continues to present women in a degrading manner. I find it sad that women may bring themselves to that low of a point, and that men seem to think that acts like that are okay, but hardcore pornography is making acts like this more mainstream.

Even those who produce porn are “are absolutely amazed how they are making so much money and how they have not had more lawsuits filed against them”. If those who are producing this material feel this way I think that shows that something wrong is going on in this industry. 

One interesting point she made has to do with the technology that is available to children at a young age which shows the impact that porn is having on young men and how they view women. Boys, who used to look at Playboy, now at the age of eleven, have access to all the hardcore porn on the internet that they could possibly want. At eleven, these boys, are being exposed for the first time to what sex is, but what they are seeing is the dehumanizing and demoralizing acts that a lot of hardcore porn contains. So they grow up thinking that this hardcore porn is what sex is supposed to be and they learn that that is how they are supposed to treat women during sex. Although, I wonder about women and porn.  I don’t think they use it to the extent that men do, but what is that other side of the story?

I also like how she talked about the choices that women used to have and now have about what kind of women they want to be. When Gail Dines was growing up she had some choices, not enough because “she needed the feminist movement”, but she was still able to choose what type of women fit her. Now, in this age, there really is only one type of women for women today to now choose to be and in a society that is so hyper sexualized it certainly doesn’t leave us many options.

Overall, pornography is a tricky subject. I don’t think that all porn is awful and I don’t think that all porn shows women in a degrading light. Again, it is all about the invisible line that exists which takes porn from being exciting in a good way to being exciting in a way that demoralizes women and corrupts both men and women into thinking that the non human and more animalistic, no emotion way they treat  each other is okay.