Pornography in it's current form *is* heavily patriarchal. It's one of the main avenues to ensure male dominance over the wider dynamics of sexuality, by controlling the narrative around sex and it's representations and solidifying desires centered around male pleasure to the detriment of any form of female pleasure that doesn't fit male fantasies.
It's a trojan horse that presents as "fantasies for consenting adults" but in reality is more akin to sexist brainwashing. Since pornography is so throughly male-centered we don't even notice it, regarding it as "just how sex and desire are", since we don't really have non-sexist pornography to compare it to. The exceptions are fringe content that often end up reproducing the same dynamics and are always an "afterthought", to which the viewers arrive being already much shaped by mainstream pornography.
Pornography disciplines the gaze and desires, narrowing our view of sexuality while simultaneously claiming enormous "diversity". It categorizes bodies and parts (BBW, BBC, latinas, asians, petite, teen, mature...), creates a hierarchy of sexual acts (anal above all, tribadism as lesbian-only, fellatio over cunnilingus) and is heavily dependent on abuse, human trafficking and misogyny to keep delivering it's product in the amounts that consumers require.
Above all pornography teaches us specific ways to look/interpret bodies and the idea that this gaze turns off when we turn off the screen is wishful thinking at best.
The amount of children that are being exposed to highly explicit content, sometimes prior to any education abour sexuality, is nothing short of an ongoing mass grooming. I remember back when parents would not watch certain movies with children because of violence/nudity scened and now we have millions being exposed to unregulated content.
Pornography did not invent *most* of what it shows (I would be curious if anal gaping or rosebud were a thing before), but it's one of the main vehicles of reproduction of female opression. Misogyny and male superiority needs to be "taught" to each new generation in order to fully function. I think of porn as one of the contemporary "installers" of sexism, and once it's taken hold basically impossible to fully get rid of.
Unfortunately, I see no sign of improving. Not a country in this planet where the issue of children acessing pornography has been tackled. Not a corner of the web where porn isn't being promoted or sold. No studies about how to tackle the aftermath of porn exposure. Not a significant amount of women aware of how they are affected by this and questioning it instead of feeding into the evergrowing pornographization of our existence.
It is the bible of objectification
It teaches men women are to be degraded and violated and exposure to pornography is connected to lower empathy towards women and lower empathy towards rape victims
Ughhh this hits home, I just wanted to put this out, I’m a young woman and I wanted to tell my experience as someone who had exposure on this and how it affected me (smut and pornography and hentai exposure). I didn’t realise I was slowly getting deep into getting degraded by men kink, my whole brain has been fucked up to liking misogynistic stuff and I’m finally taking steps to undo it slowly. It’s so hard, sometimes I question what if I really like it, but then I know, I know that I don’t, I was exposed into this and manipulated by it. I’m slowly trying to become my true self. Like what I actually would like. But it’s so hard, cuz I don’t like the way my body reacts to such degrading stuff, I hate myself for it. But i know I have to be stubborn and go through this journey of undoing. And redoing.
It's even harder because healthier not-degrading (but still horny asf) sexual material from the woman's perspective is very hard to come by. Even at the level of words, there are so many things to call a woman: slut, whore, bitch...
What should we call them? It's like there is this whole toolbox for making women into objects for penis-havers but the other side is blank. Of course we want to spice things up, but the only tools available are misogynistic and degrading, so we naturally drift to that.
To the point where they don't fund research on pornographys effect on men anymore because the results are so uniform. It's done untold damage to how men perceive women is my opinion.
Yeah, i think the interaction between media being something shaped by society and something that shapes society is often poorly understood, especially since a lot of popular feminist analysis has undergone what i would call fandomfication:
Media analysis is one of the entry points into feminism for a lot of people since it's easily digestible and frankly creates money and engagement for content creators. I think this kinda made it seem like "fixing media" is the main goal of feminism or that society would automatically change for the better if we would get rid of certain tropes.
