The porn post

Well this question seems to come up one way or another pretty regularly so lets answer it now and then I'll be able to post the link... Is porn damaging to women?

On the surface of it sexy piccies of consenting adults don't do a great deal of harm. Of course women can be simultaneously sexy and valuable to society in other ways. There are I think three problems with it though:

1) A lot of pornography seems to be more to do with power, celebration of subversive hatred of women and generally trying to make women look foolish and stupid, rather than sexy.

2) Evidence suggests that large portions of the pornography market are exploitative, paying low wages to the women, co-ercing women into participating. A significant amount of production takes place illegally and sometimes minors are involved.

3) Since men are able to easily and readily access a vast range of pornography, and this has become the cultural norm, we create a society in which the acceptable way for men to deal with sexual desire or frustration is to access porn. Women are rapidly headed the same way with the proliferation of sex-toy shops, porn for straight women, male strip clubs, etc. Now I wonder if this is really the healthy way forward...

Not being prudish (hell no) but if you spend more time downloading porn than you spend ACTUALLY HAVING SEX, you should really be asking yourself what went wrong. With the abstinence-only policies spreading round the globe I think we risk becoming a society that sits in their rooms alone downloading the daily allowance of porn approved by the government and the porn offered by the big corporates in return for eating ten happy-meals and buying four pairs of trainers... All a bit "Brave New World" isn't it? Already our advertising billboards and magazines are full of quasi-porn-based adverts. Sexiness shouldn't be a quality designed in a media executive's office based on the results of an extensive market research campaign. It should be discovered and invented by two people in an act of intimacy. Insofar as the proliferation of porn weakens sex as a weapon of human connection and intimacy, it threatens us all.

Phew! Think I need a cold shower now.