Porn is not evil


Porn is not good for anyone just like alcohol, marijuana, and gambling are not good for anyone, but just like with those things, the vast majority of adults can enjoy porn now and then and be just fine.

As for the people that make it, the porn industry has damaged some lives, mostly of ALREADY very damaged people like Linda Lovelace. But there are also some former porn stars who seem to have no regrets or even are quite proud of their porn past. But most have simply been content to leave it behind and not write some hysterical, mytho-maniacal "feminist" book about how the devil--or Chuck Traynor--made them do it.

No one wants their daughter (or son) to grow up to be a porn star, but is that because it's really such an awful thing to be, OR, ironically, is it because of the societal stigma associated with porn? Is it the fault of the porn industry that "Christian" parents and communities disown their porn star daughters? Is it the fault of porn that a hypocritical, sex-obsessed American society won't hire former porn stars as teachers, nurses, etc. even as they make the industry into a multi-billion dollar business?

I don't think the porn industry has hurt porn stars nearly as much the societal judgment that has really been fanned by the hypocrites and liars like Linda Lovelace. Why make movies about people like her or John Holmes, who would have been human train wrecks with or without porn, and not, say, Annie Sprinkle or Sharon Mitchell who surmounted their personal demons without becoming professional "victims"--or even someone like Tera Patrick or Jenna Jameson who just seem to be completely normal people?

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It's like drugs you need to move to harder core stuff because you no longer get the same high.


that is very true.

i don't think that there is anything wrong with it unless someone is not a consenting adult, however it does start to make what most of us do in the bedroom seem mundane.

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Hi Orange and yellow. Agreed that porn users graduate to harder stuff over the years to achieve the same arousal - but I'm not 100% sure this is a bad thing.

Using myself as an example, photos are boring now, but were arousing when I was a kid (I'm 52 now). It now takes video, or stories like on Literotica.com to do the trick. I'm not sure this is inherently harmful.

And I'm not sure someone needs to be an adult to use porn without harmful effects - but the younger you are, the more likely you probably are to not understand that scenes acted out in porn movies ARE NOT how sex is in real life.

I think this is one of the MAJOR things that porn does to harm kids. Too many youngsters develop their understanding of what sex is all about ONLY from porn movies.

When I was working as a sex educator, I was shocked to learn that ONLY 10% of parents ever tell their kids ANYTHING about sex. That is a MASSIVE FAILURE in education - and why our schools should teach kids the real facts about sex.

And I'm not sure that porn makes our real sex lives 'mundane' if we understand that what we see in porn is just terrible actors PRETENDING to be aroused.

Perhaps porn can be beneficial if it helps us be more comfortable trying new things and be comfortable exploring. I, for example, once had an extremely wild girlfriend who would try ANYTHING. She only ever said no to me once, and that's probably because she just wasn't in the mood that day - but what made her and I so special is that we were just extremely comfortable in being relaxed enough to just 'be.'

(And for those poor pathetic ignorant fools who think they can stay a virgin until they're married and then suddenly everything will be perfect in bed once they are married - I can tell you from MANY years experience - that I didn't have A CLUE what I was doing until after I'd been with 20 women. It was after that that I FINALLY stopped trying to just get to a certain goal -(intercourse) - and started to enjoy the PROCESS of BEING with a woman.)

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Lazarillo: Well, I disagree with you about some things beginning from your very FIRST sentence.

Your blanket statement about alcohol and marijuana display a significant lack of understanding of both of these things.

To begin with, alcohol does have some benefits, including studies showing that people who drink a MODERATE (small) amount of wine actually live LONGER and have better health, and for you to say that marijuana has no benefit suggests you don't have a CLUE what you are talking about.

You've fallen for the standard anti-drug propaganda about mj being dangerous or addictive. The opposite is true. It is a VERY VALUABLE MEDICINE for millions of people - but the insane DEA and failed war on drugs idiocy in the US has spawned a global misinformation campaign that you've obviously fallen for.

And I'm replying to your post line by line - and I've just now read your sentence implying that being a feminist is a 'bad' thing. Wow. I'm wasting my breath trying to educate you - obviously, but I'll continue my post in hopes of informing others who will read this thread.

But all that being said, I agree with you that a large part of the damage done to porn stars is a hatred and pathological shame many puritan hypocrite Christians have towards sex.

But I sense in you a significant lack of sympathy for the large damage that porn does do to those who film it. (And I'll be you are one of those who consider yourself 'so much better than prostitutes' and such.)

But the fact is that porn grinds up women who star in it and spit them out as hollowed out shells when they've aged a few years. Porn, like working as a stripper (which my sister did for a year), teaches women that they are not valued for themselves, but only for a very small part of what they do - and it hardens women and teaches them that men don't care about them.

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You guys need to speak to some porn stars like Jessie Jane and Rachel Starr. Both of those porn stars have said many times that they LOVE their jobs and have no regrets whatsoever.

Porn is just a job. It doesn't harm anyone. Do people get abused? Sure, but that can happen at any job if you happen to get a boss who is a jerk. Even regular actors can get abused by directors. If porn was so bad and abuses all women, then these porn stars like Jessie Jane and Rachel Starr wouldn't be saying that they like their jobs. People like Lovelace bash the porn industry because she had the misfortune of being raised by bad parents and married an abusive husband and she's so fast at blaming the porn industry for that. Porn is not responsible for ruining Lovelace's life. Her parents and Chuck were the reasons.

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I think the point of the movie is not that porn is evil, but that porn is a lie.

The first half of the movie is the "porn version" of Lovelace's life. It had some dark undertones, but mostly it provided the version of her life and career that the Deep Throat promotional material was putting out - and I'm old enough to remember when the movie came out. Linda Lovelace was presented as a young woman who enjoyed acting in the film because she found it sexually liberating. She turned up at screenings smiling and provocative, apparently enjoying the attention and happily talking about how the movie helped her enjoy sex more and could help other people as well. Linda represented joyful, unrestrained female sexuality, and freedom from outdated morality.

It turns out that was a pleasant illusion, just like pornography itself. The porn star was coerced into making the movie by a husband who controlled her. She had seen her uninhibited husband as an escape from her puritanical upbringing, but instead her marriage led her into a tighter form of control. She was treated as a commodity and a plaything by the filmmakers and Deep Throat's prestigious fans. Ironically, everyone bought the story that she found making Deep Throat fun and freeing. It was only when she started talking about the real experience that she was called a liar.

In porn, women are shown as endlessly obliging, willing and happy to perform any act, however demeaning or dangerous, regardless of how unattractive or brutal the man in question may be. It's a fantasy, but the women acting the part are real. People whose daily work involves showing women as mindless pleasure dolls can't help but have their attitude to actual women influenced by it. It may even influence those who watch porn regularly. The movie makes people uncomfortable and defensive by putting a living face on that information.


Tell me the truth. Are we still in the game?

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Everything in moderation. Sex, like everything else, is a gift from God as well.

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