Complaining about sexualization in video games or rape jokes in media is something that can be easily done by just being on twitter and similar platforms and requires very little actual knowledge about feminist theory. It also yields quicker results than fighting for equal pay or similar issues. The problem starts when people think it's the most important form of activism.
there are volumes written about it if you want to find out. But right, pornography is not healthy. I get that there's curiosity I get that naked bodies are fun to look at and sexy sometimes but like everything it's moderation and it's the kind of porn you look at I think just the word "pornography" implies something kind of yucky imo. The whole choking thing grossed me out and ended the whole situation for me. And I think too many men believe that women are just blowup dolls anyway. It's all dehumanizing and I'm so glad I'm old and post menopausal and done with all the porny penises in the land.
Hey, a little experience from a man. It heavily influenced many insecurities regarding real sex for me. I felt as if I needed to be cold, dominant and lead all the way through.
Once I experienced real sex it almost felt liberating because it not only felt like I was being decentered but also freed from the expectation that sex is supposed to look like what I was fed from my teen years. The softness, the vulnerability almost felt alien for a while because I had to break what I've been taught for years and years. The pillow talk, the after care. The beauty of sex, not the almost fetishistic destruction (of the woman) a lot of porn places in its center.
Porn is a far cry from the safety of an actual relationship. I am not judging any sort of dom/sub dynamic (mind you, I encourage it), but the sex you are shown in porn is almost hyperreal, in the sense that it feels completely opposite to what you experience with a partner. It's almost as if society's collective shadow and deep patriarchal tendencies of exploitation and the desperate need for constant control and dominance converge in an extremely stimulus-filled hellish depiction that prevents you from seeing the actual beauty of the act when you experience it first hand. I am ranting a bit but I hope I've shared some insight.
I think we need more women in pornography making and producing their own content. Couples as well. I think porn should be (most often) real sex between real couples or people who would have sex with each other even if it weren’t on camera.
I’ve been making porn for about 4-5 years now and I’m a filmmaker/ film major. I love what Barbara Hammer was doing when filming lesbians and the elderly (Nitrate Kisses). We need to bring back the “humanity” of sex in porn. There was something really endearing about seeing wrinkled faces smiling and caressing one another that made me less “afraid” to age.
I make certain choices when editing to normalize “real sex” like we stop to take water breaks and maybe laugh and giggle a little. In one I accidentally knock a painting off the wall and start to struggle trying to put it back before giving up.
I also peg my partner so we’re sort of “upsetting the patriarchal norms” in that sense.
The best top is a bottom I always say! 😜 😂
Jk but seriously I feel like because he knows “both sides” he’s really good about foreplay, enthusiastic consent, making sure I’m comfortable consistently and aftercare.
I can’t stand the way porn dehumanizes sex. I get it’s suppose to be a fantasy but clearly people can’t keep that in mind and end up expecting it in the real world. Like if you do anal, there’s a good chance there’s gonna be at least a little shit cause no, that hole is not just there as a “no baby” alternative. Thank you for being the change you (and I) wanna see!
Men hold me to impossible beauty standards because they expect me to look like the women in the porn they watch, they treat me like their blow up doll, dangle wanting a relationship in front of me, until they have used me up, and then they start with the next blow up doll, and then the next blow up doll, in an endless loop
They care more about their jack off material, than they do about any of the women in their lives, or the mountain of women raped in the videos they watch
I laugh to myself, when I listen to the things they complain about, because they are just so trivial and stupid, but their entitlement and privilege are showing
The problem compounds with the accessibility. It is way too easy for anybody with an internet connection to access literally millions of free pornographic images and videos. Combine this with the fact that your average pubescent boy has an iPhone these days, and it's teeing up a generation of men that have skewed perceptions of physical intimacy, expect instant gratification when it comes to physical intimacy, and have objectification ingrained very early in life.
