[faeluna]

Sorry if this was a thread already and I just couldn't find it!

I wanted to ask for your opinions on porn. I know I'm not the only woman in the world who despises it, and I also know it doesn't bother some people at all. That baffles me.

So I'm interested to know... how do you feel about porn? Especially if your boyfriend/husband watches it??

My thoughts:

IT'S NEVER OKAY. I think it's about the most demeaning thing to women EVER. Complete objectification for the sole purpose of being used to get men off - it's completely demented and vile. I don't buy the arguments that say porn is "empowering" to women who perform in it. They're just being used to perpetuate the objectification of women as sex objects. They're not empowered; they're toys. I'm as disgusted with porn stars as I am with men who watch porn.


And for the men on here:

Do you watch it? Even in a relationship/marriage? WHY?

[Fallen1]

Check out this recent thread in the lounge section :

https://www.womens-health.com/boards/lounge/64861-feelings-porn.html

[effy2014]

In my opinion, a person's reaction to porn is related to their culture, upbringing and religious beliefs.

I understand your view, but there are many women who go into the field willingly. You may also be thinking only of "hard core porn" (which I also do not care to watch) -- however, there are plenty of films which have plots, are made well and have beautiful sex scenes. I recently have been watching some very well done lesbian films.

Do I watch porn? Yes. Am I in a relationship? Yes. Why? Because I find it entertaining. Its like reading a book or watching a TV series. Porn is not a replacement for a relationship or sex. It has never made me more aggressive in bed, treat my SO anything other than like a Princess or led me to believe that porn is reality. I hardly believe that it makes me a bad person or pervert. Like drugs, gambling and drinking, there are people who are addicted and need to find control. And just like the those vices, there will always be a market. Everything in moderation.

Like religion, abortion, prostitution, divorce etc., people hold very strong views on pornography. It is something that we would just agree to disagree upon.

[rcoreyus]

Yes, please vote and comment on the thread Fallen1 listed. So far its showing a surprising precentage of people think porn is OK.

[effy2014]

RC, why would you find it surprising? Its a $15 billion dollar industry. I just found this quote:

"Statistics from respectable research firms show that 70% male aged between 18 to 24 watch porn in a typical month. And I suspect this is a conservative estimate. In 2009, the University of Montreal attempted to conduct a research to compare psychological views of men who have never watched porn with regular porn users. They soon gave up because they could not find anyone matching the first category." That is amazing, right??

and this: "Sebastian Anthony, writing for ExtremeTech, reports that Xvideos is the biggest porn site on the web, receiving 4.4 billion page views and 350 million unique visits per month. He claims porn accounts for 30 percent of all web traffic. Based on Google data, the other four of the top five porn sites, and their monthly page views (pvs) are: PornHub, 2.5 billion pvs; YouPorn, 2.1 billion pvs; Tube8, 970 million pvs; and LiveJasmin, 710 million pvs. In comparison, Wikipedia gets about 8 billion pvs."

[rcoreyus]

I'm surprised because in discussions a lot of people object to porn, but in my very informal poll, most people (6:1 ratio) thought it was fine. Since I think the majority of readers here are women, I expected more negative results.

As I mentioned in that thread, this was a VERY unscientific poll, but still I was surprised.

[jen1447]

No offense faeluna but I'm not sure you'll get a lot of honest feedback in a thread like this. You seem to have stacked the deck by making it an automatic negative going in (in your view) to like porn, so to admit it risks getting in an argument, presumably. I'll say what I said in rcoreyus' thread - I like porn. I disagree about porn-related victimization of women overall in general, but honestly I have little enthuisiasm for debating that right now.

[Stillness]

Put me down for "always bad."

I can tell why I did watch it: My wife was ignoring me.

[rcoreyus]

Why is porn particularly demeaning to women? Most professional shows a fantasy world where men have large penises that never go soft and women have large breasts. Everyone orgasms exactly on cue. I find it a bit dull, but not objectionable.

There is some porn where women are treated badly. There is also some where men are treated badly. If it is just people play acting (which is generally the case), then I have no problem with either - whatever floats people's boats. There is probably some porn out there where people really are being abused, and I of course object strongly to that.

Most amateur porn is just selling videos of their normal sexual activity to make some money on the side. Some are exhibitionists who enjoy the idea that they are being watched .

[DreamP346]

Your poll is limited in its available answers. You leave out one that is very important: Only OK if your partner is not being hurt by it.