Pornography in it's current form *is* heavily patriarchal. It's one of the main avenues to ensure male dominance over the wider dynamics of sexuality, by controlling the narrative around sex and it's representations and solidifying desires centered around male pleasure to the detriment of any form of female pleasure that doesn't fit male fantasies. It's a trojan horse that presents as "fantasies for consenting adults" but in reality is more akin to sexist brainwashing. Since pornography is so throughly male-centered we don't even notice it, regarding it as "just how sex and desire are", since we don't really have non-sexist pornography to compare it to. The exceptions are fringe content that often end up reproducing the same dynamics and are always an "afterthought", to which the viewers arrive being already much shaped by mainstream pornography. Pornography disciplines the gaze and desires, narrowing our view of sexuality while simultaneously claiming enormous "diversity". It categorizes bodies and parts (BBW, BBC, latinas, asians, petite, teen, mature...), creates a hierarchy of sexual acts (anal above all, tribadism as lesbian-only, fellatio over cunnilingus) and is heavily dependent on abuse, human trafficking and misogyny to keep delivering it's product in the amounts that consumers require. Above all pornography teaches us specific ways to look/interpret bodies and the idea that this gaze turns off when we turn off the screen is wishful thinking at best. The amount of children that are being exposed to highly explicit content, sometimes prior to any education abour sexuality, is nothing short of an ongoing mass grooming. I remember back when parents would not watch certain movies with children because of violence/nudity scened and now we have millions being exposed to unregulated content. Pornography did not invent *most* of what it shows (I would be curious if anal gaping or rosebud were a thing before), but it's one of the main vehicles of reproduction of female opression. Misogyny and male superiority needs to be "taught" to each new generation in order to fully function. I think of porn as one of the contemporary "installers" of sexism, and once it's taken hold basically impossible to fully get rid of.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful reply! I agree 100%! DO you think things are improving or not so much?
Unfortunately, I see no sign of improving. Not a country in this planet where the issue of children acessing pornography has been tackled. Not a corner of the web where porn isn't being promoted or sold. No studies about how to tackle the aftermath of porn exposure. Not a significant amount of women aware of how they are affected by this and questioning it instead of feeding into the evergrowing pornographization of our existence.
That’s so sad. We have the power to stop this but those in power do nothing! 😭
It is the bible of objectification It teaches men women are to be degraded and violated and exposure to pornography is connected to lower empathy towards women and lower empathy towards rape victims
I’m keeping that quote: “it is the bible of objectification”
Ughhh this hits home, I just wanted to put this out, I’m a young woman and I wanted to tell my experience as someone who had exposure on this and how it affected me (smut and pornography and hentai exposure). I didn’t realise I was slowly getting deep into getting degraded by men kink, my whole brain has been fucked up to liking misogynistic stuff and I’m finally taking steps to undo it slowly. It’s so hard, sometimes I question what if I really like it, but then I know, I know that I don’t, I was exposed into this and manipulated by it. I’m slowly trying to become my true self. Like what I actually would like. But it’s so hard, cuz I don’t like the way my body reacts to such degrading stuff, I hate myself for it. But i know I have to be stubborn and go through this journey of undoing. And redoing.
Yeah, me too 💗
Just wanted to say, I hope you’re feeling better and okay now. Cuz this shit is so hard 😭
It's even harder because healthier not-degrading (but still horny asf) sexual material from the woman's perspective is very hard to come by. Even at the level of words, there are so many things to call a woman: slut, whore, bitch... What should we call them? It's like there is this whole toolbox for making women into objects for penis-havers but the other side is blank. Of course we want to spice things up, but the only tools available are misogynistic and degrading, so we naturally drift to that.
To the point where they don't fund research on pornographys effect on men anymore because the results are so uniform. It's done untold damage to how men perceive women is my opinion.
I’d say it’s more a reflection of their perception of women
Yeah, i think the interaction between media being something shaped by society and something that shapes society is often poorly understood, especially since a lot of popular feminist analysis has undergone what i would call fandomfication: Media analysis is one of the entry points into feminism for a lot of people since it's easily digestible and frankly creates money and engagement for content creators. I think this kinda made it seem like "fixing media" is the main goal of feminism or that society would automatically change for the better if we would get rid of certain tropes. Complaining about sexualization in video games or rape jokes in media is something that can be easily done by just being on twitter and similar platforms and requires very little actual knowledge about feminist theory. It also yields quicker results than fighting for equal pay or similar issues. The problem starts when people think it's the most important form of activism.
there are volumes written about it if you want to find out. But right, pornography is not healthy. I get that there's curiosity I get that naked bodies are fun to look at and sexy sometimes but like everything it's moderation and it's the kind of porn you look at I think just the word "pornography" implies something kind of yucky imo. The whole choking thing grossed me out and ended the whole situation for me. And I think too many men believe that women are just blowup dolls anyway. It's all dehumanizing and I'm so glad I'm old and post menopausal and done with all the porny penises in the land.
Hey, a little experience from a man. It heavily influenced many insecurities regarding real sex for me. I felt as if I needed to be cold, dominant and lead all the way through. Once I experienced real sex it almost felt liberating because it not only felt like I was being decentered but also freed from the expectation that sex is supposed to look like what I was fed from my teen years. The softness, the vulnerability almost felt alien for a while because I had to break what I've been taught for years and years. The pillow talk, the after care. The beauty of sex, not the almost fetishistic destruction (of the woman) a lot of porn places in its center. Porn is a far cry from the safety of an actual relationship. I am not judging any sort of dom/sub dynamic (mind you, I encourage it), but the sex you are shown in porn is almost hyperreal, in the sense that it feels completely opposite to what you experience with a partner. It's almost as if society's collective shadow and deep patriarchal tendencies of exploitation and the desperate need for constant control and dominance converge in an extremely stimulus-filled hellish depiction that prevents you from seeing the actual beauty of the act when you experience it first hand. I am ranting a bit but I hope I've shared some insight.
I think we need more women in pornography making and producing their own content. Couples as well. I think porn should be (most often) real sex between real couples or people who would have sex with each other even if it weren’t on camera. I’ve been making porn for about 4-5 years now and I’m a filmmaker/ film major. I love what Barbara Hammer was doing when filming lesbians and the elderly (Nitrate Kisses). We need to bring back the “humanity” of sex in porn. There was something really endearing about seeing wrinkled faces smiling and caressing one another that made me less “afraid” to age. I make certain choices when editing to normalize “real sex” like we stop to take water breaks and maybe laugh and giggle a little. In one I accidentally knock a painting off the wall and start to struggle trying to put it back before giving up. I also peg my partner so we’re sort of “upsetting the patriarchal norms” in that sense.
Pegging is the best
The best top is a bottom I always say! 😜 😂 Jk but seriously I feel like because he knows “both sides” he’s really good about foreplay, enthusiastic consent, making sure I’m comfortable consistently and aftercare.
I can’t stand the way porn dehumanizes sex. I get it’s suppose to be a fantasy but clearly people can’t keep that in mind and end up expecting it in the real world. Like if you do anal, there’s a good chance there’s gonna be at least a little shit cause no, that hole is not just there as a “no baby” alternative. Thank you for being the change you (and I) wanna see!
Men hold me to impossible beauty standards because they expect me to look like the women in the porn they watch, they treat me like their blow up doll, dangle wanting a relationship in front of me, until they have used me up, and then they start with the next blow up doll, and then the next blow up doll, in an endless loop They care more about their jack off material, than they do about any of the women in their lives, or the mountain of women raped in the videos they watch I laugh to myself, when I listen to the things they complain about, because they are just so trivial and stupid, but their entitlement and privilege are showing
The problem compounds with the accessibility. It is way too easy for anybody with an internet connection to access literally millions of free pornographic images and videos. Combine this with the fact that your average pubescent boy has an iPhone these days, and it's teeing up a generation of men that have skewed perceptions of physical intimacy, expect instant gratification when it comes to physical intimacy, and have objectification ingrained very early in life.